San Francisco Diary--Journal Of An Exile

The fog continues to creep in on little cat feet and cable cars still climb halfway to the stars. I'm going through one of my crazy optimism phases right now, and it helps when I look out my window, see the sun shining brilliantly on the Golden Gate, the ships and sailboats sailing on the Bay, the Marin Headlands and Sausalito on the other side of the water, and am reminded that in many ways, San Francisco must still be one of the most beautiful cities on earth. Don't worry. I'll come to my senses soon.

NOTE: This may be a small contributor to my optimism. San Francisco just scored the highest test results in the state for urban school districts. I'm not sure that isn't a little like being named the handsomest warthog in the herd, but I'll take what I can get. The downside is the worst ethnic achievement disparities also exist in The City. The local African-American students continue to post among the worst scores in the state, yet the scores of all other groups are rising, some substantially. This could be due in part to The City's ongoing public image of loving diversity while underneath systematically zoning out and pricing out the African-American parts of town.

When I arrived in The City for the first time in 1962, The City had a Black population of about 12.5%. Today, that number has decreased to less than 9%. The City has exhibited the 60s description of "benign neglect." It would never actively pursue driving the Black population out of town, but despite some cosmetic show for the cameras, the Bayview, Hunters Point, Western Addition and Tenderloin districts have been allowed to deteriorate. Much like the Fillmore District, the decrepit buildings, high crime rate and substandard conditions have made portions of The City nearly uninhabitable. Then come the developers, with plenty of money to grease the skids at City Hall, and propose "urban renewal." I remember that when I was living in New York City, the locals referred to urban renewal as "slum relocation." But at least New Yorkers moved their blighted areas to other parts of the city.

Here, we move our lower working-class neighborhoods across the Bay to Oakland. Today, the formerly working-class Black Fillmore District is yuppie central, complete with a latte shop on every corner and expensive condos lining every street. City Hall is in the process of approving the final stages of a massive redevelopment project in the Bayview/Hunters Point area which will include expensive office buildings, expensive "green" light industry, expensive shops, expensive lofts, expensive condos, and pretty much expensive everything. This will all complement the current Giants Stadium project that was put in place a few years back. That project already displaced a large part of the African-American population of The City. So why would anyone expect any help from City Hall for the failing schools in those areas? I guess we have to ask the diversity-merchants in government about that.

The state hasn't done much better. Though all scores went up across all ethnic lines, the gap between White and Asian students and their Black and Hispanic counterparts remains huge. While 71% of state Whites and Asians scored nearly 72% proficiency in math and English, only 37% of Black and Hispanics showed sufficient proficiency for their grade level. Once again, state "educators" blame underfunding, overcrowding and a lack of qualified teachers in the minority areas. Perhaps it could actually be attributed to lax enforcement of minimal standards and discipline, high crime and drug statistics, lack of motivation by the local parents, peer-pressure, and constant adherence to policies of bilingualism and "creative" learning.

Those who blame everyone except the people directly involved forget to point out that under California's crazy school financing scheme, property taxes are collected locally, then forwarded to Sacramento for redistribution to the school districts with the "greatest needs." For that reason, the dangerous and bottom-scoring schools in South Central Los Angeles and East Oakland receive nine times as much per student from the state as top-scoring (and top taxpaying) districts such as Eastern Ventura County, Beverly Hills and San Marino. Another example in microcosm of how redistribution of wealth by the government improves nothing and damages a great deal.

NOTE: One down, three or four hundred to go: The City proudly announced, and the Chronicle proudly reported that the sinkhole on Elgin Park, which was so big that it ate automobile suspensions for lunch, has finally been filled in--permanently. For months, The City would wait until it got another complaint, send out a City Crew to throw some rocks and asphalt into the hole, and cover it over. It sometimes took as long as week and a half for another complaint to arrive on a City bureaucrat's desk. Gosh, until now, it had never occurred to any of the engineering geniuses at City Hall that this might be more than a simple asphalt problem. The clue should have been that every time the hole reappeared to nosh on somebody's automobile wheels and springs, the hole really smelled bad. So they finally decided to investigate a little, shall we say, deeper. Sure enough, a collapsed sewer line was causing the problem. Now if they can just figure out that the smelly hole that reappears regularly on the O'Farrell Street side of Macy's (and has for about fifteen years) may be caused by the same problem, we'll be on our way.

