Bay Area Observer

Washington Post journo Haynes Johnson dies at 81

2013-05-24T16:46:00.001-07:00

The Pulitzer Prize winning sage of Washington political reporting for a half century who with Post colleague David Broder helped usher in the kind of incisive, thoughtful coverage that has largely vanished, died today. He was 81. Here’s the Washington Post obituary.

Stuff that happens on Fridays: state lawmakers let ‘ocean plastic’ bill die

2013-05-24T15:56:00.001-07:00

Assembly bill 521 aimed to reduce 95 percent of plastic pollution along California’s coastline by 2024. It would have required manufacturers to figure out how to keep most plastic junk out of state waterways. It died (or, if you prefer, was killed) today in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, without a vote. That way, you see, no politician got their hands dirty. AP

Barbara Lee: ‘the most prescient person in post-9/11 Washington’?

2013-05-24T12:08:00.001-07:00

That’s the deck that runs with Michael Tomasky’s Valentine to the Oakland congresswoman in The Daily Beast. Looking back on the global “war on terrorism,” two things are true, he says: The first is that the country and the world would be a hell of a lot better off if we’d followed Barbara Lee’s advice instead of Paul Wolfowitz’s. And second is that the foreign-policy establishment of

Medea Benjamin, 60, heckles President; he calls her a ‘young lady’

2013-05-24T09:19:00.001-07:00

First, President Obama refers to California AG Kamala Harris as “the best looking” attorney general in America (for which he later apologized). Now, while being heckled during a speech yesterday, he calls his heckler, 60-year-old Bay Area peace activist and Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin, a “young lady.” The Daily Beast

Fight over tower linked to Mexican Museum moves a step closer to supervisors

2013-05-24T09:06:00.001-07:00

Now that the Planning and Recreation and Park commissions have exempted the proposed 47-story tower that’s part of the new Mexican Museum project at 706 Mission Street from a law limiting shadow impacts on parks and public open space opponents are . . . as determined as ever to fight it. And the loudest of them, residents of pricey condos atop the nearby Four Seasons Hotel at 765 Market Street,

Morning Wrap: 5/24/13

2013-05-24T07:20:00.000-07:00

A 5.7 quake rattles a swath of Northern California, now it’s the St. Regis Hotel up for sale, a good report card for Bay Area beaches, more. Gov. Jerry Brown talks a good game on climate change, but some environmentalists say his budget priorities don’t match his rhetoric on the issue. Mercury News A 5.7 earthquake with the epicenter about 25 miles southwest of Susanville rattled much of

Patron shatters East Bay Burger King window after Whopper order gone wrong

2013-05-23T15:09:00.001-07:00

It happened in Newark, the Mercury News says. Cholesterol rage?

Renowned photographer Wayne Miller dies at 94

2013-05-23T14:42:00.001-07:00

The celebrated photographer who made waves with his series of portraits chronicling the lives of black Americans in Chicago after helping produce some of the most unforgettable combat images of World War II while serving with an elite Navy unit died yesterday in Orinda. He was 94 and had made his home in Orinda for the better part of six decades. Among other things, Miller was a curator of the

Chronicle shuffles executives; Jeffrey Johnson is new publisher

2013-05-23T14:20:00.001-07:00

Hearst Corporation has shuffled the corporate folks at the top at the Chronicle with an announcement today that Joanne K. Bradford, 49, will be the newspaper’s new president and that longtime publisher Frank J. Vega, 64, is retiring and will be replaced by Jeffrey M. Johnson, 53. Johnson was publisher at the LA Times for the better part of two years and gained respect among journos when he was

Why CNN isn’t likely to turn away from its increasing reliance on junk news

2013-05-23T12:23:00.001-07:00

Here’s bad news for those saddened to see CNN slink into the tabloid gutter with its breathless shared programing from sister channel HLN: the latter’s Jodi Arias plea coverage was a whopping ratings success. CNN/HLN went with coverage of the Arizona murderer’s plea for her life Tuesday while Fox News and MSNBC stayed with the Oklahoma tornado tragedy. Result: Arias viewers doubled tornado

Tempest in an alt-weekly’s ad smut pot? This time: San Jose’s Metro

2013-05-23T12:05:00.001-07:00

Latest brouhaha over Backpage.com, the sex ad site that’s come under fire after moving into the vacuum left behind when Craigslist cleaned up its prostitution ads: a Santa Clara County prosecutor is pointing the finger at San Jose’s Metro as peddling prostitution. Assistant DA Chuck Gillingham, who handles sex exploitation crimes, calls the Backpage ads in Metro “obviously prostitution,” while

Warriors 101: That’s Stephen Curry, not ‘Steve’

2013-05-23T10:55:00.001-07:00

Note to Mayor Ed Lee: If you’re going to front the Warriors’ move from Oakland to the Embarcadero waterfront, it’ll help to know that the team’s star point guard is Stephen Curry, not “Steve.” The muffed line came Tuesday when Curry was presented a key to the city—a goof that, like the event itself, was overshadowed by the announcement that Santa Clara will be home to the 2016 Super Bowl. For

Barbara Oliver, Bay Area theater doyenne was 85

2013-05-23T09:22:00.001-07:00

The actress and founder of Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company, who suffered a debilitating stroke in March, died Monday at her home in Berkeley. She was 85. Oliver was running a community theater in North Dakota in 1958 when she and her late husband, the noted UC Berkeley theater professor Bill Oliver, moved to Berkeley, where they raised four children. She launched the Aurora Theatre on a

