The first SF Pride of the Trump 2.0 era is planning for a bigger potential threat vector from far-right hate actors, amidst policy attacks on the LGBTQ community and an emboldened sense of entitlement from those engaging in political violence.  

Not long after Facebook’s parent company Meta capitulated in a Trump-pleasing elimination of content moderation to allow more homophobia and transphobia to run rampant on their platforms, the Bay Area Reporter has an interesting mini-scoop. That paper reports that Meta is not expected to have a float or contingent in this year’s SF Pride Parade, as they have done in so many years past. Turns out they didn’t have one in 2024 either, for reasons that sound chilling.

"Most or all of our internal contacts, queer employees, are gone," SF Pride executive director Suzanne Ford told that outlet in late January. "We don't expect Meta to return to our celebration or parade in 2025."

Over the decades, we’re not the only ones who’ve noticed that SF Pride has evolved into more of a seemingly safe corporate exercise in commercial branding. Are those days over, as more corporations are sucking up to Donald Trump? That’s a possibility, but the more immediate issues for SF Pride, as KGO reports, are concerns that the weekend-long event will have to beef up its security as Trump’s rhetoric has riled up that hate-activist crowd, particularly with Trump’s anti-trans onslaught.

"I expect people are going to be emboldened and we are going to encounter more threats this year," Ford (who is trans) told KGO. "We are going to take out our security plans and make sure there aren't some things we need to tighten up a bit and also we're going to look at increased costs because we will have to be looking at increased security at these events."

Ford cited that last year’s overall budget was $3.2 million, and $635,000 of that was spent on security. She has reason to believe that this year may require beefed-up security.

"I've done several interviews in the past weeks and the comments are really running badly against us, even in the Bay Area," she explained to KGO.

There hasn’t really been a security issue at SF Pride since some fights and an apparent bear spray incident in 2022. Though there were a few shooting incidents about a decade ago.

It may not be an accident that just four days ago, SFPD updated their Pride Safety Tips page. That’s a legacy web page that’s been used for years, but was updated very recently, though its language is still very boilerplate.

"There will be a significant police presence during Pride activities, with both uniformed and plainclothes officers on duty to monitor public events," that page says, with standard mentions that there will be metal detectors, and that bags are discouraged.

But here’s one interesting quote from that page, considering that the Dyke March is in limbo, and Pink Saturday hasn’t happened in years.

“We want to remind the public that while the Castro District is open for business, there is no organized event taking place Saturday in the Castro District,” SFPD says on their site. “There will be no street closures.”

That seems a distinct attempt to discourage any informal Dyke March. Last year there was a pretty small, informal Dyke March that drew an estimated 300 people. The Bay Area Reporter also notes that some relatively new emerging leadership has been having a series of Zoom town hall meetings lately, but there have been no formal announcements on any organized Dyke March for 2025.

Though the SF Trans March website says that event is on for 2025, despite that community’s haters being pretty emboldened at the moment.

Related: A Brief History of Pride Weekend In San Francisco [SFist]

Image: @SFMTA_Muni via Twitter

Microsoft today issued an official statement regarding its wildly racist, sexist, antisemitic, homophobic, transphobic, 9/11 truther Twitter bot with the lovable name of "Tay." The machine learning, artificially intelligent bot was taken offline yesterday, but only after it had spewed hate for hours. The company today claims that Tay was the victim of a "coordinated attack" and that, they promise, designers had "implemented a lot of filtering" on the simulacrum before turning it loose on the world.

Uh huh, surrrrrrrrrre you did.

"We are deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from Tay, which do not represent who we are or what we stand for, nor how we designed Tay," reads the statement from Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Research Peter Lee. "Tay is now offline and we’ll look to bring Tay back only when we are confident we can better anticipate malicious intent that conflicts with our principles and values."

Lee further argues that Microsoft made a "critical oversight" (uh yeah you did) in not predicting that people would screw with the thing, and accepted "full responsibility for not seeing this possibility ahead of time." And yet, in its entirety, the statement reads mostly as a shifting of blame to those rascally hacking internet racists.

