Did you know that there are guns that are made for children? Not toy guns. (That’s already a problem right there.) But real guns. The kind that shoot real bullets. The kind that kill.
I didn’t.
I didn’t know this until I read a short article last week deep inside the Los Angeles Times about a 5-year-old boy in Kentucky shooting and killing his 2-year-old sister. It was an accident.
But this wasn’t another story about a child finding a parent’s gun, with tragic results. The gun - a rifle - was given to the boy. It was a gift. A birthday gift last year.
Apparently, there are guns made for little kids. According to the article, “The rifle is a Cricket designed for children and sold under the slogan ‘My First Rifle,’ according to the company’s website. It is a smaller weapon that comes in child-like colors, including pink, red and swirls.”
Sure, “this was just a tragic accident” and “very, very rare,” as the county coroner says, but, on top of wondering how the parents now feel about this gift, I am left with this question: When guns are made for children, “in child-like colors,” when guns are given to five-year-olds, how can we argue, logically, sensibly, for gun restrictions using a schoolyard massacre as a reason for doing so?
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Monday, May 6, 2013
Play ball - like it or not!
I didn’t think I would get all shook up by a baseball movie.
The other night, I saw “42,” and there were a couple times when I almost bursted out crying. I had read a lot about this docudrama about Jackie Robinson, the first non-white man to play major league baseball when he begun playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940's after playing in the Negro leagues, but I frankly wasn’t ready for how powerful and moving this film is.
This isn’t your typical movie about the glory and glamor of sports. And it’s not exactly a feel-good movie about making history. Sure, there are plenty of heroics and excitement, but they are more like those seen in a war zone rather than a playing fields, with Robinson facing boos, nasty racial epithets and violent threats from fans and players and with teammates and the whole team not welcome in some places. That this ugly, war zone of hate is this country is most disturbing (and seeing that Philadelphia, “the city of brotherly love,” a city known for its Quakers, was so viciously racist at the time is particularly eye-opening and jolting).
Robinson was famously told “to be man enough not to fight back,” and he famously was. In the film, it is absolutely heart-breaking to see him break down and let out all his rage in private.
Perhaps the reason why I was shaken up so by this movie is that I can relate right now. This Spring, as baseball season is well underway, I, as a gay man and with the nation waiting for key decisions, I know a bit of what Jackie Robinson felt.
If my heart didn’t break, it definitely sank when I read about the proposal by top officials of the Boy Scouts of America, up for a vote later this month by members, to resolve the controversy over the organization’s anti-gay stance by letting gay boys be scouts while continuing to exclude homosexual adults as leaders. As unsatisfying as this compromise position is to virtually everybody for numerous reasons, what I found really upsetting was the reaction to it, with people on both sides of the issue once again saying damaging, ugly things about the other. “I think it’s strictly the religious people saying, ‘They’re terrible people, they’re not moral,’” said Howard Menzer, who heads Scouting for All, a San Diego advocacy group, as Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative Family Research Council, called the proposal “an affront to the notion that Scouts are brave, reverent and ‘morally straight.’” Of course, what this means is that no matter what is ultimately decided, school people, if not everyone, will be unhappy to say the least.
It is hard not to feel, as a gay man, like the eye of a nasty storm, with a vital aspect of who I am being picked over and tossed about. At the risk of mixing sports metaphors, I said in an earlier post about court rulings on same-sex marriage, that I don’t like being a football, being punted between the opposing sides.
This is all the more the case as the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage, are in the hands of the U.S Supreme Court, with decisions due by July. Yes, it is encouraging that many commentators are saying there will be a partial ruling, if not a broad-based, nationwide ruling, in favor of gay marriage and that a few Republican U.S Senators have changed their minds and now endorse gay marriage, we really don’t know what the decision - which will no doubt make some unhappy - will be until it’s announced. And while it is encouraging that an active, professional, male athlete (a black one, to boot) has come out as gay for the first time - a situation not unlike Robinson’s - and that a state lawmaker (also black) in Nevada (!)recently came out, it is just plain not nice that U.S Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has compared homosexuality to murder.
The other night, I saw “42,” and there were a couple times when I almost bursted out crying. I had read a lot about this docudrama about Jackie Robinson, the first non-white man to play major league baseball when he begun playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940's after playing in the Negro leagues, but I frankly wasn’t ready for how powerful and moving this film is.
