Politically-correct, conservative KSFO talk show host Melanie Morgan annonced yesterday that her contract would not be renewed due to financial issues over at KSFO's corporate parent, Citadel Broadcasting Corp. Co-host of the Lee Rodgers & Melanie Morgan Show, Morgan is somewhat (in)famous for jump starting the Gov. Gray Davis recall, which has since left us with Gov. Schwarzenegger; and calling for the rape, murder, hair-pulling, and vivisection of editor Bill Keller. (Okay, not really, what she actually said was that if Bill Keller should be tried for treason, he should face the ultimate penalty, which is death. So..there you go.)
Melanie Morgan Gets the Boot
Peter Ragone By The Numbers
We've learned so much about mayoral communications director Peter Ragone from this article in the Sunday Chron! Since it's a Sunday (and there's no Swells today), we're naturally giving it the SFist By The Numbers treatment.
Today in As the Gav Turns
There's not much going on in the Gavin front today, for which we praise the heavens for. Yes, we're as tired of this as you are, and, actually, that's got to be considered good for the Gavster as the more bored we are by it, the less we'll care about it. So today, we have Gavin paying Alex Tourk, the latest on Gavin's re-election chances, and Ken Garcia putting Gavin on the couch.
SchwartzenWatcher Redux: Stuck in the Middle With You
You know how after the Very Special Election Governor Arnie was saying he got the message loud and clear and was going back to being a centrist and ixnaying the hard-core conservatism? It looks like he's actually doing it. It's all out with the old and in with the new.
This week he got rid of his previous Chief of Staff, a Republican, and brought in one of Gray Davis' old aides, Susan Kennedy. The move has gotten conservative's panties all in a bunch. Not necessarily because Kennedy is an old Davis aide, but because she's been actively involved in abortion rights causes. And is lesbian who married her longtime partner. Yep, the Governor just put his administration in the hands of an abortion-loving lesbian and we know how much the Republican Party loves them.
Letters to the Editor
We always thought there was something disingenuous about the conservative letters they published in the Chron! The Contra Costa Times discovered that an enterprising Republican named Kyle Vallone had written at least 200 fake letters to various Northern California newspapers, and gotten at least 20 or so published. Vallone would use fake names, various phone numbers, and free email accounts to write the pieces and then when the fact-checkers came, disguise his voice on the phone. "I'm very good at accents," he said, and noted he was particularly proud of the identity "Batswala Dala."
Vallone specialized in conservative letters, noting that he'd gotten seven letters against Barbara Boxer published, but had also written on a range of topics, like recalling Gray Davis and boosting missile defense. Interestingly, Vallone had also been busted (under his own name) for plagiarizing a letter he'd gotten published from the WSJ. Read the article, it's pretty entertaining!
This reminds us of that smart kid summer camp class that got 20-some letters published in the New York Times (only without the smart kids). And who can forget the Bay Area's original fake letter-writing crank, Lazlo Toth? (a.k.a. Don Novello/Father Guido Sarducci). And Wonkette on Vallone.
Let's Not Talk About Sex
Civil Rights for Families,” an organization established to protect those traditional family values, says that the reason for the proposition is so that “ before the teachers can go ahead and discuss things like homosexuality, sodomy, necrophilia, bestiality, and fellatio, they need to notify the parents. The schools should not be in the sex business." All of which makes SFist wonder what we missed during our sex ed classes. Other topics to be considered verboten without expressed written permission of the parents are things like bisexuality, transexuality, domestic partnerships and masturbation. Banned will be any sort of fliers announcing gay alliance meetings or any other paraphernalia that “promotes” homosexuality as well as “cross dressing/sex change operations”. The reason behind this is because Andrade claims that the gay alliance meetings are really meetings designed to recruit poor innocent children into the gay lifestyle, which totally makes sense- SFist can remember being in High School and suddenly getting the desire to join Model Union when we heard how fun the parties were.
Matchbox Nineteen
Well, it's about time! Assuaging his secret worries that he's not really a governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger finally got his personalized booby-trapped letter.

