CCSF Enrollment Campaign Mission Cafes Early Morning

I took some CCSF posters and late-start class information to Mission Cafes on March 19 after 7:00 AM.and later sent an update to those running the Enrollment Campaign so they'd know which cafes have disappeared and what they hours are for those still there.  I also wanted them to know which cafes have a community bulletin board.  That would be a good list to have for spots all over the city.

The Revolution Cafe

3248 22nd St., 94110

opens at 9:00 AM.  

Cafe La Boheme

3318 24th Street

(What a change since the 1970's and 1980's, when I'd go there occasionally--fascinated by how it was the demarcation line between the Mission with all its color and people of color (mostly Latinos but soon also Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian) and its less colorful people--those in Noe Valley.  I always thought the Mission was the one place in San Francisco that wasn't repeated.  I thought Noe Valley was repeated in West Portal--and maybe there wass another neighborhood I knew before West Portal.  But the Mission was the Mission was the Mission--until the Cafe Boheme transitioned it into Noe Valley.  

Anyway, this much-expanded, much larger cafe opens at 6:00 AM and has a community bulletin board:  Their bulletin board was much more up-to-date than most I see, so I couldn't take down a lot.  There was a poster announcing Tom Hayden's talk on March 18, so I was able to find room for City College.  

I thought because  Cafe la Boheme was so close to the Mission Campus that there might already be flyers at Cafe Boheme, but there weren't any until I put these up.

Cafe Venice, which was once across the street from the Cafe la Boheme,  is no longer at

3325 24th St., 94110  Instead this is what I saw:

It's that corner spot and has been closed for about a year, the nice employee in Cafe Boheme told me when I asked.  But it was fun to see La Mejor Bakery with both Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe and Leprechauns on the window display!

Cafe Taboo

600 York/18th Street

opens at 7:00. --and it really was open.  I gave a poster and some material to a very nice young woman working there.  She gave me the manager's e-mail address so I could contact her about more material.

Musca Colombian Fusion and Cafe (Mucisa on the list) has changed its name and has been Nano for about 6 months.  

Nano Cafe

564 S Van Ness Avenue/17th

The man working there, who I think was the manager and maybe the owner, said he'd put up the poster when I offered to do it myself.  I'll go back with material for the summer and fall semesters and see.

It's really great when a cafe/laundromat/bookstore/whatever has a community bulletin board because there are generally a lot of past-the-date posters that the managers will let us take down to make room for CCSF.  I always talk to the managers, but some seem more sincere than others when they say they'll put up the poster themselves.

A CCSF Plug in Leah Garchik's Column

'Twas the break for the winter that I did outreach.

(More time to save schools with no students to teach.)

Too busy to see that Leah Garchik had called

For new words to a song, and I was appalled

That no readers submitted (at least to my knowledge)

A verse for our school, for "We're all City College."

So I wrote new words, way past the due date,

And she kindly let me turn in work that was late.

To the tune of “If You Are Going to San Francisco”

If you’re going to San Francisco, let’s hope you’ll find our City College there.

                        Those who are there in San Francisco know City College has got a lot to share.

                        All those who come to City College know that it stands for people everywhere.

                        In each class at City College the world’s reflected. Let’s show the world we care.

           

In anticipation of accreditation—we hope.

We will support it.

For three generations it’s brought education  to all

We should support it. 

Never abort it.

All those who go to San Francisco
Be sure to look for City College there.

If you come to City College

Credit is yours.  It’s open.  Take your chair.

If you go to San Francisco, let’s hope you’ll find our City College there.

Explaining the Loss of the CCSF Civic Center to Those Who Care

I'm privileged to have an ongoing correspondence with former CCSF students who have become friends over the years.  I call us the Anminiroti for Annie in France, Minako in Japan, Nicole in the USA, Rosa in Spain, and me, Tina, right here and trying to explain what's happening at City College of San Francisco, a school that meant and still means a lot to these  former students in other parts of the world. 

Back in the year 2000 we found out that Annie, who always dressed like a Parisian model, got her clothes not in Paris Boutiques but at  the Good Will Thrift Shop in San Francisco, so I related the report of the severed body parts found at Good Will South of Market, suggesting that this served as a metaphor for the plight of the Civic Center Campus.   This was  after Civic Center Teachers were told on a Friday afternoon, January 9, that they would not be teaching the following Monday because their school  was closing for earthquake retrofitting.  The students didn't learn about this until Monday, January 12, when they showed up for the classes scheduled there and  were met by teachers trying to explain the situation.  At first these students, who are learning English and need very clear explanations, were told that the classes would be held at 33 Gough,  where the administrative offices of City College are located.  That turned out not to be the case.  Instead the following month they were sent to the Chinatown/NorthBeach and Mission centers. 

The Anminiroti are more privileged than many, but four of the five are teachers  and very concerned about the widening gap between the haves and have-nots.  As Heather Knight reported last summer, citing a report from the Human Services Agency, San Francisco now compares to Rwanda in terms of the disparity in incomes.   The Tenderloin is an area NOT made up of the most privileged in that spectrum. 

Now Steve Rubinstein is reporting on the missing prosthetic limbs!  The man whose prosthetic leg was found  turned out to be a victim of thieves pushing his  wheelchair to an area where they could rob him of everything he had of value.  They later tossed his prosthetic leg. 

Do you see what I mean by metaphoric? 

(Actually, the first word that came to my mind was metamorphic, and that might work too.)

I realize that some defense could be made for the thieves--that they have been desensitized by a society that closes schools.    But the analogy I had in mind was that of the Powers that Be as the pushers--not drug pushers, but pushers of those already vulnerable out of the area in which they have some degree of security and help, dismembering the student body.

I'm not antagonistic towards administrators. In fact, I've always felt sorry for them  and wouldn't take their job no matter how high the pay.  But I feel agony-bordering-on-antagonism over this closure of the Civic Center Campus and the way it was handled, so only by creating a new word can I express the antagony I how I feel.  I'm agonistic.    

 Since the accreditation of City College was threatened by the ACCJC in 2012, I've attended a lot of rallies and board meetings, but one that stands out in my mind is the one in October 2012 that went on until 1:30 in the morning.  Faculty and staff had to wait until midnight to be heard, and then they were told they would have one minute each to speak. 

            http://fog.ccsf.edu/~mantonic/HTMLPractice/BOT_Excerpts_102512_3.html

The person who first spoke was the head of the Social Sciences Department and Department of Chairpersons Council , an instructor whose History of San Francisco course I once audited--after (oh, my God!) I'd already received a BA and MA from another institution.  She's told, after waiting six hours, that she'll have a minute to speak, and she responds, "Oh, come on!  We've been waiting for six hours, and you didn't have the courtesy to --"  When she's given two minutes, she shows them the reconfiguration of departments that they've come up with without any faculty or student input and says, politely, "As this appears here, it doesn't look like it could work." 

                This statements made, available on audible with this link, show the importance of input from faculty and staff.  http://fog.ccsf.edu/~mantonic/HTMLPractice/BOT_Excerpts_102512_3.html