Lee.org

Some fliers made it to the front step of the building. They remind me that I live in San Freaky Cisco.

From the website…

Rent control has been a road block for Landowners, but it does not stop them from taking advantage of renters. For example:

- 2 bedroom apartments being advertised as 4 bedrooms
(calling the living room and dining room bedrooms),
charging twice the value of the apartment to maximize profits.
So, this guy didn’t actually notice he was moving into a tiny city apartment?

- realtors bribing senior tenants to move out so they
can jack up the rent to “market value.”
Hmm, good idea

- renters fixing their apartments themselves instead of calling
the Landowners afraid inspections will force them out.
So this guy would rather continue to live in a place that -should- be condemned rather than use the existing laws and force the landlord to make repairs? Ok… umm…

I like that the website has a (insane) poison pill statement

The FBI in the Bay Area with help from the police have been known in the past to spread disinformation to prevent popular movements from interfering with business as usual, (COINTELPRO era and beyond). DO NOT TRUST any rent strike statement you see that is racist, authoritarian, anti immigrant, sexist, factional, or contradicts anything you read in this statement. With the economy in the state that it’s in today a rent strike could very well scare many wealthy Landowners and realty companies (look up COINTELPRO).

Removing Landowners’ control over properties they don’t live on would be real property reform. They definitely shouldn’t control or profit from land they don’t need (use your imagination). Striking rent could be the beginning of this process. Our ability to organize our community will determine how successful striking rent will be.

I went to his recommended website and found this list of how terrible CitiApartments/Skyline is.

* Showing up at tenant’s doors late at night with a couple of big guys, for “inspections”
The law says they have to be “announced” and appear at a “reasonable time”. Dude, just tell them to come back tommorrow!

* Snooping around tenants’ apartments on false pretenses like inspections, and then looking for things they can use against tenants
What illegal activities were you hiding?

* Telling tenants “we can do this the easy way, or the hard way”
So you did something that caused the building to be condemned, got caught and the landlord asked you to leave. It was time to quit yesterday. Why didn’t you just leave?

* setting up tables in the lobby with a photo copier and demanding ID from tenants
Huh?

* putting notices up saying tenants aren’t allowed in the building
Wha?

* refusing to repair elevators in buildings full of seniors
If the elevator is in the lease, make them fix it. If not…

* telling tenants they will call the FBI, homeland security, or immigration on them
Ok, what did you do? Really?

* (in at least one case) showing up at a tenants’ door wearing fatigues and a firearm
The landlord has a license to carry in your San Francisco neighborhood? Man, you live in a shitty neighborhood. You should really move!

* pretending they didn’t receive rent and then issuing evictions for lack of payment of rent
You didn’t pay by check and you didn’t get a receipt. Ok.

* issuing evictions for roommates “in violation of lease” when roommates are legal tenants
Are they? What -exactly- does your lease say? Your friends can’t crash on your couch forever, really.

* refusing to pay interest on security deposits
Dude, it’s like 1% interest.

* telling immigrants or people of color that their “money isn’t good here”
???

* videotaping tenants as they walk out of their doors
That sounds like a good thing, since even the landlord, who is packing, got mugged with your rent money.

* letting bedbug epidimics run unabated
Umm…. get a new bed? Bedbugs are hard to get rid of, really.

* doing construction on buildings in such an irritating way that tenants are forced to leave
Yes, you’re right, they should use hammer muffs.

* demanding meetings with tenants at the church and market office
Those Bitches!

* trying to impose draconian house rules on tenants
Like…. “Turn off your faucet before you go out of town”?

* trying to require that tenants tell them when they’re leaving town
See previous item.

* issuing evictions when tenants leave town for the weekend
Evictions take weeks. And why are you getting evicted? Oh yeah, you left the faucet on for 3 months while you were out of town.

* issuing evictions for messy apartments
Dude, if it smells, you really should clean it up.

