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Feature

Crying Whale

Environmental groups sent out a worldwide call to save the gray whale from a Mexican salt plant. They got millions of dollars and thousands of new members. But scientists found no threat to the whales.

By Michael Lacey, Jill Stewart

Published: November 21, 2001

Big-name sophisticates like Jean-Michel Cousteau and Robert Kennedy Jr. rejoiced when it was announced last year that a controversial salt plant proposed in Mexico had been stopped. As news reports...

Feature

The New Economy

The road to Punta Abreojos is paved with hollow intentions

By Susan Goldsmith

Published: November 21, 2001

Without the fishermen of Punta Abreojos, they had nothing. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) wanted to wage a worldwide campaign...

Dog Bites

Dog Bites

What's $100 Million When You're Homeless?; We Feel Safer Already

By Peter Byrne, Matt Smith

Published: November 21, 2001

What's $100 Million When You're Homeless? On Sunday, Nov. 4, the San Francisco Chronicle headlined a series of articles on homelessness with the claim that "S.F. spends more than $200 million...

Night Crawler

Soup, Salad, and Surrealism

You haven't really eaten till you've had a meal with puppets, trapeze acts, and the Extra Action Marching Band

By Silke Tudor

Published: November 21, 2001

"One, two, three, four! We don't want to wash the floor!" shouts a wild-eyed stilt-walker with a distorted face and a mop. "Five, six, seven, eight! You should wash your own plate!" hollers a...

Bay View

The Call of Afghanistan

Young Afghan-American professionals pledge to return to their homeland to rebuild a war-ravaged nation

By Bernice Yeung

Published: November 21, 2001

It was March 2001, and Ahmad Haya, a civil engineer working on the massive Bay Bridge earthquake retrofit, was sitting at a conference table in his Treasure Island offices, excitedly describing his...

Letters

Letters to the Editor for the week of 11/21/2001

Taking a Hammer to Pac Bell; A Feather in Our Cap; Painting a Different Picture; Bad-Mouthing Bush

Published: November 21, 2001

Taking a Hammer to Pac Bell I can't hear you -- you're breaking up: I found your piece "Call to Patriotism" (Matt Smith, Nov. 7) on the structural separation of Pac Bell intriguing, but I...

Music

Fruits of Hard Labor

MC Kiwi brings a Filipino treat to the hip hop dinner table

By Thomas Connors

Published: November 21, 2001

On a scorching Saturday in mid-October, numerous artists, community members, and curious onlookers gather at Sixth and Mission streets for the third annual SOMA Fest. What begins as a public forum...

Music

Cat Five

Kataphonics (Hip Hop Slam)

By Darren Keast

Published: November 21, 2001

Recently, the British magazine The Face declared Oakland's Cat Five "the prime example of the Left Coast's laptop revolution," seemingly lumping the group in with the fractured techno of Sutekh...

Music

Zmrzlina

Katastrophe Vol. III (Incidental Music)

By David Cook

Published: November 21, 2001

Listening to Katastrophe Vol. 3 , the newest offering from S.F. band Zmrzlina, is like going to a theater to see a noir thriller and getting David Lynchian oddness instead. The music on the...

Pop Philosophy

Pop Philosophy

America attacks back -- in the key of D

By Dan Strachota

Published: November 21, 2001

While walking in Berkeley recently, I noticed a large, stenciled message on the ground that featured a tweaked American flag and the slogan "Resist patriotism" below it. "Ah, Berkeley," I thought,...

House of Tudor

House Of Tudor

"Spanksgiving," psychobilly menace, and sweet calypso

By Silke Tudor

Published: November 21, 2001

Rudyard Kipling once said, "San Francisco is a mad city, inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people." Until recently, not many would argue. Between the age of the Gold Rush and that of...

Hear This

Hear This

Bassist John-Carlos Perea's Native American-inspired jazz fusion

By Sam Prestianni

Published: November 21, 2001

A so-called "half-breed" of Apache and Irish-American descent, Perea draws his inspiration from contemporary powwows, the popular intertribal ceremonies where song-On his debut album First Dance ,...

Eat

Suds and Duds

Potrero Brewing Company

By Matthew Stafford

Published: November 21, 2001

"What a fiasco," I muttered as I peered through the rain-streaked windshield of Shooter's automobile. In the back seat were a Venezuelan and an Israeli -- "an international sampling," noted...

Social Grace

Unhappy Birthday

Unfunny birthday cards, wedding-gift greed, and the schoolmate who would not say, "Hello"

By Social Grace

Published: November 21, 2001

Dear Social Grace, My brother and his family recently sent me a birthday card that contained humor I didn't find funny. The photo on the cover was probably from the late 1960s or early 1970s,...

The Mix

Believers

Getting bleary in the bars on Geary

By Greg Hugunin

Published: November 21, 2001

Of all the bars on Geary Boulevard -- or Geary Street, or Earth for that matter -- few have a name as intriguing as Would You Believe? According to Shirley, the owner, this decades-old watering...

Film

New Yakkers

Edward Burns' Sidewalks does more talking than walking

By Luke Y. Thompson

Published: November 21, 2001

This is the true story of seven people (Tommy! Annie! Ashley! Maria! Griffin! Carpo! And Benjamin!) picked to live in a city and have their lives changed. Find out what happens when people stop...

Reel World

Reel World

Why a drop in tourism could mean unexpected trouble for local arts groups

By Michael Fox

Published: November 21, 2001

Two Weeks in Another Town The post-9/11 plunge in tourism, should it continue much beyond the first of the year, could bite local media arts groups in a tender spot next fall. A chunk of the 14...

Night&Day;

Dial 510-Hip-Hop

The Cali Comm tour brings the region's best hip hop talent under one roof

By Todd Dayton

Published: November 21, 2001

SoCal's rap trio the Pharcyde might have intended its Cali Comm tour as a showcase for all Golden State hip hop, but for the show's final stop, at the Fillmore, Bay Area hip hoppers steal the...

Night&Day;

All Hail Kael

A film series remembers the uncompromising New Yorker critic Pauline Kael

By Lisa Hom

Published: November 21, 2001

"I regard criticism as an art." With this simple declaration, the film critic Pauline Kael, who died this September at age 82 of Parkinson's disease, summed up the raison d'être of her...

Stuff

War on War Books

Donald Miller has (re)written one of the best books on World War II, but will anyone care?

By Robert Wilonsky

Published: November 21, 2001

Only a couple of months ago, it looked as though Donald Miller had a publishing home run on his hands--a thoughtful, exhilarating, inclusive book about World War II scheduled to hit stores just as...