This isn’t your typical movie about the glory and glamor of sports. And it’s not exactly a feel-good movie about making history. Sure, there are plenty of heroics and excitement, but they are more like those seen in a war zone rather than a playing fields, with Robinson facing boos, nasty racial epithets and violent threats from fans and players and with teammates and the whole team not welcome in some places. That this ugly, war zone of hate is this country is most disturbing (and seeing that Philadelphia, “the city of brotherly love,” a city known for its Quakers, was so viciously racist at the time is particularly eye-opening and jolting).
Robinson was famously told “to be man enough not to fight back,” and he famously was. In the film, it is absolutely heart-breaking to see him break down and let out all his rage in private.
Perhaps the reason why I was shaken up so by this movie is that I can relate right now. This Spring, as baseball season is well underway, I, as a gay man and with the nation waiting for key decisions, I know a bit of what Jackie Robinson felt.
If my heart didn’t break, it definitely sank when I read about the proposal by top officials of the Boy Scouts of America, up for a vote later this month by members, to resolve the controversy over the organization’s anti-gay stance by letting gay boys be scouts while continuing to exclude homosexual adults as leaders. As unsatisfying as this compromise position is to virtually everybody for numerous reasons, what I found really upsetting was the reaction to it, with people on both sides of the issue once again saying damaging, ugly things about the other. “I think it’s strictly the religious people saying, ‘They’re terrible people, they’re not moral,’” said Howard Menzer, who heads Scouting for All, a San Diego advocacy group, as Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative Family Research Council, called the proposal “an affront to the notion that Scouts are brave, reverent and ‘morally straight.’” Of course, what this means is that no matter what is ultimately decided, school people, if not everyone, will be unhappy to say the least.
It is hard not to feel, as a gay man, like the eye of a nasty storm, with a vital aspect of who I am being picked over and tossed about. At the risk of mixing sports metaphors, I said in an earlier post about court rulings on same-sex marriage, that I don’t like being a football, being punted between the opposing sides.
This is all the more the case as the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage, are in the hands of the U.S Supreme Court, with decisions due by July. Yes, it is encouraging that many commentators are saying there will be a partial ruling, if not a broad-based, nationwide ruling, in favor of gay marriage and that a few Republican U.S Senators have changed their minds and now endorse gay marriage, we really don’t know what the decision - which will no doubt make some unhappy - will be until it’s announced. And while it is encouraging that an active, professional, male athlete (a black one, to boot) has come out as gay for the first time - a situation not unlike Robinson’s - and that a state lawmaker (also black) in Nevada (!)recently came out, it is just plain not nice that U.S Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has compared homosexuality to murder.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Best of both worlds
I am well-known for my love of live theater and for how much I enjoy living in Claremont. Here, in my column that appeared in last Friday’s Claremont Courier, they collide wonderfully.
GROWING TO A NEW STAGE IN CLAREMONT
Too bad The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee isn’t still playing. I would say run, don’t walk, to this Claremont High School theater production.
The musical, which played for two weekends last month, certainly should be still going on. When I saw it, I was simply astounded for the entire two hours. It was the best, or best done, show that I have seen in years. Of any show, including professionally done stuff in Los Angeles and Hollywood.
Not only that. I saw the play on the next to the last night, and I told my friend who was out from L.A that he had to see it. My friend, who has seen and done lots of theater in L.A and New York, saw the final performance and was floored. He said that the show was better than many professional shows he has seen and that “those kids should be getting paid to be on stage in West Hollywood.”
Indeed, it was the kids who made the show. I had seen the play before and thought it was okay and thought I wouldn’t see this production. But because it was at Sycamore School auditorium - an unusual venue and easily accessible in my wheelchair - I decided to go, and the acting was a revelation. It wasn’t just acting; these students had grown into and were living their characters.
Although the characters weren’t much more than caricatures, the students made them real and whole. All were excellent, but two of the cast members stood out. Emerson Dauwalder was hysterical as he totally tripped out playing Leaf Coneybear, the trippy, blissed-out home-schooled hippie kid. And the way Hunter Alkonis, as Mitch Mahoney, escorting the losing spelling bee contestants as part of his community service sentence, conveyed worlds of emotions in a look or a touch was breathtaking. Both also, in brief scenes, portrayed a pair of gay dads with considerable sensitivity.
