“Bars on windows are a sign that I am in the wrong neighborhood.” I heard that a few times when I was a kid, mostly from people of my parents’ generation. It was not intended as disparagement of any particular neighborhood. It meant that relocation was a better option than installation of bars on windows.
I do not remember that anyone who said that actually relocated. Situations just never got that bad. Bars appeared on windows of a few businesses in some neighborhoods, but were eventually removed as people realized that the neighborhoods were not so bad.
Besides, some believed that bars on windows just informed potential burglars that there was something worth stealing within. Others believed that there was not much within their homes that burglars would be interested in. I believed that if a burglar wanted something within my isolated home, that bars would not stop him or her from taking it.
Most of us choose to not live in fear. We happen to live in an excellent place, and intend to enjoy it. It is certainly not perfect, and burglaries sometimes happen. We just do not allow such unpleasantries to dictate our lifestyles.
Those who choose to live in fear have the option of relocating to someplace where they do not need to live in fear. If they fear crime, they can go someplace where there is no crime. If they fear drugs, they can go someplace where there are none. If they fear houseless people, and believe that houseless people migrate to this region, they can relocate to someplace that is unpopular with the migratory houseless people whom they fear. Surely, there must be a place like that for them to go to. It is more practical than expecting those they fear to relocate for them.
Seriously, that was her name. Karen. It was printed on her discarded baseball cap that was in the box of assorted trash that she tossed off the Graham Hill Road Bridge over Zayante Creek. There was some paperwork in the box too, which provided a bit more information. I was on the telephone and across the road at the gate of the industrial yard from where I work for part of the week when I saw her drop the box from the Bridge. I could neither yell to her while on the telephone, nor immediately end the call.
I did contact the sheriff though, as I walked across the road after ending the previous call. Prior to the discovery of identifying material, I doubted that anything could be done about the situation. Also, I did not want to trouble anyone with something that nothing could be done about. Nonetheless, I remembered that such crimes, even if minor, should be reported. The deputy who returned my call seemed pleased that I did.
Before I knew her name, I described Karen and what she was wearing. I also tried to describe a gentleman who was with her, but whom I had not seen much of. He walked ahead of her, as if embarrassed to be seen with her. I could not see a car that they drove there with; so they must have walked a considerable distance with the box of trash.
I also described how Karen and the gentleman she was with proceeded in the direction that they were going prior to dropping the box of trash, rather than back the way from which they came. I wondered if they had arrived from that direction previously, walked past, and then delivered the box as they returned. It was perplexing.
Of course, nothing could be done about this incident while it was necessary for deputies to prioritize more significant crimes. The box of trash was small enough to be collected and deposited into a dumpster within the industrial yard. Questions remain though.
Why did Karen drop her box of trash from the bridge?
Does Karen have a means with which to dispose of trash at home?
Did Karen leave the trash there so that homeless people would be blamed for it?
As I mentioned last week, other obligations presently prevent me from writing new posts, perhaps for several weeks. For now, this old article from May of 2019 will be recycled.
Fake environmentalism is a HUGE topic, so for now, will be limited
to fake environmentalism as justification for the eviction of
homeless encampments.
The yellow triangle in the picture above was the site of the
Hero’s Camp, which was more commonly known as Ross Camp, and located
behind Ross Dress For Less in Gateway Plaza in Santa Cruz. It is gone
now. This satellite image was taken by Google Maps prior to the
development of the Camp. I did not get pictures of the camp while
inhabited, but you have likely seen enough other camps in the news to
imagine what it looked like.
It really was as big as it looks, and really did exhibit all the
problems that you hear about in the news, although not to such an
exaggerated degree. Not everyone there used syringes to inject
illicit narcotics. Not everyone there was an alcoholic. Not everyone
was violent, from somewhere else, or a criminal. This is not about
such issues anyway. It is about how the two hundred or so unhoused
people who lived here affected the environment.
Was there trash? Of course there was. Was it more than what two
hundred people who live in homes generate? No. Houseless people do
not generate as much trash as the housed, simply because they lack
resources to purchase the commodities from which so much trash is
generated. The houseless certainly do not waste as much as the
housed. Their trash just happens to be more visible for outsiders who
do not know any better to see.
