Yes, it is good that Los Angeles will be getting more parks, or parklets, as well as more plazas and bike parking. And it’s great that this will be done relatively quickly, without much of the bureaucracy that can take months and cost a considerable amount, and that each project will have a year-long trial period. Through a program called “People St,” operated through the city’s Department of Transportation, community groups can apply to convert a piece of city street into a parklet, a plaza or bike parking for a year without going through the lengthy and expensive process of getting approval from multiple city departments, a process that often involves hiring an architect and maybe a permit expediter for thousands of dollars. If a project is successful, the community can then work toward making it permanent.
The applicants would provide furnishings and daily maintenance, and the transportation department has preapproved designs and will direct traffic analysis by city staff. Projects approved in the first round can be installed by November - “lightning speed for City Hall,” according to a Los Angeles Times editorial.
The Times all but gushes over the plan, rightfully saying that it will “make L.A more friendly to walkers and bicyclists and...create a more vibrant street culture” and “injects a sense of experimentation and community leadership into the city’s decision-making process.” Concluding with the sentence “It’s too early to declare a new day at City Hall, but this could be a model for L.A, and a good one,” the editorial is titled “Let 100 parklets bloom.”
I totally agree with all this, for sure - I’m all for green spaces and places and processes that promote community, not using cars, etc. - but I’m wondering if these parklets will count as the parks that convicted and registered sexual offenders cannot live near. I’m wondering if this will he used as another way to restrict where these people who have served their time in prison can live and to drive them out of the community (making them more estranged, probably homeless and likelier to commit crime again).
Why didn’t the Times editorial bring this up, especially when the paper had an article a couple years ago about small parks popping up in areas around the city with the explicit purpose of not letting convicted sexual offenders live there? Did the Times, in its understandable enthusiasm, forget this?
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
An irresponsible message?
“Let’s hope he’s as easy to get as this birth control. My health insurance covers the pill, which means all I have to worry about is getting him between the sheets.”
As funny and clever as it is, I’m not at all sure this is smart advertising.
It is more like a provocation, more like fuel on the flames.
I have to admit that I don’t keep up on a lot of blogs and online chatter, but I’m surprised I haven’t heard an outcry over this ad in Colorado (of all places) promoting Obamacare and featuring a woman showing off her birth control pills and eyeing a man next to her. This ad was mentioned in a recent Los Angeles Times article about the blitz of advertising aimed at getting people - especially young, healthy people - to sign up for the new affordable, often subsidized health insurance before this year’s enrollment deadline at the end of this month.
This ad may attract young, healthy people. It’s fun and sexy and makes health insurance look not only not threatening but pretty attractive. The ad will also, it seems to me, attract the wrath of conservatives who are already riled up enough over the new health insurance law (and who have major institutes in Colorado).
To them, this ad no doubt promotes sex - free sex, sex for fun, sex without responsibility. To the conservatives, this is surely an ad for sex. It is an ad for irresponsibility. What’s more, as the conservatives would see it, it is promoting sex and irresponsibility paid for by the government with public funds.
I have seen this same argument in letters in the paper from people griping about the provision in the new law allowing young people to stay on their parents’ policy until they are 26. As I have written here, they claim that this encourages young people to be irresponsible and even to be “coddled.” There has also been people like Rush Limbaugh saying things like woman who advocate government-funded contraceptives want to be publicly funded whores.
As the whore comment shows, things get particularly touchy and explosive for the conservatives when it comes to sex. They can’t stand the idea of people having sex just for pleasure and fun, for anything other than procreation - and then to be paid for with the pain of child birth and the burden of child-raising (why they’re also against abortion). Indeed, I have long felt that this is why there is considerable anti-gay sentiment among conservatives. To them, gay sex is sex without responsibility. In some corners, there was glee in the early days of AIDS when it was called “the gay plague.” And now, gay marriage and gay adoption is even more confounding and crazy-making for these folks.
The Times article also mentions Luis Garcia, a 23-year-old Santa Ana resident who hasn’t seen any of the ads and only heard from friends that there’s some sort of penalty for not signing up for insurance. He wasn’t aware of any deadline to enroll but, with recently losing his job, says, “I’m interested.”
I want to ask what rock he has been hiding under. I also wonder how many more are like him and hope that these ads reach them. But I’m not sure if the “between the sheets” ad is the right one to do it.
As funny and clever as it is, I’m not at all sure this is smart advertising.
It is more like a provocation, more like fuel on the flames.
I have to admit that I don’t keep up on a lot of blogs and online chatter, but I’m surprised I haven’t heard an outcry over this ad in Colorado (of all places) promoting Obamacare and featuring a woman showing off her birth control pills and eyeing a man next to her. This ad was mentioned in a recent Los Angeles Times article about the blitz of advertising aimed at getting people - especially young, healthy people - to sign up for the new affordable, often subsidized health insurance before this year’s enrollment deadline at the end of this month.
This ad may attract young, healthy people. It’s fun and sexy and makes health insurance look not only not threatening but pretty attractive. The ad will also, it seems to me, attract the wrath of conservatives who are already riled up enough over the new health insurance law (and who have major institutes in Colorado).
To them, this ad no doubt promotes sex - free sex, sex for fun, sex without responsibility. To the conservatives, this is surely an ad for sex. It is an ad for irresponsibility. What’s more, as the conservatives would see it, it is promoting sex and irresponsibility paid for by the government with public funds.