No doubt the production taking place in a funky old school auditorium, much like the musical’s setting, contributed to its perfect-storm authenticity. There was also the work of the director and choreographer, D.J Gray, returning to her alma maters (C.H.S and Sycamore) after doing much professional theater work, including on Spelling Bee. And Krista Carson Elhai, who has done remarkable work as the high school theater director, clearly had a hand in the doings as producer.
While this production was done at Sycamore School for very practical reasons - the theater at the high school was being renovated and was no doubt still torn up - the unique venue not only made the show even better. In so doing, it made the opening of the new theater a couple weeks later all the more exciting. And more meaningful.
Yes, I say “new” theater. It is true that the theater was renovated, but, on top of it being renamed the Donald F. Fruechte Theatre for the Performing Arts in honor of Ms. Elhai’s predecessor who founded the high school’s theater department and is just as legendary to those who attended C.H.S, it is definitely a new space.
While I don’t know if I can call it beautiful, the theater is certainly no longer a dingey, cramp hole with, among other features, wheelchair accommodations that were, frankly, a joke. Not only do I no longer have to maneuver through a black backstage area in my wheelchair, but with comfortable flip-up seats instead of folding metal chairs and without steep stairs and narrow passageways, the theater is now more accessible and welcoming to everybody.
Because the theater was barely accessible and not that welcoming, I wasn’t seeing most of the remarkable work that Ms. Elhai and her students were putting on. And it’s really why I went to the production at Sycamore School.
I thought about all this when I attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony and opening with a line-up of school and city officials and other dignitaries last month, thrilled to see the changes made. I was also delighted that they were the result of a great, true community effort, with thousands and thousands of dollars given, earning a matching grant from the state.
But what I was really thinking on the bright, early Spring afternoon was, these kids deserve this! For their hard, amazing work, stunningly evidenced in Spelling Bee, they deserve this community effort, this community support. Just as my friend said they deserve to be paid to play in West Hollywood, they deserve this nice, real, state-of-the-art theater instead of a dark hole in the wall.
These bright, creative students, many of whom may have trouble fitting in in other areas of the campus, deserve this place to be safe and to grow and be their best. Like the boy who could barely speak in a math class I was in when at the high school and who I was amazed to see not only in a theater production but singing and dancing in the production
As Andrew Lindvall, a 2010 C.H.S graduate in town during the week of the opening, commented, “Ms. Elhai was one of the first teachers I ever had who would give you the responsibility to do something and expected you to do it. There’s an intensity that has prepared me for everything I’ve done thereafter. You don’t just learn art here, you learn occupational skills.”
And there was this from C.H.S Principal Brett O’Connor: “To have students leaving with employable skills is good for the school, good for the community and good for the country. This is a program we can be very proud of.”
GROWING TO A NEW STAGE IN CLAREMONT
Too bad The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee isn’t still playing. I would say run, don’t walk, to this Claremont High School theater production.
The musical, which played for two weekends last month, certainly should be still going on. When I saw it, I was simply astounded for the entire two hours. It was the best, or best done, show that I have seen in years. Of any show, including professionally done stuff in Los Angeles and Hollywood.
Not only that. I saw the play on the next to the last night, and I told my friend who was out from L.A that he had to see it. My friend, who has seen and done lots of theater in L.A and New York, saw the final performance and was floored. He said that the show was better than many professional shows he has seen and that “those kids should be getting paid to be on stage in West Hollywood.”
Indeed, it was the kids who made the show. I had seen the play before and thought it was okay and thought I wouldn’t see this production. But because it was at Sycamore School auditorium - an unusual venue and easily accessible in my wheelchair - I decided to go, and the acting was a revelation. It wasn’t just acting; these students had grown into and were living their characters.
Although the characters weren’t much more than caricatures, the students made them real and whole. All were excellent, but two of the cast members stood out. Emerson Dauwalder was hysterical as he totally tripped out playing Leaf Coneybear, the trippy, blissed-out home-schooled hippie kid. And the way Hunter Alkonis, as Mitch Mahoney, escorting the losing spelling bee contestants as part of his community service sentence, conveyed worlds of emotions in a look or a touch was breathtaking. Both also, in brief scenes, portrayed a pair of gay dads with considerable sensitivity.
