A federal appeals court has ruled that thousands of strip-searches of detainees at the San Francisco jail were illegal.

The decision applies to strip searches that were carried out from 2002 to 2004 under a policy that ended in January 2004 when a lower federal court declared the policy illegal.

The decision Friday by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that “blanket strip searches” — now that’s confusing — “of (newly arrested inmates) regardless of severity of charge and without reasonable suspicion is unconstitutional.” Is a “blanket strip search” one that’s conducted under a blanket?

The ruling pertains to 28,000 incidents that took place from April 2002 to January 2004. Twenty-eight thousand! That’s a lot.

[Ian Curtis, singer of Joy Division. Photo attribution unknown; I found it here.]

If you’re looking for something to do tonight and you’re into Joy Division, SF360 is running a program at one of our favorite clubs, Mezzanine, all about the late-70s rock group Joy Division. Remember Joy Division? Sure you do. After singer Ian Curtis committed suicide a few weeks shy of his 24th birthday, the group re-formed as New Order. If you don’t know either one … where have you been, anyway?

The program consists of two films and a musical interlude. The first film, which screens at 7:30, is a documentary about the band directed by Grant Gee, the same guy who did the Radiohead doc, Meeting People is Easy. The second film starts at 10:00; it’s a biopic about Ian Curtis, called Control. I’m not much for biopics, but I’ve heard good things about this one.

The musical interlude is going to be a Manchester-themed set spun by DJ Axelson.

Event page here; tix $12. Hope to see you there!

Coming up on SFGate.com: a poll asking readers which comics they’d like to keep, which they’d like to kill.

Among the several way-past-it strips which lost all humor and inspiration many years ago, yet still take up space on the Chronicle’s comics page, are:

Garfield (a panel from today’s strip seen at right) — Absurdly boring and limited in range, this strip shows the same characters in the same poses using variations on the same jokes year after year after year. Perhaps this strip’s biggest offense — aside from it never being funny — is that while it’s supposed to be about a cat, it has absolutely nothing to do with cats.

Peanuts — The zombie-like quality of this strip — about the suburban life of children of the mid-20th century, and how their desires and dreams are mercilessly crushed by circumstance, human nature, and a dead God — brings a new meaning to the term “syndication.” The artist is dead and they’ve been rerunning “classic” strips — with little attention to the strip’s only classic period, the early 60s — for years now, inadvertently reinforcing the strip’s core message of nihilism and suffering.

More after the jump.

This is a series. Earlier ones: Coit Tower, & St. Francis glass elevators

You’re on a slim budget, and have guests in town. What to do? Chinatown, baby! (pedometer link here)

Enter at Bush & Grant, and take the requisite dorky tourist photo of your arm in the Lion’s jaws. Next off: walk up Grant to Sacramento, take a left, and halfway up take a right onto Waverly alley, where most of Joy Luck Club took place. Stop at Uncle’s for some duck-egg joe like Mama makes, or go for the cheapest eggs & hash browns anywhere in town. Walk up Stockton and witness the craziness that is the open produce market hell. Either shop for some gai lan (chinese broccoli) or grab an apricot to munch and freak out your tourist friends by live fish in the open meat & seafood markets near Broadway. Walk over to Pacific and walk up halfway to the large & boisterous Y Ben, for some cheap & greasy dim sum and endless tea. Walk off the grease by heading farther downhill, take a right 2 blocks over to Washington & Walter Lum, where you can checkout some intense Go games. Walk 1/2 block North on Washington, take a right on the alley WentWorth to see mahjong gambling dens, then at Jackson, walk up the hill past Grant 1/2 block to loop back on a parallel alley- Ross- and check out the fortune cookie factory. The guests might need a snack, so get bubble tea at the edge of Chinatown at Grant & Columbus. If they’re still up for more, and resisted the lure of North Beach, walk through the labyrinthine hardware stores on Pacific & Columbus, and puzzle over the funeral items for sale near the doorway. They should be tired and full by then.

By chance the other day I met Kevin Gordon, the filmmaker behind the 11-minute documentary Tellin’ It Like It Is: The Work of Elouise Westbrook. Mrs. Westbrook has been active on behalf of the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood since she moved there in 1949, and it’s clear that even at the age of 92 she remains a force to be reckoned with. She was thrust onto the national stage when, in 1973, city officials failed to get the release of allocated federal funds to tear down the old barracks at Hunter’s Point and build housing there. In response, Mrs. Westbrook took a delegation to Washington, determined not to leave without getting the funding her neighborhood was due. Eventually she succeeded, and the city received its $30 million for the project.

