American Airlines pilots submitted written comments to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about their concern that Boeing is not taking adequate steps in new draft training proposals for the 737 MAX, Reuters reported Sunday.
Boeing is preparing a final software update and training package to fix MCAS after the fatal 737 MAX nosedives. An FAA-appointed board of pilots, engineers and others found pilots only need more computer-based training, not simulator time, to solve the issue, reported Reuters.
CHIANG MAI, THAILAND – APRIL 9 2018: HS-LSH Boeing 737 MAX 9 of Thai lion Air airline. Take off from Chiangmai airport to Bangkok.
“The FAA determined that a Level B training, just computer-based training (CBT), would suffice,” Tajer said. “We recognize that and have asked for that to be deep and multilayered so that the best training from that can come out of it. … Not just audio and a few slides.”
Demonstrators plan to protest outside Boeing’s annual meeting in Chicago on Monday, reported Reuters. Boeing’s earnings plummeted 21 percent in the first three months of 2019 because of the groundings, the airline said, according to CNN.
One hundred fifty-seven people died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash March 10, and 189 people died in the Lion Air crash Oct. 29, 2018.
TheDCNF reached out to Boeing but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
FOOTWORKS YOUTH BALLET presents three full-length performances of the timeless classic ballet COPPÉLIA, where brilliant classical dance meets a delightfully comic narrative.
Description: “We are excited to be bringing Coppélia to the Ventura Performing Arts Center this spring,” says Artistic Director Kirsten Oakley. “One of the few comedic ballets in the classical ballet repertoire, Coppélia is the perfect story ballet for all audiences.”
The three-act ballet tells the lighthearted story of how Franz, a village boy engaged to Swanhilda, becomes infatuated with a life-like doll created by the eccentric inventor, Dr. Coppelius. Hilarity ensues over love and mistaken identity
With its tuneful and romantic music, Coppélia stands alongside such classics as Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker as the best-loved and most enduring ballets of all time. A delightful performance of ballet fun for families and children of all ages, The New York Times calls Coppélia “one of the happiest ballets in existence.
Footworks Youth Ballet is a nonprofit ballet company whose purpose is to provide educational opportunities to young people through the art of ballet.
Footworks Youth Ballet
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Oxnard, CA – Sunday, April 28th at Bottle & Pint in The Annex at The Collection RiverPark, Casa Pacifica chose its 6th Annual “Best in Fest” brewery winner. This year, Firestone Walker Brewing Company took home the top prize with their SLOambic Wild Ale. MadeWest’s Prospect Porter and Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co.’s Point Conception West Coast IPA earned honorable mention.
This was the second year the “Best in Fest” judging was open to the public. Attendees tasted the sixteen brews alongside the judges. The esteemed panel of judges included: Kevin Pratt, the nation’s second highest ranked beer judge; Zach Rosen, Certified Cicerone; Erin Peters, also known as the Beer Goddess; Bec O’Neal, Sales Rep for Stone Distribution Company; Monie Wickenden, Beer Rep for Wine Warehouse; Jorge Alem, Owner of Ojai Beverage Company and The 2686 Kitchen; and Jason Hendricks, General Manager of Barrelhouse 101. Guests also received delicious small bites from other Annex tenants: Seoul Sausage, Taqueria El Tapatio, and The Blend Superfood Bar.
The breweries vying for the title were: 14 Cannons Brewery, Concrete Jungle Brewing Project, Enegren Brewing Company, Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co., Firestone Walker Brewing Company, Flat Fish Brewing Co., Madewest Brewing Company, Ojai Valley Brewery, Poseidon Brewing Company, Red Tandem Brewery, Rincon Brewery, Seaward Brewing, Third Window Brewing, Topa Topa Brewing Co., Twisted Oak Tavern & Brewery, and Ventura Coast Brewing Co.
If you missed the “Best in Fest” Brewery Competition, don’t worry! All sixteen brews from the Competition will be available for tasting at the 26th Annual Casa Pacifica Angels Wine, Food & Brew Festival on Sunday, June 2nd at CSU Channel Islands. The Festival main stage is also where Firestone Walker Brewing Company will be officially crowned “Best in Fest” winner. Get your tickets today for the award-winning Festival at www.cpwinefoodbrewfest.com.
