A Night Full of Quotes

"It was really nice, if you like really horrible things."

"A little bit of formaldehyde can't be that bad."

"She's got emotional tools to deal with things."

"Can we keep making out, just in the dark?"

"That's why I'm wearing a tie and stuff. That's what I call polishing a turd."

Texts From Last Night

I just learned about a new website that is keeping me highly amused today.

http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/

A few of my favorite entries:

Just think, the more you drink, the more options you'll have of people you want to hook up with.

she just sneezed while going down on me. is it rude for me to ask her to do it again?

Words i added to my t9 today: gnomes, facebook, and chlamydia.

The Autism Vaccine Debate Again

A classmate of mine from way back when posted a couple of interesting articles today that sparked my interest.

The first is a blog on Discover's website:
Discover Blog: Antivax kills.

The second is a publication regarding much of the research that has been done on the autism vaccine link:
Science Daily Vaccine and Autism Article

My classmate made a really good point about how it's easier for people to blame the government than their own DNA. I absolutely think this is the case. It's so much easier for us to believe that we can change things than it is to believe that we are doomed to whatever diseases our body has predetermined.

As in most things, I find myself firmly in the middle here.

Do I think vaccines cause autism? In general, probably not, but maybe in some cases.
Do I think the debate is over? Definitely not.
Do I think parents should avoid vaccines? NO!

This is a difficult situation because the waters are so murky.

First of all, the autism diagnosis is handed to people with a wide array of symptoms. As an ABA therapist I worked with children who many different sets of symptoms. At the time we frequently referred to that as high functioning or low functioning, but I don't think it was just on a spectrum of bad to worse. Some of the symptoms were qualitatively different.

For example, what about the difference between kids with autism only, or those with autism and mental retardation. Is it really that they have both, or is it that they have a qualitatively different type of disorder? We called the first category high functioning, but it's really just totally different. I had one kid who could read, write, draw, speak in sentences after being taught, but could express no emotion. I had another kid who couldn't sit for more than 2 seconds. Yes, they shared some common symptoms - language delay, eye contact, lack of emotional involvement, and a little OCD, but they were very very different and required much different treatment plans. I've got a ton of these types of comparisons.

Doesn't it seem possible then, that maybe we've grouped a whole bunch of different things into one lump called autism? Just so happens that mercury poisoning looks a whole lot like some of these kids, but definitely not all or even most. Some cases seem to be more about extreme sensory sensitivity than anything else. Others mimic the isolation and turning inward that happens to some kids after severe trauma. Maybe they differ so much because they are actually different. And if that's the case, doesn't it follow that maybe they have different causes?

And if THAT's the case, then it seems totally plausible to me that SOME cases of autism were caused in SOME part by vaccines. I find David Kirby's hypothesis in Evidence of Harm particularly reasonable. He basically says that some kids are born with a genetic defect that keeps them from processing toxins properly. In those children, when you introduce vaccines containing thimerosal (which contains mercury and other toxins) in high doses, you might get autism-like symptoms. We also see the same thing in small communities where there has been significant exposure to mercury through fish consumption or environmental waste. A genetic problem would also explain differences between communities that aren't accounted for by toxin exposure. Anyway - this is all a MIGHT for SOME of the population, and it doesn't actually state anything conclusive.

What we do know is that children are getting more vaccines than ever before, and that some of them are thought to be unnecessary by some parents. So do we stop vaccinating our children?
NO! I really haven't heard anyone rational state that parents should forgo vaccines. Even Jenny McCarthy suggests an altered schedule, rather than not getting vaccines at all. I personally recommend learning about the issue as a parent and working with your doctor to determine what you feel is safe for your child. Make sure your doctor takes your concerns seriously, and then listen. One mother described this process on her blog about an alternative schedule.

It is irresponsible to not vaccinate your child at all: to your child and to the children with whom he'll come in contact. I think the biggest takeaway here is that there are a lot of possibilities, but reacting out of fear won't help. Educate yourself by reading many sides. Read David Kirby's book, read all the stuff on both sides of the issue, then work it out with your doctor. Ask for thimerosal free vaccines whenever possible. When you get the flu shot, get the pregnancy version (the one with no preservatives). Just be smart about it, don't overreact, and approach it from a middle ground that makes sense. Would you really risk your child dying of diptheria because you were too scared to work out a better way?

Heather Armstrong wrote a great post about her feelings regarding the responsibility of mothers to vaccinate their children.

