steve@sfbg.com

President Barack Obama is fond of reciting the Martin Luther King Jr. quote, "The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice." On the issue of marriage equality, that arc looks more like a zig-zagging path that began when San Francisco unilaterally began issuing marriage license to same-sex couples just before Valentines Day in 2004 and ending — its backers hope — in June 2013 with the US Supreme Court affirming the basic constitutional right of everyone to marry whomever they want and to have those marriages treated equally under the law.Read more »

The National Rifle Association's bid to kill two San Francisco gun control ordinances — which a federal judge initially rejected last week, although that legal process continues — highlights differing views on the issue in the violence-plagued Bayview, where two prominent activists have opposing viewpoints.

One ordinance requires guns in the home to be locked up when not on the owner's person and the second bans the sale of fragmenting and expanding bullets, affecting only the city's sole gun store: High Bridge Arms, in the Mission district.Read more »

LATIN DISH Whenever politicians start talking immigration reform it always reminds me of the story—perhaps chisme—about that guy, who, you know, burned his neighbor's house down, and then when the neighbors jumped over the fence to escape the fire, he complained bitterly, just bitterly, that they were trampling his rose garden.

It's the same with the pejoratives "illegal alien," or in a kinder mood "undocumented worker." Both of these terms, like the phrase "immigration reform," are tricks with words to hide the true status of this unique community.Read more »

news@sfbg.com

So much for the holiday spirit.

In a win for the NIMBY neighbors of the Haight neighborhood, the Haight Ashbury Recycling Center was gifted with its final eviction notice, ordering it out on the street by the day this story goes to print, Dec. 5.

But those who hoped this eviction would rid the neighborhood of poor people recycling bottles and cans may be disappointed — and so might local small businesses that could face some unintended consequences of the move.Read more »

news@sfbg.com

Dan Rosen, the co-founder of Solar Mosaic, told us there was an ironic note to the devastation that Hurricane Sandy recently brought to New York City. The same power grid that helps create such fierce hurricanes through the burning of fossil fuels was unable to distribute power to thousands of homes, in mostly low-income neighborhoods, for weeks in the wake of storm.Read more »

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to correct a statement from Sup. Scott Wiener about affordable housing.

tredmond@sfbg.com

Sup. Scott Wiener is proposing a dramatic overhaul of the city's environmental review process that would limit the ability of citizen activists to appeal projects and could ease the path for major developments.Read more »

steve@sfbg.com

No standard defensive strategy is likely to stop the Golden State Warriors, Mayor Ed Lee, and their huge team of partners and employees from dominating the game of approving construction of a new basketball and concert arena on San Francisco's central waterfront. That became clear on Nov. 14, as the political operation overcame fire, darkness, and neighborhood-based opposition for the first big score.Read more »

news@sfbg.com

On Nov. 2, a half-hour before the 6am grand re-opening of the newly remodeled Walmart store in Richmond, six workers on the late-night shift donned matching lime-green T-shirts and staged a sit-in next to the Customer Service desk.

"We're tired of mistreatment at work," explained Walmart worker Mario Hammod, "of not being treated with dignity and respect."

Outside, a small group of union members, clergy, and other supporters stood in the dark, holding a huge banner reading "Walmart on strike: End the retaliation."Read more »

CASH FOR TRASH

Recology, the city's garbage monopoly, has a problem: It charges residential customers only for the black cans full of unrecyclable material headed for the landfill -- but thanks to city policy and environmental consciousness, there's less and less traditional trash out there. Ultimately, the company wants to get rid of the big black cans altogether.Read more »

steve@sfbg.com, tredmond@sfbg.com

The way the San Francisco Chronicle pundits put it, Mayor Ed Lee was the clear winner in a grand San Francisco election. "All his measures on the ballot won hands down," noted Willie Brown, the high-paid lawyer and political operative who also functions as a Chron columnist. "It was a great day for Ed Lee," proclaimed columnist C.W. Nevius.

Well, not really.Read more »