Furthermore, what is so typically described and perceived as trash
is actually the belongings of those who live in such camps. Without
closets, cabinets or furniture, our belongings would look about the
same, except much more voluminous. When we take just some of the
belongings that we don’t want or need and put them out in front of
our homes, it is a garage sale, and likely amounts to much more than
individual homeless people own.
The satellite image from Google Maps below shows the neighborhood
where my grandparents lived in Felton, less than seven miles north of
where the picture above was taken. Their old home is right in the
middle of the picture. There were not so many other homes there when
they arrived, just as World War II was ending. They lived a
relatively modest lifestyle, on a small suburban parcel. They were
not concerned about the environment.
Why should they have been? Even now, the people who live in homes
here can generate as much trash as they want to, and no one will
complain about it. They can fill their homes with their belongings,
and put them neatly away in closets, cabinets and drawers. There are
alcoholics in this neighborhood, as well as a few who are addicted to
illicit narcotics. Some are criminals. Some are violent. Few are
native. Again, this is off the main topic.
None of that is visible in this satellite image anyway. What it
shows instead is how the lifestyles of those who live in homes are
more detrimental to the environment than the lifestyles of those who
lack homes. This picture is the same scale as the picture above, so
you can see that only a few homes would fit into an area comparable
to that in which about two hundred unhoused people lived. Only a few
people live in each of these few homes.
What that means is that two hundred people like those who lived at
the Hero’s Camp live dispersed over a much larger area, on land from
which trees and vegetation needed to be removed. They all live in
homes that are made of wood derived from trees that grew in forests.
These homes are furnished with synthetic plaster, carpet, paint,
glass, vinyl, metals and all sorts of materials that needed to be
quarried, processed or manufactured.
It doesn’t end there. These homes consume energy for heating,
lighting and whatever else that gas and electricity are used for.
Cars driven by those who live in homes are also constructed from raw
materials, and then need fuel to function. Water is consumed as if it
were not a very limited resource. Much of it gets mixed with soaps
and detergents before going back into the environment. Chlorine
volatilizes from chlorinated swimming pools.
Then there are the landscapes and gardens, the parts of domestic lifestyles that we actually believe to be beneficial to the environment. They contain exotic (non-native) plants that compete with native species, and interfere with natural ecological processes. Irrigation of the landscapes stimulates growth of redwoods, and accelerates decay of oaks. Soil amendments, fertilizers and some of the pesticides change the chemistry of the soil and ground water.
Just compare these two pictures. As bad as the mess at Hero’s Camp
was, the two hundred people who lived there were less detrimental to
the environment and the local ecosystem than those who live in just a
few of the homes visible in the picture below. Those who claim to be
concerned about the environment should be more concerned about the
ecologically detrimental lifestyles of those who live in homes than
those who lack homes.
(Incidentally, the title was changed slightly from the original post [in another blog] to conform to the meme of ‘Hypocrisy’.)
Haters who stalk us are predictable. Their techniques are so similar. It is as if they all study the same standardized instruction manual for proper techniques of hatred, as well as hypocrisy.
For example, they all engage in
stalking of some sort, in order to find information they can use to
either irrelevantly shame their victims, or modify for the same
effect. If they find nothing of interest, they lie to create scandal
regarding fictitious nefarious behavior. Yet, anyone who questions
them about their own similar but real and observable behavior, they
accuse of stalking.
Some of us, years ago, were pursued by
haters who took photographs of us to post and ridicule online. When a
few of us photographed those photographing us, we were accused of
stalking. The difference with how such photographs were obtained is
that they were pursuing or stalking us, but we were not pursuing
them. We merely photographed what was in our surroundings.
Furthermore, while they falsely
accused us of all sorts of bad behavior that they somehow never got
pictures of, we merely posted their pictures with explanations that
they were taking our pictures. We did not lie about their activity
when sharing pictures of them online. Yet, they insisted that posting
pictures of them (as they took pictures of us) was some sort of
harassment.
Stalking and harassment; so what about
bullying? Haters are experts. However, any victim who so much as
questions the need or relevance of their bullying is promptly accused
of bullying. It is such a reliable pattern. Haters accuse their
victims of their own behavior.