No doubt the production taking place in a funky old school auditorium, much like the musical’s setting, contributed to its perfect-storm authenticity. There was also the work of the director and choreographer, D.J Gray, returning to her alma maters (C.H.S and Sycamore) after doing much professional theater work, including on Spelling Bee. And Krista Carson Elhai, who has done remarkable work as the high school theater director, clearly had a hand in the doings as producer.
While this production was done at Sycamore School for very practical reasons - the theater at the high school was being renovated and was no doubt still torn up - the unique venue not only made the show even better. In so doing, it made the opening of the new theater a couple weeks later all the more exciting. And more meaningful.
Yes, I say “new” theater. It is true that the theater was renovated, but, on top of it being renamed the Donald F. Fruechte Theatre for the Performing Arts in honor of Ms. Elhai’s predecessor who founded the high school’s theater department and is just as legendary to those who attended C.H.S, it is definitely a new space.
While I don’t know if I can call it beautiful, the theater is certainly no longer a dingey, cramp hole with, among other features, wheelchair accommodations that were, frankly, a joke. Not only do I no longer have to maneuver through a black backstage area in my wheelchair, but with comfortable flip-up seats instead of folding metal chairs and without steep stairs and narrow passageways, the theater is now more accessible and welcoming to everybody.
Because the theater was barely accessible and not that welcoming, I wasn’t seeing most of the remarkable work that Ms. Elhai and her students were putting on. And it’s really why I went to the production at Sycamore School.
I thought about all this when I attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony and opening with a line-up of school and city officials and other dignitaries last month, thrilled to see the changes made. I was also delighted that they were the result of a great, true community effort, with thousands and thousands of dollars given, earning a matching grant from the state.
But what I was really thinking on the bright, early Spring afternoon was, these kids deserve this! For their hard, amazing work, stunningly evidenced in Spelling Bee, they deserve this community effort, this community support. Just as my friend said they deserve to be paid to play in West Hollywood, they deserve this nice, real, state-of-the-art theater instead of a dark hole in the wall.
These bright, creative students, many of whom may have trouble fitting in in other areas of the campus, deserve this place to be safe and to grow and be their best. Like the boy who could barely speak in a math class I was in when at the high school and who I was amazed to see not only in a theater production but singing and dancing in the production
As Andrew Lindvall, a 2010 C.H.S graduate in town during the week of the opening, commented, “Ms. Elhai was one of the first teachers I ever had who would give you the responsibility to do something and expected you to do it. There’s an intensity that has prepared me for everything I’ve done thereafter. You don’t just learn art here, you learn occupational skills.”
And there was this from C.H.S Principal Brett O’Connor: “To have students leaving with employable skills is good for the school, good for the community and good for the country. This is a program we can be very proud of.”
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Not what we need
Really?
Being disabled isn’t easy, and there are lots of inconveniences and indignities that go along with it. I could probably come up with as endless list if I got going. But being awaited $8,000 in a lawsuit for putting up with one?
Really?
According to the Los Angeles Times recently, 52-year-old Jose Martinez got $8,000 after being stuck on the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland for half an hour when the ride broke down and was evacuated, with the music reportedly blaring the whole time, on November 27, 2007. Mr. Martinez was visiting Disneyland for the first time since he was a child, and, according to his lawyer, David Geffen, his disabilities “hit him hard and right in the face as soon as the ride stopped.”
Oh, please!
Sure, it was Hell waiting for half an hour, especially with that damn song going on. But it wasn’t like there was a fire. It wasn’t like he was in danger.
How about getting free tickets or a free year pass from Disneyland? Once, when I took an Amtrak train to San Diego on my own to spend the weekend with a friend, as I had done a number of times, and my friend put me on the train for the return trip, he got into a big argument with the conductor, who insisted my friend had to accompany me on the two-and-a-half-hour trip. Luckily, my friend didn’t end up having to stay with me, but I was upset and traumatized, feeling insulted and made to be a burden. I wrote a letter to Amtrak and was given free tickets and was told that the conductor was disciplined. I was happy with this.
Why couldn’t something like this satisfy Mr. Martinez? Instead, he has become like the woman who sued McDonald’s over hot coffee and makes the disabled look like that. He makes the disabled look silly and greedy. He gives the disabled a bad name.
This doesn’t help now when there is much commentary and chatter about an increasing number of people getting disability benefits. Never mind that there are valid reason like more people living longer. There is the notion that disability is the new welfare. Like when Homer Simpson got on disability.
