And Sanity Prevails

[madrobins]

Yesterday was, as you know, Bob, election day. In NYC, Bernard Goetz, formerly the "subway gunman" of the 80's, ran for City Advocate (he lost to the incumbant, Betsy Gotbaum, and a good thing too. You really don't want a man running things whose idea of conflict resolution is to start shooting). And here in San Francisco, there were three elections concerning people (City Assessor, City Treasurer, and City Attorney) but a slew of Propositions, both on the local and state level. And Sanity (sometimes) Prevailed. The truly nasty Parental Notification prop failed (I believe that a woman of whatever age who wants an abortion should have the love and support of the people around her, and I would want my girls to come to me in such a situation...but I also believe that if a girl believes that her father will kill her if he learns she's had sex--let alone that she's pregnant, she might be right); all of Shwarzenegger's proposals (teacher tenure, union political contributions; state spending limits; and redistricting) failed. Both the flawed props on prescription drug discounts tanked, as did the only one I voted for, on power regulation. This is an astonishing show of good sense in a state which two years ago seemed to want to follow the Governator into the abyss, while yelling "Yeah, baby!"

Of course, in San Francisco things were more, um, San Franciscan. We voted against handguns (they are now illegal in the city--which I doubt is going to do much good, but it's a nice thought) and against military recruiters in schools, we voted for keeping firehouses open and funding improvements at the city college and for underground parking at Golden Gate Park (!?). But there were no votes with which I wildly disagreed, and I can't even remember the last time that happened.