[rmk]

Foothill park is located miles away from urban Palo Alto, in the midst of many other open-space preserves, which are all open to the public. Except this one. In fact, there is a guard house where you are asked for proof of Palo Alto residence, and are unceremoniously turned away if you can not produce said evidence. This is very unusual; I have never encountered such a thing anywhere else in the United States.

This is also emblematic of Palo Alto for me: hypocrisy through and through. Residents make a big fuss about being liberal: signs up on every other house declaring the occupants' high-minded support of illegal immigrants, gay, transgender, and bi people, the "reality" of science, and so on. At the same time, the city rips up comfortable benches on the sidewalks and puts in benches that are so uncomfortable, they make you think why the city bothered with this stuff (as you can guess, they are there to discourage homeless/indigent people from sleeping on them). City residents also made a big fuss about a neighborhood (private) girls' school from expanding enrollment (lots of flimsy reasons given, but the real reason is that the increase in traffic would have made a small dent in already astronomical home values).

I could go on and on, but on the whole, my take on this: Serves them right, and they deserve to lose. We need more cases like this to show these people they still live in the United States.