SFist: Interview: Mrs. Chris Daly!!!

Jerry Jarvis

Thu, 17 May 2007 04:20:20 -0800

We have sure come along ways since this was first done.Back when Pat Murphy was a nice troll. I still say now as then "You gotta love that Chris Daly" Who knew something that I wrote would become so popular. [37] Posted by: Jerry Jarvis | March 15, 2005 4:52 PM

halle

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 09:56:48 -0800

I think its great that Low Daly likes the underground in London, and travels enough to have a favorite global transit system. I wonder what she thinks of public transit in San Francisco. I think her options are BART, Muni, AC Transit, GG Transit, SAMtrans, and maybe a few others.

Bigfoot

Fri, 15 Apr 2005 01:33:25 -0800

Babies having babies. How sad. :-(

carol harvey

Fri, 18 Mar 2005 19:01:43 -0800

I met Sarah in 2002 when I interviewed Chris for a profile article. I liked her enormously. She struck me as down-to-earth, honest, direct, charming, and completely her own person. Trust me, life is good when intelligent and loving people like Sarah are around. Lucky Chris and Lucky Jack.

Able Dart

Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:03:45 -0800

PSA: Congratulations. You just made Quote of The Day. http://p209.ezboard.com/fabledartsbathroomwallfrm9.showMessage?topicID=23.topic&index=293

Jerry Jarvis

Tue, 15 Mar 2005 16:52:12 -0800

"Gotta love that Chris Daly" phrase was fist seen on Pat Murphy's wed site in the Email to the editor www.sanfranciscosentinel.com

publicserviceannouncement

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 16:07:15 -0800

To the board: (apologies for the long post.) First off, contrary to implied assertions, I am not able dart. Nor am I el greco. I am my own poster. I post therefore I am publicserviceannouncement. Secondly, I did not call anyone a nazi, in fact I clearly stated the Daly’s definitely were not. I did call them economic authoritarians of the socialist/communist bent. This seems accurate to me given his legislative actions and her remarks in the interview. I also complimented him on his acumen. No wiggling here. From Wikipedia “Godwin’s law”: “Quirk's exception: Intentional invocation of this so-called "Nazi Clause" is ineffectual.” The debate continues. Not over who is a nazi, but over propaganda, authoritarianism, and the limits of individual liberty in a city where property is often seen as theft by the current political establishment. Let’s move this debate on into housing issues as previously suggested. Also from Wikipedia: “Eternal September (also September that never ended or endless September) are Usenet slang expressions for the period of time beginning September 1993. The use of these expressions implies the belief that standards of discourse and behavior on Usenet have declined since 1993 due to an unending influx of new users.” In the spirit of Mr. Ausman’s “scum” retraction I offer my apology for fusilli jerry and hellooooo assman to Mr. Ausman. Point taken on the comment policy. My final comments on the line that started this all: "In some ways this interview reads like one with Magda Goebbels"-able dart I see two primary ways to interpret this comment. One is to believe that the Daly’s are being compared to the Goebbels in deed and action. The other is to believe that the interview technique and tone is more propaganda then truth-to-power hard-hitting journalism, and uses reference to an infamous propagandist to make the point. Both can be reasonably inferred. The interpretation is directly related to the position of the interpreter. Daly sympathizers will hear an outrageous comparison beyond the bounds of propriety, and opponents will hear a truthful skewering of their favorite kabob. I see propaganda issues whilst Mr. Ausman sees propriety issues. We're probably both right to a degree. For the sake of my argument though, would a better choice for comparison have been Leni Riefenstahl, or barring nazis, Tokyo Rose, or barring Imperial Japan, Bill O’Reilly, or barring Fox News, Randy Shaw? Oh, wait, Shaw is seen as Daly’s propagandist. Just like the Chron is Gavin’s according to Mr. Daly. The point is that getting compared to any propagandist elicits howls because propaganda is defined as a negative. When it becomes defined as a positive is the real trouble. Thus some concern over “he makes for great f__’in copy”. We all want excitement, but shouldn’t the interviewer challenge at least some of the political assumptions proffered? It’s either a political interview or it’s not. Is this news or editorial or infotainment? And lastly, regarding Seinfeld (Seinfeld, Jewish?, …I never knew) and the concept that only Jews can make nazi jokes, is a little like saying only Indians can make Custer jokes, or only Cubans can make Castro jokes or only an oppressed identity can make an oppressor joke. I guess only Lenny Bruce, Leonard Peltier, the Iraqi people and the staff at KPFA can make American government jokes. Anyone gets to poke the powerful in this country. And even the powerless with an over-developed sense of victimization get poked too. Humor is everyone’s weapon to deflate severity. The over-sensitivity of SF identity politics only furthers its pathology of tribalism. For now, I choose anonymity for my preservation in this tolerant city. If you don’t know my identity then I can’t be pigeonholed in your coop. And if ideas are the wings of this online realm, then the color of my beak shouldn’t matter. Thanks. Now who’s for housing?

