SAN FRANCISCO BRIEFING April 2005

News this month

Let them marry

Surprising nearly everyone, Richard Kramer, a Republican-appointed judge on San Francisco County's Superior Court, ruled on March 14th that the state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. He wrote that California's “protracted denial of due process cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional. Simply put, same-sex marriage cannot be prohibited because California has always done so before”.

Mr Kramer was presiding over a lawsuit challenging the ban filed by same-sex couples and the city of San Francisco. In early 2004, Gavin Newsom, San Francisco's mayor, granted marriage licenses to nearly 4,000 same-sex couples. The state Supreme Court later ruled that he had exceeded his authority, but did not weigh in on the validity of the ban. Under state law, Mr Kramer's decision is stayed for 60 days to allow time for appeals. Opponents plan to do just that, and have also renewed calls for a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. They have promised to try for a statewide referendum on the issue.

Bloggers' rights

In a case watched closely by advocates of press freedom, a Santa Clara county judge ruled on March 11th that three websites must disclose their sources for trade secrets about a forthcoming Apple Computer product. After information about Asteroid, an unreleased music product, wound up on PowerPage, AppleInsider and Think Secret, three small software fan-sites, Apple sued the sites' proprietors to force them to reveal the identities of their moles. Judge James Kleinberg ruled that journalists never have the right to withhold information relating to a crime (industrial espionage, in this case), and that technological innovation depends on maintaining proprietary information.

In the ruling, however, Mr Kleinberg avoided the thorny question of whether internet publishers and reporters are entitled to the same confidentiality rights as journalists in traditional media. Instead, he concentrated on Apple's accusation of theft. The San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, which provided the sites with legal representation, is appealing against the ruling, warning that it imperils business journalists in all media.

The big leap

City officials have taken the first step toward erecting a barrier to prevent suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge, which links San Francisco to Marin County. They voted in March to begin raising $2m for environmental studies and a preliminary design for a barrier. The agency overseeing the bridge is already facing a $70m deficit, and will need to fund this study from grants and private donations.

Since it was built in 1937, more than 1,300 people—four this year, so far—have leapt to their deaths from the bridge. In January, a filmmaker working on a documentary about the bridge said he had filmed 19 suicides. In the past few weeks, relatives of bridge-suicides have lobbied more aggressively for a barrier. But opposition has always been strong, with many saying a barrier will mar the city's most famous landmark. Sustaining the bridge's classic look is only one of many challenges posed to engineers, who must also create a barrier that does not catch the wind rushing through the channel, thus causing the bridge to sway uncontrollably.

A losing gamble

Facing stiff opposition from state lawmakers, a Native American tribe has scaled back plans to build California's first urban casino just across the bay from San Francisco. The Lytton Band of Pomo Indians has conceded that a compact it signed with Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's governor, is doomed in the legislature. Instead, it plans to upgrade an existing card-room and add electronic bingo machines.

The Lytton Band had planned to turn their card-room in San Pablo, a poor East Bay city, into a Vegas-style casino, complete with 2,500 slot machines. Of the earnings, 25% would have gone to state and local governments. Mr Schwarzenegger was keen to set a precedent for the urban expansion of Native-American-run casinos, predicting this one would have added as much as $100m a year to state coffers. But by upgrading an existing facility, the tribe need neither share revenue nor seek state approval. The governor's office is hoping to hammer out a compromise.

Death row blues

Just as Scott Peterson headed to San Quentin's death row after being convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and unborn child, the Los Angeles Times revealed the tremendous cost of maintaining California's death penalty. For some 640 death-row inmates, the state spends an extra $114m each year on top of the cost of locking them up for life. The appeals process is long and expensive for criminals facing death, and inmates are kept in pricey special housing. Costs mount because California rarely carries out executions—only 11 since voters reinstated capital punishment in 1978—despite having a comparatively large number of condemned prisoners. Mr Peterson can expect to spend about 20 years on death row, and is more likely to die of natural causes than lethal injection.

Smoke and mirrors

The tobacco industry continues to minimise evidence of second-hand smoke's harm, according to researchers at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). In an article in the March issue of Pediatrics, UCSF researchers disclose that Philip Morris, a big tobacco company, spent up to $100,000 on a report about second-hand smoke and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) published in 2001 in Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, a British journal.

Philip Morris seems to have pressured Frank Sullivan, the author of this report, to change his findings on the link between smoking and crib death. The report ultimately played down postnatal exposure to smoke, making it seem more acceptable to smoke around children. Mr Sullivan had originally concluded that infants stood a higher risk of SIDS if mothers smoked during pregnancy and if infants were exposed to second-hand smoke after birth. UCSF researchers charge that the industry, which has tried to rehabilitate its image after the costly 1998 nationwide tobacco settlement, is still up to its old tricks.

Catch if you can

April 2005

The Kingdom of Siam: the Art of Central Thailand, 1350-1800

Until May 8th 2005

For more than 400 years, Ayutthaya, known to the west as Siam, was one of the largest and most important kingdoms of South-East Asia. It outlived China's Ming Dynasty and was a significant trading hub with diplomatic ties to countries across Asia as well as in Europe. It collapsed in 1767 when Burma, its perpetual rival, sacked the capital and destroyed many of its cultural treasures.

Fortunately, many artefacts survived in collections in Thailand, Europe and the United States; 89 of them will be gathered for the first time in this exhibition, the world's first big show of such works in over 30 years. Highlights include stone and bronze Buddhas, sculptures of Hindu deities, decorative wood carvings, temple furnishings, illuminated manuscripts, jewellery and textiles.

The Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin St, San Francisco. Tel: +1 (415) 581-3500. Open: Tues-Sun, 10am-5pm (Thurs to 9pm). Entry: $10. For more information, visit the museum's website.

More from the San Francisco cultural calendar