So Newsweek's come out with its rankings of "the top public high schools in the country," and the Bay Area has 9 10 schools in the top 300: Magnet school Lowell High in SF topped the list at 57, and Monta Vista in Cupertino came in second (85). The rest of your schools: Mission San Jose in Fremont (140), Burlingame High School (196), Mountain View High School (213), Andrew P. Hill in San Jose......

Last week's winner, the SF Weekly. Matt Smith tries to solve a murder from 2003. The Apologist on the new mall. Paper City folds. Cover article: discrimination against mothers in the workplace. The Brutal Sound Effects Festival -- sounds intriguing, doesn't it? Meredith Brody goes to Front Porch with Hiya Swanhuyser. Everyone seems to like Hiya at the Weekly! SFist Ced has nothing bad to say about the review, but is now taking bets on......

Well, look who's in imminent danger of violating the curfew for the kids under 13! Here's a picture of Gavin Newsom cutting a rug at District 4 candidate Doug Chan's kickoff event, first located by -- you got it -- commenter ThatChick! Okay, here's the informative section: Doug Chan's running against Fiona Ma's aide Jaynry Mak for the District 4 seat (Fiona seems to be hedging her bets and has endorsed both of them.)......

You know, we're kind of getting into the week-long series that the Chron's doing on the San Francisco school system. It's a comprehensive look at all the various factors affecting the perception of our local schools: segregation controversies; why people flee to the East Bay once their kids hit school age; how the school system is actually doing much better than everyone thinks it is; and how the lottery actually works. Tomorrow they're discussing private......

"Everyone who comes to a Margaret Cho show is either gay or Asian," one of our companions said as we fought our way into Symphony Hall on Friday night among the oceans of Banana Republic pants, leather jackets, and nicely-pressed colorful tops, for the first of Ms. Cho's SF shows on her new Assassin tour. "Or both!", responded our gay Asian-American companion. Margaret Cho is, of course, San Francisco's no-holds-barred Korean-American comedienne, and a proud dropout of Lowell High who then went on to star in the first-ever Asian-American TV comedy, All American Girl -- which then became the first-cancelled Asian-American TV comedy. And then the subject of Margaret's real breakout one-woman show and book, I'm the One That I Want. She brought her latest stand-up show back home, to an ecstatic, cat-calling crowd. Hit the expand-o-tron below for more Bush jokes than you can shake a stick at, and an update on Margaret's mom's health....