jemagirl (imported) wrote: Sun Nov 14, 2004 5:31 pm
If you look at just one area at a time there may not be much diversity however when looking at the state in its entirety, there is tremendous diversity. California encompasses a wide range of habitat such as deserts, coastal areas, wetlands, mountains, and rivers just to name a few. Each one of the areas has its own ecology.
As far as the comments about San Francisco, I think those are more related what sorts of things interest you as a person rather than the quality of the culture to be found there.
Jema
Yes, I agree.
Flying over the state from San Francisco southeast is a marvelous experience. You cross zones that change rapidly. The state does lack the immense biological diversity of a place such as Eastern Tennessee or South Florida. That does not make its own plants and animal less interesting.
I am writing about a personal reaction but I steal words from Joni Mitchell:
I call to the seagull
Who dives to the waters
And catches his silver-fine
Dinner alone
Crying where are the footprints
That danced on these beaches
And the birds that cast wishes
That sunk like stones
My dreams with the seagulls fly
Out of reach out of cry.
San Francisco has great schools and an intriguing history. It is surrounded by rich people who would (as we used to say) drive to the revolution in their (whatever expensive automobiles people drove in the sixites.) People were honest but desperate back then.
I recall reading in The Wall Street Journal several years ago how desperate people flee to San Francisco--not merely technically homeless people but physicians and other professional folks. When they arrive, they are merely alone and more desperate. I was not alone there. I was not even desperate. I had a good time--in San Francisco--but I found no good reason to be there. Political work in other places seemed more important than selling Coca-Cola or green beans--Eventually, I got to teach children in Louisiana. Further, I do prefer the East Coast to the West Coast. It is a matter of taste. On the other hand, I would love to attend Pacific School of Religion after retirement (it is a LGBT friendly place), but I am instead doing something more practical--buying a house in the East.
One of my nephews is a native of California. For a long time, he was the only non-Southerner in my family.
I doubt that most people in California are as empty as Mr. Peterson seems to be. Still, the place is stange to other people. Five months for a murder trial--that is nuts (and thus an issue for the board). I am not recommending a lynch mob, but five months! Nuts!
A-1 
A state that also seems strange to people who don't live there 
You can go to the beach and to the top of Mauna Kea where people can and do ski and snowboard. It is the only place other than California that I have lived for an extended length of time.
