The final installment of my report on a Labor Day weekend trip to the Bay Area.
The first evening in Menlo Park was enhanced by the appearance of an outdoor under-nose masker. #FollowTheScience:
How rich are residents of Silicon Valley? Rich enough to spend $3000 (plus 9.375% sales tax) on a bottle of bourbon at the supermarket…
… but not rich enough to open their wallets to panhandlers:
Unlike in a lot of other parts of California, where people post signs advertising their concern for neighbors (but never do anything to actually help homeless neighbors, for example), people in Palo Alto don’t even bother with the signs. It’s such a multi-ethnic society that people have nothing in common except for a desire to make money. A homeless white guy, below, on Palo Alto’s main street (University Ave) is passed by Indians and Chinese who apparently wouldn’t dream of trying to assist.
The legacy American culture on this street, Marilyn Monroe movies shown in an old theater, conflicts with immigrant culture (halal food and modest attire for females):
I spent some time in Atherton. There’s no sidewalk and nearly all of the houses are behind high walls or hedges. It is unclear how anyone would ever meet or say hello to a neighbor:
Returning to Menlo Park, I tried to have a couple of pupusas and margaritas in honor of Kilmar Abrego Garcia (purportedly targeted by gangs due to his mother’s home-based pupusa business; he’s still Maryland’s leading citizen, right? Donald Trump is a “king” but can’t get rid of this one guy who has (a) no U.S. passport, (b) no green card, and (c) no visa authorizing him to be in the U.S.).
ChatGPT explains:
Because those three things are not the only ways a noncitizen can lawfully remain physically in the United States.
In Abrego Garcia’s case, the crucial fact is a 2019 immigration-court order granting him “withholding of removal” to El Salvador. The immigration judge simultaneously found him removable from the United States, but found that he was sufficiently likely to face persecution if returned to El Salvador.
He is in the United States because a person can be “removable” yet still be released and permitted to reside here under immigration supervision while removal is legally barred, impracticable, or under litigation. A passport, visa, or green card is not required for that situation. … He does not have ordinary lawful immigration status comparable to a visa holder or green-card holder. But his physical presence here can nevertheless be authorized/tolerated by the government and protected by court orders, and DHS cannot simply deport him to El Salvador while the withholding order remains in force
My hotel included masked workers at the front desk and masked guests in the lobby. The downtown Menlo Park area included some homeless folks, but not at the same density as in San Francisco:
The neighborhood near the hotel (luxurious Residence Inn; less than $5,000 per night) included some killer Halloween decorations and also showed that the passion for Hillary Clinton will never die:
What does the resident with a Hillary bumper sticker read? Kepler’s is the local bookstore. We’re reminded that Elon Musk is a Nazi who looks a lot like a North Korean dictator:
Arabs who call themselves “Palestinian” are the world’s most peaceful humans:
What books should one pack for a trip to Palestine?
Given that everything important in Silicon Valley was created by women, the nonbinary, and transfolk, it is unclear how we got stuck with “male supremacy”, but in any case the bookstore offers a manual for dismantling male supremacy:
Just be aware that the manual will cost 75 cents more than the list price in order “to support paying our staff a living wage”:
The bookstore says on its web site “The living wage for a single adult in San Mateo county is now $38.44 per hour.” That raises the question… Why isn’t the minimum wage in San Mateo County $38.44/hour? As far as I am aware, there is no organized or significant opposition to rule by the Democratic Party either in San Mateo County or any of its component cities. If Democrats hold 100% of the power, why won’t they take action to ensure that every worker is paid a living wage?
Returning to the airport, we’re reminded that, prior to Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s arrival from El Salvador, Harvey Milk was considered the greatest American:
Even as California is flooded with immigrants from East Asia and India, the museum exhibit is about “Afrofuturism”:
Unless Indian is a variant of “Black”, this billboard plainly doesn’t apply to either Palo Alto or the airport:
The folks who work to maximize the amount of Jet A fossil fuel that is burned, nearly always on trips that are unnecessary (leisure/work that could be done via Zoom) also remind us of “the disastrous effects of climate change”:
Travelers and clerks at the Green Apple Books shop are safely masked:
Some of the same books that were for sale in Menlo Park are also available at SFO:
The advertised price isn’t the price you see when it is time to pay. Sales tax is 9.875% at SFO, a little higher than in Menlo Park despite being part of the same county. Then there is a “surcharge charge” of 5% to “support emplo…” (employees? employee health insurance? employee gender-affirming care?).
Once on the plane, despite Hispanic Heritage Month still being a week away (9/15), JetBlue features a movie directed by a couple of guys who aren’t Latinx.
ChatGPT says that approximately 50,000 “feature films directed by someone reasonably classifiable as Hispanic” were bypassed so that Encanto could be selected.