A small protest was held at City Hall yesterday by 400-plus pissed off Tibetan immigrants, honoring the 49th anniversary of Tibet's uprising against China, but also San Francisco's hosting of the Olympic torch. Just a preface of what will happen in the city next month, San Francisco will be the focus of a major protest since it's the only US city hosting the Olympic torch relay in the 2008 Beijing games. According to CBS......

Congressman Tom Lantos died this morning from esophageal cancer at the age of 80. He represented most of the Sunset, as well as a big chunk of San Mateo County. He was the only survivor of the Holocaust to be elected to Congress, and worked for years on human rights issues. That said, he ticked off quite a few people locally by supporting the Iraq war, although he had recently been pretty critical of the......

Oh Lord. Is this for real? From the SFist inbox this morning we received alarming news that Gavin Newsom and Jennifer Siebel, like, totally hate Africans, or something like that. After the New Year's Eve announcement that the two were to enter holy matrimony, one concerned reader called "Mayor Newsom's Communication Office," wondering if the "rock he bought for his fiancee was not a blood diamond." After talking to an "incompetent" Newsom staff member......

La Vie En Rose (the Embarcadero) is a full course, all four food groups, soup and cocktails, dinner of a film. (It screened at the SFIFF, and we loved it then too!) And if you haven’t had your fill by the end of Olivier Dahan’s homage to the great Parisian icon Edith Piaf (breathtakingly portrayed by Marion Cotillard), you can always watch it again. The strongest cross-section of decadence and nutrition is the ATA’s Sunday......

SFist Sara S. on this weekend's movie offerings. She tells us "There is nothing good coming out in mainstream movies this weekend," so it's all the little microcinemas around town this week! C'mon, what about Sandra Bullock in "Premonition"? Okay, Sara, point taken. At the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Wednesday the 21st, the Film Arts Foundation is presenting a documentary on twenty years of the SF Graffiti scene, called Piece by Piece.......

Dang it, another year has gone by and we still haven't won a genius grant. However, three folks in the area are pleased as punch, having gotten the legendary call out of nowhere that they've won half a million dollars for just doing whatever it was that they were doing anyways. Our local winners are: Victoria Hale, who runs the nonprofit biotech company OneWorld Health, devoted to developing pharmaceuticals for Third World countries; Claire Tomlin,......

The battle over lap dances in strip clubs moved to the Entertainment Commission last Friday as they held an often contentious, standing-room-only hearing on the issue. During the meeting, strippers, err "exotic dancers," testified in front of the commission to say that the proposed new rules, that calling for the ending of private rooms and booths and it's possible ending of lap dancing, could impede their ability to make money. In our minds, the testimony was given like something out of "Hot for Teacher" in which the moment the dancer got up to the podium, they tore their clothes off to reveal slinky lingerie underneath, but we have a feeling things didn't happen that way (BTW, while searching for the "Hot For Teacher" clip we also stumbled upon a bootleg video of VH doing it live in an outdoor concert in 1984 and it is awesome). Oh well. Also testifying in support of the legislation were local Bay Area rappers who claimed that no more lap dances in strip clubs would hurt their ability to "be gangsta." ...

Looking for a good cause to support? Everyone's favorite Mission art house theater, the Roxie, is hosting a special benefit tomorrow night (Sunday July 30) to raise funds to restore their marquee. At 7 pm, before the showing of State of Fear (a documentary about Peruvian terrorists), the Roxie is hosting a reception, along with live Peruvian music, with all proceeds going to fix up the sign. Tickets are $15, and you can buy them......

Yup, we're still doing interviews for anyone in the District 6 race who'll answer our emails. Today, the guy everyone's calling the "downtown threat," Rob Black. Take it away, Rob! What's your name, how old are you, and what do you do? My name is Rob Black and I am 37 years old. To the disappointment of some I am not actually a financial advisor, porn star, rap artist or masked Mexican wrestler. My......

If there's one thing we love more than passing along days-old links to non-stories, it's laughing and pointing at people on the internets getting all riled up at perceived assaults on their freedom of expression. The story is from the Infinite Loop blog on Ars Technica, complete with dramatic clip art. The human rights violation in question concerns a Dutch MacBook Pro owner who'd posted a Flickr photoset with pictures of his melted MagSafe......