Many years ago, one of our friends
investigated this pattern of behavior beyond direct correlations of
discussion on social media, and into other publicly available
information. After noticing that a particularly vocal hater
repeatedly ranted about how the homeless exploit the resources of
social services, he found that she had been prosecuted for fraud of
Workers’ Compensation.
A similar observation was made in
regard to a hater who regularly ranted about how homeless people who
can not afford to live here must move away. While her home was on the
market, one of our friends who had briefly considered purchasing it,
realized that it had been in pre-foreclosure for more than a year.
This pattern is so reliable that it prompts its own investigation.
While on Facebook, a neighbor noticed
one of the familiar haters accusing someone else of establishing a
‘GoFundMe’ account, in a rather demeaning manner, and for no
particular reason. Of course, he was compelled to search ‘GoFundMe’,
and too predictably found that the accusatory hater had established
at least two accounts, and her young daughter had established
another.
There is certainly nothing wrong with
establishing a ‘GoFundMe’ account when necessary.
A few of us know that pre-foreclosure
is nothing that anyone actually chooses to be engaged in.
Even a fraudulent claim of Workers’
Compensation funds is nothing to be judged too harshly. Mistakes
happen. Workers’ Compensation claims adjusters do not always agree
with physicians.
However, the predictable pattern of
haters attempting to shame others for their own behavior is
hypocritical.
How disappointing it is, that after so many historic atrocities performed by various hate groups throughout history, some of us continue to find such primitive barbarism to be appealing. We should be better than this. Yet, some of us continue to be prejudiced against those who are even slightly different from us. A few use this prejudice to justify discrimination and even violence.
Not too long ago, violence directed at
local homeless people, although rare, was not as rare as it should
have been. Until about 2014, people were still getting attacked and
beaten up as they tried to sleep. One was shot at in her camper.
Another was shot at with a flare gun, and a few weeks later, covered
with paper and ignited as he tried to sleep. Verbal assaults were
common.
What is such behavior supposed to
accomplish? Why do minor social groups condone and even encourage
such behavior? Why do these very minor social groups believe that
they represent the rest of civilized society that wants no
association with such barbarism? There are so many questions.
Unfortunately, hate groups innately lack proficiency with providing
logical answers.
Back in about 2014, the car of a
homeless lady was vandalized repeatedly. After each occurrence,
pictures were promptly shared online among those affiliated with hate
groups who target the homeless. It is how they believe that they
benefit society, by vandalizing a car that a homeless lady needed to
make a good impression with when she went out to try to find
employment.
Not long prior to that, immediately after a hate group claimed to be concerned that homeless encampments were fire hazards, one such encampment was soaked with gasoline and ignited. Predictably, before and after pictures were posted online. The homeless involved were still homeless for about a month afterward, but relocated farther out into the more combustible forest.
Why do those who hate the homeless so
much want to make it more difficult for the homeless to improve their
situations, and perhaps eventually not be homeless? Is their
consuming hate that precious to them? Do they really thrive on such
dysfunction? Again, there are more simple but unanswered questions
that haters are not concerned with providing relevant answers to.
There is a reason why no illustration accompanies this post. The picture that I wanted to use is just too unflattering.
It is a mugshot of an old friend who had been arrested for trying to get into a car that he believed belonged to his nephew, and then getting combative with Santa Cruz Police Officers who tried to stop him from doing so. He had been missing for three days prior to that, after escaping from the post acute care facility where he lived near the end of his life as he succumbed to a variety of ailments, particularly lung cancer and dementia.
We do not know where he had been or what he had been
doing during those days that he was missing. He could not explain any
of it. He was very tired and very hungry, and looked ghastly by the
time he was found. Fortunately, the Police Officers who arrested him
were quick to determine who he was and that he was missing, and then
return him to the post acute care facility from where he had escaped.
It was an efficient process.
He would have been located much sooner if only the haters had helped. They found his mugshot immediately. Within hours, they had paraded it thoroughly over Facebook and perhaps other social networks, complete with the typical vitriolic accusations, blaming, judging, criticizing, threatening and name calling that they are so proficient and indulgent with. Is dementia really that serious of a crime?
