The San Francisco Citizen

Gavin Newsom, America’s “most stylin’” mayor, has deservedly gotten lots of national attention for leading the charge against the bottled water industry. Take a look here at a scene from last month in San Francisco - he was somewhere inside this scrum of media and tap water fans. He’s got a tiger by the tail with this popular issue, much to the chagrin of industry giants Coca Cola, Pepsi, and Nestle.

But what started this campaign? It was a conversation a while back the mayor had about his possession of some bottles of Fiji Water. Somebody pointed out a few things about the pros and cons (mostly the cons) of shipping drinking water from the South Pacific to San Francisco. The result is that he is an international leader on this issue.

Fair enough. But now it appears that Fiji Water is leading the campaign FOR bottle water. They’re attacking the anti-bottled water movement at an RSS 2.0-enabled website called FijiGreen. (They’ve just boosted the ad budget so you might be hearing more from them soon.)

First of all: FijiGreen!?! WTF? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Having dispensed with that, check out this blog entry written by ”Fiji Green Gal” where she attempts to debunk the “food miles” myth. As you can see, she’s got her hands full when she doggedly replies to commenters.

You’re on your own after that. It’s up to you to make your own decision about how some people in the Republic of the Fiji Islands might benefit from Fiji Water bottling, about how some chefs just seem to love the stuff, about how they have an SVP working on these issues, etc. You might end up with a nuanced view or you might get so interested you’ll take the TreeHugger Survey.

Add it all up and see how all this compares with turning on the faucet when you’re thirsty or bottling your own tap water for those times when you’re on the go.  

Seen on the streets of San Francisco - a young couple on a straight-out-of-Bolongna Ducati motorcycle. Well, that’s O.K., but check out the passenger’s choice of fashionable footwear. Her bare foot seems uncomfortably close to what could be a hot exhaust pipe.

Fashion has its place on motorbikes of course, but this might be going too far.  

Zoom zoom.

The National Day of Silence brings attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools. Hundreds of thousands of students will come together to encourage schools and classmates to address the problem of anti-LGBT behavior.

San Francisco high school counselor Ian Enriquez notes that the Day of Silence isn’t exactly a visual event so he wants people to dress up in pink tomorrow. It seems lots of people are getting on board, like Senator Carole Migden for one:

“I’m tickled pink that colors like lavender and pink are so widely used to promote awareness about our movement, and for issues like breast cancer and domestic violence. I will proudly wear my pink on Friday and hope that San Francisco is awash in pink in honor of Lawrence King and the countless other young people who are bullied and threatened in our schools.”

Senator Migden shows how it’s done:

But how about the Mayor of San Francisco?

Alex Randolph, [Mayor Gavin] Newsom’s liaison to the LGBT community and District 8, said he’ll wear pink Friday and is encouraging others at City Hall to join him. He said Newsom supports the idea behind Enriquez’s efforts, but he isn’t sure if the mayor will be wearing pink.

Let’s count him in as a “maybe.” 

It’s not necessary to for parents to keep their kids home from school or for school administrators to send students home from school, we all should just get on out there and think pink tomorrow. Why not?