> I did cross the Mason Dixon line last week for the second time
> in my life (although technically MD is south of it, the DC/Balto
> area is nothing like the South) ...
If you're only going to talk symbolism and not the actual line (roughly the southern border of Pennsylvania), San Francisco is below it (by at least two degrees). The importance of it comes from the Missouri Compromise, and I think it's significant that Maryland, true to its geography, didn't abolish slavery until near the end of the Civil War (~October 1864), long after the Emancipation Proclaimation.
/jordan