"A Liberty That Would Be Easily Understood by the Scots-Irish of Appalachia but Would Perplex the Puritans of New England"

"California's convoluted policies toward drugs and mental illness have combined to exacerbate its colossal homelessness problem, setting it apart, once again, from progressive Yankee states. California has the highest rate of unsheltered homelessness, followed by Oregon, whose settlement history and politics are very similar to those of Northern California. By contrast, New York City, whose upstate region was settled by Yankees, has the third lowest rate of unsheltered homelessness in America. Its success in bringing its homeless population indoors is thanks to its 'right to shelter' law—a classic top-down Yankee solution to an urgent social problem. Neither California nor Oregon has such a law."

Leighton Woodhouse at UnHerd claims that California's political problems stem from the influence of two groups from back East.

"A Seminal Moment in the History of Higher Education"

"In the years after Ross's dismissal, Lovejoy—one of the professors who had resigned from Stanford and ultimately went to Johns Hopkins University—teamed with John Dewey of Columbia University to establish an organization aimed at ensuring academic freedom for faculty. In 1915 the newly formed American Association of University Professors released its 'Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure.' Among other things, the declaration noted: 'Official action relating to reappointments and refusals of reappointment should be taken only with the advice and consent of some board or committee representative of the faculty.'"

In a 2015 Stanford Magazine article, Brian Eule recounts the story of Professor Edward Alsworth Ross.

"The General Sense of Disarray and Dysfunction That Is Permeating Everything"

"The parallel to national politics is the potential for a seismic backlash in November among voters unsettled by all the disruptions to daily life--from inflation to Covid-19 to crime--that have persisted through Joe Biden's presidency. That continued turbulence has undermined the implicit promise of his candidacy: to return the nation to something approaching normalcy after all the turmoil of the Donald Trump presidency."

Ronald Brownstein at CNN looks at political trends in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

"They Are the Ones Driving San Francisco's Political Vibe Shift"

"Whether it's the Chinese-Americans and other parents who were upset at the school board for shutting down programs for high achievers, or the young professionals starting families who just want to be able to afford somewhere to live, or the working-class residents of the Tenderloin who are sick of their neighborhood getting turned into a drug-filled porta potty, it's liberals who are sick of the bullshit and just want to say 'Yes We Can to opportunity and prosperity' for their families and their communities."

Tim Miller at The Bulwark describes the "Revenge of the Obama Democrats."

"A Political Backlash Is Brewing"

"The combative resistance is a harsh turn for a group of leaders whom progressives hailed as an electoral success story. Rising homicide and violent crime rates have even Democrats in liberal cities calling for more law enforcement, not less—forcing prosecutors to defend their policies against their own allies. And traditional boosters on the left aren't rushing to their aid, with some saying they've soured on the officials they once backed."

Astead W. Herndon at The New York Times writes that "[w]ith violent crime rates rising and elections looming, progressive prosecutors are facing resistance to their plans to roll back stricter crime policies of the 1990s."

"L.A.'s Struggles Point to Larger American Failures to Ensure That Prosperity and Health Are Broadly and Equitably Distributed"

"California as a whole can't prosper if its biggest and most diverse metropolitan area keeps floundering. Since the early 1990s recession, L.A. has been a drag on California's, and the nation’s, economic growth and employment. L.A. hasn't matched the gains in wages, education, health, or voter turnout found elsewhere in the state. And it is Los Angeles that has been the biggest driver of high poverty rates and rising inequality across the state."

Joe Matthews at Zocalo argues that "Los Angeles is failing California."

"Like the Music Nerd's Equivalent of Being Let Into the Everything-Is-Edible Room Over at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory"

"LA Magazine did a thing about 10 years ago: a bracket about the 100 greatest things about LA and had people voted. We made it to the final three and were up against Disneyland and the weather. And we won."

Rob Ledonne at Fifty Grande presents "An Oral History of Amoeba Music, 'The Greatest Store in the World.'"

