The Misguided Master Plan

By willfully ignoring most of San Francisco’s residents, the Board of Supervisors and the MTA have created a master plan that makes no sense at all. It demands that people ride bicycles or use a transit system that doesn’t work. All the changes required will be paid for by extending parking meter hours, raising parking rates, raising parking fines, installing tolls into San Francisco, plus an assortment of added fees for everything from paying on line to doing what the MTA wants you to do, ride the bus.

Like so many other plans hatched by our insulated administrators, this one is based on a demonstrably false set of beliefs about who we are and how we live.

The enduring fiction is that cars and their drivers are evil, but bicyclists are holy. We impose fees on auto ownership, order police to prioritize bike theft and design streets to serve bicyclists needs, but do not enact fees for bike registration or instigate safe riding exams for bicyclists. Bicycles, the myth goes, are good for the environment.

The idea that bike riding is an environmentally sound transit solution, one that we should repave our streets to accommodate, is ridiculous. According to the League of American Bicyclists, only 2.1 percent of San Franciscans who work ride bikes to work. Those who do bike, often take their bikes on buses and BART.

The number and type of bicyclists remains constant because people do not convert to bike riding, but move into, then away from it. As people move into their professional lives, age and have children, bike riding becomes a recreational activity, not a commuting choice. Yet, we have developed an urban plan around the loud but short-sighted desires of 15,000 people in our population of 800,000.

Buses, streetcars and BART trains are dirty, dangerous and don’t run to places or at times that people need to use them. If you live anywhere except along a BART or Metro corridor, it is safer and more expedient to drive than to take public transportation, especially on weekends and at night. MTA director Ford thinks that a 51% disapproval rate is somewhat satisfying, yet keeps his job, so there’s no hope things will get better.

Residents of our largest neighborhoods, on the far side of Twin Peaks, are stifled by the loud voices of Mission district hipsters and downtown developers. Older adults, people with children, people who have long term investments in public schools and public parks, must compete for attention and funding with people demanding we save the planet by banning grocery bags while developers get tax breaks to build huge “luxury” condo complexes without parking spaces in our densest areas.

It’s become fashionable to proclaim grand concepts – Transit First! - without asking what the slogan really means or how it’s supposed to work. It should be easy to have clean buses and reliable schedules. Bicycles and cars have shared roads since the invention of the combustion engine.

The idea of San Francisco becoming a "green" city is ill served by this foolish transit plan. Taking care of our parks, our largest tree filled areas, would add more oxygen to the atmosphere than thousands of huffing bicyclists. Changing - and enforcing - building and noise abatement codes to encourage accessible open space, tree filled yards, reduce house size and making it illegal to cannibalize backyards, will add oxygen creating, sound baffling swaths of green that migratory and native birds rely upon.

Our plans have become so small, our political will so stunted that we spend money on petty personal projects and on demonizing particular people rather than on responsible, long-term development. There are sensible solutions that require foresight and forego identity politics. Unfortunately, this town has institutionalized incompetence and wrapped itself in social issues to hide the decay of practical administration of government functions.

Health Cares

For the past year I’ve been dependent upon on the US health care system to keep me alive the way I’ve had to depend on an unfamiliar mechanic to repair a car broken down a long way from home. The last thing anyone who is sick wants to do is deal with the complexities and frustrations of an insurance company. Unfortunately, it’s what we US citizens must do because our politicians cannot manage to create a health system that serves the citizenry.

Even with full coverage (and a high deductible) by United Heath Care, my medical bills are extraordinary. If I spent the same amount of money on a vacation that I spent on co-payments, drugs and non-covered fees, I would have been able to travel to and around Europe for a month, going first class all the way. Like the items my health insurer didn’t cover - surgical tubing, band-aids, several prescriptions, a second opinion – such expenses would be considered unnecessary, perhaps frivolous.

The argument against a single payer or universal health care is that the level of care would sink to unacceptable levels and we would all get sick and die more often. I imagine this means that doctors would become poor practitioners, make mistakes more often and resent their patients. Hospitals would turn into dormitories for the sick. Health care would become a gigantic, clumsy, inept clinic system with treatment based on the cheapest available medication and the quickest surgical procedures possible, an assembly line that Kaiser would envy. As if this hasn’t happened already.

The medical profession has already lost much of its independence because insurers now “pre-approve” procedures and treatments, thus forcing patients to chose between debt and health. I had to argue for payment of the ICU after I had been transferred there from the OR while unconscious. United Health Care originally stated they had to determine whether the ICU was necessary in order to be covered. My unconsciousness was not an acceptable explanation; my doctor, they argued, was conscious and capable of phoning them from the OR.

In a letter sent on the day I was transferred to the ICU, UHC told me they would contact me and my physician to determine the best possible course of treatment. UHC was telling me and my doctor what to do.

