What's outside Pleasantville?

A month's worth of news from that town with the functioning press:

• Assistant city manager Emily Harrison is officially not a very nice person.
  "Harrison once flicked water in the face of an employee, 'engage(d) in loud and disruptive behaviors throughout the day' and taunted Republicans, fundamentalists and creationists, the documents state."

That's right, Palo Alto employs creationists. Posters on the Weekly's message boards are upset the city let Harrison's behavior go on so long, and some appear to be blaming the gay agenda, though it's hard to tell because they can't seem to figure out how to get their thoughts past the moderators.

• The Stanford Marguerite shuttle is named after a horse that used to pull a trolley from campus to Palo Alto. In related news, Weekly editor Jay Thorwaldson is really old.

• If you don't feel like reading Les Miserables, Sue Dremman's series on the Palo Alto family deported after decades in the community is a good approximation of it, except that nobody from La Migra kills themself in the real-life version. The story elicited a shock of recognition from Palo Alto residents of the harsh realities of immigration policy. Los Altos residents, meanwhile, were unaffacted by pet food contamination.