I have seen this same argument in letters in the paper from people griping about the provision in the new law allowing young people to stay on their parents’ policy until they are 26. As I have written here, they claim that this encourages young people to be irresponsible and even to be “coddled.” There has also been people like Rush Limbaugh saying things like woman who advocate government-funded contraceptives want to be publicly funded whores.
As the whore comment shows, things get particularly touchy and explosive for the conservatives when it comes to sex. They can’t stand the idea of people having sex just for pleasure and fun, for anything other than procreation - and then to be paid for with the pain of child birth and the burden of child-raising (why they’re also against abortion). Indeed, I have long felt that this is why there is considerable anti-gay sentiment among conservatives. To them, gay sex is sex without responsibility. In some corners, there was glee in the early days of AIDS when it was called “the gay plague.” And now, gay marriage and gay adoption is even more confounding and crazy-making for these folks.
The Times article also mentions Luis Garcia, a 23-year-old Santa Ana resident who hasn’t seen any of the ads and only heard from friends that there’s some sort of penalty for not signing up for insurance. He wasn’t aware of any deadline to enroll but, with recently losing his job, says, “I’m interested.”
I want to ask what rock he has been hiding under. I also wonder how many more are like him and hope that these ads reach them. But I’m not sure if the “between the sheets” ad is the right one to do it.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Life-long learning
Again, there’s lots to be said for living in Claremont. Here’s my Claremont Courier column from a couple weeks ago.
PERFORMING A LESSON IN EQUALITY
Last Friday was February 14. That meant it was Valentine’s Day. It meant a day of celebrating love and romance. It meant long-stemmed roses and romantic dinners for two, red and pink cards and secret and not-so-secret admirers. The day was about sweet candies and sweet nothings.
The day was also about women and girls getting raped and abused. It also meant women in Africa, the Middle East and other places having their genitalia mutilated, their legs and arms pulled out from their sockets, their faces burned with acid. It was also a day for all the women who don’t get candy and sweet nothings but who get cut, tortured and damaged - because they are women.
Last Friday, February 14, was also about the 1 in 3 American women who are sexually assaulted in their lifetimes and about the 300,000 female students at colleges and universities in the U.S who are raped and harassed each year.
That’s because February 14 is also V Day, a day to remember, support and stand for women and girls who have been and are victims of violence. It was a reminder on Valentine’s Day that all is not sweets and red roses for far too many women and girls, simply because they are women and girls and not only in far-off countries.
All this should have particular resonance in Claremont, with all of its colleges and its significant population of maturing students for most of the year, and it was indeed appropriate that all this was part of Eve Ensler’s message when she spoke at the Atheneum at Claremont McKenna College early this month. Ms. Ensler should know about all this; she started V Day 15 years ago.
That was a few years after she wrote The Vagina Monologues in 1996. The Vagina Monologues is arguably what Ms. Ensler is most known for, with the series of monologues celebrating femininity having been performed by hundreds of famous actresses and countless college students over the years.
Many of the performances and readings of this seminal work have taken place on or around V Day, no doubt pleasing Ms. Ensler, who is recognized as an activist as well as a playwright, performer and author. At the after-lunch talk, coming on the heels of the publication of her newest book, In the Body of the World: A Memoir, she talked about her work as an activist, using her writing and her connections in the theater world to raise awareness of and get support to women and girls who have been abused and violated.
This work has included going to Africa to sit with and hold women who were bloodied and wounded, if not broken, by gender violence. It has included raising funds, often through performances of The Vagina Monologues, for hospitals that help these women.
Furthermore, this work, as Ms. Ensler shared with the large audience at C.M.C, stemmed from being abused as a child and was boosted by a frightening and painful bout with cancer. She noted that, when one’s body has been violated and hurt, it is all too easy to separate not only from oneself but also from others and their pain and that this work has been her effort to fight this.
But it definitely hasn’t been all pain and work for Ms. Ensler. She spoke of being thrilled about how people reacted to The Vagina Monologues and then rallied behind V Day. She talked about how happy she is that there are places like House of Ruth and Crossroads here and about how excited she is about her recent project, One Billion Rising, getting people around the world to dance and march on V Day. Her presentation ended with a remarkably moving short video featuring a montage of images from last year’s One Billion Rising (check it out on YouTube).
There is still work to be done. Ms. Ensler acknowledged this in answering a question from a young woman who said she is bothered by men like Troy Perry and Jackson Katz, who have both spoken at the colleges in recent years and have perfectly good intentions, saying that violence against women is a men’s problem, with men needing to stand up and speak out against it. She agreed that this is a “human problem” and that the notion of a “woman’s problem” and a “men’s problem,” although all too natural, might not be helpful.
When Ms. Ensler began her talk, she asked if there were any “vagina activists” in the audience. There was a big cheer from the many women present. When she asked if there were “supporters of vagina activists,” there was weak applause from the men scattered among the tables.
“Come on!” Ms. Ensler chided. “We have some work to do.”
When it comes to men and women, things are still out of balance. Indeed, I noticed I was the only man waiting in the line to get in after lunch. (Two other guys came in later.) I also noticed, while waiting in the line, a young woman wearing a tee shirt saying “I (heart) my vagina.” Yes, it was provocative, but I wondered how much more provocative, if not crazy and obscene, if a man wore a tee shirt that said, “I (heart) my penis.”
PERFORMING A LESSON IN EQUALITY
Last Friday was February 14. That meant it was Valentine’s Day. It meant a day of celebrating love and romance. It meant long-stemmed roses and romantic dinners for two, red and pink cards and secret and not-so-secret admirers. The day was about sweet candies and sweet nothings.
