Ballard - SFist - San Francisco News, Restaurants, Events, & Sports

Oklahoma, Where the Wind Comes Sweepin' Down the Plain

Jon — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 19:31:59 GMT

Wha?

Oklahoma's Senator, often seen as one of the loopiest one, sent a letter to the to the U.S. Transportation Department wondering if any of those funds Gavin is using to give big fat raises to his flunkies is Federal. And if so, watch out Gavin 'cause here comes da Feds.

And Gavin's response? According to Nathan Ballard, the amount of federal funds being used is "Zero. Zip. Not a dime." As for why they're using the funds to pay for all the raises and lobbyists, Ballard said that there was nothing to see, just move ahead.

Ballard also pointed out that anything involving Coburn "should be taken with a grain of salt." Which it should. So, for sh-- and giggles, let's take a look at the Greatest Hits of Tom Coburn.

-Once claimed that he favored the death penalty for "abortionists and other people who take life."
-Wanted to block two bills that honored famed Environmentalist Rachel Carson and proclaimed her work "junk science."
-Said so many things about homosexuality that it's impossible to list every one but one of them involved rampant lesbianism in Oklahoma.
-Protested the showing of famed "Schindler's List" for being too Holocaust-y
-Called Global Warming "a lot of crap."

Graint of salt indeed.

Gavin Plays Extreme Makeover

Jon — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:24:49 GMT

First there were raises given to staff members who were also given spiffy new job titles. Total cost of all this is will be around $500,000 over the next 18 months, money that will be taken from other departments. Like non-important things such as Muni. And all this after plans for hiring freezes and layoffs. Newsom's press flak, Nathan Ballard, says that all of this is necessary as the people being brought in and paid are all super-special and that not only will it help the city but it will still be within budget.

Then there's news today that Gavin's going to do a little redecorating as he's going to build an office for his well-compensated staff members and put them into what everyone calls a "bullpen." This means taking all the staffers and putting them in one room with what we can guess is either cubicles or just a bunch of tables. The idea, which comes from NY's Mayor Bloomberg, is to have everyone sit together in one room, which will supposedly make it easier for everyone to trade ideas, put their heads together, and talk about "Battlestar Galactica" when it starts up again in March. Gavin also wants to buy a bunch of plasma screens for the bullpen to make it easier for everyone to watch "Battlestar Galactica" Total cost of all this? $139,700

Now, as expected, this has drawn a bit of heat from the Board of Supes who point out that spending money on possibly non-essential things is not the bestest of ideas. In response, Gavin told the Board and all the department heads, whatever, "I drink your milkshake. I drink it up!"

Non Ed Jew SF Political News Of The Day

rita — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:18:39 GMT

--The SF Dept. of Elections tossed out the Recall Peskin papers for procedural defects. As we probably could have guessed after seeing the plethora of signs at their rally the other day, they listed too many different reasons why he should be recalled. Stick with one, guys! We LOVE this "Peskin doesn't care about your pets" platform.

--Watch out, mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard! You said Chris Daly backed down on the budget. He hates that.

--See what a difference having a progressive candidate in the mayor's race makes? Michael Moore isn't going to prank-call Gavin Newsom this time.

--Is High Noon at the OK City Hall Corral between Team Daly and Team Newsom still on? Can someone please send us pictures (either way)???

RagoneWatch (A Day Late)

rita — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 11:15:04 GMT

Here's our Caption Action entry for the picture above!

Oscar winner Al Gore, Oscar-less Leonardo diCaprio, and our pick in the pool for Best Supporting Actor (in the role of John Nelson), Peter Ragone.

And yes, you heard it correctly from commenter Ragone Has Resigned -- former mayoral press secretary Peter Ragone is leaving his recently retitled job as Director of Communications in City Hall to move up the street to work out of the Newsom reelection campaign office at Van Ness and Sutter. Ragone will be replaced at City Hall by Nathan Ballard, the former press secretary for the Northern California John Kerry campaign.

So what's this all mean? Well, we've got a difference of opinion at RagoneWatch headquarters. SFist Jon thinks it's just a routine job reassignment and that Ragone will continue to be a force on the reelection side. We're wondering, though, in light of the commentary on the SFWall, whether this is actually some kind of Office Space-like situation, where first they change Ragone's title, then they move him to an office further away from the Big Guy, and he ends up in a janitorial closet, clutching his red Swingline stapler and muttering, "I could set the building on fire."

Picture by SFist Jackson from the 2005 Current TV launch. And sorry for the delay in posting this -- we had a comical mixup where we thought SFist Jon was on it, and SFist Jon thought we were. We need a Director of Communications around here!

Photo-Friendly, Photo-Averse

jackson — Tue, 24 Aug 2004 13:09:37 GMT

Thomas Hawk, local San Francisco photo/blogger, posted an interesting essay on his experiences taking pictures at different private cultural venues around town. SFist found the link on Boing Boing, which often covers issues related to freedom of speech, expression, media and fair use.

After our experience with cameras being confiscated at the recent PJ Harvey show and our visit with some other local photobloggers, we were interested to see what Mr. Hawk had to say. Seems sporting venues are generally more lenient than cultural venues, with art galleries and museums being some of the most restrictive. Also, many venues and events seem to draw a line between 'normal' cameras and 'professional' cameras - which seems kind of arbitrary to us.

The freedom to photograph has been a hot topic lately - a Seattle-area woman lost her job for photographing the funerary rites of deceased soldiers returning from Iraq in their flag-draped transfer tubes. San Mateo Union High School students were recently banned from using camera phones during instruction time. San Francisco police are looking for a man under suspicion of surveilling the Transamerica and Bank of America buildings - though he's alleged to have used both a camera and sketchbook. Gothamist covered the New York City Subway photography ban - when SFist went to film school in New York, we were told the ban had started during World War II and went largely un-enforced (until now). A photography student in Seattle was repeatedly harassed by local and federal law enforcement for taking pictures of a popular tourist attraction, the Ballard locks. And who can forget the casual snapshots of horriffic torture taken 'just for fun' by soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq?

SFist wonders what the first amendment implications are of all this. Is photography a form of speech, like writing or painting? And if so, is restricting the taking of photographs in defiance of the Supreme Court's decision that no 'prior restraint' can be placed on freedom of speech? Talk amongst yourselves in the comments.