What if we kissed at the bizarre outdoor Board of Supes meeting

There are many possible approaches to solving San Francisco’s drug problem. Some consider treatment the best alternative, while others urge a crackdown on public drug use (although presumably not “in the bathroom at Beauty Bar” kind of public use). Differing solutions have differing merits and drawbacks. There is one avenue, however, that is guaranteed not to work: having a public Board of Supervisors meeting in UN Plaza where housing-hater Aaron Peskin and mayorlike person London Breed can yammer in front of cameras. But someone thought this would be a good idea!

It was not. UN Plaza was very UN Plaza-y:

Haha. Breed said some stuff in the cracking-down vein, but refused to commit to a 90-day deadline proposed by Peskin. Look, some of us lived through the “War on Drugs” that was a scarring, generations-long fiasco that Drugs ended up winning, and no one wants a return to that. BUT. Fentanyl isn’t pot or even crack, and seeing people slumped over and dying literally in front of city hall isn’t ideal either. I don’t have the answer but it’s not whatever is happening right now.

After Breed got shouted down by protesters, which was of course exactly what anyone with a brain knew would happen, everybody realized how dumb the whole thing was and started to pack up and then a mentally ill woman threw a brick and hit a JROTC high schooler in the foot.

It’s another in a series of “photographs that resemble Renaissance paintings,” isn’t it? The Reconfiguration of St. Elysia or something. (The JROTC student reported no injuries, thank goodness. Speaking of, JROTC has a long history even in far-left San Francisco, and is especially popular with lower-income kids, and a conversation about the implications of that will have to wait). Anyway, Elysia was duly arrested and taken to jail where she will not receive mental health services. What happened to the brick remains a mystery, although it would be kinda cool to mount and display somewhere.

The whole thing was a Class-A Garbage City Shitshow of the kind only we can pull off. It was expensive (almost $5,000, apparently), pointless, loud, and somebody threw something. That’s basically SF government in a nutshell.

Non-shitty Dept.

I would like to take a moment and absolutely sing the praises of an institution that gets shit on more than UN Plaza but is truly an underappreciated gem: San Francisco public schools. We have a 4th grader in an SF public school and I am continually impressed with the quality of education and the breadth of experience she’s getting. This year, her class has been on field trips to, among other places, Angel Island to learn about immigration and to the Balclutha to learn about, I’m not sure, 19th century sailing or something, but it seemed cool. They do big individual learning projects and group stuff. And the usual school stuff, fractions and long division and there’s some new way of multiplying that I can’t figure out and science and whatever else. The school has a vibrant and welcoming parent community and we just love it. Honestly I can’t believe it’s free.

Now God knows there are tons of problems with SFUSD and not all schools are as smoothly-run as my kid’s, so this is necessarily just my perspective, but after five years, I’m so happy with the experience she’s having. SCHOOL IS COOL.