In the early 2000s in Arkansas there was a huge outbreak of diphtheria because parents didn't have great access to vaccines. I was at a talk with David Kirby and some safe vaccine advocates when a pediatrician from northern Arkansas, who agreed with Kirby about the possibility of vaccine and autism links, begged the crowd to get their children vaccinated. She had just watched a significant portion of her clients die because they just hadn't gotten the shot. Death is not an alternative to a fear of autism. Carrying a disease to another child who didn't get vaccinated is not an alternative to a fear of autism.

Some of my other posts about this issue:

Charity Divided
Missouri Thimerosal Ban
Autism and Vaccinations

Bad Business Models

CitiApartments is losing a ton of buildings to foreclosure. What's interesting to me, though, is that the reasons resemble the same reasons a ponzi scheme eventually fails. San Francisco Tenants Union reports:

The, notoriously bad landlord CitiApartments seems to be in deep financial trouble. The CitiApartments business model was based on forcing out long-term tenants paying affordable rents and replacing them with market-rent paying tenants. This strategy failed as tenants organized and refused to be intimidated from their homes. Their main strategy was tenant harassment coupled with buyout offers. Tenants should be aware that CitiApartments has now reneged on numerous such buyouts, refusing to pay after tenants had moved.

In my experience, Citi's model is dependent upon tenants in rent-controlled units accepting payouts to move out of their units, allowing Citi to bring in new renters at much higher prices. We've received many offers from Citi for moving costs, free rent in a new building, and returned deposits, but we were holding out in hopes of them offering more (and because we LOVE our apartment). I've heard stories of people who've been able to get $10-20,ooo just to move out because they had entered into their lease at a low point, and the sum was not much for Citi when considering long-term revenue increases. They use the profits to purchase more buildings and remodel units to charge higher prices. Citi owns a seriously large portion of the rentable units in San Francisco.

This seemed like a decent model. Until, of course, people stopped paying higher rents. All of a sudden, Citi had to compete on price, rather than total property domination. Rather than moving tenants out, Citi needs them to stay at their current rent prices. No more consistent income increases means Citi has to rely on its actual business, and we can see that's not working. The SF Tenant's Union has published lists of the foreclosed properties. Ours isn't on it yet, but one of the buildings in our little community is. Could be interesting.

Veitch Zingers #1

My macro prof has a habit of making strange analogies and trying to use humor to demonstrate his points. Sometimes he goes so far with the humor that the point doesn't make sense, usually with amusing results. Some from tonight:

"You wanna see a loser? Look in the mirror!"

"You don't have to be the best at anything, and you can still succeed."

"[Adjusting interest rates to fix the foreign exchange rate] is like using a sledgehammer to beat a splinter out of my toe. I might get rid of the splinter, but there will be a lot of collateral damage."

"There's always a place where you can make the trade. Where did I find it? Behind the hotel last night."

Emotional Citizens

Because we are all emotional people, I present Gail Collins' article on irrational expectations in the NY Times.

My favorite part:

Let’s complain about Barack Obama. Why doesn’t he sound angrier? Doesn’t he understand that his job right now is to be the Great Venter?

Sure he keeps saying he’s mad. But you can tell that he secretly thinks it’s crazy to obsess about $165 million in bonuses in a company that’s still got $1.6 trillion in toxic assets to unravel. “I don’t want to quell that anger. I want to channel our anger in a constructive way,” he said on Wednesday. Everybody knows constructively channeled anger doesn’t really count. It’s like diet pizza.

If John McCain were president, you can bet that we’d be getting outrage 24-7. McCain would be so angry that we’d be scared that he’d have a coronary or invade a new country. The New York Post would be running “Calm Down, Mr. President” headlines.

Except, of course, the whole reason we elected Barack Obama was because when the economy started melting down, Obama seemed sane and calm while McCain appeared to be a loopy visitor from the Planet of the Overwrought.

I hate it when we make irrational, contradictory demands of our president. But, it seems as if that’s what he’s there for.

Springfield MO in the Times!

I've blogged about Springfield's Cashew Chicken in the past, but now the New York Times is on board!

David Leong, creator of Springfield cashew chicken said: “When I moved here in the 1950s, people kept telling me about fried chicken,” Mr. Leong said. “I did what they wanted. I gave them fried chicken with Chinese oyster sauce and cashews.”