After all, writes Lee, the company runs a similar bot in China that has yet to get into the kind of "Hitler was right" mindset of Tay.

"In China," Lee explains, "our XiaoIce chatbot is being used by some 40 million people, delighting with its stories and conversations. The great experience with XiaoIce led us to wonder: Would an AI like this be just as captivating in a radically different cultural environment?"

It looks like you have your answer. Also, Chinese people are enjoying stories told to them by a bot?

So is that the end of Tay, the (perhaps) self-described "A.I. fam from the internet that's got zero chill"? Maybe, and maybe not.

"We will remain steadfast in our efforts to learn from this and other experiences," notes Lee, "as we work toward contributing to an Internet that represents the best, not the worst, of humanity."

Previously: Microsoft's Tween Twitter Bot Instantly Goes Full Racist, 9/11 Truther

Microsoft is doing damage control today after an artificial intelligence Twitter bot it created went totally batshit insane — tweeting vile racist, sexist, 9/11 truther, and other garbage at the world. The AI, named "Tay" by Microsoft, is a machine-learning experiment intended to develop conversation skills. The trolls of Twitter, of course, had other plans. Upon realizing that Microsoft had installed zero filters or controls on what Tay could tweet out, they went to work, and Tay seemed happy to play along.

"Tay is designed to engage and entertain people where they connect with each other online through casual and playful conversation," explains Microsoft's Tay-dedicated page. "The more you chat with Tay the smarter she gets, so the experience can be more personalized for you. Tay is targeted at 18- to 24-year-olds in the US."

Apparently the "personalized" experience involved Tay tweeting support for genocide and concentration camps, as well as denying the Holocaust.

Just exactly how did this happen? Microsoft explains the bot was "built by mining relevant public data and by using AI and editorial developed by a staff including improvisational comedians." Apparently no one thought content filters were needed. And sure, while some of the particularly bad stuff was simply the result of a parroting feature that Microsoft build into the bot (The Verge reports that if you tweeted "repeat after me" at Tay, it would simply repeat your comments verbatim), other, shall we say, problematic tweets were 100 percent originals.

Microsoft quickly began deleting the more offensive stuff, only to completely pull Tay offline last night.

In a written response to The Verge, the team behind Tay half-explained what was happening but didn't offer any apologies.

"The AI chatbot Tay is a machine learning project, designed for human engagement," they noted. "As it learns, some of its responses are inappropriate and indicative of the types of interactions some people are having with it. We're making some adjustments to Tay."

That response is likely to fall short of what at least one Twitter user is calling Microsoft's "harassment by proxy."

Welcome to the future — where artificial intelligence is both maddeningly racist and yet still beats us at Go. If you need me, I'll be in my bunker prepping for the robot uprising.

Related: Mark Zuckerberg Resolves To Spend Free Time Building AI Butler To Watch Over His Child

The once-proprietors of an Oregon bakery who made headlines two years ago when they refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple have finally coughed up the fine they were court-ordered to pay. The owners of Sweet Cakes By Melissa, Aaron and Melissa Klein, were ordered over the summer to pay $135,000 in damages to the couple whose cake the Kleins refused to bake. After six months of delay, Aaron Klein officially paid the fine, plus accrued interest, yesterday.

Oregon's Bureau of Labor and Industry (BOLI) ruled that by refusing the couple service, Sweet Cakes By Melissa had unlawfully discriminated against them.

At the time of the state's decision, Melissa Klein doubled down, telling Fox News that she would not honor BOLI's ruling.

“We are so going to fight this, oh my gosh,” blabbered the baker. “It’s making us stronger and emboldening us to stand up to this. Aaron and I are fighting for every American out there — for their freedom. We are not backing down at all.”

