San Francisco - Milk - Christian America

Juxtapositions / coincidences.

We were in SF for a few days. Happened to be reading Five Minds for the Future. In the mail when we came back was the April 13th Newsweek cover-story The Decline and Fall of Christian America, and, from Netflix Milk.

Two of the five minds are respectful and ethical. Milk explored the former, in the setting of 70's SF. The Newsweek article explored the role of organized religion in the latter.

Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated 41 years ago. And this year we elected a 'Black' president - The first to celebrate a Passover seder in the White House.

Stonewall will be 40 years this year. Milk was assassinated 30 years ago. Thirty Novembers later Prop 8 won in California.

So hard to tell which way the tides are moving.

[Of the 306M population of the USA....
Jews - 1.7-2.2%. Muslims - 0.5-0.7%, more or less the same as Buddhists. Hindus maybe 0.3%.
Gays (GLB) may be as high as 4-5%. Same-sex couples are likely 0.5%.
Blacks are definitely above 13%, nationwide, but in the cities with GLB concentrations I am guessing they are outnumbered by gays (except for Atlanta).
]

wrt SF, my undergraduate degree is in Civil Engineering, so just standing and looking at the Golden Gate bridge was awe-inspiring for me. The other high points were a bicycle ride along the marina to the bridge, and the coral reef exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences. When I asked the boys for their high points, the older one said "being on a holiday with the three of you," and the younger voted for ice cream sundaes at Ghiradelli's. Life's simple pleasures.


One afternoon while we had lunch on the beach, I saw a professional dog watcher (after a long time), and I got back to thinking about what I said about loving children. I wondered if this man, who obviously loves dogs, prefers their company for adult humans......