The Bee whitewashes homeless census data-gathering controversy

The usual Cynthia Hubert crap. Sac Bee reporter Hubert was lauded by Cat Williams at a SHOC meeting I attended as a "friend." Indeed. She's very much a friend of the wacky-Leftist wing of the Sacramento Homeless Help Industry and has greatly eroded journalism standards.

An article in the Bee today about the Census Bureau being at the Loaves & Fishes Compound this Tuesday gets it quite wrong. With the report having been written by the notorious Cynthia Hubert, that's to be expected.

The article's last paragraph quotes Libby of L&F:

"I've been promoting the idea that homeless people do count and that it's important for everyone to take part," Fernandez said. But contrary to reports, no one will be denied services if they choose to forgo being interviewed. "We would never refuse to feed someone who is hungry. That's not what we are about."

Oh, come on. That dog don't hunt. That dog don't breathe oxygen.

Here, again, is the text of a handout at Friendship Park that was given out at the Info Kiosk last Thursday:

ATTENTION

On Tuesday, March 30th 2010 Loaves & Fishes will be hosting the 2010 U.S. census, the census is vital to our area receiving funding for many homeless programs. At this time we are asking all who come to Loaves and fishes to participate. Because you are a citizen and you count!

On this date Friendship Park will be closed to those who do not participate... Census staff will be set up in the cul-de-sac to assist you in completing the census. Once you've completed the census you will be given an admission ticket to Friendship Park and to access services at Loaves & Fishes. I.e.; lunch, showers telephone etc.

We apologize for any inconveniences, this may cause.

The handout was "revised" the next day.  Printed on bright pink slips, the middle paragraph was rewritten.

ATTENTION

On Tuesday, March 30th 2010 Loaves & Fishes will be hosting the 2010 U.S. census, the census is vital to our area receiving funding for many homeless programs. At this time we are asking all who come to Loaves and fishes to participate. Because you are a citizen and you count!

On this date Friendship Park will be open only to those who participate, beginning at 7am. Lunch tickets will be provided at 12:30 to those who choose not to participate. Census staff will be set up in the cul-de-sac to assist you in completing the census. It is our desire that every individual stand up and be counted.

We apologize for any inconveniences, this may cause.

Cynthia Hubert was and is fully aware of the handouts at Loaves & Fishes, reproduced above. She printed a quote at the end of her article that she knows full well is a lie of omission. Loaves & Fishes distributed two fliers that directly say that Loaves & Fishes fully intends to deny people services if they do not comport to the charity's desire that homeless and other poor people complete data-gathering reports on their premesis.

Perhaps, Libby has been informed, by her Leftist lawyers or by the Census Bureau, that the Big Mommy preasures her charity was set to impose on people were illegal. Or, perhaps, what Libby says to the press will be "inoperative" when March 30th rolls around and what the fliers say will be the rules-in-effect. We'll see.

The truth of things is transitory, ephemeral, disappears in a thick fog out in the Leftist Towers of Homelesss World Sacramento.  It's disgusting.  And it goes on and on and on and on.

Loaves & Fishes and the 2010 Census, Act Two

Loaves & Fishes has now sent around a second flier relating to their interdiction into the private, personal responsiblities of homeless adult citizens to participate in the 2010 Census.

The new flier is the same as the prior day's flier [See yesterday's blogpost] except that the paper it's on is bright pink and the middle paragraph has been changed, allowing everyone who seeks lunch in the L&F soup kitchen to be served, rather than just those who have given data that morning to census workers at the L&F compound. BUT, punitively, those not cooperating with Loaves & Fishes' management of the census cannot be served their lunch until late — beginning at 12:30pm — and will not gain access to L&F's Friendship Park and its myriad services.

The new second paragraph, relating to census participation in the L&F cul-de-sac on Mar. 30, reads as follows:

On this date Friendship Park will be open only to those who participate, beginning at 7am.  Lunch tickets will be provided at 12:30 to those who choose not to participate.  Census staff will be set up in the cul-de-sac to assist you in completing the census.  It is our desire that every individual stand up and be counted.

A policy of restricted, denied and delayed services for homeless people who do not give fealty to L&F management remains in place.

The Big Mommyism of Loaves & Fishes is a reprehensible, ongoing problem.  People who have fallen out of their lives should not be denied the basic rights of other American citizens.  Indeed, homeless people should not be used as tools by Loaves & Fishes and the other far-far-Leftist, totalist homeless-aid nonprofits in Sacramento.

The regional Census Bureau for Sacramento, headquartered in Seattle, has been advised of the problems. It is greatly hoped they will intervene and block Loaves & Fishes management interference in the 2010 Census count.

Regular American citizens do not have a third-party sticking its nose in the personal, private business that is between them and their government. Here's a news flash: Homeless Sacramentans ARE regular American citizens. Get the hell out of the way, Loaves & Fishes.

... with Loaves & Fishes looking over your shoulder?

