How the government can make you happy
Combing Fortune magazine’s list of 50 top world leaders found some reasons for Bay Area neighbors to be proud. Locals include Federal Reserve System board chair Janet Yellen, Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky, Tesla and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, and Salesforce founder/chairman/CEO Marc Benioff.
Perusing the list, I also discovered someone apparently equally powerful, but less widely known: Ohood Al Roumi, who was appointed the United Arab Emirates’ minister of happiness about a year ago. Research reveals that Al Roumi’s father is a politician; she’s the holder of an MBA.
The job description, promoting happiness in the UAE, seems a little vague. But the title is delightful, and even useful. If we had one of those in the United States, we would know what to engrave on the nameplate on Ivanka Trump’s desk.
“This looks like everything we are trying to get rid of.” Man to woman, overheard at Crate and Barrel in Berkeley by Benita Kline
Riffing on White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s assertion — in refusing to answer a question at a briefing last week — that a journalist had already asked a question and it was “onequestion Friday,” New Yorker humorist James Folta envisioned other daily gimmicks.
On Charades Monday, for instance, “Pool reporters will only be allowed to ask questions in the form of charades,” he wrote, “and must exclusively use their hands and bodies to express themselves.” On Backward Wednesday, Spicer asks the questions and reporters answer. On Wacky-Hats Thursday, the pool reporter with the craziest hat will be invited to a briefing with Spicer while being pelted with office supplies by Steve Bannon. “No questions about Russia, taxes, intelligence, health care, foreign policy or whether Spicer has been crying recently.”
Button worn by a volunteer at “Monet: The Early Years” show at the Legion of Honor: “Show me the Monet!” Its wearer told Adda Dada that this prized button is passed around among them.
Despite the rush to tofu, seitan and the new Impossible Burger — as described by The Chronicle’s Jonathan Kauffman — some folks are sticking to the real thing. Lynne Newhouse Segal was shopping at the Golden Gate Meat Co. in the Ferry Building when another customer told her, “This is my Neiman Marcus.”
At the intermission of “Sensorium” at the San Francisco Ballet on Tuesday, March 21, audience members were asked to tweet their experiences with the hashtag #momentofjoy. The tweets were then projected live onto a screen onstage. The one that received the loudest applause, reports Shinji Eshima: “No Tweets from Trump tonight!”
The tuition-free De Marillac Academy, a Catholic middle school next door to St. Boniface Catholic Church and across the street and down the block from St. Anthony’s in the Tenderloin, had a fundraiser at the St. Francis Hotel recently. The event raised almost $900,000, more than $150,000 than it had at previous annual events. The school opened in 2001 with 19 students; it now serves 119 fourth- to eighth-graders, all below the poverty line. In addition to education, the Academy provides a range of services for students and their families, including crisis intervention and counseling.
Linda Carucci noticed a Nextdoor listing offering a free mattress, which was described as “very, very comfortable, used for five years until we needed a queen.” One neighbor had responded: “Hi, Jennifer. I don’t need a mattress, but after reading your post, I think you may be onto something . ... Maybe what the whole country needs is a queen.”
In other royal news and speculation, Indian Prince Yuvraj Shri Manvendra Singhji Raghubir Singhji Sahib (probably the longest boldface name ever to appear in this space) hosted a fundraising reception March 20 at Beaux in the Castro. The prince, who is India’s first openly gay royal, was raising money for the first LGBT Center in India, which will be on the site of one of his family’s old palaces.
His coming-out, in 2006, caused major family friction, to say the least, but the prince told David Perry in an interview at the event that he and his father have reconciled. His mother, however, has disowned him. “Of course, she’s the queen,” said the prince. “I don’t think she likes having another queen around.” Almost $5,000 was raised.
Upon learning that Carey Perloff was planning to leave her job as artistic director of the American Conservatory Theater at the end of the 2017-18 season, her lawyer daughter, Alexandra Perloff-Giles, asked, “But where will you go in the morning?” Her song-producer son, Nicholas PerloffGiles, said, “Oh, man, the freelance life is
amazing. You’re going to love it.”