The day was also about women and girls getting raped and abused. It also meant women in Africa, the Middle East and other places having their genitalia mutilated, their legs and arms pulled out from their sockets, their faces burned with acid. It was also a day for all the women who don’t get candy and sweet nothings but who get cut, tortured and damaged - because they are women.
Last Friday, February 14, was also about the 1 in 3 American women who are sexually assaulted in their lifetimes and about the 300,000 female students at colleges and universities in the U.S who are raped and harassed each year.
That’s because February 14 is also V Day, a day to remember, support and stand for women and girls who have been and are victims of violence. It was a reminder on Valentine’s Day that all is not sweets and red roses for far too many women and girls, simply because they are women and girls and not only in far-off countries.
All this should have particular resonance in Claremont, with all of its colleges and its significant population of maturing students for most of the year, and it was indeed appropriate that all this was part of Eve Ensler’s message when she spoke at the Atheneum at Claremont McKenna College early this month. Ms. Ensler should know about all this; she started V Day 15 years ago.
That was a few years after she wrote The Vagina Monologues in 1996. The Vagina Monologues is arguably what Ms. Ensler is most known for, with the series of monologues celebrating femininity having been performed by hundreds of famous actresses and countless college students over the years.
Many of the performances and readings of this seminal work have taken place on or around V Day, no doubt pleasing Ms. Ensler, who is recognized as an activist as well as a playwright, performer and author. At the after-lunch talk, coming on the heels of the publication of her newest book, In the Body of the World: A Memoir, she talked about her work as an activist, using her writing and her connections in the theater world to raise awareness of and get support to women and girls who have been abused and violated.
This work has included going to Africa to sit with and hold women who were bloodied and wounded, if not broken, by gender violence. It has included raising funds, often through performances of The Vagina Monologues, for hospitals that help these women.
Furthermore, this work, as Ms. Ensler shared with the large audience at C.M.C, stemmed from being abused as a child and was boosted by a frightening and painful bout with cancer. She noted that, when one’s body has been violated and hurt, it is all too easy to separate not only from oneself but also from others and their pain and that this work has been her effort to fight this.
But it definitely hasn’t been all pain and work for Ms. Ensler. She spoke of being thrilled about how people reacted to The Vagina Monologues and then rallied behind V Day. She talked about how happy she is that there are places like House of Ruth and Crossroads here and about how excited she is about her recent project, One Billion Rising, getting people around the world to dance and march on V Day. Her presentation ended with a remarkably moving short video featuring a montage of images from last year’s One Billion Rising (check it out on YouTube).
There is still work to be done. Ms. Ensler acknowledged this in answering a question from a young woman who said she is bothered by men like Troy Perry and Jackson Katz, who have both spoken at the colleges in recent years and have perfectly good intentions, saying that violence against women is a men’s problem, with men needing to stand up and speak out against it. She agreed that this is a “human problem” and that the notion of a “woman’s problem” and a “men’s problem,” although all too natural, might not be helpful.
When Ms. Ensler began her talk, she asked if there were any “vagina activists” in the audience. There was a big cheer from the many women present. When she asked if there were “supporters of vagina activists,” there was weak applause from the men scattered among the tables.
“Come on!” Ms. Ensler chided. “We have some work to do.”
When it comes to men and women, things are still out of balance. Indeed, I noticed I was the only man waiting in the line to get in after lunch. (Two other guys came in later.) I also noticed, while waiting in the line, a young woman wearing a tee shirt saying “I (heart) my vagina.” Yes, it was provocative, but I wondered how much more provocative, if not crazy and obscene, if a man wore a tee shirt that said, “I (heart) my penis.”
Friday, February 21, 2014
On the other side
I recently had the experience of what it must be like for a stranger hearing my speech. What was most eye-opening and startling were the strong feelings it evoked in me.
I was at a weekend gathering, and the keynote talk was given by someone who, like me, has impaired speech stemming from Cerebral Palsy. There was no speech device used, and no one repeated what was said. (The text of the address was widely distributed after the weekend.) Although the speaker’s speech isn’t as impaired as mine and although I had understood and conversed with the speaker at other gatherings, there were large sections of the talk I couldn’t make out.
Much to my surprise, I found myself feeling quite angry. Not just sad and confused, lost, but downright mad. In a case of sharp irony, with the talk being about inclusivity, I felt excluded - and I felt that the speaker was excluding me. (Let me be clear: I am not naming names, because my purpose here is not to blame, and I was able to read the text of the talk later. My purpose here is to reflect on how I felt.)
I felt that I have always tried hard to make sure people understand what I say - having people repeat what I say, using speech devices, etc. - and here the speaker was not seeing to it that I understood what was said. A bit later, I thought that, rather than sitting there feeling excluded and angry, I should have spoken up. I should have asked for someone to repeat what was said. Or maybe I should have asked for one of the few copies of the talk handed out for those who were “hard of hearing or non-English speaking” (which I’m not).
But it wasn’t and isn’t that simple. I may have been rude if I had spoken up. After all, no one else spoke up. Was I the only one having difficulty? Or were the others wanting to not be rude?
And how does this all fit in with the theory, which I subscribe to more and more, that disability is a societal issue, a problem for society to deal with, providing more easily obtained services and accommodations, etc., rather than a problem for the individual to handle? Does it go with the idea that disability is hard because society makes it hard - or that society makes disability harder?
