Messages of Love

by Karen Topakian

In today’s New York Times, Reader Corner, the Well desk printed a few examples of the ways people show affection to their loved ones, day-in and day-out, all year long. Had I seen the request for entries, I would have submitted this one.

For many years, I attended a YMCA master swim class that met at 7:00 AM, two mornings a week. In order to get to the pool on time, I needed to leave the house before Peg stirred.

Before I left the house, I stuck a Post-It on the bathroom mirror with a song lyric that reflected my love for her. A few of my standards were, “Ain’t No Sunshine When You’re Gone.” “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love Baby” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” “Your Love Keeps Me Lifting Me Higher“ or “You Are The Sunshine Of My Love”

Since I no longer leave the house so early I’ve stopped leaving the notes, maybe it’s time to start again.

Kold Kids Opens in Noe Valley

by Karen Topakian

Noe Valley prepares for the grand opening of the nation’s first frozen embryo daycare center, “Kold Kids.” According to owners, Kalt Froide and Fredda Fria, parents may leave their embryonic children in the loving arms of haz-mat suited certified embryo care-giving technicians who are trained in the latest sub-arctic technology. They may visit their children whenever they wish, providing they don OSHA, CDC and NASA-certified gear.

Parents need not provide diapers or a change of clothes for their young ones. Kold Kids will serve daily meals of frozen peas, ice cream and frozen meat bones for gnawing.

Little ones will love their time at Kold Kids, where the staff will create unique curricula for each embryo, designed to build off their natural curiosity and thwart their desire to thaw. Children will also learn about the world of other frozen life forms, including those trapped in perma-frost or undefrosted freezers from the 1960s.  

For entertainment, the movie Frozen will play in an endless loop in the nursery. Ice Age, Ice Storm and Cold Mountain will entertain embryos in the playroom. The staff are considering adding Cool Hand Luke. However, they rejected screening the famed horror movie Deep Freeze and Society of the Snow, the recent true-life movie of survivors in the Andes. The children’s library will include popular titles such as, Frosty the Snowman, Good Night Ice Age and Soul on Ice. Decorations include colorful signs saying, “Cold enough for you?”

Parents may leave their children at Kold Kids until they turn five, when by state law, the children must attend school. Kold Kids recommends enrolling them in Clarence Birdseye Elementary School.

Nothing Was Given to Us

by Karen Topakian

I recently read this quote about someone’s childhood, “We were raised the right way – like, nothing was given to us?” Implying that others had life’s bounty handed to them in an undeserving manner.

This quote was reported in the NYT as said by Todd Kreisher, who runs corporate security for BMW in the Americas region, about the Republican candidate for Senate in PA, David McCormick.

But Mr. McCormick attended West Point, which meant people in high places gave him letters of recommendation.

And Mr. McCormick’s father, James H. McCormick, was a college president who raised his children in the president’s on-campus residence, another gift.

Mr. David McCormick claimed in 2022 that he had “started with nothing” and that he “didn’t have anything.” The facts belie his statements.

This would-be senator, a former hedge fund executive, wants everyone to believe he grew up in a bootstrap-pulling-up family but he didn’t. His family had wealth, power and influence. And they still do.

I find these platitudes about how “our family did it right by making us work for what we had” in this case, inaccurate, insulting to those who really did start out life with nothing and blind to the privilege of birth (into money), race (white) and gender (male).

Why not just be honest about your non-humble beginnings? By saying, “My family had money and resources to help me succeed in life and I want to make sure others have the same opportunities and access.” Because maybe you don’t want to help others succeed? Or because a rags-to-riches story in America buys more votes?

Not Everybody Paid Their Taxes Today

by Karen Topakian

Today, April 15 may be tax day, the day when the federal government demands payment and obedience but not everybody heeds the call. Not everybody bows to the almighty IRS. The people who resist the call, decide instead to withhold some or all of their federal income taxes out of a deep commitment to nonviolence and strong anti-war/anti-military/anti-imperialism convictions.

[According to the War Resisters League, 45% of the 2025 federal budget of $5,568 billion pays for current and past military expenses ($2,529 billion); 43% pays for human resources ($2,377 billion); 7% for general government ($369 billion) and 5% for physical resources ($294 billion). Here’s a quick link for more detail.]

Instead, these tax resisters deposit their funds into an escrow account with other like-minded people. On the West Coast, folks deposit their money into The People’s Life Fund (PLF), which accepts these payments, keeps track of the deposits and depositors and invests the funds in socially responsible investments.

