Of feral cats, iconic buildings and famous shootings

A while back I mentioned Irene was making a documentary film about how we choose to kill some animals and not others.  Turns out that part of that involves some of the most entertaining, intriguing and oddest of encounters with folk!
A couple of weeks ago she took me off to drive around one of San Francisco's "Projects" - you know, those big ugly housing estates largely populated by people living on or close to the breadline and not the safest of places to be at night.  She was scouting her next filming location where she was following a crazed and committed group of (primarily) women who catch feral cats to take them to be spade and neutered then release them back into the community.  Turns out there is quite a number of folks entirely passionate about feral cats in general.

As a follow-up last night she took me off to City Hall (the iconic building referenced in the title) to attend the San Francisco Commission of Animal Control and Welfare to listen to some very impassioned pleas from the feral cat crowd asking the Commission to work towards legislation to make SF a no kill city i.e. not killing animals that get picked up off the street etc etc.  This followed by some other controversy around Golden Gate Park clearing land that feral cats were living in.  Anyway, it was all very fascinating and a long way from my day job!  As a side bar to all that I was a total tourist.  City Hall is an awesomely beautiful building....very English/European architecture.  While we waited for the meeting to kick off I took a couple of shots, including the obligatory tourist shot of me!

Of famous shootings?  This was where Harvey Milk (the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the US) was assassinated.
Only other interesting thing of note this week......check out the links to the right - Berlin marathon September 2011......woohoo!