POP, POP, POP, POP

Another mass shooting! No, wait, another one! What, another one? Wait!

Gilroy, El Paso and Dayton had mass shootings in the last few days. We are numb; twenty-nine mass shootings so far this year. It is, as one commentator said, “It’s the new common, but it’s not normal.” I spent last weekend in Yosemite National Park without wifi and spotty reception on the phone. Truth be told, we shouldn’t take phones and tablets to a place so majestic. It was a lesson in how attached we have become to those little computers and how connected we are to the rest of the world.

We only had a hint of what was happening outside the forest. It was uncomfortable not knowing the details. The beauty of nature should be our normal, should be our tranquilizer, and should be our common. But, it isn’t, is it?

Mass shootings, one after another, bring out all usual suspects to cure our ills. We know them by heart: guns don’t kill, people do; we have to get the guns off the street; we need to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill; we need better background checks. This time, we heard some new ones: it’s the video games, it’s the culture of hate, it’s the white supremacists. Sunday news programs showed appropriate amounts of hand wringing, as usual. It will all be for naught, until the next mass shooting, in the next few days, when we will start all over again.

The President called for an end of hate in America, and lots of prayers.

Nothing changes, because we love our guns, for some valid reasons but most not so valid. We have more guns in the US than we have people. Actually, I don’t have a problem with that, if people have guns for the right reason. If someone wants to go hunting, fine, own a hunting gun. If a rancher needs to protect his or her livestock, fine. If a person likes to shoot competitively, skeet shoot whenever. But let’s be honest about it, hunters don’t need AK47’s to kill Bambi’s father. Guns of war have no place except on the battlefield. Automatic and semi-automatic weapons have no place in the home or on the street, and arguing about the precise definition of each is wasted energy. Most countries outlaw handgun ownership. We don’t need them either. Some people want them to protect their home and families, or for self-defense; they buy into a huge myth. There is no valid evidence that guns are effective protection, except as intimidation.

When someone wants to buy a gun, they submit to a not very thorough computerized background check of their criminal history. It only takes a few minutes. In other countries, the background check is a real background check that can take three to six months. It includes an interview with the local police, certifications from doctors, as well as statements from neighbors and friends about the applicant’s behavior and suitability to have a gun. Guns and ammunition are sold only to people who have a license. Some states don’t even require a background check. Most gun shows exempt people from background checks. None of these background checks, it seems to me, fly in the face of the Second Amendment.

There is too much hatred. Leadership at the top cannot escape complicity with the White Nationalist and Nativists when it doesn’t condemn anti-immigrant riots in the streets, saying there are good people on both sides of the argument.

Our President didn’t pull any triggers this weekend, and he said there was no place for hatred. However, a couple of weeks earlier, he basked in the limelight of a crowd of MAGAs shouting, “Send her back,” referring to a duly elected member of Congress. That rally may go down as one of the most racist’s events in the history of our country; it gave permission for every immigrant hater to come out of the woodwork with guns at the ready.

We rely on our leaders to help us find our better angels, not to point us in the opposite direction. We rely on our leaders to look at the facts and understand that there is a culture of hatred; a toxic brew is how one pundit described it, growing across the land and much of Europe. We need them to lead us to be better than we are, to help us curb the hatred that leads to these killings. We need them to get weapons of war off the streets, out of our schools, and out of our stores.

There were nearly one-hundred-thousand people in the seven-mile-long valley this weekend. There was little noise except when the rangers fired beanbags to convince a bear to leave the campground, or the helicopter helping with a search and rescue. The solitude, the politeness of the people, the diversity of the visitors from all over the world, and the opportunity to be free of distractions should be the new normal, the common. If we need to be shocked, one view of any of the domes of Yosemite will give us all the awe we crave.

 Returning to reality will not be an easy transition.

Enough is enough isn't what enough was ...

We have a lot going for us right now. We have one of the best economies ever, unemployment is the lowest that most people can remember, innovations are coming out of the tech-valleys faster than we know how to use them. Things are going along pretty well. If I were President, I would run for re-election with a slogan like “It’s the economy, stupid.” So far, none of the 23 candidates for the Democratic nomination for president has come up with an economic measure that would win the day.

Instead, we are inundated with tweets and sound bites designed, intentionally, to divide the nation along racial lines, along religious lines, and along educational lines. We are and have been for two years, inundated with “no Russia, no collusion, full exoneration, witch hunt, hoax,” none of which is true. In the new norm, it isn’t enough, yet.