Is Loaves & Fishes ALWAYS adverse to doing something in a straightforward way? I do wonder.

Not content to take up its proper role in the 2010 Census as a non-invasive TNSOL [Targetted Non-Sheltered Outdoor Location], Loaves & Fishes has determined that it will add coercion to the mix, which is sure to make an expected undercount of Sacramento's homeless population that much greater.

Rather that benignly, non-invasively offering a location where homeless people could fulfill their obligation to report data for the 2010 Census to Census Bureau workers, Loaves & Fishes has decided to act as Big Mommy and stick in their big snorting nose. L&F's inveigling action is sure to scare off many homeless people who will understandably feel that their privacy is being invaded.

A flier, worded as follows, has been distributed to homeless denizens of L&F's Friendship Park the last couple days:

ATTENTION

On Tuesday, March 30^th 2010 Loaves & Fishes will be hosting the 2010 U.S. census, the census is vital to our area receiving funding for many homeless programs. At this time we are asking all who come to Loaves and fishes to participate. Because you are a citizen and you count!

On this date Friendship Park will be closed to those who do not participate... Census staff will be set up in the cul-de-sac to assist you in completing the census. Once you've completed the census you will be given an admission ticket to Friendship Park and to access services at Loaves & Fishes. I.e.; lunch, showers telephone etc.

We apologize for any inconveniences, this may cause.

Reporting of Census data is solely the responsiblity of those reporting ― adult citizens and others living in the United States. The circumstance at Loaves & Fishes is surely a unique one where use of coersion is employed: "Fill out the datasheet, or you won't eat or bathe, you homeless dog!" Census reporting at gunpoint by an organization that has no business meddling!

It should be known that the official Census Date is April 1, and NOT March 30.

While the Census Bureau happily collects data given before the official date [How else could they hope to gather data from over 300 million Americans?], the obligation to report is by May 1 relating to one's circumstance on April 1 — but the sooner the better.

Homeless citizens, like all other Americans, have no legal obligation to report early. Nor should many of us report before the April 1 Census date, since, in many cases, homeless people's living circumstances can change day-by-day.

The logo of the 2010 Census appears in the upper-right of this blogpost.  Must I point out that it reads "It's in Our Hands," and NOT "It's in Our Hands with Loaves & Fishes twisting your arm and reading over your shoulder"?

Salt

The negative health consequences of salt are stark. Sadly, the homeless community and other poor people who go to soup kitchens or get a significant portion of their food from food banks or churches or from kindly people distributing food from their car, intake huge quantities of sodium.

In Homeless World we are assaulted by salt ― in chips and crackers and from the heavy seasoning hand of soup kitchen cooks.

The Union Gospel Mission now regularly offers salt and pepper in packets with their evening meals, which allows diners to season their food themselves. In combination with putting less salt in prepared foods, people have the opportunity to cut back on their salt intake.

But cutting back on the salt assault is rare in a world where stale baked goods and past-due-date packets of salty food is a rather substantial portion of what is available to be eaten, and where soups and salads and cornbread glisten with tiny white freckles.

A prime offender is the lunch meals served at Loaves & Fishes. Typically, crackers and cornbread and heavily salted side dishes are mainstays of meals.

Here's what Nutrition Action Health Lettter says about salt on the cover page of its April, 2010, issue:

Shaving Salt, Saving Lives

It could prevent up to 92,000 deaths and 66,000 strokes every year. It could keep up to 99,000 Americans from having a heart attack and up to 120,000 others from getting heart disease every year. And it could save $10 to $24 billion in health care costs every year.

That's what we could save by cutting 1,200 milligrams of sodium out of the average American's daily diet. [The average, now, is ~3,500 mg per person per day, with government "recommended" levels being 1,500 mg.]

"The health benefits to the U.S. population would be on a par with cutting the number of smokers and the number of people exposed to secondhand smoke by half," says researcher Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo of the University of California, San Francisco.

And those figures are probably an underestimate.

Sac County to abandon Mather progams to VOA

The Bee gives us the bad news this morning that the county is set to throw in the towel and hand its homeless programs at Mather over to the Christian-faith-based organization Volunteers of America for Greater Sacramento.

Horrors.

Homeless people who have nothing or next to nothing should be, at very least, under some protection from the government.

Instead, the county intends to pass the buck and put homeless folk fully under the whip of VOA, the organization that ran the Concentration Camp at Cal Expo ― known as Overflow ― during winter seasons in years past.

VOA (along with Loaves & Fishes) is a central Sacramento homeless-help organization that follows a philosophy of "warehousing the rabble" as opposed to helping homeless folk become more responsible and, then, opening up our world to opportunities and, possibly, eventually, real happiness.