Yesterday, at a public granting session at City Slicker Farms in Oakland, the PLF took the interest earned on those deposits to make grants totaling $67,000. PLF members gave checks to 17 Northern California organizations focused on Indigenous rights, anti-war, community resources, legal rights training and legal support, media groups and support for unhoused residents and tenants’ rights. Full list of grantees with links below.

For more information about The People’s Life Fund click here.

For more information about tax resistance, click here.

Arab Film and Media Institute
Before Enlisting
Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine at UC Berkeley
Indigenous Peoples Day Committee
Legal Solidarity Bay Area
Love and Justice in the Streets
Nevada County Mutual Aid
National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee
Prison Activist Resource Center
Radio B’alam – Voces Maya
Regional Tenant Organizing Network
Reimagine Richmond
Reprographixxx Print Room
Rogers and Rosewater Soup Kitchen
Self Help Hunger Program/OCUEJ
Support for Intertribal Gatherings
Village in Oakland

Manufacturers Role in Recycling

by Karen Topakian

Today on Earth Day, (HINT: one day is NOT enough), the Washington Post published this article (sorry if there’s a paywall) “You’re probably recycling wrong. This quiz will help you sort it out. About the dos and don’ts of recycling.”

I read the article, aced the quiz and then had questions. Lots of them. Here are a few:

Why is the Washington Post criticizing consumers for not knowing all of the rules and regulations, processes and practices for recycling?

Why is that our job?

Why isn’t it the manufacturers’ job/responsibility to create products that can be recycled (and I don’t mean the myth of plastic recycling) or reused or repurposed?

Why are manufacturers allowed to create products that pollute and harm us and the planet in the production and disposal stage and often during usage?

Why are manufacturers allowed to create products that can only be disposed of in a landfill or a toxic waste facility and, therefore, may last forever?

I’m waiting for answers.

A Museum Visit with a Twist

by Karen Topakian

I could tell you I spent today, Monday, April 25, visiting a museum and I wouldn’t be inaccurate. But I didn’t go to the Wells Fargo Museum to see the antique stagecoach or view the machines and memorabilia associated with this bank’s nearly two centuries of financial history.

Instead, I went to Wells Fargo with scores of climate activists to protest on the eve of its annual shareholders’ meeting to demand it stop lending billions annually to the oil and gas industry, whose products propel the planets towards disaster.

Wells Fargo is the world’s second largest fossil fuel bank, second only to JPMorgan Chase – financing $46 billion last year out of a total $742 billion in financing made to the energy sector. It raised its industry financing total by $20 from 2020 levels, according to new research by a consortium of organizations including Rainforest Action Network.

That’s right, this bank raised its fossil fuel financing in the face of record-breaking wildfires, floods, tornados, and sky-high temperatures brought about by burning fossil fuel. Its investments are destroying our future on this planet.

More than a dozen activists, young and old, chained themselves to the antique stagecoach to spotlight the bank’s hypocrisy as it faces shareholder resolutions calling for it to halt its financing of new fossil fuel development. 

After a few hours of occupying the museum, the SF Police Department charged 19 of us with trespassing and arrested us on site.

Investors who fund the climate crisis must stop and be held accountable for their actions.

April Fool’s Day Offering – A Day Late

By Karen Topakian

Every year, i write a few fake news stories for the Noe Valley Voice‘s April Fool’s Edition. The very funny editor of this award winning paper of record doesn’t always select my thoroughly researched and painstakingly written missives. So i offer them to you.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously declared 24^th Street a Crawl Street, from Church to Castro Streets. Signage and barricades will order people to crawl on all fours if they want to access businesses in downtown Noe Valley. The SF Department of Public Health (SFDPH) and the SF Metropolitan Transit Authority (SFMTA) created this designation in a unified attempt to increase residents’ flexibility and agility and to slow everyone and everything the heck down. “This is either a step up or a step down from a Slow Street designation,” offered public health director, Dr. Baad Nees.

Noe Valley one ups new US Senate rule by pushing clocks ahead by 2 hours instead of just 1. Noe Valley moms Cherry and Peaches thought the extra hour would help them beet the crowds at the Saturday Farmer’s Market.

“Do I look Like I Exercise?” the Noe Valley women’s athleisure clothing store which opened during the pandemic has seen their business drop off dramatically since employers signed on to the Back to Work edict. “In 2020, we couldn’t stock enough yoga pants,” said exasperated owner Coe Bra-Pose. “Now women just want belts.”

Jack Hammer, father of the local DIY movement and stay-mostly-at home dad, added a new feature to his Day Street Victorian house – an outhouse. “I went totally off the grid with solar panels. Now I’m calling it craps with the sewer system,” declared Hammer as he put the finishing touches on the 5-gallon bucket. “I might put a toilet seat on top for those who prefer a cushy tushy.”

