We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on SFist. NY Times Home Delivery, with 50% off home delivery. Cazadores, the one with the deer head. Truly CA, stories about California on KQED. World War Z, perfect as Halloween is coming up. SF Dish, where AMEX cardmembers can dish about restaurants. Interpol, tomorrow at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. Wristcutters, opening next month. Stylized Sculpture, at the Asian Art Museum. Travelzoo,......

Hmm. Oakland resident John Barsamian, a chief warrant officer way back during the Second World War, is putting up for auction a globe he found at the Führer's bombed out home. "The globe [is] to expected to attract bids from $15,000 to $20,000 when it is auctioned Nov. 13 in San Francisco," so start saving your pennies, folks. What would one even do with such an item? Anyway, other Nazi forget-me-nots going up for......

Question: Is the world ready for a German-Jewish black comedy mercilessly satirizing Adolf Hitler? At yesterday night's screening of My Fuhrer (Mein Fuhrer -- Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit uber Adolf Hilter) at the SF Jewish Film Fest, the mood of wicked glee was somewhat sobered by the person that we abruptly realized was security standing in front of the theater. (Nothing happened, though, as far as we know.) The premise of the movie is that......

Ever since we found out that the Tanforan shopping center was built on the site of a World War II Japanese internment camp, we haven't been able to go there (even though that Target has one of those shopping cart escalators, which ordinarily we love.) In its pre-mall incarnation, Tanforan housed eight thousand Japanese-Americans in horse stables, who were held at gunpoint and behind barbed wire from April to October 1942, as a way......

We don't think he'll attract quite the crowds that Conan amassed last week, but another TV personality has decided to broadcast from our fair City. Charlie Gibson is anchoring ABC's World News from San Francisco this week, and the newscasts are focusing on the Bay Area's varied attempts at "going green." Insert Conan's marijuana/plastic bags joke here. In other local TV news items that have managed to make their way into our In Box,......

Traffic was terrible on our way to the Asian-Am Film Fest due to the St. Patrick's Day parade -- either Chris Daly's running for District 6 again or they're giving out green beads for celebrants. We were on our way to see The Cats of Mirkitani, or, as we've been calling it all week, "Ross Mirkarimi's cats." (N.B.: Ross Mirkarimi is not Japanese.) What started out as a project about the drawings of homeless SoHo......

Venerable contemporary art institution, Southern Exposure hosts a big fundraiser tonight - its 7th Annual Monster Drawing Rally, where an impressively large number of local artists take turns drawing things on paper, which are then sold for a measley $50 with all proceeds benefiting Southern Exposure's exhibition and educational programs. Some draw monsters, some draw abstract patterns and shapes, though maybe one can be convinced to do caricatures of Bill and Hilary Clinton like the......

One could hop on the snark wagon and refer to Darfur, the current Third World cause célebre, as the new Tibet or appreciate the 21st Century sensitivity to the non-universality of Christmas, but we are not that "one." The genocide going on in Darfur is pretty shocking and awful, and thus we applaud the efforts of the folks at Distortion 2 Static and Pumpkin Cutter Projects who are putting on The Save Darfur Tour......

These shows resist lumping....

Joe Rosenthal, the man who took the famous picture of the troops raising the flag at Iwo Jima died on Sunday at the age of 90. Rosenthal was born in DC, but moved out to San Francisco to shoot pictures for the San Francisco News. He was working for the SF branch of the AP when he was sent out in 1944 to cover World War II. The picture is actually of the second raising......

Okay, here's an update on that lawsuit against AT&T and the Federal Government for illegally snooping on people's phone calls and e-mails. Basically, there are about seventeen similar lawsuits out there in the midst of the legal world and because they're all sort of similar-- whiny Al Queda supporters suing the telecoms and government for doing something unconstitutional, they've been mashed together into one big lawsuit sandwich. That sandwich will be heard in San Francisco's very own Federal Court by one U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker. The reasoning is because out of all the various suits out there, the AT&T one is the most advanced. Bully to the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation and how awesome would it be if they started their own University just so people could say they go to EFF U?) and the ACLU for being on the ball. ...

We take a break from our regularly scheduled theater programming for a road trip north to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland....

San Jose institution Lou's Living Donut Museum is closing at the end of this month, due to an illness in the family of the owners, the Chaviras. The eponymous Lou of the donut shop opened the store in 1955 and sold to the Chavira family in 1981, and the store/museum's current location is on Delmas and W. San Carlos in downtown San Jose. The Chaviras open the store at dawn and close when the last......

Submissions go to yvesdroppings - at -gmail - dot - com. Two men ask the waitress to split their check to two ATM cards. She returns a moment later with two receipts stapled to their check. Waitress: "Sign here and here." Guy: "Whoa, this is totally like the declaration of independence." -- From Nick/At Cafe Utah Drunken Glittery St. Patrick's Day Reveler: "I should put on my Vans or I'll fall over. Well, not like......

San Francisco Japantown's seen a lot in the last 100 years -- from the influx of Japanese-American immigrants after the 1906 earthquake and the development of an ethnic community, to the forced displacement of those same immigrants to internment camps in World War II, and a controversial redevelopment scheme to welcome back San Francisco Japanese-Americans, at the expense of the African-Americans who'd moved into the area in the meantime. And now, over this backdrop of repeated economic emigration, you can get udon, a shiatsu massage, and crepes there! As J-Town's centennial celebration gets underway, a new phase of redevelopment is emerging for the 21st century -- the Osaka-based owners of the Kintetsu Mall, the centerpiece of the Japan Center complex, have announced that they've put the building on the market. They own not only the Kintetsu section of the mall (the one with Benihana in it) but also the Miyako Mall (the one with the bridge), the Radisson, and the Best Western up the street. And FYI, the Kabuki Theater is also up for sale, but in a separate transaction through AMC. The Kinokuniya building (with Sophie's Crepes and the awesome Kinokuniya stationery store is under separate ownership (by the eponymous bookstore) and is not for sale -- or at least not yet. At a community meeting last night, the local attorneys representing the Kintetsu owners pledged that they would work with Osaka HQ to ensure that any sale would be made to a buyer who would recognize the historic and cultural value of the space, and Gavin Newsom and Ross Mirkarimi promised that the city would put incentives in place to make sure that happened (because, in part, the city owns those garages underneath the mall.) However, the attorneys weren't sure how much pull they'd have, in part because the deal is almost done. Here's hoping the community can work together to make sure the sad history of redevelopments in the J-Town area don't repeat themselves this time around. ...

