San Francisco Diary--Journal Of An Exile

The San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority (MUNI) is in deep financial distress. But San Francisco is "The City That Knows How." As a result of MUNI's latest belt-tightening measure, raccoons will no longer be allowed to ride the buses for free. Raccoons will now be charged the same rate as seniors and students. The picture shows indignant raccoons complaining to the bus driver who has just given them the bad news.

It all seems a bit unfair. The raccoons never complain about the buses showing up late, and don't object to the smell of the non-paying homeless people asleep on the benches. When the gang-bangers decide to have a turf war on one of the buses, the raccoons just hide under the seats until it's all over, and never say a discouraging word about MUNI. I intend to attend the next MUNI budget meeting as a representative of the Rights for Raccoons lobby. This is clearly unfair discrimination.

Meanwhile, MUNI will be meeting on March 30 to impose another round of service cuts and fare increases, and they're doing it by side-stepping the public and the state environmental review requirements by extending the "state of emergency" past the current June 30 expiration date. This past Friday, MUNI officials approved a plan to close the $12.1 million deficit for the remainder of this year by making deep service cuts and increasing the cost for those purchasing monthly express bus and cable car passes. The plan also includes nearly doubling the cost of senior and disabled monthly passes. And who is going to be expected to suffer the brunt of these draconian measures? Innocent raccoons.

NOTE: And speaking of MUNI, at least one member of the Board of Supervisors did not get his job immediately after being released from the lunatic asylum as "cured." Supervisor Sean Elsbernd has proposed a hugely popular city charter amendment to end the guarantee that MUNI drivers be the second-best paid drivers in the nation. Former mayor and notorious prior speaker of the California Assembly, Willie Brown, says "it's a slam-dunk win" for Elsbernd. He goes on to say "there is no way labor can explain why such a pay guarantee should be in the city charter, especially in these lean times. The best the drivers could do would be to put their own 'reform' initiative on the ballot and hope no one reads the fine print." As Brown says, everyone running for supervisor will have to choose a side, something most will be loath to do. The move opens the door for similar action on police and firefighter pay and pensions, particularly for the middle managers who earn as much as most big city mayors. Brown grudgingly declares "when it comes to crafty politics, Elsbernd goes to the front of the class."

NOTE: Well, the other shoe just dropped. On Tuesday, former governor and current attorney general Jerry Brown finally formally announced that he's running for governor. This will be a third-term run for Brown. Although California has a two-term limitation, Brown is exempt since he left the office before the term limitation was imposed. If he wins, he will now have the distinction of being the youngest elected governor in California, and the oldest elected governor in California history. It will also likely be the most expensive gubernatorial election in American history. He already has a $13 million war chest, and will be running against one of the two Republican gazillionaires who come from Silicon Valley.

Brown, whom Californians over the age of 45 remember as "Governor Moonbeam," has one of the longest and most visible political careers in California history. He has been the California secretary of state, the mayor of Oakland, the state attorney general, and a three-time Democrat competitor for president of the United States. That high recognition factor certainly helps him, particularly since the majority of California voters today aren't old enough to remember his first two terms. But there are plenty of us old folks around to make sure they get a good look at his political past.

More recently, the hand-picked successor and close personal friend of Brown's, Gray Davis, was recalled for his crazed spending and social welfare policies. How badly that might hurt Brown remains to be seen, since Davis was replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger who quickly turned left and out-spent Davis while coming up with schemes even crazier than those of Davis or Brown. There's no incumbent to throw out, so the strong anti-incumbent mood of the country and the state may not have the effect it would if he were an incumbent. And his party is in power in the legislature, but not in the executive mansion.

Current polls show Brown and Republican Meg Whitman running neck and neck. But that could change overnight. Whitman has spent megabucks attacking her competitor, Jerry Poizner (who is the current state insurance commissioner and the only Republican holding statewide office). Whitman's name has been out there, while Brown was lying low. "Whitman has vowed to mount the largest opposition research effort in recent memory to remind voters of the 'target-rich environment' of Brown's long history as a career politician," says the San Francisco Chronicle. Of course, Brown will hit Whitman back with "political novice."

72 year old Brown shows no signs of slowing down, and this is likely to be a true donnybrook. Brown will slam Whitman for spending so much of her own money on the race, and Whitman will slam Brown for spending so much of the taxpayers' money in the past on his wacky projects. Whitman will no doubt hang the notorious Rose Bird around Brown's neck. Brown appointed Bird as chief justice of the California Supreme Court. She was so bad at what she did, and so clearly out of touch with the California law and electorate, that after an outrageous ruling in a death penalty case that nullified the death sentence of a cold-blooded murderer, she was recalled and replaced by the people, along with two of her fellow far left justices. More of Brown's judicial appointments were removed from office for various improprieties than those of any other prior or subsequent governors.