jordan

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 15:36:38 -0800

"The point is this: you published a puff piece which contained propaganda which many people (not just me) consider to be in support of a political agenda which is harming this city, and indeed, exhibits behavior harmful to the political process itself." Uhhh, did I miss something? Which was the part that contained propaganda? Are you saying that Mrs. Daly doesn't actually have her child's puke running down her chest? Or are you outraged by El Castillito's exclusion from the 'best burrito' discussion? This is a fun and entertaining piece that doesn't actually have anything to do with politics, other than the part where Mrs. Daly basically says "politics really sucks sometimes." I can't understand why you are going so ballistic about this. Go Esseffist, or SFist, whatever you want to call yourself- I don't care if you use both!

Able Dart

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 10:05:57 -0800

Jackson, If you want commenters to be aware of your comment policy, then perhaps you should put a link to it somewhere where people can find it. I note Gothamist puts a link to it right on their front page - why don't you? The policy seems reasonable enough, apart from the askance view of handles. However, it would also appear that you and members of your staff have violated the policy. Rather than trying to prevent a flame war, your staff responded to my posts with profanity and insults. Now people who know me know that I never shy away from the effective use of profanity when called for, but I did try to avoid it here because I didn't want to cause any unneccessary offense. I also did my best not to directly insult anyone (other than Hampton, and he already knows I despise him). Yet instead of trying to manage things, you turned the whole thing into a flame war by trying to "invoke" Godwin. Why were your people so defensive and irrational? Because they knew they were being called on the carpet for their partisanship. As I posted earlier, if you allow yourselves to get pimped for politics, expect criticism. Like it or lump it.

Jim Ausman

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 00:51:49 -0800

Mr. West, I had not read your comments policy before I posted, but I support it. I will withdraw the scum comment, but stand behind the rest of it. I think a discussion about the tone of political debate by Mr. Daly, in this fine City, and in American politics in general is pretty relevant to the topic at hand. I am all for talking more about ideas and less about personalities. Cheers, Jim

el Greco

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 00:09:55 -0800

Wow, Jackson, if you guys want to shut down the thread then go ahead and shut it down, but spare us the lecture. Political opinions get heated. Especially those about Chris Daly and there is no way you can say that an interview on his wife is going to be nice and light. The man is simply a lightning rod for controversy and by extension so is anyone intimately connected with him. Seen any articles on Laura Bush which did not engender heated responses about George W? Maybe in Ladies Home Journal, but not in serious news publications and certainly not on the net! Both Able Dart and Jim Ausman were completely within their rights to express what they want. In the real world of politics, the exchange that just transpired online was nothing. It gets way nastier than that in the real world. If you want innocuous articles that no one gets worked up about, publish cookie recipes of the wives of elected officials.

