San Diego may be the eighth-largest city in the United States (the ranking does keep moving around ) and the second-largest city in California, but even with a population of 1.3 million and the ownership of one of the most perfect climates on the planet, we've got a little self-esteem problem. Perhaps it's the combination of that perfect climate - which in and of itself, of course, counts for absolutely nothing in the grander scheme of Great Urban Attributes - and our self-identification as a Family Friendly Vacation Destination, which tends to rub off the hard-bitten gleam larger cities often aim for. Maybe it's a reflection of the fact that many of our residents are originally from places elsewhere, moving from much colder or much hotter places and settling in with gratitude at the ability to maintain year-long open windows while not being bothered to do much of anything to actually improve or challenge the city. It also probably has something to do with the larger and more cosmopolitan megalopolis of Los Angeles that lies just an hour or two up the coast.
So I tend to ignore the local newspapers in their year-round attempts to highlight the awesomeness that is being a San Diego resident, 90% of which seems to involve the weather and nearly the remaining 10% the San Diego Chargers. Beach volleyball may take up a half of a percent. When the results of Most Livable City polls or Money magazine investigations are released, San Diegans eagerly peruse the rankings, looking to see where we've landed this month, how we've fared compared to the Bay Area, and keeping an eye out for new slogans to plaster along development corridors.
We're a catchy slogan type of city, after all, and our addiction to slogans is directly related to our low self-esteem. It was in 1972, for example, that our Republican Mayor Pete Wilson announced that San Diego was "America's Finest City," and set about launching a massive PR campaign to link the city with this newly-coined phrase, through a massive city-wide festival that August. The reason for this sudden pride in San Diego's national ranking was the result of the Republican National Committee rescinding their selection of San Diego as the host of the 1972 Republican National Convention, after months of careful planning by the city's Republican leadership. Miami became the replacement location, largely due to the fact that the Nixon White House anticipated massive protests for the occasion, and thought the city of Miami had an urban layout that would allow stricter control of access to the convention, although the official story at the time was that San Diego lacked proper convention facilities. Smarting from the public humiliation, and struggling to offset accusations that San Diego would never prove anything more than a second-tier convention town, Mayor Wilson conjured up both the slogan and the week-long festival of parades, half-marathons and a massive picnic in Balboa Park that directly coincided with the Republican Convention. The mayor's office was not merely a supporter of these celebrations, but the schedulers and the promoters. "America's Finest City" was thus born, and lives on today in the onslaught of advertising dollars dedicated to never again allowing our waterfront city a convention snub.
So it should come as little surprise that the recent release of the results from an almost charmingly-simplistic Harris poll - to wit, "Which American city would you like to live in or near?" - have set tongues wagging, at least in the editorial rooms of our struggling newspapers. For once again, the great metropolis that is San Diego has failed to ascend to the highest summits, and has placed a disheartening second, just under that pretender to the throne, New York. We beat Seattle, Los Angeles, Denver, Boston, San Francisco - Christ, we beat everybody except New York. And yet still we feel the pain.
The San Diego Union-Tribune has penned a short piece on the latest outrage that opens with the ominous phrase, "This is getting old". The article reads like the petty gripings of a Kaukauna high school newspaper taking potshots at the coach for Combined Locks after a third quarter fumble recovery. "What gives? New York has Eli Manning. We, thankfully, don't." Later, it is noted that, "In the winter, it snows in New York. In the summer, it’s muggy in New York." A kind of funny bit about TV filming locations (ie, New York has 30 Rock, San Diego has the "much better Terriers") suggests the editorial staff may be in on the joke, but then they go ahead and bluster, "Broadway? Well, San Diego has the Old Globe Theatre. And as the song goes, If you can make it there ... Over the years, more than 20 plays produced by the Old Globe have gone on to Broadway or off-Broadway venues," which comes off as humorless and pouty. A few comments from one-time New York residents who've moved out our way and a side panel query concerning, "What do you love about San Diego? Use the comments space below to share your favorite features, places, shops, spots or what have you," closes out this hard-hitting slice of journalism, along with a photograph of a bucolic San Diego draped in a thin strip of marine fog and surrounded by glorious sunshine. The available images of also-ran cities such as Los Angeles (a sky view of a cityscape cloaked in view-obscuring smog), Denver (a darkened figure huddled forward against the onslaught of snow and ice) and Atlanta (two people with their backs to the camera, standing in front of a giant CNN statue) make their final points.
