Sad Denouement

Jose Inez Garcia Zarate

After nine years the Kate Steinle murder case reaches its sad denouement:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to deport a Mexican national who was acquitted in the high-profile 2015 murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco, the New York Times reported.

Jose Inez Garcia Zarate, who is undocumented, was acquitted by a jury in 2017 of murder and manslaughter charges but convicted of being a felon in possession of a gun. The trial drew national attention and was used by politicians as a talking point in immigration debates.

Steinle, 32, was fatally shot while walking along Pier 14 with her father.

According to Garcia Zarate’s attorneys, he found a gun along the waterfront and accidentally fired it – causing the bullet to ricochet off the pavement, striking Steinle in the back. The gun was stolen from a federal Bureau of Land Management ranger’s car.

Garcia Zarate’s gun conviction was later overturned by a court of appeals in 2019.

Garcia Zarate remained in prison for federal probation violations until February, the New York Times reported. In mid-February, Garcia Zarate was transferred to ICE custody and the agency plans to deport him to central or southern Mexico within the next week, a Department of Homeland Security official told the New York Times under the condition of anonymity.

Before the 2015 shooting, Garcia Zarate had been deported five times. He was in federal prison on a conviction of felony re-entry into the U.S. but instead of deportation, he was brought to San Francisco, where he was wanted for a possession of marijuana charge. That charge was dismissed and Garcia Zarate was released from custody under the city’s sanctuary policy, which limits local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration officials. Federal immigration officials had requested he remain detained until they could pick him up and were not notified of his release.

Former President Donald Trump used the case to criticize sanctuary cities.

Kate Steinle's death did not cause "sanctuary cities" to renounce their policy of non-cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). And so it is that illegal immigrants continue to be arrested and released by local authorities before they can be turned over to ICE, and some go on to kill American citizens.

The murder of Laken Riley in Georgia last week by an alleged Venezuelan illegal threatens to become Kate Steinle 2.0 this political season. The problem was never solved but only grew worse, and it will be surprising if the voters don't exact a price this November.

Mourning Macy's

December, 1972: Union Square glitters (Chron photo)

As alluded to in yesterday's post, the loss of Macy's is the end of a San Francisco cultural icon.

Department stores were already cultural hubs in San Francisco when Macy’s opened in 1947. The working class Emporium on Market Street had been the center of San Francisco holiday celebrations, hosting a Santa Claus parade and placing rides on the building’s roof. Union Square’s City of Paris department store was the upscale king, with its stained glass atrium roof and 70-foot Christmas trees.

But Macy’s San Francisco was the juggernaut that managed to eclipse and outlast all comers. Taking up three-quarters of a city block, it felt like the epicenter of retail in San Francisco, if not the entire state.

With the success of the San Francisco flagship, Macy’s California expansion was swift. By 1978 there were 22 stores in California, with plans for more. Profits were so high that Macy’s California President Ernest Molloy was sent to bail out the struggling New York stores, later becoming CEO of the entire company.

..Tuesday’s announcement will land harder on San Francisco residents than the recent departures of other major retail outlets like Nordstrom and Old Navy. Macy’s is where San Franciscans bought their back-to-school outfits and their first suits and prom dresses. In some cases, it’s where they took the 38 Geary during Christmastime to ogle the store’s elaborate window displays and make their first San Francisco memories, period.

As the city tries to reinvent its downtown core, and perhaps the identity of its entire shopping district, Macy’s San Francisco will be the hardest void to fill.

Retail reached its zenith at the end of the 20th century. Out-of-town shoppers flocked to Macy's and the other stores on Union Square; there was nothing like them in the rest of the Bay Area.

The suburbs grew more affluent, the malls got bigger and glitzier, and San Francisco became grimier and unpleasant. There was no reason to fight the traffic into downtown and pay $20 for parking.

Those of us who were there mourn the City that was, and the wonderment that was lost.

Macy's on Union Square

After Macy's bought the I Magnin store (white building center left)
in 1994 it had the entire south side of Union Square (Chron photo)

Nearly a year ago the belief that San Francisco was in an inescapable doom loop became widespread. In seeming confirmation a month later Nordstrom, the anchor store of the San Francisco Centre, announced that it would close.

