Monthly Archives: May 2011

Manhattanization Becomes Policy Under Lee and Chiu

30 Monday May 2011

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This disturbing article in The SF Examiner uses “Manhattanization” as a tag, but shockingly, Examiner Staff Writer Dan Schreiber works hard here to make the term a positive!

Note the utter absence of a competitive or contrary view here to the high-speed development plans on the table [thankfully BeyondChron does]. The article defends Park Merced and Treasure Island Development plans launching into the ‘inevitable need for development’ like this:

“Politics aside, growth in San Francisco depends, above all, on the sheer demand for housing. [politics aside?! really?!]

“By 2035, the Bay Area is expected to be home to about 2 million more people and 902,000 more homes, with almost all that growth concentrated in existing urban areas. This daunting 29 percent population increase has prompted regional planners to urge local governments to reduce their per-resident carbon emissions by 15 percent.

“That’s the crux of the “Initial Vision Scenario for 2035,” which was released in March by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments. The report envisions that while the Bay Area’s population grows from 7 million to 9 million people, San Francisco will add roughly 90,000 households, pushing its population to around 1 million.”

The one question that no one seems to ask is “Why?”

Why does SF have to grow to a city of a million before we address the transit and infrastructural issues?

Why do we have to urgently build more residences for people who do not live here yet when so many who already do live here are suffering homelessness, job loss and an inability to keep up with the cost of living in San Francisco?

Why do we have to build housing for people who don’t yet live here before working on cleaning up the Bay, preserving our heritage, adding better, smarter transportation and sustainable energy resources?

Why do we have to appease the nouveau-riche of our times: twenty- and thirty-something-year-olds from elsewhere who want to live and work in our beautiful city for companies that make money for investors who live elsewhere which – thanks to the board and the Twitter Giveaway – will contribute little to our economy?

In reality, we don’t.

Vote Karthik Rajan and we can put a stop to this rampant, unchecked development and add stronger checks and balances against the commercial uglification of our City – in keeping with our own heritage as the most progressive city in the U.S.

It seems like new architects of the City want it to be for a rich, upper-class from elsewhere who will redefine SF into a 21st Century playground for the very wealthy. The America’s Cup is a prime example of an engine for this development.

I beg you to resist. Vote Karthik Rajan for Mayor. It will be a revolutionary moment in our City’s history and we will slow the development to a reasonable pace. I have the scalar vision to see through the rushed development our politicians now shove through the governmental system and I can lead us to more creative, more sensible and slower growth.

These plans are nonsensical because there is no need to grow like Manhattan and Hong Kong and other places have. It’s 20th century thinking that creates immense, unmanageable cities with vast disparity and horrifyingly under-served populations.

We are smarter than that – this is San Francisco! – we can slow this down and grow our own way. I know it. But we have to have leadership that is willing to stand up to crazy development talk.

Right now Interim Mayor Lee and Board President Chiu are failing to do this, rather they step on the gas for more and more growth. They remind me of the insane developers I saw in Hong Kong in the 1990’s crazily growing the city without concern for those who would be ground down or out.

Enough! Vote Karthik Rajan for a more sane future in San Francisco.

The Six Hundred Dollar Mayor of SF

29 Sunday May 2011

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To date I’ve spent $605 on my campaign for Mayor and received exactly $0 in contributions. Frankly, the non-glare lenses for my spectacles are the single biggest expense.

After 25 years of working on the margins, with small budgets, for counties, non-profits, artists, magazines, Universities and myself, I know how to run our City for less. I know how to save money and to make any institution more efficient and profitable. That’s why my first campaign promise is to refuse $100,000 of  the Mayor’s salary – because I KNOW I can do the job for … what would that be – $163,000 a year? or less [see the campaign promises tab].

As I have also promised, I will NEVER accept a cent from Parties, Corporations, Unions or PACs. Seems stupid right? I mean if I were to get popular as a candidate by September, like Obama did at the National level, certainly companies and Unions and others would want to support me with contributions to buy television, radio and Internet ads.

But then I would be subject to them.

President Obama has proven it is an inevitability of accepting such support. [check out the video below for evidence of that]

No. I believe that with almost no money, but with intelligence, honesty and sense, we can use Instant Runoff Voting to elect me so that we can create a true coalition government in the SF Mayor’s office and take back our City from special interests and wealthy manipulators.

If elected, I can choose whomever we like to run the town, but only with me as Mayor, through my strength as an Independent outsider and my study and work as an evaluator and analyst, and via the transparency of the principles of art and writing, can we reveal the corruption and redistribute the burden of the cost of living in our beautiful city. We have to do this to be able to give our children the society they deserve.