VOA pays its national CEO/President an obscene salary, in excess of $300,000, and, locally, has many salaried employees working solely for the purpose of polishing the organization's image.  [VOA ― to its credit ― does have a four-star (highest) rating at Charity Navigator, but it should be noted that Charity Navigator, a conservative organization, promotes charities as businesses and does not deduct, for ratings purposes, for an org paying huge salaries, as I certainly think it should!  See Charity Navigator's 2009 CEO Compensation Study.]

VOA is a failed organization that properly had county programs taken away from it a year or so ago.  Now, because it's there raising money and has employees to feed, it will be thrown a big, meaty bone by the county, at the expense - I dare say, I must say - of homeless people's future livelihoods and lives.

The county has responsibilities toward its citizens that it should not be allowed to farm out to an essentially-private organization that, weirdly, overpays employees while expecting gullible retirees and others in our community to volunteer their time.

The usual suspect homeless-help organizations in Sacramento always keep their market share of the business of running homeless people around in circles.  It is an ongoing tragedy.

Understand tragedy differently

At the mission last Thursday night a very distinguished -looking and -speaking older man delivered a message that included a bit about the Titanic ― of all things ― that bothered both me and a friend.

The preacher, about 70 years of age, who had for years been a chaplain at a hospice run by Kaiser, told us that he thought God may have sunk the Titanic in response to human hubris.

The Titanic, he said, was crafted such that the builders proclaimed, widely, that it was unsinkable ― even to the extent that God, Himself, couldn't pull it down from the ocean's surface.

The luxury liner was build for the wealthy to act as "a party ship," he said, and not for a noble purpose. Thus, it was likely God's anger was roused and He determined that it would be sunk on its maiden voyage by an iceberg God placed in its path.

The preacher's message here, and something else he said relating to the beginning of World War II, raised the more general issue of Does God cause major world tragedies in retribution to punish people? to send a message of some sort? to make us fearful? And, Does God intervene to punish us, personally, when we do something wrong?

Rather serendipitously, the next day, I happened to view a video of a sermon by The Very Reverend Brian Baker of Trinity Cathedral [available as an embedment at the bottom of this post or at TVR Brian Baker's blog] where he spoke to the questions that arose relating to God's punitive intervention.

In his sermon on Mar 7, Dean Baker said this:

If I listen too closely to that voice, that voice that wants to be protected and safe by being good. If I really let that voice sink in, then when tragedy strikes somebody else, that voice [says], "I wonder what they did to deserve it?"

Now I know rationally I don't want to think those kinds of thoughts, but that little voice is there. "Did they do something?" And one of the ways I know that voice is there is because sometimes when tragedy strikes people ― particularly multiple tragedies, a series of tragedies ― sometimes, they come to me, and they ask: "Am I being punished?", "Is God punishing me?", "What have I done wrong?"

KJV of  Luke 13:1-9: 1There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? 3I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. 4Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? 5I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. 6He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. 7Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? 8And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: 9And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.

Dean Baker then speaks of a message from Scripture (found in Luke 13:1-9, see sidebar):

Some people run up to Jesus and they tell him that there were some folks from Galilee who were in the temple in Jerusalem, and as they were making their sacrifice, Pilate's soldiers killed them ... Jesus knew why they were telling him this story. They weren't telling him this story to highlight the cruelty of Pilate. Instead, they were thinking If God is the cause of all events and if they were in God's temple and they were struck dead in God's temple, they must of done something particularly bad to be struck dead in church.

And Jesus knew that they were thinking this, and he said to them, "Do you think that these people, these Galileans were worse sinners than anyone else in the temple that day?"

[Likewise,] Jesus tells them the story of the time when people were standing by the Tower of Shalom when the towers fell and eighteen people died. And Jesus says, "Do you think that they were worse sinners so that they were struck dead? Do you really think that God is in the business of killing people for their misdeeds? Do you really think that? No. That's not what God does.

Then Jesus says something that is totally confusing. He says, "Unless you repent, the same thing is going to happen to you." He says, "Do you think God is in the business of killing people for behaving badly? No! But unless you stop behaving badly, God's going to kill you." That makes no sense.

And it makes no sense because we [misunderstand] the word that's translated "repent." When I hear the word "repent" ... what I'm thinking I'm being told is "stop doing bad things." But the word that [is translated] as "repent" is the word metanoia. Now, meta means change and noia means mind. Metanoia means 'change your mind.' It means 'change the way you see the world'; 'change your worldview.'

Now, if you really do metanoia ― 'change your worldview' ― then of course your actions change. But its not about 'stop doing bad things.' It's 'change the way you see the world.' And what Jesus is saying is If you see the world in a way that has God causing tragedy, because people have behaved badly, when tragedy strikes you ― which it will, because tragedy strikes everybody ― you have no other way of understanding it, than that God is punishing [you]. So if that's how you see it happening to other people, that's how you're going to see it happening to you.

Change the way you see the world. Understand what God does, and understand tragedy differently. You see, when tragedy strikes another, it can be an invitation for us to judge them, to keep them at arm's distance: God must be punishing them. Sort of makes it safer for us because then if I lead a good life, God won't punish me. It also removes any obligation of me helping them because they must have done something to deserve this. So, tragedy can serve that function.

