"Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!"

Crying "Wolf" is the problem I have with last night's Amber Alert that broadcast on cellphones throughout California a BOLO about a missing child from Boulevard, California. Which CHP genius decided to make the alert statewide when the incident occurred near the Mexican border AND, according to reports I read, the authorities thought the suspect was headed to Mexico or Texas?

If pitting the inconvenience of getting awakened from sleep against the life of a kidnapped child seems like a fair appraisal of the situation to you, I won't argue. I think it's a queasy comparison, but I understand that you'd have to find someone who got into an accident last night — or today because they are sleep deprived — before we'd be even on the life vs. inconvenience scale.

My objection to last night's alert comes from worryinig that a lot of people switched off their phones' Amber Alerts today. Not because they don't care about kidnapped kids. Rather, because they think they shouldn't be put on alert for something 400 miles away and likely going further away. They think Amber Alerts are going to be another noisy bit of spam in their already full lives.

And, people who leave the Amber Alert on are not going to jump and read the next one if they think it, too, will be remote to them.

The overall discomfort over last night's California activation of the Amber Alert system isn't being articulated very well. People sound guilty about complaining because they are apparently objecting to a minor annoyance. They are not happy in the seeming self-focused position of judging 5 minutes of their sleep as more important than the lives of two children.

I don't feel guilty in objecting. It's not about my sleep, it's about the effectiveness of the Amber Alert program.

Whoever unleashed last night's mass alert lessened the impact of the Amber Alert system. They weakened future public reaction. They did something stupid.

San Francisco’s local trash hauler — which I bet we now are supposed to call a “waste management system” — is asking to increase rates by 21.5%.

I believe it is so high that it should not be taken seriously. The 21.5% hike is absurd, even as an opening negotiation position. If I were running this process I would throw out the request as being unworthy of serious consideration. Let them come back with a realistic, cost-driven proposal.

Unfortunately, it looks like we are already into the review process. So, I have glanced at the rate increase applications online, and here are my thoughts as a long-time resident and owner of a single-family house.

• The city-hired consultant, says that they are “Rate Payer Advocates”. Their site is even named www.ratepayeradvocatesf.org . But,. they are not behaving like I expect an independent ratepayer advocate should To begin with, they are wrong that the city is the victim of its own success in recycling and therefore the trash haulers should be able to charge for the blue and green bins. They state this concession on their website, and that is a terrible bargaining position for the City. The charge for green and blue bins simply does not follow from the success of the recycling program.

The success of the recycling program could result in more income from recycled products… why hasn’t it? Or, the success could require that the cost of the black bins to go up steeply. There is nothing inevitable in imposing fees on blue and green bins. Your instant agreement with the proposed fee shows bad logic and apparent bias.

• The assumptions given by Recology are suspect.  For example Recology is asking for COLA increases based on possible increases in health care costs due to Obamacare.

What? There are no rate increases yet. Recology should be negotiating with their insurance companies to make sure that there are no outlandish rate increases. They should not simply turn to the city and ask residents to pay.

• I trust that someone familiar with the City’s contract is going over the other numbers. I don’t want to make looking at the Recology spreadsheets a career. However, I didn’t see a rate of return/profit jump out at me, nor did I see a chart of management salaries or distributions to owners. Those should be looked at.

Overall, Recology is trying for the best of all worlds. It wants to make money as a private company while at the same time taking a “we’re helpless” attitude toward costs.  If this is the best they can do, then the trash contracts really need to go out to bid.  I voted NO on going out to bid last fall, but if this increase goes through, I’ll help circulate the next petition!

In our negative narrative world,  the dirty, thieving politicians are all deserving only of scorn, criticism, and abuse.  Members of Congress are out-of-touch, corrupt, pandering, and stupid buffoons.  The ones we vote for are only the of lesser of two evils on the ballot.  The office holders of national statue are truly kings of the dung heap worthy of the personal loathing that the opposing parties hurl at each other’s leaders.

I feel the imperative to distrust government and to vilify every single Member of Congress.  Whether it’s Fox News or MSNBC, the sneering, impartial, truth-telling reporters make it clear that America is ill-served by its officials.

Except it isn’t so.  My personal experience contradicts the dominant nightmare paradigm.

