It’s lunchtime!

And we have some great reviews for you of shows/documentaries featuring Mission icons such as the late Spain Rodriguez and the ever-present John Santos.

Wonder what it is like to be a passenger in a (sort of) driverless car? Yujie takes us on a journey and Will has orchestrated the ride in a cool animation.

Hope you are all well and planning a spectacular weekend.

Enjoy lunch,

Lydia

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John Santos’s Afro-Caribbean Mission

Priced out of San Francisco back in the early 1990s, John Santos had to leave the Mission behind. But the culture and ethos he absorbed. But the culture and ethos he absorbed growing up in the neighborhood continues to shape his musical vision 

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A (sort of) driverless car’s journey through San Francisco

Follow our intrepid reporter’s meandering journey through the city in one of Waymo’s newest autonomous vehicles.

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Sketches of Spain: Cartoonist ‘Spain’ Rodriguez’s Mission retrospective

Underground cartoonist Manuel “Spain” Rodriguez was a provocateur by nature. Rodriguez, who died in 2012 in San Francisco at 72, blended science fiction, radical politics and countercultural aesthetics into his work and helped bring alternative comics into the mainstream.

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SNAP

small plant in a mosaic planter

Niche garden

By Walter Mackins

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I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still here.

As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.

As founder/executive editor at ML, I've been trying to figure out how to make my interest in local news sustainable. If Mission Local is a model, the answer might be that you - the readers - reward steady and smart content. As a thank you for that support we work every day to make our content even better.