You Can All G -- to H --

There was a story this week from San Francisco about a visiting minivan family who had a run-in with Critical Mass, which is a monthly gathering of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of SF cycling activists who basically take over whatever road they happen to be riding on, running red lights and stop signs en masse, etc. (Link via Obscurestore.)

I'm not going to opine about the actual incident, since it involves the usual opposing "their fault/no, their fault" viewpoints -- the cyclist side says the minivan tried to run a biker down and take off, and the minivan side says it started with accidental contact followed by a biker rampage.

I do note the following, though, in a quote from the article -- I didn't realize the San Francisco Chronicle's style guide for profanity in quotes involves partially obscuring some of the naughty bits with a space and a double dash (--) [oddly masked bad words ahead]:

"I f -- hate Critical Mass,'' said Mishka Generic, 33, a bike messenger who lives in Oakland. "They give everybody who rides a bike a bad name. It's not that all of them are bad, it's just that when you put that number of people together, you get some -- holes."

It amuses me that the language is abundantly clear, despite the fact that they just use the double dash to remove part of the swearing, instead of the tried and true "[expletive deleted]", or masking it with the first letter, followed by dashes or stars (where "darn you to heck" would be "d*** you to h***").

Also, the quotee's last name is Generic, which I suspect was not her birth name.

Other than that, I agree with her sentiment, in that when you put any number of people together (in any type of gathering, including online), you're bound to get some, er, b -- a -- to spoil the bunch.

(For a more positive story from Obscurestore, check out the boss who gave his star employee a '65 Mustang, though if you want to keep it positive, don't go through the rest of the items on the main page.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: san francisco chronicle, critical mass, obscurestore, masked profanity