Pro Commerce

Cannery organic market

The Cannery at Del Monte Square (note the new appellation that Del Monte is paying big bucks for) has opened a new organic market every Friday and Saturday mornings. This is near Fisherman’s wharf.

The bait is that the market is entirely organic. Will it work? Yes, during the summer and tourist season, well into October. After that, it probably won’t work. I don’t think the market for organic farm fresh food is large enough among local San Franciscans.

This is a good time to discuss the Embarcadero multi-million dollar renovation built around a very successful Saturday farmers market that is now open Sunday afternoon and a few other afternoons.

The old ferry terminal has been completely rebuilt with interior stores, many big name destination shops. Problem is, there is only good foot traffic during ferry arrival and departure commute times and on Saturday. Tourism is not good enough to support a market and isn’t very high to start with in this area. Parking is non-existent.

A market can not ordinarily survive without good parking. Parking is a necessity because to make money, the average produce purchase has to be between $50 and $100. Most people can’t carry that much produce very far.

I expect the Embarcadero remodel to turn into a food court after the original investment money runs out.

Restaurants in the Castro

There are three top-flight restaurants in the Castro District of San Francisco, within three blocks of each other. They all require reservations for dinner.

Who am I to recommend a restaurant? Nobody. Its purely a matter of taste. I know about the operations of restaurants and I know about the restaurant market. I’ve had a number of restaurants as business clients, I own stock in a famous and profitable restaurant and I know many people in the business.

The oldest and best known of the three is 2223 Market. Flawless, up scale service and fine presentation.

A few years old, further up Market, great bar, and does the best job on what its name implies: Catch. Get the tuna tower appetizer and one of the fish for a main course.

The new winner in innovative food, Tallula three blocks further west, one year old and deserving of a rank in the top restaurants in America. Order anything on the menu, which is always changing but always top quality, perfect service and great presentation.

Institutional change

Why is it so hard to change institutions?

I wrote an article on “how to change institutions” back in the early 1980s and I just put it online without the cartoons that were originally in it.

The thinking I have done recently on the subject is that the inertia of an organization is a structural reality of all forms of human activity. It’s the way things are.

We want to wake up in the world tomorrow that is pretty much like the world we woke up in today. We want our grocery store to be where it was, our car to start our computer to behave the way we’ve learned to expect it to behave and so on….. The same is true for corporations, bridge clubs, street addresses and telephones. We demand inertia in the human world.

The process of making changes in Japan, a truly cooperative-self examining culture, is called nemawashi. The word refers to a tree transplanting. The tree is dug to the roots, wrapped and left in place. It is then taken out of the hole and left in place near the hole. A week or more later it is moved to the new site and placed next to the hole, where it waits again until it is put in the hole.

Corporate change, in Japan, takes place the same way. Agreement is reached on the necessity for change. There is a waiting period for consensus. Planning then begin for implementing the change. Again, there is waiting for consensus on the details. Finally, the change is carried out. In the end, agreement is further sought on the suitability of the outcome.

Inherent human desire for status quo is accepted, honored and respected with nemawashi.

Homeless statue

We finally have a statue of San Francisco homeless peeing on the street. This is a sight nearly everyone sees regularly.

Actually, these are two Roman heads that usually grace an Italian restaurant's divider for outside chairs. This morning it happened to be turned to the wall. You can click to enlarge the photo.

Humility and depleted uranium

Humility. There are many skills I have that I am proud of. These include a current single engine pilot's license, the ability to ski, scuba and sail nearly any boat; I can also do oxy-acetylene welding, understand statistics and financial statements. Only the last two seem to garner respect from my peers and earn me money.

Consequently I am asked to look at data all the time.

A few years ago the subject of depleted uranium came up and I ignored it, assuming it was just one more lefty scam issue.

It came up this morning again so I had to look up the data.

This is the best reference I found for depleted uranium of the kind the military uses. Both Antenna and Wise, the creators of this site, are groups I respect.

Summary: Direct exposure, sitting next to DU ammunition inside a DU armored tank would expose one to a level of radiation that would not be measurable. The radiation would be a small percentage 1-5% of natural background radiation. Possibly, being inside a tank would reduce one's overall exposure to radiation because some background radiation would be blocked.

Interestingly, this can become a problem if Lefty Fundamentalism lasts more than the coming decade. DU becomes more dangerous after 10,000 years, still more dangerous after 100,000 years and a real problem after 2 million years. The chart on the right makes this point. Click to enlarge.

Not a Holocaust

Leon Wieseltier in the latest New Republic makes an interesting observation.

He is talking about people who compare a recent event to the Holocaust or the Gulag: “Intelligent reflection about policy and history proceeds by analogies. These analogies are always made with respect to an attribute of an object or an event, never to the entirety of it. Otherwise things could be validly compared only to themselves, and we would learn nothing. Some analogies will be right and some will be wrong, but none will be perfect. The wrong ones must be criticized, but generally not as a form of blasphemy or treason.”

So feel free to use outrageous comparisons to the Holocaust, the Gulag, or the Nazi’s. It is not sacrilegious but be prepared to defend the validity of the analogy.

Is Democracy a bad idea?

It has been over 350 years since the Dutch Jewish philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, translated Descartes and published his works widely in Europe. Spinoza was a major force in bringing us the Enlightenment. Democracy in Spinoza’s Holland was nearly one hundred years old at the time he was translating and publishing.

It is important to get these events in their proper sequence because the Enlightenment triumph of reason that took place over the ensuing 350 years has little or nothing to do with its earlier origins in democratic Holland.

I raise the subject of democracy and reason because it is evident to me that most people who live in democratic America complain bitterly, incessantly and perpetually about how bad our government is. It is hard for me to understand why so many people eagerly fondle this bitterness.

The level of complaints about our democratic government is growing worse; it’s not abating. One can tell this from a cursory reading of an 1844 newspaper or any other 19th century American publication.

My hypothesis is that Enlightenment ideas are permeating our society as time goes by. We have, today, more respect for science and technology. The consequence is that our form of government becomes less and less appealing. It is becoming appalling.

My thesis is simple. Democracy is not based on logic, inductive reasoning, nor empirical evidence, the three pillars of Enlightenment. Democracy is based on political power -- democracy is the transformation of political power into governmental action.

I needn't reiterate all the complaints about democracy. The complaints are reflections of what good politicians agree are the realities of democratic legislation.

Legislation is sausage making. The gun lobby is important because it is a small cohesive group of activists heavily represented in rural areas. Rural areas are over represented in legislative bodies. Gun opposition is politically weak because it is diffuse, disorganized and urban.

The whole society suffers loss of jobs and reduced economic growth from international trade because a few hundred thousand farmers control several dozen U.S. Senators.

Great corporations and universities get tax benefits because they have many employees and make substantial campaign contributions, as do labor unions. The milk industry makes a tiny contribution of money to Congress to get a gigantic return in higher prices for retail milk. The list of political irrationality is endless.

Reason, empirical evidence and logic are missing from the democratic legislative and governmental process.

Therein lies the problem. Unfortunately there is no solution. I don't expect us moderns, children of the Enlightenment, to embrace compromise, political expediency or pork barrel budgeting.

It is my guess that the future is one of Americans discussing the wonderful ideals of democracy and promoting democracy to the world, all the while cursing the reality of its daily functioning.