I live in the Bay Area and subscribe to the San Francisco Chronicle.
SF politics are fascinating, here's a typical example involving an
attempt to clean up a rundown neighborhood..

San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, October 14, 2005
Letters to the Editor
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/10/14/EDGKVF7
QQC1.DTL

Whither Polk Gulch?
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Editors -- Who appointed Miles O'Reilly to be the all-knowing judge as
to what is beautiful on Polk Street ("Polk Gulch cleanup angers some,"
Oct. 12)?

I sure didn't elect this overfinanced ruffian and his gentrification
Gestapo, aka the Lower Polk Neighbors Association, to clean up my
neighborhood by driving up prices to evict residents so some pinstriped
speculators can steal millions from other speculators.

As for that so-called Lower Polk Neighbors Association, well, it sure
doesn't include any of the Lower Polk neighbors such as myself who have
lived here for a long time and have no problem with human diversity.
The only problem these people have with diversity is that diversity is
not into white gentrification, economic cleansing and real-estate
speculation.

We were here first, and we will stop this nonsense!  The poor and non-
trendy have just as much right to live in San Francisco.  By the way, I
live here on Social Security and I am transgender, and I am tired of
being an economic football of the rich!

ROSALYNE S. MONTGOMERY
San Francisco

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Editor -- Did it ever occur to the Gay Shamers that most of us who live
near Polk Gulch don't care to have tweakers carrying on in our
neighborhood?  How does a drugged-out boy prostitute contribute to the
enrichment of our community?  I've been a Tenderloin resident, living on
Geary near Polk for 16 years, and the rejuvenation of my neighborhood is
long past due.  These "activists" need to look in the mirror.

COLIN HUSSEY
San Francisco

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[Now for some background, a description of the neighborhood in the words
of the leftist activist group "Gay Shame" - just try not to laugh too
hard]:

San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/12/BAG1OF6TFR1.DTL&feed
=rss.bayarea

"Gay Shame, an activist group that champions the rights of "radical
queers," says gentrification is pushing out "hookers, hustlers, drug
addicts, homeless people, trannies, needle exchange services, working-
class queers and other social deviants."

"Polk Street is one of the last remaining places where there has been
cross-class, cross-gender and cross-sexuality, an interaction between
street cultures," said one member of the group who identified himself
as Mary.  (Gay Shame members have a policy of not using their real
names when speaking with the news media).  "To see that steadily
replaced by high-end destinations for partying suburbanites is really
heartbreaking and very intolerant."

******************************myrant************************************

Polk Gulch seems to be the area right around Polk & Van Ness, just north
of Market.  While I'm gay, the area sounds absolutely dreadful, perhaps
almost as bad as that area just north of Market and Civic Center.  At
least Castro Street isn't a slum.  It is hilarious to listen to the
radical activists describe homeless transexual crack whores and needle
exchanges as "diversity."  As for crack whores, note the first letter to
the editor from Rosalyne Montgomery and how he/she/it describes himself
as a transgender on Social Security.  I doubt Mr. Rosalyne is 65, so he
must be describing Social Security disability, so let's take a wild guess
as to what his disability might be?  What could it be, what could it be?
Perhaps he's one of the drugged-out boy prostitutes the second letter
refers to, more accurately a transexual crack whore, and obviously his
disability is the AIDS he caught.  But not so disabled as to prevent him
from being able to work the corner of Polk and Geary every night...