* requiring tenants to hand deliver their checks
Or their cash, as the case may be, right?

* failing to fix the heat
San Francisco law is quite clear about how much heat an apartment should get. If you want a sauna, move to Iceland. They have lots of those there.

* claiming tenants are “nuisances” and then offering them market rate rooms in other buildings
Wha?

Here’s the new chant for our picket line:

Free Housing! No Rent!

Free Rent! No Housing!

Baking yeast at Whole Foods: $3 for 3 0.25 oz packets. $64/lb

Baking yeast at Restaurant Depot: $2.29 for a 1lb brick. $2.29/lb

Whole Foods costs 28 times as much. Yipe.

Safeway isn’t much better.

Costco, Sams Club and similar stores also have the 1lb brick of yeast. If you make more than 3 loaves of bread this year, it’s worth getting the large size. With my breadmaker, I make about 30 loaves/year. Rainbow also has bulk yeast.

Yeast lasts at least 1 year in the freezer… except for the yeast I got at Rainbow. I’m pretty sure it needs to be refrigerated and not frozen because twice now I got yeast there, made a loaf, froze the rest and the yeast was dead after.

Sure, it’s easy to upload your company’s videos and your friend’s videos to Youtube. It’s hosted for free and can stand virtually unlimited downloads. But I can do that right here at my web provider without giving my content to a third party… who -might- be around in 5 years and -might- keep the links to my content the same for 5 years, without selling out to Youtube’s advertising.

Yes, you’ll get more exposure by posting to Youtube. And using their limitless bandwidth for high-bandwidth applications is nice. But you should post locally and then consider posting to Youtube as part of your marketing plan or “emergency bandwidth plan”. Always link back to the original content. It’s just too easy to give the “keys to the store” to too many people.

Update 3-13-08: I just read this article about Youtube. It reminds me of Kozmo.com in the dot com era.

Rex Wong, chief executive of Next.TV (formerly Dave Networks)… says, it costs a provider about $2.50 for every 1,000 views of a user-generated three-minute video clip. But that clip will bring in just $1 or so in banner ad revenue, he says. In other words, says Wong, profit can only be made when clips are getting tens of thousands of views.

So let me get this straight: it costs $2.50 to serve 1,000 views… and that generates $1 in revenue. (1-2.5=-1.5) And if we do that a whole lot, we’ll make it up in volume! Yeah.

Me at work:
>> Do you know how I can allow my Windows and Exchange passwords can be
>> different? If not, say so and I’ll go googling for info.

Him:
>I do not know off hand, I would need to research it.

So does that mean he -will- research it or he -could- research it? And why didn’t he take me up on my offer? Maybe he didn’t read my whole (2 sentence long) email.

No seriously. At the end of the ingredients list of tens of thousands of products it reads “and spices”. So what are they? Pepper? Nope, ’cause I’ve seen things that list pepper separately. Salt? No, they always list that. Oregano? Bug parts? Plutonium? Dirt? What?! I want to know!

[written 9-25-02 updated 1-24-03]

I wrote to Governor James McGreevey on 8-29-02 about this. I wrote:

Please do not rename Newark International Airport “Liberty International Airport at Newark”.

- Newark Airport had nothing to do with the attack. They’ll name the new World Trade Center after the attack, that is enough of a scar for it to leave.
- It’s a bland name that doesn�t identify the purpose for it’s naming.
- The reason for it’s naming will be completely moot (and mocked) the next time a terrorist attacks the US. And that will happen, sooner or later.
- It’s an ungainly name that doesn’t indicate where it is. The word “Newark” got tagged on at the end like the name of a shopping mall�. “The Mall at Short Hills”.

“Newark Liberty International Airport” is a slightly better choice but it still sucks.

Please don’t.

As you may know, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey recently approved changing the name of the facility from Newark Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport. Through the new name, Newark Liberty International honors the memory of the heroes of September 11, 2001, and reminds us all of the principles upon which our nation is founded.