I encourage all of you to watch the following video:

and realize what I am proposing: a re-imagining of City government from scratch that builds the greatest small City on earth and teaches other cities not to emulate New York or Hong Kong, but rather encourages the regionalism that we now see emerging around the world in response to the Globalism that has been shoved down our throats for two decades.

Hey, SF, elect me Mayor, then let me select who we want to run the town (Terry Baum and John Avalos’ followers would be first in line), with Ed Lee as our Chief Administrator, and then let’s show the Democrats of this City and the country how to have compassion, tolerance and goodness toward people of different cultures and beliefs, while running a solvent economy that isn’t just for super-wealthy yachtsmen and their Cup.

Lets bring back the things that made San Francisco great since long ago: small town attitude, cool friendliness, openness and the rich, vibrant, cosmopolitan aesthetic of our great City.

Vote Karthik Rajan, first, for Mayor of San Francisco, then, on your IRV or Instant Runoff Voting Ballot this year, choose Terry Baum of the Greens second, and demote, but don’t vote against the Democrats – by choosing John Avalos third.

It will be awesome.

Instant Runoff Voting is Better Democracy

26 Thursday May 2011

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IRV is an excellent tool because

1. it makes candidates seek alliance and coalition-building tactics

2. it makes voters learn more about more candidates and take greater responsibility for their vote.

3. it aids candidates interested in civic leadership but without finances by giving them a means to recognition

4. it eliminates the need for expensive runoff campaigns

5. the process reveals which candidate works best with others at large.

The Best Ticket for Mayor Emerges!

22 Sunday May 2011

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Terry Baum will be the Green Party candidate for Mayor of SF, and with John Avalos in as a progressive Democrat, I am excited to say that I will, from today, be endorsing the following ticket as the best, really the only three choices for Mayor of SF, and in this order, guaranteed to turn this town around:

1. Karthik Rajan, first – the Independent outsider with super strong analytical and communications skills (read the site for details)

2. Terry Baum, second –  a Green playwright who  in 2004 ran for the United States House of Representatives as a member of the Green Party.

3. John Avalos, third – the Democrat, a progressive and insider

Keep Ed Lee as Chief Administrator – since he knows best where all the money has been going these last eight years – and we have the best administration for SF in 2012.

Neither John nor Terry can win outright. In Terry’s case, the Greens have been marginalized since Gavin Newsom outspent Matt Gonzales 23 to 1 and in John’s case, as a Democrat, within his party he won’t get the support – unless of course he compromises his vision to please the Party higher ups, which he won’t – and so he cannot win without a coalition.

But with your help – Democrats, Progressives, Greens, Libertarians and others  – I can win. As an outsider with a clear message we can bring more groups of interests together. Read the site to see why – check out the FAQs and Campaign Promises. Mine is a different philosophy, exciting.

I am flexible, lucid, self-financed and unknown – unassailable. As an intelligent outsider, I can put all of the people our coalition wants into positions of power and only I can protect us from attacks, be strong in the face of the wealthy special interests and the cliquish cabals who have run our town into the mouth of the corporate sector.

I can analyze and document the system, do it transparently and scale back our economy. I have the ability and the agility and I have no interest in being a politician for life.

One year budgets for four years that are flexible, slashing the Mayor’s salary, taxing the right people at the right time, putting the resources toward sustainable growth and a healthy, solvent SF for years to come led by the knowledge of the Greens, the infrastructure of the Progressive Democrats and the personal and creative strength of an artist who cares not for money nor power, but for the betterment of our society.

Wow, sounds almost too good to be true – but it isn’t!

Just vote Karthik Rajan, Terry Baum and John Avalos first, second and third on your ballot for Mayor of SF on November 8, 2011.

This is going to be fun!

Coalition Building for Mayor of SF

20 Friday May 2011

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I arrived at the monthly meeting of the San Francisco County Central Committee of the Peace and Freedom Party and found Tom Lacey, the chapter Chair, alone in the SF Main Library’s Stong Room. That’s not a typo – the room’s named for Mary Louise Stong, who was an avid library supporter and former President of the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. But it does give the conference room a name that’s desperately one letter shy of being a great place to start anything.

Tom Lacey, a teacher, has been a committed socialist and Peace and Freedom Party member and a candidate for office in SF. He even garnered the coveted endorsement of the SF Bay Guardian. His knowledge of the San Francisco political environment is excellent, and more, he has been through a lot of the changes, sitting in opposition. Smart, savvy and lucid, Lacey is nothing like the stereotype projected against the Peace and Freedom Party: that of crazy wingnut hippies.

