By Matt Smith
Ever since Gavin Newsom attended a Scientology fund-raising event with his girlfriend last year, analysts have wondered: would San Francisco’s mayor unfairly favor the cult established by L. Ron Hubbard?Earlier this month Newsom proved such skeptics wrong. He's shown himself to be an equal-opportunity cult coddler by declaring Sept. 7 “Ilchee Lee Day in San Francisco.”
In so doing, Newsom put the official San Francisco seal of approval on a man newspapers, television reports and cult watch groups describe as ...
Every day at noon, the SF Weekly.com news blog 'The Snitch' tours its peers in the Village Voice Media chain to find cool stories. This week on ChainSmoking, the celebrity-studded LA Weekly -d2
-- Summer Lovin', Happened So Fast: The songs of the sweat season
-- Don’t forget that Judd Apatow is officially now a mogul: What Hollywood should learn, but probably won’t, from the tent-pole season By NIKKI FINKE
-- Cancer de Sexy: The Timberlake Concert Slideshow
-- Breaking the Trance: The unexpected Burning Man soundtrack
-- A chat with the one and only Johnny Rotten
The mayor said he wants to decide who stays and who goes. Yet it turns out it’s not solely his decision.
By Joe Eskenazi
Well, who would have thunk it? It turns out, when you demand hundreds of city officials to turn in their resignations, unforeseen consequences may arise.
If you buy into Mayor Gavin Newsom’s rhetoric, his call for everyone’s walking papers was a “bold move” to “reinvigorate” a “fresh start.” If you see things in the more pragmatic manner top Republican strategist Dan Schnur shared with The Snitch yesterday, it was a surefire political boon, as dumping on bureaucrats never hurt a politician’s popularity.
Either way, unless Newsom opts to pull a Tony Montana finale atop the City Hall steps, tumbling lifelessly into a yet-to-be-constructed fountain, he will win the election. Yet, through his bravado, he may do so with fewer loyal department heads than he’d envisioned.
“In the coming weeks I will decide whether or not to accept your offer of resignation and will of course abide by statutory, contractual and negotiated conditions of your employer,” wrote Newsom in his original letter to department heads, managing, amazingly, to be simultaneously menacing and reassuring.
And yet, whether Newsom gives his eggshell-walking department heads the thumbs-up or thumbs-down, nearly a score of them may find themselves out on the street regardless. Because while the mayor has feigned the mantle of “the decider” in this situation, it’s a title he’s not entirely qualified to grasp.
Here's the headlines you need to know. -d2
-- Number of Women Age 18 to 50 with Santa Cruz License Plates: 5 percent-- Fuck the Sex Pistols Reunion, and Van Halen, and Led Zeppelin
-- Sony Stops Making the Cell -- Maybe
-- Sharks A Step Closer to Doing Our Bidding
-- #1 GLBT-Friendly Bay Company: Chevron, San Ramon
-- Killing in SF, Blame Oakland
-- Peaceniks Need to Calm Down
-- Rummy Comes to Stanford, Stanford Not Pleased
-- Pre-Conscious Morality? More like, Borality.
-- Buy a Mac now, before Microsoft Wins
-- SF Finds Health Care for All
-- Stock Up on Glowsticks and Molly, Lovefest is back
Every Tuesday morning, the SF Weekly news blog All Shook Down profiles one of the Bay's many cool blogs. This week, Go As! -d2
From Fan to 'the Man'How an A's superfan with no tech experience built a million-reader empire
By Ty Callister
One day in 2003, Athletics Nation founder Tyler Bleszinski decided to drive through the Central Valley heat towards L.A. The sun sapped sweat from his brow and he began to wish he were back in the cool Bay Area wind. Longing for that Bay spirit, Bleszinski switched the radio to the beloved Bay Area AM station KNBR-680.
“I anxiously awaited hearing some discussion or lamenting about the A's failure that post-season,” Bleszinski recalls in his blog’s FAQ section. “I heard nothing but discussion about the hated San Francisco Giants.”
Maybe it was the Central Valley heat, maybe it was the hypnotic flatness, or maybe it was the baseball gods speaking to him that day, but Bleszinski had an epiphany. He knew he was destined to create a blog so dedicated to the Oakland A’s that it would give readers green and gold nosebleeds. It would be called “Athletics Nation” and people from all around the na—well, Oakland—would flock to read it.
He was right.
Despite the fact that the A’s are a low budget team, Athletics Nation is now one of the most popular sports blogs on the Internet. Bleszinski has been featured in ...
