Next stop: New York Times

Got my first ever letter to the editor published today. It's about a local North Beach Festival that seems to be more about corporate sponsorships than the community here. This was my original letter:

Hard Cheese in North Beach

Like many in North Beach, I have a hard time
understanding how the North Beach Festival, which puts
on an outdoor event in Washington Square, could be
opposed to the community-led "Save the Triangle"
effort to add to a park at the corner of Columbus and
Mason streets. After reading your article (North
Beach screeching May 27) it seems clear that the
festival's increasingly desperate pursuit of corporate
sponsorship is disconnecting this group from its
community ties. Oh, and one correction to your story:
the festival is actually called the Precious Cheese
North Beach Festival, named after a subsidiary of the
French company, Lactalis, S.A. So much for Italian
heritage.

Anna Dow: American Idol?

I can't believe our Humvee driving leader had the gall to put out this press release. I guess the idea is that fuel conservation comes not from energy efficient vehicles, but from proper tire inflation:

GAAS:218:04
For Immediate Release:

Governor Schwarzenegger asks Californians to Flex Your Power at the Pump

Launching an effort to conserve gasoline, help the economy and environment, and save money in the process, Governor Schwarzenegger today called upon state employees, California business leaders and government officials to lead by example and "flex your power at the pump."

Flex Your Power at the Pump evolved from the successful Flex Your Power campaign, a public private partnership organized to conserve energy. Over the past several years the Flex Your Power program demonstrated that by working together Californians conserve significant amounts of energy. Under this program, one out of every three households and more then a quarter of all businesses reduced energy use by more than 20 percent. Combined, Californians have saved hundreds of millions of dollars in reduced energy costs. Flex Your Power at the Pump is an education campaign about ways to conserve fuel, save money and protect the environment by using simple common sense techniques.

In an email sent this week to California's state workforce, Governor Schwarzenegger asked individuals to lead by example.

"Together, we can "Flex Our Power...at the Pump" to conserve gasoline, save money, help the economy and the environment," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "I am calling on you, the state's workforce, California businesses, local governments and non profit organizations to commit to a series of actions that will reduce fuel use," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "We can keep California rolling by making common sense changes in the ways we use fuel."

Under the Flex Your Power at the Pump program, Californians can save up to 15 percent on fuel costs by utilizing the following simple steps while managing large auto fleets or maintaining individual trucks, buses, or automobiles:

Keep your tires inflated to the recommended pressure.
Use your air conditioning selectively.
Observe posted speed limits. It's safer and saves gas.
Accelerate smoothly and brake gradually. It's safer and uses less gas.
Properly maintain your vehicle and replace your air and oil filters as recommended.
Minimize the amount of time your vehicle idles.

By popular demand... GG now has her own blog

Can they hear him now?

Honestly, who hasn't wanted to do this after dealing with their phone companies customer distort service?

I think there should be a nationally recognized customer support rating service that companies could get certified to, and that would actually mean something... almost like ISO. As we migrate from a manufacturing to service-based economy, we need a new set of metrics for evaulating the things we buy, and customer service is too rarely factored into the equation.

It's been just over a week since our fabulous 10th wedding anniversary, and thinking back on last week's event, I am, once again, amazed with the generosity of my friends and their grand and loving gestures. How Janie reading that poem brought tears to my eyes, and how tender and beautiful Anna looked before me there. It was a very intense experience, and I felt at the same time awkward and self-conscious, and happy and intensely overwhelmed. I felt such a closeness with so many of the people there and so honored by the grand sense of occasion that so many people exhibited in such grand style: Janie with her manic, driven, loving accomplishments; Leni and Mike with their fearless and stylish patter (Who IS on first, by the way?), our fathers with their wise and loving speeches, my mother with her strange and unexpected gifts, James with his DJing, Terry and Lilly and Martha and Chaim with their amazing singing, Pete, Sophie, Anna, Kate, Dane, Joel, Tom, Uncle Harold, Melissa and Gordie and Siobhan for imprinting the event with their inimitable personalities and contributions, and finally, Jason and Marla for catching us in those final minutes and saving our vanity, and therefore, our sanity.

The thing I remember best from this event is both this overwhelming sense that it was insane to bring this group of people together for this reason -- that feeling that there were little coalitions of style amongst my friends and relatives that would maybe never coalesce into some sort of a fluid ceremony -- coupled with a kind of faith that everyone would be all right in the end. I felt like maybe I had been a bit perverse in forcing the event in a certain direction. At times I had dreams of fistfights or indiscreet liaisons between incompatible relatives or friends, and there was a moment when I thought that the whole enterprise was about to capsize, but in the end it was everything Anna and I dreamed it would be: a great party, with some crazy shit happening off to the side. Thank you to all who were there. Here is a poem for you:


I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great


I think continually of those who where truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the Spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivd air signed with their honor.


--Stephen Spender