In March, the Department of Justice (DOJ) published the report of the two-year Special Counsel investigation. Last week, congressional committees dragged the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, to testify about what was already in the report. The hearings confirmed the report: Russia did try to interfere with our 2016 elections and several people were indicted. There was not sufficient evidence to convict members of the Trump campaign with conspiracy with the Russians. There was overwhelming evidence of obstruction of justice by White House operatives, campaign officials, and the President, who would have been indicted but for a DOJ rule that forbids indictment of a sitting President. Mueller testified that the President could be indicted when he leaves office. Immediately after the hearing, the President tweeted that there was no collusion and no obstruction. Enough isn’t enough yet.

Last week, in Congressional hearings about the crisis at the southern border Chairman Elijah Cummings criticized the leadership of the Border Patrol and HHS for the way they are caring for people in their custody. Then the tweets started: “Cumming’s District is a disgusting, rat and rodent-infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous and filthy place.” (Send him back?) “No human being would want to live there.” That was the start of the war of words. Today, he called Cummings the racist. Enough isn’t enough yet.

A few weeks ago, the President told four liberal members of Congress they should return to the countries from which they came didn’t like everything about America. Three of the four were born in The US and all elected by their constituents. At a rally in Greenville, chants of “send her back” filled the arena where the President was holding a rally. Send-them-back is a rallying cry of the segregationist back the 1950s and 1960s. When he was accused of tolerating one of the most racist events in recent history, he tweeted that the four members of Congress were the real racists. Most of Trump's attacks are against people of color or immigrants. Enough isn’t enough yet.

There was a time when political opponents went after each other over policy issues. Classic stories abound in the history of Washington about political enemies by day and card-playing scotch drinkers by night. It was about policy, not personality.

Today, the daily tweets from the President take up the news cycle, and policy takes a back seat. We need a vigorous debate about issues. The Russians continue to infiltrate our election process, they are into our electric grid, our infrastructure is crumbling, our debt is at an all-time high, and growing, healthcare processes and costs are burdensome. Those issues should fill our evening news programs and our newspapers. Slanderous tweets from an impolite president should not be the stuff of daily discussion. We should expect our White House and the West Wing leaders to exhibit a bit of class, to show that we are a sophisticated nation with serious concerns for world peace, strong alliances aimed at keeping that peace, educated deliberations about issues, encouraging job formation, and concern for the well-being of fellow citizens.

If we support the verbal and written tearing down of people who differ in their views, support the ill-advised degradation of people, and the racist's taunts, we are complicit. We are and should be better than that.

Enough is enough, but I suspect it isn’t.

Is The Crisis At The Border Or Is It In America?

By now, everyone has seen the videos of our detention centers in Arizona, Florida, and elsewhere. If they do not make you ill, what does? The current immigration crisis is overwhelming governmental agencies responsible for border control and immigrant processing and care. The last two to three years have seen increases in people seeking asylum never experienced before. For sure, the Congress and the Administration share the blame.

We are a country that welcomed the refugee, the oppressed yearning to live free. The statue in New York harbor says who we are! We have not always done the best job of welcoming immigrants or treating them well once they arrive. It has been a constant effort to improve who we are and want to be. The Know-Nothing Party gained too much influence in the 1850s with its opposition to immigrants, Catholics, and generally, anyone who wasn't White Anglo Saxon. The Klan terrified Jews and Catholics alike in the 1940s and 1950s, not to mention their consistent hatred and terrorizing of non-whites. Over the years, we passed laws limiting entry to our southern neighbors. In the early twentieth century, most immigrants came from Europe and were White. In the last few years, a large number of immigrants came from Mexico, China, India, Philippines, Vietnam, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. Today, however, seems so different on so many fronts.

The historical assumption has often been that people will come here legally. That is not the case today. People come to visit and overstay their visas. People come to attend our great universities and overstay their visas. People stand in line for years in some countries waiting for their entry visas. Our immigration and border control systems are designed for legal entry.

We know that many people cross our southern borders illegally rather than through a port of entry. Many, if not most, who seek to live in our country cannot meet the guidelines for refugee status. Hundreds of thousands are sent back each year. However, the numbers have decreased in the last two years, partly because the government agencies can’t keep up with the volume.

Whatever resources we normally allocate to border control, immigration, and refugee assimilation is inadequate by a thousand times. The people assigned to handle the situation are not trained for it, so we end up with a mess that is embarrassing to the country. Last week Vice President Pence visited a holding pen in Arizona. He witnessed hundreds of men held in a cage, forced to sleep on the cement floor. He smelled the stench of men forced to go weeks without showers, without being able to brush their teeth, without clean clothes, wearing facemasks to filter the putrid air. The officials who run these camps knew that the VP was going to visit them, but the pictures showed how little they could do to clean up the place. He tweeted that the conditions were not great, but acceptable. There is no way that show-and-tell event can be spun in a positive light. Something is rotten on the border.

