American Patriot
On a lovely summer day last month, Farley’s was packed with caffeinated conversationalists and computer-focused singles, spilling onto the outside parklet. Suddenly, a voice bellowed, “Go back to where you’re from! You’re ruining our country!” A White guy sporting shades, a straw hat, and accompanying white mustache and soul patch started loudly haranguing two young women sitting at a sidewalk table, one of whom had dark complexion. The White guy, who looked like he could’ve been at home at a country music concert, kept at it for a while, as surrounding patrons shifted uncomfortably in their seats. As he finally started stalking away, View publisher Steven Moss, who was meeting with one of his reporters on the parklet, called out to the women, “On behalf of White guys, I apologize!” The White guy rushed over to Moss and shouted “You disrespecting me!? You big-nosed, faggot, Jew, mass murdering, Zionist…” And so on and so forth; the View will leave it to readers to determine which of these epithets might actually be accurate. “Walk away, just walk away,” Moss advised White guy, which elicited more raging invective. Eventually, a half-dozen police officers showed up, most of whom were women. By that time angry White guy had walked away, hopefully not on his way to the closest gun shop… Sad times indeed, when bigoted, fuming White guys can now be found even outside Farley’s, on Potrero Hill, in San Francisco…
Student Bright
Last month, the California Interscholastic Federation recognized 35 State Academic Team Champions for the 2018-2019 school year, honoring squads with the highest collective grade-point-averages (GPA), based on an unweighted 4.0 scale, in their respective sport. Three girls’ cross-country teams accomplished a 4.00 GPA: Bakersfield, Moreau Catholic and San Francisco International High School, located on De Haro Street. The gymnastics team from Wilcox also achieved a 4.00 GPA, along with San Francisco International’s boys’ cross-country team. Run! Read! Calculate!
Student Blight
According to Dogpatch resident and longtime community activist Janet Carpinelli, the University of California, San Francisco’s new student housing, located at 600 Minnesota Street, “…is a blight to the community…UCSF decided to value-engineer the project with the current dark gray and rust colored pre-fab cladding at the last minute” a design that was rejected by the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association and Potrero Boosters. “This cladding is unattractive in both color and design. Furthermore, it is collecting bird poop and water stains on the exterior before its residents even move in,” according to Carpinelli, who wants UCSF to
“honor its original commitment and begin to fast track meetings with interested neighbors to discuss modifications of the exterior in order to incorporate it into the Dogpatch Historic neighborhood.”
Ganesh is Angry
Last month the View received the following press release, which we thought we’d share with our readers:
Upset Hindus urge Santa Cruz sock company to withdraw Lord Ganesh socks and apologize.
Upset Hindus are urging sock company MERGE4 based out of Santa Cruz, California, for immediate recalling of socks carrying images of Hindu deity Lord Ganesh; calling it highly inappropriate.
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, said that Lord Ganesh was highly revered in Hinduism and was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to adorn or wrapped around one’s feet/legs. Inappropriate usage of Hindu deities or concepts or symbols for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it hurt the devotees.
Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, also urged MERGE4 and its founder-chief executive officer, Cindi Busenhart, to offer a formal apology, besides withdrawing Lord Ganesh socks from company’s online store, as well as from its other retailers/stocks in USA and abroad.
Hinduism was the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about 1.1 billion adherents and a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken frivolously. Symbols of any faith, larger or smaller, should not be mishandled, Rajan Zed noted.
Zed further said that such trivialization of Hindu deities was disturbing to the Hindus world over. Hindus were for free artistic expression and speech as much as anybody else if not more. But faith was something sacred and attempts at trivializing it hurt the followers, Zed added.
In Hinduism, Lord Ganesh is worshipped as god of wisdom and remover of obstacles and is invoked before the beginning of any major undertaking. There are about three million Hindus in USA.
