Last week's winner: The East Bay Express. What? No letters about Cody's? Fret not -- there's an article. (We had no idea the reason why there's no books on the shelves there now is because they were behind on their bills!) Also -- neighbors rat out neighbors for loud parties and for opening day-care centers. Cover: Fat acceptance movement (medical, civil rights, artistic, online). Good article, which makes the no fatties cartoon running later in the issue seem a little weird. Peruvian food in Richmond. The Ivy Room closes down this week, and their rants column "Haters Stand Up," about annoying fans of "conscious rap." And Savage Love says it's wrong to take advantage of polyamorists. more ›

Last week's winner, the SF Weekly. Do you want to be a fill-in copy editor for the Weekly? First question: does fill-in need a hyphen? Also, you must know Quark. We skipped Matt Smith this week, we just weren't up for the hate. The Apologist on traffic. Can we also confess that we don't really get the Ephraim the Track Bike column, though we do love it. Advice on effective protesting. Cover article: a con artist in jail made some prank phone calls and punked the police into letting a bunch of people out of prison. Dang! Hawaiian hardcore at El Rio on Saturday. Meredith takes her mom to the seafood place on 14th and Church that SFist Ced went to a month or so ago. A listing of your latest indie rock darlings -- the name Oh No! Oh My! is pretty good. And SFist Eve's horoscope: Rob Breszny suggests listening to Emmylou Harris. more ›

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It's a crime wave in the Los Altos Hills! After that bizarre break-in incident in May where the Slavic-sounding robber called the Merc News the next day to say he just wanted to see how the police worked in the town, the town's now up in arms about the theft of wooden cows from people's lawns. The police have surveillance footage of "two young men and a young woman" stuffing a cow into the back seat of a tan Honda minivan. more ›

We're back from vacation -- and it's hard to get caught up on two weeks of news! Why didn't anyone tell us San Jose mayor Ron Gonzales got indicted? Over a garbage-services contract, no less. Mr. Gonzales, really -- if you're going to collaborate with the teamsters, can't you pick a less obvious type of city contract to collaborate over? We're also impressed that the latest article gratuitously mentions that Gonzales is in an ugly divorce after allegations of an extramarital affair arose. How did it become that the SJ mayor is now more lurid than SF's? Back in SF, Everybody Hates Chris District 6 candidate Rob Black finally launched his website. It reveals that in his youth, he used to organize reggae concerts. Get up, stand up. Don't give up the fight! On a similar note, M&R reluctantly reveal that there was probably no impropriety in Chris Daly's former roommate getting a job as a housing inspector, despite their valiant efforts to find some. And finally, the SF Party Party is thrilled to announce that someone (besides exotic male dancer Starchild) is going to run against Bevan Dufty for the District 8 seat. We here at the 'Fist have been asked to start up a District 8 election watch column too (if only to have an excuse to interview Starchild), but we're not doing it until someone suggests a fun name for the column. Go to it in the comments, folks! If we get a name we like, we'll totally launch it up. more ›

Last week's winner, the Metro! Hilarious letter from a candidate for the SJ city council that 1) misspells Ron Gonzales's name and 2) gets the date of the election wrong. (Hey Metro, why aren't your letters online?) Gary Singh had a bitch of a time trying to get a burrito in SJ on May 1. Closing down the jailhouse law libraries, and no, the SJ Fourth Street Bowl will not be closing. Chinese youth orchestra performs a piece in tribute to Sarah Winchester. Cover article: the crappy salmon season this year. Rapper who waits tables at Chili's -- check out his track "Tip Yo Waiter." And a frightening picture of an R Kelly doll. No, it is not stained yellow. more ›

San Jose City Hall took a break from corruption scandals for love -- two peregrine falcons are nesting on the roof of the city's newest architectural landmark, and possibly mating as well. Mayor Ron Gonzales and the then-City Manager Del Borgsdorf discovered the falcons during a meeting on the 18th floor, where one of them (maybe spacing out during a tedious stretch of administrative agency reports) noticed pigeon feathers floating past the window. Turns out the falcons were having a little lunch. more ›

Sure, SF's Gavin Newsom's legalized gay marriage, and San Jose's Ron Gonzales built a city hall (and transacted some funny business with garbage collectors, but that's a separate story) -- but they got nothing on San Ramon mayor H. Abram Wilson. Mayor Wilson broke up a parking lot fight two weeks ago! So an 18-year-old security guard at Safeway was trying to stop a guy who walked out of the store with two $75 bottles of wine. (You can buy $75 bottles of wine at Safeway? No more wine in the box for us!) The shoplifter and the guard got into a scuffle as the shoplifter was trying to jump into his SUV and drive away, and the guard got a 13 inch long gash on the leg by the SUV door. In the middle of all this, other shoppers were trying to intervene, thinking the guards were mugging the shoplifter. Madness! Chaos! Blood everywhere! And then..... [chorus of angels!] -- a man appears. He shouts out, "Everybody back up!" The crowd looks up. "Everyone calm down! I'm the mayor of San Ramon!" He then produced a golf towel, which he used to stop the bleeding from the security guard's leg. That guy probably doesn't have any problems balancing his budget either! Unfortunately, the shoplifter got away. Maybe he didn't vote for Wilson. picture of Mayor Wilson, the hero-savior Ross Mirkarimi of San Ramon more ›

-The Mayor of San Jose, Ron Gonzales, was censured last week by the San Jose City Council for sheninigans involving a contract he negotiated with Norcal Waste Systems. The censure was the first in the city's 155 year history. Breaking with political tradition and going against every rule in the political book, Gonzales accepted responsibility for the censure and said that he "wholeheartedly'' accepted it, adding "it is my obligation to earn back that trust" that he lost over his actions. In calling for censure, however, the City Council also voted to end the independent investigation into the contract because they don't want to "wallow in our shortcomings.'' They also voted to take away some of the Mayor's powers and to consider booting him off several committees. more ›

Watch out, commenters -- a federal jury found a San Francisco woman guilty of posting death threats against Terri Schiavo's husband on an AOL chat board. The post in question said, "If she dies I will kill Michael Schiavo and the judge. This for real!" The defendant now claims she was just kidding. Aw, come on, everyone knows it's totally a joke if you leave out the verb! San Jose mayor Ron Gonzales is taking out some trash of his own, now that an independent investigation has completely refuted his version of events concerning his role in a sweetheart deal over garbage collection services, profusely apologizing to anyone who'll listen. The City Council will debate whether to censure him, and the Merc News and one council member have called for Gonzales to resign as well. And -- aw, man. A San Jose man has taken to the media to plead with the 15-year-old boy who broke into his house to return the remains of his cremated wife to him. The man has written off the autographed Willie Mays baseballs that were stolen and other property damage: "I don't care about the other stuff. I just would like to get my wife back." This is breaking our heart. more ›

Indie-yuppies gone bad! The feds announced (indictment, in .pdf) that they've arrested a San Francisco DA named Robert Roland for negotiating a lighter sentence for a local drug dealer named Ryan Nyberg, in exchange for meth and e. Roland and Nyberg, along with their mutual acquaintance Eric Shaw (who brokered the whole thing) were reported (in an article from the Daily Journal that's not online) to have all been active in the San Francisco music/club scene. All lanes of 101 are clear again after a 3 a.m. shooting of a woman in a cab. The cops had also closed off the northbound on-ramp to gather evidence, but it sounds like that's open again now too. And San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales has been indicted by a grand jury over improprieties in negotiating a city contract with garbage haulers, to the tune of $11 million dollars. The city is waiting for a response from the mayor before deciding whether a special investigator should be appointed. more ›