Walking Conundrum

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In a neighborhood in the hills just northeast of campus, Virginia Street climbs and twists to a dead end just above a short avenue called La Vereda Road. At the very top of Virginia, you find yourself in what appear to be a couple of private driveways. It looks like you’ve reached the top. But there’s a path with jury-rigged railings and steps, some nicely carpentered, some hand-cut into a very steep slope. Going up to the top, your way is blocked by the fence and gate above. One sign seems to invite you to go farther; another sign warning of serious federal consequences — the land on the other side belongs to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — and a heavy lock on the gate stop you in your tracks. Except for the fact someone’s going out of their way to maintain access across private property up to the gate, I’d think the gate is always locked. I’ve been up there maybe half a dozen times, have never found anyone on the street who knows what the deal is and have struck out looking online for any info. Maybe calling the lab is my next step, or maybe someone who reads this will have a key for that lock. (Below: the view from the gate, shot through my sunglass lens.)

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Potrero Hill Sundown

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Beautiful summery night here — which would be an odd statement in August almost anyplace else but the Northern California coast. It was warm with a variety of high clouds that were gorgeous as the evening came on. The sight and the evening’s gentleness were enough to make me detour from my usual walk to the 16th and Mission BART station over to the Civic Center Station on Market Street.  

Teddy Kennedy

A memory, and just one. Robert Kennedy was shot on the night before our last day of school in 1968, my last day of eighth grade. I remember going through that day not quite able to understand how life seemed normal for so many of those around me. But it did. A neighbor had planned a picnic for that night, and it went on as scheduled. But life that evening did not seem normal; all the adults were stricken. After midnight, Bobby Kennedy died.

Then we re-enacted the ritual remembered from the president’s assassination five years earlier, repeated with the killing of Martin Luther King just a couple months before Bobby was slain: a lying in state, a public funeral, a farewell.

It fell to Ted Kennedy to give the eulogy at his brother’s funeral. I was sick that day and so beside myself–talk about things you never get over, and this was one for me–that I don’t remember much of what he said. The bulk of the text came from Bobby himself, but mostly I recall the end, when he struggled to finish without breaking down. What a loss for him and his family, what a loss for us all. And despite all the personal stumbles, missteps, and humiliations Teddy suffered later, what strength it took for him to go on.

(The text of his Robert Kennedy eulogy is here, and the MP3 is here; you can also find it on YouTube with a variety of slide shows that range from the almost cloying to the bizarre.)

Bikes on BART: An Inconvenient Truth

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Once upon a time, the Bay Area Rapid Transit district required bicyclists to obtain a permit to ride its trains. You could get the permit by schlepping down to BART’s Lake Merritt station, or you could obtain it by mail. Our recollection is that you had to sign some paperwork stating you understood BART’s bike rules–most notably, to our mind, NO BIKES ON STATION ESCALATORS OR ON THE FIRST CAR OF TRAINS–and agreed to abide by them. Those were the days before the still-unfolding Cycling Enlightenment. Some years ago, BART dropped the permit requirement and pretty much welcomed all two-wheeled comers as long as they STAY OFF THE ESCALATORS AND PLEASE SIR WITH THE BIKE IN THE FIRST CAR MOVE TO ANY OTHER CAR ON THE TRAIN.

In theory, it’s swell to be able to travel with one’s velocipede on the BART system. Many’s the time we’ve ended rides at the far-off Dublin/Pleasanton and Fremont stations and taken the train back home. BART also provides a way of getting across the watery impediment known to locals as The San Francisco Bay. It’s not the only way of course–you can get a bike shuttle (a trailer service that hauls bikes across the Bay Bridge), take AC Transit (which has front-mounted bike racks), or, best of all, take the ferry. But BART is the most available option.

In practice, we’ve found the trains to be less than ideal for traveling from the East Bay to the city or back. The main reason is that the cars just aren’t designed to accommodate full-sized two-wheeled machines. If one sits, one almost by necessity takes up two seats. Not a big deal if it’s not a busy time of day; if it is, then taking the extra seat seems a little inconsiderate (this is a sermon delivered from the perspective of an offender).

The bigger problem with bikes on BART is that so many of the cyclists who bring their two-wheelers on the trains appear so lacking in care or respect for other passengers. For instance: If you’ve ridden the system at all, you can anticipate which door on the cars will open at which stations. But it’s common to see cyclists crowd their bikes into the exit door and block it when they have no intention of exiting (oh, sure, we see other passengers doing this too; we just expect cyclists to exhibit a little less lameness than the dopiest rapid-transit rider). It’s also typical to see riders station their machines in the aisles without regard to how it affects other passengers.

Take the specimen above (at left), photographed on a recent Sunday. He parked his bike in the exit door and for bonus points positioned it most of the way across the aisle. When someone sat opposite him, it was just possible for other passengers to squeeze by. He situated himself thus even though several other seats were available that would have allowed him to stay out of the way. After planting his rear end in his seat, he either affected obliviousness (or actually was oblivious) to all around him.

