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Theft

No matter how much some people want to rationalize it, claims that “CDs cost too much” or rants that “big corporations do not market sufficiently interesting music” do not make downloading copyrighted music without paying for it any less illegal or unethical…

I’ve done it, you’ve done it, and millions of other people have done it. And I agree that CDs cost too much and that major corporations do not market sufficiently interesting music. But let’s not delude ourselves into thinking we have the moral high ground here…

No one would really suggest that the fact that Safeway charges too much for ground beef and does not carry my favorite cereal would not be sufficient justification for my decision to steal a few cans of strained beets, now would they?

Not, of course, that I’d steal strained beets even if I was starving to death (in which case it still wouldn’t be justified)…

15 September 2003

Why is it damned near impossible for me to type the word “September” without an error, no matter how much I concentrate while doing so?

I spent the weekend crankier than usual due to the miserable heat, although this very same heat managed to take my mind of Friday’s unsuccessful replay of my cardioversion. My rhythm remains as unnatural as ever. Does this qualify as an excuse for my inability to dance? Just wondering…

Happy thoughts:

  • By the end of the week, my wonderful husband will have provided me with a brand new bathroom…
  • In a day or two, I will own the widescreen laserdisc version of the (unavailable on DVD) After Hours…

A couple of things I’d have a hard time caring any less about:

  • Whether on not Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are married, or are still a couple, or are even alive, for that matter. How did two so thoroughly unappealing individuals ever become such a “news” story?
  • Anything Arnold Schwarzenegger may have said in a 1977 interview with a smut mag. In fact, I’m not much interested in anything ANYONE may have said in a 1977 interview with a smut mag…

A Religious Hypocrite? Never…

Hypocrites using religion as a justification for their irrational viewpoints? Hmmm. You don’t see that very often:

DeVeaux, who called her church the nation’s oldest black congregation and one of its largest, said its position bears no animus to homosexuals, and many of the leaders gathered heralded their own role in the civil rights movement.

“This is not about being anti-gay,” she said. “It’s about being for marriage as between a woman and a man. I would never, ever try to do anything negative against any segment of the population.”

Utter bullshit. As if writing discrimination into the Constitution were not “negative”. Rewrite that last sentence as “It’s about being for marriage as between a WHITE woman and a WHITE man.” See how it plays…

Assuming that Ms. Patricia DeVeaux has devoted her life to combating bigotry, one wonders why she is so firmly in favor of segregation and unequal protection under the law as long as it applies to a minority group of which she is not a member. It disturbs me that churches with a predominantly black following — every one of whom should know better — would engage in this sort of bigotry and prejudice…

It is the absolute height of hypocrisy that ranking officers of major black churches, including the very same Walter Fauntroy who was so closely aligned with Martin Luther King, have now found their own group of people to send to the back of the bus…

These particular “civil rights leaders” sound disturbingly like old Southern plantation owners who believed that keeping their slaves in bondage and managing their lives for them was the only humanitarian alternative. Note that one of the major aspects of control plantation owners exercised over their slaves was the decision over who they would or would not be allowed to marry…

I have very little respect for “religious leaders”, whose primary goal often seems to be the complete elimination of religious (or personal) freedom in America. I have over the years, however, managed to hold on to some level of respect for the black churches and their work to rebuild their communities and elminate bigotry. Suffice to say that respect is now waning…

I Hate September

Depending on which source you check, the high temperature in San Francisco ranged from 95 to 97 yesterday. Either one is more than 20 degrees above normal for September, the warmest month of the year in this city without air conditioning. Either one is also more than my poor, fragile, little system can take. I don’t think I slept more than two hours last night, and I’m tired and cranky as hell. So if you plan to say anything to me today, you’d better phrase it politely: I’ve already tried to get one receptionist fired for being rude on the phone today…

Question for readers in Sacramento: There used to be this really great store on 16th Street just north of the railroad tracks (and across the street from the homeless huts) which sold furniture and other random artifacts from the 1960s and 1970s. It was in sort of a shed-like building, and I can’t remember the name. I drove by this weekend and it was gone, with a big “no trespassing” sign out front. Anyone know what happened to it?

