Water, $$$ & Western Civilization

“A new brand of dot.com millionaires and generally Silicon Valley money moved into San Francisco with bags full of cash and no manners and very little education in the great culture of Western civilization,” Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

We're currently in one of the worst (if not THE WORST) droughts in California history. Many a Californian municipality has already begun imposing serious water restrictions on it populace. But drought minimization efforts here in San Francisco range from non existent to absolute minimal. Could it possibly have something to do with all the construction cranes that have become ubiquitous throughout the city the past couple of years? Could it be because there's just so much money pouring in from all these recent high tech firms (both start ups and established) that no one wants to rock the boat in whatever puddle is left to rock? Would this most recent wave of high end $$$ look elsewhere if they heard that water access would be cut several hours a day? Of course, it makes little difference either way to the scores of homeless that literally litter our streets despite this plethora of high tech income.

And for 1/2 hr every Friday at lunch hour, you can see a regular handful of these dot.com, start up, millionaire wannabes deftly maneuvering around the homeless on the streets as they pick up latte cups and napkins off the city streets with their mechanical grabbing sticks. This is their officially sanctioned method of "giving back" to the city they've invaded, in return for which, San Francisco has bequeathed them with millions in tax incentives as they price local, long time residents out of home and... city.