New census data is shining more light on the Bay Area’s pandemic exodus: The region saw the largest drop in median income of any big U.S. metro area as wealthy people moved away — and current residents of all incomes are more likely to relocate soon than in any other major population center.
Household income in the San Francisco metro area fell 4.6% from 2019 to 2021 to $116,005 a year, according to a census report released this month.
The article highlights rich people moving, but, given that some percentage of Americans move every year, the drop in median income could just as easily be caused by no-income and low-income people staying. The article does not note that someone who is signed up to the full package of means-tested benefits (not to be characterized as “welfare”!), i.e., free housing, free health care, free food (SNAP/EBT), Obamaphone, and the new free broadband, is extremely unlikely to move (since it could take 10-20 years on waitlists to get the same package in a different location or state).
So a city or state is guaranteed to hold onto its lowest-income citizens (not to say “poorest” because they may enjoy a median earner’s lifestyle; see below) even when everyone else seeks to move, e.g., due to lockdowns, school closures, social disorder, and high crime.
Ignore the pre-Biden dollar figures and concentrate on the “percentage of median salary” column, which should be valid despite inflation. Prior to the 2020-2022 coronapanic enhancements to welfare, in other words, being on welfare in California yielded roughly the same spending power as working full time at the median wage (and with no risk of exposure to a virus at work and no need to wear a mask for 8 hours per day).
I think it is interesting from the point of view of journalism that the situation is characterized by rich people disproportionately moving rather than by welfare state beneficiaries disproportionately staying.
Here in Paris, I met a guy who works in real estate development in Los Angeles. Assuming that you’ve already got the land, what does it cost to build a McMansion-grade house? “$500 per square foot,” he responded. How about an apartment building for the middle class? “Closer to $400 per square foot,” was the answer (same as levelset.com). So the 2,500-square-foot house costs $1.25 million to build and the 1000-square-foot apartment will cost $400,000 to build… assuming that land is free.
“Rents have a long way to go up before they cover these kinds of costs for new construction, plus the land and all of the permitting,” he said.
I am not sure how California is going to house all of the migrants that it says it wants to welcome. How many folks who show up in the U.S. not speaking English will earn enough to pay $2 million for a house (construction plus land costs) or $600,000 for a condo (construction plus land costs)? At current interest rates, the nerdwallet calculator says that a Californian earning $200,000 per year can afford a $675,000 house (Census.gov says that median household income in California is less than $80,000 per year).
From these same folks, I learned that the cost of a suite in one of Paris’s nicer hotels is normally $2,800 per night, but they were paying $2,100.
the venue where the conversation happened, a house that would cost a lot more than $500/sf to replicate. Note the visitor using a cloth mask to protect him/her/zir/theirself against an aerosol virus in one of the world’s most crowded indoor environments whose ventilation system was put in by Louis XIV and got its last significant upgrade in 1698. Was the trip to Versailles actually necessary or could he/she/ze/they have stayed home and saved lives?
cloth masks again… outside in the bright French sunshine:
and, because I know Mike will want to see this, one last Warrior for Science in a hall depicting heroes in various French battles (note failure to shave beard while attempting to seal out aerosols with a mask):
Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day, everyone! I hope that you’re celebrating with a new land acknowledgment.
Any time that we think about Native Americans we can also think about immigration, a process that certainly did not in any way replace Native Americans on what is today U.S. territory.
We are informed that low-skill migration into an advanced economy makes all native-born residents richer. At the same time, we are informed by low-skill migration into an advanced economy with ever-higher rents can lead to homelessness. See “From violence to homelessness: Colombian migrants’ journey to Silicon Valley” (San Jose Spotlight), for example.
Arias and Castillo, with an 8-year-old daughter and 1 1/2 -year-old son, had no option but to flee their homeland.
Arias and Castillo said they were sent to San Jose by ICE, which funded the trip. Others were led here by dishonest “guides” who claimed there would be resources for them, according to county officials.
It is “dishonest” to say that Californians who have “migrants welcome” signs on their lawns will actually welcome migrants?
With a language barrier and no idea where to find shelter or food, the family became homeless and ended up in Roosevelt Park in San Jose.
The county said many families arrive under a false impression that designated resources and housing are available. County officials have been working with the Colombian consulate on an education campaign.
“For folks who do not have status, there are limitations on what they’re eligible for—in housing or otherwise,” she said. “They should expect long waitlist on just about everything.”