What’s more, things like this only make it harder and harder to get the services and funding I need to live independently and productively. Every year, it seems I have to submit more and more documentation to prove that I’m still disabled. I want to ask why they come and look at me and try to talk to me. And how nice it would be if I could say I’m no longer disabled!
Being disabled isn’t easy, and there are lots of inconveniences and indignities that go along with it. I could probably come up with as endless list if I got going. But being awaited $8,000 in a lawsuit for putting up with one?
Really?
According to the Los Angeles Times recently, 52-year-old Jose Martinez got $8,000 after being stuck on the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland for half an hour when the ride broke down and was evacuated, with the music reportedly blaring the whole time, on November 27, 2007. Mr. Martinez was visiting Disneyland for the first time since he was a child, and, according to his lawyer, David Geffen, his disabilities “hit him hard and right in the face as soon as the ride stopped.”
Oh, please!
Sure, it was Hell waiting for half an hour, especially with that damn song going on. But it wasn’t like there was a fire. It wasn’t like he was in danger.
How about getting free tickets or a free year pass from Disneyland? Once, when I took an Amtrak train to San Diego on my own to spend the weekend with a friend, as I had done a number of times, and my friend put me on the train for the return trip, he got into a big argument with the conductor, who insisted my friend had to accompany me on the two-and-a-half-hour trip. Luckily, my friend didn’t end up having to stay with me, but I was upset and traumatized, feeling insulted and made to be a burden. I wrote a letter to Amtrak and was given free tickets and was told that the conductor was disciplined. I was happy with this.
Why couldn’t something like this satisfy Mr. Martinez? Instead, he has become like the woman who sued McDonald’s over hot coffee and makes the disabled look like that. He makes the disabled look silly and greedy. He gives the disabled a bad name.
This doesn’t help now when there is much commentary and chatter about an increasing number of people getting disability benefits. Never mind that there are valid reason like more people living longer. There is the notion that disability is the new welfare. Like when Homer Simpson got on disability.
What’s more, things like this only make it harder and harder to get the services and funding I need to live independently and productively. Every year, it seems I have to submit more and more documentation to prove that I’m still disabled. I want to ask why they come and look at me and try to talk to me. And how nice it would be if I could say I’m no longer disabled!
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
The disabled imagine
I know all too well that, as Radi Kaiuf is quoted as saying in a L.A Times article a couple weeks ago, “there’s a stigma about being in a wheelchair, as if your mental capacities are affected as well.” Yes, I completely relate to the article saying, “In a wheelchair, he often encounters pity and condescension. When he uses a wheelchair in a restaurant, for example, waiters sometimes ask his companion for his food order, as if he were a child.” Try also having a speech impediment.
But I get so tired of news stores like this - about the disabled trying to be not disabled. This article is all about Kaiuf, who is definitely no child but a 46-year-old man in Israel paralyzed when shot in a 1988 Lebanon firefight, competing in the 10K portion of the Tel Aviv marathon by using a ReWalk robotic device that enables him to walk.
If is fine with me that Kaiuf uses the device. I think it’s great that he is happy using it. But why is it news - deserving a quarter of a page, with a large picture - on the other side of the world?
Is Kaiuf using the device to make his life easier and more enjoyable? Or is he using it to appear less or not disabled? Kaiuf is quoted as saying, “Being upright makes a big difference. People see me as normal.”
Clearly, Kaiuf feels pressure to look “normal,” knowing the “stigma” of being disabled. It may very well be that he feels that his life is easier and more enjoyable when he looks normal.
News stories like this are no doubt part of the reason, if not the reason, why he feels this pressure, why his life is easier and more enjoyable when he looks normal.
Perhaps it helps to ask yourself if it would be okay if there was an article like this about a gay man marrying a woman in order to appear normal and make his life easier.
I’m all for trying to do your best. I’m not for trying to be something you’re not.
But I get so tired of news stores like this - about the disabled trying to be not disabled. This article is all about Kaiuf, who is definitely no child but a 46-year-old man in Israel paralyzed when shot in a 1988 Lebanon firefight, competing in the 10K portion of the Tel Aviv marathon by using a ReWalk robotic device that enables him to walk.
If is fine with me that Kaiuf uses the device. I think it’s great that he is happy using it. But why is it news - deserving a quarter of a page, with a large picture - on the other side of the world?