All proceeds from the “Best in Fest” Brewery Competition and the Angels Wine, Food & Brew Festival directly support Casa Pacifica and its vital services for foster and at-risk youth and their families. Please visit www.cpwinefoodbrewfest.com to purchase tickets or for more information. For further questions please contact Anna Coulson, Special Events Manager for Casa Pacifica at (805) 366-4023, or by email at [email protected].
Photo Credit, Casa Pacifica
Casa Pacifica Centers for Children and Families is a crisis-care and residential treatment facility for foster or at-risk children in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. The agency is the largest non-profit provider of children’s mental health services in both counties and administers a number of community-based programs designed to strengthen families and keep children in their homes and communities. Casa Pacifica is also a foster family agency, which recruits and trains families for potential placement with a foster youth. For more information about Casa Pacifica visit its website www.casapacifica.org or call the Development & Public Relations Department at (805) 445-7800.
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When discussing the seemingly intractable and growing problem of homeless people living in California, journalists reporting on the issue don’t spend enough time questioning the numbers, much less the policies driving the insane numbers. A recent article in the San Jose Mercury provides a perfect example.
The article gets off to a good start with a provocative, and very informative title. “How much would it cost to house the Bay Area’s homeless? Try $12.7 billion.” Then paragraph two leads off with another bit of vital quantitative information, “With 28,200 homeless residents, the nine-county Bay Area has the fifth-highest concentration of homelessness in the country.”
Ten paragraphs down, the problem is revealed, but not questioned: “By one metric, it would cost $12.7 billion to solve the problem. That’s the price tag to build a new unit of permanent housing for each of the 28,200 residents reported as homeless in the Bay Area in 2017, according to the report. The calculation assumes mid-range construction costs of $450,000 per unit.”
Questions should abound. Four hundred and fifty thousand dollars per person? Why is only one person going to live in each of these subsidized units? And why does a housing unit have to cost nearly a half-million dollars? You can buy a ridiculously overpriced four bedroom home in San Jose for under a million dollars, but you can’t build a studio apartment for less than a half-million? Why?
This isn’t an isolated example. The same problem exists in Los Angeles County, where the average per unit costs for “permanent supportive housing” for homeless people is also around a half-million. As reported by NPR, “The PATH Ventures project in East Hollywood has an estimated per-unit cost of $440,000. Even with real estate prices soaring, that’s as much as a single-family home in many places in Southern California. Other HHH projects cost more than $500,000 a unit.”
This is a scam, disguised as compassion. Developers accept public money to build these projects. Cities and counties collect outrageous building fees. The buildings are then handed off to nonprofits with long term contracts to run them. Politicians accept campaign contributions from the developers and the nonprofits. Where are the journalists? Where is the withering criticism? Why isn’t this a scandal?
The national average construction cost per new apartment unit somewhere between $65,000 and $85,000, yet it costs five to 10 times that much in Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties. Why do we accept this?
Last week, Sue Frost, a Sacramento County Supervisor, spoke about California’s housing crisis to a taxpayers group. Her litany of reasons for why housing is so expensive, and why the related problem of homelessness is so intractable, was comprehensive and depressing. It ranged from extreme environmentalist mandates (such as the California Environmental Quality Act), to absurdly high fees for building permits (often equal in cost to the value of the materials used in construction), to unchecked immigration, to restrictive zoning, to numerous court orders. Even as Frost limited her remarks to summary bullet points, it took several minutes for her to recite all the causes. However, in every case, it was government policies that created this nightmare, and in every case, they were policies largely unique to California.
One of the “creative” solutions Sacramento County has adopted to increase the supply of housing is to streamline the process for homeowners to build “accessory dwelling units” in their backyards. At the same time, Sacramento County is funding the conversion of homes in residential neighborhoods into group homes for homeless people.
All of this sounds wonderful. But it is the path of least resistance, adopted in lieu of making fundamental reforms either through legislation or litigation. This path of least resistance means cities and counties will waste billions on new “affordable” housing for low income and homeless people. At a half-million per unit, however, spending billions will not even make a dent in the homeless population, even as it enriches developers, well heeled nonprofits, and the campaign coffers of compliant local politicians.
Then, since those billions are wasted, they will seed residential neighborhoods with subsidized group homes for a homeless population that is, according Supervisor Frost, 50 percent mentally ill and 30 percent criminal. These group homes are run by private entrepreneurs who are, in effect, state sanctioned predators that destroy peaceful residential streets. They become inordinately enriched by cramming people into these group homes and collecting reimbursement from the government.