Yesterday I saw my Congresswoman in person for the first time in her tenure.  I was invited to go as part of a group of small business owners to hear her discuss of the Affordable Care Act, aka: Obamacare. 

My Member of Congress showed up on time, and chatted sociably with her fellow panelists while they waited to be introduced.  I know this because she was sitting on a folding chair in the audience directly in front of me.  She was in Row 1 and I, having been anal-retentively early, was in Row 2.   My Congresswoman was neither haughty nor remote while in the audience or when she spoke.  When she took the podium she gave facts and figures and stories without notes. Her  responses to questions were on target and not evasive talking points.  Her face and gestures showed her connection to the people in the room, and she gave a warm feeling.

What yesterday’s event reminded me was how good we have it in the United States and how good our representatives are. Whether you agree with my Congresswoman’s positions on a particular issue, I think she – and so many other politicians – should be lauded and thanked for meeting real people and listening to us day after day.

A year and a half after Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot at a constituent meeting, my Member of Congress was still incredibly accessible and vulnerable.  Sure, I was a wearing a logo-embossed business shirt and am a white man of a certain age.  But, still.  I didn’t have to go through metal detectors or a weapons search.  I wasn’t kept a reasonable distance from her –she just sat down in front of me in a metal auditorium chair. I was not questioned about my political views before I entered the room, and I wasn’t coached how to act by anyone warming up the audience.

I left very impressed with my Congresswoman, Representative Nancy Pelosi.  Yes, I live in the district of a very well-known, very targeted, very slammed Member of Congress.  But, Representative  Pelosi didn’t show any signs of being a star or of being a political target.  She was matter-of-fact and direct.

I am very lucky to live where I can see powerful government people when I, myself, am no one special.  I am very lucky to have a representative  who works so hard listening and keeping on top of so many facts on so many issues. 

I believe that Nancy Pelosi is not the only Representative working long hours for the public good. The  good people – of both parties – care.  

After yesterday, reveling in cheap-shot attack photo captions on Facebook strikes me as dangerous and mean. Are we better off when we attack our elected officials for simply breathing?  I’m not saying that we have to applaud their views if we disagree with them on the issues.  But, unless someone is caught in a wide-stance, toe-tapping hypocrisy, I think we’ve trashed our politicians enough for a while.

About the only surprising point I learned about Rep. Pelosi was how very unphotogenic she is.  She’s positively anti-photogenic.  I always thought that she looked like she was a victim of too much plastic surgery.  In real life she appears friendly, relaxed, and attractive.  Her face can move! Yet almost every picture I took of her showed her face in some twisted gesture,  eyes darting evilly, or her hands doing accusatory pointing.  I think she’s so alive and moving that cameras cannot keep up. 

Of the 70 or so photos, here’s the only 7 iPad shots that don’t make her look awful!

In Iowa President Obama’s campaign headquarters is the target of anti-war Occupiers demanding the dismantling of the “ U.S. military empire.” .  A photograph of the protesters taken Sunday shows fresh-faced people mugging for the camera in friendly sincerity.  The Occupiers were  apparently either oblivious or unmoved by the news that the final American troops were departing Iraq as they pitched their tents in a public opposition to the President who orchestrated and ordered the war’s end.

In San Francisco, my church has been a hive of anti-Iraq war activity.  The peace-loving congregation wrapped the building up in anti-war tape one year for a Mother’s Day anti-war media event, and we melodramatically toll a bell and read the names of war dead during the worship service several times a year.

Yet, not a word was said at church Sunday about the end of the war this Sunday, the day of the war’s end.  Not a word from the pulpit during the prayers and not a word during the sermon.  In fact, there was not a word of mention in any coffee hour conversation I heard.  No prayers of thanksgiving  nor  even a secular fist-bump for having accomplished a dramatic change in the nation’s policy. Not a word.

On the streets and in halls of worship there is no acknowledgment that an ugly, unwanted chapter of American history has ended.  There is no gratitude that the President has fulfilled his campaign pledge to end the war in Iraq.  There is no celebration – even an appropriately solemn one – ticking off the significant end of a tragic misstep.

I worry.  Moderates are doomed if we cannot appreciate policy victories and praise the leaders that achieved them.