If society did indeed take on the responsibility of accommodating the disabled, making disability less hard, if not not hard, perhaps it would be more my responsibility to understand what the speaker was saying. Perhaps I would have been trained, as I have been in arithmetic and grammar, to have the skills and the patience to do so. Perhaps I wouldn’t have to make so much of an effort to make sure that people understand what I’m saying.
I want to add, as an aside, that the weekend involved flying and that I couldn’t help noticing again that, ironically enough, the Transportation Security Agency has gone out of its way to accommodate those in wheelchairs, with a separate area and agent for the pat-down. I thought it was pretty funny when the agent did a very thorough job of checking me and my chair out on my trip home in my Jesus-hippie overalls with the “Another hippie for peace” patch.
I was at a weekend gathering, and the keynote talk was given by someone who, like me, has impaired speech stemming from Cerebral Palsy. There was no speech device used, and no one repeated what was said. (The text of the address was widely distributed after the weekend.) Although the speaker’s speech isn’t as impaired as mine and although I had understood and conversed with the speaker at other gatherings, there were large sections of the talk I couldn’t make out.
Much to my surprise, I found myself feeling quite angry. Not just sad and confused, lost, but downright mad. In a case of sharp irony, with the talk being about inclusivity, I felt excluded - and I felt that the speaker was excluding me. (Let me be clear: I am not naming names, because my purpose here is not to blame, and I was able to read the text of the talk later. My purpose here is to reflect on how I felt.)
I felt that I have always tried hard to make sure people understand what I say - having people repeat what I say, using speech devices, etc. - and here the speaker was not seeing to it that I understood what was said. A bit later, I thought that, rather than sitting there feeling excluded and angry, I should have spoken up. I should have asked for someone to repeat what was said. Or maybe I should have asked for one of the few copies of the talk handed out for those who were “hard of hearing or non-English speaking” (which I’m not).
But it wasn’t and isn’t that simple. I may have been rude if I had spoken up. After all, no one else spoke up. Was I the only one having difficulty? Or were the others wanting to not be rude?
And how does this all fit in with the theory, which I subscribe to more and more, that disability is a societal issue, a problem for society to deal with, providing more easily obtained services and accommodations, etc., rather than a problem for the individual to handle? Does it go with the idea that disability is hard because society makes it hard - or that society makes disability harder?
If society did indeed take on the responsibility of accommodating the disabled, making disability less hard, if not not hard, perhaps it would be more my responsibility to understand what the speaker was saying. Perhaps I would have been trained, as I have been in arithmetic and grammar, to have the skills and the patience to do so. Perhaps I wouldn’t have to make so much of an effort to make sure that people understand what I’m saying.
I want to add, as an aside, that the weekend involved flying and that I couldn’t help noticing again that, ironically enough, the Transportation Security Agency has gone out of its way to accommodate those in wheelchairs, with a separate area and agent for the pat-down. I thought it was pretty funny when the agent did a very thorough job of checking me and my chair out on my trip home in my Jesus-hippie overalls with the “Another hippie for peace” patch.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Winter wonder(iing)land
It got cold here last week, and it did rain a bit, but it is warming up again. This winter is even weirder than usual in sunny, funny So Cal, to say the least, and all the more so with the rest of the country gripped in a deep freeze. Here is a column I wrote for the Claremont Courier last month which appeared on its website (www.claremont-courier.com).
LIVING IN PARADISE - AND DANGER
My friend sighed. He really didn’t want to go home.
It was a few days into the new year, and my friend came by for a visit. He had been in Claremont, also going to other places like Palm Springs and Laguna Beach, for two or three weeks over the holidays. As we talked in the warm afternoon sun and went into my house, he was dreading flying home the following day.
I don’t think my friend was particularly upset that the holidays were over. He may or may not have been unhappy about having to go back to his work. What he really didn’t want, what he was absolutely dreading, was just to go home to Vermont, where, at the time, it was even colder than it usually is in Vermont in January.
My friend never likes going back to Vermont after spending the holidays here, but it was all the harder with the unusually cold spell. Spending the holidays in Claremont and environs is always a bit magical, a bit of heaven, when his driveway at home is blocked with snow. Later, after his return home, he remarked that, during his trip, he had eaten many of his meals outside, surrounded by blooming flowers.
I haven’t been eating my meals outside, and I can’t say that I’m surprised by flowers blooming in January, but I have been reading a lot in my yard, and I was doing so in short-sleeves when my friend came by before returning to Vermont. I’ve been going out in tee-shirts during the day in recent weeks, and, except when I was up north in the Bay Area for several days after Christmas (when I really didn’t need them), I haven’t worn long underwear since mid-December. And I definitely haven’t wanted thermal sheets on my bed since early December when we had that cold snap here (remember that?).
I couldn’t even laugh at the college students walking around in shorts and flip-flops when they returned to classes last week. Sure, January often has warm and dry days here (see: the Rose Parade), but this was getting weird, with day after day warm and dry. Yes, it was a special, luxurious, decadent treat to read in the bright sun, lounging on the dark green lawn by a row of brilliant red and white camellias in a festive red tee, on Christmas Day, but it was downright strange when I was still doing it a month later. At least it hasn’t been so warm that I have wanted to go without a shirt.
There was sure something unusual going on here. Just as the frigid, brutal weather in most of the rest of the United States was unusual.
I knew, however, that this was no idyll, no pleasant dream, no paradise on earth (at least for those who like it warm or hot all the time), when it hit the news. The two headlines at the top of the front page of the Los Angeles Times on January 16, told it all - or a lot of it.
