Disinfo Rehab

Well, it should be interesting to see what happens tomorrow night. I for one will be safely out of town so I shall miss the fun of live-blogging the inevitable clash of suburbanites, cops, and whatnots that didn't get the memo on the non-Halloween this year.

And where better than the Uranus and 17th Street which does have one amazing view of the City....and the Castro.

Yes this is a lame stupid joke but I couldn't resist...enjoy...

Posted by Greg Dewar at 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well this hasn't gone well. I had hoped to put together a Direct Mail Archive for the fall elections, but as the good old Chronicle reported in their "pointing out the obvious" kind of way, this year has plain sucked for political consultants and campaigns.

Usually by now I at least have my own sampling of campaign mail to post, being a permanent mail ballot voter, but alas, not a thing. Now I could go off on another "oh the progressives totally f*cked up and it's all their fault" but hey, that's obvious (their implosion is pretty much accomplished). Or I could go off on another tangent about Our Mayor, but really, what's the point?

Instead, I'm making one last plea for something, anything, from any of the campaigns, in PDF or JPEG format for this year's archive. Otherwise the only thing I can comment on is this goofy logo from the "Yes on J" campaign that looks like a zombie brain with a wire shoved in its side. And we don't want that now, do we?

Posted by Greg Dewar at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Folks, I'm not a millionaire like say, Don Fisher or Gavin Newsom, so I can't do what I'd like for our citizens in the struggle in Southern California. But I can do this - if you buy an "Adama for President" shirt right now I'll donate the markup (I only make 3.50 on these things) on all shirts sold from now through the end of the year to a suitable charity that will help our fellow Californians in their time of need. Would we want our fellow citizens to the south crapping on us when the Big One hits? NO.

While we in San Francisco are enjoying this lovely 80 degree warm weather and clear skies, our fellow citizens to the south are going through a literal Hell with these wildfires which are so bad, the firefighters are at something like 0% containment and almost a million people are now displaced from their homes.

And yet, in a tragedy of this of Katrina/1989 Quake/OMG We're FRAKKED proportions, jackasses on line and in the mainstream media (i.e. CNN) find a way to take a tragedy and make literal sh*t out of it....all for their petty, stupid, rotten little agendas.

Idiotic Jerkoff Glenn Beck made snide remarks about how the people whose homes are burning are people who "hate America." (And CNN backs it up! How "liberal.")

Now, putting aside the fact that Glenn Beck's inherent stupidity keeps him from saying anything relevant (um, DUH Glenn, San Diego and Imperial County and that whole area are super-Republican and home to MANY MANY SERVICEMEN AND WOMEN), um, WTF? Why, in the middle of a horrid tragedy would ANYONE SAY SOMETHING THIS F*CKING RETARDED???

Now, I should not be surprised given that people paid to be assholes, such as "commentators" and "news analysts" have to come up with new and improved way to be a jerk to "get ratings" and "make a story" but please. This is just wrong. Now, if the so-called "progressives" like MoveOn.Org had a brain, they'd broadcast these bs remarks all around the TV sets of southern california and pressure CNN to show this guy what real pain is like, but of course instead their idiot consultants come up with crap like that General Betray-Us ad (dhut dhut dhut get it?) Oh well, betting on the idiocy of MoveOn and Glenn Beck is a sure fire winner any way you cut it.

Oh, but then there's the sewer pipe known as the SFGate comments on their "stories." Once again, the pretext of "commenting on a story" is hijacked by people who have to serve their own agenda. Don't like "bad" mortgage holders? Stick it to 'em. Don't like people in Southern California? Stick it to 'em. Wanna just sh*t on people who are going through a terrible time in their lives? STICK IT TO 'EM.

Yeah, that's right. Let's take out our own crappy day on people who have had a truly crappy day. Class act, SFGate commenters.

There's just one problem. One day we are going to have one FRAK of an earthquake here. How will you feel when the losers who take time from talk radio to spam out a comment at the San Diego Tribune or whatever sh*t on you for "getting what you deserve" when your loved ones die or your home is ruined in the Next Big One?

Time for a lot of people to take a shot of Shut-The-Fuck-Up with a chaser of Be-A-Human-Being-And-Not-An-Asshole. Maybe, just maybe, the Chronicle can redeem itself. Glenn Beck's been a worthless shit for years. This won't change a thing. All I know is if I lived in San Diego I'd be telling Comcast or whoever that they can take their CNN and send it to Iran where it belongs with all the OTHER America-haters.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm upgrading all my sites to Movable Type 4 - so things might be looking a bit stranger than usual around here....pardon the dust as things are upgraded, etc.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 3:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So you may have heard there's this whole State Senate primary in full swing, and the vote's not even until June 2008, and yet the candidates, Assemblyman Mark Leno, incumbent Sen. Carole Migden, and candidate Joe Alioto Veronese are all running pretty intense campaigns. Whee.

