Timothy Lesle

Photomontage from the New York Times Magazine by Horacio Salinas

This has been a busy fall. Fortunately, I have a few things to show for it.

One published clip, for example.* It’s in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine (December 10, 2006), the “Ideas Issue.” It’s a short little idea entitled “Sailing an Oil Tanker,” and it describes a California-based company named KiteShip, which designs kite sails that they hope will one day pull big ships.

I’ve also written a few other articles, all on deadline, a mix of short feature and breaking stories:

• A trio of articles on the now-failed Proposition 87, which would have taxed oil production in California to fund alternative energy research: the advance, the election night update, and the wrap-up.
• I followed Phil Angelides as he took a turn through Chinatown during the last days of his campaign for governor against Arnold Schwarzenegger. It can be a challenge to portray political circus in a straight breaking news article.
• I profiled a homicide victim named Sonia Ilustre, who was killed in San Leandro last September. I give great credit to my colleague Sonya Hubbard, who was able to score a key interview because the subject refused to speak to me.
• I went out to “the corner” in West Oakland to see how residents were dealing with Oakland’s incredible murder rate. West Oakland, I should add, has been relatively quiet on the homicide front in comparison to East Oakland/Fruitvale and Deep East Oakland/Elmhurst.
• Also in West Oakland, I reported on the unveiling of an anti-violence plan hatched by State Senate Presdient pro Tem Don Perata.
• One of the most contentious issues in San Francisco city politics this fall has been the foot patrols proposed by District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi. This article was written after Supervisor Daly’s initial amendment to expand the patrols, but before the final expansion to cover the entire city, passage by the board, the mayor’s veto, and the board’s override.
• Across 5th Street from the San Francisco Shopping Center and across Mission from the Chronicle Building is a stately, boarded up granite building. It’s the Old Mint, and it’s on its way to a new life as a museum.
• In one of the first articles I wrote this fall, I roamed around the Tenderloin looking for a story. while everyone outside the Tenderloin proclaimed that it wouldn’t be hard to find a story, referring to its reputation for crime, the people who lived and worked there resented that perception.
• And in September, I wrote a news article on the passage of a Board of Supervisors resolution opposing the Department of Homeland Security’s No-match letter policy. For some reason, this was not posted on North Gate, so I posted it here.

*Only one? Hmm. Good hustle—ed.

By Tim | 10th December 2006 at 1:30 am
Filed under: articles, journalism
Tags: Bay Area, fall, kiteship, New York Times Magazine