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Tobacco crackdowns target e-cigarettes, despite their lack of secondhand dangers, raising questions about the basis of current bans

This Week's Paper

Music Video Race, DNA rights, Jack Abramoff, Tablehopping, Seth Rogen, leather party, summer yoga guide, Ed Mock, more. Articles Online | Digital Edition (iPad, Android enhanced)

From the Blogs

Salon says, "Ladies, shush! People paid good money for Michelle Obama and rape"

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Hey, remember Code Pink during the Bush years?  "Why can't those old, shriveled, nagging dyke hags stop screaming about Iraq and stuff," seemed to be the reaction of most of America and the media.

Meanwhile, even many of us wholly sympathetic to their message cringed a bit in our Internet-ringside seats as the valiant fuschia-clad ladies yelled, and yelled, and yelled. Even at Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi! (Clutch pearls.) And hey, they're still doing it. Even at Obama! (Clutch pearls tighter.)

Weren't they hurting our cause with all this rudeness? Why could they just sit down at their Dell Gateway computers, dial up AOL, and write a firmly worded comment on the New York Times site like the rest of us. What about civility? WHO WILL THINK OF THE CIVILITY?

Now, of course, with the distance of time and the realization of just how awful that political period was still dawning, it's like, "Thank fucking god someone was doing something real, however quixotic."

And yet, the sorry clutching of pearls in the face of female resistance continues. Why can't women just pipe down about stuff? Especially those whiny ol' man-hater ones.

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Sexy events: Fatties rise up

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Happy Pride Month everybody! This is neither sexy nor an event in the strictest sense, but anyone who doesn't kindle to forced body norms should know that we began this week with evolutionary psychology professors tweeting about how fat people shouldn't even try to get a PhD.

Geoffrey Miller, a University of New Mexico psychology prof had this to say on his Saturday afternoon: "Dear obese Phd applicants: if you didn't have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won't have the willpower to do a dissertation #truth". Miller reportedly told UNM in response to the school's concern that the tweet was part of a research project, which doesn't seem right but who is to say what those social scientists are up to these days. Read more »

Promo: BAYS has a new self-published collection of stories, book launch party Thur/13

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Bay Area Young Survivors (BAYS), a San Francisco-based action and support group for women under 45 diagnosed with breast cancer, has released a story collection, available via Amazon, titled The Day My Nipple Fell Off and Other Stories of Survival, Solidarity, and Sass. Read more »

Go, New Zealand

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Imagine if Larry Ellison lost the America's Cup.Read more »

Parents just don't understand in new Warm Soda video

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See video

Jeanie loves pop music, and she just wants to dance with her friends. Her angry parents and religious figures just don't understand. Watch Jeanie rebel in the suburbs in the new music video from former Bay Guardian "On the Rise" group, Warm Soda: "Jeanie Loves Pop," filmed by sometimes-Guardian photographer, Chris Stevens.  Read more »

It's National Running Day! Motivate yo'self with these classic running films

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The San Francisco Marathon is a mere 11 days away, but today is National Running Day. So everyone gearing up for 26.2 is now trotting through shorter runs leading up to the big enchilada on June 16. What's a marathoner in mid-taper (or a couch 'tater needing motivation) to do? The sport of running, which tends to grab attention only during the Olympics or when there's a national tragedy or (natural disaster), has garnered a fair amount of cinematic interest over the years; long-distance runners, in particular, give great drama. Double-tie your laces and read on for flicks suitable for watching while you're foam-rolling and dreaming of medals.

