The Great San Francisco Bubble (FreeRepublic Mentioned)

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | day, May 9, 2003 | Mark Morford

[nickcarraway]

It's that odd dumbstruck jolting feeling you get as soon as you step more than 25 miles away from this most progressive and funked-out and deeply flawed and self-consciously screwy of kaleidoscopic American urban metropoli: oh my freaking God, what is happening to the world? This is what you say. To yourself. Probably.

[Kozak]

It's not really a bubble, it's more of a zoo he lives in. If it didn't exist we would have to create one.....

[buwaya]

I send my six-year old girl alone into public bathrooms all the time; I can't very well follow her in, can I ? I don't really see the danger, maybe I am naive.

Lincoln (and Washington) are a great deal better than they look, even in test scores. recall that these mainly Asian schools are where the bulk of the kids who didn't get into Lowell go to, mainly because their English was not good enough. Their Math scores are very high, certainly up to or above the suburban average. That part of SF public schools works very well in my opinion.

The main failure of the school district is that it does a very bad job in general with black and hispanic students, even compared to the California average. The black activists that complain about SF public schools have a genuine grievance, but of course they have no practical solution.

Given the score distribution in districts with much lower private school enrollment (SF has double or triple the private school enrollment of any CA district); I don't think either Lick or SI are any better than Lowell - the number of potential high-scoring kids just aren't there in the population, and Lowell is huge for such a high-scoring school, it sucks up most of the available talent, even if you assumed that SF has the educational demographics of Marin or Palo Alto. How schools score depends mainly on the students. Add to that as far as I know SI is typically considered a backup school for smart kids that don't make it into Lowell, it just doesn't follow that either Lick or SI are any better than Lowell, there just isn't the talent pool in the population to make it likely.

The electoral problem in SF is the Asians don't vote, and municipal elections are won with a very low turnout. That means that even a small politically organized minority group, like gays or leftists, has a free ride.

[buwaya]

Most of SF is no such thing.

Mr. Morford knows nothing important about the town he lives in, and neither do many posters here.

[buwaya]

Ye gods. , you are a wimp. Sansome and Battery ?

I used to live in the Tenderloin (Polk), and walk through the whole thing to work downtown, yea, even in the dark, there are so many people on the street there is little risk of mugging.

I HAVE been mugged; twice in Oakland, but never in SF - it always happens in isolated places. Maybe in an alley off Sixth, I can see it.

But Sansome and Battery ?

[tophat9000]

After the last big quake, he left claiming that it wasn't an earthquake, it was like the Earth was flushing.

Na .. God just jiggled the handle that day... the big SF flush is yet to come

[buwaya]

Yeah, there are bums. Too many, and the cops aren't allowed to roust them.

But you certainly picked a fine place for your hotel. Sixth and Market is bum HQ. Every liquor store for blocks around is dedicated to their service, for obvious reasons.

I can recommend dozens of better places to stay.

[buwaya]

Right. This one is right down there with Mr. Morford.

Pure and total BS.

[buwaya]

Ya know, us residents of the hellhole don't seem to have much problem finding places to take the kids after dark.

I think your perceptions are skewed.

BTW, we avoid most touristy places.

[buwaya]

You must be old.

That SF was long gone before I and most people I know showed up.

Even my wife, an SF native, doesn't have such nostalgia.

[Paulus Invictus]

How very accurate you are! I remember the city back then too, and avoid the city now out of repugnance, fear and disgust. SF epitomizes what happens when corrupt RATS like Willie Brown are in control and homos and street bums are in the majority making loud noises and huge messes.. A ghastly place whose repellant inhabitants have ruined it foreever.

[SierraWasp]

Yeah... I unnerstan, but doesn't it bother the heck outta you that this (sarcasm) profound writer (/sarcasm) thinks that "FreeRadicals" like you and I on "FreeRepublic" are more threatening to the collective public body than "Free Radicals" are to the individual human body?

What bothers me is that he gits ta write that kinda intimidation intimation in a major U.S. print medium and you and I only git ta respond on our little ol FReeperForum! This is what Carry Okie calls "pathetic license!!!" (Plus, the dummy gits payed ta write such "cute" crappola!!!)

P.S. I occasionally use terms like "unnerstan," in honor of the great leadership being provided San Fransideshow as Mayor, thru the inspiration of CA's greatest ever "Assembly Speaker!" (SNORT!!!)

[buwaya]

Your answer is you wouldn't be. There are lots of political conservatives and even fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals in this city, unpersecuted, unbothered, and living in perfect contentment. Morford doesn't know a fraction of his own town, besides being a dingbat.

He is not alone apparently, as a lot of posters here haven't a clue about SF either.

[buwaya]

The Exploratorium isn't grimy.

[StormEye]

"It happens when you step off that plane in some -- let's say -- "differently evolved" part of the country and don't see a single ethnic person for four days and can't get a decent...."

Why so many white people hate themselves, their country and the civilization that has
been built by their ancestors; indeed hate their very own being, I'll never understand.

[buwaya]

Nobody would know, and if you looked for five minutes you would find plenty of Christian Conservatives. They are here too - at work downtown we even have regular employee organized lunchtime bible study classes. The gay employee association either doesn't know or doesn't care.

Down at Powell street turnaround there is always at least one evangelical preacher. I haven't heard of any being hung from the lampposts.

Get a grip guy. The facts on the ground are very different from the newspaper impression.

[buwaya]

Because he's a dingbat.

[Grampa Dave]

Just relax and look at him as the Baghdad Brucie of Gay Frisco.

The left wing loud mouths sound just like Baghdad Bob did as his regime was falling down around him. Like all verbal bullies, they shriek the loudest and try to intimidate more as their world falls in on them.

A lot of guys with the ability to move and get a job elsewhere are quietly selling their property in SF if they own property and going to places like Austin, Texas. There is a big exodus to the west coast of Floriduh and Maine. They know their jig is up in Frisco. The Gay Grifters will remain and shrill louder and louder like this one.

Actually I'm very happy this diseased maggot is so afraid of us, that he cites Free Republic. Obviously, our little rants are having an effect on him. Shriek on and louder Brucie!

[buwaya]

I am one of the repellent inhabitants.

Somehow, from where this conservative Republican sits this place just doesn't seem to resemble Mr. Morford's idea of it one bit, and yours either.

[Grampa Dave]

Good glad to here that. Maybe when the city is disinfected, I can take my grand kids there. I wouldn't now.

[vikingcelt]

"You must be old." Well perhaps. Relatively speaking perhaps.

"That SF was long gone before I and most people I know showed up."

"Even my wife, an SF native, doesn't have such nostalgia."

Well you don't know any different then and have nothing to compare what is now with what was then. If all you know is what is there now, then I suppose I feel sorry for you.
You will have NOTHING to be nostalgic about.