How the SF state senator was changed by California; how our great state spawned a cultural phenomenon; how many Californians are being denied life's most basic necessity.
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By Eric Johnson
Published May 08, 2023
State Sen. Scott Wiener reminds us that for generations, California has welcomed people to be who and what they are.
Scott Wiener; Weird Comix; Water Rights
How California Culture Determines Politics
Ezra Klein of the New York Times is widely and rightly regarded as a preeminent Washington insider, but he is also very much a California boy. Born and raised in Irvine, schooled at UC Santa Cruz and UCLA, he has called San Francisco home for a number of years. As he gets ready to move to New York City, he is taking a last long look at his home state.
Below I preview and briefly excerpt a wide-ranging conversation between Klein and California state Sen. Scott Wiener, the firebrand who recently announced a possible run for US Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s seat. While their talk centers on the limits of classical liberal politics, the two Californians touch briefly and smartly on our state’s cultural legacy.
Wiener, a native of New Jersey, moved as a young man to San Francisco’s Castro District having grown up closeted in a hostile environment. “Something inside told me to go to San Francisco, like generations of queer people have gone to San Francisco,” he recalls.
Wiener was not surprised when the tech boom that transformed his adopted city economically did not change much politically. He says of the armies of workers that bus in and out of SF every day: “They could work in tech in a lot of places, and they chose San Francisco because of what it represents.”
Why Democrats Should Pay Attention to California
Ezra Klein talks to state Sen. Scott Wiener about why progressive policies have failed in a state with no Republicans in power.
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California’s Contributions to the Art of Comics
“People come to California for freedom, and one of those freedoms is the freedom to draw. Our state’s central place in the wave of adult, autobiographical and underground comics can’t be overstated—especially in the unrestrained exuberance of cartooning’s heyday, roughly 1967 to 1993.”
Comics may have been born in New York, but they came of age in California. And there’s more to the story than San Francisco comix.
Should Clean Water be a Human Right?
According to a California law passed in 2012, “it is the established policy of the state that every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitary purposes.” For almost a million Californians, that right is being violated.
Dirty Water: California Faces a Water Contamination Crisis
Almost one million California residents are forced to drink from contaminated water supplies, or pay for bottled water. Economic inequality makes the crisis worse. What is the state doing to fix it?
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(05/08/2023) → Read the full The Sacramento Bee report• Sacramento Mayor, Councilmembers Will Get Raises Next Month
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(05/03/2023) → Sacramento News and Review|
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(05/03/2023) → San Francisco Chronicle• Report: Fast Food Industry Wages Help Fuel Homelessness
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