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My Bike Path in the News



 
 
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  #21  
Old July 29th 18, 09:03 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
AMuzi
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Default My Bike Path in the News

On 7/29/2018 1:48 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 17:11:59 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:18:35 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote:

That is one of my commute routes, which is now a toxic waste dump...


When the authorities are done cleaning up the Portland homeless camps,
could you send them my direction and ask them to clean up ours?
https://www.google.com/search?q=santa+cruz+homeless+camp&tbm=isch
If not, would you mind if we ship our homeless to Portland now that
you have some empty space for them?


Well, where to you expect the homeless to go?

-snip snip-

Away.
Just go away. "Bus therapy" works especially well for me
and for my fellow local taxpayers, as dramatically evidenced
in Denver in the 1980s. Great program.

More specifically "to California", since no one out on the
Left Coast cares now, what's a few more? If they can afford
'sanctuary' for MS13 they can afford bums and criminals who
are actually citizens. That's only fair, right?


--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971


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  #22  
Old July 29th 18, 09:50 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
AMuzi
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Posts: 13,447
Default My Bike Path in the News

On 7/29/2018 1:37 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:37:22 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

Disgusting. You may need more conservative city leader who don't let
things deteriorate that far.


Hmm. Lawn order is the solution?

During today's ride a woman was blocking my side of a bike path with
her overflowing shopping car. She was constantly screaming at herself.
It's sad, she was a beautiful younger woman but totally wasted.
Probably another OD case.


If she was an OD case she'd have been unconscious. More likely this
person has schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, a brain injury or
bipolar disorder. Us well-to-do folks tend to assume that "if you're
homeless" or "if you're poor," it's your own damn fault and you should
pull yourself up by your effin' bootstraps and stop bothering me. But
of the estimated 500,000 - 600,000 homeless people in the US, a bit
under half have a serious and persistent mental illness.

How'd that happen? A big contributor was the Reagan Administration
which pushed for closing mental health hospitals to sve money and loer
taxes.

-snip snip-

Because I knew people in the business at the time(aides,
orderlies, not shrinks) this was actually in the 1960s:

https://study.com/academy/lesson/dei...th-issues.html

You may dislike Mr. Reagan, and you're welcome to your
opinion, but facts are stubborn things.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971


  #23  
Old July 29th 18, 09:53 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
[email protected]
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Posts: 2,041
Default My Bike Path in the News

On Sunday, July 29, 2018 at 1:48:40 PM UTC-5, Tim McNamara wrote:
About 40% of homeless men are veterans
(compared to about 34% of the male population being veterans)


I'd have to see some data, statistics, facts to believe this. Serving in the military is NOT common. Not one third common. Amongst my biking friends, few to almost none served in the military. In my family my Dad and most of my uncles served in the military. But none since the 60-80 year olds have served. I'd guess the percentage of US male population serving/served in the military at 10%.

For 40% of homeless men being veterans, that I believe. Its the 34% of US male population being veterans that is unbelievable.
  #24  
Old July 29th 18, 10:24 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
AMuzi
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Posts: 13,447
Default My Bike Path in the News

On 7/29/2018 3:53 PM, wrote:
On Sunday, July 29, 2018 at 1:48:40 PM UTC-5, Tim McNamara wrote:
About 40% of homeless men are veterans
(compared to about 34% of the male population being veterans)


I'd have to see some data, statistics, facts to believe this. Serving in the military is NOT common. Not one third common. Amongst my biking friends, few to almost none served in the military. In my family my Dad and most of my uncles served in the military. But none since the 60-80 year olds have served. I'd guess the percentage of US male population serving/served in the military at 10%.

For 40% of homeless men being veterans, that I believe. Its the 34% of US male population being veterans that is unbelievable.


Your impression is about right:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...-are-veterans/

Yes they proportionally skew old and veterans are about 10%
of adults:

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...an-population/

In my experience, as with that of some vets I know well, you
average 'homeless vet' is a fake. There are roughly 329 such
actual people in Wisconsin for example:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...e-us-by-state/

But only about 281 in Minnesota (Tim, have you met them ?)

Next time you are cadged by a 'homeless vet' ask, "Hey,
what's your MOS?". Duh.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971


  #25  
Old July 29th 18, 10:35 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
John B. Slocomb
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Posts: 144
Default My Bike Path in the News

On Sun, 29 Jul 2018 13:53:14 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Sunday, July 29, 2018 at 1:48:40 PM UTC-5, Tim McNamara wrote:
About 40% of homeless men are veterans
(compared to about 34% of the male population being veterans)


I'd have to see some data, statistics, facts to believe this. Serving in the military is NOT common. Not one third common. Amongst my biking friends, few to almost none served in the military. In my family my Dad and most of my uncles served in the military. But none since the 60-80 year olds have served. I'd guess the percentage of US male population serving/served in the military at 10%.