Is Kaiuf using the device to make his life easier and more enjoyable? Or is he using it to appear less or not disabled? Kaiuf is quoted as saying, “Being upright makes a big difference. People see me as normal.”
Clearly, Kaiuf feels pressure to look “normal,” knowing the “stigma” of being disabled. It may very well be that he feels that his life is easier and more enjoyable when he looks normal.
News stories like this are no doubt part of the reason, if not the reason, why he feels this pressure, why his life is easier and more enjoyable when he looks normal.
Perhaps it helps to ask yourself if it would be okay if there was an article like this about a gay man marrying a woman in order to appear normal and make his life easier.
I’m all for trying to do your best. I’m not for trying to be something you’re not.
Friday, March 15, 2013
The homeless, still
Yes, my last post was about the homeless, but, at least with the way things are, they aren’t going away. The following is my column in today’s Claremont Courier.
DO WE BEWARE THE IDES, AND OTHERS, TOO MUCH?
Two weeks ago, it was warm enough on Friday afternoon for me to take off my shirt and just wear my overalls. What’s more, I could sit and read out in my backyard.
Not bad for March 1. And it was yet another reason, or perhaps the reason, we love it here in Southern California. We have all heard the stories about people calling their relatives or friends in the frigid Midwest and gloating or of people getting up on snow-bound New Year’s Days and turning on the television to watch the Rose Parade in impossibly sunny, balmy Pasadena (and how many then move here?).
But it was still winter. Even as I enjoyed getting an early start on my tan, I knew that winter wasn’t over and that it would be cold and wet in a few days. Sure enough, a couple storms came through last week.
That, as I learned when reading an article in the Los Angeles Times late last month, didn’t stop Los Angeles from closing its Westside winter shelter for the homeless on March 1 “for the season.” Never mind that the next week was forecast to be wet and cold. Never mind that, even now, “the season” isn’t over for another week. And never mind that, even in sunny, funny SoCal, the first month or so of spring can bring rain and chilly weather (after all, “April showers bring May flowers”).
And what about the summer heat and smog? Never mind giving the homeless shelter from that.
The article I was reading was about a storage trailer made available in a pilot program in Venice Beach where the homeless could keep their stuff not allowed at the overnight shelter. The unit was accessible for two hours each afternoon and was, like the shelter, slated to close down on March 1.
“We’re going to bag and tag [their items],” said Los Angeles Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents Venice. “We want to make it inconvenient but within the law.”
How convenient - or inconvenient - will Claremont make it for the homeless on its streets? Will we put up with them until a certain random date no matter how cold or how wet or how hot it is and then that’s it, we kick them out....to where (they’re already on the street)?
I’ve been wondering about this as Claremont has been discovering its homeless in the last year or so. That’s right - “discovering” - for, after declaring that there were three homeless people in Claremont, the City, with the assistance of people involved in Occupy Claremont, saw that it was off by a factor of 10 and that there are thirty people at least living on Claremont’s streets.
Not only that, but the City has been discovering that it has to do something about the homeless, other than throw them out (to Pomona, to Ontario, to L.A’s skid row, if we really want to answer the “to where” question). Back when the City presumably thought that there were three homeless people in Claremont, it passed an ordinance outlawing public camping and sleeping, essentially banning the homeless, but there was a court ruling saying that such a law is unconstitutional.
Since then, there has been another court ruling, stemming from Los Angeles, decreeing that a homeless person’s items, left unattended, cannot be discarded. Los Angeles has been wrestling with this, recently requesting an appeal, and it appears that the storage trailer in Venice was an answer.
Another answer in Los Angeles has been something called S.H.A.R.E, in which a small group of homeless people live in a house, made available by its owner and with rules, where they get the services they need to regain or gain stability in their lives.
Maybe one of these houses can be in Claremont. The City Council has recently decided to make the homeless a priority, and as it ponders what to do with them (other than kick them out), is there a reason why there can’t be a house like this here?
Or will the focus be on getting the homeless out of Claremont? Will the City do everything it can to deter the homeless, certainly not to attract them, and not to reach out to those who are here and try to help them?
There are those who argue that offering services attracts the homeless. Yes, “beware the Ides” may well be good advice, but compassion and charity are also known for good results. Making the homeless more of a problem may well only make the homeless more of a problem.