Following a backlash from neighbors, city workers are recommending that San Jose back down from a proposal to build tiny homes for homeless residents on a controversial piece of land across the street from an elementary school — the latest indication of the daunting difficulties in combating homelessness.
As part of its goal to build more much-needed shelter for the city’s growing homeless population, the San Jose City Council voted this summer to move forward with tiny homes on Noble Avenue near the Penitencia Creek Trail that winds between the Dr. Robert Gross Ponds. But the city employees tasked with vetting the project now want councilmembers to reconsider. Citing “additional associated challenges” with the Noble Avenue site, Deputy City Manager Omar Passons said the location is not feasible.
… Passons’ findings are likely to elicit applause from neighbors who objected to the plan.
San Jose, which has more than 6,700 homeless residents, is leaning heavily on tiny homes as a strategy to mitigate its worsening homelessness crisis.
Nearly 3,500 people have signed a Change.org petition titled “Say NO to the homeless tiny homes on Noble Ave,” citing the need to preserve the “safety and peace of our children.” The site is across the street from Noble Elementary School.
Think of the children!
Speaking of Martha’s Vineyard, here are some members of the Vineyard Poverty Relief Committee walking over the Thames (from last week’s trip to London):
Digging through the summer photo backlog, a report on a June trip to San Diego where I slaved away as an expert witness on a software case in federal court (the jury stuck around to be interviewed by the attorneys after the trial and said that they understood and enjoyed my testimony!).
The local public library sends travelers off from FLL with free music and movies:
If you don’t download these on the airport WiFi, JetBlue will prepare you for California’s state religion on the flight out with movies classified as “Pride Picks”:
I saw more homeless people, pit bulls, homeless people with pit bulls, pit bull poop, and trash in the street in my first two days in San Diego than during nearly a year in the West Palm-FLL-Miami area. Here are a couple of sidewalk-dwellers just steps from where the laptop class enjoys $50/person meals:
San Diego presents a huge challenge to those who believe that a market economy is efficient. There are gleaming new skyscrapers next to lots used for surface parking or other low-value activities. If the land isn’t valuable, why would people build up 15 or 20 stories? If the land is valuable, why is so much of it still not developed in any significant way?
Whatever the real estate values might be, one great thing about California is the Chinese food. While waiting for a table at the San Diego outpost of Din Tai Fung, we learned that Lucid has dog mode:
The shopping mall reminded us to observe Rainbow Flagism:
Back downtown, the official city art shows Mexican-Americans taking the bus while rich white people yacht in the background:
My favorite images from the trip depict a debate between saving Mother Earth via light rail or via battery-electric vehicles that turned violent:
I suspect that the Tesla 3 in the image was rented to the driver for $390 per week by Uber, as was a Tesla 3 in which I rode (“horrifyingly bumpy and uncomfortable compared to the Hyundai Sonata I was in yesterday,” I wrote to a friend at the time). The drive says that he must do 30 trips per week in order to keep the car and that this corresponds to 1.5 days of Ubering. I posted about this on Facebook, which helpfully added some editorial content of its own: “Explore Climate Science Info”. In the same vein, Google ran a big animation for Juneteenth:
Californians did manage to steal some great land from the Native Americans and Mexicans. Here’s some topiary:
Old Town featured a CDC reference work on how to prevent an aerosol respiratory virus with a cloth mask:
Compared to southeast Florida, it was much more common to see fully covered women:
Aside from observant Muslims, it was rare to see someone following the Science by wearing a mask, despite a raging COVID-19 epidemic at the time. A jammed street fair, with no masks:
It was outdoors, though, right? In my courthouse experience, only one juror and one chubby clerk wore masks. The guards in the lobby were unmasked. The judge was unmasked. More or less everyone in the building was unmasked. These folks will say that they’re preventing COVID-19 from spreading by behaving in a more scientific manner than residents of Florida, but I couldn’t figure out what they were doing differently.
Circling back to the observant Muslims depicted above… they were just a few steps from an official city-flown rainbow flag:
If they were to need to transact some business at the bank they would have to walk under the sacred symbol of Rainbow Flagism:
I recommend the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park:
But of course my favorite tourist attractive was the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier launched just as World War II was over. The ship is now a museum and Navy veterans, including aircrew, give fascinating lectures on how everything works.