Government agencies are not equipped to handle the huge increase in asylum seekers coming across the border, hundreds of thousands each month. Most of the immigrants are from the “northern triangle” of Central America: Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. We know the drug cartels control those countries; power is exercised through murder, kidnapping, and low economic security. People are fleeing for their lives, by whatever means available, whether by bus, walking, or with smugglers, called coyotes.

When they arrive, our overcrowded and overwhelmed systems can’t treat them humanely. Congress just appropriated over $400 million to be used to manage the border and the immigrants. But it refused to allocate money for better living conditions, childcare, medical attention, sanitary goods, or even toothpaste. The fault lies with both political parties in the Senate. One refuses to admit publically that conditions are intolerable and the other refuses to provide funds unless those items are included. Except for party bickering, the funds could have been appropriated a year ago.

Hundreds of thousands come seeking asylum. That requires a court hearing. It can take from four to ten years to set a first court date. The San Francisco Immigration Court alone has a backlog of nearly 50,000 cases waiting to be heard by the 22 judges; 2,200 cases per judge. What do the immigrants do until their case is heard? Normal practice was to let them free in the country until their case was heard. Current practice is to detain them in holding pens for extended periods of time.

On Tuesday, July 16, 2019, new rules went into effect that bars immigrants from claiming asylum if they pass through another country to get to the US. That executive order should be tied up in the courts for a long time because it is a radical change in our way of treating the immigrant.

The border calamity is broader than an exercise in large numbers. Millions of people want to escape the tyranny they experience in their home country. Many Americans do not want immigrants to come to our country in large numbers. There is the fear of how a large number of immigrants will change the culture of the country, how it will affect job opportunity for low skill workers who are already hurting. It is interesting that the percentage of foreign-born people in the US has hardly changed from fifty years ago. The numbers may be relatively steady, but there is something more sinister happening.

 We have reached the point where the President feels comfortable tweeting that members of Congress who disagree with him should leave the country and go back to their native land: “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.” The irony is that only one Congresswoman he targeted is an immigrant. The others were born in the US. They were, however, all women of color. At least two immigrant members of Congress tweeted that they had not been subjected to the President’s racism because they were of White-European descent. Later tweets suggested that if the members of Congress didn’t like the way America was run, they could leave it.

 “Love it or leave it” was the establishment’s cry during the Vietnam War era. During the war on segregation, people of color were urged to return to the countries from which their ancestors were sold into slavery. Racism and Nativism are becoming acceptable at the highest levels of our government; led by a President who based his 2016 campaign on complaints about how the country was run and how he could make it great again. Nobody asked him to leave. The ghosts of our past are walking among us, in the halls of government, and on the propaganda radio and television networks.

Members of Congress in both parties need to tell the President that his behavior is unacceptable and that his treatment of asylum seekers is immoral. He tweets that he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body, as he is tweeting racist comments. The House passed a resolution condemning the Presidents racism, but one hundred eighty-seven members voted against the resolution. That made them complicit. The Reuters/Ipsos poll published the next day, July 17, 2019, indicated that because of the racist tweets, the President’s approval ratings increased five percent, to a high of 72% among Republicans. In the same poll, 68% of Americans said they disapproved of the President’s behavior. There is a big divide among the people.

The inhumane treatment of people seeking asylum can be resolved if we put our minds to it and allocate the needed funds. Let’s hire doctors to care for the sick, the pregnant women, and care for those with adverse medical conditions. We can stop taking children away from their parents. We can improve our record-keeping systems so that they can easily find and reunite parents and kids separated in the past. We can hire a couple of hundred immigration lawyers and station them at the border. We can make a massive infusion of money the Northern Triangle countries to develop their economy and take out the drug lords. We can set up immigration centers on our embassy grounds in Central American to eliminate the need to walk nearly 4,000 miles or take caravans of buses to our border. Those would be good first steps.

There is a crisis at the border. We see it on the news every day. We can’t let the videos numb us. We need to let them spur us to action. There also is a crisis in America, when a President calls for the deportation of people of color who criticize his policies. There is a crisis when nearly half of the people in the country support these policies.

The very soul of the nation is at stake!

...We Would So State!

America is a revolutionary idea; people can form their own government and make their own laws, trust one another to do what is right and do what is best for the nation, to create a more perfect union. The founding idea is being tested, perhaps the hardest since 1860.

From time to time, several times really, the experiment hangs threadbare. It happens when power corrupts our leaders. It happens when the corrupt gain power. It happens when we experience massive sea changes in the economy, changes in the distribution of wealth. It happens when long-held belief systems no longer describe the norm. We suffer these changes because we trust our institutions, in the end, to save us. When that trust is broken, the nation divides, people pick sides, and hate grows. When the quest for party power or personal power ignores the rule of law, ignores the norms, or takes pride in telling us untruths, the great experiment is in jeopardy.