For 40% of homeless men being veterans, that I believe. Its the 34% of US male population being veterans that is unbelievable.


https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...-the-military/

As of Jan. 31, there were close to 1.4 million people serving in the
U.S. armed forces, according to the latest numbers from the Defense
Manpower Data Center, a body of the Department of Defense. That means
that 0.4 percent of the American population is active military
personnel.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) useing their own
data as well as numbers from the Department of Defense, the U.S.
Census Bureau, the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security
Administration. As of 2014, the VA estimates there were 22 million
military veterans in the U.S. population. If you add their figures on
veterans to the active personnel numbers mentioned above, 7.3 percent
of all living Americans have served in the military at some point in
their lives.


However these numbrs seem a bit flexible. See:

https://www.census.gov/population/ww...ry-Service.pdf
https://www.infoplease.com/american-veterans-numbers
  #26  
Old July 29th 18, 11:31 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
JBeattie
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Posts: 5,870
Default My Bike Path in the News

On Sunday, July 29, 2018 at 1:50:27 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 7/29/2018 1:37 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:37:22 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

Disgusting. You may need more conservative city leader who don't let
things deteriorate that far.


Hmm. Lawn order is the solution?

During today's ride a woman was blocking my side of a bike path with
her overflowing shopping car. She was constantly screaming at herself.
It's sad, she was a beautiful younger woman but totally wasted.
Probably another OD case.


If she was an OD case she'd have been unconscious. More likely this
person has schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, a brain injury or
bipolar disorder. Us well-to-do folks tend to assume that "if you're
homeless" or "if you're poor," it's your own damn fault and you should
pull yourself up by your effin' bootstraps and stop bothering me. But
of the estimated 500,000 - 600,000 homeless people in the US, a bit
under half have a serious and persistent mental illness.

How'd that happen? A big contributor was the Reagan Administration
which pushed for closing mental health hospitals to sve money and loer
taxes.

-snip snip-

Because I knew people in the business at the time(aides,
orderlies, not shrinks) this was actually in the 1960s:

https://study.com/academy/lesson/dei...th-issues.html

You may dislike Mr. Reagan, and you're welcome to your
opinion, but facts are stubborn things.


Perhaps it applies to Governor Reagan, although the real explosion of crazies on the street of California was in the early to mid '70s during the first Brown administration. Closing down mental hospitals was promoted by liberals and conservatives, and the effects kept me plenty busy as an ambulance driver in SJ during the mid '70s.

I question whether policy choices made 40 years ago can explain the explosion of mentally ill homeless people in Portland in the last 15 years. Something else is going on.

-- Jay Beattie.

  #27  
Old July 30th 18, 12:21 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
AMuzi
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Posts: 13,447
Default My Bike Path in the News

On 7/29/2018 5:31 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, July 29, 2018 at 1:50:27 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 7/29/2018 1:37 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:37:22 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

Disgusting. You may need more conservative city leader who don't let
things deteriorate that far.

Hmm. Lawn order is the solution?

During today's ride a woman was blocking my side of a bike path with
her overflowing shopping car. She was constantly screaming at herself.
It's sad, she was a beautiful younger woman but totally wasted.
Probably another OD case.

If she was an OD case she'd have been unconscious. More likely this
person has schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, a brain injury or
bipolar disorder. Us well-to-do folks tend to assume that "if you're
homeless" or "if you're poor," it's your own damn fault and you should
pull yourself up by your effin' bootstraps and stop bothering me. But
of the estimated 500,000 - 600,000 homeless people in the US, a bit
under half have a serious and persistent mental illness.

How'd that happen? A big contributor was the Reagan Administration
which pushed for closing mental health hospitals to sve money and loer
taxes.

-snip snip-

Because I knew people in the business at the time(aides,
orderlies, not shrinks) this was actually in the 1960s:

https://study.com/academy/lesson/dei...th-issues.html

You may dislike Mr. Reagan, and you're welcome to your
opinion, but facts are stubborn things.


Perhaps it applies to Governor Reagan, although the real explosion of crazies on the street of California was in the early to mid '70s during the first Brown administration. Closing down mental hospitals was promoted by liberals and conservatives, and the effects kept me plenty busy as an ambulance driver in SJ during the mid '70s.

I question whether policy choices made 40 years ago can explain the explosion of mentally ill homeless people in Portland in the last 15 years. Something else is going on.


I don't know but since that trope popped up in conversation
a lot recently I tried to find out. References at NPR,
Mother Jones and such specifically naming the Reagan
administration mostly center on Mr Carter's one-year
'Community Mental Health' initiative which Mr Reagan did
cancel. That's not 'locked wards', mind you.

