Actual help

I could find little to make fun of in this SF Chronicle piece on a monthly one-stop service center for the homeless and the needy in San Francisco. There are a number of impressive details, but what struck me was the image (in words) of SF Mayor Gavin Newsom washing beggars' feet -- and the fact that he apparently allowed no pictures of same to be taken. I found no arguments on BeyondChron, usually an anti-Newsom organ, or on the anarchist-friendly SF Indymedia.org site. Supervisor Chris Daly, whose aide is quoted in the story, is said to be critical of Newsom's policies on the homeless, and sure enough, I found several critical entries on Daly's blog. The most recent entry gives a lot of space to a speech by some guy whom I don't know and have never heard of, but who basically sounds like a two-bit demagogue. Whose feet has Daly washed lately?

The Chronicle's lionization of Newsom was tempered somewhat by another article about a study in which survey respondents said SF is going downhill.