The national divide has been brewing for years. It steeped during a long lasting and massive recession: savings drained, jobs lost to overseas manufacturing and robots, expectations of a better life for the next generation shattered, many could not recover, even during the recovery that followed. In the last twenty years, a diaspora moved innovation, technically based manufacturing, skilled jobs, and better-educated population to the seaboards, to some large inland cities and to their exurbs. Trust in our institutions waned: low skilled manufacturing jobs drained from the Heartland. College is no longer affordable, schools are incubators for social change outside the comfort zone of many people. Ubiquitous cameras expose police brutality and political shenanigans. Lack of trust builds exponentially.

The divide is wide and it is deep: believers on either side accuse the other of being evil, of being un-American. Corrupt state legislatures design gerrymandered voting districts visibly unconstitutional; they create roadblocks that prevent citizens from registering to vote or actually voting. Politicians pack the courts with reactionary judges, some proven racially intolerant. Theologically conservative religious pastors publicly support non-biblical government actions. A nation built by immigrants tries to keep immigrants out, cages them when they seek asylum, tears babies from their mothers, and send them into foster care thousands of miles away, perhaps never to be reunited. People lose trust in national leaders who lie, blatantly, on a daily basis, who have no appreciation for the rule of law, who are willing to encourage contempt of Congress. Our institutions are not saving us.

We are in a historic economic recovery. The stock markets are at all-time highs, unemployment at all-time lows, home interest rates dropping and other economic indicators more positive. What’s not to like? Perhaps we don’t demonstrate more trust in our leaders and institutions because economic greatness, strong armies, and full employment aren’t what we are about. We are about trust.

There was some evidence that Russia meddled in our election processes in favor of Candidate Trump and against Candidate Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. There was also speculation that the Trump campaign knew about the meddling and was willing to abet it. Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel to investigate the allegations;  “The order appointing the Special Counsel authorized him to investigate the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, including any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign.[i] The investigation resulted in several Grand Jury indictments of operatives associated with the Russian government and its special army technology unit. The information included in Volume I of the report leaves no question about the massive interference by Russia. It also states, “…the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”[ii]

Volume II of the Special Counsel’s 480-page report[iii]  outlines the findings of its investigation into whether or not the President had obstructed justice related to the investigation. People closely associated with 2016 Trump campaign are spending time in jail because they lied to the investigators. The Special Counsel identified and explained ten major articles of obstruction by the President and/or his staff during the investigation. The report described the obstruction of justice events, determined if there was a nexus between the obstruction and some executive action, and determined if there was intent to obstruct justice.

Four of the ten charges met all three criteria, five other charges showed substantial evidence of obstruction, meeting one or more criteria, and one had lesser substantial evidence. The irony, of course, is that while the Special Counsel’s investigation found no conspiratorial acts with the Russian hackers, the administration, on several occasions, tried to obstruct the investigators. They didn’t have to. If they had left well enough alone, there might not have been a Volume II. The evidence was conclusive. There was obstruction of justice on the part of the President and or his staff! Why wasn’t he charged, indicted, for those crimes?

The Department of Justice rules prevents charging a sitting president with a crime. While the Special Counsel was not allowed to bring charges against the president because of that rule, he stated “if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent present difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred” but “… it does not exonerate him.”[iv]

Mueller noted that the Constitution requires a system other than the Department of Justice to bring charges against a sitting President. The Mueller report is factual, and it is well documented. Since he could not bring charges, he handed the process over to the Congress, which has the power of impeachment.

The Constitution set up a unique system of three equal branches of government. Unlike kings and emperors, our president can be removed from office by other than a revolution.[v] Yet, it did two things to ensure that impeachment is used sparingly. It states that a president could only be impeached for treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors. It also divided congressional power: the House can impeach,  but the Senate must try the case and determine guilt. Very clever! It has, however, been described as a double-edged sword. It nullifies the will of the voters, but it prevents despotism.[vi]

A May2019 Quinnipiac University National Poll finds, that 66 percent of Americans say that Congress should not start the impeachment process yet. What does it take to have successful impeachment? It needs the support of an overwhelming majority of the people. It needs an overwhelming majority in the House, and it needs an overwhelming majority of the Senate. As of now, impeachment doesn’t have the support of the people and it doesn’t have the needed votes in either house of Congress. President Nixon faced impeachment by the House on several counts: obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress. Those charges were enough to force his resignation before House voted on the Articles of Impeachment.

The new and often young idealists on the Democratic side of the aisle in the House want Trump impeached now, even if the Senate will not confirm the charges. The veteran members of the House leadership are reluctant to let that happen. If they vote to impeach the President and the Senate doesn’t even hold a trial, they will look a bit foolish to the general public. They can’t afford that in an election cycle.

