(Underground @ Civic Center Station on August 15, 2011)

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Vol. 1 (1905)

"If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience." -- George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist/socialist

Lessons from the UK and a political conservative: "Social problems that have been festering for decades have exploded in our face." -- David Cameron, British Prime Minister, commenting on the looting and rioting in London and the rest of his country (Examiner quote in Sound Bites, Tuesday, August 16, 2011).

Wake up, people! These are your sons & daughters out there on the streets of San Francisco and on the platforms of BART. They are not just outside agitators from LA. These are mere kids and family units working to make right the events that went wrong. And what's that, you say? Those are not your sons and daughters out there? Well, if they are not out there now, they soon will be if things do not change. History has again and again repeated itself, and we have not learned a damn thing. Is there hope for us? Or are we doomed and condemned as George Santayana predicted?