How is it that a universal health care system, modeled on a similar country like Canada, which works very well, is not discussed as a goal, as a key political issue and a mandate from millions of disgruntled and injured Americans? Insurance representatives are not health professionals, yet the law and the current health care system demands that as publicly held corporations, insurance companies’ responsibility is to make a profit because their responsibility is to their stockholders, not to those covered by their insurance. Private companies have a responsibility to their owners, not to their investors, employees, contractors or clients.

Why is it considered impossible to make a universal health care system that costs less than what we spend now, 15% of our gross national product (the highest percentage in the world), when it’s so easy to construct the argument and the facilities for war? Health is a delicate balance of the many factors that allow us to live at all. Creating and maintaining our shared physical and psychic environment, safe working conditions, accessibility to practitioners and availability of medicines, encouraging the complete education of health care workers and of patients, regulating and controlling the food supply, pharmaceuticals and the entire infrastructure are all the responsibility of our elected representatives.

As long as we allow campaigns to be funded by lobbyists and determine our priorities according to those that scream the loudest –like the big mouths on talk radio - or raise the most money – like pharmaceutical and gun manufacturers - we declare money is the same as speech. Until we no longer allow corporations to be legally considered individuals with rights but without responsibilities, we are going to be sick and tired.

I am both those things and angry as well – and I haven’t even seen Sicko! I explain to anyone who will listen that taxes aren’t bad, if they are spent well and on important things, on things that strengthen society like schools and pertinent regulation. I write to my representatives and to newspaper editors. I spend time and money on organizations that espouse a universal heath care system and proper health care standards.

And I hope I don’t break down in the desert.

Level playing fields

John Tierney of the NY Times is once more confusing sexism with rational thought.

In January he argued that men should tell women whether or not to have abortions. On July 11, 2006, he begs us to give poor, underprivileged, discriminated against college boys the chance to tell female athletes to shove off the field and let the males play. The playing field, Tierney cries, has tipped past level to angled in favor of girls.

I don’t know what field he’s talking about.

Athletic fields are still tilted to the right, toward men and boys. Young women make up 53% of the student body in Division 1 schools, yet they receive only 41% of the athletic opportunities, 36% of the athletic budgets, and 32% of the recruitment budget. Slightly more than one third, 34.9 %, of all women students are low income.

The economic field is tilting more and more, and women slide to the bottom. The U.S. Census Bureau says real earnings for women declined by 1% between 2003 and 2004. Women make only 77 cents for every $1 men earn. Women, especially poor women, return to school more often than men. As an additional burden, because of family obligations, 15% of college women take more than 10 years to complete a degree program. The educational system reflects the economic status of women in the US.

Tierney says Title IX, the 1972 statute banning discrimination on the basis of sex, is bad for boys.

Title IX reads:

No person in the U.S. shall, on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal aid.

The statute was designed to force colleges to accept women and to offer women the same educational and athletic opportunities they offer men. How is that bad for boys? Well, Tierney says, “besides enjoying the testosterone rushes, (men) have a better chance of glory — and of impressing the opposite sex” by playing sports.

Yep, that’s what women want, an athlete, a guy who is unlikely to be in the 1% of male college athletes who make it to the pros; a guy who, should he go pro, unless he plays golf, is likely to incur several concussions, broken bones and be away from home much of the year as a consequence of that career choice. Anyway, it’s nice to have Mr. Tierney answer the question of what women want. Clearly we can’t answer for ourselves.

Yet Tierney says, “some women are dedicated athletes, and they should be encouraged with every opportunity. But a lot of others have better things to do, like study or work on other extracurricular activities that will be more useful to their careers.” Well gosh, John, if it were possible for women to have a career in sports, wouldn’t athletics contribute to that goal?

Tierney says professional women’s sports don’t attract the audience or general interest that men’s sports do. True. Not yet. But how much does the male dominated sports media invest in promoting women’s sports? Not much. Not much more than white media of the 1920’s invested in the Negro League baseball.

Comparing the success of womens sports with other "upstart" sports leagues shows that women are moving relatively quickly. The Negro Leagues rose and fell over fifty years until their heyday during the 1930’s and 40’s. They were dead by 1951, killed by the goodness of major league integration.

It took Major League Baseball one-hundred-and-two years to sign Jackie Robinson. It took professional basketball fifty-four years to draft a black player. Willie O’Ree broke into professional hockey in 1958, but it was 18 years before another black man played the game professionally.

There is no research that says boys are more interested in sports than girls or that girls are more interested in guys who play sports. There’s a lot that says that exposure to sports, helps young people in a variety of ways. Students involved in sports are more likely to get better grades, to stay in school and to be responsible. Girls who play sports don’t get pregnant, quit school and sink into poverty as often as those who don’t play.

Plus, women and girls have come to sports. More women take up athletics late in life than do men. According to the Physical Activity Journal, Spring 2001, 86% of the women who played inter-collegiate sports in the 1960’s and 70’s have stayed active. There’s your new tradition right there.