Franklin Roosevelt said that the Presidency is “… pre-eminently a place of moral leadership.”[vii]  That kind of leadership is missing from the Oval Office. Politics has become a zero-sum game. Divisiveness is encouraged. Institutions ignored and left to flounder, and policy is made on the fly. Leaders lie to us every day with tweets. Is it any wonder that people don’t trust their Congress, don’t trust the administration, don’t trust their legislative leaders, and don’t trust their institutions?

Our better angels are struggling. The experiment is being tested to the limits. Our leaders show little regard for the institutions we valued for so long, or for the rule of law. Our leaders put party over the more perfect union. Where is the shame? How can we trust them?

High crimes and misdemeanors occurred, yet people don’t want them prosecuted. Why? Is it because we do not trust anyone to tell the truth anymore, so we allow the loud, the bold, and the audacious to rule the day?

And yet …

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[i] Report on the investigation into Russian Interference in 2016 Presidential Election – Volume I and II – March 2019

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Ibid The report is a carefully written legal document that summarizes all of the known instances of interference by Russian operatives, most of whom were agents of, or members of a branch of the Russian army. The backup data is extensive, even with appropriate redactions. The investigation lead to several Grand-Jury indictments and some trials and prison sentences. Volume II deals with the actions of the President, members of his cabinet, and other hangers-on who obstructed justice with actions to limit or end the investigation into Russian interference. The report is not easy reading.

[iv] Ibid

[v] Alexander Hamilton – The Federalist #9 - 1788

[vi] Alan Hirsch – A Citizens Guide to Impeachment – Essential Books, Inc. The “double-edged sword” is used throughout historical and political books when discussing the impeachment process. Some say that Jefferson was the first to use it, but it is used often without approbation.

[vii] Anne O’Hare - New York Times – September 11, 1932 -

Black Fly Season

At a young age, you learn that there are four seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. That may apply to most of the country. If you were raised in Vermont or other parts of northern New England, you’re more likely to think of Winter, Mud season, Black-fly season, and the Fourth of July.

Most of my friends from the north eastern-provinces escape when the snow flies. It’s tolerable, mind you; the roads are generally plowed, the ski slopes are open, and there is a lot of wood or oil for the furnace. But at our age, people prefer to winter in the South. Florida is a favorite. They only summer in Vermont. That way they will miss Mud season and Black-fly season. Summer and winter are verbs in that part of the country. I’ve never known anyone to spring or fall anywhere.

Mud season comes in two varieties: on the roads and on the mountain trails. One comes earlier than the other. There are 8,600 miles of dirt and gravel roads in Vermont compared to 7,100 miles of paved roads, including the four-lanes. When the January Thaw hits, sometime between the end of January and mid-February, the less well-built gravel roads turn to mud. When they dry out, the ruts are graded, and about the time the roads are back to normal, the springs on the mountains start a heavy flow, pushed along by the snowmelt, turning the hiking trails to mush.

Between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day plus a month or so either way, you just have to stay indoors as much as possible. If you live in the country, work a dairy farm, or go to your summer camp on the lake at that time of year, you will experience Black-Fly season. The bugs get bigger with each story told, just like the trout that got away. But, it’s true. They swarm in the early morning and right around sunset. You can’t put on too much deet.[i] They love blood; they drill down into the soft tissue like the neck or the back of the ears. They are all females and need the blood to lay their eggs. Simple, over-the-counter bug sprays are ineffective. You need the strong stuff.

If you take the rowboat across Bald Pond to the spot where Bean Brook feeds the lake and the rainbows like to feed in early morning or sunset, be ready to spend as much time swatting flies as casting flies. Don’t wear shorts or short-sleeved shirts in Black Fly season; rather wear long sleeves, turn up the collar, and stuff your pants into your socks. Wear a hat.  

After Father’s day, or when you think the black flies have had their fill, the no-see-ums show up. Actually, they don’t show up, otherwise, they would be see-ums. You know when they arrive because your arms start waving automatically; slapping anything on your body that you can reach. There are over 500 varieties of no-see-ums around the world. I’m convinced that at least 400 of them summered at our camp. The closer to the water you got, the more bites you got. DDT was a common chemical for ridding the house or the screened porch of the bugs, but then we found out it wasn’t good for us. If it killed the no-see-ums that quickly, imagine what it was doing to our insides. You can’t buy it anymore.

In truth, the best way to rid yourself of black flies and no-see-ums is not to go where they are. There were fewer in town, fewer still in the big towns away from the water. There are fewer yet in California. We know they are out there somewhere, perhaps closer to the Sierra or the large lakes. But, and this is important, we don’t name a whole season for them. We only have winter, summer and the fire season. The latter, however, is becoming a year-round thing. That can’t be good! On the other hand, we can winter where we summer.