San Diego is a great place to spend 7-10 days as a tourist, hitting all of the museums and parks while enjoying great weather and great food. If one were to live there, however, the contradictions would eventually begin to rankle. Why are there so many unhoused people if rich Californians say that they want to provide housing to the unhoused? Why isn’t there enough civic spirit and agreement that people will get organized to pick up trash and dog poop in their city? (Florida has almost no litter by comparison and dog pick-up bag dispensers are common anywhere that people want dog owners to clean up.) If California wants to welcome millions of migrants from conservative societies, which Californians say that they do, how does it make sense to have Rainbow Flagism as the state religion?
California has some of the worst-performing public schools in the nation. Pre-coronapanic data from the New York Times:
California kids were nearly a year behind Texas kids, adjusted for demographics, even before California urban schools shut down for 1.5 years while Texas schools remained open.
One of the excuses that my California friends give for the poor quality of government services is that the state is starved for property tax revenue due to Proposition 13. Yet in this ranking of states by property tax collected per capita, California is at #14:
In addition to a state income tax that can reach 13.3 percent of income, in other words, California has a robust property tax revenue stream and a total state and local income tax burden of 13.5 percent (Tax Foundation), which is close to the highest in the nation.
Why is this interesting? Californians are the folks who like to say that they’ve figured out how government should work!
A friend teaches at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He described the continued impact of coronapanic at the school. Half of all class meetings can be via Zoom. Vaccine papers are checked to make sure that everyone has had at least three shots of the Sacrament of Fauci. Masks must be worn in the classroom by the triple-vaccinated teachers and students.
Masking is currently optionalexcept that it remains required in all indoor classroom/instructional settings, clinical areas, and on Triton/university transportation until further notice.
In addition, all students (regardless of vaccination status) must wear face masks within their residential unit except for their personal bedrooms or in the shower. Masks are also required when inside residential buildings and outside of students’ personal residential units in halls, elevators, lobbies, etc.
No need to wear a mask except when in a classroom or a dorm or some other places!
Professor Doctor My Friend, Ph.D. subscribes to receive text messages when there is a serious on-campus emergency, e.g., a fire or a chemical spill. Here’s one that woke him up a few days ago:
On 06/16/2022 at 11:28pm, the UC San Diego Police Department received a report of an Intimidation – Sexuality Orientation Bias, that occurred at UCSD Hillcrest Hospital on 06/13/2022 at 3:10pm. The reporting party stated that a person left multiple notes in their work space threatening their person and made derogatory comments toward their sexual orientation. The reporting party stated their co-worker received similar intimidation in a previous incident.
The middle-of-the-night message regarded an incident that occurred at a UCSD-owned hospital more than 10 miles from the main campus.
Happy Juneteeth, everyone! Last year, a reader pointed out that this is a holiday that celebrates white saviors so let’s look at Chesa Boudin, who became the ultimate white savior as the San Francisco District Attorney who wouldn’t prosecute anyone because prosecution is inherently racist. (Comment: “Juneteenth is the ultimate holiday for White Supremacy — it signals that blacks were incapable of independently securing their own freedom. They needed white men to fight other white men to free the hapless blacks from slavery.”)
On a cold, sunny day not too long ago, I went to see the city’s new Tenderloin Center for drug addicts on Market Street. It’s downtown, an open-air chain-link enclosure in what used to be a public plaza. On the sidewalks all around it, people are lying on the ground, twitching. There’s a free mobile shower, laundry, and bathroom station emblazoned with the words dignity on wheels. A young man is lying next to it, stoned, his shirt riding up, his face puffy and sunburned. Inside the enclosure, services are doled out: food, medical care, clean syringes, referrals for housing. It’s basically a safe space to shoot up. The city government says it’s trying to help. But from the outside, what it looks like is young people being eased into death on the sidewalk, surrounded by half-eaten boxed lunches.
A couple of years ago, this was an intersection full of tourists and office workers who coexisted, somehow, with the large and ever-present community of the homeless. I’ve walked the corner a thousand times. Now the homeless—and those who care for the homeless—are the only ones left.
Do we blame Chesa Boudin, though? Why not the Covidcrats that mostly shut down the city with no plans for a restart? It wasn’t Chesa Boudin who made it illegal for a person to be an office worker or for a tourist business to operate. What do the health stats look like when a city follows Science?
San Francisco saw 92 drug deaths in 2015. There were about 700 in 2020. By way of comparison, that year, 261 San Franciscans died of COVID.
