What are "San Francisco values", anyways? [View All]

[Canuckistanian]

What is it that the RW pundits hate about San Fran? I'm perplexed.

Is it the Sourdough bread they don't like or the cable cars or the Golden Gate bridge? Maybe it's the Spanish-sounding name that sets them off? No, that's not it. San Antonio doesn't get the same scorn.

Is it because San Francisco is the second most densely populated city in the US? Nah, that can't be it.

Is it that they've survived almost complete disaster in the 1906 earthquake and fire and rebuilt themselves? Or that NONE of San Fran's banks failed during the Great Depression? Hmm, don't think so, they usually admire stuff like that.

I know, it must be the famous neighborhoods. Like Fisherman's Wharf or Nob Hill or the Mission District, the Embarcadero or Haight-Ashbury. All those rich and poor people mingling. Can't have that.

Haight-Ashbury? Oh, yeah, I remember now, the hippies. That's where they all gathered. Wow, what a dangerous bunch of violent extremists they were. And they grew up to be some of the best artists, writers, entrepreneurs and educators the country has today.

Oh, I know, it's the gay culture. All them Homasexyou-alls. They're ruining the city!

Oh, really? How so? Has it burned to the ground since the gays moved in? Has God smited it for being the new Sodom? I see no evidence of it. They just seem to be part of the mix.

Here are some comments about San Francisco from some people you've probably heard of:

"I never saw so many well-dressed, well-fed, business-looking Bohemians in my life." ~ Oscar Wilde,
1882, about the San Francisco Bohemian Club

"The Bay Area is so beautiful, I hesitate to preach about heaven while I'm here. "
~Billy Graham

"I fell in love with the most cordial and sociable city in the Union."

"I have always been rather better treated in San Francisco than I actually deserved."

Mark Twain

"Chicago is the great American city, New York is one of the capitals of the world, and Los Angeles is a constellation of plastic; San Francisco is a lady"
~ Norman Mailer,
author and frequent visitor

"But oh, San Francisco! It is and has everything~
you wouldn't think that such a place as San Francisco could exist.
The lobsters, clams,crabs. Oh,Cat, what food for you. And all the people are open and friendly."
~ Dylan Thomas , poet

"The ultimate for me would be one perfect day in San Francisco. There's no city like it anywhere. And, if I could be there with the girl of my dreams, that would be the ultimate!"~Larry King, talk show host

"San Francisco has only one drawback. ''Tis hard to leave"
Rudyard Kipling

Seems to me the rest of America should be so lucky to have such values.