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[i] Deet – N. N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide, also called DEET(/diːt/) or diethyltoluamide is the most common active ingredient in insect repellent

Les Etoiles!

The stars came out the other day and Sacramento was all a twinkle. The Kitchen, an upscale restaurant in the area, received a Michelin Star! Finally, the recognition that the inland town that takes pride in its farm-to-fork culture really can cook food – good food.

The local newspaper erupted in articles, columns, and letters wondering why other favorite and arguably good restaurants didn’t get one or more stars. If you are not familiar with the Michelin restaurant ratings, think Oscar, the Tony Award, or Golden Globe, but for the food world.

Michelin does not hand out many stars, and that is the way it should be. There are few measures of quality left in this world, but Michelin is one of them, even if you don’t agree with their choices.

In its simplest terms, Michelin sends highly trained undercover agents into thousands of restaurants around the world. They eat, they observe, they compare, they rate, and at the end of the search, they award one, two, or three stars to the best. They have a couple of lower categories that indicate good food for a reasonable price; awarded to the up-and-coming.

There are great restaurants all over the world. They produce fantastic meals every day, except for those who close on Monday. People flock to them, in droves. Yet, they don’t have the stars. What is there about the stars?

There are 2,800 one-star restaurants in the world, defined as “very good.” A two-star restaurant is “excellent, worth a detour.” The 121 three-star restaurants are “exceptional, worth a journey.” Michelin is a French company, so you might expect many French restaurants with stars; it has 27 three-star restaurants. The US has 15 three-star locations, eight of them in the Bay Area.

So what? What is the big deal? That depends on how important exceptional food is to you. If you are on the KETO diet, you couldn’t care less. However, if you are looking forward to a nice meal with friends with an entree of “Young Pigeon from Costieres, in a hay nest, mushroom from Paris slightly smoked, apricot pulp,” and you happen to be in Arles, France, Austo de Baumaniere is well worth the thirty-minute detour. Several years ago when it had three stars, it was a highlight of our journey from Paris to the South of France. I am glad pigeon wasn’t on the menu that night.

My experience is that the one-star restaurants are a cut above normally good eating spots, and the better is noticeable. Les Santons looked like any other building in an ancient French mountain town in Haute-Provence; the stone building with light blue shutters and a red door overlooked a steep ravine, just off the main street. Moustiere-Sainte-Maria was crowded with tourists, in town to buy its famous Faience pottery. In the early afternoon, the sky opened and it poured rain on the cobbled stone street. The eight of us were standing at the front door; why not go in for lunch. We were met with bright white and starched tablecloths, sterling silver flatware, crystal water and wine glasses, and waiters in long white aprons. You could feel the one-star rating. It looked expensive, but what were we to do? It was raining out. It was one of the best three-hour lunches in memory.

That same trip took us to Chez Bruno’s, about 30 minutes from Marseilles. It was one-star with a twist. Each course on the menu included truffles in some way. The creations were outstanding, the ambiance over the top, the rabbit stew to die for, and with a table of ten friends, a wonderful evening. You can’t make this stuff up.

We’ll always have Lyon! We made a special journey there one year because we read in a Patricia Wells book that if you truly believe there is no such thing as too much garlic, then you must be introduced to Chez Tante Paulette; it would be worth the trip even if it didn’t have a star. And, it was. Tante introduced us to her famous 40-garlic chicken which has been a mainstay in our house ever since. The restaurant is down a narrow dark street in the heart of old Lyon, the room small, the tables smaller and very close together, with Tante supervising every detail. The smells were intoxicating: the food very much like a French aunt would cook at home, served with good local wine. The cheese-board, with ten or more varieties, was passed from table to table and from person to person, to take what they wanted. She is gone now, but her recipe and the memories linger on; a favorite restaurant that deserved a star, but alas….

Pierre Orsi, across town had two stars and well worth the cab ride. “Come at 8:30 pm, the table is yours for the evening.” We were welcomed with miniature flags of France, Lyon, and the US in a small sterling vase at center table. The service was outstanding and unrushed. The food was beyond expectation. The evening was topped off by a visit from the chef, in starched-whites, the toque-blanche reaching toward the heavens, greeting his guest in whatever language the flag indicated: German at one table, Italian at another, Spanish at yet another, and in perfect English at ours. He knew the Bay Area restaurants of note at the time; Fleur de Lis, Auberge de Soleil, and others. The women swooned-who doesn’t like a uniform- while the men paid the bill. The ashtray is still somewhere in a cabinet at home.