Perhaps it does not matter. To get the process started, haters need only a mention of a crime that includes the names of the perpetrators to find their mugshots online. They often take useful information that is posted on the Facebook page of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, and embellish it for their own sadistic entertainment. The rest of us simply want to know about crime in our Community, and maybe, who to be wary of.
After noticing the potential beginning of another display of public ridicule following a post on the Facebook page of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office a few months ago, a former neighbor questioned one of the main participants in this routine derision, in regard to particular mugshots that she had neglected. This particular hater had always been the most proficient at procuring and exhibiting mugshots for public disparagement.
The hater immediately became hostile to the former neighbor who questioned her, and predictably initiated the typical vitriolic accusations, blaming, judging, criticizing, threatening and name calling that only haters employ to demonstrate their exemplary civility and concern for the Community. Despite her attempts to redirect and end discussion, the former neighbor limited his questions to the topic of the neglected mugshots, but to no avail.
Just as predictably, after failing to dissuade the former neighbor from continuing to ask why the neglected mugshots were not discussed, the hater blocked him from responding, without acknowledgment of the mugshots.
The mugshots in question are of a young lady who had been arrested for DUI (Driving Under the Influence of an inebriant), which really seems like it should be a more serious crime than dementia. I mean, those who drive while inebriated sometimes kill people! However, the young lady who was arrested for DUI is a daughter of another main participant in the routine derision and disparagement of ‘other’ people with mugshots.
It is a standard component of the culture of modern hate groups that target the homeless, as well as every hate group that has tormented society throughout history. I could make a meme of it – ‘Hypocrisy’.
The first hateful comment ever on my gardening blog reminded me of an essay about hypocrisy that was posted on, and then promptly deleted from, the Facebook page of Felton League more than a year ago. It was deleted because someone found it to be objectionable, even after it had been edited for appropriateness of content at least twice. The hateful comment can be found here, as the seventh of the original reader comments (not including replies).
There is not much original material to the essay. It is merely a
collection of seventeen reviews from Yelp, which were written by the
same yelper, preceded by the excerpt that is posted below. Only the
portion that is posted below was written by the author, not by the
yelper who posted the reviews. This portion simply explains the
significance of the seventeen reviews on Yelp. It is difficult to
follow since it was so severely edited here.
The seventeen reviews from Yelp are not included here because they
are not as important as what the original essay is about, which is
clarified in the last paragraph.
If, after reading the excerpt of the essay below, you are
wondering what was so objectionable about the essay, you are not
alone. I should explain that the single person who found it to be
objectionable was the same who wrote the reviews on Yelp. Yes, they
are on Yelp, for everyone to see, but apparently not to be quoted as
seventeen examples of hypocrisy.
This is the excerpt:
This is how haters roll.
ALL SEVENTEEN of these reviews of marijuana
dispensaries are from the same Yelp account of (name
deleted)! Yeah, that’s a lot of marijuana dispensaries for
one person! There could be more that she didn’t leave reviews for.
Four were updated, and one was updated twice. Review #8 says,
“(deleted)” Review
#14 says, “(deleted)”
(name deleted) goes
through a lot of marijuana! By the way, (name
deleted) is (age
deleted) now, so so was in her early teens in the early
1980s when (she said)
she started going to (business
name deleted) that she left review #16 for. She turned
(age deleted) in 1980.
This isn’t the first long list of reviews for
marijuana dispensaries from (name
deleted). She did it on Facebook too, but deleted the
reviews when asked about her marijuana and alcohol use. Yeah, she
also wrote reviews for some of the bars and clubs that she
frequented, and talked jokingly about getting stumbling drunk before
driving home. Yeah, so not something to joke about. Anyway, those
reviews are gone now, and the Yelp reviews pasted here will probably
get deleted too now that she knows that we know who she is. We’ve
known since she left a unique review for one of our friends some
years back. She went by (name
deleted) for a while, and then (name
deleted). FFE keeps a fat file on her.
So, why is this important to us? (name
deleted) publicly accuses all homeless people of constantly
smoking marijuana, and it’s one of many reasons that she and her few
hater friends want the homeless exterminated. HYPOCRISY!
Incidentally, the Yelper who left these seventeen
reviews for marijuana dispensaries supposedly left reviews for four
more marijuna dispensaries just since this essay was posted about a
year ago, although I did not bother to confirm this report. Seventeen
is already way too many for someone who accuses everyone within a
targeted group of excessive use of marijuana.
