From an editorial in the December 19 San Francisco Chronicle:
"The incoming Board of Supervisors includes one woman. There are no Asian American women, no black males, no lesbians and not a single Latina. There are two Latinos (Matt Gonzalez and Gerardo Sandoval), one black woman (Sophie Maxwell) and an Asian American male (Leland Yee). The board does boast -- if that's the proper term -- of seven white males. Two, Tom Ammiano and Mark Leno, are openly gay.
"That leaves the 11-member board littered with enough straight, white males (five) to look like a sidewalk gathering in West Portal after a Rotary Club meeting. . . .
"Unusual circumstances arose in this fall's elections. Candidates were judged less on their ethnic identity, or other attributes, than on their political distance from Mayor Willie Brown . . . "
THE SCRAPBOOK doesn't have much to add to the Chronicle's self-parodying descent into lunatic multiculturalism, except to wonder: Since when is it an unusual circumstance for candidates in a city election to be judged according to their political positions?