Oooh, we hope Gavin starts jumping up and down on Bruce Pettit's City Desk Newshour couch next! Matier and Ross report that Gavin, a tireless warrior for nookie, eagerly accepted an invitation from his latest conquest, CSI Miami actress Sofia Milos, for a trip to LA. A stay at the Chateau Marmont -- where he could see Jessica Simpson, also canoodling while waiting for her divorce to become final; maybe some strolling down Melrose, and then a benefit dinner for the "Citizens' Commission for Human Rights." Sounds great, right? A little work, a lotta play! Whoot-whoot! Well. It turns out Sofia Milos is a very active Scientologist. And the innocuously-named Citizens Commission for Human Rights? A Scientology-funded organization that advocates against the use of psychiatric drugs. You remember, the group that went after post-partumly depressed Brooke Shields. Oh, we get it now! This'll be great for the mentally ill homeless population -- Care Not Lithium! (what is it with our town and the Scientology medical controversies, anyways?) Aides pointed this out to Newsom. (It's not like they hide it or anything -- their website says that Kurt Cobain died from psychiatric drug use. Funny, we always thought Kurt Cobain died from a gunshot wound to the head.) Newsom was like, whatevs, and went anyway. That guy is desperate for love! Unrelated, but amusing, picture of Globetrotter Gavin at last year's March Gladness tournament....

We've got quite a diversity of recommendations this week - from the politically conscious, to the "sick and twisted", to the, well, sick and twisted and Russian. Check it out! First on our list is the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, which runs February 19- 26 at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley and March 10, 16, 23, 30 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. This year the festival......

Reacting to criticism that the State Department voted against letting two gay rights groups into a United Nations panel, the State Department issued a statement last Friday denying that the vote was due to any sort of anti-gay bias. Instead, they did it because of a concern over pedophilia. ...

Rather than give up the act, the JT Leroy crew clings desperately to the blonde wig and sunglasses look at Sundance. Stephanie Tanner from Full House is recovering from a meth addiction, which Dave Coulier could drive anyone to. Thomas Hawk pens an open letter to the folks who don't want any pictures taken of the On the Road manuscript. And if you've ever wanted a DJ Q-Bert plushie, now's your chance to buy......

The San Francisco Human Rights Commission has finished its investigation into the Castro bar Badlands, and concludes that yup, Badlands really was discriminating against African-Americans (.pdf) at the door. The HRC found that Badlands and its owner, Les Natali, would enforce a dress code and require multiple forms of ID, but only when an African-American tried to get into the bar. Badlands also refused to hire African-Americans, though once the complaint was filed, they hired more diverse employees. The group And Castro For All (formerly known as Is Badlands Bad) has been spearheading the investigation, and is dedicated to addressing issues of discrimination within the LGBT community. Since Badlands is not a city contractor, the city can't do anything with the findings, though the alcoholic beverages commission (drinks) and the entertainment licensing commission (dancing) are looking into whether Badlands' permits should be pulled. And Castro For All is also calling for a Badlands boycott. Badlands and Natali, through their attorney, claim that the findings are false and not supported by evidence (though numerous people have submitted statements about the admission policies and hiring practices). Picture of Badlands from bobmeyers.com...

Hey, remember how we were just babbling about how Equality California gets stuff done for gay Californians, while The Human Rights Campaign mostly sits around hosting overpriced tea parties? Yeah, well, EqCa just announced that The California State Conference of the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League are supporting equal marriage rights here in CA. That'll make a huge difference later this month, when the state assembly considers AB 19. The Religious Freedom and Civil......

Would you like to come over to our place for dinner? You would? Hey, that's great. It'll be $195 per head, please. The Human Rights Campaign, one of America's most strident gay-civil-rights orgs, cordially invites you to lay down $195 (or just $125 with student ID -- those lucky kids, what a steal!) for the "HRC Gala Dinner Kick-Off Event," (or HGDKOE) April 20th at 6:30 P.M. at the Clift Hotel (with rooms starting......

As everyone knows, gays and lesbians spend their free time seducing children with tales of cross-dressing necrophiles. But for the first time ever, they'll be taking a break from all that on Sunday, the 23rd, for a day-long series of seminars on gay marriage'n'stuff. It's free, it's local (near Civic Center), there'll be great speakers like the always-gregarious Mark Leno, they'll cover topics like building support for marriage and why anyone cares about marriage anyway,......

Jamison, who's always got his finger on the pulse (yum!), just alerted us to some shaking up at the Human Rights Campaign. Cheryl Jacques: Out. As in, out-of-work. Details are sketchy (in fact, the HRC is silent on the matter at the moment) about what exactly went down, but we imagine that endorsing Mr. No-On-Gay-Marriage for president didn't make Cheryl many fans; nor did sending Ms. Cho a disinvitation. And then there's that thing......

roundup of the Bay Area weeklies...