In This Issue

SUMMER'S SUPPOSED TO be a slow season for newspapers. In the old days, I guess, not as much happened between late June and early September, because government agencies weren't as active. But here's what's going on two days after the solstice in these parts:

• Attorneys for John J. Tennison filed new documents in federal court suggesting that a key witness in the murder case that put Tennison in prison lied on the stand – and was coached to lie by top San Francisco cops, including Earl Sanders, who is now the chief. And as A.C. Thompson reports on page 22, that's not the only case in which there are allegations that Sanders and his partner, Napoleon Hendrix, improperly coached witnesses and may have sent the wrong person to prison.

• As Alex Posorske reports on page 14, San Francisco's elections director admitted that he's preparing contingency plans for a December runoff election – the first sign that city officials are actually considering plans to defy the will of the voters and not implement the ranked-choice voting system known as instant-runoff voting this fall.

• Pacific Gas and Electric Co. filed its plan to emerge from bankruptcy – and it's so bad for consumers that even Gov. Gray Davis is against it. As Matthew Hirsch reports on page 15, the S.F. Local Agency Formation Commission released a study urging the city to move toward community aggregation – a step to public power – and (surprise) PG&E is trying to derail the process.

• As A.C. Thompson reports on page 21, the Indonesian government threatened to kill an East Bay journalist, Billy Nessen, who was traveling with the rebels near Aceh.

• As Rachel Brahinsky reports on page 14, The Sacramento cops were using force, including tasers, to subdue protesters who oppose the international agribusiness industry's attempt to take over the world's food supply.

Slow news days.

And in the middle of all of this, for our Queer Pride issue, Annalee Newitz has a fascinating analysis of the role of queer culture in the world of comic book and move superheros. I mean, we all knew Batman was gay, but there's a lot more to the story – so many superheros over the years, Newitz notes on page 27, have lived lives of alienation and isolation, assuming secret identities to hide their true selves from society. And it's interesting that the mainstream of the popular entertainment world is rapidly picking up queer culture and comic book culture – with decidedly mixed results.