Able Dart

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 22:54:12 -0800

Jackson, I'm not sure what you think you've accomplished by reposting publicly available information. The whole issue of "who Able Dart is" has been something of an open secret for a while now. As for your evaluation of my netiquette, well, that's your opinion. I've been online since the early 80's in one form or another (my college had a PLATO port), and if I've learned anything, it's that "Internet Culture" is a subculture that has little to do with the real world. So why do I continue to use the handle? On principle. I help administer a message board on SF politics, and we allow for anonymous users. Because it's about politics, lots of people get angry and try to find out who posts what so they can discredit or even retaliate against them. It's something we fight against everyday, because we're interested in keeping the dialogue going. This is all about dialogue - remember? Now, if you intend to use the joefire screed (for a relatively ubiased look at who Eric was, see http://www.mistersf.com/notorious/notheajbass.htm)to discredit not only me but others who've posted here, it'll only reinforce the appearance of partisanship you created when you published the interview. You'll also likely be in for one hell of an education. I'll leave that to others; I've no interest in recreating the infamous alt.tasteless/ rec.pets.cats flame war here. The point is this: you published a puff piece which contained propaganda which many people (not just me) consider to be in support of a political agenda which is harming this city, and indeed, exhibits behavior harmful to the political process itself. In such a context, it's only right that others voice their concerns about that. Apparently this makes you uncomfortable. Yes, I have concerns about Daly; so do a lot of other people. You consider my analogy offensive; I consider your assertion that "we love Chris Daly because he make f-ing great copy" offensive. We're talking about someone whose actions, in my opinion adversely, affect the lives of real people, not Paris and Nicole. Politicians are supposed to serve the public; they are not movie stars. All I did was post an opinion; it's your people who have their shorts all twisted up over it. That in itself is inappropriate. My advice to you is either to stay away from politics and political figures in your copy, or put up with the heat. That's what the Big Boys do. Peace, AD

Jackson West

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 20:51:12 -0800

Of course, my computer is busted to hell and I'm smack dab in the middle of Texas, so I haven't had a chance to engage in our first balls-to-the-wall flame war. -The Mrs. Chris Daly shirts are a girly pink for a reason. I thought it would be a funny-post feminist statement, since of course I would address Sarah as Ms. regardless of her marital status. We could probably make one up special if you like, Matt. email us if you're interested. -SFist is our name, and the EssEfficist is the name of our Q&A columnist, SFist Shane. We love Herb Caen, and show our respect by using his neologisms, because we feel they should live on. Amongst the staff, though, we call it the 'Fist and each other Super Fisters. -We love Chris Daly because the man makes for great fucking copy. The one time we met him and Sarah (though we didn't introduce ourselves), he was a genial, quiet person who seemed devoted to his wife and son. If Sophie Maxwell threw more hissy-fits (which we would like to see if it involved shutting down the Hunters Point Power Plant), we'd write about that, too. -We also have a woody for Gavin, but for entirely different reasons. To me, personally, the two represent the polar opposite in political styles -- one a slick and assured operator, the other a passionate firebrand. They are both masters of political theater, though, certainly. -Michael Ege, AKA Able Dart, was responsible for sending out a mockingly satirical email that he tried to pass off as an email from Daly, and has a history of flaming forums, assuming multiple anonymous handles and otherwise having no grasp of netiquette. If we have a woody for Daly, than Ege has a maniacly obsessive fixation. -We let this thread continue because we're trying to be as open and permissive as possible. You can't imagine how embarrassed we were that a nice, light interview turned into this incredibly offensive shouting match. Now do you see why we have a comments policy? We won't be so lenient next time. -Our interview policy is to run interviews without any edits to the content of the subjects comments. We don't even edit for length, just minor copy-proofing (and even that's lax). We also encourage our subjects to point up their personal projects and passions, since we try to interview people doing cool and interesting things. Our subjects have "propagandized" everything from rock concerts to homeless advocacy groups. -We'd love to do hard-hitting political journalism. We'd also love to have more tawdry gossip. We don't have a lot of resources at our disposal besides a talented and dedicated staff who balance their time on the site with their jobs, studies and personal lives. Please respect that no one gets it right all the time, and that we're mostly trying to engage, inform and entertain with our tongues planted in our respective cheeks.

