By all means, blame the pandemic for problems that long preceded it

benfell

Banking

Commercial real estate


Fig. 1. “The iconic Crescent stands as recognizable landmark in the upscale neighborhood of Uptown, Dallas.” Photograph by Dallasedits [pseud.], July 5, 2016, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

This Financial Times article is worth it for the pictures alone, imagining San Francisco reverted to nature. In my last edition, I expressed some concern in speaking of the South of Market Area (SOMA) that I hadn’t been there in a few years so didn’t know what it looked like today.[1] Tabby Kinder and George Hammond write mostly of the Tenderloin and pretty much confirm that that neighborhood is still hell.[2] The depiction of homeless camped behind the Westfield Mall with easy access to its elevators[3] pretty much tells me that SOMA hasn’t improved much.

The problems of these areas long predate the pandemic, so I suspect that part of London Breed’s problem is that she may be treating these problems as if they were something new.

Dialing back out, if San Francisco indeed collapses in the way those pictures imagine, it and the surrounding area can serve as a monument to high technology hubris and arrogance.

Kevin Truong, “Union Square: Empty Powell Street Gets $6M Plan to Lure Shops Back,” San Francisco Standard, May 16, 2023, https://sfstandard.com/business/vacancy-ridden-street-near-sfs-union-square-gets-6m-investment/

Biz Carson, “San Francisco Gets a $1 Billion Bet That Workers Will Return,” Bloomberg, May 17, 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-17/san-francisco-transamerica-pyramid-is-being-remade-in-bet-remote-work-will-fade

Tabby Kinder and George Hammond, “What if San Francisco never pulls out of its ‘doom loop’?” Financial Times, May 18, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/71d8013d-9d94-441e-b2d1-3039c04397d6

Lizzy McLellan Ravitch, “Hybrid work is here to stay. These Philly business leaders say ‘we should stop complaining,’” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 18, 2023, https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-hybrid-work-executives-women-business-20230518.html

Maryann Jones Thompson and Shelley D. Fargo, “Nearly Half of Storefronts in San Francisco’s Union Square Have Shuttered Since 2019,” San Francisco Standard, May 18, 2023, https://sfstandard.com/research-data/san-francisco-union-square-store-closures-pandemic-fallout/

Ximena Conde and John Duchneskie, “Most large U.S. cities reversed or slowed pandemic population drops. But not Philly,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 19, 2023, https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/philadelphia-population-census-data-us-cities-pandemic-20230519.html

Gilead

Abortion


Fig. 2. Sign at demonstration in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, May 3, 2022. Janni Rye, via Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

Sam Biddle, “U.S. Marshals Spied on Abortion Protesters Using Dataminr,” Intercept, May 15, 2023, https://theintercept.com/2023/05/15/abortion-surveillance-dataminr/

Brian Fung, “Fertility app fined $200,000 for leaking customer’s health data,” CNN, May 17, 2023, https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/17/tech/easy-healthcare-corporation-premom-app-privacy/

Ann E. Marimow, Caroline Kitchener, and Perry Stein, “Appeals court appears likely to restrict access to key abortion pill,” Washington Post, May 17, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/17/abortion-pill-appeal-court-arguments/

Donald Trump

Russia investigation


Fig. 3. Photograph by Presidential Press and Information Office (Russia, Kremlin.ru), June 28, 2019,, via Wikimedia Commons Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0

If you want a sense of how very, very different the white Christian nationalist universe is from our own, I’m not sure I can offer a better demonstration than a massive Christian Post report on reaction to the Durham report,[4] which was critical of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for investigating Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia.[5]

We should note that John Durham was appointed by Donald Trump attorney general Bill Barr, when Trump’s fealty requirement had already been well established, and was therefore not expected to produce a favorable report.[6] Even so, the white Christian nationalist reaction[7] to the report is completely over the top.

