The loveliness of Paris seems somehow sadly gay; The glory that was Rome is of another day; I’ve been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan; I’m going home to my city by the Bay … I left my heart in San Francisco; High on a hill, it calls to me … ~ Songwriters Douglas Cross / George Cory

My very first visit to the beautiful ‘City by the Bay’ was sometime during the mid 1980s (’85 – ’86 maybe?) when I had some business to attend to in Los Angeles, following which I made the awesome trip up the Pacific Coast Highway to further business awaiting in San Francisco, calling in on William Randolph Hearst’s Castle above the town of San Simeon, Clint Eastwood’s Hog’s Breath Inn in Carmel-by-the-Sea, and numerous other spectacular places on the way up, not least of which was the beautiful English-style village of Sausalito nestled neatly on the northern side of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Twentieth-century San Francisco, Herb Caen’s beloved Baghdad by the Bay, has ceased to exist. It has been replaced by a city where the sidewalks around Market Street are, in places, caked in feces, urine, and vomit. The stink as you emerge from the BART batters you like frozen sleet, shocking and overwhelming. The hordes of homeless, sprawled in doorways and sleeping on the sidewalks, are a bitterly eclectic mixture of the mentally deranged; burnt out druggies; dead-eyed hippies; con artists; pickpockets; and hundreds of simply lost, forgotten souls. [Lee DeCovnik]

It was a spectacular trip conducted over a few days which immediately earned its rightful place onto my bucket list, where it still justifiably remains. But alas, that was then. Today, it is more than sad what has happened to San Francisco. It can hardly stand muster.

The city has morphed from the ‘flower of the west coast’, to the noxious weed of despair.

O that the Cross of Blessing and Glory (taken in Arizona right after 9/11) would cast itself upon the city by the bay…

I had occasion to visit downtown San Francisco this afternoon, the first time in over seven years, though I reside only thirty miles away in the East Bay suburbs. During my working life, I have commuted to San Francisco as a bushy-tailed junior executive in the ’70s, as a small business-owner in the early ’80s, and as a corporate executive in the ’90s. Thankfully, “Old” San Francisco really was a wonderful place to work, eat, and play. As I walked the three blocks back to the BART, I was panhandled four times, plus two clumsy pickpocket attempts. I didn’t see a single cop in a car or on foot. What could they do? [Lee DeCovnik]

Hi-Tech industry has replaced the once-great manufacturing and agricultural industries in California, while one-party rule has ruined the 6th-largest economy on the planet.

Runaway debt; billions in unfunded pension obligations; the largest number of people on welfare in the country; an education system that ranks among the worst in the nation, and a high-speed rail project that promises to bankrupt the state for generations to come, is believe it or not, just the tip of the iceberg.

What finally broke my heart were the kids and women, also lying in the streets, drugged, shell-shocked, begging for food. I found an ATM, took out some cash, and bought twenty five-dollar “Arch Cards” from McDonald’s and passed them out. The salty tears flowed gently down my face and onto my lips. My soul, my humanity was abused, sickened, and disgusted. Today I observed a city that carefully and deliberately schemed to become an open sewer. This is far beyond simple incompetence. The magnitude and pervasiveness of this horror remains indescribable. No rational, thinking person, or board, or mayor could allow this societal abomination to continue unabated in a first-world country. [Lee DeCovnik]

In the 35 years since my sojourn up that Pacific Coast Highway, this once great city has become what amounts to a third world hell hole brought on by its progressive politics. San Francisco is, to a large extent, nothing more than a microscopic banana republic. DemoMarxists – nobody else – have wreaked devastation in not just San Francisco, but throughout California. Don’t forget that exactly the same thing is going on within the city limits of Los Angeles.

[Yet it does…] San Francisco willingly hosts a malignant cancer that has metastasized and destroyed all aspects of a civilized, compassionate society. While skyscrapers still fill the skyline, and tankers and giant container ships still prowl the bay, the City-by-the-Bay soul has begun its death rattle. [Lee DeCovnik]

We the People need to wake up and see how Democrat-controlled cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles; Detroit and Chicago; St. Louis and Newark; Baltimore and Milwaukee; Washington DC and Philadelphia; Cleveland and New Orleans are the future of this country should the DemoMarxists continue their destruction of the United States.

What a shame. What a waste. What a travesty.

Jesus wept.

To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars; The morning fog may chill the air, I don’t care;  My love waits there in San Francisco; Above the blue and windy sea … When I come home to you, San Francisco; Your golden sun will shine for me … ~ Songwriters: Douglas Cross / George Cory

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Lee DeCovnik: ‘San Francisco now so bad it’ll make you cry

Monica Showalter: ‘Deep blue California makes itself nation’s pestilence capital

Mission Local: ‘SF homeless advocates recommend call 311, not 911 on homeless

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Face of Jesus by Richard Hook

Soli Deo Gloria!