Why Vote Yes On Prop K?

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How I’m voting this Tuesday
This footage is from October 31, 2003.
I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow’s elections.
Video clip – Why Yes On Prop K (1 MB)
Tom Ammiano Says:
“Let’s see, Prop K. That’s a little bump in your sales tax that you’ve been paying for the past 20 years. If you’ve been around long enough. And it really has been helpful to the Muni, to ladder(?) crosswalks, more traffic signs, traffic calming, bicycle paths. You name it. If it deals with transportation, Prop K will take care of it. So I would really urge a strong vote for Prop K.”

Why Vote Yes On Prop J?

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How I’m voting this Tuesday
This footage is from October 31, 2003.
I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow’s elections.
Video clip – Why Yes On Prop J (3 MB)
Tom Ammiano Says:
“Prop J, you know. I really think it’s unnecessary. I think, for Angela, it was a way to attach herself to a ballot measure so she could get some mileage out of it. It’s an old trick. We all do it from time to time. If it fails, I don’t really see any great consequences for San Francisco, because we already have that political will in and around the homeless — and again, (the bill is) just trying to capitalize on that without really trying to come up with solutions that are verifyable. Like my ability to get six million bucks from the Bush government two weeks ago, so we could have supportive housing and services for the mentally ill and homeless. Now that’s real, and that’s happening as we speak.
(from later in the interview)
Lisa: So getting back to J. Would you say “No”? Or would you say go ahead and pass J?
Tom:
I’d say go ahead and pass J. It’s not going to hurt anything. I just think that you don’t want to make any empty promises.
Lisa: But it’s not crucial?
Tom: Yeah.

Why Vote Yes On Prop H?

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How I’m voting this Tuesday
This footage is from October 31, 2003.
I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow’s elections.
Video clip – Why Yes On Prop H (1 MB)
Tom Ammiano Says:
“Prop H is very important. Not just cause I wrote it. But it is about police reform. People are hungry for that across the class spectrum and across the political spectrum. People want police reform. It’s being spun as being anti-cop. It’s being spun as a political power grab. That’s nonsense. We really need Prop H.”

Why Vote Yes On Prop A?

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How I’m voting this Tuesday
This footage is from October 31, 2003.
I took advantage of having access to Tom Ammiano in person Friday to ask him about the other propositions on the ballot. What he said makes sense to me. I hope it will be helpful to you in making your decisions about tomorrow’s elections.
Video clip – Why Yes On Prop A (2 MB)
Tom Ammiano Says:
“I think one of the most import ones to me is Prop A, which is the School Bonds. The new Superindendent, like her or not, has really cleaned up the act of the school district. The clearance of the state in terms of honest finances. So Prop A would really help our schools a lot. In San Francisco, we like public schools. So I would say hooray for Prop A.”

Why Vote For Tom Ammiano Instead Of Angela Alioto?

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How I’m voting this Tuesday
This footage is from October 31, 2003.
Here’s
Tom Ammiano explaining why he’s a better choice for Mayor than Angela Alioto. (Small – 3 MB)


Lisa:
The other person I wanted to ask you about was Angela Alioto.
Tom:
Well, you know, Angela is a very interesting person. She has a lot of personality, but I don’t think she has a lot of substance. I worked with her on the Board many years ago, and she can certainly put her heart behind an issue. But when it really came to taking on business, and when it really came to taking on established practices, she’s more a woman of Pacific Heights.
I think people need to remember that this is also a “money” person. Now a money person doesn’t have to be necessarily an “evil” person. However, I think there is a disconnect with a lot of the working class people and culture in San Francisco. I think she’s been somewhat removed, and she certainly has interrupted her political career for the past 12 years, and I don’t think she’s in the loop in the same way. She didn’t support District Elections, and now she says she does.
So there’s a lot of reinvention on her part, and I think it would be a big mistake to have her as Mayor of San Francisco. I think, we’d, if anything, have some chaos. If you look at her contributors, they’re a lot of the same developers that have been around for a long time, and lobbyists, and we’ve really gotten away from that. We certainly don’t want a mayor that encourages that. And definitely Newsom could do the same thing.

Rummy On Meet The Press This Morning — And Other Stuff

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No, I don’t have it up yet, but I did get it, and after I finish with the election stuff (things must happen in order, or they, like, don’t happen) I promise I’ll get the Rummy stuff up next.
I just want you to be sure it was in the kitty. I haven’t watched it yet, but I’m assuming he is responding to “the memo.”…
Okay, so, I’m obviously back and about to go on a video rampage. I’ll have to get the Dean on 60 minutes up soon too. And, jeez, what else, just a stack of stuff…Last Saturday’s protest (Oct 25, 2003) still hasn’t gone up yet (it’s captured though…). There’s Dean in SF Wednesday (October 29, 2003) (also captured). There’s Laura Splan’s recent blood painting opening (just in time for halloween…doh!)…and I don’t know what else….but if it’s uploaded to the archive, it’s a-gettin-a-linked.
I’ve fallen into that stupid trap of not taking enough time to blog clips I’ve already crunched and uploaded — and that’s just plain stupid. So allow me to catch up a bit over the next day or two…

Why Vote For Tom Ammiano Instead Of Gavin Newsom?