Or, at the same time, in our mind, there's that voice of judgment. When tragedy strikes someone else, there's another voice as well. And that other voice is to serve them, to love them, to help them. When tragedy strikes, it could be an opportunity to love.

Dean Baker then moves on to the parable about a failing fig tree:

Jesus is trying to get people to change the way they see the world.

And he does this by [then] telling a parable. He starts with a common way that people understood things: "The ax is lying at the root of the tree." If you don't bear good fruit, the tree is going to be chopped down. That's what everyone thought. That was a common worldview. ...

The parable goes like this: There's a landowner who has an orchard. In the orchard are lots of fruit trees. All the trees are bearing fruit, except one. There's this one fruit tree for three years it's barren, and this fruit tree is taking up space in the orchard. ... The landowner goes to the gardener and says "Chop down the tree; it's not bearing fruit." That's the prudent thing. That's how we think.

But the voice of God in this parable is the voice of the gardener. And the gardener says, "No. I'm not going to chop down this tree. I'm going to loosen the hard packed soil, nourish it with fertilize; I'm going to water it. I have faith in this tree. I know that this is going to be the year when this tree is going to come alive. This is going to be the year when this tree bears fruit.

... God isn't in the business of chopping down unfruitful trees. God is in the business of loosening the hard packed soil, loosening our hard hearts, freeing them, nourishing them, freeing them. Because God is convinced that this is the year when we're going to come alive ...

... I don't know why tragedy strikes. I don't know why good people suffer. And that's the question that God never answers. But I do know that in each tragedy there's an invitation to us to come alive, to bear fruit, to love. ...

God is not in the Earthquake, Sermon 3/7/10 from Trinity Cathedral on Vimeo.

M. Scott Peck's Characteristics of True Community

In his 1987 book, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, M. Scott Peck [of The Road Less Traveled fame] described the Characteristics of True Community. Perhaps the broader Sacramento Homeless community or any fair-sized encampment of homeless people would find these elements useful.

• Inclusivity, commitment and consensus: Members accept and embrace each other, celebrating their individuality and transcending their differences. They commit themselves to the effort and the people involved. They make decisions and reconcile their differences through consensus.
• Realism: Members bring together multiple perspectives to better understand the whole context of the situation. Decisions are more well-rounded and humble, rather than one-sided and arrogant.
• Contemplation: Members examine themselves. They are individually and collectively self-aware of the world outside themselves, the world inside themselves, and the relationship between the two.
• A safe place: Members allow others to share their vulnerability, heal themselves, and express who they truly are.
• A laboratory for personal disarmament: Members experientially discover the rules for peacemaking and embrace its virtues. They feel and express compassion and respect for each other as fellow human beings.
• A group that can fight gracefully: Members resolve conflicts with wisdom and grace. They listen and understand, respect each others' gifts, accept each others' limitations, celebrate their differences, bind each others’ wounds, and commit to a struggle together rather than against each other.
• A group of all leaders: Members harness the “flow of leadership” to make decisions and set a course of action. It is the spirit of community itself that leads and not any single individual.
• A spirit: The true spirit of community is the spirit of peace, love, wisdom and power. Members may view the source of this spirit as an outgrowth of the collective self or as the manifestation of a Higher Will.

Information was taken from wikipedia.

Flier distributed at Trinity Cathedral

Great thanks to the congregation of Trinity Cathedral Church for giving my homeless friends refuge from the cold and rain during many nights this winter - inside your beautiful church!

You have allowed many to escape from a night of misery. It is certainly a welcomed and kind and merciful thing. I only wish it was all as simple as that.

Unhappily, the particular group Trinity Cathedral has partnered with in its merciful endeavor has a Dark Side. Safe Ground, a nonprofit of not-fully-disclosed legal status, has national political ambitions, associated with its so-called "Safe Ground Movement," which is linked to the goals of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America [LRNA], a group that was formerly the California Communist League. [At the website American Red Groups, LRNA is cited as being Stalinist and, of communist and communist-leaning groups, one of the ones most opposed to Democracy.]

Safe Ground began in Sacramento from an effort called "Homeless Leadership Project" by an organization called SHOC. Homeless people were recruited, ego-stroked and indoctrinated with a philosophy that calls for a revolution in America that would put an end to capitalism; would guarantee jobs for all; and stop advancements in technology.

Hardcopy issues of People's Tribune [peoplestribune.org], a newspaper published by the League of Revolutionaries for a New America were passed out at SHOC / Safe Ground meetings. While being careful not to deploy "the C word," the fantasy of an egalitarian utopia was offered as a vision of a new world homeless people could hope to play a part in creating. At one of the meetings I attended, Cathleen Williams read and was enthusiastic about an article in PT's August issue, "Revolutionaries Must Rally the People to a Vision of a New World."