"If All You Care About Is Money, I Suggest You Go to Texas"

"Elberling, who before the pandemic spearheaded new restrictions on skyscrapers in San Francisco, is among those who believe the city was being overrun by people who arrived for one reason.                                                                                                                                        "'The motivation got to this get-rich-quick attitude,' he said. 'And that isn't what our city is about.'"

David Ingram at NBC News reports on the trend of tech workers moving out of San Francisco.

"An Overabundance of Haves"

"'Even though people think there is diversity in the city, there isn't really,' said Adrianna Tan, a senior product manager at a tech startup who moved to San Francisco from Singapore. 'Sure, you get people from all over the world, but the only ones who can move here now come from the same socio-economic class'."

In a 2019 Guardian article, Julia Carrie Wong writes that in San Francisco, "techies hate the city they transformed."

For the People

"What doomed Harris wasn't just the Democratic Party's leftward shift on racial and criminal-justice issues. It was the party's lack of sympathy for the very different political environment Harris faced just a few years ago, when women and black candidates faced intense pressure to show that they were tough on crime.
"This is among the strangest twists of the 2020 presidential campaign. For good reason, Democrats have grown less tolerant of racism in the criminal-justice system. Yet that very intolerance—combined with insufficient recognition of the particular burdens that black women candidates face—has helped push the only black woman running for president from the race."

Peter Beinart at The Atlantic writes that had Sen. Kamala Harris "been the crusading criminal-justice reformer that Democrats now want to see, she would likely never have been in a position to run for president in the first place."

"Progressive Boomers Are Making It Impossible For Cities To Fix The Housing Crisis"

"'Most of the abuse I got came from older suburban or retired folks, and always from people who considered themselves progressive,' said Rob Johnson, a Seattle City Council member who retired in April after three years in office. During his tenure, he supported proposals to increase housing density, expand public transit and establish safe use sites for drug addicts.
"Despite representing a constituency with bright-blue voting records on immigration, reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality, Johnson's progressive positions on local issues provoked a large and organized backlash."

Michael Hobbes at HuffPost writes that "just as previous generations of anti-change activists used procedural arguments ('states' rights,' 'local control') to oppose progressive policies, today's anti-growth advocates employ similar arguments about community participation and government processes."

"They Will Have to Accept to Live Differently Themselves"

"While by no means a panacea, increasing the density of America's cities is a prerequisite for any remotely left-leaning vision of the future. And right now, neighborhoods zoned to accommodate only single-family homes are standing in the way of the society everyone in liberal America claims to want."

Benjamin Schneider at The Nation calls restrictive residential zoning "Liberal America's Single-Family Hypocrisy."

"The Two Most Influential Cult Bands in Rock History"

"The late '60s was a fertile time for rock, period. You could say it's hardly a shock that two pioneering underground rock groups debuted the same month. But there is something strange and special about two bands who inspired decades of underground admiration and imitation debuting within less than a week of each other. They might rule vastly disparate realms of rock, but both have established themselves as the kings of cult for decades to come."

Joe Lynch at Billboard links the Velvet Underground to the Grateful Dead.

"They Were More Than Just Faceless Bodies Rotting in the Sun"

"Even still, in America, Jonestown is largely seen as a white catastrophe; in Guyana, it's viewed as a distinctly American one, a late-20th-century experiment in colonialism. In both tellings, and in the many books and films, black people are seen en masse, without individual stories of their own that might tell us something about how private entities learn to prey on black people when civic institutions fail them, and how joy can sometimes be found within that."

Jamilah King at Mother Jones explores the lives of the people of the Peoples Temple, forty years later.

"At the Point of a Bayonet If Necessary"

"Ten people were arrested, and standoffs defined the first day as Hayakawa attempted to reopen the college. A day later, nine were injured and 31 arrested. The Dec. 4 Chronicle headline called it the 'worst day yet.' Hayakawa, for his part, stood strong in his convictions: 'I want to make it clear to everyone that I will break up this reign of terror.'"

Bill Van Niekerken at the San Francisco Chronicle marks the fiftieth anniversary of the 1968-1969 student strike at San Francisco State College, the longest student strike in American history.

And C-SPAN hosts a talk about the strike by historian William Issel.