Cisco, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google — the companies that internet wags are now calling "The Gang of Four" — were subjected to a verbal smack-down on Wednesday in a hearing about those companies' involvement with known Communists. CNet News.com has a transcript of the hearing, in which California Representative Tom Lantos grills a representative from each company, repeatedly asking "are you ashamed." Fitting in with the internet theme of the proceedings, Lantos invoked Godwin's......

We're pretty excited about the Berlin & Beyond Film Festival, which opens tonight at the Castro. Featuring a great lineup of new films from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, the festival runs until Wednesday, the 18th. Tonight's opening features Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (watch out for Flash), a film about the German passive resistance movement during World War II. We hear it's pretty good, and the director, Marc Rothemund, is expected to attend the......

Best known for his role as Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid, Pat Morita passed away yesterday at his home in Las Vegas. A look at his bio, however, makes it clear that Morita was much more than the guy who said "wax on, wax off." Born in Isleton, and a graduate of Fairfield's Armijo High School, Morita spent the first 30 years of his life (excepting the period during World War Two he......

What do Holocaust dramas, hip hop and weddings have to do with each other? Nothing, but we've got all of them crammed into a mere weekend....

Is this chicken what I have, or Wednesdays? Tonight!: The SF Cinematheque is featuring an evening of experimental film called "How to Philosophize With a Flicker." Their website describes it: "Less of a 'how-to' manual than a hall of mirrors, these works move beyond the True, the Beautiful, and the Good to pose their questions with a flicker, wrestling with the world of appearances and searching out subjective spaces rather than smashing them to smithereens." We have absolutely no idea what that means but it sounds like there'll be some cool-looking movies! The flickering starts at 8, at the California College of the Arts. Thursday: it's go go go! The Exploratorium presents "Executive Order 9066," a show by puppet troupe Lunatique Fantastique about the Japanese-Americans internment camps in World War II, as envisioned through found household items. The description warns that children under 13 may need parental guidance. 8 p.m. in the McBean Theater. SFist Jeremy also wants us to remind you to go check out Joshua Wolf Shenk at Cody's SF tonight, who'll be reading from "Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness," which you may remember him discussing just the other day! If those options are too heavy for you, there's also the Bay Guardian's 2005 Goldies Award party at 12 Galaxies starting at 9, celebrating Outstanding Local Discoveries in art and music. Two Gallants is playing, and the $10 door donation goes to the Bay Guardian Community Fund and Katrina relief. And Friday: Remember when people used to rant about sex on paper and not on the Internet? Lisa Suckdog Carver does. Throw it back to the early 90s and Sassy Magazine's "zine of the month" column as Lisa reads from her new memoir, "Drugs Are Nice," at 7:30 at Modern Times. ...

Well, we just don't know. We're sure Ocean's Twelve is a fine movie, but we're so sick of having the whole "we had so much fun making this movie that we're all Best Friends Forever and we all hang out on George's boat every weekend" PR bulls**t shoved down our throats the we have ceased to care. But that's really the only hot new thing at the box office, which causes us to suggest that......

Well, he wasn't wearing a t-shirt to promote his new rap album, but, like Ron Artest, Chris Daly ain't sorry. Well, that's not entirely fair. At yesterday's unprecendented censure motion hearings before the San Francisco Board of Supes, Daly, before the session began, offered a "flat-out, heartfelt" apology to Michaela Alioto-Pier in response to her claims that he had loomed over her (Alioto-Pier is in a wheelchair) and made her feel threatened. However, Daly declined to apologize to the public for telling them where to get off (at the stop marked "F") at the contentious land use committee meeting two weeks ago. ...

One of Rush Limbaugh's pet pundits Michelle Malkin has been invited by California Patriots, the politically conservative campus group at Cal, to speak about her book In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror. Her talk is likely to focus on criticism of her book from the left, the role of racial profiling in our current War on Terror and her experiences as an author, New York Post columnist and television personality. Some readers may remember the heated exchange between Ms. Malkin, Chris Matthews and our own Willie Brown on MSNBC's Hardball, which Ms. Malkin posted about on her site. 1115.org has made their feelings known by featuring Ms. Malkin in one of their biting STFU pieces, and Ana Marie Wonkette has also weighed in on the issue. EssEffist also wants to point out that the children and grandchildren of interned Japanese Americans will have a hard time swallowing some of her arguments - and Muslim students at Cal, who by her own account should be viewed with suspicion as potential terrorists based on their ethnic background, are probably none too pleased with her appearance. EssEffist remembers reading Farewell to Manzanar in grade school and thinks the camps and their justifications were truly regrettable. We thought we were all clear on this when Reagan apologized for it, but Ms. Malkin disagrees. The speech will be tomorrow night at 7:00pm in 145 Dwinelle Hall on campus....

Thomas Hawk, local San Francisco photo/blogger, posted an interesting essay on his experiences taking pictures at different private cultural venues around town. EssEffist found the link on Boing Boing, which often covers issues related to freedom of speech, expression, media and fair use....