Cathleen Williams of SHOC (unofficially) and the Mark Merin law firm has been front and center in the recruitment and indoctrination of homeless people in Sacramento. You will find that she is the author of many articles in People's Tribune, including "Homeless People are Not Alone" in the February, 2010, issue.

At a day-long "Homeless Power Forum" held at Loaves & Fishes' Delany Center last October, Ethel Long-Scot, from the League's bureau, Speakers for a New America, was a co-keynote speaker. Paul Boden of WRAP, Western Regional Advocacy Project, was the other speaker. Both advanced the supposed ideal of a revolution in America to end capitalism; guarantee jobs for all; and stop technological advancement.

A large contingent from Safe Ground marched in San Francisco on January 20 to protest the Obama Administration and demand housing. John Kraintz, SG's putative leader, spoke during a rally, castigating government workers and demanded an array of supposed rights homeless people have. Kraintz is committed to remaining homeless and not accepting regular employment.

Enough! Homeless World Sacramento has been "captured" in great part by a looney-tunes fringy and frightening political movement. Please, please do not support it; Support the majority of homeless people who don't want to live the rest of their lives on the dole (or without freedom and democracy). The League of Revolutionaries IS NOT a liberal or progressive organization; it is blatantly totalitarian.

PLEASE VISIT SACRAMENTO HOMELESS BLOG,

 sacramentohomeless.blogspot.com,

FOR LINKS THAT PROVE THE CLAIMS IN THIS FLIER.

- Signed: Tom Armstrong, Sacramento Homeless blog [ sacramentohomeless.blogspot.com ]

Homeless have a foreshortened life expectancy

Exerpts from the publication ScienceDaily (Oct. 28, 2009) in a "Science News" feature titled "High Death Rates And Short Life Expectancy Among Homeless And Marginally Housed":

Homeless and marginally housed people have much higher mortality and shorter life expectancy than could be expected on the basis of low income alone, concludes a study from Canada. ...

Previous studies have found high levels of excess mortality among the homeless compared with the general population, but little information is available on death rates among homeless and marginally housed people living in low-cost collective dwellings, such as rooming houses and hotels.

Researchers compared death rates and life expectancy among a representative sample of homeless and marginally housed people with rates in the poorest and richest income sectors of the general population.

Using data from the 1991-2001 Canadian census, they tracked 15,000 homeless and marginally housed people across Canada for 11 years.

Mortality rates among homeless and marginally housed people were substantially higher than rates in the poorest income groups, with the highest rates seen at younger ages.

Among those who were homeless and marginally housed, the probability of survival to age 75 was 32% in men and 60% in women. This compared to 51% and 72% among men and women in the lowest income group in the general population.

Remaining life expectancy at age 25 among homeless and marginally housed men was 42 years ― 10 years lower than the general population and six years lower than the poorest income group.

For homeless and marginally housed women, remaining life expectancy at age 25 was 52 years ― seven years lower than the general population, and five years lower than the poorest income group.

A large part of this premature mortality is potentially avoidable, say the authors. Many excess deaths were attributable to alcohol and smoking-related diseases and to violence and injuries, much of which might have been related to substance abuse.

There were also many excess deaths related to mental disorders and suicides.

This study shows that homeless and marginally housed people living in shelters, rooming houses, and hotels have much higher mortality and shorter life expectancy than could be expected on the basis of low income alone, they conclude. These findings emphasise the importance of considering housing situation as a marker of socioeconomic disadvantage.

NCH Report on Pacific coast tent cities is a whale of a mess, Part II

A HUGE copy of the picture at right is on the first (title) page of the 75-page National Coalition for the Homeless report Tent Cities in America: A Pacific Coast Report. It's also on page 38 in the Sacramento section [pg 36-43], which is titled "Safe Ground, Sacramento, California / Formerly: American River Tent City."

My question is: Why in the world did the writers/producers of the 75-page report use that photogragh, from Tent City, prominently!? It presents homeless people in a disgraceful way that is atypical of what goes on. On the report's title page it is blatant that the woman appears equivalent to not wearing a top, and the man appears to be doing something vulgar or making a vulgar jesture. [Actually, he is just holding a pipe, that is a color similar to that of his pants, in front of this crotch.]

I certainly am not holding the two people photographed to blame. But I have to wonder what thinking was going on at the National Coalition for the Homeless when the picture was chosen. Was is intended to make homeless people appear ridiculous such that homeless-help agencies seem that much more needed!?

Why didn't the question come up at several points along the way, in the development of the report, that the photograph was inappropriate and non-representative?

I do not believe that I am being hypersensitive or a prude. I'm not offended by the photograph; it's the NCH researchers' and writers' disregard to having photography and text that best represents the truth of what's going on that is offensive.

The report will possibly be read in high percentage by people who are significantly ignorant of homeless people and homeless encampments. The report is likely to mislead many.

