06 September, 2026
Podcast:
The Bayeux Tapestry Comes Home After 1000 Years - Haptic & Hue
Has all the ducks in a row. 3rd Street between 22nd and 23rd streets. San Francisco, California. Photo: Robert Gumpert 04 September, 2026
Laundromat. Geary Street. San Francisco, California. Photo: Robert Gumpert 26 August, 2026
Beauty parlor. Geary at about 18th Avenue. San Francisco, California. Photo: Robert Gumpert 26 August, 2026
Here in tech land - we have the tech brows, and their desires for their culture and political beliefs to be everyones culture and beliefs.
Chris Larsen, crypto billionaire, co-founder of Ripple, has put his money and influence to work with super PACs, nebulous sounding “civic” ad campaigns, attacks on labor, and the encouraging and funding of surveillance. All designed to remake SF, and California into the “tech bros” fever dream of utopia.
But it’s not everyone’s dream.
Overheard in his SF neighborhood around Larkin Street - known as SF’s crookedest street - perhaps for other reasons:
Person 1: “There’s a group that has begun demonstrating in front of Larsen’s house.”
Person 2: “Which one?”
Person 1: “The one on Larkin Street, as opposed to the one around the corner on Lombard that he renovated for his in-laws. Or the one across the street from that one that he bought because his wife thinks it is cute. Or the one farther down the block on Larkin that is for his security staff. Nor the compound in Napa, and the house in Ross where he and the family spend weekends. He drives between them in his $1 million car.”
This week I went to a candidates night. The top 3 candidates for my district supervisor would answer questions from Mission Local newspaper, as well as a few from the audience. (There are 10 or 11 running in this district. SF uses ranked voting, so no run offs, and no "first-past-the-post).
It’s S.F. and there are lots of issues to discuss, not the least of which are “public safety” in a town of falling crime rates, privacy and the surveillance state.
In a general sense no candidate is going openingly support “spying” on their constituents - and broadly speaking none of the three did.
One, Theo Ellington was especially clear, he did not favor a surveillance approach, and the police needed policing. He stressed his ties to community programs, and his efforts to address the issues of the unhoused without criminalizing them.
A day or so later the SF Chronicle and Mission Local reported that Chris Larsen has given Theo Ellington 500,000 dollars.
You got to wonder what will Larsen, his pals, and the Mayor be getting for that?
Townsend just past 3rd Street. San Francisco, California. Photo: Robert Gumpert 04 September, 2026
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