Bulldog 2007 Article 113

(7-23-07)

I don’t put many limits on my writing. One of them is that I don’t call for the murder of my political enemies. Not even in jest. The Chronicle does not recognize such boundaries.

Meyer is a hell of a great cartoonist and that’s what makes his recent turn into work that promotes violence all the more troubling. Before his just-ended sabbatical, Meyer’s work was even-handed and even tilted more to the left.

Well, something must have happened in the year or so that he was off work. Or, more likely, he was told that if he was to return and draw a paycheck from the Hearsts that his drawings should more closely reflect their thinking and not his.

Using the Ed Jew ‘non-residence’ claim as a backdrop, Meyers turned out a cartoon a week or so back that shifted the emotions from that debate on over to the shoulders of Chris Daly.

Meyer did a cartoon of a vacant house with the word ‘reality’ written on the side. In front of the home is an old fashioned mailbox overflowing with mail. One passing dog walker is saying to another that Daly is hardly ever there.

The implication is that Daly is insane. This is an implication that is reinforced over and over again throughout the right-wing press and in the even more rabid blogosphere (where a poster who calls himself ‘YOGO’ has suggested harm to Daly’s family – to which the Sfist merely smiled and continued to post him). The message is very clear in the cartoon; that Daly is crazy and should be dealt with.

Following the Meyer cartoon by a few days, a lead editorial written by Marshall Kilduff said that it was time for San Franciscans to “remove Chris Daly�. Kilduff didn’t specify how.

Again, drawing on another local story (the shooting of the coyotes in Golden Gate Park – to ‘protect’ us), Meyer brought the Chron editorial board’s message home more directly.

This time Daly is depicted as a rabid animal running away from City Hall after attacking someone. A looker-on is sending 2 men with rifles to pursue Daly and kill him. It is that simple.

This one ran below the Meyer’s cartoon and likened the Board of Supervisors to a pack of coyotes. Meyer’s closes it by saying that: “Maybe it’s time for a new test of citizenship in San Francisco: dealing with the wild things that follow us home.�

Is Kilduff trying to get YOGO and Sfsweetie and that crowd riled up to the point that they’ll do physical harm to Chris Daly? It certainly seems that way.

The pieces to ‘justify’ it are all there. He’s crazy. He’s dangerous. There’s precedent for pre-emptive murder. Hey, I’m an ornery asshole but this shit is way past anything I’ve ever done.

Robin Williams plays a ‘shock jock’ who tells a troubled listener that “Something has to be done about them!� when referring to Yuppies. Williams asks his listener provocatively: “Do you get my message?�.

The listener agrees that he understands and then goes into a Yuppie bar and shoots a bunch of them to death.

That’s what Kilduff and Meyer are playing with here and they both know it. And, Daly is unprotected. When every single other member of the Board abandoned him last week in order to kiss Aaron Pekiin’s patooie, the road was clear for Kilduff and Arthur Evans and Rob Anderson and all of the rest of the spite-fueled nut cases that people their mindset.

They can’t get much clearer in what they want. You know that old expression: “Do I have to draw you a picture?�. Well, this morning, Meyer drew them a picture. Men with guns being directed towards Chris Daly.

Short of hiring an assassain, Diaz and Bronstein and the boys can’t go much further. For what it’s worth, if some crackpot is inspired to harm Chris or his family, we’ll know who was ultimately responsible.

Government Audit and Oversight (10am)

Item #1

Another rush-job by Aaron Peskin on behalf of the Swells who now control 70% of Park and Rec’s assets. It hands control of the Open Space Fund to unspecified ‘trustees’ and ‘indemnifies’ them from blame for other unspecified acts.

Item #5

A faux-hearing on Alioto-Pier’s charter amendment seeking to add tens of thousands of cars and their pollution and rolling murder to the streets of San Francisco. But then, why should she care: she lives in Marin.

Land Use and Economic Development (also – thanks Aaron – 10am)

Item #1

‘TransBay Cable’. A nearly undecipherable measure that will clear the way to hand control of all new renewable energy sourced power coming into (and, presumably leaving) the Bay, to PG&E and their cohorts.

(Will my Source on Tourk book meet me in usual spot at usual time?)