Anyway, while reading Beth Spotswood's groovy blog, however, I saw a link to an anti-Leno site, called Leno the Lapdog that attacks the Assemblyman's record and discusses what they view to be as deficiencies in his voting record, etc. Fine. Whatever.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that they decided to use this photo I took and posted on Flickrfor their homepage.

Now, I'm flattered that some well paid political expenditure committee just loved my cell phone camera skillz so much they felt that said image merited use on a professional piece of political communication, there's just one little problem - they swiped it off of my Flickr account and didn't bother to ask, much less pay me for my efforts. That's taking money out of my pocket in my line of work, and it's not very nice. Kids - just because it's on Flickr doesn't mean you can just swipe it for your own purposes!

Doing a WHOIS lookup on the domain finds that they use a domain proxy service to hide who paid for the domain. They don't have an email address to contact them, either. Now, come on, kids. You clearly have the money to spend on a site, and you have the money to pay someone to do this for you. But you don't have the $$$$ to pay me for the use of my work? Come on.

Now, I don't really have a dog in this fight since none of the candidates has hired me to work for them, and they probably weren't planning to anyway. Whatever. But it is more than a little irritating to see my work being considered good enough for their needs, but not getting paid - when clearly they have the means. If they'd asked, I might have said yes for a small fee or something.

Since they didn't ask in advance, I'm now asking for more money - let's make it a nice round number of around $15,000 - to pay me as a "consultant" for the website's images and whatnots. I'm willing to negotiate in good faith, and I'm sure you folks are, too!

You can email me here and let me know if it's going to be a certified check OR paid via PayPal. Either way is fine. KTHNXBAI!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 4:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why I remember this I don't know, but back in the 1990s, a brewing company came out with a "40" of Malt Liquor that was named "Crazy Horse" (as in the Native American /Indian leader). Needless to say, more than a few Native Americans/Indians were rather pissed off to see their leader being used to sell crappy beer.

Activists made the media rounds and while this particular report doesn't say it I remember seeing a congressional hearing where some Native American/Indian leaders, to show others why they were so pissed, made up bottles of "Jesus Christ White Wine" and "Malcolm X Malt Liquor" to give others a taste of what they'd felt when they saw Crazy Horse on sale.

Then I read the L.A. Times and saw this piece of news about a new wine from Israel.

"Grapes of Galilee" wine. With not one, but TWO pictures of the Son of God on it. It's to be marketed to Christians or something.

It just goes to show you that no matter how crazy, ironic or "out there" a criticism can be, someday, if you're not careful, it can REALLY happen.

I don't know that I'd be buying wine with Jesus' picture on it, and with an ad campaign that insinuates taht if Jesus drank wine back in the day "it came from their vines" (to paraphrase the vintner.). I'd happily buy a wine from Israel, since I'm sure there are good wines from Israel. But why drag Jesus into this? Does this mean if I buy a wine from Napa I'm supporting Satan or something?

Anyway, enjoy your weekend, and watch out for those sneaky mailers that aren't telling the truth about the Fix MUNI proposition! Looks like that "deal" to get things done got broken by one side after all. A pity.

*Note: I used both "Native American" and "Indian" because my experience has been that people in California like to say "Native American" but whenever I've worked on political campaigns with indigenous peoples of North America, they almost always refer to themselves as "Indian," and the names of many national organizations dedicated to such issues also say "Indian." So I put in both so no one gets all mad.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As most people don't know, there's the one and only "debate" between the Mayor and his Baker's Dozen of no-names. No one is really covering it, and the TV cameras won't be there, so you probably won't see much of it. But, if you have nothing better to do and get a chance to ask Mr. Mayor just what is his position these days on "public financing" of campaigns.

Now don't get me wrong - there's no question that the term "campaign finance reform" is a loaded term designed to help one side over the other. Fine. But here's where I get confused when it comes to Mr. Mayor's position on the allegedly important issue of taxpayer financed elections (which have done so well here in San Francisco).

I got some plea for money from the from the so-called "Californians for Clean Money" campaign, and as you can see in the accompanying image, I was asked to "join Mayor Newsom" who apparently endorsed the effort at some meeting at some new office in Our City.

Now, let's put aside the many failed predictions made when the proponents got this thing passed, since that's obvious. Instead, let's look at the record of Our Mayor on this supposedly important issue, and wonder if perhaps the folks at the "California Clean Money" campaign might need to do a little more homework before putting press releases out for their cure-all.