NCH Report on Pacific coast tent cities is a whale of a mess, Part I

The only notable thing about the ballyhoed 75-page report, "Tent Cities in America: A Pacific Coast Report" by the National Coalition for the Homeless is the blithering ineptitude of the research and writing.  The writing was probably done with Crayolas.

For example, here is the very first sentence in the report, from its Introduction,

The journalist Lisa Ling presented a special report for the Oprah Winfrey Show in March of 2009 focusing on Sacramento’s tent city along the American River, now known as Safe Ground.

What the hell!? Whether it is intended to say that the American River is now known as Safe Ground, or that Tent City is now known as Safe Ground, it is wrong in either case. The American River continues to flow as the American River, and short-lived, bygone Tent City ― which was also known as the Wasteland, particularly by those who lived there before the media circus ― is still known as Tent City (or the Wasteland). It has not been retroactively renamed Safe Ground, for crying out loud. But a renaming, apparently, is what the report determines has happened. A photograph in a section of the report all about Sacramento, titled "Safe Ground, Sacramento, California: / Formerly: American River Tent City," pictures a tent residence with a view of downtown Sacramento skyscrapers, dated 02/09/2009, with the caption: "Safe Ground encampment in Sacramento, CA."

Weird, weird, weird. But, then, regular readers of Sacramento Homeless blog are aware that Orwellian duckspeck [also known in communist terms as thought-terminating clichés] is a regular part of doing business for Safe Ground/SafeGround/safe ground and its associated wildly wacky far-far-Leftist Sac'to homeless-biz nonprofits. This strategy of confusion even extends to Orwellian/Stalinist-like rewrites of history, you gotta believe, since the NCH report cites SafeGround principles Joan Burke, Greg Bunker and Paula Lomazzi as "contacts," and the SafeGround website as the one and only "additional resource."

Even in the "In the News" section at the Safe Ground Sacramento website, it can be seen, from linked news reports, that in its heyday, and even after it was rousted into oblivion, Tent City was known as Tent City (or the Wasteland).

That SafeGround is Ground Zero of Communism in Sacramento is known, but I didn't know it was all so saturated with typical communist truth twisting. I have known that Loaves & Fishes can't make a appeal for donations without skewing the truth of things till it's unrecognizable, but I had thought that was from a revved-up feeling that their mission was so vital, gathering donations was of paramont importance. I can't think that now. I have to believe what has been obvious all along: This communist thing involves "end justifies the means" turpitude.

According to SN&R, You know you're a Sacramentan when ...

The cover article published in today's Sacramento News & Review, titled "You know you’re a Sacramentan when …: 100 miscellaneous things that define us and our region," includes one "thing" ― lucky number 13 ― that relates to homelessness.

Here it is:

13. … you have nicknames for the homeless people in your neighborhood.

Sacramento gained international media attention in 2009 because of its Depression Era-like tent city. So, naturally, our ever-considerate city government shut it down, kicked homeless campers out of the vacant property and didn’t establish a new place for them to go. Many were forced to sneakily find a new home every night in front of closed buildings on J Street, along the river or in the alley behind my apartment. Although I enjoy seeing Gandalf the Grey merrily ride his bicycle through my neighborhood nearly every morning, I wish he had a comfortable, warm place to call home. Unfortunately, he may have to migrate to a new city for that kind of help. (J.K.)

Hmm.  Mostly good sentiment, I guess.  Of course, the mayor and city government aren't quite as Machiavellian as pithy statements in local media present them.  And I'm not keen on homeless people being cartooned or Steinbeckitized into funny foolish foils, otherwise this crisp bit of social doggerel is Right On!

"J.K.," by-the-by, is Jenn Kistler, but I call her Smurf Girl, who happily drinks martinis as she weaves her way up Del Paso Boulevard on her skateboard.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

President Obama’s election a year and a half ago continues to be lauded for ushering in a new era of colorblindness. The very fact of his Presidency is often seen as the final nail in the coffin of Jim Crow. Yet, today there are more African-Americans in correctional control–whether in prison or jail, on probation or parole—than were enslaved in 1850. And more African-American men are disenfranchised now because of felon disenfranchisement laws than in 1870.

A new book by legal scholar and civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander argues that although Jim Crow laws have been eliminated, the racial caste system it set up was not eradicated. It’s simply been redesigned and now racial control functions through the criminal justice system.

Click here for continuation of this article at website Democracy Now, with an audio interview of author Michelle Alexander.

