Assuming you don't have a fireplace (it's bad for the environment anyway!) and therefore aren't hurting for kindling, allow us to summarize for you this week's top stories from the alt-weeklies, and save your fingers the ink stains to boot.

SF Weekly

This week's cover story is a rather sensational one, concerning Bait Car, a reality show on truTV in which the SFPD have been actively participating. The premise is this: The show's producers, with the help of actors and the cops, leave cars out waiting to be stolen, keys in the ignition, and then nab the people who steal them (or in some cases just try to move them out of the way of traffic). "Defense attorneys are crying entrapment and say it's a massive waste of the SFPD's time and resources for the sake of entertainment and a couple of free cars."

Matt Smith, meanwhile, looks into what may be at stake during the mayorship of Ed Lee, and clearly explains something all San Franciscans should understand: "There's no real 'left' and 'right' in liberal San Francisco, but we do have interest groups competing for resources, and we've invented names for them. 'Progressive' is a word we use for politicians allied with some unions representing lower-tier city employees, antipoverty nonprofits that get city money, and 'activists' who often hold day jobs with one of the two aforementioned types of organizations. 'Moderate' is a term taken here to mean politicians supported by larger developers; elite labor unions representing cops, firefighters, and plumbers; and politically connected investors with stakes in city-permitted projects. This second faction is the one that backed Lee."

Then we've got a piece about Carmen Chu's war against Sunset district pot club Bay Area Compassion Health Center.

In Music: A profile of Midwestern band Salem, who are alternately grouped under micro-genres "witch house" and "rape-gaze," and one of whose members used to be a "a heroin-slamming gay prostitute." (We challenge you to look at the photo and guess which one.)

Theater: A round-up of 10 must-see plays this spring.

Food: Jonathan Kauffman pays a visit to the new branch of Beijing Restaurant at Irving and 40th, and recommends the home-style, wintry dishes like the "stewed pot with pickled cabbage," and the "stirred flour balls."