Hospital Curve

Those of you who have to fight your way through it every day may be interested to know that the “hopital curve” section of the Bayshore (US 101) Freeway in San Francisco opened fifty years ago today. Happy motoring…

Thanks to Sarah for one of the maps I used in the graphic above.

Updates

 

It’s been a brutal couple of weeks at work, and last night my defenses finally gave way, allowing me to succumb to the nasty cold which is allowing me to stay home and do nothing today (aside from blowing my nose a lot, but you don’t really want to hear that, huh?)…

But, by way of catch up, here’s what’s been going on for the past two weeks or so:

  • Mark and I celebrated Folsom Street Fair weekend in the traditional manner: by getting the fuck out of town until the assorted lukewarm leatherettes had gone home. We landed in Merced, by way of Yosemite (I’d never been there), and we managed to pass the entire two days without seeing one single paunchy, unattractive clone wearing way too little clothing under his chaps. Note to Shane: your instincts are correct. You’re not missing anything…
  • Anniversary trip to Disneyland coming in a couple of weeks…
  • There’s a new digital camera in the house, which should result in much nicer pictures on the site. It should also, due to its size, be very accommodating when I need to shoot surreptitious pictures in places like these…
  • I observed (“celebrated” is the wrong word) the eleventh anniversary of my move to San Francisco on Sunday…
  • A visit from Mark’s sister and her boyfriend this past weekend. We ate well. It was good…
  • Thanks to Becky for saying nice things about me, and an additional note: don’t underestimate either your own writing nor how much of yourself you put into it…
  • The voters of California opted this week to replace the sheet of unlined notepaper in the Governor’s Mansion with a cartoon character. My personal feeling is that neither of these incompetents pose nearly as much of a threat to the state as does the notion that we can discard Constitutionally-prescribed terms of office merely on the basis that “we just didn’t like him anymore”…
  • And yes, now that you ask, Tuesday night DID seem even more like an episode of The Simpsons than that election night I spent in Minnesota a few years back…

This Date in History

17 October 2001:
I was announcing that this guy named Mark in Fresno (who I wouldn’t actually meet for another nine days or so, but who was intriguing me in a major way) now had his own domain…

17 October 1998:
I was preparing for the second Planet SOMA Cross Country road trip…

17 October 1989:
San Francisco was quivering and trembling from its biggest earthquake since 1906, which my parents and I watched on TV from Greensboro (since I didn’t live here yet)…

17 October 1930:
My mom was born in a small house on the north side of Winston-Salem NC. Happy birthday, Mom. I love you, and I wish I were there today…

Preservation vs. Density

The old “density” versus “preservation of neighborhoods” argument is in the spotlight again here in Sodom-by-the-Bay. Proponents of the former state — correctly — that the only way to build new housing in San Francisco is to build it at a higher density than is currently utilized in most of the city. The neighborhood preservationists have a point as well, that current residents should have some say in how the city (and their part of it) develops…

Manhattan or Phoenix? My preference would be for something in between, but that’s not going to happen in San Francisco. On average, this city is home to about 15,000 people per square mile. There are no more square miles. Therefore, ANY population increase will mean more density. Only three outcomes are possible: (1) population must decrease, or (2) density must increase, or (3) housing costs in the city must grow even more unreasonable than they are now. That’s just the way it is; that’s how cities and real estate values work…

Ultimately, the low-density neighborhoods WILL change, no matter which path the city chooses. It’s inevitable; either there will be more high-density housing or the neighborhoods in question will begin — although it may take a few years — to house a far different and more affluent type of resident, because no one else will be able to afford the buy-in. That “special character” will probably be lost one way or another as it already has been in many areas…

I don’t want to live in a dense urban area where mass transit is the only option. It’s my own preference, and many good and intelligent people do not share it. San Francisco can be a city exclusively for the rich, or it can be a dense, transit-oriented urban core. It cannot, however, be a place of affordable single-family homes with yards. Neither urban planning nor whining about the “good old days” can change this fact. Those who want these things should face the inevitable and consider moving to a place where land is more plentiful and less expensive…

That’s my plan…