Review snips of Michelle Alexander's new book:
 “Explosive debut…alarming, provocative and convincing.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Michelle Alexander’s brave and bold new book paints a haunting picture in which dreary felon garb, post-prison joblessness, and loss of voting rights now do the stigmatizing work once done by colored-only water fountains and legally segregated schools. With dazzling candor, Alexander argues that we all pay the cost of the new Jim Crow.“
—Lani Guinier, professor at Harvard Law School and author of Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice and The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy

“For every century there is a crisis in our democracy, the response to which defines how future generations view those who were alive at the time. In the 18th century it was the transatlantic slave trade, in the 19th century it was slavery, in the 20th century it was Jim Crow. Today it is mass incarceration. Alexander's book offers a timely and original framework for understanding mass incarceration, its roots to Jim Crow, our modern caste system, and what must be done to eliminate it. This book is a call to action.”
—Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO, NAACP

“With imprisonment now the principal instrument of our social policy directed toward poorly educated black men, Michelle Alexander argues convincingly that the huge racial disparity of punishment in America is not the mere result of neutral state action. She sees the rise of mass incarceration as opening up a new front in the historic struggle for racial justice. And, she’s right. If you care about justice in America, you need to read this book!”
—Glenn C. Loury, economist at Brown University and author of The Anatomy of Racial Inequality and Race, Incarceration and American Values

“After reading The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander's stunning work of scholarship, one gains the terrible realization that, for people of color, the American criminal justice system resembles the Soviet Union's gulag — the latter punished ideas, the former punishes a condition.”
—David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer-prize winning historian at NYU and author of W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963

"We need to pay attention to Michelle Alexander's contention that mass imprisonment in the U.S. constitutes a racial caste system. Her analysis reflects the passion of an advocate and the intellect of a scholar."
—Marc Mauer, Executive Director, The Sentencing Project, author of Race to Incarcerate

“A powerful analysis of why and how mass incarceration is happening in America, The New Jim Crow should be required reading for anyone working for real change in the criminal justice system.”
—Ronald E. Hampton, Executive Director, National Black Police Association

Spate of earthquakes doesn't mean world is coming to an end

Last night at the mission, and on previous nights, the earthquakes near Haiti and Chili have gotten attention by the preacher.

Last night, Hector Marquez told us that seismologists were alarmed and that this was evidence that the earth was being rocked off its axis. [He said "axel," but axis is surely what he meant.] The quake activity is evidence of End Times, he told us.

Actually, a google search of the Internet tells us that recent earthquake activity is not abnormal, and seismologists are not alarmed.

A Christian Science Monitor article, last Thursday, titled, "Haiti, Chile, now Taiwan: earthquake escalation?" says this:

[Kuo Kai-wen, director of the Seismology Center of Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau]says the Taiwan, Chile, and Haiti quakes involved different tectonic plates. Globally, he says, there's an average of one magnitude 8 or higher earthquake per year, some 17 magnitude 7 or higher quakes, and 170 to 180 of magnitude 6 or larger.

So far this year there's only been one quake higher than 8 - Chile's fearsome, 8.8 magnitude temblor. Last year there were 16 magnitude 7 or higher quakes, right at the average. And so far this year there have been three magnitude 7 or higher quakes, including Haiti's.

"From a global view, that's not especially a lot," says Kuo.

An Associated Press story, today, "Deadly quakes are coincidence, scientists say" begins with these words:

Experts say there is nothing unusual about the latest spate of earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and now Turkey, but their devastation illustrates how growing construction along the world's fault lines can lead to massive casualties.

Seismologists say that although one powerful quake can conceivably raise the risk for others elsewhere, the recent string of quakes is probably just coincidence.

Bob Holdsworth, an expert in tectonics at Durham University, said Monday that "I can definitely tell you that the world is not coming to an end."

National Coalition for the Homeless issues "Tent Cities in America: A Pacific Coast Report"

Just a quick note and a link to a report issued this very month by the National Coalition on the Homeless called "Tent Cities in America: A Pacific Coast Report."

A chapter on Safe Ground is on page 36.  A picture from Tent City from last spring, here, is on the title page of the report.

I haven't read it carefully, but ― sigh ― it looks like the usual balderdash crapola, a donation grab parading aroung as an objective article.  For all the people listed early in the report, this is probably another job of paper-thin journalism, reporting as fact what the homeless-help industry in Sacramento says, glowingly, about its wonderful send-us-a-check self.

Ooop.  Like I said or mean to say:  Stay tuned in the days ahead for an in-depth report in SacHo about the Nat'l Coalition report.

Obama is the Antichrist, Part II

Before this blog attracts a Tea Party endorsement, allow me to first scream out OBAMA IS NOT THE ANTICHRIST. The title of this blogspot, and the picture I've put up is due to Pastor Buddy Wallace calling Obama the Antichrist in a sermon at Union Gospel Mission [See my prior post on the topic.] and, now, an email exchange I've had with the Vice President of Student Services at Epic Bible College [formerly, Trinity Life Bible College], warrants a second visit to the "Obama is the Antichrist" topic.

The email exchange with that VP was strange and leaves me worried.

To begin, I made Epic Bible College aware of my disgruntlement with the preaching of Buddy Wallace, on February 19, at the Union Gospel Mission. Via the contact form at Epic's/Trinity's website I both wrote that I was disgruntled and, later, sent a link to my post about Wallace's odd [to my mind] statements about Obama and China taking over America.