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The end of the Republican Party

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Everyone knows and loves the expression "out of the mouths of babes", but I doubt that's the reaction this poll got in the halls of Republican power. Apparently (and not surprisingly) younger Americans of all stripes don't like the GOP.Read more »

Mad dreams

DJ Mike Bee's new record shop Vinyl Dreams is heaven. Plus: Madlib's Zamrock, The Field, House of House, Rite Spot's 61st Anniversary, more

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SUPER EGO One of the best yet worst-kept secrets of the plastic fantastic SF underground has been Vinyl Dreams, a pop-up record shop in DJ Mike Bee's living room. It's been a must for visiting headliner DJs — and those of us who get all giddy at the mere flash of a fresh vinyl platter gingerly unsleeved in a private space. I've long yearned to write about this parlor of grooved delights, where Mike Bee would happily try to get his hands on any underground tune one desired. But a girl must have her secrets. And I'm not one to gossip!Read more »

Go deep

BDSM stars give it all up for DocFest's Public Sex, Private Lives

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SEX Public Sex, Private Lives filmmaker Simone Jude was on set with Kink.com dominatrix Isis Love when Love received a call from Child Protective Services. The single mom would have to meet with CPS staff -- there'd been questions raised about her parenting of 12-year old Rusty. For most documentarians, plot line would pause there.Read more »

Realness

DocFest is back (already!) with a slate of standouts

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FILM First things first: yeah, you did just attend the 11th San Francisco Documentary Film Festival in November. The schedule shift for the 2013 fest — it's now sandwiched between the well-established San Francisco International Film Festival (which ended May 9) and Frameline (starts June 20) seasons — is a gamble. Will Bay Area film fans (who probably also attended the DocFest-affiliated SF IndieFest in February) suffer festival fatigue, or will DocFest's programming (Burning Man! Bettie Page! Pint-sized magicians!) lure 'em in anyway?Read more »

Triumph of queer comics: Justin Hall wins Lambda, 'Adèle' takes Cannes

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Two cool, queer graphic surprises, just in time for Pride month. First, local comics hero, Califormia College of the Arts professor, and frequent SFBG contributor (not to mention out-of-the-closet Batman lover) Justin Hall took the 2013 Lambda Award for Best Anthology yesterday with his groundbreaking historical queer comics survey No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics (Fantagraphics Books).

This a huge deal, as this is the first time a comics anthology has won. (A graphic novel by Oakland's Jon Macy, Teleny and Camille, won for Best Erotic Novel in 2011, also a first.)

Hall told me right after his win:

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SF homeless services budget item < 0.25 percent of Larry Ellison’s net worth

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Billionaire Larry Ellison, the vainglorious CEO of Oracle and yachtsman responsible for bringing the America’s Cup to San Francisco, has come a long way since 2010, when he first floated the idea of hosting the elite regatta against a Golden Gate backdrop.Read more »

The Warriors Arena: Art Agnos v. Gary Radnich

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Here's a fun one: former Mayor Art Agnos debating the Warriors arena with Gary Radnich and Larry Krueger. Radnich has always been my favorite sports guy, ever since his days on KRON TV (although Kruk and Kuip are the best live-action announcers), and Agnos is my favorite ex-mayor. (Lord, I gave him a hard time when he was in office, and he sometimes deserved it, but he's been great as a former.)Read more »

Reactionaries hate bicycles

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After perusing a rather bizarre Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal the other day on the issue of bicycles as instruments of totalitarianism and being reminded of the idea that bike paths are part of a "new world order'', I've been asking myself, what is it that right wingers have against goddamn bicycles?Read more »

Former Hayes Valley Farm site Occupied, renamed Gezi Gardens

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"We're doing this to help give the community a choice," Ayr told me, sweeping his arm out. "Everyone should have a voice when it comes to issues of land use and green space, which is rapidly disappearing in the city. That's why we're inviting the community to meet here tonight [Tue/4 at 6:30pm, also Sat/8 at 3pm] and see what we're about. This is a land liberation concept, we're calling it Free the Land, or Liberate the Land."

Ayr was leading me around the former site of Hayes Valley Farm, the lauded public experiment in urban farming on an undulating patch that used to be a freeway entrance, which has now been cleared to make way for a 185-unit development on half the the lot (low-income housing is slated eventually for the other half). 

Well, not quite cleared. Ayr was showing me around an Occupy-like scene, with an agricultural twist. 

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