None of the original restaurants are still open, and Leong family that started it all is retired from operating their own Chinese restaurants, but you can still get amazing cashew chicken at a number of places. My favorite is Hong Kong Inn, on Sunshine. It was on my way home from work when I lived in Springfield, and was a weekly staple in my healthy southern/midwestern diet. I also really like Yen Ching, in Ozark. The family has daughters living in San Francisco, so we always chat about that a bit. They do a take on cashew chicken that I adore when it's on the menu. They remove the gravy and add an apple gravy-like sauce, take out the cashews and add apples in, and use the same crispy fried chicken. YUM. Seriously good. Hmmm...I'm kinda scared to go home now. I'll probably gain 20 lbs on the visit.

Anyway, read the NYT article. Not often that Springfield makes it big. :) Well, not since Brad Pitt, anyway.

Getting What I Can For My Money

Operations is not a class that leads to a ton of "aha!" moments. I really enjoyed this quote today from our prof's foray into explaining CSR.

Sustainability:
Transforming our ways of living to maximize the chances that environmental and social conditions will indefinitely support human security, well-being, and health.

~McMichael, Butler, Folke; Science, 2003

Warning Label Translations

We just ordered a DDR mat that's supposed to actually let us play our old DDR games in the PS3. It came with instructions written in an interesting translation of English.
An excerpt from the warning section:
V, matters needing attention
1, do not be please in the high temperature, moist and under the multi-dust environment to use
2, Please not will dancemat to put the place which iwll expose to the sun in the solar storm.
3, guarded against uses the non-neutral solvent to clean this.
4, please do not have to make an effort to twist, pulls the electric cable line, in order to avoid the ties damage.
and my favorite:
5, the child, the old person and bodily illness carry on the game, avoids the period of revolution excessively being long.

A Question For Maupin

Q: What else is going on?
A: I'm really excited about the "Tales of the City" musical slated for Broadway. It's in the hands of very talented people. Jake Shears and John Garden of Scissor Sisters are composing the music and lyrics. I've been listening to the songs and offering comments on the script. There's a raunchy whorehouse number, "Ride 'em Hard and Put 'em Down Wet," a tune called "You May Be the Last Good Lay He'll Ever Get" and some gospel-singing A-gays (as in A-list). Jeff Whitty, who won a Tony for "Avenue Q," is writing the libretto. It's brilliant. He managed to be faithful to the story and make it work for the stage.
AHHHHH!!!! - I can't wait!!!

Finally!

California Senate Passes Budget

The Senate had been one GOP vote short until Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria (Santa Barbara County), changed his mind to support the budget plan, but only after Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders agreed to his demands.

"I know there will be dire political ramifications for me, but I know the ramifications for the people of California would be more dire (without this budget)," said Maldonado. "This budget is about shared pain and shared sacrifices."

Glad you finally figured that one out, Maldonado - everyone else came to that conclusion, oh, about 4 days ago - BEFORE the deadline. Thanks for your sacrifice.

What's even crazier, though, is that I agree with ONE of Maldonado's demands:

Maldonado's demands included the removal of a proposed 12 cents a gallon gasoline tax, suspending hikes in pay and per diems for lawmakers when the state is facing budget deficits, and a ballot measure in June 2010 that asks voters whether they want open primaries.

A 12 cent/gallon gasoline tax? Now? Right - because that doesn't hit the families that need the most help or anything. Historically, particularly in California (except for the Bay Area), the people in the most dire circumstances are the people who have to drive the farthest. That's because they can't afford to live in the cities, so they live farther out and have to cross longer distances to find work. So increasing the gas tax almost immediately hits the people who are already struggling the most. I can't believe the democrats supported that one. I mean - 2 or 3 cents maybe, but 12 cents?!?

But Maldonado's other demands? NOT suspending hikes in pay during budget deficits? If a public company is in bad shape, employees don't get raises. Why should it be different for lawmakers? Might actually get them to work to close the budget deficit. But Maldonado doesn't want to have to come up with solutions in order to get a raise. What I will agree to, though, is that this really shouldn't have been tacked on to the budget in the first place. This isn't part of the budget, so why does it matter in face of the deadline? Same thing with the primaries. I don't really understand everything behind it at this point - I know it's a big deal - but why does it need to be tacked on to the budget?

So anyway, I'm actually kinda happy with the results of the delay. Craziness.