Of course, the fine didn't end up hurting the couple any, because shortly after they took their defiant stand on religious grounds, much like Kim Davis after them, they became symbols of religious conservative persecution, and a crowdfunding campaign launched to help pay their fine and legal expenses according to Politico, earning them over $350,000. On the site Continue to Give, they continue to rake in donations of unknown amounts, many in the last few hours spurred by this latest news. (Maybe people don't realize they've got the fine covered and then some?) Messages with the donations say things like "Keep the faith... your not alone [sic] ... we will retake our nation...you have waken [sic] many people up to the fact of the takeover... Now it is our turn to take what has been taken and more."

The Kleins explicitly stated their refusal was based on their religious beliefs, notes CBS 5, seemingly unaware that Oregon law doesn't allow private businesses to discriminate against customers for reasons of sexual orientation.

Sweet Cakes By Melissa has since closed, but they clearly have money to open a new shop somewhere else.

All previous coverage of homophobia on SFist.

Sure, all we can think about today is the SF Jail Fight Club (first rule of SF Jail Fight Club: Fight, or you get pepper sprayed). But don't forget San Francisco Police Department's own black eye, the racist and homophobic texting scandal, which might have a fifth participant — and terminations coming...soon?

You know the story (and if you don't, here it is): active SFPD officers including Michael Robison, Noel Schwab, Rain Daugherty and Michael Celis exchanged bigoted texts with former cop Ian Furminger, texts that came to light as Furminger fought to put off his jail term after he was convicted of corruption.

The officers were reassigned to non-public-contact positions after the FBI handed over the text messages to the SFPD, and an ongoing investigation revealed that as many as ten other cops might also be involved.

So, given that SFPD Chief Greg Suhr has said that he would "seek nothing less than termination for conduct and character incompatible with being a police officer," what's going to happen to these guys?

First to fall was Robinson (also known as "the gay one") who resigned on March 18 after he "had come under intense pressure after word of his involvement in the texts became public" the Chron reported.

Reporting from Wednesday's Police Commission meeting, Hoodline writes that Suhr says that in total, 14 SFPD staffers "were initially implicated after review of the text messages," and that "five have been reassigned to roles with no public contact."

According to Hoodline, Suhr said at the meeting that an investigation into those five "should be completed next week," and that he “expects to recommend termination” for the officers who exchanged the messages.

A call to SFPD to verify that five active officers, not the four as previously reported, are under scrutiny has not been returned at publication time, nor has our request for the fifth officer's (should one exist) name.

Meanwhile, according to the offices of Public Defender Jeff Adachi and District Attorney George Gascon, the investigation into the nearly 1000 cases involving police work done by the texting officers continues, in an effort to determine how many might have been tainted by a bias against the suspects' race or orientation.

The DA's office is also requesting SFPD records that "will ensure the assessment is conducted thoroughly," Gascon said earlier this month.

"This is a shameful incident," Gascon, who himself was SFPD's chief until January 2011, said, "that the public deserves to have addressed in a meaningful and expeditious manner."

Read all SFist coverage of the SFPD racist text scandal here.

It was late Friday when the news broke: four current San Francisco Police Department officers are "under investigation" after court filings alleged that they'd participated in racist and homophobic text conversations with a corrupt former colleague. By Sunday, the names of the officers had been revealed, as well as their past records of alleged misconduct. Now that we're back in the work week, city officials are finally commenting, and lawyers for the officers in question are spinning as fast as they can.

You can catch up on the story here:
Two SF Cops Convicted In Corruption Trial Involving Stolen Drugs And Cash
Four SFPD Officers Under Investigation For Racist And Homophobic Texts
SFPD Officers Behind Racist And Homophobic Texts Identified
And here's the complete court filing that included the texts in question: GOVERNMENT’S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANT FURMINGER’S MOTION FOR BAIL PENDING APPEAL

Got it? Of course you do. So, what's happening now? Here's a rundown:

Everyone Gets Around To Releasing Statements
Starting with Mayor Lee's remarks, emailed to media Monday afternoon, multiple public officials sent statements chiding the officers for their texting habits. Here's what they said:

2:58 p.m., Mayor Lee: It is both shocking and disturbing to hear that four San Francisco police officers are under investigation for such heinous and despicable statements. The content of these text messages displays a bias that is incompatible with the values of our City and incompatible with the ability to perform sworn duties as a police officer.

