Less than a month after local writer-activist Stephen Elliott began organizing a campaign against a proposed American Apparel store on Valencia St., the San Francisco Planning Commission denied a permit to the controversial clothing manufacturer-retailer.

The vote by the commission was 7-0, the Stop American Apparel website reported.

Update: Elliott, who was in New York last night promoting his new online magazine The Rumpus, blogged about the commission’s vote and his efforts.

Five years ago, the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis looked at the career of Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane and how he consistently managed to field a competitive team in one of the smallest team markets by drafting for certain types of impact players, as measured by statistics.

Now Stephen Soderburgh has signed to direct a film of the book, and Brad Pitt has signed to play the A’s GM.

Here’s Beane on the left, the other guy on the right:

It’s standard Republican operating procedure to call everything they don’t like “liberal” and to consider San Francisco the capital of the loony liberal universe, so this probably shouldn’t be too surprising: at least one Republican congressman has suggested that if Obama wants Guantanamo closed, he knows just where the US should put its dangerous inmates. “Alcatraz would be a good place to put these people,” suggested Florida Rep. C.W. Bill Young. (Courtesy SF Gate)

He’s probably not serious, so don’t go suggesting that you could think up plenty of places, like maybe Disney World or Clearwater (the latter being the world HQ of Scientology), that would be just as good. The people of Florida already suffer enough. They have to live in Florida.

San Francisco writer and activist Stephen Elliott whose Progressive Reading Series raises money for progressive causes and candidates, and who just founded the online magazine The Rumpus, walked up Valencia St. the other day and saw this:

According to the notice, the American Apparel chain of clothing stores wants to open a branch on Valencia St., next to Artists Television Access. Appalled at this prospect, Elliott is organizing people to show up at the February 5 hearing and voice their opposition.

I interview Elliott briefly about his efforts, after the jump.

Kudos to local journalist Brad Kava for publishing this first on the Examiner.com website: Freshman GOP congressman Joseph Cao — who became the first-ever Vietnamese-American elected to Congress when he defeated corrupt Democratic Rep. William Jefferson in the Louisiana 2d district — has condemned the anti-immigrant comments of San Francisco radio talker Michael Weiner.

Weiner, the former Alan Ginsburg groupie whose “Michael Savage” broadcasts are ranked third nationally among right-wing talk shows, is well known for inflammatory statements about immigrants, the disabled, gays and other minorities. Cao called his statements in a 2007 program “repulsive” and added, “I hope that the GOP will not tolerate those kinds of views and will not take those positions.”

Also: In today’s Boston Phoenix, Adam Reilly looks at hateful anti-Barack Obama statements by Weiner and other foamers.

Local comedian Michael Weiner, who broadcasts nationally as a right-wing foamer called “Michael Savage,” is back at the well, making fun of local customs for the amusement of the auslanders. Now it’s the standard sensitivity training classes for police detectives, classes designed to teach the sherlocks about our more colorful residents. According to Weiner:

The San Francisco Police Department is forcing detectives to undergo brainwashing by a transgendered detective… I would not let myself be brainwashed by this freak.

This sad little man, who is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to spew this shit over the radio, loves that kind of talk, because his demented listeners love it even more. All I can say is, I hope he spends some of his huge salary locally, because that’s all the benefit we’ll ever get out of the fact that he actually works here.

Previously:
Local demagogue finds new way to offend people

From the annual MLA conference taking place in San Francisco this weekend, bloggers report:

• Bev, “English professor at a small college in the Midwest,” says the Hilton is a maddening labyrinth, so “I fought my way out this morning at 6 a.m. (because my body thinks it’s still in Ohio) and walked down Market Street to the Embarcadero and back, accompanied only by the snap-crackle-pop of the streetcars, the snoring of homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk, and the occasional frantic flutter of a flock of pigeons. … Store windows sparkle with dresses I can’t imagine wearing…”
• The mass interview room at the Hilton, where dozens of career make-or-break interviews take place simultaneously, “is undignified and it stinks.” The same post cites another blogger who reported on a candidate “whose bag fell over spilling a veritable pharmacy of drugs across the floor.”
• Another blogger reports: “I am not loving the MLA, as I never have loved the MLA. I’m insecure about my lame-ass institution; I can’t find anyone I know, nor did I do a remotely good job of setting up fun reunions… I’m likely to be eating most meals alone.”
• In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jennifer Howard reports, “This year the unofficial theme is ‘Who’s getting work at all?’ The numbers look terrible. Job listings in language-and-literature fields are down more than 22 percent from last year…”

The conference continues through Tuesday.

Think the economic meltdown can’t touch your high tech job? Valleywag announced today they are laying off three staffers, cutting writers’ “page view bonus,” and taking other steps in anticipation of lost advertising.

The layoffs affected two of my favorite bloggers, Jackson West and Melissa Gira Grant, as well as associate editor Nicholas Carlson (no offense to Carlson, but I’ve followed West’s and Grant’s posts for a long time). Here’s hoping they all find good homes.

A cadre of patriotic local Minutemen are supposedly headed to SF’s City Hall steps on Thursday afternoon. They plan a rally in front of the gilded dome where our broke city gov’t spares no expense in it’s quest to ignore Federal statutes regarding immigration law and deportation. Among the speakers will be SF native son Frank Kennedy, the brother in law of the late Anthony Bologna, 48, who was tragically murdered by AK-47 alongside his two sons, Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16 in June of this year. The suspect is a known thug, here illegally, who obviously was a solid candidate for prior deportation.

Scene Outside City Hall during last Minutemen protest on 7/31/08 ( pic by Bill Hackwell of IndyBay.org )

I imagine an afternoon filled with local news camera crews capturing loud & pointless shouting matches between the Minutemen and left wing activists and Mission District “community organizers” ( insert hearty Giuliani-esque guffaw here). Could be fun for people watchers & those with an interest in colorful signs, chanting & loud bullhorns.

The last time the Minutemen assembled here in July, there were far more counter demonstrators than the dozen-ish flag waving border sealing patriots. To see photos of the mob from IndyBay.org, click here.

I’m sure Mayor Newsom will make a point of not being there…
but for everyone else, the fun starts circa 11 am for the amusement of bureaucrats on break and those forced to come to City Hall to plead for a permit or tithe more taxes to the city.

The theme of the two hour Minutemen photo op is

“Protesting innocent American Victims of Illegal Aliens in Illegal Sanctuary Cities!”

Huh? Why are they protesting the innocent victims? What did they do?

An article about San Francisco’s restaurant scene opens:

There’s nothing wrong with the restaurants in San Francisco except that so many of them serve pretty much the same Northern Cal-Mediterranean menu.

Yeah, that’s what the whole “eating local” thing is supposed to be about, dude. It’s a Northern California menu because this is Northern California. I wonder if he goes to Paris and then writes that the only thing wrong with Parisian restaurants is that they all serve French food.

Meanwhile, this isn’t SF-related, but is on the topic of restaurant criticism. Courtesy Girl Friday: A wine expert hoaxed Wine Spectator magazine into giving an non-existent restaurant its Award of Excellence. Pretty funny.