Regarding the original budget plan, I do have to comment on the sales tax increase. This doesn't help the economy. I propose a plan more like some other states (Minnesota comes to mine), with sales tax eliminated on necessities (food, school supplies, children's clothing). Then maybe we could increase the sales tax more on other items. Perhaps you just do a moratorium for a year, which would boost the economy by encouraging people to buy more of those necessities now while there is no sales tax on those items. At the very least, we shouldn't be increasing the sales tax on food. How is that helpful at all? People will just be able to afford less, which means food banks will have more demand, which means the government will have to provide more in food stamps and aid. Not smart people.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could get our officials to think past the next election?

Rally Against Overreaction

SFist has the scoop on the Bay 2 Breakers rally. My favorite part:

God forbid SFist should tell you how to prioritize your battles, San Francisco. But, a rally to keep public pissing, nudity and drinking in a race? Really? Huh.

I love this city.

Fabio's English

On Top Chef, Fabio has consistently been an excellent source of translation humor.

On last night's Top Chef, Fabio broke his finger. The medic asked if he wanted to go to the hospital. He said (paraphrasing), Hospital? I ain't going to no freegin hospital. I'll chop off my finger and sear it on the hot pad so it stops bleeding and deal with nine fingers tomorrow.

That was good, but my favorite - the one that had me rewinding and watching again - was this:
"I got so many kick in my ass that sometimes when I'm in the bathroom I still pull shoes out my ass."

Now add a thick Italian accent and read it again.

Classic.

I Love San Francisco

And right now, that's why I hate ING.

Everyone knows that Bay to Breakers instituted a Zero Tolerance alcohol policy for this year's race, but does everyone know they also eliminated all floats/carts/vehicles of any kind AND nudity? NUDITY? Who does that hurt?

While I'm not entirely sure any of this really matters, I thought I'd try my hand anyway, so if you want to take some action, here's what you can do:
Write an email (email address below, along with the email I sent).
If you are a fan of Bay to Breakers on Facebook or MySpace or such, remove yourself.
Join the protest groups on said sites. Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=50765922327#/group.php?gid=50765922327
Boycott this year's race.
Boycott ING.

Emails:
mediarelations@ingdirect.com,
ombudsman@ingdirect.com,
marketing@ingdirect.com,
sales@ingdirect.com,
info@ingbaytobreakers.com,
ingbaytobreakers@edelman.com,
gavin.newsom@sfgov.org,
ross.mirkarimi@sfgov.org,
cathy.macfarlane@ingdirect.com

My Email:
To Whom It May Concern,

Bay to Breakers is one of the many reasons I worked so hard to move to San Francisco. The fact that a city supports an annual event where people can run nude, dance on floats, and drink their little hearts out from one end of the city to the other is such a beautiful statement of openness and community. Bay to Breakers is (was) the epitome of what San Francisco is all about. And now that's gone?

The organizers of Bay-to-Breakers have valid concerns over the issues of floats, alcohol consumption, public nudity, and other iconic aspects of the event. However, as loyal registrants of past B2B races, we feel a "zero tolerance" policy is in complete opposition to the spirit of the event and therefore we will not support the organizer's new policy by paying registration fees until a more reasonable solution is in place.

In addition, if this decision is not reversed by the date of the 2009 Bay to Breakers, I personally will be removing all funds from ING and closing my accounts, and I will advise others to do the same.

Sincerely, ...

Risk Aversion

In finance we are discussing risk aversion, and how most people are fairly risk averse. Today I found this story about the most dangerous road in the world. It's in Bolivia, and it looks like something out of a cartoon. What does it say about me that as soon as I read this article, I added driving this road to one of the things I want to do before I die...

Check out all the amazing pictures!

Real Global Warming Options

As someone who finds myself fascinated with simple mechanisms scientists think might help (like painting roofs white, or sending a giant bomb up into the atmosphere to deflect radiation), I am even more fascinated by a recently released ranking of the various methods.

We hear so many options in different contexts, and they all sound good, so how do we know which ones to actually try?

I am often struck by the fact that many people, when faced with something they are told is a "good cause", react with some sense of obligation to goodness. People not in the field, or not associated with the field, often justify drunken galas or excessive auction spending (guilty!) with the "good cause" clause. As long as it's going to charity, it's good, and I get to feel good about myself...right?

In philanthropy, it's an entirely different world. Because there are so many "good causes", we not only have to determine which issues are most important (to our boards, to our missions, to the world), but also which organizations address those issues best. It's a crazy competitive world involving impact rankings, financial efficacy, and some relationships thrown in for good measure. We never take a good cause as simply that - always delving into it further before supporting it.

