On the other hand, there's Measure I on the current Nov. 3, 2026 ballot, to increase the transfer tax on high-dollar real estate sales to build housing for people who need it.

Here's the article about what the Board of Supervisors did to Jennifer Friedenbach and Our City Our Home last year: https://missionlocal.org/2025/11/jennifer-friedenbach-prop-c-san-francisco-homeless/

RE: https://mastodon.social/@inthesetimes/117241440161419146

The nearest we have to this in San Francisco is the 2018 "Our City Our Home" fund. The Mayor's office recently persuaded the Supes to spend some of that fund on shelters instead of housing; the Supervisors knocked the fund's main creator off its board; and Proposition A on our upcoming Nov. 3, 2026 ballot would make it easier to crumple or end the board in future.

Cities can make good things. It's possible. But SF's centrist/conservative elected majority doesn't share that hope.

Mayor Lurie’s Prop. D could have suppressed six recent ballot measures. They passed. They matter.

On our November 3, 2026 San Francisco local ballot, Mayor Lurie has proposed a group of measures -- Propositions D, E and F -- that would strengthen the power of the Mayor's office, taking several kinds of power away from the voters and other branches of local government. One of the Mayor's power-consolidation measures is Proposition D (also known as “Measure D”).

More: http://marthabridegam.com/2026/09/07/mayor-luries-prop-d-could-have-suppressed-six-recent-ballot-measures-they-passed-they-matter/

These reports about San Francisco's shelter and supportive housing system are telling important truths:

https://www.sfpublicpress.org/civil-grand-jury-finds-sparse-oversight-in-how-city-allocates-500-million-in-contracts-to-address-homelessness/

https://media.api.sf.gov/documents/2026_CGJ_Rpt_At_Scale_At_Risk_-_Upgrading_Data_and_Oversight_to_Improve_Homele_woZ0ksh.pdf

Also, I hadn't realized a current proposed ordinance calls for eliminating the Shelter Grievance Advisory Committee and Shelter Monitoring Committee. This would wreck SF's system for judging disputes about shelter expulsions and other "punishments". A step back to "who ya gonna tell?" impunity for shelter managers and staff.

All American Towel.
Large! Strong! Absorbent!

A volunteer chia plant started growing in a pot on our porch in San Francisco a few years ago. This year's stalks produced a half-teaspoon of chia seed, shown in that first photo below. Second image is a closeup of our same homegrown chia seeds using a GoMicro lens clip for phones that they used to sell at the Exploratorium. Third image is commercial chia seed from the package for comparison. Stunning how many plants' whole yield we eat for breakfast every morning.

For early responses/analysis on Skrmetti:
https://19thnews.org/2025/06/supreme-court-united-states-v-skrmetti-tennessee-gender-affirming-care-ban/
and posts from:
@chrisgeidner
@evanurquhart.bsky.social
@erininthemorning.com

Erin Reed has text of an ACLU and Lambda Legal response here: https://bsky.app/profile/erininthemorning.com/post/3lrvbvtdpac2z

"...and all they will call them will be 'deportees.' "

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-ice-air-deportation-flights

Meanwhile, as decent people inside and outside government scramble to hold each other together --

This is the hostile architecture under the freeway on 13th Street in San Francisco. Somebody spent money to do this.

San Francisco looking more Besźel than usual this evening.

In the organic grocery a few days ago, I apologized for working around/past another customer in a self-service area, and she said, "We're all in this together." As a formula. Like that's what she was saying to everybody about every inconvenience.

This is new.

Worth remembering what happened in Hood River, Oregon in 1944 and the public shock and amends that followed.
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Hood_River_incident/

Btw whatever happened to J.D. Vance?
Has anyone heard a thing?

Once in a while I visit a random Sinclair station website from the Wikipedia list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stations_owned_or_operated_by_Sinclair_Broadcast_Group . Just to see what people are being told in the news deserts.

Mostly, they're getting local crime and human-interest stories and a sprinkling of national news. The national stories are presented mildly, as if they're worth one minute's attention out of civic piety -- as if news were entertainment, as if the events described didn't affect the audience directly.

Mother and 4 children, including U.S. citizen 3-month-old twins, showed up for a meeting per official instructions.

ICE deported them to Mexico.

To Reynosa, Mexico where they knew nobody.

Without their coats.

And it was cold.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/17/texas-newborn-twins-mother-ice-deportation

How are United States Senators named Markwayne Mullin and Tommy Tuberville not fictional characters in a comic novel about American politics written by whichever sub-director it was in "The Crown" who let actors play John and Jackie Kennedy with Southern accents?

Weird in San Francisco to have nothing to vote for on the first Tuesday in November.

Because all the news is terrible, can anybody help identify this moth seen laying eggs on a window near San Francisco?

Image: broad-bodied moth photographed from inside a glass window. It has folded wings patterned in kind of grayscale leopard spots. Next to it is a cluster of about 100 fresh-looking white eggs placed side by side, each adhering to the window.

#introduction

Hi, all --

I'm a lawyer in San Francisco with research and advocacy interests in housing & homelessness and in the history of U.S. camp sites where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during WWII

The header photo is of Tule Lake in CA/OR seen from the west side of the lake.

I'll use this account for discussion that is less specific to the San Francisco Bay Area. More personal and local stuff will be at @MBridegam@mastodon.social .

Thanks. Looking forward to good new conversations here.