How about the stats on redistribution of wealth?
About 70 percent of shoplifting cases in San Francisco ended in an arrest in 2011. In 2021, only 15 percent did.
Immigrants are working hard in San Francisco’s best-known retail sector:
[Chesa Boudin] has suggested that many drug dealers in San Francisco are themselves vulnerable and in need of protection. “A significant percentage of people selling drugs in San Francisco—perhaps as many as half—are here from Honduras,” he said in a 2020 virtual town hall. “We need to be mindful about the impact our interventions have … Some of these young men have been trafficked here under pain of death. Some of them have had family members in Honduras who have been or will be harmed if they don’t continue to pay off the traffickers.”
The author, who is generally hostile to the direction that San Francisco has taken, follows this paragraph by stressing her agreement with the principle that all migrants must be cherished:
Of course there is good in what Boudin was trying to do. … No one wants immigrants’ relatives to be killed by MS-13.
Being 2SLGBTQQIA+ is not sufficient. A person must be 2SLGBTQQIA+ and of color in order to be selected:
One night in 2021, the [school board] meeting lasted seven hours, one of which was devoted to making sure a man named Seth Brenzel stayed off the parent committee. Brenzel is a music teacher, and at the time he and his husband had a child in public school. Eight seats on the committee were open, and Brenzel was unanimously recommended by the other committee members. But there was a problem: Brenzel is white. “My name’s Mari,” one attendee said. “I’m an openly queer parent of color that uses they/them pronouns.” They noted that the parent committee was already too white (out of 10 sitting members, three were white). This was “really, really problematic,” they said. “I bet there are parents that we can find that are of color and that also are queer … QTPOC voices need to be led first before white queer voices.”
San Franciscans came up with a good name for the University of Xbox:
In February 2021, [school board] board members agreed that they would avoid the phrase learning loss to describe what was happening to kids locked out of their classrooms. Instead they would use the words learning change. Schools being shut just meant students were “having different learning experiences than the ones we currently measure,” Gabriela López, a member of the board at the time, said. “They are learning more about their families and their cultures.” Framing this as some kind of “deficit” was wrong, the board argued.
New York City collapsed financially and from a quality of life point of view back in the 1970s. But Wall Street generated so much money that eventually NYC got it back together. The city government couldn’t waste every dime. San Francisco also has near-infinite money so presumably it should be able to recover from any missteps (even if the children who were denied a year of education will never fully recover from that).
What does the recovery look like, though? And what are our criteria for determining if a recovery has occurred? No more tents on the sidewalks? No more open-air drug markets?
My prediction is that the current residents of the city never recover from the mess that they’ve made for themselves. They never learn that all of the stuff they’re complaining about is actually stuff that they voted for. What happens is that they get replaced. Not only the Honduran drug dealers mentioned in the article move in, but also young nerds to slave away for the tech companies. The replacement process takes 7 years and then maybe it takes another 3 years for the city government to change. So the things that today’s white Progressives in SF complain about are mostly gone by 2032.
I’m settling into San Diego to serve as a software expert witness at a trial here in federal court. Would anyone like to get together for coffee? If so, comment here or email philg@mit.edu.
Separately, within only a few hours of walking around I was able to get images of all three pillars of 21st century California: the unhoused, marijuana, and the gender-neutral restroom.
Separately, I can’t figure out how real estate works in California. Downtown San Diego alternates between 15-20-story high modern buildings (real estate is valuable) and surface parking lots, auto repair shops, and vacant land (real estate is not valuable). You don’t see this kind of schizophrenia in Manhattan or Boston.
Ordering two replacement parts for a Bosch dishwasher…
Bosch then warns me of the potential for cancer and reproductive harm (to any pregnant person, regardless of gender ID) from the bottom rack wheel and cutlery basket:
Friends in Maskachusetts, New York, and California have been raging against the potential for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, thus enabling states to make their own laws regarding abortion. They say that they would personally suffer from any change in the status quo and that, in particular, they would lose their “freedom.”
Why I find this confusing is that the same people say that they will never visit a Republican-influenced state. So I don’t see how the abortion laws that prevail in the 28 states that are officially boycotted by San Francisco could cause them any personal suffering.
Here’s a Facebook exchange example:
me: How would someone in California experience any of the feared changes as a result of forthcoming Supreme Court decisions? How many California Democrats will ever visit, for example, Arkansas? Or talk to anyone in Arkansas?
