Faux Pho! I've always wondered about how that tastes. Woohoo we're 1/3 through!

That last comment was from me.

I am so tempted to start calling you Ali G -- but I'm sure it's been done :) And I know we're only at the one-third mark, but doesn't it feel like we've already come *so* far?

Faux pho rocks. This stuff is almost better than the real thing.

1 down. Nice work.

Methinks Sakai needs to shake his Magic 8 Ball perhaps one extra time before he starts going off with the predictions... Nothing like skipping Property and Corps last night... and opening that exam up this morning... ugh! ALMOST DONE! YAY!!

I think it was Gertrude Stein talking about Oakland (her hometown).

The beginning of your post reminds me of a joke:

The Coach had put together the perfect team for the Oakland Raiders. The only thing that was missing was a good quarterback. He had scouted all the colleges, and even the high schools, but he couldn't find a ringer quarterback who could ensure a Super Bowl win. Then one night, while watching CNN, he saw a war-zone scene in Afghanistan. In one corner of the background, he spotted a young Northern Alliance soldier with a truly incredible arm. He threw a hand grenade straight into a 3rd-story window 200 yards away! He threw another hand grenade into a group of 10 soldiers 100 yards away! Then a car passed, going 90 mph, bulls-eye! "I've got to get this guy!" Coach said to himself. "He has the perfect arm!" So, he brings him to the States and teaches him the great game of football, and the Raiders go on to win the Super Bowl. The young Afghani is hailed as the Great Hero of football, and when Coach asks him what he wants, all the young man wants to do is to call his mother.

"Mom," he says into the phone, "I just won the Super Bowl!"

"I don't want to talk to you," the old woman says. "You deserted us. You are not my son."

"I don't think you understand, Mother!" the young man pleads. "I just won the greatest sporting event in the world. I'm here among thousands of my adoring fans."

"No, let me tell you," his mother retorts. "At this very moment, there are gunshots all around us. The neighborhood is a pile of rubble. Your two brothers were beaten within an inch of their lives last week, and this week your sister was raped in broad daylight." At that point, the old lady pauses, and then tearfully says, "I'll never forgive you for making us move to Oakland."

Hey! Listen up wanksta! Don't you go dissin' my homies now, or this Mac Daddy gonna cut you fo good!

I don't often post comments (I've done so once or twice before), but I feel compelled to. I've heard that quote about Oakland as well, but your husband's assertion that there are nothing but drugs and baseball in Oakland smacks of elitism and racism. I'm from San Francisco and don't do drugs myself, but I know for sure that they are readily available right here. I would guess that would be true in Chicago and Boston as well. There are parts of every city that are not so nice, but that shouldn't define a whole city. I know a lot of people who grew up in Oakland and guess what they are successful, hardworking people. Their sisters weren't raped and their brothers weren't shot. Maybe the insularity of bar review has made you and the others who commented on this post forget that some statements are offensive and are perhaps best kept to yourselves.

I can already see people negatively reacting to this post and saying I took the comment out of context. Or perhaps people will assume I'm overly sensitive and love to scream racism. Think what you like, but I implore you to be a bit more thoughtful and intelligent in your posts next time.

PG is right, it was Gertrude Stein who was speaking of returning to the site of her childhood home in Oakland and finding it no longer existed. Hence, there was "no there there". But what I love about art is that the meanings resonate on so many levels, and we embrace them for our own purposes.

Allow me to be the first to negatively comment about cmr's post, which smacks of unctuous political correctness. "There are parts of every city that are not so nice, but that shouldn't define a whole city. "

Except when it's true. Oakland has a murder rate four times the national average. Are we supposed to overlook this unpleasant fact because it isn't PC?

Yes, of course there are nice parts of Oakland; the Montclair neighborhood is just as nice as the Berkeley hills, or Belmont or Mill Valley, but by and large Oakland is a city with serious problems, as Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown said: "The trouble is, people don't mind shooting each other," Mayor Jerry Brown says of the eye-for-an-eye nature of the drug trade that is largely behind the jump in slayings here. "You have a culture where killing is not extraordinary."

Sometimes the truth hurts, but it only makes matters worse when you ignore it because someone might get offended.

PS: I grew up in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, and my parents still live there.

I just need to say thay my post was less about political correctness and more about calling a bit of attention to what I saw as insensitivity. I know it makes it easier to feel better about what you said when you claim I am only acting out of some sense of moral superiority. The fact is those were fairly shitty things to say and I don't regret posting a comment to that effect.

"I just need to say thay my post was less about political correctness and more about calling a bit of attention to what I saw as insensitivity."

The two aren't incompatible. Political correctness originates in the perceived need to be sensitive because of another's race, class, gender, etc. This seems like a laudable goal, but it comes at the expense of inhibiting people from speaking freely, lest they be found guilty of "elitism" or "racism" or "ageism" or any of a thousand different "isms" at the PC police's disposal.

"I know it makes it easier to feel better about what you said when you claim I am only acting out of some sense of moral superiority."

Well when you make the observation that JCA's husband's comments "smacks of elitism and racism" aren't you necessarily assuming a morally superior role?

"The fact is those were fairly shitty things to say and I don't regret posting a comment to that effect."

Yeah, well its fairly shitty that in Oakland "people don't mind shooting each other" and that... "[y]ou have a culture where killing is not extraordinary". Does that mean those things shouldn't be said? Try spending a Friday night at 98th Avenue and International Blvd., some time cmr. I wonder if you would still be so sanctimonious. That is, if you managed to survive.

at least y'all are inside with a/c. the kids in NYC have been, for the past two days, in unairconditioned spaces with heat indices of 100+.

Yay! Fewer rich lawyer types to move in and gentrify our fair city. Let's hope people continue to make generalizations about Oakland, failing to take the time to know or appreciate a complex and rad city.

My sister just bought a house in Oakland, and we've got lots of family friends who live over there. I prefer it to SF, which is, in my view, increasingly homogeneous and boring. I go to Oakland and I see people from all different ages, ethnic backgrounds, and walks of life. In SF, it's all hip 20 and 30-somethings who dress alike.

That having been said, the city has major, major problems. The murder rate is high, there is a drug problem, and the difference between the nice areas and the bad areas is remarkable. I don't see calling attention to this as bad: it's better to acknowledge the problems and hopefully work to fix them.

its so odd to cross paths with bloggers. when i got to OCC (as the announcer said), I was like, "hmmm, i wonder who reads my blog?" of course there are ten people. anyway, i'm sure i crossed paths with you.

IT'S DONE!!! =)