Dear Supervisor Dufty, My church, the First Unitarian Universalist Society at Franklin and Geary, houses and supports a free, after-school program for 24 students from John Swett elementary.  The after-school program, Up On Top, has been going on for several years and keeps kids from very-low-income safe and nurtured after their classes. If these kids are transferred, it is likely that they cannot continue in Up On Top. Currently, volunteers and staff walk the children from the school to the church up Franklin Street.  If John Swett closes and the children are further away, we cannot get them into our building. Up On [...]

Gill Gross on the 3 pm ABC network radio news reported on a state supreme court (Florida?? I wasn't listening) ruling that said that the state university had to provide domestic partners with certain benefits. The only hitch, the reporter said, was that the partners had to prove that they were having sex.  Gross concluded, "Fortunately there is no such requirement for married couples."

The old joke has the man who murdered both of his parents beg the court for mercy because he's an orphan. Clarence Ray Allen's legal pleas remind me of that black junior high school humor.  Allen is asking courts to declare that executing an old, sick man is cruel and unusual punishment.  Of course, he's only old and able to be sick because he's worked the justice system for 20-some-odd years.  He's aged to a normal life expectancy since being convicted of murdering a witness to a previous murder he committed.  That he is infirm is a function of his [...]

I'm ready to pronounce the holidays officially over. Drinking mint tea, listening to the light rain on the skylight, cozy on an otherwise damp and darkish morning, I have gone through the stack of late-arriving cards.  The ones mailed on the 23rd, 24th, and even later.  The ones that didn't make our Christmas Eve opening and reading festival. News of jobs lost and found. Pictures of handsome mothers and fathers with predictably, satisfyingly adorable children. Handwritten notes. Typed annual letters. Great stuff.  A happily complete holiday season. Over for another 11 1/2 months. 

One of my church Search Committee cohorts suggested a number of these online de-motivational  posters to, ah... help us through our work. A few looked familiar, but most were surprises. Check out the whole selection of de-motivational aids.

It's a blustery rain storm.  In areas near streams and rivers, there will be traditional flooding.  Mud will slide. KBC radio has been in emergency "storm watch" mode.  For much of this early morning they've been commercial free.  One of their reporters lost his personal SUV in flood waters and had to break out the rear window to escape drowning.  (Frightening story.) The National Weather Service reported "GUSTS HAVE REACHED 68 MPH AT ANGEL ISLAND...51 MPH AT THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE...AND 47 MPH AT  SFO " Our Noe Valley weather station peaked the wind at 39 mph a few minutes [...]

I am on my church's search committee for a new minister. After we narrow down our list of candidates to four or five, we are flying them out to San Francisco and interviewing them on separate weekends. Part of the committee's job, of course, is to get them to fall in love with The City.  To do this, we are collecting San Francisco items to remind them of their stay.  It's a goodie bag of mementos -- it's not a bribe.  Really. One of the items we decided to include the gift bag is a DVD of a movie made [...]

So many ways to share pictures! This morning I tried Flickr .  It has no way to order the pictures the way I want them. On the other hand, they do have handy links to let people order DVDs or hard copy prints. I fought Roxio Easy CD Creator 7 last weekend trying for a DVD slide show of 40 pictures.  The program was seriously buggy, but would have good features (if it worked).  Does version 8 work better?  Is there a better slide show program online or on PC? Arrgh!  The agony of options!