"#GeziGardens, occupied permaculture farm in SF is being raided by 100's of riot cops right now!" read the Gezi Gardens Twitter at about 2am last night.

The site, formerly known as Hayes Valley Farm, has been occupied since June 1 by a group calling themselves "Free the Land" or "Liberate the Land" after Hayes Valley Farm moved out quietly on May 31, as part of a conditional use deal with the city that allowed the farm to operate until the city-owned site is developed into condos (including 40 units for low-income residents).  

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She's been slinging her steamy goodness to famished drunkards out of a trash bag in a cooler strapped to a wagon for years with no problem (other than some grumbles about a recent, tiny price hike). But it looks like the the health department -- or threat of the health department -- may have finally caught up with the beloved Tamale Lady, aka Virginia Ramos.

Today, SF's Internet melted with news that she had been asked to not sell her tamales at Zeitgeist. That bar posted a message to its Facebook:

We are sad to announce that the Tamale Lady may no longer sell her tamales at Zeitgeist. This is forced on us by SF city codes and regulations.

The SF Department of Public Health has been making efforts recently to reign in unlicensed food vendors, which may have sparked the Zeitgeist reaction -- although the origins of the Zeitgeist decision remain hazy.

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(Updated below with a response from Manning supporters, who held a press conference yesterday outside Pride HQ and drew attention to the Pride board's own violations of its rules.)

At a feisty community meeting last week, the SF Pride board had set June 7 as a deadline for reconsidering its controversial decision to strip Bradley Manning of his grand marshalship. Late in the day today, Pride issued a statement saying that the community proposals to reinstate Manning had failed to garner consensus majority within the board.

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Hey, remember Code Pink during the Bush years?  "Why can't those old, shriveled, nagging dyke hags stop screaming about Iraq and stuff," seemed to be the reaction of most of America and the media.

Meanwhile, even many of us wholly sympathetic to their message cringed a bit in our Internet-ringside seats as the valiant fuschia-clad ladies yelled, and yelled, and yelled. Even at Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi! (Clutch pearls.) And hey, they're still doing it. Even at Obama! (Clutch pearls tighter.)

Weren't they hurting our cause with all this rudeness? Why could they just sit down at their Dell Gateway computers, dial up AOL, and write a firmly worded comment on the New York Times site like the rest of us. What about civility? WHO WILL THINK OF THE CIVILITY?

Now, of course, with the distance of time and the realization of just how awful that political period was still dawning, it's like, "Thank fucking god someone was doing something real, however quixotic."

And yet, the sorry clutching of pearls in the face of female resistance continues. Why can't women just pipe down about stuff? Especially those whiny ol' man-hater ones.

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