September 20, 2007
We Read The Weeklies
Last week's winner, the SF Weekly: Someone's angry with the Bouncer. Local progressive Adam Werbach is a Walmart sellout. Why won't anyone endorse the mayor? Cover article: the back story about the Haight neighborhood activist killed in an S/M session gone wrong. These drawings illustrating the piece are pretty rad, though (see left) -- did Matt Smith do 'em? A Hank Williams Birthday Karaoke Sing-Off???? There's a tear in our beer too! The anti-war Berkeley Rep Play is uneven. Meredith hits her second good review for SFist Ced. And Let's Get Killed screens some rare rock movies.
Next up, the Bay Guardian: You know we love Tim Redmond, but we had kind of a hard time following his non-market-based argument about the SF housing market. Can't we get the Freakonomics guys to look into that? It's too bad we didn't get his argument, though -- because it's the all-housing issue. Chris Daly on the shaky legality of Newsom's requested resignations: "I've done some unorthodox political manuevers, but every time there were city attorneys circling." We bet there were! There's probably someone in the city attorney's office whose sole job is to circle Chris Daly! Next: space vampires! LCD Soundsystem is playing with Arcade Fire. Marke B strikes a blow against bad gay hair, and for the cute boys of the East Bay (and Gunther too!). Sweeney Todd! Circus arts against Bush's bad legal policies. And Cheryl Eddy went to the Toronto Film Fest.
After the jump: the East Bay Express, the San Jose Metro, and the Weekly of the Week! Also, your YTD count of winners.
The East Bay Express: A letter writer says her "mental fog" is because of cell phone use on BART. The Oakland School District has a huge cash surplus, even though no one has any cash on hand. It's hard to be hapa. Cover article: local metal band High On Fire. Look at that beautiful picture of bi bim bop, from a Korean place in Temescal!! Yum! And an Oakland rapper.
And the San Jose Metro: Did you know there were once five Chinatowns in San Jose? Recruiting illegal immigrants to fight in Iraq. Keep parking free on the weekends in downtown SJ! Cover: The immigration stories of local restauranteurs. Okay, you know we're a sucker for this sort of thing, but it really is a really fascinating story. The Jane Austen Book Club movie wasn't as bad as you'd think it would be. There's a mariachi festival this weekend in San Jose! Linda Ronstadt is playing! And.... FISH TACOS!!! We love fish tacos!!! Also: food trends that have gone too far, like the molten chocolate cake, and the beet/goat cheese salad.
Weekly of the Week: Okay, we were all set to give it to the Guardian, even though we totally didn't get the housing arguments at all, because we love how they're always fighting the good fight -- but then we got to the Metro (we read the weeklies in the order they appear in the post!). Stories about immigrants and food get us every time. (Plus: FISH TACOS!!! We are so going to find where Bascom Avenue in San Jose is, we swear.)
YTD count: SF Weekly: 12; SFBG: 10; EBX: 8; Metro: 7.
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Parts of the Guardian's argument were indeed hard to follow, at least on the first reading I was able to give them yesterday, and when I get a chance to read them more carefully I get the feeling I'm going to disagree with a lot of stuff, though I'm keeping an open mind. One initial impression is that the solution the Guardian seems to suggest would radically alter San Francisco's housing policy to the economic benefit of nonprofit housing developers because a massive public subsidy would be required to make it work. The resultant fractious infighting in the Left among those developers and the various nonprofit social service providers, come time to draw up the city budget, might be briefly interesting to observe. But ultimately the competition among various groups whose avocation is to help the disadvantaged would simply be sad, and would be one more factor preventing San Francisco's Left from obtaining the hegemony it desires.
http://pretepress.wordpress.com/
The Guardian just can't stand the idea that anyone other than their nonprofit housing friends are getting to build anything.
I stopped reading the Weeklies long ago, about the time that they were shedding crocodile tears over someone actually taking over the Armoury Building in the Mission and you know, putting it to use, making (gasp!) industry out of it, letting those nasty dot-coms move in, blah blah blah. That would be, oh about 10 years ago.
Now they have that lovely Kink.com in the building, which apparently is not so bad...?
Duh, stupid of me not to have included this above. But I do think it's really commendable and important that the Guardian is taking on the topic. Although the Guardian's conclusions based on actual evidence can be baffling sometimes, this is a topic that San Francisco residents and their representatives in government need to take seriously. B3, Redmond, et al. deserve credit for shoving it under our faces and demanding we pay attention.