Able Dart

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 19:51:36 -0800

I guess we can now invoke Fischer's Law and declare Ausman the loser of this debate, since he has now interjected the atrocities of AOL into it and called PSA an AOL user. Again, Mike Godwin coined the concept of Godwin's Law as being like a scientific law, not a moral or legal code. You can observe it happen, but you can't enforce it, anymore than you can enforce the laws of gravity, or thermodynamics. People who believe they can control natural laws are either Scientologists, Nazis, or crazy. Tell us, Jim, which are you? And indeed, what on earth does your epistemological bluenoseism have to do with Sarah Daly, whose husband acts like a crazed Nazi?

Jim Ausman

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 18:39:44 -0800

Mr. PSA please explain to me what you think Godwin's exception is and why it applies in this case. It is amusing to see you wiggle and wriggle and try to change the subject. I am familiar with the Soup Nazi reference in Seinfield. Seinfield is Jewish: perhaps you did not realize this. Being Jewish allows one to make a Nazi reference in a humorous fashion when the same comment would simply be in bad taste when made by a non-Jew. It is also part of a long funny set piece and not actually intended to reference the cook's political philosophy. Do you see the difference between calling someone a Nazi in a political debate and calling someone who behaves in an authoritarian fashion, but in a non-political situation, a Nazi? Both are in bad taste, in my opinion, but one is merely an insult and the other an attempt to poison and stifle the debate. Since both of you hide behind behind anonymous facades and spew ad hominem demagoguery that you apparently are unwilling to put your real name behind, it is difficult to tell what your backgrounds are. And while it was nice that you visted the Musuem of Tolerance while you were on your summer vacation in Germany, you don't have you prove your anti-Semitic bonafides to me. Really, you don't. If you want to call Chris Daly a child, a demagogue, a loudmouth, a fool, go right ahead. He would probably agree with you on most if not all of those assessments. But if you take a land use decision that you disagree with and try to make it comparable to the deliberate genocide of an entire people, you just make yourself look foolish and incapable of serious political thought. If you want to try and encourage him to grow up and debate in a more serious tone, calling him a Nazi is probably not the right tactic to use. Just a suggestion. And I believe Fusilli Jerry was a man made out of pasta that Kramer made. It ended up in Frank's butt and I don't really know where it is today. Do I get my free t-shirt? Here's a cultural trivia question I would like you to answer now. What was the year of Endless September and why has it never ended?

el Greco

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 23:01:33 -0800

Nicely put, Public Service. Hey, SFist, since you guys are doing hard-hitting political journalism, do you think we can get Mrs. Chris Daly's favorite cookie recipe, too? I think it would be so wonderful to have a favorite recipe from each of our supervisors's spouses or partners. I'm sure everyone here would agree.

PublicServiceAnnouncement

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 22:20:07 -0800

Hello Ausman, or if you're up on your Seinfeld, Helllloooooooo Assman!- where is fusilli jerry? - and who is the soup-nazi? Answer correctly and get two pink t-shirts. Are Daly or Mrs. Daly nazis? Hell no, not even close. And please don't be so silly asking a question whose answer is obvious. Baiting is so unbecoming in civil discourse. But they are big time economic authoritarians, and proud social collectivists to boot. Heck, they even fell in love in Cuba, the worker's paradise. Good for them. I've heard Havana is beautiful in the moonlight, even though its infrastructure and worker housing are crumbling due to a lack of investment and the suppression of individual initiative. So nazi?, no. Severe-socialist or communist-lite is closer to the mark. And so are most of the hard-core progs in SF. In Nov. 02 I was in Berlin and saw three important landmarks: the Topography of Terrors (a photographic history of the Nazi rise to power highlighting their tactics of humiliation and demonization), Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum, and the last remaining section of the Berlin Wall and adjacent museum (it's funny that no-one attempted escaping into East Berlin). All three powerfully tell the story of two regimes composed of authoritarian true believers who were willing to sacrifice someone else's life, liberty, or property for the cause of the "people". Scapegoating is a continual theme in authoritarianism. The mob loves it. It regularly happens here on both the left (corporate drones, bush-nazis, military jarheads, SUV drivers) and the right (feminazis, gays, atheists, the French). And Daly, while certainly not genocidal (I mean, come’ on...not yet anyway), does engage in the same pattern of undue and abusive state power with every nutty land use moratorium he proposes (Trinity Plaza), each due process he thwarts (40-50 Lansing St. & SFPUC), each attack on the Constitution or the Bill of Rights (takings without compensation & handgun ban), and every member of the public he disparages (TIC owners & project sponsors). Hell, he even treats his fellow Supervisors like trash (Elsbernd is a "punk ass bitch", shouting match with McGoldrick in the chamber, physical intimidation of Alioto-Pier in her wheelchair). The man acts like a boy. And the Chron reports it. If he didn't do it, there would be nothing to report. Tough titty, Ausman. If he doesn't want the rep of a raging hardass then he should stop provoking the other "people" a district Supervisor is obliged to represent. Remember that the office of Supervisor is non-partisan. The "people" aren't just the down and out, they are also the ambitious and able, which makes Daly's crack about "republicans" and "voting for Bush" at the infamous TIC hearing especially lame. So is a weblog which picks fights with city institutions on The City's dime. City business only, please, or pay for it yourself. Non-partisan in SF is a bit oxymoronic since dems rule the roost - the sound of one party clapping. The result is that the party splinters into partisan uber-libs and greens vs. mods and regular-libs. And conflict, therefore, is preserved. Daly exploits these internal divisions over class like Pete Wilson exploited wedge issues over immigration. What's sad is that Daly has a real talent for political theater and a sharp mind for legislative strategy. People skills sans rigid ideology would go a long way toward long-term effectiveness for his chosen issue advocacy. Most SFer's are not opposed to Daly's cause of uplifting the downtrodden, only his method of righteous demonization doing it. Godwin's exception is working overtime.

