Militarism, music and political correctness in SF

This is a busy weekend in San Francisco: it's the annual Fleet Week. I don't know how many ships and sailors are here, but Sunday the Blue Angels air show will be thundering over us. This being ultraliberal San Francisco, the military aspect bothers some people, but a huge number enjoy the show.

Personally I wish I wasn't always trying to play music during the air show.

My band will be part of the (also annual) Italian Heritage Festival parade. This is the political correctness part. The public holiday on Monday is still named after Columbus, so is a street on the parade route - but not the parade any more.

There was a mostly amusing incident a few years ago when the parade was still called "Columbus Day". We were in the staging area waiting for the parade to start when a group of protesters ran through, maybe 20 or 30 of them, shouting "F*** Columbus!". Then about 100 yards behind, a bunch of cops chasing them. Maybe this is why the organizers (or the city) decided to just call it "Italian Heritage". That is, of course, what the event is really about; it's a celebration for Italian-Americans. Of course, this being San Francisco, the parade audience and participants are highly diverse (the historically Italian neighborhood that we're parading through seems to be increasingly Chinese).  

But the parade in March is still called "St.Patrick's Day", it hasn't been renamed "Irish Heritage".