But subsequent events bred hope. In the fall the City banished homeless encampments near several major conventions and heavily patrolled the areas so that conventioneers wouldn't be victimized. Last week there were reports that tech employers were hiring again, and that some investors were buying at what they saw as the bottom of this real estate cycle.

However, trend lines never move smoothly in one direction. Today San Francisco received retail news that was worse than Nordstrom's departure.

Macy’s will close its massive flagship store in Union Square, San Francisco officials said Tuesday, a major setback to the city’s premier shopping district and its larger downtown recovery efforts during an election year.

The store will remain open until the company finds a buyer for the property, Mayor London Breed said in a statement Tuesday morning. The Chronicle has learned that the store will remain open until at least 2025...

Macy’s massive, 400,000-square-foot Union Square store — which spans nearly an entire block fronting Geary Street between Powell and Stockton streets — is the company’s last outpost in San Francisco. Macy’s presence in the city dates to 1947 and its store is a landmark on the south side of Union Square. Its loss marks one of the biggest retail closures the city has ever seen, on top of the loss of a nearby Nordstrom that had been open since 1988 and dozens of smaller retailers since the pandemic.

Union Square dates back to San Francisco's founding and is the unofficial heart of the City. Macy's is the dominant retailer of Union Square. If its building goes dark, it will deal a severe blow to Union Square and the revitalization of San Francisco.

Seeing the Light

Poor little lambs who have lost their way with social justice,
diversity, equity, and inclusion, Yale may be returning to
its motto light and truth (lux et veritas)

After a four-year hiatus Yale University is again requiring standardized tests on admission applications. [bold added]

After four years with a test-optional policy that allowed applicants to decide whether or not to submit test scores, Yale will resume requiring scores of all applicants. But it will expand the list of tests that fulfill the requirement to include AP and IB exams in addition to the SAT and ACT.

Dean of undergraduate admissions Jeremiah Quinlan:

we found that test scores have continued to predict academic performance in Yale College. Simply put, students with higher scores have been more likely to have higher Yale GPAs, and test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s performance in Yale courses in every model we have constructed.

A similar study by Dartmouth and Brown also showed that test scores were an accurate predictor of college grades, and that applicants who did not submit test scores performed less well.

It found that students who didn’t submit scores earned college grades equivalent to students who earned a 1307 or an ACT of 28. The average scores at highly selective schools generally top 1500 on the SAT and 34 on the ACT.

Dartmouth and Yale are the two Ivies who reinstated standardized testing this month.

When my high-school class sat for the exams a half-century ago, there was a different, undoubtedly naïve, perspective about testing. We were asked to perform the best that we could, but on the other hand we wanted to go to schools that were the right "fit." For example, I knew that my science and math skills weren't sufficient to do well at MIT or Caltech, regardless of my scores.

There was very little advance preparation. Your humble blogger took the SATs, six Achievement tests, and four Advanced Placement exams. Our teachers told us that we couldn't really prepare for the Scholastic Aptitude Tests--and I didn't know anyone who did--but because the ACH and AP tests were presumably based on subject knowledge, I did spend a few hours reviewing textbooks and lecture notes; unlike students today I didn't take practice tests or six-week prep classes or had a tutor.

I did well enough to get into some good schools and ended up going to one where I was in the middle of the pack. The important take-away was that I didn't encounter anyone who didn't have the smarts to do the work, and that I attribute to the testing screens.

It's comforting to know that Yale and Dartmouth have seen the light. Perhaps others will follow.

Notre Dame:: Continuing the Tradition

1966 windows by Jacques le Chevallier

Four years ago Notre Dame Cathedral miraculously survived a devastating fire. Not unexpectedly there has been disagreement surrounding the reconstruction of the over-800-year-old national monument.

The latest controversy is over the replacement of the Chevallier stained-glass windows that were not damaged by the fire. These windows are grisaille (“shades of gray” accented with color). In addition they do not depict scenes from the Bible or saints ("non-figural"), and didn't have defenders when their replacement was authorized by both the Catholic Church and the government.

Now there are petitions to leave the windows intact. Your humble blogger has no dog in this hunt, but I do think that, based on history, if the windows are replaced they will be beautiful.