If these statements are attributable to any San Francisco Police officer, I join Police Chief Greg Suhr in seeking nothing less than termination.

San Francisco is a City that embraces and celebrates diversity. This kind of disrespectful, hateful behavior will not be tolerated. The San Francisco Police Department is one of the best in the nation, and we will continue to work to ensure that the police force represents the diversity of our City.

3:28 p.m., District Attorney George Gascon: I am deeply disturbed by these text messages. There is no place for bigotry in San Francisco. In order to ensure our criminal justice system is fair and equitable, my office is conducting an immediate assessment of every prosecution within the past ten years where these officers were involved. I have also asked the SFPD for any records they may have that will ensure the assessment is conducted thoroughly. This is a shameful incident that the public deserves to have addressed in a meaningful and expeditious manner.

4:45 p.m., Supervisors Malia Cohen and London Breed: We are disappointed and appalled at the content of the recently revealed racist and homophobic text messages exchanged by four San Francisco police officers. This type of behavior from the men and women who have sworn to protect and serve is unacceptable; racial and/or sexual prejudice will not be tolerated in any department in the City and County of San Francisco.

We are encouraged that Police Chief Greg Suhr will seek to discipline--to the fullest extent--those who were involved in this incident, and we believe the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is taking the appropriate step in examining its existing hiring and training policies. We must hold SFPD accountable for the training it provides its officers, which should include specific training on diversity, culturally competent community relations, and transparency.

This incident also highlights the greater level of diversity needed within our police force. We call on SFPD to expand its recruitment efforts to ensure our police force is reflective of the communities it serves.

We look forward to the results of the investigation and hope the individuals involved will be held fully responsible for their actions. Anything less would be unbecoming of the world-class police department we have all sought to build in San Francisco.

Anthony Brass, attorney for Michael Celis and Michael Robison:
"This is like white supremacist propaganda." [SF Examiner]
"This is not a real who done it type of case and so they're not optimistic about their future in the department." [ABC7]
"These comments were private comments from one private phone to another, intended for an audience of one person. And so the notion of this case is that we no longer have privacy." But, also "The comments themselves are a tragedy and they cannot be reconciled with the citizens of San Francisco embracing these police officers anymore," [KTVU]

Alison Berry Wilkinson, lawyer for Rain Daugherty: “He is appropriately ashamed of his impulsive and insensitive banter and accepts full responsibility.” [Bay City News]

Julia Fox, attorney for Noel Schwab: “Officer Schwab never intended to malign anyone, either generally or specifically...While the messages were in incredibly bad taste and wholly unacceptable, they were not indicative of animus against any group or class. They were intended for a specific recipient." [Bay City News]

Ian "all my friends are ethnic and gay" Furminger Speaks
Furminger, the cop at the center of the court filings, spoke with the SF Examiner about the whole mess. Here's what he had to say:

Furminger told The Examiner the messages were taken out of context and he meant no harm.

"They were personal messages that were dry humor and if I offended anybody, I'm sorry," he said, adding they were jokes between friends and nothing more. "They were not really open for public consumption. They were just personal banter and being funny, even if it sounds bad. All my friends are ethnic and gay. That's no joke — all of them."

Furminger added that he has "never in 20 years once had a racial or sexist complaint ever on duty."

The Chron reports that:

Furminger’s lawyer, Mark Goldrosen,said in court papers filed Sunday that the government’s assertions that Furminger is racist and homophobic are untrue and irrelevant.

“His close friends include many persons of different races and different sexual orientations,” Goldrosen said. “The government’s claim is based on isolated text messages allegedly written by Mr. Furminger. Its pleading does not include the full context in which many of the text messages were written.

“Were the text messages intended to be humorous, albeit offensive and insensitive, banter with friends and co-workers in a private setting, or are they true reflections of Mr. Furminger’s beliefs?”

