Category Archives: San Francisco Politics

This is an open plea to both the Mayor of San Francisco, his army of staff and supporters and the people of San Francisco. Specifically I’m talking today about the “Mayoral Town Hall Meeting” scheduled for tomorrow at 2pm.
Every single one of these things has featured a) bad weather, usually rain or cold, b) an endless conga line of city-paid bureaucrats who stand around in the back, and c) a program so scripted and so boring it makes watching paint dry look like the playoffs.
I would think that with the combined brainpower of the good citizens working in City Hall, and the endless amount of excess creative energy that seems to spill out all over the place in this lovely burg, somehow, these things could be made a bit more entertaining. Helen Lovejoy put it best – won’t someone please think about the children??.
Seriously. My tax dollars are paying for this circus, so let’s have the Mayor fly in on a jetpack into the Excelsior, with Stan Lee, and perhaps have a tiger jump through fire, or a team of city department heads do acrobatics (or would that be bureau-acro-batics?).
Now that’s what I call a Town Hall Meeting! See you there!
Bored at work? Looking for something fun? Why not check out the Tshirt shop, and buy yourself an Adama in 2008 shirt, or celebrate the return of Heroes on April 23rd with a special Save the Bumblebee, Save the World shirt! Excelsior!

A few weeks ago, I got an email from Merchant’s Exchange Building and signed up. Who can pass up discounted Guinness, right?
Then I realized that it’s the same night of the more recently announced debate/knife fight between Sen. Carole Migden and Assemblyman Mark Leno, which I figured might be worth some blogging goodness.
Guinness at 6:30 or Brawl at 7? Which should I choose?

Jenny Siebel Pours Gas on Self, Lights Lighter, Thinking She Rocks (She Doesn’t).

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WTF?

Seriously. That’s all I could think of when I watched the latest iteration of Mayor Newsom’s mayoral meltdown, courtesy of his latest “girlfriend”, Jennifer Siebel. The interview itself was little more than self-serving gossip from a woman who clearly sees herself as the future Mrs. Newsom, and was eager to play the role of “First Lady of SF” in her first big interview.

Reading it, you got the sense that it was all scripted, designed to put out fires caused by the Mayor’s past behavior, and perhaps rewrite history, Communist Russia style, to reinforce the meme that The Mayor Has A Stable, Monogamous, Heterosexual Relationship, and that Everything Is OK. Oh, and he’s Kind of A Victim, Too.
Fine. But then my good friends at SFist.com posted some minor commentary on the piece. That’s when Jenny Siebel decided to take a can of gas, dump it on herself and the Mayor, and light her lighter, thinking she rocks – and ended up burning herself and the Mayor in the processs.

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It’s been said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again, and expect different results. One could easily apply this to those who insist all we need is Yet Another 60’s Style Protest to “end” the Iraq War. Once again, these flyers are sprouting like mushrooms all over the city.
Fine. Here’s the problem. Not only is it questionable if old-fashioned, 60’s-style, “march in the streets and be loud” protests are really effective anymore, it’s also time for someone (or many someones) to clean house with regards to who runs these things.
We’re at a point now where an overwhelming number of Americans nationwide are giving the President a big thumbs down for job performance. That’s everywhere not just in hippie SF. More importantly, a clear majority now state they believe the war in Iraq was a mistake.
With all that, plus the unexpected win of opposition Democrats, you’d think by now these “protests” would be run by a broad range of mainstream political and social groups, and not be run primarily by authoritarian extremists.
Bzzt. Think again.

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I attended Mayor Newsom’s “Town Hall Meeting” today in the Bayview. I’ll post a little something later on, but for now, check out my photos on Flickr here, or click on any of the pics in the Flickr Box on the right. For now, all I’ll say is anyone who thinks they can pre-script a meeting in a community with Real Problems Needing Solutions needs to think twice. Suffice to say, there were plenty of questions even Our Supervisors probably wouldn’t have thought to ask.
SFist Rita beat me to the punch with her posting this afternoon, so go ahead and read it, since it’s pretty good. I am sure my good pals at SFGate.com and other good folks will follow suit. Cheers!

On behalf of the Bloggers Union, Local 20-Deep, I want to thank San Francisco City Hall for continuing to invent more fodder for blogs that would normally be dry of new material.
I mean, really. I thought I’d seen it all when we had the Jr. High Drama Production last month, or perhaps when a supposedly smart PR flack for the Mayor spent all his time flinging rude insults on blogs (and lied about it – good job!), but then you get a call late last night and read all about this little news tidbit.
Which, on the face of it is a piece of news, but not necessarily earth-shattering news item. When you consider, however, that we seem to live in a city where you can shoot people and murder people (and get away with it), a MUNI system in crisis, and you’re wondering if the San Francisco of the 2000s is becoming the New York City of the 1970s, then you get worried.
One starts to wonder if our Mayor (whom we are told is supposed to be this moderate, wise counterpart to those Supervisors we’re told are so evil) has his full attention to his job. And given all the problems we’ve got in San Francisco, another bloggable, avoidable distraction is not what Our City needs.That is unfortunate, because overall he seems like he’s a nice guy and means well – but he’s in a lotta trouble.
And now for today’s footnote of footnotes: Early last year (March 1st, I think), I remember getting a call from my friend, Savannah Blackwell (formerly of the Bay Guardian, now a law student at Boalt Hall) who’d called me up and asked me to join her at Finnegan’s Wake in Cole Valley. It being Laundry Day, I was wearing my oldest shirt, jeans, and socks whilst I had the clothes in the washer.
When I walked in, it turned out that she had failed to mention that she was with a number of her pals from her City Hall days who were out celebrating a birthday for some guy named Alex Tourk. And she happily introduced me to Mr. Mayor himself, who was in attendance, as well as her friend Emily Morse and assorted Important People in the administration.
Needless to say, I was a bit surprised (and embarassed, being clad in Laundry Day attire). We hung out for a bit, then I went home to finish laundry. I’m sure no one in attendance would recall my presence (and this being in the Era Before I Got My Camera Phone I couldn’t take any pics) but I remember thinking it was kinda fun to see the Mayor and his crew, 20 deep at Finnegan’s.
Who knew that 13 months later we’d be watching a scandal unfold with all these folks. Weird.
PS: I don’t know why this picture of a Mooninite giving the finger makes me laugh so much – it’s a combination of its absurdity, along with the completely idiotic response by the idiots that run Boston. News flash – it’s not Turner Broadcasting’s fault you’re too stupid to figure out what’s a terror threat and what is not – it’s the fault of idiots like Mayor Thomas Menino and Gov. Deval Patrick.
Our Mayor may have made mistakes, but at least he didn’t make one as big (and loud) as this one, kids.