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For friends, family and the random search engine visitor. This blog started as an experiment in mobile blogging from my Palm TREO 600, 700, Prē, HTC Evo, Samsung 5, Pixel 3, Pixel 6 Pro. Now it serves as a simple repository of favorite activities. Expect bad golf, good fishing, great sailing, eating, drinking, adventure travel, occasional politics and anything else I find interesting along the way including, but not limited to, any of the labels listed here...

Sunday, February 9, 2014

San Francisco, Larry Ellison, America's Cup, Sharp Park, Social Media, Politics, and my new friend John Avalos

 We'll come back to the graphic at the top of this post later. First a column by C.W. Nevius in the Chronicle:
S.F., Ellison can't let game of chicken sink America's Cup
"The city insists it's just holding the line on costs. The Oracle group counters that there are several other locations that would be just as attractive as San Francisco Bay.  Nonsense. Last summer's event may have been a bit of a slow build, but once we got done with the one-boat "races" and New Zealand versus Oracle got under way, it was a rip-roaring success. Russell Coutts, head of the Oracle team, called the finals "the best ever." Why mess with that? You'll be astonished to hear that the reasons involve money, politics and hefty egos."
So this gets me aggravated. It's a good article

Oracle takes America's Cup in comeback for the ages
No oracle could have foreseen this. Oracle Team USA completed its miracle comeback Wednesday and retained the America's Cup in a regatta that carved a place in the San Francisco pantheon of unforgettable sporting events. Twice down by seven wins, Larry Ellison's team rallied to win 9-8 in a 19-day marathon that was the longest final series in the Cup's 162- year history. And probably the most thrilling. The final race of the 34th America's Cup brought three more lead changes to a series that was full of them, but skipper Jimmy Spithill's catamaran simply had too much speed for Emirates Team New Zealand and won by 44 seconds. A roaring, flag-waving crowd greeted the crew after its eighth straight win. It secured each one knowing that a single mistake could mean the Cup was lost. Ellison hopped on board and told his sailors, "Do you guys know what you just did? You won the America's Cup!"








Still, I've got to hand it to Avalos. I'll never see eye to eye with him on policy. In fact, I'm pretty sure that he and I will never be in the same time zone as far as politics and policy are concerned. And I am sure he would be a complete disaster for the City if we are so foolish as to elect him mayor. But...

That said, it's rare for a politicians at any level to engage with constituents on twitter as John Avalos does. It's retail, grassroots, personal politics at its best. The exchange gave me a greater appreciation for the role of social media in general and twitter in particular as the modern upgraded "handshake" of politics. And it gave me an appreciation for the John Avalos style of direct one-on-one politics via social media. It's also kind of frightening if you don't agree with his politics. It's hard not to like someone who will engage with you directly as Avalos does on twitter. And people vote for people they like. And it does not take a lot of votes to win elected office in San Francisco.
 

I am not immune to this personal touch in politics. I feel really bad that I called him a jerk in the first tweet in this thread. John Avalos is not a jerk. He's just completely absolutely wrong about everything.
That about wraps up the day. Except as I was writing this I got one more tweet from Supervisor Avalos:


He just doesn't play fair.

1 comment:

Civic Center said...

I told you Avalos was personally a great guy, even though he doesn't remotely understand the Sharp Park issue. Nevius, on the other hand, is a pompous, lying jerk who writes anything his bosses tell him to.