“Cutting back as levels fall” was the headline on one article, with the sub-headline reading “Concern is that state is headed for major drought.” The article said that many lakes and reservoirs in California are at historically low levels and that
residents in some towns up north are being asked not to water their lawns. It was one of several that week noting the lack of rain, saying that last year was the driest in decades and that this January appeared headed to be the driest ever. It was also reported that this year’s snowpack, vital to the state’s water supply, is 20% of the average. Although it also had been mentioned in these articles that Southern California has enough water stored to last a year or two, it was no surprise when, on the following day, Governor Jerry Brown declared that California is in a drought.
(What I’m left wondering, though, is if Southern California having water stored up makes it okay for us to keep watering our lawns and to use thousands of gallons to make a hockey rink in Dodger Stadium.)
The other story topping that front page was about how cell phones and other nifty technological devices that we now rely on may well be rendered useless by an earthquake. This article didn’t come out of the blue. There had been not only a number of articles commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Northridge quake and about concerns over old buildings and new earthquake faults in Los Angeles. There had also been a number of small quakes in the area in the previous week or two. Many of these stories included the reminders that we are well overdue for “the Big One.”
There were also the fires, including the dramatic one in the hills above Glendora. Several articles in the Times noted that, while it is highly unusual to be concerned about wildfires and to need fire-fighters and equipment available in January with the “fire season” usually ending in late November or December, foliage is tinder dry and combustible due to, yes, lack of rain. Furthermore, there was a report several days later about how the high pressure weather system that is keeping rain away is also trapping air particles and making it smoggy, not only unusually so during our winters here but also sometimes unhealthily so to an significant extent.
What do we do with all this ominous news? Continue to bask and play in the sun, glad we’re not in all that snow and ice, perhaps while buying more bottles of water and hoping for the best when the large earthquake or no rain comes? As a friend from L.A said when he was here on the same day that the two articles appeared, “It’s so beautiful that it’s getting dangerous.”
I think he was only half-joking, if that.
LIVING IN PARADISE - AND DANGER
My friend sighed. He really didn’t want to go home.
It was a few days into the new year, and my friend came by for a visit. He had been in Claremont, also going to other places like Palm Springs and Laguna Beach, for two or three weeks over the holidays. As we talked in the warm afternoon sun and went into my house, he was dreading flying home the following day.
I don’t think my friend was particularly upset that the holidays were over. He may or may not have been unhappy about having to go back to his work. What he really didn’t want, what he was absolutely dreading, was just to go home to Vermont, where, at the time, it was even colder than it usually is in Vermont in January.
My friend never likes going back to Vermont after spending the holidays here, but it was all the harder with the unusually cold spell. Spending the holidays in Claremont and environs is always a bit magical, a bit of heaven, when his driveway at home is blocked with snow. Later, after his return home, he remarked that, during his trip, he had eaten many of his meals outside, surrounded by blooming flowers.
I haven’t been eating my meals outside, and I can’t say that I’m surprised by flowers blooming in January, but I have been reading a lot in my yard, and I was doing so in short-sleeves when my friend came by before returning to Vermont. I’ve been going out in tee-shirts during the day in recent weeks, and, except when I was up north in the Bay Area for several days after Christmas (when I really didn’t need them), I haven’t worn long underwear since mid-December. And I definitely haven’t wanted thermal sheets on my bed since early December when we had that cold snap here (remember that?).
I couldn’t even laugh at the college students walking around in shorts and flip-flops when they returned to classes last week. Sure, January often has warm and dry days here (see: the Rose Parade), but this was getting weird, with day after day warm and dry. Yes, it was a special, luxurious, decadent treat to read in the bright sun, lounging on the dark green lawn by a row of brilliant red and white camellias in a festive red tee, on Christmas Day, but it was downright strange when I was still doing it a month later. At least it hasn’t been so warm that I have wanted to go without a shirt.
There was sure something unusual going on here. Just as the frigid, brutal weather in most of the rest of the United States was unusual.
I knew, however, that this was no idyll, no pleasant dream, no paradise on earth (at least for those who like it warm or hot all the time), when it hit the news. The two headlines at the top of the front page of the Los Angeles Times on January 16, told it all - or a lot of it.
“Cutting back as levels fall” was the headline on one article, with the sub-headline reading “Concern is that state is headed for major drought.” The article said that many lakes and reservoirs in California are at historically low levels and that
residents in some towns up north are being asked not to water their lawns. It was one of several that week noting the lack of rain, saying that last year was the driest in decades and that this January appeared headed to be the driest ever. It was also reported that this year’s snowpack, vital to the state’s water supply, is 20% of the average. Although it also had been mentioned in these articles that Southern California has enough water stored to last a year or two, it was no surprise when, on the following day, Governor Jerry Brown declared that California is in a drought.
(What I’m left wondering, though, is if Southern California having water stored up makes it okay for us to keep watering our lawns and to use thousands of gallons to make a hockey rink in Dodger Stadium.)
The other story topping that front page was about how cell phones and other nifty technological devices that we now rely on may well be rendered useless by an earthquake. This article didn’t come out of the blue. There had been not only a number of articles commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Northridge quake and about concerns over old buildings and new earthquake faults in Los Angeles. There had also been a number of small quakes in the area in the previous week or two. Many of these stories included the reminders that we are well overdue for “the Big One.”