Brown is anti-death penalty in a state which is pro-death penalty. He promised, then and now, that despite his personal beliefs, he would support the law of the State of California. Nevertheless, as the current attorney general, he refused to argue the people's position in the Proposition 8 "gay marriage" case. As candidate for mayor of Oakland, he ran on a promise that the murder rate in that gang-heavy city would drop to one equal to Walnut Creek (a peaceful and relatively crime-free East Bay suburb). During his first year in that office, the number of murders increased from 60 the prior year to 109 in 2003. By the time he left, the murder rate had settled down, but still never went as low as the rate prior to his taking the office.

Note: Boo-hoo story of the day. San Francisco illegal immigrant supporters got out the violins for a local family which will be "torn apart" by an ICE determination that the wife intentionally overstayed her visa date. The City is to blame, say the advocates for the illegals. Despite an ordinance prohibiting the police from reporting minors who commit crimes to the feds unless they have been convicted, in the wake of several horrendous murders committed under that rule, Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered the police to ignore the ordinance and report any minor who is here illegally when the minor is arrested for a crime.

The thirteen-year old son of the wife was taken into police custody for assault and extortion for beating up a fellow student and robbing him. The hearts-and-flowers crowd's mantra is "but he only got 46 cents," as if that were some sort of defense. But while investigating the crime, the police discovered that Tracey Washington, the wife, and mother of the boy, is no longer entitled to be in the United States because her visa had expired in May of last year. So wifey and her two kids are being deported.

She will leave behind her husband of eleven months, Charles Washington, and his thirteen year old son from a prior marriage. Says Charles: "I feel like they've taken my right to have a family." Charles is black, and a natural-born American (as is his son). Tracey is white, and comes from Australia, where both her children were born. So naturally, they kicked off their show at the Asian Law Caucus. I don't get it. But, that's San Francisco.

Attempting to make the underlying cause of the deportation sound somewhat innocent, the lawyer for the family said "their hopes that [the illegals] could remain by virtue of the marriage to an American citizen were doomed by the 13-year old's schoolyard folly and the city's crackdown." After all, the victim was not seriously hurt, and the bully apologized. Isn't that sufficient to simply ignore California and federal law?

Tracey's argument for failing to file any requests to stay until December, 2009 (seven months after her visa expired) was the fault of the oppressive immigration laws and evil government bureaucrats. "The application cost several thousand dollars and a federal immigration office told them there was no filing deadline." But the law is clear, and they knew it. Applicants for permanent visa status based on marriage to a U.S. citizen must file the application within ninety days of entering the United States. The law is designed precisely to prevent illegals from searching out a potential husband or wife among the legal citizens. A huge number of those marriages are shams, designed solely to avoid the immigration laws.

Although I am not unsympathetic to their plight, these are not sweet innocents caught up in an oppressive law that they knew nothing about. The whole thing was calculated, and it failed. Too bad, so sad. The marriage was planned way back when the couple met in Australia, while the future husband was on a vacation six years earlier. Surely, they could have come up with a better plan over those six years. Washington says he cannot move to Australia because he also has a daughter here with whom he shares custody with a former wife. And that is our problem, how?

NOTE: San Francisco High Schools are going to be instrumental in preparing future race-baiters for the colleges and halls of academia. They will now offer courses in the ninth grade in ethnic studies. That's left-speak for "anti-caucasian" studies. As if they haven't just spent eight years being indoctrinated in "diversity," and "white ethnocentrism," and "Northern European arrogance," they will now get special courses in intensive hate studies. So far, only the state universities and colleges (not the University of California) have indicated that they will accept the courses for college credit. Naturally, San Francisco State University has offered to provide special assistance to the program. You know, SF State, the home of the black students riots, the militant Muslim Students Association, and physical attacks on Jews.

Says Jacob Perea, dean of the School of Education at SF State: "We're not really looking for the 4.4 GPA students. We're looking for the 2.1 or 2.2 students." That's what passes for "higher education." A bunch of half-wits being admitted to college so there will be a sufficiently large contingent of race warriors. Perea established the "Step to College" program at SF State. Included with his agenda, with the cooperation of the local high schools, is the provision that the ethnic studies program will give the students truly unearned credit toward college. Not only is the program "pass-fail," which would be bad enough. But nobody who enters the program can actually fail. If it appears a student is headed toward failure (and how stupid do you have to be to fail one of these courses?), he or she is simply "removed from the program." Which guarantees a 100% pass rate. This is how the post-racial liberal/progressive governments spend the taxpayers' money.