The small town of Yountville in nearby Napa Valley has too many choices of Michelin-stared restaurants. They are all beyond good. The French Laundry, considered by many to be the best in the nation, Meadowood,  Bouchon, Solage, Bottega, the Farmstead, Kenzo, are all amazing. They feel different: the aura, the wait staff, the smells, the rhythm; everything is special.

So what? It’s the question asked earlier. Michelin restaurant ratings sometimes appear biased toward the French way of doing things, less today than twenty years ago - maybe. However, they are still a barometer of outstanding cuisine, a brass ring to reach for, a plaque for the wall, a standard of excellence, and millions of dollars in new revenue. Then, there is the fame that comes with it or them.

If food is important to you, the stars impress. If you want an eating experience of a lifetime, try one with three stars. If you think of food as fuel, keep using your whey protein shakes. However, sometime in one’s life, on one’s bucket list, should be a nice dinner at a three-star. It will be worth the journey, and it will show you why all those other restaurants in town did not get a star.

In the meantime ….

Are We Asking the Right Questions?

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, told the graduates of Tulane University that they should not waste time working on problems already solved.[i] He suggested they should tackle big issues, like the environment. He could have suggested homelessness. It is a big problem, unsolved.

This is the richest country in the world. California is the fifth largest economy in the world. Sacramento County is rife with affluence. Unemployment is low and thousands of jobs go begging. In this economic boom, we live with the shame of homelessness, growing 20% or more a year. The city, the county, the local governments, all are overwhelmed.  

Every two years local agencies count the homeless. The 2017 Point in Time[ii] report identified 3,665 homeless people in our county. They expect the count to increase significantly this year. Despite government and NGO efforts, fifty-six percent are unsheltered, living on the streets, along our riverbanks, and in other encampments.

A recent Sacramento Bee article reported about a survey of homeless people took at one of the city’s shelters. The results were enlightening, but not surprising:

·         60% percent had mental health illnesses

·         46% had substance abuse issues

·         86% had a disabling condition.[iii]

Are we asking the right questions? The evidence says that we are not. One reason well-intentioned efforts miss the mark is that we think of homelessness as a heterogeneous problem that places people on a bell-curve. We assume that if we concentrate on the needs of those in the middle of the curve everything will work out. Evidence from all over the country, however, suggests that we should focus on the 10% or so that fit on the edge of the curve, the chronic homelessness. Chronic homelessness doesn’t follow a statistical bell curve. Homelessness follows a power-law curve. Instead of a bell curve, think of a chart that looks like a hockey stick.[iv] In major cities across the country, it is the ten percent, on the periphery, that is the problem. They are the unfortunate who live on the streets for years, who use the emergency rooms for major health problems, running up hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills.[v]

Homelessness is costly! Our medium size city spends thirty million dollars and more each year trying to address the issue, almost to no avail. One shelter served 658 people, who rotated in and out during the year, costing the city more than $5 million to operate.[vi] The idea was to provide temporary shelter while helping guests search for permanent housing and jobs. Success is minimal. Would the money have been better spent simply renting apartments for these people?

Nearly 800 people show up at Loaves and Fishes[vii] each day for a place to rest, and to get what might be their only meal of the day. Agencies hire “Navigators” to work the streets helping the homeless get proper medical attention, food stamps, veteran services, and other needs. We are putting band-aids on gaping wounds. Are we asking the right questions? A leading advocate for educating government officials about the power-law is Philip Mangono. He argues that simply running soup kitchens and shelters allow the chronically homeless to remain chronically homeless.[viii] We are not asking the right questions.

Local leaders are not ignoring the problem. Sacramento Steps Forward, the linchpin in the government’s efforts, has an impressive Board of Directors and staff. Cities staff departments that are responsible for reducing homelessness. With all of this effort, the problem is getting worse. While we concentrate on the whole, we ignore the few; the power-law. Yes, we need to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and welcome the stranger.[ix] Nevertheless, we must also recognize that that won’t put a dent in the problem unless we focus on the chronic few.

Homelessness is a symptom. We need to eliminate the root causes of that symptom. The homeless have defined the causes for us. We need to listen to them. We need to change the laws that hamper efforts to solve the problem.

Let’s begin with the idea that in this rich country it is not ok to have homelessness! We should not want it for anyone and we should have solutions for it. The courts, however, ruled that it is a First Amendment right. That does not make it right. Few people can really want to be in that condition. Too many of us, however, are within one or two paychecks of not making the rent, the mortgage, the car payment, or school tuition. If a person suddenly loses a job or other income, they too could be on the streets. Those people, if they choose, will be back in the mainstream quickly. It’s not likely that they will become chronically homeless. We need stopgap programs for them, of course, so that their situation does not become chronic.