It Still Has Heft

Three ways to spot a fake: with a machine, with a pen
or by checking the small banding on the bill. (WSJ)

Something I didn't know: there are more one-hundred-dollar than one-dollar bills in circulation:

The $100 bill is far and away the most common U.S. paper currency, dwarfing even the $1 bill. The number of bills bearing Benjamin Franklin’s mug more than doubled between 2012 and 2022, faster growth than any other denomination, according to the most recent Federal Reserve data

For all its prevalence, the $100 bill is more effective for storing money than spending it. Even when cashiers do accept the bills, they hold up checkout lines to verify they aren’t counterfeits...

One reason they have become so prevalent is that they enter circulation far quicker than they leave. They can last over a decade longer than $1s and $5s, partly because people are more likely to hold than spend them.

One hundred dollar bills are harder to spend because cashiers eye them suspiciously, perform tests to make sure they're not counterfeit (picture), or even refuse them. Fast-food restaurants often post signs that they will not accept bills larger than twenties.

If I have to break a hundred, I walk over to the nearby Lucky Supermarket and use the self-checkout machine, which makes change without any hesitation.

However, the friction of using a Benjamin is more than made up by its (still) psychological heft; upon receiving a C-note as a gift, the recipient usually sends a real thank-you note, not a text or email.

Lake Manly

Death Valley, the hottest and driest place in North America, has a lake. [bold added]

recent rains have submerged the salt flats of Badwater Basin in a foot of water — a temporary lake large enough for park visitors to even go out in kayaks...

While water that falls typically evaporates, Death Valley received a surplus of rain over the past six months — two and half times what it normally tallies in an entire year, [park ranger] Abby Wines said.

The park had its rainiest day on record on Aug. 20, when remnants of Hurricane Hilary dropped 2.2 inches of rain. That brought the reemergence of an ancient lake, dubbed Lake Manly in honor of pioneer William Manly.

By the end of January, the lake had shrunk to half its size from when it formed in August. But an atmospheric-river-fueled storm in early February replenished it to its current dimensions: about 6-miles long, 3-miles wide and 1-foot deep.

Without more rainfall, Lake Manly will not be able to accommodate kayaking and paddle boarding in two weeks and will likely be gone by summer. However, to those of us who have had to listen to the incessant drumbeat of desertification doomsaying by climate alarmists, its unexpected reappearance was pleasure indeed.

Hanging Out at Ala Moana

Sign on the top floor above the stage

I made more visits to the Ala Moana Shopping Center than I usually do.

The first trip was for the purpose of making a tax payment at the City Hall Satellite Office; the second was to have dinner at one of the over-100(!) restaurants; the third was to pick up some knick-knacks to take home.

I get the appeal of hanging out at Ala Moana. I know some retirees whose daily routine is to walk and/or swim at Ala Moana beach park across the street, which has plenty of parking and isn't crowded on weekday mornings, then have lunch and chat with white-haired contemporaries at the shopping center.

Moderate exercise, sunshine, and socializing in person are a pleasant way to spend one's golden years, as well as add years to one's life. By the way, did you know that Hawaii is the state with the highest life expectancy?

Keep Telling Yourself that Going Paperless is for Your Convenience

17 months ago I joined thousands of others who opened a Treasury Direct account. We bought I-bonds that paid 9.62% interest for the first six months. If the investor didn't withdraw his funds, the amount is reinvested at prevailing rates, currently 5.27%.

Typically savings bond interest is not reported until the bonds are cashed--this means years of deferred interest can be reported in one year--but I wasn't 100% sure that these bonds operated that way. In the old days I relied on the U.S. Postal Service to deliver all forms 1099 by mid-February, after which I could prepare our tax returns. The WSJ reminds us that times have changed, at least with regard to I-bond interest.

“A form 1099 will NOT be mailed to you,” explains an email from the government’s clunky TreasuryDirect site. For I bonds, you have to log in to the site and navigate to the page where you can download the form.

“Because it’s digital, many people forget, and many of them will end up getting IRS notices,” said Miklos Ringbauer, a certified public accountant in Los Angeles.

After making my way through the "clunky" site, I got the good news (screenshot). I had not taken the funds out; consequently there was no reportable interest for 2023. The lesson, however, is that one can't relax if a form doesn't come in the mail; one has to check each financial account to make sure. And woe is you if you can't remember every account and how to log in.

