Recapping the year’s top news and best Chronicle editorials.
John Diaz: It was a year of cold realities
New foreign policy challenges emerged, as they inevitably do, and some just never went away. The year began with the Islamic State — a.k.a. ISIS or ISIL — on few Americans’ radar, and ended with the White House worrying about whether ground troops would be needed again in Iraq, which would unravel one of the president’s signature deliveries of a campaign promise.
The year concluded with the stock market soaring to record highs, the economy growing and gas prices falling — while Obama’s approval ratings, paradoxically, remained low.
“Hands up, don’t shoot” became the defining American protest image of 2014. It was soon accompanied by “I can’t breathe” as the rallying slogan, and #blacklivesmatter as the hashtag of frustration with the failure of grand juries in
Fer- guson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y., to indict two white police officers who killed unarmed African American men.
The tensions and clashing perspectives surrounding those cases provided yet another grim reminder that this nation remains a long way from a state of repose on race and justice. It also put pressure on the federal government to step into the void.
If only Obama could be as lucky as Gov. Jerry Brown, the master of timing and resiliency. He cruised to his fourth term with such ease that many Democrats privately grumbled that the candidate at the top of their ticket was providing little if any coattail with his tightwad campaign. His GOP opponent, Neel Kashkari, exhausted more money and cheap tricks (such as going undercover as homeless in Fresno) to no avail.
It wasn’t such a good year for Brown’s party brethren.
The year began with Democrats riding high in Sacramento, securing twothirds majorities in the state Assembly and Senate. They had the numbers to do anything they wanted: raise taxes, create new programs, even override vetoes by their parsimonious leader in the governor’s office. But before you could invoke the old saw “absolute power corrupts,” three Senate Democrats were sidelined after facing criminal charges of varying gravity. The wildest and most serious were the corruption and weapons-trafficking allegations against San Francisco’s Leland Yee that seemed almost derivative of the plot of “American Hustle.”
Then came the ultimate bizarre twist: More than 300,000 Californians still voted for the indicted Yee for secretary of state, putting him third in the race to serve as the state’s chief arbiter of political fair play.
In San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee seemed to be operating on cruise control, which seemed to be working for him. As the 2015 election loomed, he enjoyed double-digit leads against most plausible challengers, and the numbers effectively scared off the most potentially formidable: state Sen. Mark Leno.
The rapidly evolving state of the city was creating anxiety but no revolution. Absurdly high rents were squeezing residents and nonprofit groups alike; “disruptive innovations” like Uber and Airbnb were presenting regulatory and competitive nightmares; and the tech sector, with its brashness, prosperity and perceived sense of entitlement, was a source of widespread resentment.
Still, the city’s electorate proved less than radical in November: rejecting an antispeculation tax, re-electing incumbent supervisors, and choosing David Chiu over the more purist progressive David Campos for the Assembly.
The Giants produced the feel-good story of the sporting world, as has become their custom in evennumbered years. They rallied late in the season to gain a wild-card spot, and then magic erupted through the playoffs and a World Series victory over the Kansas City Royals.
On the other side of the bay, the A’s had the best record in baseball at midsummer, then barely squeaked into the playoffs, and blew a lead against the Royals in a win-or-go-home wild-card game.
The 49ers left San Francisco for their $1.3 billion dream palace in Santa Clara, and seemed to leave their mojo, their moral compasses and their home-field advantage behind. The team struggled with an on-field malaise, internal bickering, player run-ins with the law and a home crowd that had an unsettling tendency to thin after halftime.
Suddenly, the Warriors are looking to become not only a serious contender for the NBA championship, but a rival to the Giants as the region’s darlings. They have proved deft at revising their proposed San Francisco arena location and design to fast break away from local opposition.
Filmmaker George Lucas showed no such patience or savvy. When local resistance to a Presidio site proved unbearable, he took his idea to Chicago — where he discovered that the City of Broad Shoulders was no pushover either .
At 3:20 a.m. on Aug. 24, a 6.0 earthquake near Napa left plenty of local property damage and rattled awake residents throughout the Bay Area. Remarkably, and thankfully, only one life was lost. It reminded us all of our vulnerability to the next Big One.
Speaking of wake-up calls, the hacking of Sony’s server, allegedly by North Korea, created an international crisis, a threat to artistic freedom — and a reminder of the degree to which our secrets and livelihoods can be upended by cybermalice.
Any given year leaves us with many noteworthy passings, and 2014 was no exception. Yet two merit special mention here: Robin Williams, whose globally recognized genius and connection to the community made his loss a personal one for many San Franciscans; and Bill German, the longtime Chronicle editor whose wisdom and mentorship made him a revered figure at Fifth and Mission.
Oh, about that Ice Bucket Challenge: Millions of people sometimes showcased their creativity and often sacrificed their dignity (special shout-out to former President George W. Bush) by uploading videos of themselves being doused in ice water. The gimmick helped raise $100 million for a good cause: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) research.
Please, philanthropic entrepreneurs, present us with no hot-coals challenges for 2014.