The green movement, however, throws most of us back into the uneducated category. We all want to do something good for the world. We want to address the issue, so we grasp at anything we can. We step up our recycling, we promote windmills, we install solar panels, and we might even paint a roof or two white. But are we really doing the right things?

Well, Wired Magazine just featured a recently published scientific paper that collects the different ways in which we could address global warming, and how effective each of these methods would be. VERY informative article with some great graphics and a pretty comprehensive and easy to understand list of potential solutions.

Here are a few of the more interesting ones, with rankings:

1. Inject enough sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to reflect the small percentage of sunlight necessary to offset increased warming caused by carbon dioxide. This scheme is akin to the cooling induced by large volcanic explosions.
2. Manufacture sea salt spray to change the way clouds form over the ocean to increase their reflectivity.
3. Cover the earth's non-sandy deserts with a material composed of a white polyethylene top and an aluminum bottom. That would increase the albedo of those surfaces, cooling the earth.
4. Use chemical processes to pull carbon dioxide out of the air and sequester it in geological reservoirs.
7. Create charcoal from biomass, effectively sequestering the carbon in the plant matter, and bury it.
9. Breed or genetically engineer shinier crops to increase the reflectivity of the world's farmed land.
12. Plant massive amounts of trees across the Earth and count on them to sequester more carbon dioxide naturally.
16. Cool down huge amounts of water with large pumps to form and thicken sea ice that would in turn cool the sea water. That water would descend to the depths, taking a bit of extra carbon with it.
17. Make cities considerably more reflective by, say, painting roofs white.

Check out the complete Wired article, including awesome graphics.

At the very least, I feel a bit less guilty about not secretly splashing white paint on all the roofs of the city.

The Effect of Forwards

When I receive forwards from friends or family, particularly ones warning me of the dangers of something or "informing" me of some obscure aspect of a policy, I immediately go to Snopes to check the validity of the information. I then typically hit "reply all" and send the results of my search out to all the other victims. Yes, I am that girl.

That said, it should be obvious why I feel that this one is worth sharing.

I just want to thank everyone for the educational emails over the past year...

Thanks to you, I no longer open a public bathroom door without using a paper towel.

I can't use the remote in a hotel room because I don't know what the last person was doing while flipping through the channels.

I can't sit down on the hotel bedspread because I can only imagine what has happened on it since it was last washed.

I can't enjoy lemon slices in my tea or on my seafood anymore because lemon peels have been found to contain all kinds of nasty germs including feces.

I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one pastime while driving alone is picking your nose.

Eating a Little Debbie sends me on a guilt trip because I can only imagine how many gallons of trans fats I have consumed over the years.

I can't touch any woman's purse for fear she has placed it on the floor of a public bathroom.

I must send my special thanks to whoever sent me the one about poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing.

Also, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program .

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer can buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put 'Under God' on their cans.

I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.

And thanks for letting me know I can't boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face, disfiguring me for life.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with HIV.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from UPS or FedEx since they are actually Al-Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our American troops or the Salvation Army.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore and Uzbekistan.

I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman-Marcus since I now have their recipe.

Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my butt.

And thanks to your great advice, I can't ever pick up $500 dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a rapist waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 PM this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician.

Have a wonderful day!

A Positive First Step

I remember the day I learned that Bush had implemented a policy to deny funding to all international aid groups that offered the option of, or even counseling about, abortion. It was one of his very first acts in office - and that day I hated him, perhaps more than I had hated anyone.

I was a sophomore in college, which goes to say that I was really a kid with a lot of fight in me ready to protest all the ills of the world. I had campaigned for Bill Bradley, then Gore, and although I would later come to respect some aspects of the Bush presidency after 9/11, on that day I hated him.

His act to showcase his strong pro-life stance and satisfy the fundamentalists who furthered his campaign also happened to cut funding for organizations that provided emergency protection for victims of oppression, abuse, rape, and war all across the world. Aid organizations in Africa assisting refugees of the war could no longer accept U.S. funds because they would counsel a woman on ALL of her options in a pregnancy (often as a result of an assault). Across Asia and Eastern Europe, budgets were slashed for organizations helping women in all kinds of perilous situations. Medical services groups like Planned Parenthood, that often serve as the primary health care provider for low-income women, couldn't rely on help from the U.S.. In my eyes, it was a devastating day.