Similarly, Sacramento County’s supervisors have implemented an aggressive interpretation of a new state law designed to streamline the process for homeowners to build accessory dwelling units (“ADUs”) on their properties. There is nothing “accessory” about many of these new ADUs. Often they are full size homes, with their own garage, driveway, utilities, and address. All too frequently, ADU ordinances, for all practical purposes, subdivide a property in violation of zoning laws that residents relied on when they bought their homes. Equally problematic, because these lots are not actually, legally subdivided, both homes on the properties become permanent rentals.
This is happening all over the state. In Southern California, Los Angeles County launched a program to pay homeowners to build granny flats for the homeless in their backyards. Consider the unintended consequences: Once two or more units are permitted on lots that were previously restricted to single family dwellings, these properties become worth more if they’re converted to permanent, government subsidized rentals.
Remember the “blockbusting” of the 1960s and 1970s? That was an ugly affair. Expect the same displacement in the 2020s, except it will be entirely legal. This time, as private investors and their accomplices in real estate and the government bureaucracy convert entire residential neighborhoods into multi-family lots, they will receive government subsidies to do the conversion. Then, the government will pay them again to subsidize the rent they collect as landlords.
To recap: Billions are wasted constructing a handful of ridiculously expensive new housing units, then, since that makes no difference whatsoever, established residential neighborhoods are destabilized and ultimately destroyed thanks to laws enabling opportunistic investors, cashing in on government subsidies, to convert random homes into halfway houses, homeless shelters, and subdivide properties with ADUs. Nobody is safe. Welcome to California in the 2020s.
None of this is a moral choice. It disrespects the residents of these neighborhoods who have worked hard their entire lives to pay for the privilege of living a safe and tranquil environment. Moreover, these residents who are betrayed in this manner have worked far harder than they should have had to (to pay their mortgages) because of California’s state and local government policies which are to the primary cause of overpriced housing.
If a majority of local elected officials in just one major city or county in California mustered the courage to challenge the laws that have needlessly caused California’s housing shortage and homeless crisis, and litigated all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, they could overturn some of these laws, in order to pursue far more cost effective options.
For example, for the homeless, here is an alternative that could cost-effectively solve the entire problem within months, not years or decades: You can house homeless people in durable $399 10-foot-by-10-foot tents, sleeping on durable $75 cots, four per tent. You can position $649 porta potties to service these tent dwellers, and you can set up a larger tent to serve as a food kitchen and medical station. You could put these tent cities on city owned property or leased private land on the outskirts of town or in industrial areas, and by enforcing revitalized (through court action) vagrancy laws, you could swiftly move the homeless into these managed camps. You could have three types of camps, one for criminals, one for substance abusers, and one for everyone else.
To increase the supply of housing, the solution is harder, but obviously possible, since so many other states in America do not have housing shortages. Policies to make housing affordable again in California could be accomplished without requiring expensive government programs. Instead, to name a few policy changes: lower the fees for building permits, speed up the permitting process, reform extreme environmental regulations, make it easier to extract building materials in-state, and, crucially, end the policies of “urban containment” that deny building permits on California’s vast expanses of open land.
It is time for a courageous city council or county board of supervisors somewhere in California to pursue, through litigation, cost-effective, practical solutions that don’t ruin the lives of the many for the sake of the few. Particularly since government policies are the reason the many have to work so hard. And if mainstream journalists would abandon their politically correct group-think, and question the status-quo with the skepticism that once was the life blood of their profession, public awareness might demand such action.
ABOUT CALIFORNIA POLICY CENTERThe California Policy Center is a non-partisan public policy think tank that aspires to provide information that will elevate and enlighten the public dialogue on vital issues facing Californians, with the goal of helping to foster constructive progress towards more equitable and sustainable management of California’s public institutions. Learn more at CaliforniaPolicyCenter.org.FACEBOOK | TWITTER | LINKEDIN | WEBSITE
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The debate over abortion hinges on one major point: is the fetus a human or not? If the fetus is a human then it has human rights; such as the right to life, and therefore, the government has a responsibility to ensure that its right to life is not taken. It can justifiably make any law protecting that human’s right to life. If the fetus is a human then there is no debate about abortion because it becomes synonyms with homicide. On the other hand, if the fetus is not a human life, then it follows that it does not posses the human right to life. Therefore, no right to life would be infringed during an abortion.