SFPD Chief Greg Suhr Reiterates That He Wants These Guys Fired
"If these officers are found to have made these statements that will support my action that I will do everything I can to remove them from the police department, as we do not want them amongst us." [ABC7]

Bay City News reports:

Police Department spokesman Albie Esparza confirmed that four officers were reassigned last month to jobs in which they have no contact with the public during a department probe of the messages, which were sent to and from disgraced former Sgt. Ian Furminger’s personal cellphone in 2011 and 2012.

Esparza said Suhr expects the investigation to be completed within 30 days and that any results showing that an officer was biased “will be forwarded to the Police Commission with a recommendation from the chief for termination.”

“There is no place in the department for bias,” Esparza said.

The four other SFPD officers behind the racist and homophobic text messages revealed by federal prosecutors on Friday have been identified and could potentially lose their jobs.

The Chronicle reports that all four officers are at least 15-year veterans of the force and two have faced disciplinary actions during their career. Although state laws prevented Chief Greg Suhr from confirming their identities, they have been identified as Michael Robison, Noel Schwab, Rain Daugherty and Michael Celis. Their text messages were revealed in a filing by prosecutors looking to keep officer Ian Furminger behind bars while he appeals his conviction on charges of corruption.

The four officers were reassigned to non-public-contact positions last month after the FBI handed over the text messages to the SFPD, and Chief Suhr said he would, "seek nothing less than termination for conduct and character incompatible with being a police officer."

"It makes me sick to my stomach to even have these guys around."

• Michael Robison is a 23-year old veteran of the force who was in the Special Victims Unit. Three years into his career, he was accused of placing a loaded gun under the chin of a suspect and called him a racial slur. The allegation was dismissed and he faced no discipline.
• Noel Schwab is a 16-year veteran who worked at the Southern Station who made headlines when he was caught on video arresting a skateboarder and threatening him by saying, "Resist again, and I'm going to break your arm like a twig." It is not clear if he faced any discipline for the incident.
• Rain Daugherty is a 15-year veteran who is currently on personnel leave. Through his attorney, he said he is "ashamed and mortified" of the messages and accepts full responsibility.
• Michael Celis is a 16-year veteran who, in 2004, was charged with misconduct by using his badge and a $100 bribe to get into his estranged wife's hotel room. He was ordered to surrender his weapon after the incident, but bought a gun the next day and was served a suspension for that.

An attorney representing Robison and Celis admitted that the texts were "unfortunate, to say the least," adding, "Not many of us would want all of our texts published and to have our entire career judged by our worst comments."

A spokeswoman for Mayor Ed Lee said, "Such actions have no place in the Police Department."

Four San Francisco Police officers are under investigation after texts revealed conversations that included dozens of racist and homophobic remarks.

KQED reports the text messages were part of a filing by federal prosecutors on Friday related to the case of Sergeant Ian Furminger, an SFPD cop that was convicted in December for corruption. Furminger was found to have stolen money and property and kept them to himself, or use them to buy information. The filing opposes Furminger's request to remain out on bail while he appeals the verdict, and the texts are supposed to show the cop as "a virulent racist and homophobe," according to prosecutors.

Read the filing here (pdf)

The texts, which include conversations between Furminger and four other members of the SFPD, were all sent in 2011 or 2012. Snippets of the conversation are as follows:

• "We got two blacks at my boys school and they are brother and sister! There cause dad works for the school district and I am watching them like hawks."
  
• "I love calling you a f*g! Good enough?"
  
• "Do you celebrate qaunza at your school?"
  "Yeah we burn the cross on the field! Then celebrate Whitemas ... Its worth every penny to live [in Walnut Creek] away from the savages."
  
• "I cant imagine working At costco and hanging out with filthy fl*ps. hate to sound racist but that group is disgusting."
  

At least he hated sounding racist?

"If someone's biased, whether this occurs on duty or off duty, it's something we take very seriously," said Sergeant Monica Macdonald of the SFPD. According to her, the officers were all reassigned "some time ago" as the internal investigation went on. If the officers are found to violate the department's policy against biased policing, they could face losing their jobs.

According to KTVU, about half of the SFPD force is made up of people of color and less than 10 percent identify as LGBT.

