The San Francisco Bay Area tops the list of regions where businesses spend the bulk of their research and development funds, according to a new federal report.
The National Science Foundation study found that the San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland region was also most commonly reported as companies’ primary R&D location.
On the heels of the New York Times story about how the tech boom is affecting downtown San Francisco real estate, the Wall Street Journal is out with a story about the city’s increasing competitiveness with the Valley.
Since the economic recovery began in the region in late 2009, data from California’s Employment Development Department have showed tech employment in the San Francisco area rising more quickly than in San Jose’s. In recent months, that trend has accelerated.
The same employment categories in the San Jose metropolitan area—covering the counties of Santa Clara and San Benito—consisted of 211,000 people, up 3% from 205,000 a year ago.
“San Francisco is catching up and may overtake San Jose,” says Janice Shriver, a labor-market consultant at the Employment Development Department. “San Jose had been in the lead for information jobs and software publishing and all that kind of activity for so long.”
Nearly every recent trend piece on this matter invokes San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, who’s background is in civil rights law, and is now seen by some SF-watchers as being tech-business friendly to a degree that could undermine his purported commitment to the city’s marginalized communities who’ve already suffered under the industry’s gentrification in the Mission District.
The Occupy Wall Street movement continues to develop in cities around the country and here all around the Bay. Early this morning, San Jose police arrested four protesters outside City Hall, and cited another for camping on public property.
In downtown San Francisco today, interfaith religious leaders marched in support of the burgeoning movement.
Meanwhile, in Oakland, demonstrators continue to defy the city’s orders to take down their tents.
Oakland’s encampment went up two weeks ago, when hundreds of people took to the streets outside Oakland’s City Hall in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement – and they haven’t left. Over the past two weeks, Frank Ogawa Plaza has become a veritable tent city, complete with a free kitchen that serves food daily, a medical center, a kids’ zone, and wooden pathways built between the tents.
Oakland city officials had been relatively tolerant of the occupation until last Thursday, when they issued a notice to vacate, citing health and safety concerns. So far, the police have not made a move to enforce the ban on overnight camping.
Protester Penny Opal Plant says she thinks the demonstrators are in for the long haul:
PENNY OPAL PLANT: Personally, speaking for myself, I think that the tents will stay and the tents will stay wherever they are around the country. And that if the tents get taken down that they’ll come back with more people, and that there’s Twitter and Facebook and all the telephones, and every other way that people let others know that the tents are being taken down in every city. When those words go out, people show up.
Last week, KALW’s Jen Chien and Sara Bernard spent a day at the encampment – from early morning until midnight – to learn more about its culture, rhythms, and logistics. Here’s what they found, as reported by Jen Chien.
JEN CHIEN: It’s 7:30am and some city workers at Frank Ogawa Plaza are using some very noisy, high-powered hoses to clean off the steps. There aren’t a lot of people up yet, even with all the noise. But then a sleepy-eyed man stumbles out of a tent near the camp’s main center…
SHEIK ANDERSON: My name is Sheik Anderson, I’m from Oakland, California, and I’m an artist.
I ask him to give me the lay of the land.
ANDERSON: We have a supply tent where we have clothes that are donated, blankets, sleeping bags… We have a school where we have information, we have a media tent and an info tent, we even have a little garden growing, and we have a full kitchen – no one’s hungry…
There’s no one individual that could take responsibility for anything that is done here. Everything is a collective effort.
And that’s not just for practical reasons. Unlike at most political protests, many at Occupy Oakland see this collective effort as fundamental to their aims: a promise of a new way to organize society. You can see it in action around the plaza. Over in the kitchen area, two young men are peeling carrots and potatoes in the prep tent, while two others are serving cooked food at a long table. Jamal Porter shows me around the kitchen area.
JAMAL PORTER: My name is Jamal Porter, I was born here in Oakland, California. And I’m here to assist. The front table is lined with condiments and staffed by serving individuals, who serve anyone who’s hungry. Off to the side we have our little pantry, with our oats and berries, and canned goods that people are so generously donating…
We go in shifts, we don’t have a schedule, just someone shows up and relieves someone. And then behind that is where the dishes are done. So this is going on 24 hours a day.
The high-pressure hoses have now stopped and it looks like a yoga teacher has set up for a class, but no students yet… There are some tourists taking some photographs of the encampment.
MIKE PORTER: My name is Mike Porter, I’m from Concord. I’m kind of embarrassed to say it, but I sell Direct TV. I am pedaling a bike that’s hooked up to an alternator, to power our media tent, and to charge cell phones.
CHIEN: Have you taken a shift here, for a specific amount of time?
