The San Francisco Experience

San Francisco is looking to re-name 44 of its' 114 schools. The move was prompted by a review of existing names for slavery links, genocide perpetrators, colonialists, white supremacists etc.  9 US Presidents' names would be stripped from our schools including, Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt.  Even Senator Dianne Feinstein would lose her place of honor and our Spanish Colonial histori...

JFK took on anti-Catholic bigotry upfront  in the 1960 presidential campaign, speaking before a conference of Protestant Pastors in Houston, Texas, September 12 regarding his Catholic Faith. Kennedy went on to win the Presidency, albeit narrowly with 112,000 votes. He reminded the clerics of the No Religious Test provision of the US Constitution (Article VI, Clause 3) and further spoke of his own...

The Wolverine Watchmen, a Michigan based militia group, plotted to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, try her for treason, storm the State Capitol in Lansing with 200 men and foment a civil war.  The FBI arrested the 13 plotters several days ago and charged them with terrorism, conspiracy to kidnap and weapons charges after tracking them on Social Media. Michigan has been a hotbed of militia a...

Wednesday night's VP debate was more anticipated than past vice presidential meet ups for a host of reasons.  After last week's acrimonious shouting match that was disastrous for both Biden and Trump, Mike Pence had to steady the SS Trump which was taking on water; mission accomplished. Kamala Harris, however, had to introduce herself to the American people as a potential President while demonstra...

The quickening pace of the destruction of California's forests by wildfire is staggering. In the last 3 months four million acres of our 33 million acres of forest have burned. That's 12%. From 2000 to 2019 4 million acres burned and before that it took 66 years - 1933 to 1999- to burn 4 million acres. The exponential increase in the burn rate is an existential threat to the Golden State. Yet we s...

Who are the Proud Boys and why did Joe Biden and Chris Wallace give them oxygen at the Presidential debate ? A right wing group the Anti-Defamation League calls Alt-Lite, with a Disney film inspired name wasn't deserving of mention. But they are now part of the 2020 presidential campaign.  What do they believe ? What is White Supremacy ? And what about Executive Order #13950 Combatting Race a...

Deceit and Dirty Money is Jim Herlihy's debut novel written in the late 1990's - a simpler and gentler time before 911, Global financial crises, cell phones, the internet and electric cars. Set in San Francisco, this financial thriller with classic San Francisco Noir overtones, satirizes the City's social elite. Jim also gives an insider's explanation of the writing process and how  he develo...

California experienced its' smallest net population growth in 2019 - 87,000 or 0.2%, the smallest net increase since 1900. The 2020 net increase is likely to be even smaller.  Are the unaffordable housing costs, high taxes and  high cost of living, to say nothing about wildfire air pollution and last in the nation Covid re-opening finally starting to bite ? A host of online websites offe...

A new Meet the Author series kicks off today at The San Francisco Experience.  David Eugene Perry's debut novel is set in Orvieto, Italy. With a tip of the hat to Dan Brown, this mystery thriller weaves together an intricate plot of murder, intrigue and suspense which threatens to bring down the Catholic Church. The protagonists, Lee and Adriano are a gay couple from San Francisco on sabbatical in...

San Francisco's homeless population numbers approximately 24,000. It breaks down into three discrete segments, namely one third mentally ill, one third economic casualties and one third drug users and addicts. Today's podcast focuses on the drug users and addicts. The City Journal and Erica Sandberg in particular has written a detailed account of the Harm Reduction drug culture in San Francisco. H...

Gonzaga University's Institute of Hate Studies, located in Spokane, Washington is a center focused on understanding the roots of Hate in the public square and working to eradicate it. The ADL's Pyramid of Hate is a graphic visual depiction of the five progressive steps of hate culminating in Genocide. During the 20th Century, 21 genocides were perpetrated with 14 of them in the last four decades o...

The 3700 California prison inmates who volunteer to be firefighters as we wage war on the Wildfires, will be eligible to have their records expunged as a result of their service.  Governor Gavin Newsom signed the legislation into law yesterday.  It's  an important step for former inmates to obtain a professional certification as an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) the pre-requisit...