There were also the fires, including the dramatic one in the hills above Glendora. Several articles in the Times noted that, while it is highly unusual to be concerned about wildfires and to need fire-fighters and equipment available in January with the “fire season” usually ending in late November or December, foliage is tinder dry and combustible due to, yes, lack of rain. Furthermore, there was a report several days later about how the high pressure weather system that is keeping rain away is also trapping air particles and making it smoggy, not only unusually so during our winters here but also sometimes unhealthily so to an significant extent.
What do we do with all this ominous news? Continue to bask and play in the sun, glad we’re not in all that snow and ice, perhaps while buying more bottles of water and hoping for the best when the large earthquake or no rain comes? As a friend from L.A said when he was here on the same day that the two articles appeared, “It’s so beautiful that it’s getting dangerous.”
I think he was only half-joking, if that.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
A place like home in Claremont?
Here is my column that appeared in last Friday’s Claremont Courier. ‘Nuff said, as my friend Chris would say.
ARE WE ONE KIND OF COMMUNITY OR THE OTHER?
Karl Hilgert, Mary Cooper and Andrew Mohr knew that what they were doing wouldn’t be easy.
When they got together with others from Pilgrim Place and the Claremont Quaker Meeting last year, inspired by Occupy Claremont, to not just talk about the homeless in Claremont but to actually assist them, they knew that it wouldn’t be simple. In forming the Claremont Homeless Advocacy Program (CHAP), they knew they were in for some hard work.
The idea behind CHAP and it’s “Summer to End Homelessness” was to pair volunteers up with homeless individuals to help them go through the gauntlet of bureaucracies in order to get the services they need. Such an endeavor included, at the very least, waiting in crowded rooms, sometimes for hours, and filling out lots of forms - challenging enough for those with stability in their lives.
This was difficult and frustrating, and, no, the people in CHAP didn’t end homelessness in Claremont. They were under no illusions that they would, but at least they were trying and getting something done about an ugly and daunting problem. It’s a problem that many people don’t want to even think or talk about.
And now CHAP is trying and doing something more. With the Claremont Quaker Meeting providing space, the people in CHAP are giving overnight shelter to homeless people in Claremont. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the Quaker meeting but not involved with CHAP.)
This is a huge and even scary undertaking. It has started off small, with only men and only a few of them each night, but that still involves needing people to stay overnight as hosts and providing a simple breakfast each morning. This bold, hands-on leap had to be taken, Mr. Hilgert, Ms. Cooper, Mr. Mohr and the others in CHAP believe, because the nights are cold. As they see it, the question is: How can one try to assist the homeless and leave them to spend the night out on the street? The plan is that more homeless people and not just men will be able to stay at the shelter, and there is hope that other faith communities in and around Claremont will get involved in this effort.
It is easy to say that this is too difficult and won’t last. It is easy to say that this shelter program isn’t enough or won’t work, even that it will cause trouble, attracting more homeless people to Claremont.
But, as its people well know, what CHAP is doing isn’t easy. CHAP is doing something hard. At the very least, the CHAP folks are trying.
Which is a lot when it looks like there are people in Claremont who don’t even want to think about trying.
Just as CHAP was getting set to open its overnight shelter for homeless people in Claremont, there was grumbling and all sorts of alarms being raised - again - about low-income housing in Claremont. Correct that: there have been people upset about the idea of low-income housing in Claremont.
We have seen this before. But in the past, the outcry has been over proposed projects, like the one several years ago just north of the 2-10 freeway. This time, the bruhaha is over a site that may - or may not - be used for low and very low-income housing sometime in the future.
The city was only trying to identify land that could be used for such a project, as required by the state of California. However, when it came to a 5.9-acre parcel on Mills Avenue across from Chaparral Elementary School, there was confusion, with a good number of people thinking that a 100-unit low-income housing project was to be built there. This, as Kathryn Dunn reported in these pages on January 24, lead to a “backlash.”
According to Ms. Dunn’s reporting, “The city’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment allocations require city staff to identify possible locations for future very low and low-income housing development. The city is not, however, required to actually build the units. This fact did little to assuage residents’ fears about the project. About 45 people showed up to the January 7 planning commission meeting citing concerns...”
Forty-five people showing up at a meeting to denounce a project that could possibly and is not required to happen sometime in the future is a lot. There were also letters and other pieces in these pages lamenting this low-income housing project that isn’t planned.
The backlash was such that City Manager Tony Ramos decided to send the Housing Element Update back to the planning commission for a second review, although it will most likely mean that the city will miss a state deadline. As Mr. Ramos explained, “We need to vet this more...to make sure all residents’ concerns are addressed.”
The City Council agreed at its January 28 meeting, at which dozens of residents were present to register these concerns.
The concerns and fears about this proposed low-income housing project that isn’t there include those voiced in previous years about low-income housing projects: traffic, quality of life, negative effects on surrounding property values and wildlife. Another familiar element of the complaints is that the site that they concern is north of Foothill Boulevard. It is interesting that I haven’t heard about complaints about two other sites on the list that are on Arrow Highway.
Why is low-income, high-density housing acceptable in the south area of Claremont, even next to the Village where it has turned out to be quite successful, and the mere possibility of it is met with strong opposition? Also, as for the argument that people with lower incomes shouldn’t be relegated to housing near a freeway, where it has been shown that the air quality is worse, the low-income housing projects and the Arrow Highway properties aren’t all that far from the 10 freeway. What’s more, I haven’t seen much of an outcry over the standard housing projects being built near or even off the 2-10 freeway.
It has also been pointed out that the parcel on Mills Avenue is currently owned by Golden State Water Company, with a water well being operated on it. But surely the planning commission knew this when it made its recommendation. Isn’t there a creative, uniquely Claremont way to accommodate the well along with housing?