Able Dart

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 20:28:34 -0800

Oh Dear. Now SFist is promoting the controversy in this page as "proof" that they are "hard-hitting journalists". Well, lets back track, shall we? So far, 12 people have made comments here. Of those, 5 are SFist staff, 4 think this article is a glib puff piece, 1 likes black t-shirts, another one foams at the mouth, and another is the political gossip-columnist-turned-code-enforcer, Inspector Poodleprick (congrats Adriel, you just inherited that pet name from the equally smarmy George Cothran). Not exactly a shining mandate for the journalistic standards at SFist. And to think I was going to buy ad space here!

Able Dart

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 14:10:08 -0800

Actually, I often do.

Matt

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 13:31:28 -0800

How many of you would feel comfortable calling George W. Bush a nazi?

Able Dart

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 11:09:22 -0800

Ausman, Godwin's Law was meant to more like a scientific law, not a legal law. A scientific law is a description of a natural phenomenon or principle that invariably holds true under specific conditions and will occur under certain circumstances. Now, if you want to get needle-nosed about it, I didn't actually call Sarah Low a Nazi. What I did was impart that the interview seemed like Nazi propaganda to me. There is a difference. Not to mention the fact that you obviously don't watch Seinfeld, have ever surfed in Southern California, or read Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi#Nazi_.2F_Third_Reich_terminology_in_popular_culture No, strictly speaking, I don't think Chris Daly or his wife are members of a movement which murdered 6 million Jews and about 6 million various in sundry other undesirables, and started an aggressive war which killed 50 million people. However, I do think Daly (and indeed, judging from her remarks, his wife as well) is a bigoted, authoritarian thug. I have friends who have been threatened, menaced, and slandered by Daly and his supporters. It would appear that the exception to Godwin's Law has indeed applied here. The fact that SFist published a puff piece that allows a corrupt, authoritarian politican's wife to be given celebrity status and to pimp her husband's political agenda obviously struck a nerve with me, so I posted. My post in turn struck a nerve with, it would appear, mainly the SFist staff. So one of them invokes Godwin to squelch things. This in turn strikes more nerves and the thing keeps going. What Fun! Have a nice day.

ausman

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 09:54:29 -0800

So Able calls someone else's wife a Nazi. Not just any Nazi either, but Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda and architect of a racialist and violent vision of the world that lead to The Holocaust and a world war that killed at least 30 million people. Then when called on his bullshit he screams that he is being subject to name calling. I will add hypocritical to my list of fitting adjectives Mr. Cowardly Anonymous Hypocritical Scum. As for you Mr. PSA, you obviously don't understand what Godwin's law is or what the exceptions to it are. Are we having an actual discussion about the National Socialist movement or are we just flinging random insults at people we disagree with? Is it your honest contention that Mr. Daly intends to start a pogram and setup death camps to exterminate his political opponents? Are you really that nutty?