Tom Lacey has great ideas, knowledge about the system, remarkable commitment and a will to implement. He puts a generation half his age to shame. In fact, first I want to support his efforts to get the Oil Extraction Tax on the ballot – an effort that makes complete sense. It’s very easy to get behind.

Every State in the country that lets private companies take oil out of its ground or from under its sea charges an Oil Extraction Tax and uses the money for social welfare … um, except one … California!

In Texas they have diverted these funds successfully to the education system and greatly improved Texas schools. This is an overdue effort in California that has been squelched by powerful oil companies in our state and the politicians they pay for. It’s so simple to understand:

Tax the extraction of oil and use it to pay for schools.

Tom Lacey informed us that the college professor behind the movement, Peter Mathews, who has struggled for this in California, finally got approval for the wording to let us get signatures to put it on the ballot. This happened just a week ago. Now we have a very short time to get the required signatures to put the Oil Extraction Tax to Pay For Education on the ballot. A 2/3 majority of Californians will definitely support this one and we can more than make up for the $1.4 billion in cuts to education that Governor Brown was forced to make this year.

Lacey had copies of the petitions that he had meticulously printed on oversized paper from the .pdf – I am adding it to my platform and collecting signatures myself voluntarily and informing everyone I know about it. check out rescueeducationcalifornia.org and facebook.com/rescueeducationcalifornia and twitter.com/rescueeducation

This is exactly the kind of revenue generation my campaign is about.

Shortly after I arrived and introduced myself to Tom Lacey, Ron Holladay, who is, I believe, the Treasurer of the Peace and Freedom SF CCC, appeared. The two men have considerable history in this town and it was great to meet them. We waited for others.

(cricket sounds) and that was it … (sigh) C’mon people, Prop 14 is going to make third parties disappear unless you show up!

I was fourth on the agenda, but since there wasn’t quorum, Ron Holladay asked whether or not I’d rather skip my presentation and perhaps come to another meeting. I promised I would be at the next meeting, but said I would like to present myself as a candidate to those present. One of my supporters arrived – a surprise! – a little late.

Oh, but wait, then someone else did appear.

An Asian-American man arrived and claimed to have just joined the Peace and Freedom Party. The two long-standing officers had never heard of him, but were relieved that there was at least one other present – I mean, there wasn’t even quorum.

But within minutes I began to suspect that the Asian-American Newly Joined Peace and Freedomer was there to observe and report to someone else. He fell asleep late in the meeting from sheer boredom – or feigned it.

One funny, tiny part of me wondered if another candidate or interest had sent the young man to see what this was all about. Silly probably, but it sure felt like this young man was way more interested in questioning my candidacy and ideas than asking about the party he had just joined.

Of course, it doesn’t matter who comes to observe and report upon me anywhere, anytime, because I am clean, clear and direct and my intentions are pure: I want change, reform, an end to corruption and special interest politics and a return to certain values that made our city the best in the world. I want to lead SF forward to smarter more transparent governance – and I know how.

And so I spoke to four people about why I wanted their vote for Mayor in a small room in the Main Library. We had a great talk for about an hour and I want to thank Tom, Ron and the Peace and Freedom Party for their invitation and informative knowledge.

I then went to see the Fiery Furnaces at Café Du Nord. Single piano and voice, a brother and sister duo, their work is poetic, maudlin and narrative. It was a great show, with songs that told stories with vernacular aptitude, capturing phrases of the contemporary era between married couples, street folk and working class families and others. Very nice.

I was lucky enough to meet the band afterward and to meet and chat with long time San Franciscans Michelle and Matt and others. It was a lovely night.

More soon. Support the Oil Extraction Tax.

My IRV Strategy

16 Monday May 2011

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Last year, I observed the Instant Runoff Voting [IRV] election for Mayor of Oakland closely. I studied the tactics of the candidates and the results. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan achieved something slow, steady and simple.

In addition to seeking supporters for her campaign outright, Mayor Quan created a coalition of interests for whom another primary candidate was their first choice. Through sound campaigning she convinced this coalition of disparate interests to select her second on their ballots.

Because of a lack of effort by the media and the City to properly explain IRV in advance of the election, many people ignorant of the math or the method never understood it and felt cheated. For these, and others, the idea that “everybody’s number two” won the election persisted. It is imperative we explain what IRV is and why it’s better democracy.