Something like this happened about ten years ago when L.A County came up with a proposal to have five regional service centers for the homeless rather than having so many of the homeless funnel into Skid Row in L.A. However, there was so much of a NIMBY outcry that the idea was shelved, and now Skid Row has become even more of a sinkhole, with, probably as a result, a rare strain of T.B being the latest problem.
I wonder if such a service center or a S.H.A.R.E house here is even possible when there was a commentary in these pages last week stating that “many neighbors are vehemently against” hospice, assisted living and community group houses in northern Claremont. The worry is that these residential homes for the dying, the elderly and other “challenged” individuals, regulated and monitored by the state, are a threat to “our treasured neighborhoods.”
Dying people. Foster kids. People in wheelchairs. A threat? Really?
And this is the homeless we’re talking about here. We’re not talking about convicted sex offenders who have completed their prison terms and are listed in a public registry and who are trying to be constructive members of society. They are being driven out even in L.A, where small “pocket parks” are being put in. Yes, it’s good that some areas are finally getting parks, even if they are only a swing set and a bench on a patch of grass. But, as was pointed out in a recent Los Angeles Times article, these new parks also have another, perhaps primary purpose: convicted sex offenders can’t live within 2000 feet from parks, as well as schools and other such places.
Being cautious and on guard is all well and good, as the Ides of March remind us. But I wonder if the upcoming season of renewed life and hope, of newfound freedom and peace, has a message for us as we consider how to deal with the others in our midst.
DO WE BEWARE THE IDES, AND OTHERS, TOO MUCH?
Two weeks ago, it was warm enough on Friday afternoon for me to take off my shirt and just wear my overalls. What’s more, I could sit and read out in my backyard.
Not bad for March 1. And it was yet another reason, or perhaps the reason, we love it here in Southern California. We have all heard the stories about people calling their relatives or friends in the frigid Midwest and gloating or of people getting up on snow-bound New Year’s Days and turning on the television to watch the Rose Parade in impossibly sunny, balmy Pasadena (and how many then move here?).
But it was still winter. Even as I enjoyed getting an early start on my tan, I knew that winter wasn’t over and that it would be cold and wet in a few days. Sure enough, a couple storms came through last week.
That, as I learned when reading an article in the Los Angeles Times late last month, didn’t stop Los Angeles from closing its Westside winter shelter for the homeless on March 1 “for the season.” Never mind that the next week was forecast to be wet and cold. Never mind that, even now, “the season” isn’t over for another week. And never mind that, even in sunny, funny SoCal, the first month or so of spring can bring rain and chilly weather (after all, “April showers bring May flowers”).
And what about the summer heat and smog? Never mind giving the homeless shelter from that.
The article I was reading was about a storage trailer made available in a pilot program in Venice Beach where the homeless could keep their stuff not allowed at the overnight shelter. The unit was accessible for two hours each afternoon and was, like the shelter, slated to close down on March 1.
“We’re going to bag and tag [their items],” said Los Angeles Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents Venice. “We want to make it inconvenient but within the law.”
How convenient - or inconvenient - will Claremont make it for the homeless on its streets? Will we put up with them until a certain random date no matter how cold or how wet or how hot it is and then that’s it, we kick them out....to where (they’re already on the street)?
I’ve been wondering about this as Claremont has been discovering its homeless in the last year or so. That’s right - “discovering” - for, after declaring that there were three homeless people in Claremont, the City, with the assistance of people involved in Occupy Claremont, saw that it was off by a factor of 10 and that there are thirty people at least living on Claremont’s streets.
Not only that, but the City has been discovering that it has to do something about the homeless, other than throw them out (to Pomona, to Ontario, to L.A’s skid row, if we really want to answer the “to where” question). Back when the City presumably thought that there were three homeless people in Claremont, it passed an ordinance outlawing public camping and sleeping, essentially banning the homeless, but there was a court ruling saying that such a law is unconstitutional.
Since then, there has been another court ruling, stemming from Los Angeles, decreeing that a homeless person’s items, left unattended, cannot be discarded. Los Angeles has been wrestling with this, recently requesting an appeal, and it appears that the storage trailer in Venice was an answer.
Another answer in Los Angeles has been something called S.H.A.R.E, in which a small group of homeless people live in a house, made available by its owner and with rules, where they get the services they need to regain or gain stability in their lives.
Maybe one of these houses can be in Claremont. The City Council has recently decided to make the homeless a priority, and as it ponders what to do with them (other than kick them out), is there a reason why there can’t be a house like this here?
