Category: San Francisco/California

Just happened across another superb photo album of the Golden Gate.

Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub comments on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s legislative loss Friday evening.

What Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted before he became Gov. Schwarzenegger was a government that lives within its means, one that spends no more than it takes in and doesn’t face massive deficits. He could have won a measure guaranteeing all that Friday night. He still might, if he takes a step back, takes a deep breath, remembers who he is and gets back to work.

It’s amazing (and distressing) to watch this California politics stuff play out. The California Legislature is essentially useless — so polarized that 2/3rd’s can’t agree on anything. Sure seems like it’s time once again for major constitutional reform — it’ll be very interesting to see what the Gov. proposes.

Sometimes you just happen upon things. I bow low to serendipity all the time.

Just happened across this link to a TypePad photo album — a superb photo of a Blue Angel #5 crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.

Not sure who the photographer is – looks like a new TypePad weblog is in the process of being created here – but it’s such a great shot! The rest of this photo album is pretty special as well! Wow!

At a show earlier this year in Menlo Park, I was struck by the beautiful photography of San Francisco-based photographer Chris Honeysett. Chris has a unique ability to transport my mind to the places he’s shot. I just purchased one of his prints — an early Christmas present to myself, I guess. Great stuff!

Do you miss California?

“Do you miss California?,” people ask us all the time. The real answer is yes. And no. And in a way, it’s as if we never left. Is there anyplace left in America where you can live without having to suppress the fear of apocalypse?

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. “No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday.”

Take a look at this.

Some think of it as a storm out at sea, gathering gale force as it heads for shore. Others say it is merely a giant wave, demanding great effort to ride out, but survivable in the end.

Whatever the choice of metaphor, many agree that the budgetary bite of steeply rising pension costs for public employees will for some time to come erode spending for public services and programs typically provided by cities, law enforcement agencies and fire districts.

Those costs are soaring at a time when revenue for government agencies is falling — and when pension benefits in the private sector are declining or disappearing.

I certainly appreciate the dedication of municipal and state employees. But I really don’t appreciate their hand on my wallet to this extent — which is so far out of line with what’s happening in the private, non-public sector.

I’ve been reading some of Kevin Starr’s volumes on the history of California — particularly tuning into his descriptions of the Progressive movement in California in the early 1900’s which led to the various “direct democracy” abilities so unique to California. One book in particular, Inventing the Dream, has two chapters devoted to this subject.

I think the following brief description, from a Q&A at a Commonwealth Club talk given by Starr last year, captures the time very well:

David Starr Jordan, the founding president of Stanford University, wrote in November 1898 in The Atlantic Monthly an essay entitled “California and the Californians,” saying California is corrupt, I’m very depressed, what are we going to do? A group of lawyers met at Levy’s Café in Los Angeles in 1907 and formed the Lincoln-Roosevelt Republican League. Three short years later, the 37-year-old reform governor Hiram Johnson was elected governor, and within the legislative sessions between 1911 and 1919, the fundamental California that we have today was shaped. California was, in effect, re-founded during that period.

What’s interesting is the 20 year period that elapsed during which the reforms took place — hardly overnight. Much of this energy resulted from the tight control that Southern Pacific had on the state in the late 1800’s — with much of both state and local government in California being in SP’s hip-pocket. Most of this energy for reform came from the midwesterners who had migrated to southern California, not from the immigrants who were more dominant in northern California.

I also enjoyed another of Starr’s answers regarding the DotCom era in California:

Q: How will history characterize the dot-com ascendancy and demise, particularly in California?

A: Well, it was a great time to be young. The dot-commers will always have those memories, just like the gold miners in 1849 had theirs. It’s extraordinary, the great triumphing of the dot-com, and then suddenly San Francisco is filled with empty offices one morning, with still-steaming cartons of Chinese food left on the tables. The young men and women who were part of that dreamt those great dreams, felt the exhilaration of being on the cutting edge, had that sense that their life could be suddenly and dramatically transformed. So it collapsed. So what? They’ll be back with us dreaming other dreams, doing other great things.

That imagery of the “still-steaming cartons of Chinese food” certainly captures some of the flavor of that era! But I especially enjoy Starr’s upbeat conclusion from what many lament — “They’ll be back with us dreaming other dreams, doing other great things”.