Halloween Xenophobia

Zillow Real Estate has released an index ranking the best cities and neighborhoods for Halloween trick-or-treating. San Diego came in eighth place nationally. Zillow's methodology is based on "areas with the greatest share of population under the age of 15, and where homes are closest together."

Looking at specific San Diego neighborhoods, it seems like the primary consideration is median home price. The neighborhood with the number one ranking, Del Mar Heights, has a median home price of $1,325,300. The other neighborhoods listed, Carmel Valley, Loma Portal, Carmel Mountain, and Mission Hills, have median home prices of between $628,000 and $1.2 million.

Zillow's list would make a handy reference for inner city parents shopping for the most affluent trick-or-treating destinations for their little goblins. I have some experience with this. I used to live in Normal Heights, north of Adams Avenue. Everything north of Adams is gentrified, and home values are higher. Every Halloween, parents would caravan to our neighborhood, and help their little spooks pick out desirable houses.

The houses south of Adams were just as close together as ours, and the demographics were probably even better. I wonder why these parents gave up on their neighborhoods. Whatever happened to the progressive bumper sticker wisdom of Mahatma Ghandi, "Be the change that you wish to see in the world?"

Maybe it's just easier to pick up and move, than it is to change the environment. The only problem with that, is once they get here, all their pathologies come with them.

Halloween has changed. The phrase "trick or treat," is an expression of a mostly benign, if coercive, social contract. If a homeowner didn't cough up the sweets, then the serenity of the homestead could be forfeit. People of a certain age remember going out on October 31 with shaving cream, eggs, and toilet paper. I am of that age, but I have never thrown an egg in anger. Plus, when I was coming of age, President Nixon's wage and price controls brought on a paper shortage. It took phone phreak John Draper hacking into the White House to get Nixon's attention to the problem. Meantime, we had strict household rationing.

As kids, we would buy or shoplift cans of Barbasol shaving cream, then weaponize the cans by sticking a pin in the nozzle and melting the plastic around the pin, to create a more focused nozzle stream. Mostly we just roamed the streets unattended and kept the shaving cream as self-defense. The only fights we couldn't pick would be with high-school kids, because they had cars.

Zillow's Halloween index brought to mind the stories about how the Mexican government aids and abets illegal immigration into the United States. The Mexican government publishes a pamplet that advises Mexican citizens how to enter the United States illegally and live [t]here without being detected.

I hate to be all xenophobic, but what contributions have Mexicans made to our society besides pico de gallo? If their society and culture is so great, why not work at making it the best it can be, there?