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.

[SierraWasp]

Wow! You spotted my reply so quickly! You were there... lurkin!!!

I enjoyed your totally appropriate response... Thank You!

[vikingcelt]

"A ghastly place whose repellant inhabitants have ruined it forever." Yes, it is pretty ghastly isn't it. I mean we stayed at a super nice hotel (the St. Francis which once epitomized San Francisco's elegance) and you walk out the front door and it's like the night of the living dead. It's a damn shame.

[Grampa Dave]

I hovering over the computer to see if my trophy wife's flight gets into Kansas City and gets out okay. They are having terrible thunderstorms again. Her flight from Chi to KC was delayed.

If she gets in and out of KC, it is good weather to California.

[SierraWasp]

May the Almighty keep her safe! I gotta go do "honey-do's!!!"

[HamiltonJay]

Got news for ya, even with Pacbell park the tent cities are still there, and Caltrains still shelling out over 300k a month to clean up after them.

[Grampa Dave]

Paulus posted: 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.

Excellent summary of what has happened and is!

[vikingcelt]

There's another wacko that writes on SF Gate named Harley Sorensen. Because he brought up in a recent column (that I unfortunately read for some reason...sheer boredom I guess) that he is 71 years old I wrote him an e-mail and told him that I thought it extremely unfortunate that he writes such infantile columns at his age. This is how he replied:

"I assume Christensen is your married name. I can't imagine a Dane being as thick-headed as you.

What you people don't know is that I subscribe to all the right-wing publications, so I'm aware of the coaching and thus expect moronic e-mails such as yours. I have a drawerful of them. The attacks are almost identical.

You folks, besides being the most gullible people on earth, are frightfully predictable. Just keep following Herr Bush and you'll never have to have an original thought as long as you live.

--harley"

You see, he is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo much smarter than we are. We obviously can't think for ourselves and we get all of this coaching from...well he doesn't say exactly where. Free Republic perhaps? After all, he and Morford are "colleagues".

[buwaya]

I don't know, nostalgia is a very personal thing.

I'm already nostalgic for a lot that has changed in Manila, and SF is about 243x better than Manila.

[Paulus Invictus]

Where do you sit? I was there last month and it looked, smelled and seemed just as bad as I inferred. Do you wear blinders? Do you read the SF Chronicle? Oh, I know that all SFers cannot be depraved RATS and us Pubs are happy to have a few like you as a balance.

[vikingcelt]

"I don't know, nostalgia is a very personal thing." Yes it definitely is that. Perhaps a lot of it has to do with being nostalgic for my youth. My Father always talked about how the 1920's were the best time in his life. For me I guess it's the 60's in San Francisco. Still and yet, the City has changed drastically...and for the worse.

[mlmr]

This is interesting. There was a man on my local am station this afternoon making the case as a guest on a talk show I had never heard before...that homosexuals help the economy whereever they congregate. The more accepting the society, the higher the wealth. Used pitiful data. There must be a spring homosexual push of homsexuality as financially a terrific bargin and innovative tooo!!

[buwaya]

I work by the Embarcadero, and we live near City College.

I do read the Chronicle. Some of those editorial writers are funny. The news parts are pretty skimpy. The Mercury News is a better paper, but just as lefty.

Really, other than sometimes downtown it isn't smelly at all, and almost always beautiful.

[Carry_Okie]

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.

It wasn't true when I lived there. I didn't even bother to apply to Lowell. Lick got the best, particularly out of Town Hall School (probably the best private grade school in the city at the time). Lick was then private and tuition free, with entry determined by compeitive examination only (it lasted three days). I remember nearly 20% national math finalists in just one class with large percentages of the graduating class going to what were (then) decent Ivy League schools. The student body was over 40% Jewish (I wasn't). It may be different now that Lick is charging tuition, but back then from where I went to grade school (which was Stuart Hall), you went to Lowell it was because you couldn't get into SI or Lick (a lot them went to SI because they were Catholic (I wasn't)).

The best public high schools in the area are not in Marin or Palo Alto, but in Lafayette and Moraga (Acalanes and Miramonte, respectively). Both Marin or Palo Alto are so infected with PC liberalism that the students don't cut it.

Lincoln (and Washington) are a great deal better than they look, even in test scores.

I'll stick to objective measurements, thank you.

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.

The welfare plantation strikes again.

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.

I know Asian students do well in college, but only if your metric discounts the value of humanities. I'm sorry, but your last post appears to me to bear a thinly veiled parochialism in that regard, using the assumption of high competition among Asians as the lone determinant of quality (even when I was a kid, Lowell was considered "a Chinese school"). BTW, I'd put up my ten year old against many of those kids, even in math (she starts college calculus this fall). She's home-educated and won't waste her time with high school if I can help it.

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.

Sounds like you have work to do.

[luckystarmom]

Everywhere except for the Exploratorium and a few other places are grimy. Sorry, I was not very clear.

[luckystarmom]

I live in the South Bay, and I've been to SF plenty of times. I prefer Los Gatos, Saratoga, Palo Alto, and Monterrey over SF. They are much cleaner and have great places to shop and eat.

As far as museums for children are concerned, I prefer the Tech Museum and the Children's Discovery Museum.

In SF, there are always traffic problems, no parking, and lots of bums. It's not very clean compared to other parts of the Bay Area.

I don't think my perceptions are too skewed.

[luckystarmom]

We live in San Jose, and we prefer taking our kids to Sacramento. It's clean, and there are plenty of fun kid activities. They love the train museum and Old Town Sacramento!

[rivercat]

...its deplorable conditions.

I have to agree with HamiltonJay. I was born and raised in the Bay Area. I've lived here all of my 40 years, except for my seven years of military service during the 90's. Upon my return in '98, I was absolutely floored at the condition of SF. The nutballs have absolutely destroyed, what was once, the most beautiful city in the world. My wife and are in year two of our five-year plan to leave here, once and for all.

Folks, it's not the people of California, or the people of the Bay Area that have done this. It's all these idiot "intellectuals" that have come from somewhere else!

[buwaya]

They are also on average much wealthier per capita.

They also don't have 750,000 people.

And if you cross the freeway in Palo Alto, you are in a suburban slum, as bad as any in SF.

I'll grant you Saratoga and Los Gatos, and raise you Pacific Heights and St. Francis Wood. That is the sort of comparison you are making.

Name a real city, with a substantial population, not some specialized enclave.

[viaveritasvita]

Now that the freaks, perverts, and rabid lefties have ruined SF (and many other places), they'll be coming to a neighborhood near us any time now.