In fact, if traditional voting had occurred and a runoff had been held between Jean Quan and her nearest opponent Don Perata, it would have been a six-week long, expensive affair. Likely, Perata would have outspent Quan even as the supporters of Rebecca Kaplan, Joe Tuman and other candidates tilted to Mayor Quan. That is what IRV showed us: it used basic, smart, weighted statistics to allow the right decision to happen on election day, preventing the expense to the City of a second election and preventing the purchasing of such a runoff by monied interests.

Mayor Quan won because she covered more ground and was more present to more people than any of the other candidates and it paid off in a statistical advantage. That’s good democracy.

The opponents of IRV struggle to rename it Ranked Choice Voting because it implies something that smells bad.

The loudest in opposition to IRV are:

1. people who think the voters are too stupid to know how to use it and

2. those whose interest it threatens, namely big parties, monied candidates and

3. those who use the traditional way of doing things: buying the election.

In fact, IRV is an excellent tool because

1. it makes candidates seek alliance and coalition-building tactics

2. it makes voters learn more about more candidates and take greater responsibility for their vote.

3. it aids candidates interested in civic leadership but without the finances to use media by giving them a means to recognition

4. it eliminates the need for expensive runoff campaigns

5. the nature of the process reveals which candidate works best with others at large.

Instant Runoff Voting is complicated and somewhat hard to explain. What our politicians ought to be doing is explaining it in clear terms and helping voters use it to elect our leadership. Instead we see them resisting what threatens them.

My strategy is somewhat different. I believe I’m the best candidate to run the City. I hope you will gather this to be true by election day and vote for me first, but if you don’t, I hope you will see that it only makes sense to include me as a reformist, by voting for me second or third on your ballot. You can trust my promises, which are unique among legitimate candidates.

I will slash the Mayor’s salary first and then ask City employees to help me to do the same before making cuts. I will create a Giveback Fund to encourage the San Francisco value of sharing and community. I will audit and evaluate every department before raising any new revenue from taxation and eliminate waste that has run rampant. I will make the hard calls on pensions and benefits and help come up with creative means to generate revenue to avoid harsh austerity measures.

It’s in our best interest to elect me because I am not a politician. Rather, I’m a regular citizen concerned about waste, solvency and rampant and unchecked growth. I will function transparently and without attachment to special interests.

I can creatively cut costs, reduce waste and lead us to a more efficient San Francisco in which we pay less for a better quality of life. You can trust me to analyze and reform our City’s broken and corrupt system transparently, to save the City money doing it, and to create solvency and a surplus economy from the myriad wonderfulness of our City’s inherently talented and multilingual community.

As a one-time, reform candidate, Karthik Rajan is a smart second or third choice for voters and a great first choice to be the next Mayor of San Francisco.

Regards Mehserle's Release

12 Thursday May 2011

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This piece is good. and the comments reflect the intensity of the debate. I challenge Bay Area Citizens to take this issue on … seriously.

My comments on the matter are at the end of the piece in SF Appeal and I’m reproducing them here so they may be considered a plank of my platform:

re: BART Cop Jailed for Shooting Oscar Grant to Death Expected to Get Out of Jail Next Month

This piece is well written and significant because many in the mainstream press are either avoiding the topic or not addressing the emotions it brings up. I have been reading your blog a lot more recently as I campaign for Mayor and want to congratulate you on the editorial decision-making, the reporting and, as in this example, the flexible corrections, as necessary.

This is a space somewhere between the printed press and the wild world of blogging that The Bay Citizen so eagerly (and expensively) seeks. I would say you are succeeding at some level. keep up the good work.

“Shooting to Death Oscar Grant” states it clearly, correctly and brings up some very necessary dialogue.

It is important to note in this case that a jury of 12 found Mehserle guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter AND uniquely, the handgun charge. The handgun charge was a serious element here which could have led to policy changes such as the removal of lethal weapons like guns from BART cops. (they have Tasers and nightsticks and so on).

Instead it was thrown out unilaterally by the judge – which seems illegal to many. That’s what the riots ought to have been about. This was a profoundly wrong judgement. It’s too expensive for the family to pursue that on appeal, but it certainly ought to be the civic sector’s responsibility to make such a charge stick and to pursue such weird decision-making.

I, for one, believe we should disarm BART police. Let local PDs be called when a gun is necessary, make it a felony to carry a gun on BART and put excessive cameras in the system. We need to de-escalate the violence and the weaponry on our streets.

Karthik Rajan

Regards Mehserle’s Release

12 Thursday May 2011

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This piece is good. and the comments reflect the intensity of the debate. I challenge Bay Area Citizens to take this issue on … seriously.