Great, let’s go on a renaming spree… Jersey Truth City, Hudson Freedom River, New Liberty York City, The Empire Justice State Building….

Also, after I thought about this a while, I really really don’t want to use an airport named after an airline disaster! Would you want to sail on Norwegian Cruise Line’s Iceberg Princess? Or how about working in the Towering Inferno Towers? Or working in the McVey Towers office complex? This is so sick, it’s funny! No, it’s just sick.

1-24-03 I recently got an email from a total stranger (now I suppose he’s an “acquaintance” :-) about this Rant. He gave permission for me to repost his comments here:

I just wanted to say that I enjoyed your website. What prompts me to write, however, is your Rant about the renaming of EWK. I’m from Jersey, born in Elizabeth, lived there for 22 years. Now I’m in Northern Virginia. Down here, the GOP recently re-named Washington National Airport, Reagan National Airport in honor of the Conqueror of Genada, the Pasha of Panama, and the B’wana of Bedtime for Bonzo, his imperial excellency, Mister Nancy Reagan. (Personally, I can’t wait ’til they re-re-name it Reagan Memorial Airport.) Courageously, our Metro system refused to budget money for new signs for the airport MetroRail station, and they remained unchanged until Congress provided emergency funding money to make the alterations. No one here (except political appointees) calls it Reagan Airport. In the people’s eyes, it will always be Washington National. But I know how you feel about the issue. Actually, “Newark Liberty” isn’t half-bad. Beats “Reagan”.

Winch

And here is my response to him about this:

That stupid Reagan airport thing too! Ugh! I followed that in congress while it was happening. I had to turn off CSPAN, it made me so angry! The argument was that he was a “great” president and should be honored as such. But there is no way that anyone could tell if his legacy would be “great” until 10 or 20 years after he left office! By their reckoning, a president that printed money and gave it to the people would be “great”… until the currency devaluation catches up with everyone. Oh wait, that’s what happened.

To followup on this story just a little more… Yes, the Governor renamed Newark Airport. The question is, will anyone acknowledge the name change? A quick search on Google.com on 1-24-03 is enlightening.

After a year, no one has changed their websites to match the name change.

After 10 years, the old name is still more popular than the new one!

Why is it that so few of my friends put even a single photo of themselves on their homepage? Are they all -that- shy? Phoey on them!

[Written 3-23-03]

It’s true.

Megan’s Law is a sex offender registry. The idea is that if a community knows about a sex-offender in their midst, they can protect themselves against the person. It -should- be a pedophile registry, but it isn’t, it’s a more general sex-offender registry.

[Unfinished Rant]

Find:
O’Brien, Tim. 1996. Would Megan’s Law Have Saved Megan. New Jersey Law Journal 8 July, 1, 24-25.

The Brady Gun Law wouldn’t have saved Brady
The Brady Law forces waiting periods for handguns and background checks for potential purchasers. Although he has serious psychological problems, that wasn’t medically recorded until after the incident. John Hinckley wouldn’t have been stopped or even slowed down by these restrictions.

Jenna’s Law probably wouldn’t have saved Jenna
Jenna’s Law (1998) in New York State reduces the amount of “time off for good behavior” that a violent criminal can receive. It increases the actual time served from 66% of the sentence to 85% of the sentence. Her murderer, Nicholas Pryor had served 2/3 of his 14 year sentence (9.3 years) and was released on parole. During that parole, he killed Jenna Grieshaber. Jenna’s Law reasons that if he had served that extra 2.6 years, Jenna would be alive today.

Eh, I don’t buy it.

Sean’s Law would have saved Sean
Sean’s Law (enacted in NY in 2003) revokes the driver’s license or permit of a junior driver upon their first appearance in court… not at the arraignment 3 weeks later. It seems reasonable that a young driver might not have a handle on the whole “don’t drink and drive” thing. Phew, at least some of the laws are reasonable.

