Dog Bites

John Palmer has only lived here for four years, but added that he'd lived eight years in the Bay Area; we are in a quandary over how many San Franciscan Points to award him. Demian Barrett, however, has resided in San Francisco only a shameful three years, while Deputy Public Defender Matt Gonzalez did not even say how long he's lived here, though, since he did invite us to his campaign kickoff party, we will give him the benefit of the doubt.

Meanwhile, Juanita Owens -- a Willie Brown candidate, and a former Police Commission and school board member -- didn't reveal how long she'd lived here either, but did say she'd been an "advocate" in San Francisco for 25 years. More controversially, she said she believes in safe streets, and is opposed to fiscal mismanagement at City Hall. Finally, there was Richard Hongisto, who, considering he was elected for a third supervisorial term back in 1986 and was sheriff in the '70s, may in fact outrank everyone else in terms of overall San Franciscan-ness.

Dog Bites hopes the voter's handbook will take steps to clarify these points by listing the candidates' length of San Francisco residency along with their professions; quite frankly, we don't see how anyone can make an educated decision without this information.

When the Gap Sneezes ...

By now the story of the Gap Inc.'s poor recent showing has been reported everywhere. Dog Bites feels a little sadness mixed with our Schadenfreude; it's less fun to kick a corporation when it's down.

But what the heck -- we'll do it anyway. After all, San Francisco now has the world's largest Banana Republic store -- scarcely a distinction of which we may be proud, we think, but there you are -- and it seems as bustling as ever, although we can't be totally sure of this, because there are so many different levels and wings and staircases to the place that whenever we venture into it, we get lost and wind up wandering in circles until we have to start cutting small surreptitious blazes into the Stretch Oxford Button Down table and the Traveler Rib Sock display in order to find our way out, panicky and dehydrated, so we may actually be seeing the same 20 customers over and over.

Anyway, despite difficulties at Old Navy and the Gap, Gap Inc.'s higher-end division soldiers on. However, we were chilled to the very marrow to read this sentence in Victoria Colliver's story in the Examiner: "[Gap CEO Mickey] Drexler said [Banana Republic] is going well, but he admitted that women have had trouble fitting the company's pants, and that prices have been too high." Fitting the pants! Please, don't let this mean they're about to make the butts even bigger. It's just not right. It only encourages people.

In fact, in the interests of the common good, Dog Bites sends this urgent message to Drexler: We are available for design consultation. Don't do anything without us.