http://www.ca-smith.net/blog Politics, culture, and travel | San Francisco and the world Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:42:48 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Last surf of the year. http://www.ca-smith.net/blog/2011/12/capitola-ca-12302011/ My newest piece for Thought Catalog, a meditation on the legacy of Jimi Hendrix, and his use as a catch-all comparison for all sorts of non-Western music. I’m not sure exactly when I first heard a musician from some far-flung spot on the globe described as the “Jimi Hendrix of ... http://www.ca-smith.net/blog/2011/12/jimi-hendrix-musical-esperanto/ A couple of weeks ago, the Mail & Guardian ran a story of mine on the 1970s Zamrock scene. Sub-Saharan Africa isn't much known for its rock'n'roll, but for a brief time in the late 1960s and '70s every young guy from Lagos to Lusaka wanted to be Jimi Hendrix ... http://www.ca-smith.net/blog/2011/12/up-from-the-underground/ This month's San Francisco magazine runs my piece on a legal challenge that could bring California's death penalty law crashing down. The decision is expected this fall, but no matter which way the judge goes we can expect appeals stretching to the horizon. Ultimately, though, it's hard not to see ... http://www.ca-smith.net/blog/2011/11/death-to-the-penalty/ Yesterday, the Huffington Post ran my initial take on the Occupy SF movement--and Occupy Wall Street in general. ... The encampment, huddled on the sidewalk in front of the Federal Reserve on Market Street, was a veritable Noah's Ark of lefty protest. There were dreads in camo pants, Boomers in ... http://www.ca-smith.net/blog/2011/10/thoughts-on-occupy-sf-updated/ http://www.ca-smith.net/blog/2011/10/choppers-over-occupy-oakland-102611/ That's the subject of my new piece for San Francisco magazine. If you believe the polling, it doesn't look good for Lee's opponents. But ranked choice voting is a cruel mistress, and the scandals surrounding Lee's campaign backers are beginning to pile up. If Lee stumbles down the stretch, here's ... http://www.ca-smith.net/blog/2011/10/can-anyone-beat-ed-lee/ This month's San Francisco magazine (see p.38) runs my piece on broken political promises, from the "no new taxes" pledge that helped make George H.W. Bush a one-term president to Barack Obama's liberal bait and switch to SF mayors Willie Brown, Gavin Newsom, and, most recently, Ed Lee. How pissed ... http://www.ca-smith.net/blog/2011/10/read-my-lips/ Third in an occasional series of found photographs. This is a stereoscope from 1900, depicting a pastoral, pre-Pyramids Road Giza district, a place without sleazy discos, papyrus shops, and choking exhaust. http://www.ca-smith.net/blog/2011/10/the-inundation-of-the-nile/ My exploration of the struggle between supporters of Israel and Palestine on the UC Berkeley campus, in which I trace a decade of passion, protest, and bad behavior, runs in this month's California magazine. Every spring since 2001, a group of earnest, impassioned students has gathered near Sather Gate, cordoning ... http://www.ca-smith.net/blog/2011/09/pr-occupied-berkeley/