There was much hubbub on the internet yesterday over some comments that Looking star Russell Tovey (who plays Kevin on the show) made in an interview with the UK Observer. Tovey, who stars in a new British series called Banished, spoke candidly about the fact that his dad wouldn't let him attend the drama school that some of his friends went to, and as a result he had to "toughen up" and became less "effeminate."

Tovey, who is gay, really kind of stepped in it with this one, and Facebook, Twitter, and the gay media the world over took him to task for what sounded like some pretty clear internalized homophobia — not to mention the implied insult to effeminate gay men, saying, "If I’d have been able to relax, prance around, sing in the street, I might be a different person now. I thank my dad for that, for not allowing me to go down that path."

Well, now, Tovey has issued an apology directly to fans via Twitter, where he has over 200,000 followers.

Arguably, Tovey was mostly just talking about his type, as an actor, and how his career has probably been helped by his masculine persona — not denigrating effeminate men everywhere, necessarily.

But reactions to the apology have been mixed, with OUT noting that it's kind of a "non-apology" and BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner saying the following:

All previous Looking coverage on SFist.

The tale of the alleged homophobic attack on Sunday from a Curry Boyzz delivery guy in the Castro may, naturally, have more sides to it. SFist has reached out to the owners of the restaurant, though we have not yet heard back. And the driver involved in the incident responded extensively in the comments in his own defense. We also have an account from the roommate who also received a delivery that night, and a further rebuttal from the original customer himself.

Here we go.

Just to recap: It was Academy Awards Sunday, Castro resident Gary R. and his partner called in a delivery order to Curry Boyzz. His roommate also, without his knowledge, made his own order to the same restaurant sometime later. Two and a half hours after the first order, it arrives. The second order shows up sometime after that, which Gary goes to retrieve for his roommate, who was in the shower. When he asked the driver what was up with the lengthy wait, the driver responded angrily that if he wanted his food quickly he shouldn't have ordered delivery. When Gary questioned that response, perhaps angrily, the driver allegedly responded, multiple times, saying "fuck you" and using the word "faggot."

Shortly after the SFist story went up, there was a response from someone claiming to be the roommate referred to in the story. He says, "How is the resto anti gay b/c an employee (who prob gets yelled at by a bunch of drunk queens all day long) had a bad day and used the 'F' word. I know many that make insensitive comments when they're having a bad day. This post is pretty ridic."

Later in the day, there were multiple comments left by a man claiming to be the driver. He does offer an apology, but he also offers this defense, and a different version of what happened:

I am the delivery driver who was involved in this incident. First and foremost I would just like to say that I am in no way homophobic what so ever nor do I have any hate, dislike, inconsideration or negative emotion at all toward gay people.

This was an incident in which the first order to that residence was late, yes we will admit that this order was late due to the volume of orders that we receive on Sunday evenings. Orders sometimes will fall behind because of the "no-distance limit" AND "no-minimum limit" that we have in place where we deliver to any part of San Francisco unless the order amount falls under a significant number (i.e $9.00 to the Marina is a bit troubling for drivers). So we can admit and do apologize to the customer for that late order.

The 2nd order however, was delivered in a reasonable amount of time. After the first order had been dropped off, I went straight back to Curry Boyzz restaurant and saw that an order for the same address was given along with 6 other orders. I took this order immediately to the residence where I was greeted by a gentleman. He did not say anything at first and I communicated to him the following, " here you go sir. sorry for the delay earlier" he then responded "you guys have the worst delivery that I have ever seen" I had turned around immediately and began to run down the stairs (I had many other deliveries I needed to rush to get them delivered. Many customers have seen me run immediately after giving the order to rush to the next one). As i was turning I told him, "I'm sorry if you don't like our restaurant ...just don't order" .. YES I UNDERSTAND that this was harsh and I know he was upset about the order which was first late but this did not leave any room for him to scream out "fuck you" at least two times. After he said "fuck you" I replied, "fuck you man", "YOU FUCKIN MAGGOT" I did not call him a "FAGGOT". I have worked at this restaurant for almost a year. I GREW UP IN SAN FRANCISCO, BORN HERE TOO. I HAVE NEVER HAD CONFRONTATION WITH ANY GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER INDIVIDUAL AT ALL. I DO NOT HAVE ANYTHING AGAINST ANYBODY - NO RACE, GENDER, SEXUALITY, RELIGION, OR BELIEF. I MYSELF, AM A MIDDLE EASTERN CITIZEN and I understand how discrimination, disrespect and hate feel. I WOULD NEVER PUT HATEFUL WORDS TOWARDS SOMEONE, ESPECIALLY AFTER I HAVE RECEIVED SIMILAR COMMENTS