This means that pro-life ideologues seek to establish that the fetus is a human life, while pro-choice ideologues must establish that the fetus is not a human life. The synonymous term for the pro-choice approach is the dehumanization of the fetus. The dehumanization argument is the only argument that pro-choice ideologues should pursue throughout debate and discussion. Truthfully, it’s their only argument for abortion – abortion cannot be murder because what is ended is not a human life.
The dehumanization approach has been used before – to justify some of the ugliest parts of history. We do not need to go far to find its use. Turn back the clock only a few years and see that the charters and creeds of Islamic terrorist organizations use the dehumanization argument to justify attacks on their victims. They see other groups of people as sub-human, less deserving of life or freedom because they aren’t as human as the terrorists.
Wind the clock back several decades and you find the dehumanization argument used to justify the Holocaust. Nazi Germany performed ethnic cleansing of populations in its own country as well as those it controlled. It sold the idea to its people that genocide was perfectly fine because those being rounded up were sub-human. They dehumanized their targets which in turn eased the moral conscious of its citizens. After all, it is not the murder of a human life if that being was never fully human.
Go back another hundred years and find that dehumanization justified the Atlantic slave trade. Operators of the slave trade invoked this idea to justify the withholding of human rights to blacks because they argued that blacks weren’t human in the same sense as they were. They couldn’t be taking away their right to liberty because they were sub-human and therefore did not lay claim on human rights.
Each of these historic cases used the dehumanization argument to justify its actions. In fact, the dehumanization argument was the best and only argument they ever had. What was being committed historically was often considered legal and it was always the moral argument that proved to be the most compelling counter force. Morals justify why slavery, genocide, and terrorism are all evil. Historically speaking, the dehumanization argument has never withstood the test of time and is the sole justification of several historical tragedies.
Pro-choice ideologues need to reflect on their argument and the company it kept. To be clear, I’m not equating women who participated in abortions to slave owners, Nazis, or terrorists. I am however, comparing the justification for their actions and urging pro-choice ideologues to consider the history of their justification. By choosing to rely on the dehumanization argument, pro-choice ideologues have placed themselves in the historical neighborhood of slave owners, Nazis, and terrorists. Finding oneself in that neighborhood should serve as a wakeup call. Pro-choice ideologues need to rethink their argument and understand that this justification will most likely not age well.
Hector Guthrie is a world traveler and politically involved citizen.
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The Oxnard Finance and Governance Committee of which Councilwoman Gabriela Basua and Councilman Bert Perello are members, and is chaired by Mayor Tim Flynn held a meeting on April 23, 2019. The committee received updates from the Internal Auditors on the status of the current projects in progress related to the Internal Audit Dept. and on the appropriate protocol for investigating members of the city of Oxnard Management. It also received an update on the finance department deficiencies findings and the Corrective Action Plan.
Dan Pinedo is a Citizen Journalist/photographer residing in Oxnard
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PG&E, California’s largest utility, is reportedly considering shutting off power to as much as an eighth of Californians during times of high fire danger.
PG&E’s service area covers 5.4 million people in fire-prone areas. The utility might initiate a blackout to keep its electric lines from sparking and starting fires during high winds. The plan is tacit acknowledgement the utility cannot always fulfill its mission of providing electricity safely and reliably, according to The Wall Street Journal.
A blackout could cost the utility’s customers a significant amount financially, as well as endangering many, such as senior citizens who are dependent on electrical medical devices.
PG&E is working to minimize the threat of cutting off power to those most vulnerable, but “we simply don’t have the luxury, given the extreme weather conditions we are seeing, to wait to get it perfect,” PG&E vice president Aaron Johnson told TheWSJ.
PG&E might keep a blackout in place for as long as five days. Households and grocery stores that store perishable goods could lose a substantial amount of food and other products, according to TheWSJ.
Utilities across California are reshaping the state’s electricity market. PG&E declared bankruptcy in January and shed over $40 billion worth of contracts, largely with green energy companies, to help get the company on more secure financial footing.
The company’s financial turmoil could have lasting effects on California’s grid as well as impede the state’s goal of attaining 100 percent green energy reliance by 2045. Former California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation in 2018 mandating the green energy goal.