NOTE: Not all town hall meetings on Obamacare are hotbeds of demagoguery and Republican Party plants. Some are very civilized. Take the meeting across the Bay in the City of Alameda, please. Throngs of ageing hippies and smiling liberals driving BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes showed up to swoon over the government's plan to take over everyone's lives. Regular SF Gate contributor Gloria Nieto (who describes herself as a "social activist looking for a job") rhapsodizes over the glorious scene: "What was evident throughout the hours at Alameda City Hall was the desire for people to talk to each [other?]. Not to yell or be yelled at, no screaming matches with neither person listening to each other, there was a desire to talk, be heard and listen. People who did not agree with each other were still talking to each other for the most part." I believe she's speaking of those who want nationalized health care today, and those who will wait until next week.

Never mind that in an earlier paragraph, Nieto had said that "The vast majority of the crowd was there in support of health care reform, but one man jumped up on the stairs . . . and started yelling his position against health care reform . . . and he was in turn shouted at by others there, some a little too close for comfort." I may be a little thick, but don't those sound like two contradictory statements?

But it's her closing line that gives me the opportunity to take up the gauntlet thrown down by Andrew Price in his post yesterday entitled "Conservatives--Beware the Crazies." Nieto concludes her article with "So congratulations, citizens, you proved this could be a debate without holsters and guns, threats or implied violence." How long are we conservatives going to tolerate our crazy fringe handing liberals the rope to hang us with? Some damned fool shows up at a town hall meeting with a loaded rifle, preparing to protest Obamacare. What?! So the right-wing nutroots jump on the Internet and declare "the Second Amendment gives him the right to keep and bear arms." Yeah, just like the First Amendment gives you the right to shout fire in a crowded theater.

Haven't our fringe friends ever heard the expression "just because you can do a thing, that doesn't mean you should do it. I am a Second Amendment purist (which is not the same as a Second Amendment absolutist). Whether under any interpretation of the Second Amendment he had a right to carry a loaded rifle into a public meeting is totally irrelevant. Even if he had a concealed weapons permit and was packing under his clothing, this would not have been particularly noteworthy or newsworthy. But a loaded rifle? It may be legal (or it may not be), but it was sure as hell provocative and threatening. He claims he was merely exercising his rights as a free citizen to attend a public meeting. Isn't that the same argument the New Black Panthers used for intimidating voters at the polls in Philadelphia?

Now I fondly cling to my Bible and my .357 Colt Trooper V Magnum, but I reserve my Bible for home use and for taking to church, and my .357 for home defense and for taking to the gun range. I don't take either to public meetings and wave them at people just so they'll know I have the right to do so. Think, people! It was inevitable that this idiot would get nationwide attention from the MSM. The Obamacrats have been trying to paint us as dangerous lunatics, and this moron handed them the prize evidence they were looking for. This battle is tough enough without encouraging fools to prove the left's point. So if there's a Second Amendment Rally in your neck of the woods--take your gun. And if there's a town hall meeting to discuss and protest Obamacare--leave your gun at home and take your brain.

NOTE: A poll this week from the Gallup Organization showed that we're on the upswing on the conservative side (if we don't scare hell out of the undecideds with our loaded rifles). Gallup is a polling organization with ties to the Democratic Party, and tends to use unfairly heavy sampling from Democrat districts. Nevertheless, the results are both pleasing and astounding. Self-identified conservatives have for some time out-polled self-identified liberals nationwide. But for the very first time since polling started using the liberal/conservative dichotomy, self-identified conservatives outnumber liberals in every single state. Yep--all fifty! I'm sure it will come as no surprise that the one jurisdiction which remains strongly liberal is the one the Democrats wnat to treat as a state for electoral purposes--the District of Columbia. In Gallup's most recent poll, those who described themselves as conservative (31%) or very conservative (9%) reached a very satisfying 40% grand total. Those who described themselves as very liberal (5%) or simply liberal (16%) reached a less-than-grand total of 21%.

This means the Republican message must be conservative. It must be clear. It must be strong. It must be proud. It must be coherent. It must be unified. And most of all, it must point out that Democrats who run to the right of Republicans before elections almost invariably make a sharp left turn after the election. It must also point out privately, but sternly, that any Republican who runs to the left of a Democrat will not receive any money or moral support from the Party. Arlen Specter got the message, and left the Party. We have an amazing opportunity in 2010 and 2012 if we don't muck it up with extremism, namby-pamby RINOism, weak messages, conflicting messages, fake bipartisanship, disorganization and candidates who don't know which side their bread is buttered on.

NOTE: For my regular Diary readers, I must sadly announce that Mark Morford, enfant terrible of the loony left, must either be feeling ill or has run out of some of his medication. During the past week, the very worst he has done is to take a couple of half-hearted jabs at Sarah Palin and religious extremists. I pray for his speedy recovery or quick connection to a dealer, since I depend on his book-length sentences to fill in my nutcase collection every week.