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Crosscurrents

Daily news roundup for Wednesday, March 4, 2015

From left to right: Hart, Delacroix, and Very.

Here's what's happening in the Bay Area, as curated by KALW news:

Supervisors back off prior pledge to boost funding for nonprofits// SF Examiner

"San Francisco nonprofits that are dedicated to efforts such as providing health services or housing homeless persons received troubling news Tuesday that The City would not provide them with a boost in funding.

"Seeking to address the concerns [of struggling nonprofits], seven members of the Board of Supervisors approved a resolution in July that said if additional revenues came in, $3.4 million would go to nonprofits for a 0.75 percent increase in city funding. That would add to the 1.5 percent increase they had received at the start of the fiscal year, which totaled $6.75 million. There are about 1,400 nonprofits under city contract that are receiving about $460 million this fiscal year."

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The Devil Wears Nipple Tassels// East Bay Express

"Jay Very, one of the three co-producers (along with D. Faust and Apaulo Hart) of the rock operaWildcardXFaust, described its music as such: 'if Queen, Depeche Mode, Garbage, Magnetic Fields, Sigur Ros, Zoë Keating, Nina Simone, and Tom Waits were all listening to psychedelic metal and had a baby.' The production, which is a celebration of queers, kinksters, and sex workers, unfolds in two parts: The first consists of an adaptation of F.W. Murnau's film of Goethe'sFaust, written and envisioned by Fabienne Delacroix (aka D. Faust), a burlesque performer and founder of the Cult of Gira, an organization dedicated to the preservation of African traditional religions in Brazil. Her portion of the play was inspired by the notion of striptease as a form of psychological revelation, and of the double life of a performer. The 'wildcard' portion, written by Very, involves a comedic tale of a transmasculine sex worker seeking connection."

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Jessica’s Law sex offender buffer zone struck down // SF Gate

"A voter-approved California law that prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park violates offenders’ rights — and fails to protect the public — in an urban county where most available housing and services are in the restricted zone, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.

"The unanimous ruling immediately affects only San Diego County but will almost certainly apply to other densely populated counties, including San Francisco."

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Bay Area Legislator Says Fight Outside Campaign Cash … By Taxing It// KQED

"Critics of the outsized role that independent political action committees now have in campaigns often talk about clamping down, imposing contribution limits and the like. But one brand-new idea in the state Capitol suggests something different: impose a tax.

"The proposal, introduced just before the annual legislative bill deadline by Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael), is about as straightforward as they come in Sacramento. It would require non-candidate campaign committees, known as “independent expenditure” committees in California political parlance, to pay a tax on pretty much every dollar they spend to help elect or defeat candidates — a tax due within five days of its official disclosure on the spending."

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How the world’s fair birthed Muni // SF Examiner

"As San Francisco celebrates the event's centennial this year, much focus has been on the city within a city that stood for much of 1915, and was largely lost to history save for the Palace of Fine Arts and some other artifacts.

"But there is another major contribution from the expo that continues to impact the lives of tens of thousands of residents every day. The world's fair helped birth Muni."

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If you're over 30 you're gonna pay more for premium Tinder // The Bold Italic

"Tinder announced Monday that the company will be launching a new subset of its popular dating app. Tinder Plus will be a pay-to-use platform that will give its users access to all kinds of new features, including a way to rewind and undo a swipe and also one where you can change your location. The girl in the ad  uses the latter feature to basically become an international sex symbol and eat huge pastries all over the world. More power to her.

"But the most controversial aspect of this Tinder extension is its tiered price point, which has been adjusted by age. Slate reports that the service will cost $9.99 monthly for users under 30 and $19.99 for users over 30. The official answer for the discrepancy, according to a spokesperson, is that younger users have more 'budget constraints' than older users do, although it seems to many eerily like a measure used to weed the 'olds' out of the site."

Crosscurrents