Kendra’s Law wouldn’t have saved Kendra (or Edgar)
This NY state law enacted in 2000 requires that people with a history of not taking their mental illness medication be forced into treatment. Unfortunately, her killer, Andrew Goldstein wasn’t resisting treatment. (reference: USA Today article) A few months after Kendra was killed, Edgar Rivera was killed by Julio Perez. Julio hadn’t resisted treatment either. Actually, he was begging for treatment. Read this snippet from Mcmanweb.

Two weeks before the subway incident, Julio called a friend, panic-stricken because he needed medicine and his Medicaid card had been canceled. Two days before the attack, he again called his friend, saying he wanted to go into a hospital, but he failed to make a planned rendezvous. On the day of the attack, he actually presented himself in the emergency room of a VA hospital, and later that day appeared at a police station and a courthouse to file a complaint against his “enemies”.

The Jeanne Clery Act probably wouldn’t have saved Jeanne Clery
(though I think disclosure is a very good thing)

The website says

Jeanne’s parents, Connie and Howard, discovered that students hadn’t been told about 38 violent crimes on the Lehigh campus in the three years before her murder.

By using the Jeanne Clery Disclosure website, I can see that in 2001 through 2003, there were 41 violent crimes involving students (including “non-campus” incidents).

By snagging some numbers , it looks like the national average of violent crimes in college in 1999 was (roughly) around 50 per 100,000 students per year. Lehigh’s crime rate was about 38/3 / 6,800 students = roughly 100 per 100,000 students per year. I haven’t researched this fully but it looks like Lehigh was “a bit more” dangerous than the average school. Would she have still gone to the school if she had known? I’d argue “probably”.

What Jeanne didn’t Know

Her killer was a drug and alcohol abuser, a Lehigh student whom Jeanne had never met. He gained access to her room by proceeding, unopposed, through three propped-open doors, each of which should have been locked. He was convicted and sentenced to death.
…
After learning that Lehigh had unilaterally absolved itself of blame in Jeanne’s death, we had no choice but to turn to the courts, suing the college for negligent failure of security and failure to warn of foreseeable dangers on campus. In 1988 Lehigh settled with us and agreed to materially enhance security on its campus….

Through my limited crime statistics info on the Lehigh campus, it unfortunately don’t seem like the security enhancements have done any good. I only know what’s been said on their website but it would seem tremendously difficult to prevent a smart, murderous Lehigh University student from entering a small suburban dorm (The Centenial II Complex) like the one Jeanne lived in.

The following is a very startling statement:
A recent survey, cited by the U.S. House of representatives, reported that thirty-eight percent of college women questioned had either been raped or were victims of felony sexual assaults.

But that doesn’t make sense… From 1998 to 2000, there were 5,500 “Forcible Sex Offenses” and “Nonforcible Sex Offenses”. Divide that by 3 for 1,833 per year. There are approximately 9 million college students in America. That means you have a 1,800 in 9 million chance of being a sex offense victim per year. 1,800 * 5 years in college / 9 million = 0.1% chance of being a victim in college. Lets take a wild guess and say that fully 3/4 of those 9 million aren’t undergraduates. that changes it to a 0.4% chance of being a victim… these numbers aren’t adding up.

I fear and loathe random crimes like this one as much as her parents did. The steps her parents took were, I believe very positive ones and will likely reduce college crime. But sadly, it probably would not have saved Jeanne Clery.

The Protect Act would not have saved Amber. Though AMBER Alert very well might have saved Amber

AMBER Alert is a good idea. It has saved lives. One should note that no laws needed to be created to enact the AMBER system. The “Protect Act” which President Bush signed in 2003 supposedly in support of the AMBER Alert is by and large a pile of horse shit. It enacts a pile of worthless, expensive, rights violating laws supposedly in the name of Amber Hagerman.