Or will the focus be on getting the homeless out of Claremont? Will the City do everything it can to deter the homeless, certainly not to attract them, and not to reach out to those who are here and try to help them?
There are those who argue that offering services attracts the homeless. Yes, “beware the Ides” may well be good advice, but compassion and charity are also known for good results. Making the homeless more of a problem may well only make the homeless more of a problem.
Something like this happened about ten years ago when L.A County came up with a proposal to have five regional service centers for the homeless rather than having so many of the homeless funnel into Skid Row in L.A. However, there was so much of a NIMBY outcry that the idea was shelved, and now Skid Row has become even more of a sinkhole, with, probably as a result, a rare strain of T.B being the latest problem.
I wonder if such a service center or a S.H.A.R.E house here is even possible when there was a commentary in these pages last week stating that “many neighbors are vehemently against” hospice, assisted living and community group houses in northern Claremont. The worry is that these residential homes for the dying, the elderly and other “challenged” individuals, regulated and monitored by the state, are a threat to “our treasured neighborhoods.”
Dying people. Foster kids. People in wheelchairs. A threat? Really?
And this is the homeless we’re talking about here. We’re not talking about convicted sex offenders who have completed their prison terms and are listed in a public registry and who are trying to be constructive members of society. They are being driven out even in L.A, where small “pocket parks” are being put in. Yes, it’s good that some areas are finally getting parks, even if they are only a swing set and a bench on a patch of grass. But, as was pointed out in a recent Los Angeles Times article, these new parks also have another, perhaps primary purpose: convicted sex offenders can’t live within 2000 feet from parks, as well as schools and other such places.
Being cautious and on guard is all well and good, as the Ides of March remind us. But I wonder if the upcoming season of renewed life and hope, of newfound freedom and peace, has a message for us as we consider how to deal with the others in our midst.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Those inconvenient people
“We want to make it inconvenient but within the law.”
It was all good when I was reading the article in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago until this quote came up. I was glad to see that a storage trailer was being made available at Venice Beach where the homeless can stash their stuff. Then Los Angeles Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents Venice, opened his mouth. He also said this: “We’re not going to let [homeless people] keep items on the beach anymore. We’re going to bag and tag [them].”
What’s being bagged and tagged here? The homeless?
I couldn’t help wondering, as Mr. Rosendahl made it perfectly clear that the storage program really wasn’t about being compassionate and charitable towards the homeless, making their lives easier. The pilot program was about tolerating the homeless and co-exist with them and their stuff - and not necessarily in a way that is easy for them. People could only store things for a week at a time, and the trailer was only accessible from 3 to 5 and scheduled to close today, March 1, when the city’s homeless shelters close, now that winter is supposedly over.
I thought about this on a recent Sunday morning at the close of Quaker meeting when the children reported learning about the homeless and not thinking that a person who is homeless because of a drinking problem is any worse or less worthy than a person on the streets simply due to dire financial straits.
Then there was the news yesterday that Los Angeles asking the Supreme Court to throw out a lower court ruling that the City can’t throw away items left unattended by the homeless. The City says it’s a public health issue.
It was all good when I was reading the article in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago until this quote came up. I was glad to see that a storage trailer was being made available at Venice Beach where the homeless can stash their stuff. Then Los Angeles Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents Venice, opened his mouth. He also said this: “We’re not going to let [homeless people] keep items on the beach anymore. We’re going to bag and tag [them].”
What’s being bagged and tagged here? The homeless?
I couldn’t help wondering, as Mr. Rosendahl made it perfectly clear that the storage program really wasn’t about being compassionate and charitable towards the homeless, making their lives easier. The pilot program was about tolerating the homeless and co-exist with them and their stuff - and not necessarily in a way that is easy for them. People could only store things for a week at a time, and the trailer was only accessible from 3 to 5 and scheduled to close today, March 1, when the city’s homeless shelters close, now that winter is supposedly over.
I thought about this on a recent Sunday morning at the close of Quaker meeting when the children reported learning about the homeless and not thinking that a person who is homeless because of a drinking problem is any worse or less worthy than a person on the streets simply due to dire financial straits.
Then there was the news yesterday that Los Angeles asking the Supreme Court to throw out a lower court ruling that the City can’t throw away items left unattended by the homeless. The City says it’s a public health issue.
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