My comments on the matter are at the end of the piece in SF Appeal and I’m reproducing them here so they may be considered a plank of my platform:

re: BART Cop Jailed for Shooting Oscar Grant to Death Expected to Get Out of Jail Next Month

This piece is well written and significant because many in the mainstream press are either avoiding the topic or not addressing the emotions it brings up. I have been reading your blog a lot more recently as I campaign for Mayor and want to congratulate you on the editorial decision-making, the reporting and, as in this example, the flexible corrections, as necessary.

This is a space somewhere between the printed press and the wild world of blogging that The Bay Citizen so eagerly (and expensively) seeks. I would say you are succeeding at some level. keep up the good work.

“Shooting to Death Oscar Grant” states it clearly, correctly and brings up some very necessary dialogue.

It is important to note in this case that a jury of 12 found Mehserle guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter AND uniquely, the handgun charge. The handgun charge was a serious element here which could have led to policy changes such as the removal of lethal weapons like guns from BART cops. (they have Tasers and nightsticks and so on).

Instead it was thrown out unilaterally by the judge – which seems illegal to many. That’s what the riots ought to have been about. This was a profoundly wrong judgement. It’s too expensive for the family to pursue that on appeal, but it certainly ought to be the civic sector’s responsibility to make such a charge stick and to pursue such weird decision-making.

I, for one, believe we should disarm BART police. Let local PDs be called when a gun is necessary, make it a felony to carry a gun on BART and put excessive cameras in the system. We need to de-escalate the violence and the weaponry on our streets.

Karthik Rajan

Media and the Mayoral Election in SF

11 Wednesday May 2011

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When you hover over any of the links in the blogroll to the right, you will notice a critique or comment concerning where the link leads. Spend some time lingering. Also, do bookmark this page and use it as a node to these news sources.

Note that the SF blogs were all launched within the past decade, except Indybay, which, though first and most directly for the poor and disenfranchised, remains marginalized by the mainstream press.

In addition to blogs of neighborhood or city-wide interest, there are also dozens of insider blogs written by people with access to the politicos of our town that pols and wonks presumably sit around reading. They are filled with rhetoric about what’s best for our City.

Like The Usual Suspects, which began as a fax sent to the policy types in 1995, or, since May of 2007, Sweet Melissa ,who sides with those who seek to rebrand IRV, Instant Runoff Voting, with the foul-sounding name Ranked Choice Voting, and drive it away.

I commented on Melissa’s site that the loudest opponents of IRV are:

1. people who think the voters are too stupid to know how to use it and

2. those whose interest it threatens, namely Big Parties, Monied Candidates and

3. those who use the traditional way of doing things: buying the election.

The most recent of the blogs is of course the LOUDEST right now, The Bay Citizen, which describes itself like this:

“Concerned about the negative impact of [the decline of journalism] on the community, in early 2009 local philanthropist Warren Hellman convened an advisory committee to examine the issue and offer possible solutions. In January 2010, after many months of research and planning, and with a generous $5 million contribution from the Hellman Family Foundation, The Bay Citizen (first known as the Bay Area News Project) was founded. …

“On May 26, 2010, The Bay Citizen launched its online content on http://www.baycitizen.org. On June 4, 2010, The Bay Citizen’s newsroom began producing the articles featured in the two-page Bay Area Report in The New York Times’ print editions, which are delivered to over 65,000 Bay Area New York Times subscribers on Fridays and Sundays. Over time, The Bay Citizen also plans to distribute news through podcasts, radio, and potentially TV.”

In recent days I have perused the content and we have all witnessed increasing ad presence around the Bay for the blog – which requests you join on a splash page when you visit now, saying they need 500 more “Bay Citizens” to sign up. It’s not as easy to pay top-notch reporters and editors in the era of user-generated content as the Hellmans thought.

I noticed they did hire the experienced and competent Aaron Glantz, the radio reporter for KPFA and Free Speech Radio News, an East Bay journalist and author who also filed stories for me when I was a news director – he did the first and best coverage of Muqtada Al-Sadr in Iraq during the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003, btw.

Some of the work is pretty good and the reach into civic space is decent, growing. But many of the positions taken via their headlines and tweets are dangerously “un-journalistic” and there is some question about their editorial choices at a time when we need to address waste and budget deficits. They are creating a voice for themselves, yes – but what exactly does it have to do with us? regular San Franciscans …

Really though, the media environment in SF has achieved pluralized saturation.

We don’t need more communication, we need better communication.

In fact, traditional modes of journalism relied on critique and competitiveness to create a whole picture of our society – the two-paper town – but in the late 1990’s as the Net and electronic media became more ubiquitous, this all began to fall apart.

