Prop. R: YES YES YES!!!

The Bay Guardian is always giving us crap for not doing endorsements, but we've always believed it was more important to maintain our journalistic independence than to become political power brokers. But sometimes there are matters of such importance and urgency that even a news organization must shed its neutrality and take a stand. Gentle reader, we submit to you that Proposition R is such a call to arms, and we insist that you vote for it on Election Day.

This initiative proposes renaming the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant as the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. We can't think of an honor more befitting the country's worst president ever.

Prop. R represents San Francisco at its finest. The fact that a couple of local goofballs devoted their personal time and energy to collecting 7,168 signatures to get this on the ballot just shows the lengths people in this town will go to for a laugh. Prop. R isn't just a ballot measure — it's performance art.

The opposition to Prop. R represents the annoying segment of San Francisco's too-serious populace that just can't take a joke. Apparently some folks think it unfairly maligns the hard-working proles collecting a paycheck at the plant. Jeez, come on — how can you work at a sewage treatment plant and not have a sense of humor? Brian McConnell, one of Prop. R's proponents, actually has a good response to this in the voter information pamphlet: "It will also become ... a potential tourist attraction, and therefore an opportunity for the dedicated plant workers to educate visitors about this essential and heretofore unknown public works."

Of course, that argument didn't assuage the humorless editors at the Guardian who told their readers to vote against Prop. R: "The problem — not to be killjoys — is that sewage treatment is actually a pretty important environmental concern, and the Oceanside plant is a pretty good sewage treatment plant. It's insulting to the plant, and the people who work there, to put the name of an environmental villain on the door. Let's name something awful after Bush."

Yeah, the Guardian is right. The plant workers deserve better! How about: The Bruce B. Brugmann Sewage Plant.