Connecting California

Can the Real San Francisco Airport Please Stand Up?

SFO and OAK Both Want to Claim the Bay Area City, but Neither Is Actually Located There

I’ve never much cared for San Francisco International Airport—until SFO decided to take a courageous stand for truth and accuracy in airport names.

Last month, SFO’s leaders filed a lawsuit to stop the Port of Oakland from changing Oakland International Airport’s name to “San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport.”

Author and Oakland native Gertrude Stein famously said “There is no there there” of her hometown. Which is perhaps why the Oakland Port Commission justified the name change by saying it wanted to educate travelers unfamiliar with California that Oakland is an actual …

by Joe Mathews |

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More In: Connecting California

Huell Howser Lives!

One Chronicler of Our State Offers His Take on Another

by Joe Mathews |

Zócalo is celebrating its 20th birthday! As part of the festivities, we’re publishing reflections and responses that revisit and reimagine some of our most …

A Movie That Might Be Worse Than Civil War

‘Civil War’ Offers A Vision of California Fighting the U.S. That Matches Foreign Propaganda—and Misses the Point

by Joe Mathews |

The new film Civil War is a historic cinematic achievement. British director Alex Garland has made a movie that might be worse than a real American civil war.

Perhaps that was …

The Losing A’s Found a Winning City to Host Them

West Sacramento Is on a Hot Streak. Other California Cities Should Watch

by Joe Mathews |

The Oakland A’s are baseball’s biggest losers. But their new temporary home—West Sacramento—is one of California’s greatest winners.

No California city has had a better 21st century than West Sacramento. The …

I’m Proud to Be Un-American

A New Poll Shows the Rest of the Country Hates the Golden State—And That’s a Good Thing

by Joe Mathews |

I’m not really American, and I couldn’t be prouder of that.

I hope you, my fellow Californians, feel the same way.

Because sometimes there’s no greater compliment than an intended insult.

This time, …

California’s High-Speed Rail Dreams Could Go “Whoosh”

The Golden State Seems Primed to Repeat the Mistakes and Miscalculations of Indonesia’s New Bullet Train

by Joe Mathews |

The good news is that California will almost certainly have a high-speed rail line someday.

The bad news is that it may look a lot like “Whoosh.”

Whoosh is the name of …


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