Fake environmentalism is a HUGE topic, so for now, will be limited
to fake environmentalism as justification for the eviction of
homeless encampments.
The yellow triangle in the picture above was the site of the
Hero’s Camp, which was more commonly known as Ross Camp, and located
behind Ross Dress For Less in Gateway Plaza in Santa Cruz. It is gone
now. This satellite image was taken by Google Maps prior to the
development of the Camp. I did not get pictures of the camp while
inhabited, but you have likely seen enough other camps in the news to
imagine what it looked like.
It really was as big as it looks, and really did exhibit all the
problems that you hear about in the news, although not to such an
exaggerated degree. Not everyone there used syringes to inject
illicit narcotics. Not everyone there was an alcoholic. Not everyone
was violent, from somewhere else, or a criminal. This is not about
such issues anyway. It is about how the two hundred or so unhoused
people who lived here affected the environment.
Was there trash? Of course there was. Was it more than what two
hundred people who live in homes generate? No. Houseless people do
not generate as much trash as the housed, simply because they lack
resources to purchase the commodities from which so much trash is
generated. The houseless certainly do not waste as much as the
housed. Their trash just happens to be more visible for outsiders who
do not know any better to see.
Furthermore, what is so typically described and perceived as trash
is actually the belongings of those who live in such camps. Without
closets, cabinets or furniture, our belongings would look about the
same, except much more voluminous. When we take just some of the
belongings that we don’t want or need and put them out in front of
our homes, it is a garage sale, and likely amounts to much more than
individual homeless people own.
The satellite image from Google Maps below shows the neighborhood
where my grandparents lived in Felton, less than seven miles north of
where the picture above was taken. Their old home is right in the
middle of the picture. There were not so many other homes there when
they arrived, just as World War II was ending. They lived a
relatively modest lifestyle, on a small suburban parcel. They were
not concerned about the environment.
Why should they have been? Even now, the people who live in homes
here can generate as much trash as they want to, and no one will
complain about it. They can fill their homes with their belongings,
and put them neatly away in closets, cabinets and drawers. There are
alcoholics in this neighborhood, as well as a few who are addicted to
illicit narcotics. Some are criminals. Some are violent. Few are
native. Again, this is off the main topic.
None of that is visible in this satellite image anyway. What it
shows instead is how the lifestyles of those who live in homes are
more detrimental to the environment than the lifestyles of those who
lack homes. This picture is the same scale as the picture above, so
you can see that only a few homes would fit into an area comparable
to that in which about two hundred unhoused people lived. Only a few
people live in each of these few homes.
What that means is that two hundred people like those who lived at
the Hero’s Camp live dispersed over a much larger area, on land from
which trees and vegetation needed to be removed. They all live in
homes that are made of wood derived from trees that grew in forests.
These homes are furnished with synthetic plaster, carpet, paint,
glass, vinyl, metals and all sorts of materials that needed to be
quarried, processed or manufactured.
It doesn’t end there. These homes consume energy for heating,
lighting and whatever else that gas and electricity are used for.
Cars driven by those who live in homes are also constructed from raw
materials, and then need fuel to function. Water is consumed as if it
were not a very limited resource. Much of it gets mixed with soaps
and detergents before going back into the environment. Chlorine
volatilizes from chlorinated swimming pools.
Then there are the landscapes and gardens, the parts of domestic lifestyles that we actually believe to be beneficial to the environment. They contain exotic (non-native) plants that compete with native species, and interfere with natural ecological processes. Irrigation of the landscapes stimulates growth of redwoods, and accelerates decay of oaks. Soil amendments, fertilizers and some of the pesticides change the chemistry of the soil and ground water.
Just compare these two pictures. As bad as the mess at Hero’s Camp
was, the two hundred people who lived there were less detrimental to
the environment and the local ecosystem than those who live in just a
few of the homes visible in the picture below. Those who claim to be
concerned about the environment should be more concerned about the
ecologically detrimental lifestyles of those who live in homes than
those who lack homes.
(Incidentally, the title was changed slightly from the original post [in another blog] to conform to the meme of ‘Hypocrisy’.)
Felton League 