The Los Angeles Times believes San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is considering exploring running for California’s governor when Arnold Schwarzenegger’s term finishes in 2010. Gov Schwarzenegger cannot run again due to his state’s term limits.
   Gavin—the fiancé of a friend of mine, and whom I had some dealings with when he was first elected (more specifically, our staffs dealt with one another)—is probably ideal from the Democratic side of things and could score a lot of votes on the coastal counties. Inland, I am less sure.
   Right now I say his profile is the highest of the likely rivals, even compared with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in Los Angeles.
   I know from many of our mutual friends that Gavin has considered running for the Governor’s office for years, though this is one of the few public articles about this ambition.
   I may not agree with all his policies but I believe he is faithful to his principles. And living in a place that has universal healthcare, I like the fact that Gavin has given that to the people of San Francisco.

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With the good news of the engagement between my friend Jennifer Siebel and Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, whom I had some contact with in his first year on the job, I have to note that the usual anti-Jen bloggers have been more silent.
   Either it’s the time of year or they have moved to other targets.
   It makes me wonder about the type who has a need to target others. I know: I deal to politicians as though they were subjects of sitcoms—but I like to think I do so with some restraint. Men such as Winston Peters or John Key have not escaped my sarcasm, but I admit it is done with what I see as a failure for them to grasp their jobs. In short, other than the ridiculous hours at Parliament, I think I could do better. I believe I have the intelligence to. And if they wanted to dignify me with a response to justify their positions, I will welcome it—not that they would.
   When it comes to someone like Jen, who defended herself on a blog and through that attracted more negative comments, I question: why? Here is someone who is merely stating her opinion, and that opinion is then rubbished by people who are even further away from the subject than she is—yet those people all proclaim themselves experts.
   What we have is a generation that has to lash out because of envy. They wonder why they are not as loved as others, they dislike being corrected by the real facts, and express their disdain by pretending to be more important than the next person.
   These are the people who, with their cellphones, speak loudly to assure others of their self-importance, so that we all know what their business is. And giggle to ourselves about their optimistic view of their trivialities.
   And when it comes to a civil discourse, which one assumes one should be able to have in a medium where opinion-sharing is one of its raisons d’être, they no longer know how to have one. There used to be a thing called netiquette, which I thought extended to the blogosphere.
   I wonder if we can restore our values this year. I’d certainly like a 2008 where I didn’t have to quote John Gabriel’s Greater Internet F***wad Theory again.

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Last month, a who-cares-but-the-lowest-common-denominator story saw my friend Jennifer Siebel’s Google references go from the five figures to half a million. It is interesting to watch that despite it being Sunday, Laural Barrett has gone from 30-odd to 61. I expect her to crack the 1,000 mark in a very short space of time.
   This century, Google references seem to determine the celebrity factor, with the added advantage of being global.

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070323 Letter from New Zealand no 6

[Cross-posted] I thought it was the fifth when I made the recording, but it’s actually the sixth. This is a long recording: 15 minutes long, but I think it is more enjoyable than a few of my earlier ones. Click at the left icon to stream.

0.00 Introduction
0.06 My blog-hating phase
0.53 SFist attacks Jennifer Siebel: America does not want transparency
2.40 Earlier today on Good Morning: what if your partner is gay?
4.24 Helen Clark goes to Washington
6.39 The free-trade agreement with the US
7.08 Helen Clark must know that our economy is shaky and visits Arlington National Cemetery
7.57 Irish company outsources editing and layout of its New Zealand publications
8.51 I buy Pam’s orange juice and not the foreign stuff
9.11 Marc Ellis is not the quintessential Kiwi bloke
10.04 Miss Universe New Zealand
10.25 Running into Lorraine Downes: her tips on who should win Miss New Zealand
12.00 Text and vote for Miss Universe New Zealand
14.24 Sponsors of Miss Universe New Zealand

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Photographed by Charles Thompson

It may be best to fight ignorance with kindness: I have arranged for Jennifer Siebel’s 2005 article on conservation to be put up at Lucire’s online edition. They may discover the real Jen through that: it’s in her words.
   She is not the only person who ran into trouble defending the one she loves through a blog. It has happened to the best of us, though I wasn’t dating a mayor. But whatever the case, I expect to speak freely. I have done in my interviews. It is 2007, something that Jennifer’s (and my) critics do not seem to realize when we talk about our love lives. Freedom of speech, holding an opinion, treating blogs as democratic media—surely San Francisco, the capital of Googleland, Liberalia and American progressiveness, understands this?
   Or does the city really prefer sinking in standing and becoming ’Frisco again?

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Just because I’ve been defending my friend Jen on the SFist blog, I have been accused of working for her boyfriend’s office and now, someone tells me on my main blog that I have spelt defence wrong (the writer thinks it is defense) and, therefore, I must have gone to Stanford University. Can’t quite see the logic there.
   Lesson: when you don’t have a decent argument in return, since mine has still not been countered much in substance, then attack the person on something else that’s personal and off-topic. Clever. Not.
   It’s just too easy to strike back, but it would be like Einstein battling the third-grade science prize winner. Cripes, I wish dumbasses would just keep their mouths shut, go back to picking their noses, watch Survivor and wish that they could be Richard Hatch. Or whatever idiots do.
   And haven’t some folks in California, supposedly a cosmopolitan, progressive state, ever heard of English English—you know, the type used by a billion people in India, 60 million in the UK, and God knows how many in Her Majesty’s former colonies? This is not the first time I have had these so-called “educated” Americans have a go at us. No one in the movie theatre during Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery stood up and accused the American studio of spelling Ministry of Defence with an s. We simply know that there are 300 million people who do, and accept that as a minority usage. America is about celebrating those differences, not slamming someone who uses English in a different way. Ninety-nine point nine per cent of Americans get it (percentage evidently lower on the coasts).
   I’d hate to think how the anti-Jen camp deals with English speakers who have a different accent. God help the ignoramuses.

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[Cross-posted] I know my friend Jennifer Siebel has attracted some negative press over some comments in the San Francisco media. To my colleagues in the media: give over. So, someone can’t express an opinion any more, just because she’s dating the Mayor? Did she lie, based on what she knew? No. Is she doing the right thing by standing by her boyfriend? Yes. I know Jennifer Siebel to be a quality gal, and in the 21st century, even if the San Francisco media is surprised by this, actresses are allowed to go on to the internet and state what is on their minds.
   I don’t know the other parties to this, but for a spokesman on the other side to say that they were ‘mortified’ by Jen’s statements is just one of those bleeding-heart exaggerations that we non-Americans laugh at. If you were embroiled in an affair, then I doubt an opinion that you will have heard countless times, and have come to expect from the Mayor’s side, is even surprising.
   Sounds to me like Jen’s not the one wanting to score points here, just a publicist wanting to look like he is doing something worthwhile. What surprises me is how he has suckered some journos into covering it.

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