Archive for July, 2005

2005.07.03

When the Heck Did This Happen?

Apparently San Francisco, in it’s ultimate ability to protect people from themselves, has banned smoking in public parks. Why don’t they just skip the formalities and ban it city wide?

I understand smoking is a health hazard, and that there have been studies that link second hand smoke to lung cancer, but come on! When will it end? Where is the funding to help people stop smoking? I know it’s out there, but it’s not obvious. If they’re going to ban smoking they should open up store fronts that do nothing but help people get over the habit/addiction.

I don’t see them cracking down on pot smoking… maybe City Council has some sort of disconnect with reality. Then again, maybe I’m just one of those people living in a city I don’t understand.

2005.07.02

Fires in North Berkeley

First Fire, Berkeley Repertory Theater

Second Fire, Medical Supply WarehouseAnn lives in West Berkeley, which can be an interesting place. Raccoons eat possums in her back yard. The neighbors dog uses her lawn as a bathroom. They can’t catch the dog. The garbage trucks spew diesel exhaust as they trundle down the alley to pick up garbage from a nearby restaurant. Pacific Steel is stinking up the whole region. Sometimes it can seem a bit overwhelming.

On Wednesday the apparently famous Berkeley Repertory Theater‘s warehouse burned to the ground. The first picture is what remains there now.

Today we drove in to her neighborhood and down Gilman we saw the street closed off with police cars and helicopters in the air. Ann’s first thought was someone might have been shot. Then we pulled around the corner to her street and it was blocked off for some construction underway to fix a water main leak. In fact they’re still out there making way too much noise for this late at night. Ann really wanted to investigate what we could now see was a fire, not a police action, so we went to drop stuff off in her house and discovered that the neighbor’s dog had dug a huge hole in her lawn. One of the dog’s owners came and apologized, but how often is stuff like this going to happen? Personally I feel it’s time for some retaliation but that might just be me.

Finally we went and investigated the fire. It was in some medical supply business (or warehouse). Apparently the thing burned down very quickly. In the second picture you can see the fire ladder still raining down water on the embers. I kind of feel it’s suspicious to have to major fires so close together in space and time, but they are saying that the first one was an accident. Even so, it seems like something is in the air here in North Berkeley… and I’m not just talking about the stench of Pacific Steel.