There was reportable interest on my Apple Savings account, which transmits Form 1099-INT only electronically (one can call a phone number to get a paper copy). From Apple Support:

Download a PDF of your Savings tax documents
On your iPhone, open the Wallet app and tap Apple Card.
Tap Savings account.
Tap the More More button, then tap Documents.
Tap Tax Documents. You may also have to tap the year that you want to download.
Tap the Share button to save, print, or share a copy of your tax documents.

Apple said I had $30 of interest. The rate of over 4% is good but for me not worth the administrative hassle. I'm going to close the account.

Working Vacation

Matsumoto's shaved ice is in this town square.

Going to Hawaii is usually a mix of business and pleasure. When I'm traveling by myself I like to take care of essential tasks (banking, taxes) first. I'm not monomaniacal; I do take regular breaks at the beach and restaurants.

When family members are with me, however, I'm obliged to show them a good time. And so it was that we drove to the North Shore last Tuesday, though everyone had been there last year.

We stopped for shaved ice in Haleiwa and a shrimp plate in Kahuku. The drive around the island is slow, because more than half the distance consists of a single-lane road. We got home that evening.

I did enjoy the break more than I had expected and was highly productive the next day. Sometimes it's best to stop and smell the hibiscus.

San Francisco: Signs of Optimism

The San Francisco turnaround that most people think of.

Politicians and other cheerleaders for the City have said that San Francisco's decline is over. They may just be right.

Tech Leaders Fled San Francisco During the Pandemic. Now, They’re Coming Back.

During the pandemic, scores of Silicon Valley investors and executives such as [Keith] Rabois decamped to sunnier American cities, criticizing San Francisco’s government as dysfunctional and the city’s relatively high cost of living. Tech-firm founders touted their success at raising money outside the Bay Area and encouraged their employees to embrace remote work.

Four years later, that bet hasn’t really worked out. San Francisco is once again experiencing a tech revival. Entrepreneurs and investors are flocking back to the city, which is undergoing a boom in artificial intelligence. Silicon Valley leaders are getting involved in local politics, flooding city ballot measures and campaigns with tech money to make the city safer for families and businesses. Investors are also pushing startups to return to the Bay Area and bring their employees back into the office.

Earlier this month Ian Jacobs, scion to the Toronto-based Reichmann real-estate dynasty and who studied under value investor Warren Buffett, sees opportunity in San Francisco office properties.

Jacobs has lined up commitments of $75 million for his first few deals, the people familiar with the matter said. Ultimately, he hopes to buy 3 million square feet of office space for prices about 70% below what it would cost to build the properties...

Jacobs has told investors it might take San Francisco 10 years to recover, according to his marketing materials. The key to the trade will be buying cheap and holding on until technology companies ultimately return.

Personally I hope San Francisco comes back. Much as I disagree with its governance, when the City sneezes everyone in the Bay Area catches a cold.

Whatever It Takes, Including Coloring Books and Crayons

Children are often invited to sit near the altar to
hear the homily (Church of the Brethren photo)

The "baby bust" is a worldwide topic of conversation nowadays, but most American Christians were aware of it two decades ago when the mainline Protestant denominations lamented the dearth of young adults in the pews. The wishful thinking back then was that it wasn't demographics but the lack of appealing messaging; certain denominations, like the Southern Baptists and the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), appeared to be doing okay.

In 2024 the downturn in church attendance, especially among young people, has become obvious to everyone. Even the Baptists and the Mormons are struggling. Extrapolating from the current trend, Pew Research forecasted that Christians will be in the minority in 2070.

Families with young children are so prized that behaviors that once would have been frowned upon are now embraced for the long-term good.

Headline: If a Parish Isn’t Crying, It’s Dying

[Pope Francis] said, “It really irritates me when I see a child crying in church and someone says they must go out. God’s voice is in a child’s tears.”

If that’s so, then St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Hillsdale, Mich., is full of God’s voice. It is blessed to have many large families attending regularly. I was a member of the parish during college, and my wife became Catholic there. The cooing and shouting—often from newborns—serves as a backing track to each service, and few seem to mind. It’s no surprise: A stack of bookmark-size cards at the end of each pew informs visitors what the parish thinks about its informal children’s choir.