Even a cursory glance at the archives of the Voice of the West, little blogs and the Bay Guardian reveal the fact that the mayor has proposed cutting matching funds for the next election cycle, all under the guise of "thinking about the children."

Mayor Newsom made it clear he was openly contemptuous of the idea on more than one occasion and if that is what he thinks, more power to him. Not everyone (including I) are convinced that this is a cure-all, and I've been saying for years it's time to come up with rules that ensure fairness, but do not attempt to guarantee outcomes for one side (i.e. Magical Matt Gonzalez) or the other (Mr. Mayor) or another (some goofball with a blog and an attitude.)

If the California Clean Money folks want me to take their ideas seriously, they perhaps oughta do a better job researching their fundraising appeals before sending them out, and ask Mr. Mayor to take a consistent position. Otherwise they look foolish.

Likewise, if Mr. Mayor thinks the idea is dumb, fine. But why then go out to a meeting of a group dedicated to taking such an apparently dumb "progressive" idea and inflict it statewide and appear in a fundraising email as well?

Apparently the clean money people have some meeting coming up this month. Perhaps one of those wise reporters from those "real" newspapers could show up and ask them some questions. Maybe ask the Mayor some too, while their at it.

Or do we have to spam the Chronicle with "400 comments" before the Big Kids of Journalism like CW Nevius or Phil Matier try some real journalism for a change?

Posted by Greg Dewar at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every year, voters around the City and around the country get lots of Political Junk Direct Mail, some good, some bad, some funny, some boring. And every year, as I've been doing for some time now, I open up an archive of your submissions as well as the mail I pick up in the mailbox every week from now until election day. Bookmark this link and you'll always see the complete archive as we go along.

Last year we had an interesting showcase of what candidates chose to put in print to represent themselves to voters.

So far this year, even as I got my voter guide, I've received virtually nothing (unless you count that "Quintin Mecke for Mayor" flyer that was covered in footprints on the MUNI the other day and no I didn't pick it up). So, I'm probably going to be posting some pieces from Burlingame since I have family who live there, and well, it's sorta like SF since Sup. Ed Jew might live there too.

As always, I welcome your submissions, even if this year the campaign season is a bit quiet. Consultants, if you have a mail piece you're particularly proud of, email me a JPEG or PDF and I will post it. Citizens, if you find something in your mail that looks interesting, send it on in. Or, if you're scanner-less, email me and I'll give you a place to mail it to, or I can stop by a location downtown and take it off your hands.

The archive will give us all a chance to analyze each piece, see what the candidates are saying, and see how they put their message together. People seemed to like it in the past, so let's give it a try even if this year's campaign season is a bit less inspired than in years past. Thanks for your help!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow.

Yeah. Wow.

I finally saw "Californication" on Showtime thanks to their free weekend hippie promo deal, and all I can say is "wow!"

Why? Simple. David Duchovny's character, embittered writer Hank Moody, is the rock star of writers. Sure we'd all love to be super successful, have our novels butchered, but still make residuals, and oh yeah, get to have sex with hot women AND punch out guys who dis our seriously beloved, and so on, but you know.

That ain't happening.

So "Californication" offers a window into a world that we (and by "we" I mean "dumbass guys in their late 30s who so wish they could be so fucking cool") really enjoy. It's a perfect companion to that tiresome, girly show "Weeds" (which induces vomiting despite its charms), and well, it's just a wonderful show.

Anyway.

Oh, and one of the appeals is the circular humor and logic I've not seen since Peter Bagge did "Hate" and "Neat Stuff" back in the day. They start out planting the joke, let you go around the pool a few times, and WHAM! bring it back in such a way you didn't expect, but should have.

Just watch the show. You'll like it. Or not. Or at least understand a little more about a guy's guy, and realize why some of us are just glad the Alan Alda Bullsh*t 70s Sensitive Man Lies are done.

Seriously.

Just watch the show. Ladies, if you're a fan, feel free to email me.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 8:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Recently I posted a snarky entry that suggested that a blog on the SFGate site shared "too many similarities" to one I'd posted earlier. While never using the "p-word" it was a tad harsh.

After speaking with some folks, it has been determined that it was indeed a case of "great minds thinking alike" and any suggestions otherwise that Chron TV blogger Rain Jokinen were doing anything unethical are simply incorrect.

I am not so insecure in my own writing and sense of self that I cannot admit a mistake and apologize. Too often, in our "gotcha" culture, people don't back down when they're mistaken. (That's how we got stuck in Iraq, et al).

Personally I have always admired people who aren't afraid to say "I made a mistake." Now I am doing what I advocate for others!

Now let's all enjoy tonight's episode of Heroes and look forward to a week of fun and excitement!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 6:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)