PublicServiceAnnouncement

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 01:11:55 -0800

Hilarious! scum'n'nazis - together at last. The exception to Godwin's law is in full force and effect. The interview was weak and puffy because it insouciantly promotes the Daly political agenda, while ducking the journalist's responsibility to question political agendas. If Bloggers want the shield law, then act like real journalists, and speak truth to power. Even progressive power. The Dart has a valid point about propaganda. And getting attention for your point using any means necessary is straight from Mr. Daly's playbook. Turnabout is fair play, and payback's a bitch. It does seem as though the SFist.. (or is it EssEfficist- consistency please- it should be either SFicist or EssEffist- what it shouldn't be is a Herb Caen ripoff) ... has a thing for the Daly's. Is this the SFicist's promotion of a new New Camelot in a post-Newsom's San Francisco? "Camelot! Camelot!! Camelot!!! (..it's only a model)" - name the movie for a free Mrs. Daly t-shirt, courtesy of the EssEffist.

Able Dart

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 00:09:56 -0800

Wow. I thought this place was supposed to above name-calling.

Jim Ausman

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 21:38:24 -0800

Dart, you are scum. I am not interested in what you have to say: as soon as you started calling your political opponents Nazis I became uninterested in your opinion. Furthermore, you don't even have the guts to put your real name to your ideas. Grow up and then you can come back and post with the grownups.

Able Dart

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 18:35:01 -0800

Spoken like a true paragon of professionalism. Sometimes people are threatened by anonymity and the freedom it creates for some people. Others are simply threatened by freedom. When Dianne Feinstein was mayor, this City had a responsible, forward-thinking General Plan which allowed for infill housing development in areas where industrial uses were fading away, due to the natural evolution of the local economy. Progressives have been fighting it ever since. Through his collusion with profiteer developers like Joe O'Donoghue, Daly and his sponsors are hammering the last nail in the coffin of the General Plan. The end result is an artificially inflated housing antimarket where homeownership is only attainable by the rich, old, and politically connected. This in and of itself threatens the tax revenue base which funds programs that Daly professes to care about so much. His answer is to continue to squeeze employers for taxes and fees: all well and good, except that those employers are much more mobile than in previous times. Of course, there's no opportunity to try and convince Daly of his folly: his mind is already made up, and his bread has already been buttered, with, among other things, an improperly awarded affordable housing loan for his condo, where indeed, I understand he spends virtually all his office time, despite it being walking distance from City Hall. Needless to say, Chris Daly, his political sponsors, and certain people who feel flattered to be in his presence don't want people talking about that, now do they?

el Greco

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 18:15:23 -0800

Softballs. SFist threw her softballs. If you were Larry King, I'd say fine, but this is San Francisco.

Adriel Hampton

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 18:05:04 -0800

To meld the "Low Daly" and "Apple sucks" threads: What I love about bloggers is that so many of them are perfectly happy using their real names to put out news and viewpoints. That's why the ThinkSecret v. Apple case has so many ramifications and it's also why the initial ruling will eventually be overturned. How is the reporting on SFist - like interviews with politicians' wives and with self-important journalists - any different than the reporting on www.sfgate.com (which has plenty of great online-only content)? In a word: not. ... Thanks for all your hard work. ...

Matt

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 17:38:09 -0800

Either Mrs. Low Daly is really small, or that baby is really big.

Able Dart

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 16:29:02 -0800

Dang. Why so defensive? My reference to Magda Goebbels was due to my feeling that she used your interview to promulgate propaganda. Similarly, her husband is using his blog for propaganda purposes - on the public dime, I might add - without, as you yourselves have pointed out, offering the opportunity for comment. I mean really: you don't see the references to "Paris and Nicole" and "those types of events" as "petty name-calling"?