Prof and possible Oakland mayoral candidate Joe Tuman’s classroom kerfuffle

2013-05-23T09:01:00.001-07:00

The San Francisco State professor and political pundit who is exploring a second run for mayor of Oakland next year has stepped into some trouble in the classroom. He’s being criticized after assigning students in a communications class to create a political ad either for an imaginary black Republican congressional candidate from the Central Valley or for someone real, like himself. Tuman says he

Morning Wrap: 5/23/13

2013-05-23T07:38:00.001-07:00

Speed limits proposed for America’s Cup races as safety measure, ex-Gap CEO Robert Fisher’s high negatives, the Bay Area real estate boom extends even to areas hardest hit by the downturn, more. One safety suggestion from the America’s Cup director for the regatta in the wake of this month’s deadly practice accident: placing a speed limit on the racing boats. Chronicle You know the Bay

Chronicle makes lemonade from Ed Lee’s lemons—with pinch of Brown sugar

2013-05-22T15:21:00.001-07:00

Meanwhile, down at the hype factory: Now the mayor on whose watch the 49ers will flee the city for the South Bay is a political hero for . . . helping deliver Super Bowl 2016 to Santa Clara? So says the Chronicle’s Matier & Ross, whose lede today declares: “Thanks to the NFL owners, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee just got a big boost for his re-election.” Not only that, the Chron runs a Mercury News

Ice cream shop wants Berkeley council to block competitor from opening

2013-05-22T14:49:00.001-07:00

In a lot of places, if you’re a business and a competitor opens across the street you . . . well, compete. In Berkeley, you ask the City Council to prevent your competitor from opening. That’s what the owner of Cream, an ice cream parlor on Telegraph Avenue, did this week to prevent nearby Rasputin Music from opening an ice cream take-out window. That’s after the city’s zoning board approved

Anatomy of a goof: How Caltrans got sold on those faulty Bay Bridge rods

2013-05-22T14:23:00.001-07:00

Latest installment in the backstory to the Bay Bridge engineering fiasco: Caltrans became sold on installing high-risk rods on the new eastern span after a supplier pointed out that the agency had already approved them for the Richmond-San Rafael bridge seismic retrofit. But, as the Chronicle’s Jaxon Van Derbeken points out, the Richmond rods approved in 2001 were tightened to far lower tension

Report: Michael Crabtree suffers possible season-ending injury in practice

2013-05-22T14:13:00.001-07:00

The 49ers aren’t commenting officially yet, but USA Today quotes sources as saying wide receiver Michael Crabtree suffered a torn Achilles tendon in practice yesterday—an injury that could keep him out for most if not all of the upcoming football season.

Another crime against journos in Oakland; even their security guard is hit

2013-05-22T08:12:00.001-07:00

It’s no secret that robbery and theft of journalists working in Oakland has become common enough that several TV stations routinely dispatch a security guard when assigning news crews there. Yesterday, however, a new turn in an ongoing challenge: Thieves not only broke the windows of an ABC 7 (KGO) news van while reporter Nick Smith and a photographer were on a story at Jack London Square—they

Morning Wrap: 5/22/13

2013-05-22T07:05:00.001-07:00

UCSF hospital workers strike, Gap’s annual meeting gets Bangladeshed, Marin home prices soar 23 percent in a year, more. Thousands of workers at UC system hospitals, including UCSF Medical Center, walked off the job Tuesday in a two-day strike over wages, retirement benefits and staffing levels. Chronicle Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland was fined $142,970 for not properly

Super Bowl 2016 goes to Santa Clara, or, as some prefer, ‘the Bay Area’

2013-05-21T11:57:00.001-07:00

As expected, the 2016 Super Bowl (that’s No. 50 for those counting) will be played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, future home of the 49ers. The NFL’s announcement came just before noon, with the Mercury News first among Bay Area media to report it. Now, who’s hosting—that’s a nomenclature issue. The politically correct term of art so far appears to be “the Bay Area,” which provides a fig leaf

Chronicle alters its style on ‘illegal immigrant,’ ‘illegal alien’

2013-05-21T09:57:00.001-07:00

The Chronicle becomes the latest of several publications (the LA Times did so a few weeks ago) to change its style on the term “illegal immigrant” and “illegal alien,” essentially matching changes the AP made earlier. Journalists are advised not to refer to a person as “illegal” or an “alien.” Poynter blogs about the change and includes the Chronicle’s new style book entry (which you may read,

Twisting in Bay Bridge wind—Governor gets serious about bolt blunder

2013-05-21T09:38:00.001-07:00

Gov. Jerry Brown, whose flippant response a couple of weeks ago to the Bay Bridge bolt fiasco was “(expletive) happens,” took a more serious tone yesterday at UC Berkeley, when asked about it. The takeaway quote: “That thing is not going to open unless it’s ready.” However unlikely a fix for the bad engineering that went into the bridge’s new east span could be accomplished in time for its

Convicted dirty cop wanted house arrest; he gets 14 years in prison

2013-05-21T09:19:00.001-07:00

After being sentenced yesterday to 14 years in prison for selling drugs, robbing prostitutes, running a brothel, and making false arrests—all while hiding behind a police badge—former top Contra Costa narcotics cop Norman Wielsch thought he got a raw deal. “In Norm’s mind, he was unfairly singled out because he was a cop,” his attorney said after U. S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong