FWIW...I grew up in the Sacramento Valley and Oakland - for a laundry list of reasons (including a push for ebonics as an acceptable language form to be taught in public schools in lieu of formal American English) - has never been on my list of the top 1,000,000 places to live in this country. The culturally divisive issues flowing through Oakland's dominant working-class community run perpetually deep and explosive. 
Richard's $.02 
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“Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)… There are just some kind of men who – who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.” - To Kill A Mockingbird (Atticus Finch)
“Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.” - Robert Heinlein
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