SuperMang

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 16:28:26 -0800

Yes, how dare we criticize our elected officials... are you kidding me? I agree for the sake of decorum, NO comparisons to Hitler should be made to any politician. What I would actually like to discuss (as a new reader to SFist), is why this site has a woody for Chris Daly. This man is the poster child for district elections leading to radicalism and Balkanization. Even though I am progressive on most issues (come on, I live in San Francisco…that’s what we do here), I can still tell when our elected village idiot is wearing no clothes.

rita

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 15:45:33 -0800

The housing issue is such a tough one -- no one wants elderly people or AIDS patients thrown out on the streets, and no one doesn't want good, hard-working people to be able to buy houses either. I would love to see a sober, calm debate about SF housing issues that doesn't turn into a screamfest on both sides -- it's not right of Supervisor Daly to use profanity at citizens, but also not right of us citizens to insult Daly either, you know? Kind of like heckling sports figures. But do let's have a mature conversation about housing in the comments! That's what they're here for. To answer the other question from Jim Ausman, I believe the Mrs. Chris Daly t-shirt is currently only in pink, but we'll talk to our t-shirt designer (Jackson) about maybe getting one in black as well.

Eve

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 15:31:44 -0800

Let me clarify this for you, Dart: We're not glossing over jackshit. An open discussion of a person's politics is encouraged and welcomed by SFist. An inappropriate comparison of that person to the spouse of a creator of genocidal propaganda is not, as it compromises your point and makes you sound like a crackpot. We're just doing what we can to keep the dialog at a certain intellectual level, and calling someone a Nazi because you're pissed about someone's decidedly non-genocidal spouse's political decisions is not "rebuttal", it's petty name-calling. I'm asking you, and the rest of our commenters, to keep it out of the schoolyard. How hard is that?

Able Dart

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 15:14:25 -0800

Gloss over the interview subject's need to justify her husband's politics if you will. The fact is Sarah is able to be a homeowner and mother successfully in San Francisco. That's a wonderful thing, but it's also more difficult than than it should be for most people her age and income level, and that is mostly due to the policies her husband promulgates. If she's being given a venue for her politics when she's being interviewed as a personality, don't be surprised if you get a rebuttal. Her ideas do not represent the majority of San Franciscans, and they lead to policies which are bad for the City.

Matt

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:33:12 -0800

So what are her favorite movies, anyway?

Jim Ausman

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:59:33 -0800

Do they make one in black?

Matthew

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:34:07 -0800

Matthew the SFist Ombudsman here. The rule Rain rightly refers to is Godwin's Law and its corrolaries. As the Wikipedia states, "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made, the thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress." Alas, the Wikipedia also says, "there is also a widely-recognized codicil that any intentional invocation of Godwin's law for its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful." Hmm. We shall see.

Eve

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 12:50:02 -0800

I'm making an executive decision and have determined that Rain's excellent rule is now official SFist policy. WhileSFist encourages a free exchange of ideas in the comments, let's keep the Nazi comparisons in said comments to a minimum, and make sure that they're appropriate (like, not just to talk shit about folks with whom we disagree). Thanks.

Rain

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 11:52:44 -0800

Isn't there some rule that an argument is officially dead the minute Hitler or the Nazis are brought up? If so, I'm so glad this was killed before it acutally began.

Able Dart

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 11:36:09 -0800

Sarah seems like a very nice person. It's just unfortunate that she feels that her ideology should take precedence over the hopes and dreams of ordinary San Franciscans. In some ways this interview reads like one with Magda Goebbels.

Jackson West

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 11:19:55 -0800

To tell you the truth, Sarah, I noticed somebody bought a t-shirt and I was like "Oh, lemme check with the staff. Must have been one of them." Turns out that a complete stranger did actually buy one of them tees. And considering how everyone seems to know everyone around here, I doubt you'll be able to avoid them for long. By the way, the shirts are actually pretty hott, if I must say so myself. But I'm partial to the "bloggers are such bitches" one that just arrived in the mail.

rita

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 09:32:34 -0800

no disrespect meant by the question, Sarah! It's just funny that the Chron's always dragging you into its stories is all.