Part of the problem is that BART cars aren’t designed to accommodate bikes in the first place. A few have been refurbished with a sign that says “bike space.” But if more than a couple passengers bring their bicycles on board, the usual awkwardness ensues. Seeing that the physical space isn’t quite fit for bikes and passengers to co-exist, something’s got to give. The change has got to happen in the social space. Cyclists on BART need to be attentive to how their presence affects other passengers; just as attentive as they want the rest of the world to be to them and their needs.

Health Care ‘Debate’: The Complications

By now, most who have a voice — meaning journalists, broadcast rabble rousers, pundits, lobbyists, think tanks, and public officials both elected and unelected — have turned the current attempt to address shortcomings in our health-care system into a Clintonesque quagmire. What ought to be a simple, focused discussion–Everyone must have health insurance as a matter of national well-being. That insurance must not bankrupt anyone. How do we do that?–has become a mash of impenetrable rhetoric and hysterical charges. It’s amusing that the right has even taken to trying to make the problem of the uninsured go away by manipulating numbers. Zap those uncovered folks with a calculator, and they go away!

George Lakoff of the University of California, Berkeley, is a pioneer in the field of cognitive linguistics and an authority on the workings of framing in public debates. His well-publicized take in The Huffington Post is that the president and his people have blown it by making the health-care debate a pure policy discussion. He urges the administration to reframe its health care program “as An American Plan” that “guarantees affordable care for all Americans.” He then proceeds to lay out a messaging strategy to communicate that simple idea. The HuffPost piece is also worth reading for its critique on what Obama’s chief advisors do and don’t get about communicating with the public. If you think Lakoff’s argument is a little lofty and disconnected from reality, bear in mind that in February 2008, long before the issue was decided, he was predicting Obama would win the Democratic nomination and presidency, in large part because of the deftness with which he framed his candidacy. The guy’s got some cred.

Yes, the details of covering all the uninsured and making coverage affordable for everyone are complicated. But making that goal clear and repeating it at every opportunity is probably the only way to overcome the fear-mongering of those who would like to kill the plan and cripple Obama’s presidency.

Guest Observation: Jesse Winchester

From “The Only Show in Town“:

“Maybe life is just put on for show,
Oh, but it’s the only show in town.
It don’t cost a nickel to get in,
Oh, but you pay dear to hang around.

“And maybe love’s a joke you heard before,
Still it makes you laugh until you cry,
Laugh until you’re rolling on the floor,
Until the tears are streaming from your eyes.”

©1976 Jesse Winchester
From the LP “Let The Rough Side Drag

Friday Night Ferry: The Walk

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On Mariposa Street, just east of Potrero Avenue. This one-block slope is at the beginning of my Friday evening walk from KQED to the Ferry Building. From that stop sign up above, I turn right, then cross U.S. 101 on the pedestrian overpass that connects to 18th Street on the east side of the freeway. One more block up from there is Kansas Street, a corner with one of the great views of downtown. From there, I walk north and east down the slope of Potrero Hill and across the South of Market flats to the Bay, sometimes walking over the low eminence of Rincon Hill. What I noticed most about the walk this week: It’s getting dark much earlier than it did just a month ago.

Friday Night Ferry: The Walk

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On Mariposa Street, just east of Potrero Avenue. This one-block slope is at the beginning of my Friday evening walk from KQED to the Ferry Building. From that stop sign up above, I turn right, then cross U.S. 101 on the pedestrian overpass that connects to 18th Street on the east side of the freeway. One more block up from there is Kansas Street, a corner with one of the great views of downtown. From there, I walk north and east down the slope of Potrero Hill and across the South of Market flats to the Bay, sometimes walking over the low eminence of Rincon Hill. What I noticed most about the walk this week: It’s getting dark much earlier than it did just a month ago.

San Francisco Tweed

We have just been introduced, sometime in the last two minutes, to San Francisco Tweed. What is that? From the site: “We at SF Tweed constitute a rare breed of cyclist — ladies and gents who refuse to endure anymore spandex! For us there is nothing better than a spin through our fair streets in the finest most dapper attire. …”

Well, everyone from Grant Petersen to us to the entire nation of Burma is down with refusing to endure Spandex any longer. We’ve taken to sporting an L.L. Bean black-watch-plaid flannel shirt as our riding habit with heavily discounted Royal Robbins canvas cargo shorts for our lower-down clothing. Aung San Suu Kyi has often said that if she were ever permitted to ride, she wouldn’t be caught dead in anything made of black, stretchy material assembled by sweatshop labor in her native land. Grant & Co. say of their own miracle ride-shirt cloth, “No longer only the fabric of the wealthy for ice cream socials on the estate, seersucker has proven to be the best fabric for hot weather cycling, too.” (“No longer only the utensils of the spoiled and effete, silver spoons have proven to be the finest dispensers of our favorite cycling food, blackstrap molasses, too.” We think the tweed and seersucker crowd might spend a little time making their prose as dapper as their cycling costumes, but we have always been stuffy that way.)

Did we have a point here. Oh, yes: S.F. Tweed sounds worth checking out, for all our linguo-quibbles. We may go out and observe from afar at the group’s next event.