Noe Valley children’s librarian unveils new program for Pre-K kids about The Joy of books. circa 14^th century. Librarians repeatedly answered these questions: “When I touch the page why doesn’t anything happen?” “Where do I plug it in?” “Can you make the page brighter?”

Headlines

J-Church riders can’t remember why they wanted to go downtown.

Noe Valley accused of trying to invade Glen Park, the Castro and the Mission.

Noe Valley applies to join NATO. With so much turmoil in the world, the residents of Noe Valley determined they needed to arm themselves.

Glen Park and the Castro form an unlikely alliance – to occupy Noe Valley

A Well-Read Mover

by Karen Topakian

The movers Peg hired, Caremore Moving and Storage, to take our furniture arrived on time and in good humor. An Irishman and a Russian.

The Irishman did most of the talking.

When he noticed an open box of books on the floor, he asked if he was supposed to move them. We said no, we’re selling them or donating them. I suggested he look to see if he wanted any.

He immediately seized on Adam Smith’s tome, Wealth of Nations, Peg’s political economics book from college. We said he could have it.

During the 3 hours he was working, we sporadically discussed modern art, Lenin’s connection to the Easter Uprising in Ireland and the influence of Thoreau’s writing on Gandhi.

Before he left, I reminded him to look at the books again to see if there were any other titles of interest. Then he selected, The Marx-Engels Reader.

He said he was going to read Adam Smith in an outdoor café in Berkeley to see what happens.

A funny, smart, engaging person who made the whole experience enjoyable.

Saying Goodbye and Thank You

by Karen Topakian

As we empty our second floor to prepare for our remodel, we said goodbye today to our dining room table and six blue wooden chairs.

For the last 20 years, this simple sturdy pine table and chairs played a major role in our lives.

At our table, family members, friends and colleagues, many of whom have passed, celebrated milestones, grieved losses, conducted board meetings, played games, reveled at the December book club party and enjoyed Thanksgivings large and small.

For more than a year the table served as my desk while the first floor was under construction. At the end of every workday, I would remove my laptop, pens and notebook so it could turn back into a table in time for dinner.

Sometimes the table lived on the left side of the house and sometimes on the right. Sometimes we positioned it on the horizontal, at others on the vertical.

When we had big parties we pushed it into the bay window to leave more floor space for dancing and mingling.

It never let us down.

To save money, Peg and I stained the chairs blue ourselves. It took a few days and plenty of effort, but we succeeded.

I remember the day the table arrived. I needed to be at Vandenberg Air Force Base providing communications support for a Greenpeace action, but I couldn’t leave until the table was delivered.

I’m sure my Greenpeace colleagues thought it was insane that a furniture delivery was holding up my participation. As soon as the table arrived, I picked up my bag and fled.

As the folks from Community Thrift carried our table and chairs out the door we offered a heartfelt thank you.

Now our table and chairs can help another family make new memories.

What Does Socrates Know About Cabbage?

by Karen Topakian

While Peg was watching the Australian Open during dinner last night, I reached for something to read from a stack of books we had decided to donate. We had spent the afternoon reviewing every title on our bookshelves to make a pile of keepers and donations, as we prepare for our 2^nd floor renovation.

In the donation pile sat Peg’s college book, Great Dialogues of Plato. A book I had never read because it was not included in my one college philosophy class.

Before I launched into the meaty text, I read the preface by the translator, which provided context for Plato’s writings about his revered teacher, Socrates. The translator reported that the conversations Socrates had were in public places occupied by men. I immediately cast a jaundiced eye on the text – I guess I will read only about what men think.

Socrates first dialogue in Plato’s book takes place with Ion of Ephesus, a prize-winning reciter and exponent of Homer. After reading several pages of Socrates probing but seemingly repetitive questions, I grew bored. Probably because I never read Homer and didn’t understand the references. Plus, it reminded me why I never took another philosophy class, the subject seemed impenetrable.

I returned the book to the donation pile and picked up The Best Kitchen Quick Tips by the Editors of Cooks Illustrated. This book listed in alphabetical order ways to solve all manner of kitchen cooking, preparing and cleaning problems.

As I pored through description after description of tips and tricks, I realized that we needed to keep this book. In a few short minutes, I had learned how to mince anchovies, slice fresh mozzarella and prepare jicama.

Plato might make me smarter and more intellectual, but he knows nothing about how to prepare a pineapple or clean a leek.