San Francisco's skies turned the color of Irish Single Malt Whiskey, even down to that hint of smokiness on Wednesday morning. The deep orange/amber twilight persisted most of Wednesday forcing everyone to turn on their headlights and don N95 surgical masks against the ash that swirled in the air. As if the Coronavirus were not enough. Massive wildfires, 100 miles to the North East of San Francisc...

Over the last 6 weeks, five major police departments have lost their Chiefs, in large measure because of  a breakdown of trust between the Mayor and Chief. Most police chiefs serve at the pleasure of the Mayor and their ongoing working relationship is critical to the morale of the rank and file police officers and to the safety of the community. Trust, confidence and sharing of goals are key to a...

The recent murder of right wing Patriot Prayer member Jay Danielson by Antifa activist Michael Reinoehl on the streets of Portland, was a dangerous escalation in the street protests of this Summer. Reinoehl was subsequently killed by US Marshals in a gunfight near the Washington state capital Olympia.  Does this mark the start of right versus left street killings ?   The Southern Poverty...

Michael Reinoehl, the confessed murderer of Patriot Prayer member Aaorn Jay Danielson, in Portland Saturday, August 29, has died in a gunfight with a law enforcement Task Force led by US Marhalls, close to Olympia, Washington, Thursday, September 3, 2020.  In a series of fast moving events Thursday, Reinoehl acknowledeged that he shot Danielson in self defense, in an interview with Vice News....

Aaron Danielson a 39 year old Trump supporter and Patriot Prayer was shot and killed by Michael Reinoehl, 48, years old and a self described 100% Antifa follower.  The killing brings into sharp contrast the ideological battle lines of a divided country against the backdrop of 90 nights of continual protests in Portland, Oregon. Will this murder enflame the political debate or could it serve a...

11,000 dry lightning strikes hit the Golden State overnight August 16 and 17, igniting 347 wildfires. Here in Wine Country, 50 miles North of San Francisco, the fires continue to burn two weeks later, sending massive columns of smoke and ash South to San Francisco and the Bay Area. 2020 marks the fourth straight year the Wine Country has suffered the consequences of massive wildfires. Governor Gav...

Qanon is a right wing conspiracy movement with a formidable Social Media presence  on Twitter, Facebook and several bulletin board sites like 4Chan, 8Chan and 8kun  . Its' theories have been embraced by many Republicans and 14  current Congressional candidates have prominently espoused their views. One, Marjorie Taylor Greene won the Republican primary in Georgia's 14th district, a...

Kamala Harris and Facebook. 4 conspiracy theories quickly emerged after her selection. In today’s episode we will look at each one, and while trying not to give them oxygen, debunk them

6 months into the pandemic,transmission rates are dropping and our changed behaviors wearing masks and socially distancing are making a difference. But the Fog of War on Covid 19 at least initially meant that many mistakes were made and lives lost unnecessarily.

An illegal alien felon shot and killed a father and his two sons in a working class residential neighborhood of San Francisco in June 2008. District Attorney charged Edwin Ramos with three counts of murder but declined to seek the death penalty despite pleas from the widow and Senator Dianne Feinstein. The controversial case brings together three of Harris’ vulnerabilities - death penalty, sanctua...

Dementia and Alzheimer’s are brain diseases of older age. The former can be treated to an extent with lifestyle changes, but the latter is far from finding a cure. Cognition Testing became a presidential campaign issue when President Trump challenged former VP Biden to take one and make the results public. We will focus on both illnesses and the test.

Science tells us that 95% of the population has implicit biases yet there is only a 16% correlation between the bias and behavior. So is racist, homophobic and misogynistic behavior not principally triggered by implicit bias ? That's what the science says according to Fast Company magazine, but politicians would have us believe otherwise.   I attended a 5 hour Implicit Bias class sponsored by...

Mass surveillance and totalitarianism are two prominent themes in Orwell's dystopian novel published in 1949. But there are two major mass surveillance systems at play in the world today. In the West, the data mining strategies of the FAANG internet giants with combined market capitalizations of $4.1 trillion dollars, exploit users' personal data for profit. The other system is the Social Credit R...