Doing the same thing over and over and over, but expecting different results is the classic definition of insanity. Whatever we are doing isn’t working and it’s costing millions of non-productive dollars. Yet, our local leaders want to do more of the same, expecting different results. They seem to concentrate on the middle of the bell curve rather than the hockey stick end of the curve. They want to create more shelters for those who don’t want to use them, spread them throughout the city, and place them far from centralized services that people need. How likely are people with mental issues going to fit easily into a shelter cramped with bunk beds 18 inches apart? If people have substance abuse problems, how likely is it that they will go to a shelter that requires no drugs or alcohol? If people have pets, how likely is it that they will want to go to a place that doesn’t allow them? If people have medical or disability issues, how likely is it that they will want to live in outlying areas with few if any services.

Governments cannot criminalize homelessness behavior per se: sleeping in public places for example.[x] We can, however, make living on the street a bad choice. It’s hard to make that statement without sounding cruel and mean. But, in fact, we need change: “Current law makes it very difficult to commit a homeless person to a mental health institution. We see the unintended consequence of these well-meaning laws. Jails and prisons become mental health centers but without adequate resources. The tools currently available to the judiciary fail to meet the challenge of dealing with persons with mental illness. … Public safety is as much at stake as is the fair treatment of individuals who have a mental illness.”[xi] Jails can’t do the job. Even mandatory outpatient counseling is ineffective. We need to make it easier to commit people with severe mental health issues to in-patient facilities. We need to build those facilities. The law needs to change so that the homeless can be sent to in-patient facilities to rid themselves of drug and alcohol dependency.   

The lack of affordable long-term housing is an obvious need. We don’t have enough housing stock to meet market demand, much less affordable housing. The NIMBY factor also plays a serious role; people are afraid that too many lower-priced homes in their neighborhood will reduce their own home’s value or change the social climate in their area. What to do?

What do we need to change to get people into rehab to eliminate their substance abuse?

What do we need to change to get people into mental health facilities, even when they don’t want to go there?

What do we have to do to provide the medical treatment needed to address disabilities?

What do we have to do to ensure permanent housing for the chronically homeless?

Local governments can solve the problem. They just haven’t asked the right questions. Let’s assume that we have 10% chronic homelessness in our area. How do we provide smart housing for 400 homeless people? Small homes: 144 square feet with a front porch can be purchased for about $12,000 per unit. That’s a little less than the cost of running a shelter for one year. Allow another million dollars for excavation and installing central facilities. That provides safe, clean housing at a lower cost than running shelters. And, it gets people off the street. Compare that to many of the shelters that force people to leave early in the morning, to walk the streets and beg for money and food. Mangano talked about some cities that bought older apartment houses, those with one room and studio apartments and gave them to the chronically homeless for a couple of years. They even hired caseworkers to meet with tenants each day to ensure that they attended their physical therapy, got their food stamps, etc.

Homeless people are forced to use the streets and other people’s lawns as bathrooms. How about purchasing and operating bathrooms and showers in large trailers, like the U.S. Forest Service does for its firefighters. The large trailers that can service hundreds of people a day. They cost about $300,000 each. Five of them would cost one and a half million dollars plus operating costs, a wild guess, another million dollars per year. These type of facilities require 24-hour monitoring to ensure that they are not used for other purposes: prostitution, sleeping, and drug use, to name a few. I suspect that is less than what it cost to clean the refuse on our streets and in our parks.

Sixty percent of the homeless self-identify with serious medical issues. How do we take care of them? Do we send them to expensive clinics and emergency rooms for basic health care? Why? How else could we do it? Would it be possible to set up four or five “free clinics” around town, and operate them 24 hours a day? Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, and Medical Assistants could staff them. That should be doable for around $1,500,000 less insurance payments from Medicare and Medical.

The solutions cost money; of course, they do. However, when you consider that the city and county have about $34 million budgeted for homeless problems and have little to show for it, perhaps they should be asking different questions.

 If we ask different questions, we often come up with different solutions.

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[i] Tim Cook, Tulane University Commencement Speaker, New Orleans, Louisiana, May 2019

[ii] Point in Time count of homeless in Sacramento County – Sacramento Steps Forward -2017

[iii] Theresa Clift - Sacramento Bee – May 19, 2019

[iv] Malcolm Gladdell – Million-Dollar Murray – The New Yorker – February 13, 2006

[v] Ibid

[vi] Sacramento Bee – May 19, 2019

[vii] Loaves and Fishes is a non-profit, self-sustaining agency dedicated to helping the plight of the homeless, the abused, and others in need. It receives no government funds.

[viii] Million-Dollar Murray, ibid

[ix] Matthew 25: 35-40

[x] Martin vs. City of Boise – 9^th Circuit Court – September 2018

[xi] Milton Mack Jr. – Decriminalization of Mental Illness – 2016-17 Policy Paper – Conference of State Court Administrators