The VP of Student Services, a well credentialed person with alphabet soup following his/her name, wrote me, with this being the nut of it: "I would like to apologize if you were offended. It is never the desire of any preacher to offend, unless the shoe fits." He also wrote, "Yours was the only complaint received [re Wallace's sermon], we actually got great reviews of his message."

I responded that I wasn't offended. (Nor was I seeking an apology from Wallace ― or his stand in.) I wrote, in part, "I don't think that the Antichrist shoe fits President Obama's foot. I would wish there was someone at Epic who might want to counsel Pastor Wallace on the meaning of agape and its power. I would wish that Christ's message resonated at Epic. But, woe to me, I know much much less about the scripture than you all. But if Pastor Wallace is the epitome of the product of an Epic education, then your college does no good for the world."

The VP responded, in full:

I guess the apology was not accepted. There seems to be a lot of hate in your own words, "epitome of the product of an Epic education" so are you saying Ron Smith fits that category also, as a graduate? And remember we do not promote or arrange the speakers, Ron Smith does. Maybe your venom should be placed somewhere else. Learning to forgive is much more important than being right! Remember if you can't forgive how can you be forgiven. Let's try to forgive, and move on. Hopefully, there can be a healing.

Well. For starters, epitome means "typical." No, Ron Smith wouldn't be typical; he is outstanding.

I have to say, here, that I have particular trouble with hysterical, fantastical Obama bashing, that, likely, this VP doesn't have.

There was an op-ed column by Frank Rich in the New York Times, recently, "The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged" about the deranged netherworld of the political far-Right Tea Partiers who are so upset they've become totally wacky, justifying extreme violence. Then, there is this nutzoid Stalinist Communism in the Leftist/totalist contingent of the Sacramento homeless-help industry [i.e. Loaves & Fishes; SHOC; SafeGround; and Sacramento Housing Alliance]. It is all looney beyond the pale.

Also, threatening talk against an American President is just, flatly, out of order. I think six out of 45 of our presidents have been assassinated, including Kennedy during my lifetime, and more have had attempts against their lives, including, in my lifetime, an attempt to gun down Ronald Reagan and two attempts on Gerald Ford's life. Calling Barack Obama the Antichrist can "inspire" a mentally ill person to try to take him out. It simply is talk that is beyond the pale and any half-reasonable person should self-censor that kind of foolish blather that, OF COURSE, has no grounding in truth. I think a preacher who takes up that kind of talk should find another profession that has nothing to do with his mouth.

I wrote back, in part,

I don't *think* I'm being venomous. How does one offer a retort to someone else saying something so ludicrous as calling President Obama the Antichrist, exactly?

Dr. Oakley, we get nowhere if it is acceptable to call the president the Antichrist. We have to be more reality-based than to allow things to move in that direction.

Yes, we should move on. Yes, we should forgive. But also, the intense hatred that comes from many preachers ― apparently very much including Buddy Wallace ― needs to cease.

I added a zinger at the bottom, but it was meant to bring forward the absurdity, vileness and wackiness and unreality of the topic of our conversation.

I wrote: "The truth simply is that Buddy Wallace is a horse's pitoot." By the way, pitoot, as defined by the Urban dictionary, is "A nonsense word signifying something significant."  Just as Obama isn't the Antichrist, Wallace isn't a horse's pitoot, of course. Name calling, which was all I really believed Wallace was doing, at this point, is just a bunch of silliness.

The VP wrote back [emphases, mine],

Obviously there is no satisfying you, apology not excepted, hatred for Bubby Wallace, no forgiveness, I guess if someone can call you the devil or hitler, which seems to be all right with you, then I don't understand your anger at someone else making a statement he believes to be true. You are not God neither is he, everyone has opinions, so just learn to forgive and move on. I believe that you probably mean well, but this whole situation has caused you to be no better than the person you are complaining about, if he is wrong then your actions are wrong, too. You don't bring healing by being hateful, or vindictive to someone else. What would you suggest, that we nail him to a cross, or forgive him? Anger, serves no purpose, at least any constructive purpose. Maybe a little bit of grace is needed the same kind of grace Christ gave you when he went to the cross for you. Think about it. My goal is not to defend Bubby but to bring reconciliation to the situation, and that can only be done through forgiveness. This will be my last communication with you concerning this topic, as I believe further discussion will only lead to further separation rather than healing.

It remains fully mysterious to me what I'm to forgive Buddy Wallace for, and how this VP kissing my pinkie ring or me kissing his/hers would accomplish anything or represent anything ― much less forgiveness or reconciliation.

Buddy Wallace fully, absolutely and comfortably represented Epic Bible College when he said Barack Obama is the Antichrist; the VP tells me Wallace fully believes the fantastical crap that he said; and this graceless Vice President of Student Services at Epic Bible College, Terry Oakley, effectively, defends Wallace's crap, allowing it to besmirch his institution.

It's a sad day in Mudville.