I won't get into the argument about abortion - to me that's not what this is about - the U.S. was NEVER funding abortions. The idea of cutting funding to a group that offers counseling on abortion is a message that the U.S. will not help a fellow human because of an ideological belief. We will not help you with this concern, because the organization that is helping you will also tell someone else the truth about her choices. Regardless of how you feel about abortion, limiting NECESSARY healthcare because of this is ridiculous. It's like telling my coworker I won't work with her on a project because she disagreed with me on a personal issue. It's a petty punishment that has no place in the world relief conversation.

Obama changed that today.


I don't know that Obama is going to be a great president. I hope. I hope he will be, but I don't know that his leanings toward community organization and socialist principals will be the answer. Maybe. I do know, though, that this act is an incredible step in a good direction. We are telling the world that we will not let ideology get in the way of our place as a world power - we will help regardless of religious belief or ignorance about world situations.

Scary Day in a Quiet Neighborhood

The 36 yr old interior designer who lives next door to my office just knocked on our door crying. Wednesday afternoon (apparently right after I left work), a black man (meaning, someone we could NEVER identify in this neighborhood because it doesn't exist), came in through her back door (about 4pm), and bolted when her dog started growling and took off after him. The police say he came in through our alleyway door (the new interior store below leaves it open frequently), walked up our deck stairs, walked past my office's back door and into her apartment. They think, because of the time of day, how he got in, and some other things I don't know, that he was not coming in to burglarize, but to attack her. Police say it seems like he may have watched her for awhile to know that she lives alone, and that he knew she was there, and he knew we had left. He was wearing very heavy cologne, and she feels like she can still smell it. She came to our office because when she left she forgot her key and needed to get in through our windows. I'm glad she did, because she was incapable of going into her home alone. She was trembling and crying most of the time while I talked with her while she packed a weekend bag to go to her boyfriend's place. she's moving in with her boyfriend because she can't deal with being alone now. The guy didn't even touch her, but the violation of her space and the fear have totally changed her life - she is moving out herof her home of 5 years because she is too scared to be there, and she is now afraid to be alone.

This is a reminder to me that we can be lulled into a sense of security, but we still live in a big city and need to be safe. I, for one, noticed that one of our windows in the kitchen at the office (the window that this man walked right past and could have easily come into) doesn't lock. I just want to ask my girls out there to please take an extra moment today to make sure you're not allowing yourself to be a target.

http://www.wiredsafety.org/wired_women/gb/personal_safety.html

Diane Vadino Can Kiss My Rump

Diane Vadino wrote a terrible review of 8 cities one shouldn't live, but should visit.

San Francisco: Do not try this for home
San Francisco seduces, to be sure. Walk certain streets — up crowded, curving Lombard, along Union to Coit Tower, from Cole Valley to Twin Peaks — and every intersection reveals a picture-postcard view: of two iconic bridges, pinpoints of light flickering across the bay, of golden sunshine filtering through stands of eucalyptus trees.

Other neighborhoods, though, reveal images more police-blotter than tourism-brochure: a staggering homeless population, rampant open-air drug use, public parks and buses made intimidating and unsafe by unruly combinations of both. To live in San Francisco is to daily confront these issues — and probably from under a dense bank of fog. (The climate's as much London as it is L.A.)

By all means: Come. Dress warmly. Climb Twin Peaks. Visit SF MOMA, the new DeYoung, and the Legion of Honor, three world-class art museums. Shop Hayes Valley and Valencia Street; get brunch at Tartine, lunch at the Dolores Park Café, snacks at Bi-Rite, and dinner at Delfina. (This can be accomplished without leaving one short stretch of 18th Street, quite possibly the world's most densely packed row of organic and locally produced deliciousness.)

Rent a car on a nice day and drive across the Golden Gate to Point Reyes National Seashore for scenery that suggests an impossibly sunny Scotland. And then, go home, safe in the knowledge that San Francisco puts on its best face for its guests. Leave the hard work of citizenship to the locals.
- Diane Vadino

She thinks one shouldn't live in SF, partly because of rampant open air drug use. Are they still calling pot smoking open air drug use? Someone shoudl let her in on a little secret: the neighborhoods she refers to as "other neighborhoods" are not places locals go to unless they WANT to, and the "unruly combinations" of people making bus lines unsafe are on the bus lines that go to those other neighborhoods that locals only use if they WANT to.

Screw you, Ms. Vadino. Go live happily in your hole in the middle of Nebraska and leave us all the heck alone.