I can’t help wondering this when CHAP is trying and finding a way to do something to provide shelter for the homeless on these cold nights.
ARE WE ONE KIND OF COMMUNITY OR THE OTHER?
Karl Hilgert, Mary Cooper and Andrew Mohr knew that what they were doing wouldn’t be easy.
When they got together with others from Pilgrim Place and the Claremont Quaker Meeting last year, inspired by Occupy Claremont, to not just talk about the homeless in Claremont but to actually assist them, they knew that it wouldn’t be simple. In forming the Claremont Homeless Advocacy Program (CHAP), they knew they were in for some hard work.
The idea behind CHAP and it’s “Summer to End Homelessness” was to pair volunteers up with homeless individuals to help them go through the gauntlet of bureaucracies in order to get the services they need. Such an endeavor included, at the very least, waiting in crowded rooms, sometimes for hours, and filling out lots of forms - challenging enough for those with stability in their lives.
This was difficult and frustrating, and, no, the people in CHAP didn’t end homelessness in Claremont. They were under no illusions that they would, but at least they were trying and getting something done about an ugly and daunting problem. It’s a problem that many people don’t want to even think or talk about.
And now CHAP is trying and doing something more. With the Claremont Quaker Meeting providing space, the people in CHAP are giving overnight shelter to homeless people in Claremont. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the Quaker meeting but not involved with CHAP.)
This is a huge and even scary undertaking. It has started off small, with only men and only a few of them each night, but that still involves needing people to stay overnight as hosts and providing a simple breakfast each morning. This bold, hands-on leap had to be taken, Mr. Hilgert, Ms. Cooper, Mr. Mohr and the others in CHAP believe, because the nights are cold. As they see it, the question is: How can one try to assist the homeless and leave them to spend the night out on the street? The plan is that more homeless people and not just men will be able to stay at the shelter, and there is hope that other faith communities in and around Claremont will get involved in this effort.
It is easy to say that this is too difficult and won’t last. It is easy to say that this shelter program isn’t enough or won’t work, even that it will cause trouble, attracting more homeless people to Claremont.
But, as its people well know, what CHAP is doing isn’t easy. CHAP is doing something hard. At the very least, the CHAP folks are trying.
Which is a lot when it looks like there are people in Claremont who don’t even want to think about trying.
Just as CHAP was getting set to open its overnight shelter for homeless people in Claremont, there was grumbling and all sorts of alarms being raised - again - about low-income housing in Claremont. Correct that: there have been people upset about the idea of low-income housing in Claremont.
We have seen this before. But in the past, the outcry has been over proposed projects, like the one several years ago just north of the 2-10 freeway. This time, the bruhaha is over a site that may - or may not - be used for low and very low-income housing sometime in the future.
The city was only trying to identify land that could be used for such a project, as required by the state of California. However, when it came to a 5.9-acre parcel on Mills Avenue across from Chaparral Elementary School, there was confusion, with a good number of people thinking that a 100-unit low-income housing project was to be built there. This, as Kathryn Dunn reported in these pages on January 24, lead to a “backlash.”
According to Ms. Dunn’s reporting, “The city’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment allocations require city staff to identify possible locations for future very low and low-income housing development. The city is not, however, required to actually build the units. This fact did little to assuage residents’ fears about the project. About 45 people showed up to the January 7 planning commission meeting citing concerns...”
Forty-five people showing up at a meeting to denounce a project that could possibly and is not required to happen sometime in the future is a lot. There were also letters and other pieces in these pages lamenting this low-income housing project that isn’t planned.
The backlash was such that City Manager Tony Ramos decided to send the Housing Element Update back to the planning commission for a second review, although it will most likely mean that the city will miss a state deadline. As Mr. Ramos explained, “We need to vet this more...to make sure all residents’ concerns are addressed.”
The City Council agreed at its January 28 meeting, at which dozens of residents were present to register these concerns.
The concerns and fears about this proposed low-income housing project that isn’t there include those voiced in previous years about low-income housing projects: traffic, quality of life, negative effects on surrounding property values and wildlife. Another familiar element of the complaints is that the site that they concern is north of Foothill Boulevard. It is interesting that I haven’t heard about complaints about two other sites on the list that are on Arrow Highway.
Why is low-income, high-density housing acceptable in the south area of Claremont, even next to the Village where it has turned out to be quite successful, and the mere possibility of it is met with strong opposition? Also, as for the argument that people with lower incomes shouldn’t be relegated to housing near a freeway, where it has been shown that the air quality is worse, the low-income housing projects and the Arrow Highway properties aren’t all that far from the 10 freeway. What’s more, I haven’t seen much of an outcry over the standard housing projects being built near or even off the 2-10 freeway.
It has also been pointed out that the parcel on Mills Avenue is currently owned by Golden State Water Company, with a water well being operated on it. But surely the planning commission knew this when it made its recommendation. Isn’t there a creative, uniquely Claremont way to accommodate the well along with housing?
I can’t help wondering this when CHAP is trying and finding a way to do something to provide shelter for the homeless on these cold nights.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Too many rights, not enough care
I have a confession to make: I think there are some disabled people who shouldn’t be living out in the community. At least temporarily.
This is really tough for me to say. Some years ago, one of my attendants remarked that she wished we were living in the 1950's, “when everything was simpler and less crazy.” I pointed out that if we were in the 1950's, I’d probably be living in a back room, if not in a large hospital. She said “oh” and shut up real fast.