However, Mrs. Westbrook’s greatest ongoing success probably lies in the clinic she helped to found, the South of Market Health Center, which now has three active facilities. A fourth facility is in development, with plans to break ground in the fall: Westbrook Plaza. The Plaza honors Mrs. Westbrook’s vision of affordable healthcare and affordable housing for all, by combining the two in a single development.

The short screens tonight at 9:00 at the Kabuki, and opens for the feature Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans. Tickets available at the theater.

Earlier this afternoon I got Mr. Gordon on the phone and we talked a bit about this film and his aims as a filmmaker. Our Q&A starts below and continues after the jump.

So, how did you learn about Mrs. Westbrook in the first place?

Well, I totally lucked out: I was actually approached with the film. Another filmmaker I’d just met called me about how the South of Market Health Center wanted a tribute made for their founder, and that she (the other filmmaker) was too expensive for them, but thought I might do it for a lot cheaper. Of course, that was the case. But when I met Mrs. Westbrook, I knew that I had no choice but to make the movie. She struck me immediately as an amazing person and an amazing subject, but it wasn’t until I was really into the research that I realized how significant she really was. So everything kind of happened backwards to how you’d normally expect it to happen.
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This is a series- the first one was on Coit Tower

I had another visitor in town- from Belgium, and we were walking around Post St. on a Thursday night. She didn’t drink- and wanted to see something odd/unexpected, so I navigate to the front of St. Francis on Powell at Post St. entered the lobby, walk past Michael Minna, past the first set of elevators to the rotating door, and take a right before the door.

Description & but alas, no photos, after the jump

The 6 pm all-Spanish newscast on KDTV channel 14 beat all other 6 pm news broadcasts in the Bay Area in the ratings for 24 to 54-year-olds, the Chronicle reported Saturday.

In other news news, from Susan Young’s fine TV blog: interchangeable white-man anchor Allen Denton has left KNTV, the NBC affiliate (ch. 3/11), for Nashville. Man, it must be tough for a guy with a totally forgettable face like that to be in the TV news business. It would be like trying to compete by making toilet paper that is somehow more… toilet-papery.

Lots of chitter chatter going on about the “pizza ban.” I find that title somewhat confusing. Friend emailed me really quick about it the other day and I was like, “what?” because I had heard of it as the “late hours on Broadway ban.”

The dealio: some restaurants are allowed to stay open past midnight to get the late bar crowd, namely, pizza joints on Broadway. Having been one of the revelers, I can say, it’s great to get some pizza in your stomach while you’re plastered. It means a more sober walk home, less partying, and a nice night of sleep. The other side is that Broadway Corridor is a mess of teenagers (not much older than, at least) every Friday and Saturday night, and trying to get them safely home has been a trial. Closing things down earlier- which was experimented a few weeks ago- meant less crime was commited. Less “clustering,” until 3-4am, and less neighborhood activity.

Before you have an opinion about this, don’t just dust off your memories, actually visit Broadway and Columbus at midnight on a Friday or Saturday.
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This morning on KALW’s Artery program — the weekly arts segment that plays at the end of “Morning Edition” every Thursday at about 8:51 a.m. — reporter Nathaniel Johnson had a lovely story about the presentation of the Fauré Requiem at Grace Cathedral this Sunday.

You can listen to Johnson’s radio piece here.

The piece called attention to the suitability of the Requiem — a choral and orchestral setting of the Christian funeral mass, a project which most major composers tackle sooner or later — being sung on Nov. 11, Veteran’s Day, in a time of war. Alan Jones, the Dean of the cathedral, had some things to say about how funerals ask us to look at death instead of just ignoring that inevitability, and how it’s particularly necessary to do so when our country is involved in a war.

Please note that the Fauré Requiem will be performed not as a concert but as part of the regular Sunday morning service at 11:00 a.m. You can also listen to a live webcast.

Pictured: Composer Gabriel Fauré

Spotted this flyer in Upper Haight an hour ago… (shot + uploaded with my Ocean.)

Anyone going? I might run down to see what it looks like; we’re already swamped here with news vans and helicopters :(

Update: I just ran out and took the image below, with a couple more of what it’s like right now, after the jump. Yes, it’s freezing outside. Thank you Jonathan, for lending me a camera.

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