Career politicians and the big parties have preyed upon the critical void created by the absence of competitive views and the pluralization of media. Now, by purchasing television, internet and radio time in great volume just weeks before the election, mainstream candidates backed by immense special interests cement their victory in elections and define what our society  should be like.

The Guardian and the Chron have fallen right in line, in order to be perceived of as “legitimate” by those in power, and all of it seems to have more to do with selling something and less to do with the everyday struggles of San Franciscans.

I encourage readers to consider the views of all these blogs and papers with a critical eye – particularly when they are blasé, snarky, cliquish, in-jokey or authoritative about what it means to be a San Franciscan, a progressive, or an informed voter. If we show these complacent journalists and candidates that we are much smarter and more critical than they think, we stand a chance of having coverage that looks more like our city, and more importantly they might fear our turnout more and respond to our needs.

This election year, the Bay Citizen, SF Appeal and other bloggers will seek to become an electronic platform that will stand aside the Guardian and Chron to cover the race. I hope it’s the beginning of competitive journalism again. Let us read together and see. A good example of the work I am talking about is by another of the new blogs, SF Appeal, who have pursued alleged lobbying violations by Alex Tourk, rather vigorously. Check it.

[and this one, about Mesherle’s impending release, which is well written and significant because many in the mainstream press are either avoiding the topic or not addressing the emotions it brings up. I have been reading SF Appeal a lot more recently as I campaign for Mayor, it is succeeding at some level – keep up the good work.

It is important to note in this case that a jury of 12 found Mehserle guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter AND the handgun charge. The handgun charge was a serious element here which could have led to policy changes such as the removal of lethal weapons like guns from BART cops. (they have Tasers and nightsticks and so on).

Instead it was thrown out unilaterally by the judge – which seems illegal to many. It’s too expensive for the family to pursue that on appeal, but it certainly ought to be the civic sector’s responsibility to make such a charge stick and to pursue such weird decision-making.

I, for one, believe we should disarm BART police. Let local PDs be called when a gun is necessary, make it a felony to carry a gun on BART and put excessive cameras in the system. We need to de-escalate the violence and the weaponry on our streets.]

BTW, the largest number of hits to this site yet was May 10th …

welcome to new followers and thank you for considering Karthik Rajan for Mayor of San Francisco in 2011.

An Artist for Mayor of SF 2011

10 Tuesday May 2011

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Today I added some of my more recent work as an artist (the last ten years or so) to the resumé on this site, here.

My work as an artist has been social and political and aesthetic and news-related and cultural and about communicating ideas. These experiences have helped create in some small  part the candidacy you see before you today. To whit,

since 1985, Audiovisual and Performance Artist
Member, Booklyn Artists Alliance, a non-profit, consensus-driven book arts organization dedicated to the book as art, on the web at www.booklyn.org

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

Museum of Modern Art, NYC

Occidental College, Los Angeles

Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles

Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA

University of Southern California, Los Angeles

University of California at Irvine

Pacifica Radio Archives

EXHIBITIONS, INSTALLATIONS, PERFORMANCES, TALKS

2010  Moving Forward, zine in an edition of 3,000 (1500 en español), distributed free in Fruitvale, Temescal and downtown Oakland, concerning the verdict in the Johannes Mehserle trial

2009    Making Money … Into Something Else, installation and artist’s talk, Deco Art, Oakland, CA
2008    establishment of ffptp.org website (a two year exercise ended in 2010);
new work, local artists group show, Eton Avenue Studio, Berkeley, CA
2007    The Rupee Ganesha, Tamil Nadu, India;
After Po-Mo. [And Before We Agree], artists talk, Certitude, Auroville, India;
Vous êtes ă Puduchcheri, mural, Qualithés Hotel, Puduchcheri, India;
Found in Translation, touring group show, Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis
2006    Artists Talk, Found in Translation, Center for Book Arts, NY;
Found in Translation, Center for Book Arts NYC & Center for the Book SF;
Alternating Currency, Pavel Zoubok Gallery, NYC;
Tricycle Museum, Centro de Cultura Casa Das Mudas, Madeira Island, Portugal
2005    kotataki art, permanent installation, Sun’s Preschool, Kamakura, Japan;
Pluralism of Media in the Age of Surveillance, talk, c-level, Chinatown, LA;
The First Contact Project, streaming Internet audio of interviews
2004     untitled talk on the Presidential Election of 2004, New College, SF;
Troubled Sleep: Art in the Age of Bush, panel discussion, Cal Arts, LA;
Visible Palestine, performance and video, Echo Park Film Center, LA
2003     Art and Political Communication, talk, University of California, Davis;
The SF J18 Manifestation, performance and video, Track 16 Gallery,LA
2002     US=THEM, installation and performance and The Angola Three, a mural, 33 1/3 Books and Gallery, LA; Rare Books of the Future, Center for Book Arts, NYC

I hope you will see why I am best suited to run the City today. I can bring the costs down, get control of the upward spiral of waste and raise the right taxes on the right people at the right time so that:

We will pay less, for a better quality of life.