In defense of the shushers, your humble blogger/boomer must point out that, since I was forced to be quiet during service, I learned during the late 1950's to read "grown-up" language by following the service in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. But that regimen isn't for everyone, and if coloring books and crayons are what keep the kids and more importantly their parents coming back, then I'm all for it.

Go for It

Cantonese restaurants have a better chance of surviving in Hawaii than in California, where tastes have moved toward dishes favored by the Mandarin-speaking immigration wave from the Mainland and Taiwan.

Modern palates also look askance at the traditionally heavy use of soy, sugar and cornstarch, but I say go for it when you're on vacation. You won't find noodles like this in the hoity-toity Bay Area.

I took home half the dish for tomorrow's consumption. I'm enthusiastic but not crazy.

On Kalakaua Avenue

A stroll along Waikiki's tony Kalakaua Avenue is helpful in determining what's trendy. Case in point: Hemptuary, a clever portmanteau that combines "hemp" and "sanctuary."

Marijuana cannot yet be sold legally for recreational purposes in Hawaii, but it is permitted for medical use. If a patient has at least one of ten "qualifying debilitating medical condition[s]" (e.g. cancer, ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), MS) he may receive a prescription for cannabis. Hemptuary has doctors at the ready to help a patient get a qualifying "329 card" and issue a prescription to said patient.

In related news Senate Bill 3335 is wending its way through Hawaii's Senate Committees. If it becomes law, recreational use for adults can begin on January 1, 2026, upon which strolls along Kalakaua Avenue will become positively uplifting.

No Panacea

(Vancouver Sun photo)

In the nether world between jail and release-upon-recognizance, ankle monitors are a tool favored by the justice system. However, one example shows how ineffective they can be:

Over a span of three years, judges had placed [Shaun] Bailey on electronic monitoring four times — and all four times, Bailey violated the conditions of the program, the filing said. On two occasions, he cut off his ankle monitor. In two other instances, he absconded from a treatment program the day he was admitted.

Yet, despite the arguments of prosecutor Rachel Schneider, Superior Court Judge Victor Hwang placed Bailey on electronic monitoring a fifth time. Roughly a week later, Bailey was arrested again on suspicion of robbing someone at an ATM machine on Columbus Avenue. His defense attorneys declined to comment.

To some law enforcement officials, elected leaders and court watchdogs, Bailey’s brushes with the criminal justice system illustrate a larger problem: that in an effort to release people from jail before trial, judges rely too much on electronic monitors as a form of supervision, even though evidence shows that the monitors often don’t work to deter criminal behavior.

The use of ankle bracelets is exploding, though effectiveness is, to say the least, spotty. [bold added]

San Francisco’s use of pretrial electronic monitoring rose more than twentyfold from 2017 to 2021, according to a 2022 report by UC Berkeley’s California Policy Lab.

Before 2018, the city averaged 75 cases a year. By 2021, the number had jumped to 1,650. As of Feb. 11, Sheriff Paul Miyamoto’s office was supervising 408 people on ankle monitors, all but two of them awaiting trial.

But the devices didn’t seem to be working well. People were cutting them off, tampering with them, throwing them in garbage dumps or in the bay, forgetting to charge the batteries or venturing outside their designated boundaries.

In July 2021, Miyamoto said his office was overseeing 328 people on ankle trackers, and more than a third of them — 126 — had an arrest warrant out for failing to comply. One person in the program between 2020 and 2021 was accused of breaching the rules nine times.

The California Policy Lab report found that in 2021, 60% of defendants placed on electronic monitors prior to trial in San Francisco violated their terms, with more than one-fifth arrested for new crimes.

Abolishing the carceral state is a goal of Progressivism. The least Progressives can do is put resources behind improving the monitoring technology to protect both the public and the criminals who they feel such sympathy for.

In related news thousands of illegal aliens have been released and subsequently tracked with ankle bracelets. In an August, 2023 report

Less than 2% of families arrested at the border in recent months have been selected to be put into FERM [Family Expedited Removal Management], but administration officials have said the program is rapidly expanding and they hope to eventually put a majority of families crossing the border illegally through it.

Hope that works out!