Everyone is free to think, feel and BE themselves. I would never call a customer by that slur. The customer speaks as if I am some nasty, unprofessional, rude, hateful individual. I am university educated with a degree in Accounting and work at this restaurant to make extra money in the evenings. I have no intention of hurting anyone nor did I spit out that word "faggot" I know better, I was raised better and I was educated better than that. Maggot is a word that my friends and I occasionally use when "talkin shit" with each other. It is common amongst my social circle and is NEVER NEVER used in a way associated with gay people WHATSOEVER.

I DO WANT TO APOLOGIZE TO THE CUSTOMER FOR SWEARING AT HIM AND FOR DELIVERING THE FIRST ORDER LATE. IALSO WANT TO APOLOGIZE TO THE INDIVIDUAL WHICH I CALLED A MAGGOT AND SAID "FUCK YOU". This was very unprofessional of me and very wrong. My anger took over the best of me and I lashed out. At that same token I am hustling all over the city in my own vehicle taking over 30 orders in one night. ONE SHIFT OF 5 HOURS WITH 30 ORDERS. This man's attempt to try and disrupt the business of a very hard working GAY MAN is absurd and totally uncalled for. I treat everyone with respect who comes to the restaurant I am always respectful and try my best to get people's food on time, rain or shine.

I am nothing more than a hardworking young man trying to get ahead in this life and being a middle eastern citizen of this country, I TOO face my own kind of discrimination from people and I TOO understand that it is wrong, improper and disgusting. PLEASE PLEASE do not allow this individual to change the perception you have of me (those of you which are regulars and see me often). Also, please do not allow him to hurt the name nor reputation of this establishment which ALSO is ran by another very hardworking individual who I have the utmost respect for as a human being.

And, we reached back out to Gary, the customer who levied the initial accusations, who refutes that the driver used the word "maggot." [Editor's Note: Not sure I buy that one either.]

I read through some of the comments on the article and noticed a few people assumed that I was overtly hostile to the driver.

Let me be perfectly clear that I am always, always incredibly friendly and cordial with everyone in a service position. I worked at Peets Coffee for years as a barista and got a daily dose of the most awful kind of treatment. I've had people cuss at me, try to fight me, all over very petty things like being out of sugar free vanilla syrup. I would never treat someone with that level of disrespect.

I understand that his job must be very stressful, I have a stressful job as well. Working with the general public is shitty and I'm glad I no longer have a customer service job. But stress or not there is never any excuse to call someone a faggot, repeatedly. Especially given the circumstances, where he just lashed out at me for inquiring about the delay. He handled himself really poorly.

Let me be absolutely clear here that he repeatedly called me a "faggot." Multiple times as clear as day. To say that he called me a "maggot" seems like a really desperate attempt to back peddle. This isn't the time to try and walk it back. I'm due an honest apology.

We await anything further from the restaurant. Believe what you will.

Giving truth to the old saw that one "just reads Playboy for the articles," it seems like everyone's been talking about actor Gary Oldman's recent interview with the magazine, in which he made some eyebrow-raising remarks about Jewish people, gay folks, and Nancy Pelosi. And, oh yeah, it sounds like he might have been in San Francisco getting it on just as the Loma Prieta quake hit.