Bay Area Righteous: Ha! It’s not just because of abortion. I’d be hard pressed to visit you in Florida, Philip, but not because of you. 🙂 Between humidity, anti-abortion, guns and…DeSantis (!), why would I? Okay, I’m being a bit snarky, but in general I do have more interest in visiting the more liberal parts of the country and the world. Well, that’s not entirely true. In the past 11 years I’ve visited Egypt, Turkey and Jordan (among other places).
me: Were you upset that abortion was strictly illegal in Egypt? Or how about Costa Rica, a much more popular vacation destination for Californians than most of the states where the Supreme Court’s return of this issue to the states would result in the law being changed? Do Californians protest the illegality of abortion in Costa Rica?
Bay Area Righteous: I was “upset” about all sorts of things in Egypt. We were in Cairo on January 25, 2011, the day the revolution began there. Learned a lot about their oppressive regime at the time. And since. But the difference (same for Costa Rica) is that it’s not our country. We have no standing there. The same is true about Arkansas, but unlike Costa Rica, we do have political interactions with Arkansans. We both vote for people in the House, Senate, White House, etc. Arkansans have influence over federal aspects of Californians. That’s not so for Costa Ricans.
Bay Area Righteous: I don’t avoid Arkansas only because of their stance on abortions.
me: So you would celebrate every additional abortion in Arkansas because it would mean one fewer person who could potentially vote for policies that you don’t like at the national level?
Portland (Oregon) Righteous friend of the Bay Area Righteous guy: master of the straw man! I’m against the upcoming ruling. It limits freedom and will likely pave the way to erosion of more freedoms. And until the crowd that applauds the decision also works for the rights and needs of the born, then I’ll gladly continue being sanctimonious.
me: How would [our mutual friend in San Francisco’s] freedom be limited by the Supreme Court saying that abortion was not a federal matter? Wouldn’t it be increased? The California legislature and Gavin Newsom would be free to establish any laws (or no laws) related to abortion that they desired. Or are you saying that Californians will somehow vote themselves into slavery (“un-freedom”) at the state level? ([our friend] has already explained that, even prior to this leaked draft, he was boycotting any state that he does not consider to be “liberal” so he is not going to travel to any place where a Republican might have any influence on abortion laws.)
Portland Righteous: I don’t really care about how this law affects [our friend]. It’s likely that any actual effects will be limited to his relations living in affected states. Though he might change his actions by giving more to pro-choice causes and maybe even host an abortion refugee from one of the affected states. It might affect other California residents who might consider relocation — depending on their level of tolerance for increased state scrutiny of reproductive rights. Being an Oregon resident, my state is actively supporting Idaho residents in need of abortion services though money and hosting. Anyway, bummer about how the state is getting all up in people’s business.
me: why do [our friend’s] relations choose to live in states that [our friend] had found (well prior to 2022) sufficiently deplorable to boycott and never visit?
me: the effects that you cite on OR and CA residents all sound positive to me. You now have a charitable cause that you believe in. When you take in a refugee or give money you will feel better about yourself and your life. See “Being Generous Really Does Make You Happier” (TIME) for some references.
Given that, from these Democrats’ point of view, the U.S. is already functionally split up into at least two countries (one good and one bad), why is the availability of on-demand abortion in the bad sub-country of more interest to someone who lives in the good sub-country than the availability of on-demand abortion in, say, Costa Rica? (the latter being a matter of no interest at all to the people who are outraged regarding the potential unavailability of abortion in Idaho)
Another example, this time from a woman in her early 50s who lives in Maskachusetts (she divorced her husband some years ago and therefore is not subject to male supervision):
Boston Righteous: A heartfelt “fuck you” to everyone who told me I was overreacting in November 2016″
“Joseph”: Wait you’re in Mass they will always allow abortions your reaction has no context
Boston Righteous: the fact that I happen to live in a state currently governed by sane people doesn’t negate the fact that as a fundamental rule, it’s not a problem to restrict my rights as a human being. The fact that some people don’t see that as a huge issue is repugnant.