I will show you what the Protect Act does (according to Wikipedia). Take a moment and ask if any of these laws would have prevented or protected Amber Hagerman from being kidnapped and killed. (note that her murder is still unsolved)

* Provides for mandatory life imprisonment of sex offenses against a minor if the offender has had a prior conviction of abuse against a minor, with some exceptions.
* Establishes a program to obtain criminal history background checks for volunteer organizations.
* Authorizes wiretapping and monitoring of other communications in all cases related to child abuse or kidnapping.
* Eliminates statutes of limitations for child abduction or child abuse.
* Bars pretrial release of persons charged with specified offenses against or involving children.
* Assigns a national AMBER Alert Coordinator.
* Implemented Suzanne’s Law. Named after Suzanne Lyall, a missing college student of the University of New York at Albany, the law eliminates waiting periods before law enforcement agencies will investigate reports of missing persons ages 18-21. These reports are also filed with the NCIC.
* Prohibits computer-generated child pornography.
* Prohibits drawings, sculptures, and pictures of such drawings and sculptures depicting minors in (Miller test) obscene OR engaged in sex acts.
* Maximum sentence of 5 years for possession, 10 years for distribution.
* Authorizes fines and/or imprisonment for up to 30 years for U.S. citizens or residents who engage in illicit sexual conduct abroad.
* Does not include drawings, anime, cartoons, and/or comic satire.

[written 2-28-03]

On 2-25-03, some 55 web sites that sold “drug paraphernalia” like water pipes and bongs were shut down by the DEA.

I went to check out a couple of the sites that had been shut down, among them AHeadCase.com and SmokeLab.com. The sites have been replaced by this absolutely ridiculous government page. It reads:

By application of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, the website you are attempting to visit has been restrained by the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania pursuant to Title 21, United States Code, Section 853(e)(1)(A).

Dude, I was so stoned, it felt like my head was this big!

I noticed that these pages loaded peculiarly slowly so I took a look at the source of the pages… It’s such an obscene waste of HTML that it’s not even funny! They took the 40 word sentence, 230 characters in all and governmentalized the HTML. Take a guess how many characters are in the actual HTML? Think about it for a second… you need some header info, some font info… image referrer… maybe another 10 lines of code right? WRONG. They puffed this single sentence into 15,312 characters… That’s 15 kilobytes of information… 66 times the actual document size! How did they manage to vomit such a quantity of red tape on the internet?!?! They should be arrested for such an obscene display of code!

In case those pages aren’t up anymore, I’ve archived one here. The document is actually so fucked up, they couldn’t fit it in one .html file. There’s an index.html and a header.htm. And the big kicker is, they dicked around with 15 K of worthless HTML and then used the lowest quality background image of the American flag they possibly could. The image is only 10K! It feels like they are burning the flag!

Here I am, foaming at the mouth about this, and I haven’t even gotten to the part about our own federal government shutting down legitimate, profitable businesses!

[written 5-9-02 updated 1-24-03]

People habitually use the term “RSVP” incorrectly.

It is a French acronym for “R�pondez s’il vous pla�t”. Translated into English, that’s “Respond if you please”.

So, when one puts that on a letter, one means to say, “Tell me whether you are coming or not.”. If you are coming, tell me. If you are not coming, tell me. Etiquette demands that you respond one way or the other. A non-response is an insult.

Many people think that it just means, “Call me back if (and only if) you are coming.” That is wrong wrong wrong.
————–

1-24-03

A friend of mine throws these big parties with long lead times. One thing that he does, that I really really like is a graduated RSVP list. He writes:

I. Send me email and let me know whether you are
1) Definitely attending
2) Probably attending
3) Maybe attending
4) Probably not attending
or 5) Not attending

If your response is 1), 2), 3) or 4), you will receive all the followup mailings until you tell me to stop.

A few weeks later, we all get a list with the RSVP list of who will Definitely be there, Probably… etc. It works out very well..