Here's what's happening in the Bay Area, as curated by KALW news:
Tech bus drivers forced to live in cars to make ends meet // SF Chronicle
"Scott Peebles drives employees to their jobs at Apple, the wealthiest tech company in the world, yet he can’t afford a place to live."
"The 53-year-old sleeps on an inflatable mattress in the back of his green 1997 Dodge Caravan, a space smaller than a walk-in closet. His morning routine is an exercise in hiding the fact he is homeless — he slides on his dry-cleaned uniform, shaves behind tinted car windows and uses a work restroom to freshen up before shuttling tech workers from Fremont to the company’s Sunnyvale campus."
From lightning to foul play, what causes California’s worst wildfires // SF Gate
"There's no simple way to stop wildfires from sparking up in bone-dry California."
"Over the past 25 years, the state's most destructive blazes have ignited in all kinds of ways — tracing back to lightning storms, troubled firebugs, target shooters, negligent campers, tree trimmers who send limbs into active power lines, and people who insist on riding mowers over dry grass in the middle of summer.
Have a good commute fix? It could win you $25,000 from California // San Jose Mercury News
"Californian drivers, admit it. Many firmly believe they have great ideas on how to ease our stinkin' commutes if only Caltrans would listen."
"Now, the state transportation agency is doing more than listening. Caltrans will pay $25,000 -- yep, 25 grand! -- to the person who comes up with the best idea to improve traffic in its "New Way Innovation" contest that runs through Oct. 13."
A-plus city with a B-minus government // SF Chronicle
"The bad news? Local government scored a pretty shoulder-shrugging grade of B-minus. Nobody’s making the honor roll with that kind of mediocre score. The good news? It’s the best grade city government has ever received."
"Residents were asked to rate a whole range of city services on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. The scores were averaged and then assigned letter grades."
Inside The Prelinger Library, A Unique Archive Of Ephemera // Hoodline
"On its website, the library is billed as a collection of “historical ephemera, periodicals, maps, and books,” which is to say that it is an attempt to collect and catalogue items not meant for posterity, that were created only for a particular month or week. A quick browse through the shelves reveals the artifacts of this quest: vintage TV Guides, old trade periodicals with names like "Retail Lumberman" and "Missiles and Rockets", forgotten books like Milton Wend’s How to Live in the Country Without Farming, various maps and monographs, and government studies of different stripes. All of this, the Prelingers claim, was inspired by their curiosity around what kind of historical picture one could get from simply looking at the archival evidence that nobody else noticed."