The National Association for Girls and Women in Sport has studies showing that since Title IX, the number of male and female student athletes has greatly increased. “The number of male college athletes has increased from 170,384 in 1972 to 208,866 in 2001; the number of female college athletes has increased from 31,852 in 1972 to 150,916 - almost a five-fold increase. The number of high school girls playing competitive sports has increased from fewer than 300,000 before Title IX to 2.78 million in 2001.” Women's and men's interest in sports grows with their increased opportunities to play them.

George Bush attempted to weaken Title IX in 2003, but was temporarily disarmed by the volume and number of protests which his threatened to derail his 2004 campaign. Unfortunately, very quietly in early 2005, he had the Department of Education change the guidelines for Title IX, making it possible for colleges to comply with the statute by sending out e-mail surveys to judge the interest of girls in sports rather than providing opportunities for or encouraging girls to play sports.

If you built it they will come, but if there’s nothing there, there’s nowhere for them to go.

Truth, meet Truthiness

Apparently loads of Americans lack a sense of humor. Stephen Colbert's presentation at the April 29th White House Correspondents dinner was met with as much dismay as laughter. President Bush was shocked and Laura Bush was said to be "miffed," "disoriented," and "distressed." As explained in Editor and Publisher, the press, targeted as much as the administration, shifted in their seats only enough to remove their hands from under their legs.

Have any of the parties offended by Stephen Colbert's presentation looked up the word, satire?

Using wit and irony to jab those in power is an ancient tradition, not a political bias. It wasn't only fictional Lear who trusted his jester to carry the truth, many cultures prized the court clown. That the Bush administration, its supporters and the press have no tolerance for humor is a reflection of their response to criticism.

The media, the press, those who claim the right to do what Colbert did, must realize that by disuse and abuse of their powerful positions, they have inadvertently opened the door and allowed sharp, fresh air into their closed rooms. One cannot clamor for freedom, cannot toss freedom around as a talking point without allowing people the liberty to talk.

The phrase, "speaking truth to power," was coined by the American Friends, Quakers, in response to the political assumption that military force can bring about peace. Colbert brought truth wrapped in truthiness. I suspect those who did not laugh have mistaken the wrapping for the gift.

Surely the event organizers hired Mr. Colbert precisely because of his satirical work. They are to be admired for inviting the Fool to Court.

Linguistic Three Card Monte

John Tierney’s NY Times op-ed column of January 10th, “Men’s Abortion Rights,” contains the essential flaw of his argument in the title, “men’s abortion.” There is no such thing as a man having an abortion, so, according to the logic he espouses, men have no standing in the debate. Yet neither debate nor resolution is the point of his article. The point is to assert his authority to stir things up.

Tierney and others keep standing up, keep proclaiming their right to express themselves allows them to make broad, inaccurate and patently false statements under the mistaken notion that all opinions should be treated equally. This tactic justifies saying creationism is as valid a construct as evolution because any debate, no matter how scurrilous, stupid or distracting is good. Bill O’Reilly used this same device when he declared there was a war on Christmas.

Less grandly, but no less powerful, this tactic is also used to sell diet and personal finance books. You, too, can be slim, trim and wealthy, full of thoughts and experiences that are not your own. Send money to get a free sample of how to be upwardly moral and thin at the same time.

In Mr. Tierney’s case, the slimness is in what he posits as the quarrel. He insists that he is pro-choice - provided men are doing the choosing. He pulls the woman as succubus suspicion out of his hat, saying women use their bodies to trap men into taking responsibility over another body, to justify his position that men can lay claim to women’s bodies. He claims that feminism is about creating “gender neutral policy” - as if such a thing were possible or even desirable - ignoring what feminism is, an analysis of gender as an element of power structures. He claims that men have no power in the world, merely position, status and money – oh wait, that is power.

To accept this article as thoughtful is to ignore the suppositions behind Tierney’s curtain: that there is no history of women being abused by men; that child support payments are generous and made on time; that the unpaid labor of a homemaker is equivalent to the paid time of a breadwinner. Tierney sees “the playing field” of life as lush, green, soft and even. For him fairness means equality means the same set of rules. For him fairness means equality means the same set of rules regardless of circumstance; context matters less than construct.

Never mind that such grandstanding is demeaning and that the stories he tells are untrue. Do not see the derision in his divisiveness, the cruelty in his language. Women are subordinate clauses.

These pretend arguments about ethical principle pit people against each other, men against women, women against women, in a challenge race to the high moral ground. I am not sure where the high moral ground is, but those who believe they have the only sacred map inevitably get lost and fall prey to charlatans who turn real dilemmas into Three Card Monte.

People possess their own moral compass within a public system of shared values. The relationship of body to mind to soul cannot be fought in the courts or in public. It can be pondered, imagined and earnestly discussed, but the border between the individual and society is always blurred by its own motion. Abortion should be treated as a public health issue, one that keeps people, and by extension society, well and whole, not as a journalistic talking point or political football.

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