Kurt Rogers at the Chronicle snapped this photo of Ed Jew's name getting the Girl, Interrupted treatment with a razorblade today. Also, the locks on the door were changed. Oh man. Ouch. Wow. That makes us almost feel bad for the guy. Still, great shot, Kurt! Also, for your perusal, go here (.pdf) for the big ol' official misconduct charges, if the mood should strike.......

Animal hoarding's always been a lurid fascination of ours, along with people who have sextuplets, and Chris Daly. So have you been following this story about the guy who had over 1000 rats in his house? The man, Robert Dier, had initially tried to separated them by sex in three of the ten cages in his house, but soon became "overwhelmed" (the euphemism of choice for hoarders, according to the episodes of Animal Cops we watch). Interestingly/entertainingly, he lives in Petaluma, which is where Marilyn Barletta, the famous 200+ cat hoarder, is from too. (Note to self: think about opening a Petco in Petaluma.) The man also had seven cats in his house. When asked why the cats didn't eat the rats, the Animal Services manager speculated, "Maybe it was like working in a deli. After a while, you get tired of deli food.") Now, rat fans are outraged that the Petaluma animal shelter euthanized over 1000 of the rats. The collectors say they were trying to mobilize people to adopt them. The animal shelter said in its defense that many of the rats were feral, severely sick (some missing eyeballs, and others with teeth growing into their opposite jaws), and not really adoptable. Nine rats have been adopted, 30 have been sent to LA, 4 are in Rohnert Park, and 150 of the rats are still up for adoption. The shelter says it's carefully screening people, ever since last year when they discovered that someone who'd adopted a rabbit from them was a hoarder as well. (Note to self: That Petco in Petaluma would do great). The final note in this story? The rat hoarder is a convicted armed robber whose home was used as a hideout in the 60s by people trying to kidnap Frank Sinatra Jr., and as the animal shelter manager said:

He's an intelligent man to talk to, but he smells like rat urine. He told me that when he had only 100 of them, he'd let them sleep with him in his bed. They'd get all in his shorts and stuff. And you can't potty train them, so you know they were urinating and defecating in there.

Last Friday, a performance art piece went bad -- and we don't just mean because it failed to critically explore the (mis)/dissemination of the capitalist hegemony: Novato performance artist Joe Canada promised to give $10 away to every homeless person who met him on the plaza in the Civic Center at 4 p.m. in the afternoon on Friday. A similar giveaway on Wednesday and Thursday had gone without incident, and buzz was no doubt building among the community. First of all, Canada was an hour late, and the 500 people in attendance, some of whom had been waiting since noon, were starting to grow a little discontent. Canada then showed up at 5, gave a bunch of rambling speeches about art, religion, and politics, and then after an hour passed, he fled the scene, jumped in his van, and drove away, without giving the attendees the $10 he'd promised. Dude! One attendee said he knew there was going to be trouble as the wind picked up and the sun started to set. "I knew when it got darker, there was less of a chance that the money would come," said attendee Rodney Brown. As Canada drove away, the crowd began yelling and cursing, and the remainder of Canada's staff tried desperately to calm folks down. As one man, Brian Boykin, put it, "This is messed up. That whole time we sat listening to him, thinking we would get money -- and then nothing." You know, that's a great NEA grant proposal, though: "I am requesting $10,000 to fund my project, which will be to promise to give money away to the homeless and then not do it." You know the Bush administration would be all over that! ...

After a selection process that left many of the participants wondering if the voting was being done completely objectively, San Francisco has been crowned the next American Id...oh, wait, never mind. We just got that stem cells institute thing. The Chron's Kurt Rogers was blessedly there when Gavin did that cool-guy hand punch thing with Nathan Nayman, the executive director of JOBS, in celebration. This might be our new so best. How you like......