news of the weird

A couple odd things going on locally that might not have hit the broader news feeds:

1. In California we have what's called the jungle primary, in which all the candidates of whatever party run together, and the top two finishers, whatever their party, go into the general election.

But what happens if two candidates are tied for second place?

That happened in the race for an open congressional seat hereabouts, an attractive prospect for many a local officeholder. One candidate led, and two others kept shifting for second place as more votes were counted, and eventually ended up tied.

The answer is, all three of them will make the final ballot. This isn't my district, but it's interesting to watch.

2. Oakland International Airport has decided it needs more respect. Like many cities, San Francisco has more than one convenient airport but not everybody knows about it. San Francisco International is about 15 miles from downtown; Oakland International is across the Bay but is only about 20 miles from downtown SF, and both are served by the rapid transit system. (Oakland is also less likely to get fogged in.)

But Oakland has been losing flight slots because people don't know to use it. So now they want to change the name to San Francisco Bay Oakland International, a mouthful but like SFO it is right on the Bay and this will let people know where it is. But the SFO administration are annoyed by this; they say it's confusing. I must admit some sympathy with that position, remembering some misleading airport designations in my past, and especially since an Oakland administrator said "No one owns the title to the San Francisco Bay."

That's the sort of snotty remark you make only if you know you'd be confusing the customers and are deliberately planning to do so.