It's not often that I turn to online reader's comments for sanity, especially not in this fairly reactionary town, but for once, I'll have to admit, the readers of The San Diego Union-Tribune can smell a load of horse manure when they're standing next to it. "I've lived here for 37 of my 45 years," one reader posts. "I left once, came back, and almost left again. San Diego is a pH-7, shoulder-shrug town. We're neither as great as our cheerleaders make us out to be nor as bad as our detractors do. There's nothing keeping me here except my job, and there's nothing driving me out of here." Another realist notes, "Both cities are great and both have their advantages and disadvantages. People who have never been to NY never believe me, but it's a lot easier to find friendly people there and strike up an interesting conversation than it is here." Someone who's obviously a big fan of the old L.A. hardcore band Fear pipes in, "New York's alright if you like saxophones... ". And some words of wisdom are offered up by somebody after my own heart, who calmly states, "Until you have spent some time in a real world-class city, you can't know how far short San Diego falls. There's a lot more to life than nice weather."
But how much fun is reasoned discourse and mild self-deprecation in this age of rage, rancour, suspicion, idiocy and miasma? So this is why my favorite "reader's comment" came not from any of the above individuals who no doubt love sleeping with the windows open but wish we had a few more Vietnamese cafes and a bookstore or two, but with the admirably focused individual who saw his/her opportunity and took it. Because when one hopes to dissuade fellow citizens on arguments regarding the supremacy of San Diego versus New York, you make a lengthy post regarding Unarius, the "sadistic rape suicide cult of El Cajon". Actually, you make two lengthy posts, each (again, admirably so) distinct documents with individual points and highlights.
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Post #1:
What does New York have that San Diego doesn't?? It has a sane, normal code of business conduct that does not allow sadistic rape suicide cults like Unarius in El Cajon, San Diego to exist, let alone steal money from the public by pretending to have licenses or degrees or certification to teach or do therapy. Unethical amatuers cannot practice therapy or teach in New York. In San Diego, you can do any corrupt criminal activity you like and get away with it, just as Unarius set me up to be raped, stole my money and made me homeless. Read my lawsuit and you will see the truth of this million dollar cult who lies to the IRS in order to not pay taxes on their profits from their high prices books and classes. They should be shut down, but in San Diego, no one cares. In New York, they could never pull off their scams. Unarius 16 members are mentally ill, liars, promiscuous rapists, sociopathic predators, swindlers, unethical, corrupt ex-alcoholics, murderers who served time in prison, suicide indulgers, prostitute users, who continue to engage in Consumer fraud, False advertising, and sell their opinions as facts. They are amateurs posing as professionals; their fake school is a front for their illegal activities, for preying on the gullible public and finanically exploiting and sexually abusing innocent victims. {{personal email deleted}}
Post #2 :
New York does not have the criminal corrupt fake school Unarius, in the poverty town of El Cajon,San Diego run by 16 ruthless mentally ill, sociopathic, dysfunctional, sexually promsicuous, unlicensed swindlers, rapists, pimps and predators who are amateurs posing as therapists, teachers and scientists in order to financially exploit and sexually attack fragile, vulnerable, naive, gullible, susceptible pretty women and the throw them out. They are not licensed nor degreed nor certified by any state or federal agency or college to do therapy or teach science to the public and take money for it. They are sadistic con artists who ripped me off, stole my money, set me up to be raped by one of their unlicensed teachers who made me homeless. They generate a profit by selling their opinions disguised as facts, in their useless and dangerous classes and sell their diaries and fake outer space transmissions filled with violence, rape and murder crimes and fantasies. Unarius members are skilled criminals who use mind control, brainwashing techniques on their recruits along with their secretive suberfuges, ruses, ploys to hypnotically induce altered states of consciousness in their victims. They use their own manufactured hypnosis tapes to do persuasive coercive subliminal induction on their unwilling victims, without obtaining their permission or consent. Unarius was arrested for prostitution and solicitation to commit prostitution. They have a secret cult conspiracy of silence among their aging members and hide their true identities and home addresses from the public while ripping them off with their fraudulent useless classes. As one of their victims, I can tell you, they would NEVER have been able to pull off their scams in New York. Shame on San Diego for not shutting down Unarius, the rape-suicide cult of El Cajon. {{again, personal email deleted}}
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Somebody grant this individual an editorial column. The reasoning and logic in the above paragraphs make at least as much sense as denigrating the island of Manhattan and the other four boroughs solely due to the existence of Eli Manning.
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