Camp Fire, Screenshot, File
As the utility has drowned in liabilities, it cut ties with its former CEO Geisha Williams in January shortly before filing for bankruptcy.
Californians are already paying some of the highest prices for electricity in the U.S. PG&E and other investor-owned utilities are asking state regulators to bump up the price of electricity even more to cover the cost of wildfire liability.
PG&E did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Border Patrol agent said there are radio advertisements playing in Central America, encouraging locals to flee to the U.S. illegally to obtain the “American dream.”
“The word is definitely out. They have advertisements by radio. You listen to your radio on your way to work —on your way to the grocery store. And that country is advertising, ‘If you want the American dream, we’ll help you out —we’ll teach you how to get it in the United States,’” an unidentified border agent said to Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday.
WATCH:
Bartiromo toured the southern border in the El Paso Sector, a region the agent described as “probably the busiest area in the country” in terms of illegal immigration.
The Fox News host spotted a family crossing the border as she was filming, meeting one Ecuadorian woman with an infant who said she had been traveling for two months. The agent said they are encountering an “unprecedented” number of family units.
Advertisements, paid for by human smugglers, encouraging Central Americans to migrate to the U.S. have become more prevalent in recent time, with many illegal aliens claiming they were prompted to make the trip specifically because of the promises made in those ads.
“The whole word knows, they put it in the news. They tell us everywhere if you come to the United States, they’ll help you,” a Honduran woman told agents when she was apprehendednear the Rio Grande Valley.
A Guatemalan migrant caught that same day made similar statements.
The human smuggling business has been booming in Central America. A study by the RAND Corporation estimated human smugglers transporting people from the Northern Triangle — Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras — to the U.S. raked in somewhere between $200 million to $2.3 billion in revenue in 2017. (RELATED: Pentagon Set To Send Hundreds Of Troops To The Southern Border)
Migrants are also told they have a much higher chance of reaching the interior of the U.S. if they bring children. The result has been a total of 3,000 “fraudulent families” appearing at the U.S.-Mexico in the past six months alone, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The department is adopting tactics to bring down the migrant child rings smugglers use to get people past border enforcement.
My family and life go back a long way in San Francisco history. These roots were planted during the Gold Rush in 1850’s when my ancestors immigrated from Germany and France. Apparently, they landed in the “City by the Bay” on a Clipper Ship and never left.
During this 170 year period, there have been a lot of up and downs including surviving the Earthquake and Fire back in 1906, the stock market crash in 1929, and the first gathering on American soil for what was to become the United Nations in 1945.
My Grandfather’s brother Dr. Alvin Cerf best friend was Diane Feinstein’s dad Dr. Leon Goldman. My Mom, who is still with us at age 99, recounts going over to dinner at the Goldman’s and seeing Diane as “a stunning young girl” of 11.
There has always been a feeling of pride among the locals for San Francisco as a place of second chances for new arrivals where diversity ruled supreme without government interference. Growing up there I was largely unaware of racial prejudice because of having friends of all nationalities.
“The City” as it was known, was unique. Much like Tony Bennett’s iconic song “I left my heart in San Francisco”, a sense of pride has existed with me, long after I moved away.
What happened to this place where my Victorian mannered Grandmothers took me to lunch at Blum’s on Polk Street. They proudly observed while I was forced to eat my entire sandwich with the bread crust discreetly removed in order to partake in their famous homemade cakes and ice cream.
Over the years San Francisco was a magical locale that brought us unique characters such as Enrico Banducci, Empire Norton, Herb Caen, Melvin Belli, and Jesus Christ Satan, to name a few. Let’s not forget Francis Ford Copula writing the screenplay for The Godfather while sipping multiple espressos at the Café Trieste in North Beach. A place that gave us the Beatnik Generation and later the Summer of Love in 60’s, was a rare outpost of freedom.
This is where Harvey Milk, when he arrived San Francisco as a gay, broken down refugee from Wall Street, was able to start a new life where he could be himself. Having met him on the campaign trail in 1973 while working with another candidate, I proudly helped him in his second run for office.
Eventually, after folks got to know him, Milk became a Supervisor in times when all elected officials were chosen on at large basis. Even my Grandma Ruthie, who by that time was over 85, voted for Harvey. Nana rationalized Milk was soft spoken, kind, with good manners. This reminded her of traits she wished my Dad had more of.
