SAN FRANCISCO BRIEFING February 2005

News this month

Captured on film

Eric Steel, a filmmaker, has documented a number of suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge, thanks to the access he was granted to it for much of 2004. But bridge officials are angry, claiming Mr Steel said he was creating a tribute to the landmark. They want to preview the film, and may try to prevent it from being screened publicly. It is unclear whether Mr Steel began his project intending to concentrate on bridge suicides, but a camera that he installed on the bridge eventually captured 19 of them (the typical annual total is 18), and plenty of attempts. Local news outlets typically offer only cursory reports of such suicides, assuming the publicity will only encourage others.

The film has renewed the perennial debate over suicide prevention at the bridge. Since it opened in 1937, some 1,200 people have ended their lives by jumping off it, prompting many to lobby for suicide barriers like those erected at the Eiffel Tower. But bridge administrators say it may not be possible to design effective barriers, and that they may scar the bridge’s beauty. Some argue that barriers will hardly prevent the suicidal from taking their lives by other means. But there is renewed sense that the bridge's fatal beauty may encourage impulsive acts. Barrier advocates cite studies showing that most people who are talked out of jumping never attempt suicide again.

Hobbled

A grand-jury investigation into Don Perata, the new leader of the California state senate, has clouded his first months in office. Federal investigators from the FBI and Internal Revenue Service allege that Mr Perata took kickbacks during his terms as a state senator and assemblyman. They say that contributors to Mr Perata’s political campaigns also gave money to his business associates and relatives (ostensibly for campaign work), who in turn paid Mr Perata consulting fees.

One target of the probe is Lily Hu, an Oakland lobbyist and a former aide to Mr Perata. She may have improperly funnelled money to Mr Perata through Exit Strategies, a political direct-mail firm operated by his son, Nick. Exit Strategies was paid $791,000 by political committees linked to Mr Perata; in turn, the company paid the senator $138,000 for rent and consulting work. On December 15th, the FBI raided the homes of both father and son. Despite being hobbled by the investigation, Mr Perata has been campaigning actively against some of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent budget proposals. The governor responded by calling Mr Perata and two fellow Democrats the “Three Stooges”.

RU 4 it?

On December 23rd, the parents of Holly Patterson, an East Bay teenager who died after taking a so-called “morning-after pill”, filed a lawsuit against its maker, Danco Laboratories of New York. They claim that Danco failed to warn users of RU-486 that two women had died of the same infection that proved fatal for their daughter.

Soon after her death in September 2003, Patterson's father, Monty Patterson, began speaking out publicly against the drug, saying that Planned Parenthood failed to inform his daughter about possible risks. In November, the US Food and Drug Administration ordered that the drug carry a stronger warning about potential complications. In all, 676 “adverse events” have been linked to the drug since its approval in 2000, but any direct causality has yet to be established.

Taxidermy pales

Genetic Savings and Clone, a Sausalito firm, announced in late December that it completed the first sale of a cloned cat to a heartbroken pet owner. For $50,000, the company created a clone of Nicky, who died in 2003. The Texas woman who now owns the reincarnated cat has dubbed it “Little Nicky”.

Animal-rights groups have decried the news, saying that responsible pet-lovers should adopt animals from shelters instead. Others are concerned about the cloned animals themselves, saying they often have unexplained health problems and are doomed to short lives. Moreover, they say animals, like people, are also products of their environment, so a cloned pet might never be the same as the original. Genetic Savings and Clone says it fully discloses these factors, and that people should be able to spend their money how they want.

Crisis averted

Bay Area grocery-store chains and their workers have reached a tentative deal, perhaps averting the labour disputes that crippled Southern Californian supermarkets last year. The two sides negotiated over rises in health-care co-payments and a two-tier wage system based on seniority. The agreement, which affects 20,000 workers at Safeway, Albertson’s and Kroger’s supermarkets, stipulates some increased co-payments and a nine-tier wage system. Management won a four-fold lengthening of the time required to reach top-grade pay—it will take three and a half years to make $19 an hour.

Nearly a year ago, a bitter labour dispute erupted into a five-month employee lockout that left many unemployed and cost the stores millions of dollars. Grocery stores throughout California have been reluctant to concede to union demands, arguing that rising health-care costs are putting them at a disadvantage to rapidly expanding non-union grocers such as Wal-Mart and Costco.

Catch if you can

February 2005

“Caroline, or Change”

January 14th—February 20th 2005

Last year Tony Kushner won huge audiences with a television adaptation of his play “Angels in America”, a Pulitzer Prize winning epic that explores the lives of New Yorkers with AIDS. “Caroline, or Change” is a departure from Mr Kushner's most famous work: it is an intriguing, unconventional musical set in 1963, during the Civil Rights era. Free of the treacly ballads and wistful confectionary of Broadway, it tells a loosely autobiographical story about a relationship between a young boy and the family maid.

The musical retains the playwright's distinctive fusion of the personal and the political, searching for answers to difficult American questions. And the music is catchy too. Tonya Pinkins, who was remarkable on Broadway in the title role, reprises her performance in this touring production.

Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St. Tel: +1 (415) 551-2020. See the theatre's website.