PORTER: I just saw there was nobody on it, and I was finished eating, have some time to kill before I have to be at work, so…
The campers put down straw all over the grass at Frank Ogawa Plaza. And they’ve made a walkway using wooden pallets and boards going through the tent area. There’s a lot of tents, and among the hundreds of tents, there’s even a kids’ zone, with crayons, toys, and books. Rachel Dorney, sporting a green face-paint mustache, is watching the kids.
RACHEL DORNEY: This can be a really big driving force for the occupation. Just not being so serious all the time, and aggravated. If people would just look around and be like, “There are these beautiful kids, and the activities that they’re doing, it’s just so wonderful.” The other day we had this drum circle with the kids and it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I kind of cried a little bit, just seeing it. It was perfect. I kind of wish the world could be like this …
It’s about 8:45 in the morning, and right in front of City Hall, the yoga class now has five students, and live musical accompaniment. Over at the opposite end of camp from the central kitchen area is a first aid tent, and I notice some port-a-potties over to one side…
CHIEN: Inquiring minds want to know, where are people using the bathroom?
CARLA WEST: There are these Porta-Potties. They are getting a little full. They are serviced on a regular basis, but they might need to do it more often …
That’s Carla West, a radio producer and high school tutor who has been camped out at Occupy Oakland for the last three nights.
For more on the story, visit KALW.org.
A Muslim who prays in public is like James Bond, but without the bling, sophisticated gadgets and entourage of gorgeous women eager to bed him. Both brilliantly fail at every attempt at stealth. Like the fictional secret agent, a Muslim, despite his best intentions and clandestine efforts, sticks out like a pink elephant when forced to offer his ritualistic prayer, salat, outside the comforting cocoon of his home or mosque.
Contrary to the fear-mongering asserted by professional Islamophobes, Muslim Americans do not wish to impose their religious practices and beliefs upon their non-Muslim neighbors. The reality is that most of us are simply trying to navigate the sometimes tricky — but often entertaining — balancing act of adhering to our religious values and rituals while avoiding societal awkwardness and being seen as modern-day Boo Radleys.
Each time I have to pray and am unable to find a secluded spot, I would love for a magic Muslim portal to open and take me away to a fantastic Greyskull castle. Here, I could pray in solitude, shielded from the curious eyes of fascinated and horrified observers and ride on an armored tiger named Battle Cat while drinking mango lassi from a diamond-encrusted goblet.
Unfortunately, I live in reality.
Instead, I discover I have 15 minutes left to pray the afternoon Asr prayer and I’m stuck in a crowded, Valley Fair mall in San Jose, Calif. Realizing that I’d probably be tazed and shot by Homeland Security if I decided to bust out my Arabic tai chi at the Orange Julius, I seek temporary refuge for my prayer woes in the most obvious location: the fitting room at the Gap.
I enter the clothing metropolis in a frantic state and pretend to peruse the fine clothing merchandise. I randomly pick up some accessories and head toward the fitting room stalls only to realize that I am holding skinny female jeans and a Size 2, purple dress. I hastily dump the incorrect clothing on a wooden bench — making sure no one saw me — and run to the men’s section. I decide to play “pretend” and pick up hip, expensive clothing I’d probably never wear in real life and lug the stylish suit, jacket and jeans to the fitting room.
After waiting five minutes due to the long line, the ridiculously good-looking female employee directs me to a fitting stall. I cannot bring myself to make eye contact with her lest I confess my ruse. I rush into the stall and hang the clothes on the wall and devise a complex and sophisticated strategy to secretly pray while “pretending” to try on hip, urban garments. I make sure to create as much noise as possible when changing my pants from the brown, Docker, uncle khakis to the hipster jeans so they don’t suspect my celestial intentions.
I leave the rumbled pants on the floor, along with my shoes and my outer shirt, as visible signs of evidence that I am indeed using this fitting room for normal fitting room purposes.
Now, all I have to figure out is which way is Northeast, because Muslims pray toward Mecca, and this event occurred BIP — before iPhone. I basically do an “eeny-meeny-miney-mo” with the four corners and go with my “gut,” and decided “Mecca” was probably somewhere in the corner nearest to the stall door.
All is well until the prostration, where Muslims have to touch their forehead and nose to the ground. As I’m about to go to the floor, I was overwhelmed with a sense of comfort — I honestly thought I had created a successful camouflage using limited means with limited time. I felt proud and complimented myself on being a pretty dope, on-the-fly, Pakistani, Muslim American James Bond.
My head and knees are now on the floor next to the gap in the door, and everything is going smoothly. I glance to my left and the Gap employee, having bent down, is now staring at me and asking, “Sir, is everything all right?”
F my life.
Find out what happened next at Goatmilk.
