Just back from seeing the movie Milk. It turns out that Harvey Milk, while building his political base in San Francisco, ran a camera shop in the Castro. Some early scenes feature a class Nikon rangefinder camera and many scenes have the formerly ubiquitous retail film cube shelves as a background.
The movie may provide some career inspiration to today’s youth. With the U.S. entering a prolonged period of economic decline, a career in politics should be much lower risk than a career in business. In fact, the best time to enter politics is when the economy is collapsing. Voters are more likely to look for fresh faces when the country is going down the tubes. A modern-day Milk would have to get onto the city payroll more expeditiously than the 8 years that it took Harvey Milk. Anyone starting a retail store today would probably go bankrupt within a year or two…