Ryan Foley, “‘Worse than Watergate,’ ‘Devastating to the FBI’: 5 reactions to the Durham report,” Christian Post, May 18, 2023, https://www.christianpost.com/news/five-reactions-to-the-durham-report-on-the-trump-russia-probe.html

Right-wing militias

Police White supremacist gangs


Fig. 4. Photograph by Lorie Shaull, April 1, 2021, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

So Los Angeles County had an election. And Los Angeles County elected itself a new sheriff. And it looks like the new Los Angeles County Sheriff is taking the “deputy gang” problem a little more seriously than did former Sheriff Alex Villanueva.[8] Which is a big oops if you’re a white supremacist gangster who’s been counting on Villanueva’s attitude to hold sway. But for the white supremacist gangster unions, it’s all just standard operating procedure to resist accountability in every way possible:

Before [Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert] Luna fired off his Thursday morning email ordering his deputies to comply, the unions representing rank-and-file deputies put out mass texts and Facebook posts telling their members to call the union before responding to the inspector general’s letter.

One union — the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs — also sent a message to its members, advising anyone who received a letter from Huntsman’s office to respond only by sending an ALADS form letter to their supervisor, describing the OIG letter as a “threat” and asking for direction as to whether deputies should actually respond to it.[9]

And naturally, it remains to be seen if all this makes a bit of difference as the gangsters may continue to attempt to obstruct the investigation and Luna “has not yet formally accepted any of the 27 recommendations to eradicate deputy gangs that were proposed more than two months ago by the Civilian Oversight Commission.”[10]

Keri Blakinger, “Sheriff orders deputies to obey watchdog request to reveal gang tattoos,” Los Angeles Times, May 18, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-05-18/sheriff-orders-deputies-to-obey-watchdog-request-to-reveal-gang-tattoos

  1. [1]David Benfell, “Really important news,” Irregular Bullshit, May 17, 2023, https://disunitedstates.com/2023/05/17/really-important-news/↩
  2. [2]Tabby Kinder and George Hammond, “What if San Francisco never pulls out of its ‘doom loop’?” Financial Times, May 18, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/71d8013d-9d94-441e-b2d1-3039c04397d6↩
  3. [3]Garrett Leahy; Downtown San Francisco: Human Waste Increasingly Found in Westfield Mall Elevators, Staff Say,” San Francisco Standard, May 16, 2023, https://sfstandard.com/business/downtown-san-francisco-human-waste-increasingly-found-in-westfields-elevators-staff-say/↩
  4. [4]Ryan Foley, “‘Worse than Watergate,’ ‘Devastating to the FBI’: 5 reactions to the Durham report,” Christian Post, May 18, 2023, https://www.christianpost.com/news/five-reactions-to-the-durham-report-on-the-trump-russia-probe.html↩
  5. [5]Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein, “Durham report sharply criticizes FBI’s 2016 Trump campaign probe,” Washington Post, May 15, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/15/durham-special-counsel-trump-report/↩
  6. [6]Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein, “Durham report sharply criticizes FBI’s 2016 Trump campaign probe,” Washington Post, May 15, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/15/durham-special-counsel-trump-report/↩
  7. [7]Ryan Foley, “‘Worse than Watergate,’ ‘Devastating to the FBI’: 5 reactions to the Durham report,” Christian Post, May 18, 2023, https://www.christianpost.com/news/five-reactions-to-the-durham-report-on-the-trump-russia-probe.html↩
  8. [8]Keri Blakinger, “Sheriff orders deputies to obey watchdog request to reveal gang tattoos,” Los Angeles Times, May 18, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-05-18/sheriff-orders-deputies-to-obey-watchdog-request-to-reveal-gang-tattoos↩
  9. [9]Keri Blakinger, “Sheriff orders deputies to obey watchdog request to reveal gang tattoos,” Los Angeles Times, May 18, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-05-18/sheriff-orders-deputies-to-obey-watchdog-request-to-reveal-gang-tattoos↩
  10. [10]Keri Blakinger, “Sheriff orders deputies to obey watchdog request to reveal gang tattoos,” Los Angeles Times, May 18, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-05-18/sheriff-orders-deputies-to-obey-watchdog-request-to-reveal-gang-tattoos↩

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