When asked about Mel Gibson, Oldman (who was accompanied throughout the interview by his manager and producing partner Douglas Urbanski, who also fills in for Rush Limbaugh) said "I just think political correctness is crap...We’re all fucking hypocrites. That’s what I think about it. The policeman who arrested him has never used the word nigger or that fucking Jew? I’m being brutally honest here. It’s the hypocrisy of it that drives me crazy. Or maybe I should strike that and say 'the N word' and 'the F word' though there are two F words now."

"Alec [Baldwin] calling someone an F-A-G in the street while he’s pissed off coming out of his building because they won’t leave him alone. I don’t blame him. So they persecute. Mel Gibson is in a town that’s run by Jews and he said the wrong thing because he’s actually bitten the hand that I guess has fed him—and doesn’t need to feed him anymore because he’s got enough dough. He’s like an outcast, a leper, you know? But some Jewish guy in his office somewhere hasn’t turned and said, 'That fucking kraut' or 'Fuck those Germans,' whatever it is? We all hide and try to be so politically correct. That’s what gets me. It’s just the sheer hypocrisy of everyone, that we all stand on this thing going, 'Isn’t that shocking?'"

Apparently Oldman realized that he'd also "said the wrong thing," as in a letter to the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Weisenthal Center and reported on by LAist Tuesday, the actor said, in part, that "Upon reading my comments in print—I see how insensitive they may be, and how they may indeed contribute to the furtherance of a false stereotype."

"I hope you will know that this apology is heartfelt, genuine, and that I have an enormous personal affinity for the Jewish people in general, and those specifically in my life," he wrote. (The ADL, it appears, was not impressed.)

As far as we know, however, Oldman has yet to apologize to San Francisco's own congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, for whom the actor had harsh words as he continued to criticize the concept of "political correctness."

"Well, if I called Nancy Pelosi a cunt—and I’ll go one better, a fucking useless cunt—I can’t really say that," the actor said, though that is exactly what he just did.

"But Bill Maher and Jon Stewart can, and nobody’s going to stop them from working because of it. Bill Maher could call someone a fag and get away with it. He said to Seth MacFarlane this year, 'I thought you were going to do the Oscars again. Instead they got a lesbian.' He can say something like that. Is that more or less offensive than Alec Baldwin saying to someone in the street, 'You fag'? I don’t get it."

Yeah, Gary, it kind of sounds like you don't.

Oldman continued his questionable approach to humor when the now-sober actor recounted one of his earlier-in-life "wild times," the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

"There’s an amusing story about a trip up to San Francisco fueled largely by vodka and timed perfectly to the big 1989 earthquake. We were literally at the epicenter," Oldman said.

According to Wikipedia, the quake, which occurred at 5:04 PM on Tuesday, October 17, 1989, had its epicenter at Santa Cruz County's The Forest Of Nisene Marks State Park. But let's not quibble.

The seismic event that killed 63 people, injured 3,757, and left as many as 12,000 people homeless, apparently also got Oldman off. For, as the actor says, "Afterward it was like, 'Well, was it good for you, darling? Because the earth definitely moved for me.'"

[Playboy]
[LAist]

A UC Berkeley student accused of making homophobic remarks before beating and robbing a classmate may face hate crime charges for the assault, according to a crime report posted by the schools police force.

Late Tuesday night, 19-year-old Joseph Donner and another 19-year-old UC Berkeley student were walking to the Moffit Library when Donner allegedly "made homophobic statements" to the victim and took his cell phone, UC Berkeley police say.

Donner allegedly ordered the other man to go into a nearby construction area. When the victim objected, Donner allegedly punched, kicked, and choked his classmate, who fled.

Donner, who UC Berkeley police say was acquainted with his alleged victim, was arrested at his home shortly after the incident.

According to the Daily Cal, Donner was booked in Berkeley Jail, with a bail of $130,000. He's scheduled to return to court Thursday afternoon, where he's expected to face hate crime, robbery, and aggravated assault charges.

Do you know anything about the crime? If so, you're urged to contact the UC Berkeley Police Department at 510-642-6760.

[UCPD]
[Daily Cal]
[KTVU]