"The Future Ex-Governor of California"

"Although Newsom is prepared to answer any question, he sometimes has trouble answering your question. When asked to name the biggest issue facing Fresno, Newsom spoke rapidly, in his hoarsely resonant baritone. 'Affordability,' he said. “I mean, it's the issue—cost of living, housing, it's the No. 1 issue, issues of childcare for your family, issues of education, cost of education, access.' The way he punches certain words gives his speech the inexhaustible quality of a sea chantey. 'And the perennial issue—I was just down in Bakersfield—the issue of air quality, issue of health, and the unique health disparities that exist out there, the issues of primary-care physicians, access to quality care, affordability of quality health care, all those issues have to be tackled. And, with all due respect, while our economy is growing—4.2-per-cent unemployment rate, twenty-four consecutive months of job creation—people don't live in the aggregate, not everybody's feeling that recovery, and we've got to deal with the issue of income and wealth disparity.'"

Tad Friend profiles Gavin Newsom in The New Yorker.

"What in God's Name Has Happened to the Republican Party?"

"Rockefeller's speech on extremism was intended to take full advantage of the television spotlight. Its official purpose was to plead for an amendment to the platform, proposed by Pennsylvania Sen. Hugh Scott, denouncing 'extremist' groups. But the Goldwater forces knew it was a veiled attack on their candidate. The third-term senator had the support of the virulent anticommunist John Birch Society, which he refused to distance himself from, even though its leader had accused Eisenhower of treason and being a communist agent.
"Melvin Laird, a congressman from Wisconsin and future secretary of defense who was running the show for Goldwater, thwarted Rockefeller by asking that the platform be read into the record before the governor spoke. The platform was 8,500 words. It took 90 minutes. Rockefeller was pushed out of primetime."

In a 2016 article, John Dickerson at Slate tells the story of the failed Republican "Stop Goldwater" efforts in 1964.

"They'll Just Have to Catch Up"

"He made other records that were successful and fantastic: Dance (Disco Heat), Stars, an astonishing live album called Living Proof–recorded at San Francisco's Opera House while the singer was tripping on LSD–and Do Ya Wanna Funk, a final collaboration with Cowley, who in November 1982 became an early victim of the Aids epidemic. But none had quite the same lasting impact as You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real). In 2018 alone, says Wirrick, he has had eight different requests to use it in films, videos and commercials. 'Can you imagine what a star he would be today had he lived?' he says. 'He would be a judge on America's Got Talent or he'd have his own syndicated series … who knows?'"

Alexis Petridis at The Guardian recalls Sylvester.

"The Cost of Throwing Pelosi Over the Side Would Be High"

"She has been an extraordinarily effective caucus leader. When Democrats last held the majority, she shepherded into law the most aggressive spate of liberal reforms since the Great Society: an $800 billion fiscal stimulus, health-care reform, Dodd-Frank. The House passed a cap and trade law at a time when bipartisan support for the idea still had some life in the Senate.
"It might seem tempting to dismiss these feats as automatic, the baseline expectation for what a leader can do when her party commands a majority. It is not. During many of these fights, Democrats were wandering off in multiple directions, as Democrats are wont to do. In particular, after Republican Scott Brown won a special election in Massachusetts in January 2010, many if not most Democrats collapsed into despair. Pelosi kept her nerve, talked her party off the ledge, and passed a bill that was signed into law."

Jonathan Chait defends Nancy Pelosi at New York.

"The Swashbuckling, Visionary Entrepreneur"

"What Tower achieved was a sensation. Until the 1960s, there weren't many record stores outside of the Sam Goody chain in New York. Music was sold mostly in the remote corners of department stores. Inspired in part by dad's drug store, which sold a wide variety of goods, Solomon offered music fans a veritable feast, with generous helpings of the offbeat and obscure. Word soon went out: Tower sold records you couldn't find anywhere else."

At The Sacramento Bee, Dale Kasler and Bob Shallit report the death of Tower Records founder Russ Solomon.

As do Ed Christman and Colin Stutz at Billboard.