Mission Mission

Seen her? Help restore this complicated relationship.

[via sfhaps]

Update:

Apparently, this guy wasn’t as charmed by her cuteness:

[via Mission Loc@l]

San Francisco still has a laser cat problem. Getting rid of these things isn’t as easy as people think.

We previously witnessed Brock’s close encounter, (The green ones may be the most common) and were haunted by a frightening depiction.

What do they want?? Or are they just hell bent on creating destruction?

(image by mikeynoogiee)

Word has come down, riding upon the mystical winds of the corridor of the great Valencia that Ripley, the hairless wonder that sat in the window or on the counter of Borderlands Books, has perished.

Seriously, we wish the owners the best, that was one amazing feline.

UPDATE: So, I’m no reporter, that much is clear. Claud informs me in the comments that my picture is of Ash, who is, thankfully, alive and well. Ripley is seen below in a picture from the Borderlands website. Thanks to Claud, and sorry to all our readers.

Read an announcement from the owners and share your thoughts here.

(thanks, laurie bk)

While crossing that neat (but sometimes frightening) pedestrian overpass connecting Vermont and Kansas over the James Lick Freeway near 22nd Street, this intrepid photographer experienced an epic confrontation with a wild animal in its natural habitat.  Luckily, he wasn’t mauled during the encounter and can continue to provide the public with fantastic shots of San Francisco, like this one!

Check out the largest size to witness the beast at bay as it stares deeply into your soul.

[Photo and Title by bats...]

The skinny: the FCC fined Pirate Cat $10,000 and is effectively taking them off the air.  Instead, they will switch to an internet-only format and continue run the cafe on 21st.

Sometimes blockquoting a press release is just easier than reporting:

Pirate Cat Radio, a volunteer-run, community broadcasting organization operating out of the Pirate Cat Café in San Francisco’s Mission district, has ceased its terrestrial broadcast on 87.9FM in response to the latest demands of the Federal Communications Commission.

In a notice dated August 31, 2009 the FCC asserted that Monkey, the founder of Pirate Cat Radio, “willfully and repeatedly violated Section 301 of the Communications Act of 1934” and proposed to fine him $10,000 for the infraction.

By bringing to bear the full weight of the Federal government against continued broadcast operations, the FCC’s order effectively ends Pirate Cat Radio’s thirteen-year run as one of the Bay Area’s most consistent voices of protest against corporate-run media monopolies and monocultural programming.

The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934, and was given the responsibility of making a “fair, efficient and equitable distribution of radio service”, and to ensure that broadcasters serve the ‘public interest’.

It is hard to understand how fining the founder of Pirate Cat Radio, an entirely volunteer run community station, and effectively taking them off the air after 13 years, is an appropriate action and in the public’s interest There have never been any complaints over PCRs content. Pirate Cat Radio provides an important community service one that has been recognized by the Board of Supervisors in a certificate of honor. They are one of the best sources of news and regularly broadcast Al Jazeera and BBC bulletins. The news is read in every 2-hour DJ slot. They make regular valuable PSAs and publicize local events. They take an active approach to involving the community, by bringing local unsung heroes and talents into the studio. Pirate Cat Radio provides a voice and outlet for many sections of the community of the Bay Area which cannot make themselves heard anywhere else.

If the public’s interests are to be served then ‘ordinary’ people must be allowed to make their voice heard and to be allowed to express themselves creatively without regard for commercial success. The FCC’s policy instead seems to be protecting the airwaves for the big corporations to pump out their bland, homogenized wasteland offering dull limited playlists, banal chat and censored opinions. Until this happens people must continue to challenge the corporate domination of the airwaves.

Looking to the future, PCR can continue as an internet only station and the café/studio on 21^stst will continue to operate, but at least for the time being, but it cannot safely broadcast over the terrestrial FM band without possibly jeopardizing its volunteers and supporters. How this will affect the service is not clear yet, although it is true that the majority of their listeners are now online or downloading podcasts.

“Obviously this is a major disappointment,” says Monkey, “But we made a collective decision that Pirate Cat Radio must come off the public airwaves, until some method is found to change the law or get it authorized under existing law.”

(link)