Jenny Chan founded Pacific Atrocities Education in San Francisco after learning about some of Japan's terror campaigns across Asia through World War II. It's history that Japanese conservatives are trying to suppress.

The Japanese Imperial Army's Unit 731 was the chemical and biological warfare facility that conducted experiments on about 14,000 people in China. None of those 14,000 survived, while the leaders of Unit 731 were granted immunity by the US in exchange for their "research." Pacific Atrocities Education https://www.pacificatrocities.org/ Podcast / YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/PacificFrontUntold Video: Rightwing Japanese nationalist Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi doesn't love politician Taro Yamamoto's suggestion that Japan is an American colony https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRE4Bm7EUoR/ Related episodes: Comfort Women part 1, with Judith Mirkinson from Comfort Women Justice Coalition https://www.patreon.com/posts/nationalism-vs-1-109743478 Comfort Women part 2, with Kota from Against Japanism https://www.patreon.com/posts/nationalism-vs-2-78561553 Nikkei Progressives, on how ICE detention compares to Japanese internment during WWII https://www.patreon.com/posts/internment-camps-109659819

Sad Francisco is produced by Toshio Meronek and edited by Tyger Ligon. Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

Jemma DeCristo RETURNS! Her new book The Aesthetic Character of Blackness is out, and covers how revolutionary Black art is co-opted by capitalists and the state, and art's limits as a revolutionary tool (and it's widespread use as a counterinsurgent one).

The Aesthetic Character of Blackness: Sounds Like Us (Duke University Press)

https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-aesthetic-character-of-blackness

Support Dahnoun Mutual Aid (Direct Support for People in Gazan)

https://chuffed.org/project/115245-dahnoun-mutual-aid

Previously:

Jemma on the Transgender Cultural District

https://www.patreon.com/posts/is-transgender-f-105793639

Jemma and Ralowe on the narrowness of Leftist organizing on (the app) Signal

https://www.patreon.com/posts/against-signal-123358271

Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

Janetta Johnson and zen blossom speak from the home base of Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) in SF. They speak on Miss Major (who led TGIJP for years); the year Janetta turned down the SF Pride grand marshal title; and the status of the Bay Area's reputation for being a haven for trans people. TGI Justice Project https://tgijp.org Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex https://www.akpress.org/captivegenders.html Previous episodes mentioned: Rest in Peace Miss Major https://www.patreon.com/posts/rip-miss-major-142054390 Tourmaline on her biography of Marsha P. Johnson https://www.patreon.com/posts/marsha-p-johnson-129316368

Public universities are under constant threat of budget cuts, but somehow administrators find millions to toss at extractive tech, like ChatGPT Edu.

SF State professor Martha Kenney describes how administrators at the CSUs spent $17 million on a contract with OpenAI without asking students or professors if it was a good idea—subsidizing an industry built on hype and plaigiarism.

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Martha Kenney and Martha Lincoln: "Let Them Eat Large Language Models: Artificial Intelligence And Austerity In The Neoliberal University"

https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/6z5pa_v1

MIT Study

https://mlq.ai/media/quarterly_decks/v0.1_State_of_AI_in_Business_2025_Report.pdf

Library of Babel Listserv

https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/assembly

Episode with Stop AI

https://www.patreon.com/posts/end-agi-before-127632638

Martha Lincoln: "It's Time to Pull the Plug on ChatGPT at Cal State"

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2025/11/25/chatgpt-poses-risk-student-mental-health-opinion

Martha Lincoln on BlueSky

https://bsky.app/profile/heavyredaction.bsky.social

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Sad Francisco is produced by Toshio Meronek and edited by Tyger Ligon. Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

San Francisco tried to atone for the war on drugs with a DEI program for recreational weed store owners. In the end, the real winners were rich white dudes like London Breed's old roommate, Conor Johnston. Chris Roberts—America's top cannabis journalist and historian reporting from America's number-one cannabis producing region—returns. We go deep on his recent Chronicle piece detailing how it all went wrong.