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How I’m voting this Tuesday
This footage is from October 31, 2003.
Here’s
Tom Ammiano explaining why he’s a better choice for Mayor than Gavin Newsom. (Small – 4 MB)


Lisa:
What separates you from Gavin?
Tom:
Well, I think there’s a class background that can’t be discounted. And, as with Matt, the number of years of legislative history. He’s pretty skimpy. He’s been on about as long as Gonzales, but he hasn’t really accomplished very much.
Also, he doesn’t get along with any of the Board members. He’s at war with most of them. It’s one thing to fight with people. We all do that. You want that in a democracy. It’s not “the Stepford Supervisors” by any means. But then there’s a time to put it aside and work in a common way. And I don’t see that with Newsome in any way. So, he gets elected Mayor and we’re going to have that wide gap again between Supervisors, elected by neighborhoods by the way, and a Mayor who does not like District Elections and wants to go backwards.
He’s supported by Feinstein. Feinstein wants to end District Elections. She’s not supportive of comperable work. She’s not supportive of police reform. So he, really, for a younger person, really does not represent the future. He represents the past and going backwards, and I think that’s a big difference.

Why Vote For Tom Ammiano Instead Of Matt Gonzales?

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How I’m voting this Tuesday
This footage is from October 31, 2003.
Here’s
Tom Ammiano explaining why he’s a better choice for Mayor than Matt Gonzales. (Small – 5 MB)


Lisa:
What separates you from Matt Gonzales? A lot of people are on the fence about who they’re going to vote for, and I thought we could clear that up.
Tom:
Well, a lot more years of experience. And legislative history. I know that sometimes people think “gee, legislative history” is a little boring. However, I come from this activist background. And then, when I was about 49, I took all the social justice issues I knew about and all the populist issues I knew about and put them together and got elected, and I’ve been enacting those for years.
Living Wage, District Elections, Environmental Issues, and I think that that’s a big difference.
Also, I taught school for 25 years, and I think that taught be a lot about not only the economy, but about the diversity in San Francisco, and the job market in San Francisco, and I’m very very supportive of public schools, and I have that hands on experience. And I have a kid, and my kid went to public schools.
So, you know, I think someone like Gonzales is going to find out that there ain’t no free lunch for anybody, and you just can’t coast on rhetoric and verbage or personality. You’re really going to have to prove that you’ve produced something other than a different voice…
I think my legislative history — the length of it, the social justice ground, the comprehensive and very wide wide number of issues I’ve dealt with over the years — I think that’s what people would like to see in a Mayor.

Time To Get Ready For Tuesday’s Election!

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(Link to movie of Ammiano wearing button.)		 I’ve created a page detailing how I’m voting on Tuesday, along with another page (that’s not really complete yet) that will provide brief explanations about the reasoning behind my decisions.

I interviewed Tom Ammiano on Friday afternoon about why he’s the best choice for Mayor, and while I was at it, I took advantage of the opportunity to ask him about the various propositions on the Ballot.

I’ll be putting up the video from this interview, complete with transcriptions, over the course of the day (with a little break from noon-3pm), but I wanted to get the ball rolling asap.

My Interview In Japan’s “Internet Magazine”

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This interview ran in the May 2003 issue of Japan’s
Internet Magazine. (The translation is a little choppy…)


 Title: XML Specialist Lisa Rein
CTO of Creative Commons who has another name as XML Queen – an interview with Lisa Rein
By Gohsuke Takama.
XML Specialist Lisa Rein is leading technical architect for Creative Commons, which Lawrence Lessig has introduced. We asked her about how she, a journalist/ musician/editor, became recognized by some as the ‘XML Queen.’

Q: What kind of work was that you did in the CreativeCommons project?
LR: My official title was ‘Techinical Architect.’ Basically I was the first CTO of CreativeCommons. I did basic reserach and designed architecture with development team. Larry (Lessig) already had an idea of building machine readable licenses, so my role there was to lead to accomplish (the project of) buiding XML licenses using RDF, that is based on right ideologies and is compatible and interoperable with many different systems.
Q: How did you get inerested in XML?
LR: It was in 1997. I was an editor of Netscape World magazine at that time. At a conference in April I met Chris Lilly of the W3C and asked him many questions. He happily answered me, and gave me the draft of XML standard, which was still under development. I had no idea what it was at the time, but got excited about the fact that a standard that everyone could use was getting realized.
Q: What was the situation surrounding XML?
LR: “The Web needs XML” was understood by everyone of the first XML WG, and they guided me. Tim Bray and the older generation who made HTML were very worried about the future of the web. But they also thought that if we can build a legitimate standard as quickly as possible, the web would keep going for a while.
Q: So are you self-taught in XML?
LR: No, not by myself. The whole world was a teacher to me. When I sent out questions in emails to experts all around the world for different themes, most of them replied to me with wonderful answers! I thougt that they felt happy to be asked by a person who really wants to learn that had a serious interest in the subject. Then, as I learned more about the subject more, I became more interested in getting actively involved.
Q: How did you start teaching XML?
LR: Since I was involved deeply, to spread XML to the world became my role. My teaching started in my local community college in Bellevue, WA, and then I also did consulting for corporations. But it wasn’t fun to teach students who were told to study by their bosses. Or, I should say, it sucked, and could not wait to go home every day. After that, I started teaching at UC Berkeley extension’s online seminars. In 2001, I had more teaching gigs as XML get into main stream, but several gigs were canceled in the middle of the course affected by ecconomic down turn.
Q: How did corporations and universities find you?
LR: UC Berkeley, via Craig’s List. Corporations, well, probably they searched on the web. They only wanted some big names. and around that time there were some people calling me the “XML Queen”. It was kind of like “hey everyone, here comes the queen to teach you XML” kind of thing…