Becoming a Democrat(and Save the Castro!)

In order to start the D5 Prog Dems, I had to finally commit to registering as a Democrat. I won't say what I was registered as before, but let's just say it wasn't Green, Socialist, Independent, Republican, or DTS. I had some initial reservations about this from my time combing through the master voter file (MVF) this time last year, pulling out names that match a particular description. For example: under 30, frequent voter, registered Dem. People will assume you'll vote a certain way and start rotating your name from volunteer caller to caller for some campaign or other until you finally answer your phone, frustrated as hell, at which time they will procede to talk to you about a candidate or issue until you're either blue in the face or hang up. (And if you hang up, they'll probably call you again.)

So now I fit a category. Under 30, frequent voter, registered Dem. Fab.

I may as well make use of this now. I joined the Harvey Milk LGBT Dem Club to see how a well-functioning club is run, and since the LGBT community as a whole tends to be in line with progressive beliefs, there'll be a lot of overlapping issues that I need to learn how to process. Alix Rosenthal, who somewhat less than successfully ran for D8 Supe last year, did a very informative presentation on Halloween in the Castro, which in so many words is going to be a total clusterfuck and a hotspot for crime this this month, thanks to SFPD's lack of committment to public safety during this classic event and the City's complete mishandling of the situation. Alix made a couple of excellent points about how the dissolution of city services for the event aren't going to actually discourage the folks from all over the Bay from coming when she said that the city tried to cancel Halloween in the Castro, not realizing that it isn't theirs to cancel.

At a recent police commission hearing, transgender Commission President Theresa Sparks addressed her concerns about the community so close to her heart: "If we're successful in shutting down the Castro, those people are going to go somewhere. How are we going go address 200,000 people spreading throughout the city?" The 200,000 people are being addressed through a $40,000 publicity campaign to discourage locals from attending because they'll have "no fun". David Perry, the communications consultant in charge of the campaign whose list of clients includes many performance arts groups and local flavors, forgets that the forbidden fruit always tastes the sweetest... or at least people will seem to think so.

I anticipate that the next time I get around to writing, the entry will be tagged "crime". Not to be a pessimist, but I don't think I'll be down in the Castro this year. I can't imagine better news for drug dealers: a massive public congregation of costumed folks at an event that the police isn't dedicating special monitoring resources to.