Somehow this all ended that fateful day on November 27, 1978 when Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by former Supervisor and policeman Dan White. The San Francisco I grew up with abruptly ended. This was an American Pie moment when “I Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry” time capsule.
Diane Feinstein career was jump started when she then became mayor. The old City’s last gasp was covering up the dark side of the Mayor Moscone’s life which involved corruption, drugs, and ladies of the night. The weak prosecution of White including the famous “Twinkie Defense “was a result of the agreement with his defense team and the DA Joe Frietas, to stay silent on Moscone’s indiscretions in return for leniency. Because of this, White never testified at the trial.
When the manslaughter verdict was reached, riots broke out in the Castro by the rightfully outraged gay community. Ironically , killing Milk was an afterthought for the deranged White.
The former laissez faire government which prided itself on personal freedom started to evolve to the extreme left where it resides today. Instead of allowing individuals to find themselves, government has tried to “legislate morality” which resulted in just the opposite effect taking place. In attempting to be inclusive for all people, a kind of liberal fascism has resulted.
San Francisco has squelched free speech and the first amendment by broadening the definition of so called “hate crimes”. This kind of intolerance was demonstrated to me about 10 years ago when I was thrown out of a neighborhood bar in the Marina District for admitting to be a Schwarzenegger Republican.
At the same time the liberalism of San Francisco has been evident trying to please everyone by implementing governmental policies that are intended to be inclusive for all. This has resulted in the city tripping over their feet trying to force more affirmative action and diversity.
San Francisco’s tourist business has continued to thrive while providing literally billions of dollars of income. This has resulted in an abundance of revenues for discretionary spending to appease those who demanded more government control over people’s lives.
To administer this empire, a coalition of developers, unions, and old money has continued to prosper. Add high tech and some heavy duty environmentalists to this mix which gives us the ruling elite of today. Diane Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, Willie Brown, Kamala Harris, and Gavin Newsom are all products of this powerful political axis which goes back to the days when Joe Alioto was Mayor.
Finding new ways to distribute their new found wealth has not been difficult. Pay and pensions to city workers including those in public transit, are among the highest in the nation. Union labor reigns supreme. This is where benefits to same sex spouses were first implemented on a widespread basis. Taking care of the homeless, restroom choice for Transgender folks, and making the wealthy pay higher taxes are among their innovations.
While protecting existing tenants with rent control, collateral damage ensued with high market rates charged for vacant property. This has contributed to San Francisco shrinking middle class that has been replaced by high tech workers and their inflated incomes. Residential property sells for an average of over a million dollars per unit.
In addition landlords living under rent control have no inventive to improve property since increasing their revenues rarely occurs. There is also a high vacancy number because getting rid of bad tenants is so expensive with Draconian rent control laws favoring tenants.
At the same time Sam Francisco is administered by a cumbersome bureaucracy who make getting anything done difficult and expensive. Diversity and inclusiveness are more important than the task at hand in this wannabe socialistic utopia.
Without doubt the cities’ generosity is to be commended in assisting some 7500 homeless people living within their borders. As they have found out, taking care of them is not enough. Even if housing can be found for these individuals, other problems such as alcohol, drugs, and mental illness make it virtually impossible for the Homeless to co exist with their neighbors.
Providing free shelter, food, and clean needles has been rewarded by their negative behavior. This includes crime, panhandling tourists, garbage everywhere, and even human excretion in plain view.
Despite this scenario, local government and their wack-a-doo associates view the homeless as heroes and business people as villains in their anti capitalist world view.
This contrasts from the words of the John Phillips composition Scott McKenzie once sang:
If you’re going to San Francisco Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair If you’re going to San Francisco You’re gonna meet some gentle people there
A long time has passed since then. For me some of these flowers have wilted over the years with San Francisco’s bigoted leftist politics, congestion, rampant pan handling, cronyism, etc.., In spite of this, I still love the place. It will always be my home in some ways
It is my hope “Baghdad by the Bay”, as some call it, will eventually rise from the ashes and take on its former splendor to once again become that special place I remember so well.
Richard Eber studied journalism at the University of Oregon. He writes about politics, culture, education restaurants, and was former city and sports editor of UCSB Daily. Richard is president of Amerasa Rapid Transit, a specialized freight forwarder.
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