NEVER tweet a no-hitter

08 Sunday May 2011

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There’s a well known jinx in baseball that if a pitcher has a no-hitter going through five innings you don’t mention it.

It will guarantee its end.

Today, I tested the jinx against Twitter. I tweeted after the 5th that the Giants’ Ryan Vogelsong had a no-hitter going after five, purposefully, stating the experiment in the tweet. The very next batter hit a single and broke up the no-hitter. check the tweets @KarthikRajanSF

Lesson: NEVER tweet a no-hitter.

… best to do these things early in the season when the games don’t matter as much. That’s our Manager Bochy’s philosophy … and our GM Brian Sabean seems to agree. I am growing to understand it myself.

Go Giants.

A New Philosophy for San Francisco

06 Friday May 2011

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There is a transparent reality in SF politics that neither our politicians nor newspapers discuss: the town has changed, is changing fast, and without authority, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse in Gavin Newsom’s absence (a period that by election day will have been really three years, since he spent at least the last two years campaigning for his new job).

Some of these changes are in policy that created new demographics, such as the Twitter Giveaway, while some are demographic changes that have driven policy. No politician wants to talk about the changes in policy wrought by Gavin Newsom’s period that fall into the former category, and few new residents want to talk about the latter.

Few are changes like last month’s Urban Gardening rezoning: local efforts to maintain the integrity of San Francisco. I was touched to see Antonio Roman-Alcala in the photo-op on the City’s website, standing behind Interim Mayor Lee, and applauding as he signed the document.

Some newly proposed changes sound exciting: Treasure Island Development, basketball and football stadia, but unchecked and without transparency or authority, any problems that arise from such changes don’t receive the attention they are due equally.

Meanwhile, hundreds and thousands are being ground down by the changes and have felt unheard. That is why for a decade the progressive left has been represented by the screaming obscenities of Chris Daly and the hand-wringing winging of Tim Redmond at the Guardian. A reformist attitude about our government is long overdue.

We must force our politicians and our new neighbors to address the changes in real terms, and we must restate that there are San Francisco values that are unique to our City – compassion, tolerance and a welcoming embrace. I fear repercussions are not being discussed and the need for important adaptations thus goes unheeded.

More, in these areas of tension – salaries, pensions and benefits that are too high, taxation that’s inequitable, an increasing cost of living and a deficit economy – we are speeding up to create patchwork solutions that cut broad swaths, rather than slowing down to identify and deal with root causes.

Defining SF is something few people want to do because of the socio-political risk and the fundamentally authoritative posture it requires. I wouldn’t dare try to be the aesthetic or cultural interpreter of our incredible City. But I do know it and feel it everyday, and I think that since Gavin left, we are like a ship adrift.

We must begin to poll San Franciscans more actively with current tools to comprehend our makeup now, and the exact nature of our socio-political consciousness and we must protect the many hundreds and thousands who are being eliminated from discourse by our increased “refinement and enlargement” (as Madison would put it).

I am running for office as a strong leader who wants to comprehend our constitution and work for all San Franciscans. I believe we all know what we want our city to be like, but our politicians no longer seem to represent that, whatever that is, to anyone.

This week a few examples brought this to bear for me: Prop G, passed last year, has given the SFMTA unprecedented leverage in what are now being called historic negotiations between MUNI and its employees; Captain Greg Suhr, a 30-year man of the force, who has been involved in one or two serious incidents decried by progressives over the years, was named Police Chief and the current Interim Mayor Ed Lee proposed the first-ever 5-year budget for our City.

In each case, I promptly responded – in most cases in realtime – in advance of any of the other candidates – you can read my thoughts below. I did this because I want followers to see that real leadership knows what’s right and puts it forward quickly to allow colleagues to accept, deny or seek opportunity to adapt it. Leadership starts discourse quickly and accurately then adapts with flexibility to refinement.

I found myself supporting the SFMTA and Police Chief Suhr and decrying Interim Mayor Lee’s Plan and thus realized that mine is a new philosophy for SF. It isn’t Democratic or Republican or Libertarian or etc. It is responsive to what is actually happening and untethered to any special interest. Coalition building will be the result thus of deliberating upon competing views between these vested interests, while being outside of them, being critical, smart and for the people. I am proud to suggest this because I truly believe it is what we need to move forward as a City and retain our values, which are unique in the country and maybe the world.

