From The Dept. of: Are You Shitting Me? Did You Have A "Deep Meditative, Transpersonal and Transcendent Experience" At The Voting Booth Today?

I haven't seen the Berkeley propositions for today, but I am pretty damn certain that SF wins this year's contest to see which city can come up with the most looney thing that the rest of the world can look to and make fun of.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you The City of San Francisco Proposition C: Demolishing the prison on Alcatraz and converting the island into a global peace center.

Here are the money quotes that just made Bill O'Reilly cum in his pants:

According to their Web site, www.globalpeacefoundation.org, the proponents' plans for the center will be based on the geometry of the hexagram. Elements include a harmonium, employing sound techniques to impart a "deep meditative, transpersonal and transcendent experience," a medicine wheel and a labyrinth.

Da Vid, director of the Global Peace Foundation, described Alcatraz as a "major power point" where "energy moves through the planet." The vision to turn it into a peace center came to him in 1978. "It was a flash," he explained, "and I wasn't on any drugs either." We asked him where the money would come from to raze the old prison and build a new center. He assured us, "Money will come." He suggested the Bechtel Corp. might want to "create some good karma for itself" by doing the prison demolition for free.

No, that didn't come from The Onion. It is all too real.

One more, from this article:

"The prison is negative energy, and it is negatively affecting the psychology of the entire Bay Area," he said. "Do we want that prison to be our signature landmark?"

Yikes, I had no idea that my psychology was being negatively affected.


Thanks alot, Alcatraz.

How these dudes got 10,000 signatures to get onto the ballot escapes me, but they did.
Where to start? Um, how about that the city of SF does not even own the land on Alcatraz, but that it is owned and operated by the Federal Government's National Park Service, and would have to be purchased from the Feds by the City? Or that SF's #1 source of income is now tourism and this is the #1 attraction and is a cash cow for the city, which is in serious financial difficulty? Or the fact that in the Bechtel Corporation's charter there doesn't appear to be any mention of undertaking massive progressive construction projects pro bono to cleanse the karma of their corporate soul?

You have to delve into the comments of that SFGate article to see that there are actually some sane people here after all.

I'm off to have my deep meditative, transpersonal and transcendent experience at the polls.

***Update***

28 percent of people in SF voted in favor of this proposition. Wow.