2019: Still Chock-Full of HECK NOPE.
Darlings! I have returned from the south, filled to the brim with beignets and brutal local New Orleans history. My trip was delightful, but I must admit I am happy to return to the familiar humidity of SF in the spring, versus the insane humidity of New Orleans in, well, anytime. I literally watched strands of hair puff up and frizz as I walked out of a building - southern weather is no joke.
Oh hey, Trump pushed out Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. And while I have no sympathy for anyone who carried out the administration’s horrific acts of family separation and imprisoning of children, I also sure as hell do not want the originator and architect of those programs to be able to dictate who stays and who goes. And yet, here we are, with Stephen Miller calling the shots on anything to do with immigration. Why don’t you give McKay Coppins’ 2018 profile of Miller a gander, if you need a proper morning ghost story to get you good and scared for our current political reality.
The conservative National Review published an opinion piece by venture capitalist Michael Gibson on the decline of San Francisco, I imagine much to the chagrin of SF’s liberal intellectuals—myself included. But San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide hits some of our depressing realities right on the nose: that decades of protectionist civic policies (combined with an unseen influx of wealth IMHO that Gibson doesn’t address) have pushed out creative non-wealthy, the middle class, the lower class, really anyone without an IPO. This quote in particular hit me right in the gut: ”Baby Boomer civil servants act as urban taxidermists stuffing and mounting a dead city so it always resembles the past.” And while I likely disagree with how the author would propose to fix this, as a working professional who in any other city would have by this point purchased a home and invested in the city she wants to live in, but instead rents and hopes it doesn’t get any more insane, this piece stings.
And finally, Yes, Giant Technicolor Squirrels Actually Roam the Forests of Southern India. I, for one, welcome our new rainbow squirrel overlords.
Be kind to each other, mmmkay?
Xoxo Amy