My campaign is one of inclusion, but I am attempting to project a strong, decisive image because I feel this is what our City sorely needs. I do not see that charismatic strength of leadership in the other candidates. We must be muscular, physical and responsive to the problems, not fixed on setting up 5-year plans for corporate cronies. I am stern and focused, an analyst ready to work restructuring our economy and City for sustainable, solvent growth at an easy pace that doesn’t grind out precious resources or residents.

Thank you to all the new followers this week. We are increasing in number and I very much appreciate your interest and support.

Late Tuesday Lee Budget Proposal Analysis

03 Tuesday May 2011

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Spent the day reading Interim Mayor Lee’s May 1st Budget Proposal 2011-2012 for the so-called Enterprise Departments. It’s so smart and political to throw the good news out first, but even a cursory glance reveals debt relief and employee pensions and benefits to be exposed.

Salaries are ridiculous.

Much progress with small businesses in the Mission this week. Thank you so much for your support. I love you.

I promise a full analysis of this and all of Interim Mayor Lee’s budgets. I know how it is to not have time to read the budget. I am happy to do it for you.

Tonight, I’m going to go study this highly trumpeted 5-Year-Plan, meant to show that our former Chief Administrator knows how to expand our view of governance and give us a long-view of budgeting. With a 300 million dollar deficit, a long-view helps the medicine go down.

It’s bold forward-thinking, sure, but you can’t operate on a scale like this unless you are working with some large interests. I fear that like the Treasure Island boondoggle, such plans are riddled with pocket lining. If you follow the money it seems to me to be more about cementing a Gavin Newsom II and cronies galore into positions of power. I hate saying it this way, but candidacy demands honesty.

My policy and plan are different. I think we need a short-term budget to help redesign our city economy and that 2-year budgets and 1-year budgets that take stronger action show a flexibility by City governance. With new tech, things move pretty fast – we can make decisions, try them and be more creative and fluid – not locked in to 5-year deals with special interests. My budgets will be more detailed because I propose a full and transparent Audit of departments to be set before the voters – not a .pdf of the net numbers.

We must address the waste. Vote Karthik Rajan, and the Mayor’s salary comes down with everybody else’s – we scale back, streamline, economize. We redistribute and slow growth until we have a more equitable cost of living for all our residents.

It’s unfair to comment further without a full study of Interim Mayor Lee’s Plan, so I will stop there.

I did notice that candidate Chiu, perhaps reacting to my claim that his work on the Twitter deal shows a lack of creativity in revenue generation, posted a link on his website about a creative way to generate income from technology – leasing out city infrastructure that carries data to private interests with greater need for bandwidth. Good idea, David, well done. I thought such resources must exist, I hope that with your position as Board President you can suss details and give us some concrete numbers for such a proposal.

May Day Toward A Saner Future

01 Sunday May 2011

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The best of wishes to all on May Day, which in 2011 reveals whole systems of laborers being redefined by changing technology and the rising cost of fossil fuel, a corporate controlled media system owned by very few who present information in a narrow manner at great volume to try to make their viewpoint a national narrative, system-wide corruption that serves wealthy overlords who govern through pseudo-democracy – which in any case we don’t seem to value enough to employ as voter turnout is shameful in the United States.

And since the State is broke, instead of coming up with creative solutions or taxing the rich, it launches straight-out attacks on worker’s rights. The State of Wisconsin unilaterally cheated Unions of representation and tea-partiers sell the line because of a perception of corruption and manipulation by Unions that has been manufactured and pushed by among others, an Aussie incorporated in Britain, Rupert Murdoch, through his network [FOX] and newspaper [WSJ].

In the USA, of course, we do Labor Day in September at the end of summer, but for Labour Day, I propose we really consider how our austerity measures are going to look. We have no choice. We cannot paper over the numbers or pretend the City isn’t broke, or worse running at a deficit. But we must protect our workers. In fact, we need to make taxation more equitable and spread more widely rather than author exceptions to law as the Board has done for Twitter.

David Cay Johnston’s book Free Lunch, Porfolio (Penguin), 2007, which is subtitled How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and stick you with the bill), is an excellent read that exposes the facts. Here’s a nice post about taxation over at The World’s Got Problems blog.

There are a lot of creative ways we can generate revenue without cutting into pensions and ending city jobs. and there are lots of ways to redistribute current spending. Take a look at my campaign promises, I will lead us to savings and a surplus economy.

Vote Karthik Rajan for Mayor of San Francisco.