A newsletter of opinion and analysis
Established 1987
On the Web since 1995
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A newsletter of opinion and analysis Established 1987 On the Web since 1995 |
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July 8, 2008BETSEY CULPWall-E's Song(Warning: Contains a spoiler.) Once upon a time, in the not-too-distant future, the material world overwhelmed the physical world. In other words, there was so much garbage on earth that it crowded out the people. Human beings, being human and therefore somewhat intelligent, realized the spot they were in and took off for outer space, leaving a corps of robots to clean up the mess they had made. For several centuries, the bots labored, gathering up debris, compacting it into cubes, and piling them neatly. Over time, the mechanical workers began to fall apart, until only one remained. July 1, 2008BETSEY CULPThe Gold StandardFriday is the Fourth of July. The day, in 1776, when thirteen little American colonies in completed a document announcing that they,
The Declaration of Independence set off a series of events that changed the world. But so did another document, proclaimed on another Fourth of July. On July 4, 1848 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican-American War and attached “Upper California” to the United States. June 22, 2008Long Ball DeliveredOn the occasion of the first rebranding of naming-rights for our ballpark, from Pac Bell to SBC in early 2004, I published the following letter in the San Francisco Chronicle.
June 13, 2008BETSEY CULPSummer in the City: BeginningsSumer is icumen in, the old song says. And quite a summer it promises to be. In addition to the usual games at City Hall, there will be June weddings, lots of them, led off by the remarriage of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, this time in a court-sanctioned ceremony. In the beginning, there were two women. They founded a social club called the Daughters of Bilitis because they wanted a place to hang out with their friends and dance… with each other. June 6, 2008BETSEY CULPBlock That Metaphor!As the dust begins to settle from Tuesday’s elections, here and in Montana and South Dakota, a few blurry shapes are becoming visible through the murk of campaign ads and media hype. The Chronicle’s Bill Whalen seems to have been the only person to notice that we — the State of California — shot ourselves in the foot when we changed the date of our presidential primary from June 3 to February 5. June 3, 2008BETSEY CULPIt's a Cat's LifeJust across Cesar Chavez from the “gritty Mission,” Bernal Hill rises 433 feet into the sky. Perhaps because it has more than the city’s usual allotment of open space, it’s also home to more than the city’s usual assortment of four-legged critters. In addition to the famed coyote, there are raccoons and possums and skunks galore. Several shops on the hill place bowls of biscuits on their counters for the resident dogs. And there are cats, lots of them. May 30, 2008BETSEY CULPTwo Faces of SFWhen I was growing up, my father had a career in mind for me. Let me put this in context. My father was weird. He also traveled a lot. And he enjoyed the company of attractive women who tended to his creature comforts. He wanted me to be a stewardess. May 27, 2008BETSEY CULPA Prayer for Saint SamuelIt’s hard for the City of San Francisco to get a fair shake these days, either in the media or among the general American public. Its image precedes its reality. And that image, as we who live here know all too well, is misleading. You can blame it on the hippies. But I blame it on Saint Francis. May 23, 2008BETSEY CULPA Tale of Two ShipyardsSomebody — I think it was Jon Carroll — said once that a good column contained an idea and a half. Here’s the idea. Sometime, just once, it would be nice if this city decided to do something because it was the right thing to do, and not because it was profitable. Yesterday’s Chronicle carried a front-page story about Lennar’s proposed development of Candlestick Point and the Hunters Point Shipyard.
May 19, 2008BETSEY CULPDeath in the City — A Grave TalentIn case you were worried, it’s still a man’s world. In spite of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency, sexism is still alive and well in the United States. If anything, Clinton’s visibility on the stump has opened doors for sexist remarks that would probably have remained private a few years ago. And women have noticed. |
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