San Francisco

By Chris Middleton

Someone must have forgotten to tell the Americans. The front page must have been filled to capacity. A document must have been stamped “confidential.”

Whatever the reason, the lion’s share of U.S. citizens remains blissfully unaware of the political unrest and bloodshed in the Philippines. Since current president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was elected in 2001, it has been estimated that more than nine hundred people critical of the Philippine government have been executed under painfully tyrannical and extrajudicial conditions.

The League of Filipino Students (LFS), a student-run activism group based out of San Francisco State University, has made it their goal to educate Filipino Americans and Americans in general about the current situation in hopes of bringing an end to the political killings.

“The situation going on in the Philippines, and really nearly all Third World countries, is in direct consequence to the lavish and ignorant lives we live here in our First Worlds,” says JR Arimboanga, a member of LFS.

By Francisco Da Costa

The present financial crisis has hit Lennar between the eyes and swept them out to sea. LENNAR Corporation - is drowning with no - HOPE in sight. Lennar has declared so may bankruptcies - that there is no telling - how DEEP in trouble - this Rogue Company is. Lennar will fail - in the Bayview Hunters Point. We want them OUT of our community - NOW.
Some years ago when I said that Lennar would drown in the CESSPOOL of its own making - people where laughing and said that LENNAR was powerful - backed by some powerful people.

By Bob Egelko

OAKLAND -- An Oakland landlady who allegedly berated an African American tenant with racial slurs and told him that "you're not going to turn this place into a ghetto" must pay the man and his wife $31,000 in damages, a state civil rights agency has ruled. The remarks - which the landlady has denied making - amounted to racial discrimination in housing, the Fair Employment and Housing Commission said in a ruling last week.

The tenant, Dante Lemons, said he was sitting on the front porch of the Maryland Apartments at 3301 Telegraph Ave. in the spring or early summer of 2005, listening to the radio, when apartment co-owner Marlene O'Neill told him no loitering was allowed. When Lemons pointed out that he lived there, he said, O'Neill, who is white, replied that he shouldn't be outside and was turning the place into a ghetto.

By Francisco Da Costa

A Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) has been prepared by the United States Navy to supplement the already existing 2000 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The Navy purports that the proposed building of a brand new stadium and other drastic changes - forces the United States Navy to come out with with new ploy. Behind all this nonsense - the Pacific Heights Mafia, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Senator Diane Feinstein, Congressperson Nancy Pelosi, and the many local sell outs the likes of Supervisor Sophina Maxwell and others like Aurelious Walker.

By Brittany Owens

A blog that I monitor called “Only In San Francisco” feeds me photos and musings from the obscure corners of the city. Among the entries is usually some quip about homelessness.

The pictures that appear on my screen often call for consideration. Most of the time they are pictures of the homeless sleeping behind cars or sidewalks. Rarely do they show the human side of these people.

The fact that we are even able to say homeless and add the suffix, -ness, to make it a condition, startles me. Is homelessness a condition and can it be cured? Have we become that immune to what is dark, decrepit and sad, like the graffiti that is scattered across the city?

By Rachel Gordon

Bay Area transit operators were still trying to assess Wednesday the impact state funding cuts would have on their agencies, which come as they continue to grapple with higher fuel costs and a growing number of riders.
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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto power to cut an additional $100 million from state transit programs before signing the state budget Tuesday.

The governor and California lawmakers diverted funding earmarked for transit agencies to help close the budget deficit. The so-called state transit assistance budget ended up at $306 million - $663 million less than transit agencies around the state believed they were due under a voter-approved funding formula.

A slow mist rose from the ground co-mingling with candlewax, sage, and car exhaust. Bop..bop..be-bop..bop.. Warm breath weaving through the rhythm of a congo drum entwining with words of resistance from African Peoples, Raza Peoples, Celtic peoples, Pilipino peoples, Native peoples, indigenous peoples all.."One.... we are the people..Two....indigenous people...Three .. and we are taking back the land and ONE....We are the Scholars...Two... indigenous scholars and Three... we are taking back OUR land!..."

Citing the articles from the United Nations(UN)Declaration on Indigenous Peoples adopted one year ago by the UN General Assembly, displaced, evicted and removed children, mamaz, daddys, tias and tios, aunties and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, elders, ancestors, and spirits from all across Turtle Island; Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, New Orleans and DQ University gathered to pray, testify and resist on Market street at sunrise in a spiritual, political and revolutionary ceremony of resistance to out of control development, eviction, displacement and criminalization locally and globally.