There’s nothing like air travel to emphasize the reach of global capital, and what I’ll call postmodernism, the culture of globalization.

Flying through Hong Kong, my first thought stepping out of the plane was “Hey, there’s a Starbucks here.” There was also a Burger King, a Ben & Jerry’s and even a Popeye’s Chicken. The main distinguishing characteristic of the Hong Kong airport was that you get on the left moving sidewalk, not the right. This makes sense, since Hong Kong was a british colony, but that didn’t stop me from nearly breaking my ankle absent-mindedly stepping onto the bottom of a down escalator.

UESF is having a rally and march at 6:45 p.m. tomorrow (2/28). Marchers are meeting at the playground at John Swett Elementary School (727 Golden Gate/Franklin is the cross street) and then marching together to the BOE meeting. As everyone knows, impasse has been called on the negotiations with the contract-and UESF and the District meet all day on Friday, Feb. 24.

UESF will make a statement Tuesday about the results from the first mediation session with the district at district headquarters. The meeting took place all-day on Friday, February 24.

Oral Lee Brown recounts in her autobiography, “The Promise” (with co-author, Caille Miller) that in December 1987, she drove up to a liquor store in East Oakland to get a soft drink and some peanuts. A small girl came up to Ms. Brown and asked her for a quarter.

Ms. Brown asked the little girl if she was hungry and the little girl nodded. So Ms. Brown took the girl into the liquor store and told the little girl to get what she wanted to eat. The child got a loaf of bread, a pack of baloney and some cheese. When she went up to the counter, the little girl look up at Ms. Brown-and at that point, Ms. Brown realized that the little girl was trying to feed her entire family.

“It is the most wonderful time of the year….” Andy Williams

It’s my favorite time of the year-Science Fair Season!!!

This year, I got to be a science fair judge for San Francisco County’s Middle School Science Fair. I was a judge (on a team of three) for most of the physical science entries.

On the first night, you judge the exhibits. In order to make everything fair, the student’s name and school is hidden from the judges. On the second night, you interview the students-and I made sure that I asked each student where he or she went to school.

Posting from me will be a bit irregular and will have a shift in emphasis over the next two weeks. I am off to witness the glories of globalization first-hand, as I am going to Bangalore, India for two weeks to train somebody to do my job*.

I’ll post intermittently, and I’ll try to avoid “wow, there are a lot of people here, and boy is the food good” kind of posts.

*Note: I will still have a job when I come back. It’ll just be a different one. I am pretty sure.

As usual, we try to avoid commenting on the over-covered national issues, but Molly Ivins weighed in on the port “scandal” today, and it’s worth reading.

Second, this is a corporation, consequently its only interest is in making money. A corporation is like a shark, designed to do two things: kill and eat. Thousands of years of evolution lie behind the shark, where as the corporation has only a few hundred. But it is still perfectly evolved for its purpose. That means a corporation that makes money running port facilities does not have a stake in national security. It’s not the corporation’s fault any more than it’s the shark’s.

The city has posted redacted versions of the responses to the TechConnect RFP on the City website. I haven’t had a chance to read them yet (the Google/EarthLink one alone is 174 pages!), but as soon as I do, I’ll have some input. If anyone has read any of them, feel free to post your opinion in comments.

It didn’t take long, but South Dakota has become the first state to force a test of the new Supreme Court’s position on Roe v. Wade.

Legislation meant to prompt a national legal battle targeting Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, was approved Wednesday by the South Dakota Senate, moving the bill a step closer to final passage.

…

“It is the time for the South Dakota Legislature to deal with this issue and protect the lives and rights of unborn children,” said Democratic Sen. Julie Bartling, the bill’s main sponsor.

You wouldn’t know it from the Chronicle, but there were six proposals submitted for the TechConnect project. The big news seems to be that Google and Earthlink are teaming up. Why Google wants to team up I get, since they are not an ISP and have no network-deployment experience. Earthlink, on the other hand, won the bid to do the Philadelphia project without Google. The only thing I can think is that Google will provide the money, by providing location-based ads. You can read more about the proposals in the Mercury News.

Over the weekend, I went to the annual dinner of the Second District (San Francisco) PTA. It was in honor of SFUSD’s principals.

It was a great crowd with many outstanding principals in the audience-as well as Commissioner Eric Mar, Commissioner Jill Wynns and President Norman Yee. Interim Superintendent Gwen Chan was also there with some of her staff at one of the front tables.