I used to love reading The Disability Rag, with its unabashed advocacy, championing disabled rights. It was really where I got the idea that disability is a societal problem, with society not being accessible enough and not providing enough services, rather than a problem with someone not able to do certain things.
Mouth magazine was even better. I loved its homemade look and its hands-on, out-there, fiery vision of radical inclusion. Editor Lucy Gwin was full of terrific passion, which really kicked me in the butt and got me even more out there. But I couldn’t go along with her when she kept saying that the mentally ill should be allowed to not take their meditations. I wanted to be p.c and agree that, like me, the mentally ill should be able to live as they want, but I couldn’t.
Never mind that many mentally ill people end up homeless, living lives of not-so-quiet desperation, cycling endlessly through hospitals and jails, often at fantastic public expense. This was before there was the steady stream of mass shootings that we now live with in the U.S, with the shooter almost always turning out to be mentally ill.
Yes, there is a huge problem with how easy it is for people to get guns in this country, but the problem about mentally ill people getting guns is more than about how easy it is to get guns.
After all, the southern state lawmaker who appeared on Sunday’s episode of 60 Minutes - I’m sorry I can’t remember his name and state - had his face scarred from when his mentally ill son attacked him with a knife. Soon after the attack, the son, who was reportedly sweet-natured and liked playing bluegrass music, shot himself. The congressman later read in his son’s diary that the son had the idea that he would go straight to heaven if he killed his father who was evil.
The point is that not having a gun at the time didn’t stop grave, if not lethal harm, from being done. Guns are just handy and easier to use.
The 60 Minutes segment, entitled “No Place to Go,” was about how family and friends have very limited options in getting help for their mentally ill loved ones. In the case of the congressman’s son, for instance, he was sent home after a hospital visit when the six hours to find a facility where he could stay and get care expired. The congressman has introduced legislation to extend this placement period to 24 hours in his state. In another interview during the segment, a mentally ill hospital patient explained that he hears voices telling him to kill himself or occasionally others and that “that’s not who I am.”
This tragic, impossible situation will the mentally ill began in the 1980's when most of the large mental institutions were closed. The mentally ill were at last given rights, including regarding their care, giving them autonomy and dignity. This was great, but the problem was and is that no funding was provided to care for the mentally ill out in the community. Even more of a tragedy is that it’s not so much that money is not available - it’s that no one wants to talk about the mentally ill.
Until this is resolved, until we can talk about the mentally ill and then decide to provide the care they need, there will be more of these shootings and other tragedies. Until then, in order to protect them and others, I’m sorry to say that more restrictions, if not also fewer rights, should be placed on the mentally ill.
This is really tough for me to say. Some years ago, one of my attendants remarked that she wished we were living in the 1950's, “when everything was simpler and less crazy.” I pointed out that if we were in the 1950's, I’d probably be living in a back room, if not in a large hospital. She said “oh” and shut up real fast.
I used to love reading The Disability Rag, with its unabashed advocacy, championing disabled rights. It was really where I got the idea that disability is a societal problem, with society not being accessible enough and not providing enough services, rather than a problem with someone not able to do certain things.
Mouth magazine was even better. I loved its homemade look and its hands-on, out-there, fiery vision of radical inclusion. Editor Lucy Gwin was full of terrific passion, which really kicked me in the butt and got me even more out there. But I couldn’t go along with her when she kept saying that the mentally ill should be allowed to not take their meditations. I wanted to be p.c and agree that, like me, the mentally ill should be able to live as they want, but I couldn’t.
Never mind that many mentally ill people end up homeless, living lives of not-so-quiet desperation, cycling endlessly through hospitals and jails, often at fantastic public expense. This was before there was the steady stream of mass shootings that we now live with in the U.S, with the shooter almost always turning out to be mentally ill.
Yes, there is a huge problem with how easy it is for people to get guns in this country, but the problem about mentally ill people getting guns is more than about how easy it is to get guns.
After all, the southern state lawmaker who appeared on Sunday’s episode of 60 Minutes - I’m sorry I can’t remember his name and state - had his face scarred from when his mentally ill son attacked him with a knife. Soon after the attack, the son, who was reportedly sweet-natured and liked playing bluegrass music, shot himself. The congressman later read in his son’s diary that the son had the idea that he would go straight to heaven if he killed his father who was evil.
The point is that not having a gun at the time didn’t stop grave, if not lethal harm, from being done. Guns are just handy and easier to use.
The 60 Minutes segment, entitled “No Place to Go,” was about how family and friends have very limited options in getting help for their mentally ill loved ones. In the case of the congressman’s son, for instance, he was sent home after a hospital visit when the six hours to find a facility where he could stay and get care expired. The congressman has introduced legislation to extend this placement period to 24 hours in his state. In another interview during the segment, a mentally ill hospital patient explained that he hears voices telling him to kill himself or occasionally others and that “that’s not who I am.”
This tragic, impossible situation will the mentally ill began in the 1980's when most of the large mental institutions were closed. The mentally ill were at last given rights, including regarding their care, giving them autonomy and dignity. This was great, but the problem was and is that no funding was provided to care for the mentally ill out in the community. Even more of a tragedy is that it’s not so much that money is not available - it’s that no one wants to talk about the mentally ill.
Until this is resolved, until we can talk about the mentally ill and then decide to provide the care they need, there will be more of these shootings and other tragedies. Until then, in order to protect them and others, I’m sorry to say that more restrictions, if not also fewer rights, should be placed on the mentally ill.
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