Results tagged “jackiespeier”

     

Today was the 30-year anniversary of the Jonestown massacre.

Jackie Speier runs for Congress again, after a 29-year break.

Making her move at juuust the right time, Jackie Speier is a shoo-in to fill Tom Lantos' seat by April 8 if she gathers a majority of votes in a special, pre-primary election. But first, according to the Merc:

Congressman Tom Lantos died this morning from esophageal cancer at the age of 80. He represented most of the Sunset, as well as a big chunk of San Mateo County. He was the only survivor of the Holocaust to be elected to Congress, and worked for years on human rights issues. That said, he ticked off quite a few people locally by supporting the Iraq war, although he had recently been pretty critical of the way things were going Over There. Before he died, he endorsed State Sen. Jackie Speier as his successor - no word yet on whether the Governator will decide to hold a special election (that would be our fourth of the year if he does) to replace him.

23rd Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Labor and Community Breakfast this morning at the San Francisco Hilton

-- Why, it's our very own SFist Rita kicking it in the comfy confines (and breaking down the latest season of Project Runway) over at SFGate. Awesome. [Culture Blog]

, which tells not only her story, but the story of three of her friends as well. $18, reception at 6, reading at 7, at 595 Market 2nd Fl. (x 2nd).

The newish website Maplight won some recognition today from Netsquared. Netsquared's one of those techno social change-o thinktanky sites that does progressive, but we can't tell what. Fortunately, Maplight's purpose is a bit more concrete. They correlate politicians' donations and votes, showing where someone might be motivated more by money than by duty to the citizens.

Anyone who's interested in San Francisco history must see this movie. Director and MacArthur genius grant recipient Stanley Nelson (who previously directed the Emmy-award-winning The Murder of Emmett Till) has put together a sensitive and thoughtful history of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple that stays away from the usual pat explanations of the situation (as Nelson said in the post-screening Q&A, the story of "900 crazy people drinking Kool-Aid in the jungle") to outline a story that's even more disturbing when you realize how almost-acceptable the situation was that Jones created. As you can see in the picture at the left, Jim Jones was tight in San Francisco local politics, and was considered a key part of George Moscone's (short-lived) mayoral triumph in 1977. Peoples Temple promoted a religious doctrine of interracial brotherhood, responsibility for the poor, and a socialist utopia in which everyone looked out for everyone else. Doesn't sound so bad, does it? Peoples Temple also participated in a number of progressive social movements, attending rallies and organizing get-out-the-vote campaigns, and as a result, Jim Jones was awarded a seat on the board of the San Francisco Housing Authority (!!!) before he fled for Guyana, killed a state congressman, and orchestrated the mass suicide of over 900 people. Our mouth kept dropping open at the footage that Nelson had obtained -- interviews with Jones's childhood acquaintances (all of whom agreed he was a weird little dude, torturing and killing cats so he could hold funerals for them), sermons by Jones at his Fillmore/Geary temple (now the post office next to the Fillmore Theater, where the downtown-bound 38 Geary stop is), footage of followers seeing Guyana for the first time, and the most chillingly, live film of the final days in Jonestown and the fateful visit by Congressman Leo Ryan (and a very young Jackie Speier) and tape recordings of Jim Jones urging people to "drink faster, faster, faster." Dude, we were freaked out. Interviews with survivors, Intersection for the Arts, and Jim Jones Jr. at the Q&A, after the jump.