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"San Francisco's first 'equity' weed store was an epic failure. City Hall insiders may still pocket millions" sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/marijuana-weed-legal-shop-haight-21063653.php "White Weed Entrepreneurs Are Gaming Programs Meant to Help People of Color" (Chris for Vice) vice.com/en/article/white-weed-entrepreneurs-are-gaming-programs-meant-to-help-people-of-color/ Previous episode with Chris, on the radiation disaster at Hunter's Point patreon.com/posts/radiation-at-132819458

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Sad Francisco is produced by Toshio Meronek and edited by Tyger Ligon. Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

dee(dee) c. ardan is live in the studio apartment for the first episode about trans/queer media from the Bay's past, showing that indeed, this place has been trans as hell for a long, long time.

Starting with issue one of the 1970s zine GAY SUNSHINE, we deduce how the Bay gained a reputation for being the place you come to push the trans agenda and make life hell for conservatives.

Gay Sunshine's first two issues, via UC Berkeley Library

https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/121520

https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/121521

Shattered Glass reading group contact: essgeesquared@gmail

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Sad Francisco is produced by Toshio Meronek and edited by Tyger Ligon. Support the show on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

The Tenderloin in 1966: One of the earliest trans/queer actions (that we know of) against police and state violence happened at Compton's Cafeteria. Today, that space (111 Taylor Street) is occupied by Geo Group—otherwise known as the corporation that is America's number-one private prison and ICE profiteer.

Zei Wilder is helping organize the local effort to get Geo Group out of San Francisco and turn the Compton's site into something that isn't evil.

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Comptons x Coalition: comptonsxcoalition.net

Demand Board of Supervisors Action Against Geo Group on November 6, 10 AM, SF City Hall Room 272: instagram.com/p/DPUQYewgdk4/

Episode with historian Susan Stryker, co-director of the Compton's documentary "Screaming Queens": patreon.com/posts/jail-at-comptons-79134233

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Sad Francisco is produced by Toshio Meronek and edited by Tyger Ligon.

Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: patreon.com/sadfrancisco

For Major, who passed on October 13.

Truthout piece

https://truthout.org/articles/to-honor-miss-major-we-fight-for-the-trans-and-queer-spaces-she-built/

Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary

https://sfpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S93C5592116

A more recent episode with filmmakers behind the documentary MAJOR!, StormMiguel Florez and Annalise Ophelian

https://www.patreon.com/posts/trans-film-cis-130068888

MAJOR! (documentary)

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/major

Criminal Queers

https://vimeo.com/221584005

This episode was recorded before the ceasefire deal went into effect on Oct. 10. Surprising no one, Israel has already broken its promises, continuing to kill Palestinians and withholding aid.

UC Berkeley lecturer Peyrin Kao just ended a 38-day hunger strike to keep Palestine on the minds of people on campus and to raise money during Israel's US-backed starvation campaign. A few days before we spoke, UC Berkeley notified him that he was one of 160 people it had turned over to the Trump administration as college administrators cooperate with attacks on anyone who's against the genocide. Berkeley EECS/STEM 4 Palestine Fundraiser tinyurl.com/be4pfundraiser Truthout: Peyrin interviewed by friend of the pod Brooke Lober https://truthout.org/articles/computer-science-lecturer-at-berkeley-is-on-day-36-of-his-hunger-strike-for-gaza/ Brooke's episode on Bay2Gaza Mutual Aid https://www.patreon.com/posts/112157781 Dylan Rodriguez episode: Zionists and Counterinsurgency in Stop Asian Hate https://www.patreon.com/posts/103600189

Bench Ansfield is a professor in the History department at Temple University. Their book "Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City" covers how racial capitalism, political corruption, and the insurance industry created a world where landlords can profit more by burning their own buildings down than maintaining them. They were also part of the research team on the 2019 documentary "Decade of Fire".

Bench Ansfield https://www.benchansfield.com

Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/born-in-flames-bronx-arson-1970s

Decade of Fire https://decadeoffire.com

Born in Flames (the film the book was named after) https://www.criterion.com/films/30707-born-in-flames

Let the Fire Burn: documentary about MOVE's infamous eviction in Philadelphia https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/let-fire-burn

Recent episode on the fire at 22nd and Mission with Angelica https://www.patreon.com/posts/aftermath-of-at-135107521