http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/24/MNPQ11A3T7.DTL
Satire at the ballot box to 'honor' Bush
Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
(06-23) 18:49 PDT -- If you've attended an event or festival in San
Francisco lately - or even just hung out at a city park - you've
probably seen them.
Admittedly, they're hard to miss. Someone in the group is usually
toting a large American flag, and another is often carrying a boom box
blaring patriotic music. Sometimes one of them dresses up as Uncle
Sam.
They're the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco, but
don't let the serious name fool you. The group's intentions are in the
gutter: They want to rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control
Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant come January, when the next
president is sworn in.
During the inauguration, the group also wants sup****ters to
participate in a "synchronized flush"- a way to send a gift to the
renamed plant, which sup****ters say, would be a "fitting monument to
this president's work."
It sounds like a harmless joke, or maybe a college civics lesson gone
awry. But the handful of friends who dreamed this up over beers one
night say they have already collected 8,500 signatures in sup****t of
the plan - 1,300 more than the minimum needed to put the question to
city voters in November. When they submit the signatures in July,
election workers will have to verify that at least 7,168 are from
registered city voters for the measure to qualify for the ballot.
"It's a very simple yes or no question, and there's no real fiscal
impact- just the cost of relettering the sign in front of the plant,"
said organizer Brian McConnell. "This is the way the democratic
process is supposed to work, even though it's a silly idea in some
people's eyes."
Silly might be an understatement. Howard Epstein, chair of the San
Francisco Republican Party, called the measure an abuse of the system
and "loony bin direct democracy." He vowed to "use all means" to
defeat the measure if it qualifies for the ballot. That includes those
very expensive glossy mailers, he said.
"There's no use other than to make these nutcases feel good," Epstein
said. "It's typical San Francisco crazies."
Still, most people approached on a recent Sunday seemed open to the
idea, even if they all didn't stop to sign the petition.
Bright Winn, a San Francisco plumber, enthusiastically gave his
signature to the cause.
"(Bush) has always done well for the affluent of America, and anyone
that does well for the affluent should be named for the effluent," he
said.
The idea behind the renaming runs the gamut from the humorous ("Clean
up the mess caused by Bush!" one sup****ter shouted ) to the sarcastic
("No other president in American history has accomplished so much in
such a short time," the group's Web site reads) to the philosophical.
Satire, McConnell said, is one of the great American traditions.
"Fifty years from now in a civics class, students will learn about the
Lincoln Memorial, that other presidents are on Mount Rushmore - and
George W. Bush got a sewage plant," he said. "It will prompt people to
ask why, and they can discuss the Iraq war, and everything that led to
it. People want to forget bad moments of history, and this is our way
of making sure that doesn't happen."
To be fair, there are already other tributes to President Bush,
including a Stockton elementary school and, of course, the
presidential library planned in Dallas.
Organizers of the petition drive believe the measure will pass, noting
that 2006's Proposition J calling for the impeachment of Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney passed with 58 percent of the vote.
The biggest opposition in this Democratic stronghold, McConnell said,
is people who oppose naming anything after the 43rd president.
Officials at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which owns
the plant, say they get the humorous intent. But they note that the
plant is an award-winning facility that keeps the city's streets and
the ocean clean.
"If you are looking for a place to make a negative statement about the
Bush administration's impact on the environment, this would be the
last place to do it," agency spokesman Tony Winnicker said.
Find out more
For more information about the Presidential Memorial Commission of San
Francisco: presidentialmemorial. wordpress.com.
E-mail Marisa Lagos at mlagos@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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Nothing has
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