Righteous Maryland female: The fact that you actually think [Boston Righteous]’s reaction “has no context” just illustrates the incredible privilege from which you are able to view this issue. You have absolutely no idea of the effects of this decision. Your rights have never been threatened. your gender has shielded you from many horrible things that women deal with every single day. to say that because [Boston Righteous] lives in Massachusetts and has no context for reacting to this issue is unbelievably insensitive and ignorant. If you don’t remember, [Boston Righteous] has a daughter. Perhaps her daughter may choose to live in another state at some point. … please, try to see that not everyone has the incredible entitlement that you apparently have. [But why would the daughter of a sane person who votes for sane politicians choose to live in a Red State?]
me: Where are the geographical limits of your concern? You’ve said that your concern extends beyond Massachusetts. Does it extend to Costa Rica where abortion is strictly illegal? If you accept that Costa Ricans can make different choices for their laws in this area than voters in Massachusetts have made, why can’t you accept that voters in Arkansas or North Dakota make different choices from yours?
Boston Righteous: I am quite aware of the atrocious laws against women’s rights in other countries. I had always believed that my country was better in this regard. Silly me, apparently. [Other than prejudice, what is our basis for thinking that that our country is better?]
me: Now that we’re deep into globalization I can’t figure out why an issue “in my country” is more critical than the same issue across a border that has become arbitrary. (It might be the case that people who live in Massachusetts are more likely to visit Costa Rica than to visit North Dakota or Arkansas. That wasn’t true before the Jet Age.) About 30% of residents of Massachusetts are immigrants or children of immigrants. They’re probably more connected to various foreign countries than they are to Arkansas or North Dakota.
Boston Righteous: I didn’t say that I didn’t care. But it’s substantially more personal now that it impacts me. Which of course you realize but for some reason are being obtuse.
me: I actually don’t understand how the laws of states other than Massachusetts impact you, any more than do the laws of other countries. Separately, Happy Mother’s Day!
Boston Righteous: because I’d rather not be trapped in MA? Because I’d rather my children not be trapped in MA? Because I’d prefer that the country of which I am a citizen doesn’t allow individual states to treat its residents as second class citizens? Weirdest conversation ever….. and finally, I’m not a jackass who only thinks of herself. I fully realize that as a wealthy, white woman, none of this REALLY matters to me personally. I can buy my way out of whatever I’d need. But I realize that makes me very, very privileged, and I don’t want others to suffer because they are not in the same boat. And frankly, just because. This is obscene and any rational person knows it.
me: people who love the Massachusetts laws are already unable to move to a lot of other states. Consider that Massachusetts shut down schools for more than a year and kept marijuana stores (“essential”) open, then ordered kids to wear masks in schools. Shutting down a school is illegal in Florida. A school system ordering children to wear masks is illegal in Florida (not against a governor’s order, but against a statute passed by the legislature). Running a recreational marijuana store is illegal. Is there a Red State that you would have previously considered moving to and now must be crossed off the list? … that circles back to my earlier point. If it is about concern for others, why not be upset about the unavailability of abortion after 12 weeks in Germany? (I never have heard you mention this.) That’s a population of more than 80 million under a law that you consider intolerable. And you would be willing even to support Germany by traveling there and spending money?
I remember her talking enthusiastically a few years ago about a vacation trip to Germany, which is why I picked that land of oppression for people who might become pregnant (to avoid inflaming the above folks, I did not point out their cisgender-normative prejudice in assuming that abortion is somehow an issue particular to “women” and did use the pregnant man emoji, though I was dying to do so.
I do find it genuinely confusing that folks in Maskachusetts, California, New York, and other states with sane government want a uniform national law. First, wouldn’t the Supreme Court just strike down any such law if the draft opinion turns into a final opinion? If this is a matter for states to decide, what difference does it make what Congress and Joe Biden do? Second, if this were a matter of federal policy, why do they think that the federal policy would allow as many abortions as MA, CA, and NY law allow? If the federal policy is set to some sort of consensus opinion, wouldn’t it more likely end up being kind of an average of current state policies rather than all the way at one extreme (abortion allowed at 37 weeks in Maskachusetts, for example)?
Finally, look at all of the times that the concept of “privilege” comes up in the Maskachusetts-centered conversation. This is why people need to attend liberal arts colleges. How else would they decode and participate?
Related:
“I’m a Pro-Choice Governor, and I’m Not Going to Sit on My Hands Waiting for Congress” (NYT, May 9) is a little more advanced than the above. Gretchen Whitmer says that he/she/ze/they hates the abortion laws of Michigan, the very state where he/she/ze/they lives and governs. Instead of asking the still-in-session legislature to pass a new law reflecting the will of the people of Michigan, Governor