Speaking of ancient history, the 1960s was an era in which
abuses at mental wards were popularized (from The Snake Pit
to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and beyond) and the
standard Soviet solution to difficult citizens (curmudgeons
and dissenters like me, actually) was mental wards. The
rediscovery of individual rights, even so far as 'Tune in,
turn on, drop out', also helped end involuntary commitment
for the bulk of lunatics.

I think most people can see both sides of these arguments
now. Looking back of course is not the same as being in the
moment.


--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971


  #28  
Old July 30th 18, 05:25 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Frank Krygowski[_4_]
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Posts: 10,538
Default My Bike Path in the News

On 7/29/2018 7:21 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 7/29/2018 5:31 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, July 29, 2018 at 1:50:27 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 7/29/2018 1:37 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:37:22 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

Disgusting. You may need more conservative city leader who don't let
things deteriorate that far.

Hmm.Â* Lawn order is the solution?

During today's ride a woman was blocking my side of a bike path with
her overflowing shopping car. She was constantly screaming at herself.
It's sad, she was a beautiful younger woman but totally wasted.
Probably another OD case.

If she was an OD case she'd have been unconscious.Â* More likely this
person has schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, a brain injury or
bipolar disorder.Â* Us well-to-do folks tend to assume that "if you're
homeless" or "if you're poor," it's your own damn fault and you should
pull yourself up by your effin' bootstraps and stop bothering me.Â* But
of the estimated 500,000 - 600,000 homeless people in the US, a bit
under half have a serious and persistent mental illness.

How'd that happen?Â* A big contributor was the Reagan Administration
which pushed for closing mental health hospitals to sve money and loer
taxes.
-snip snip-

Because I knew people in the business at the time(aides,
orderlies, not shrinks) this was actually in the 1960s:

https://study.com/academy/lesson/dei...th-issues.html


You may dislike Mr. Reagan, and you're welcome to your
opinion, but facts are stubborn things.


Perhaps it applies to Governor Reagan, although the real explosion of
crazies on the street of California was in the early to mid '70s
during the first Brown administration. Closing down mental hospitals
was promoted by liberals and conservatives, and the effects kept me
plenty busy as an ambulance driver in SJ during the mid '70s.

I question whether policy choices made 40 years ago can explain the
explosion of mentally ill homeless people in Portland in the last 15
years. Something else is going on.


I don't know but since that trope popped up in conversation a lot
recently I tried to find out.Â* References at NPR, Mother Jones and such
specifically naming the Reagan administration mostly center on Mr
Carter's one-year 'Community Mental Health' initiative which Mr Reagan
did cancel. That's not 'locked wards', mind you.

Speaking of ancient history, the 1960s was an era in which abuses at
mental wards were popularized (from The Snake Pit to One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest and beyond) and the standard Soviet solution to difficult
citizens (curmudgeons and dissenters like me, actually) was mental
wards. The rediscovery of individual rights, even so far as 'Tune in,
turn on, drop out', also helped end involuntary commitment for the bulk
of lunatics.

I think most people can see both sides of these arguments now.Â* Looking
back of course is not the same as being in the moment.


I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment on the root causes of the
homeless boom. But I think I know enough to say that simplistic Joergian
solutions are unlikely to be effective.


--
- Frank Krygowski
  #29  
Old July 30th 18, 03:56 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Joerg[_2_]
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Posts: 6,016
Default My Bike Path in the News

On 2018-07-29 11:37, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:37:22 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

Disgusting. You may need more conservative city leader who don't let
things deteriorate that far.


Hmm. Lawn order is the solution?



To a large extent, yes. Blocking a traffic pathway without a permit is
illegal and a bike path is a traffic pathway.

Many people who travel there have said that New York is now remarkably
clean in most parts because NYPD started to take a hard stance on this
issue. Needless to say there is a lot of caterwauling about that from
the usual suspects but it seems to work.

Sacramento is almost the opposite. They have a mayor who promises to
throw lots of money at homelessness, lots of free stuff and whatnot. A
short time later he was publicly "wondering" about the fast rise in
homeless population. Duh! As a cyclist I could have told him why but I
am rather sure he wouln't listen. The number of homeless in the
Placerville area east of Sacramento that we encounter on the El Dorado
Trail bike path has seriously dropped. Guess why ...

It's not just people with mental problems. In left-leaning states such
as California there is also the myriad rules and costs to developers of
housing. The result is that we now have many places where $1000/mo in
rent will not even get you a toilet with a bunk bed in there. Therefore,
a lot of people fall off the financial cliff. After some couch-surfing
they live in their car. Until they lose the car, then they are on the
street.


During today's ride a woman was blocking my side of a bike path with
her overflowing shopping car. She was constantly screaming at herself.
It's sad, she was a beautiful younger woman but totally wasted.
Probably another OD case.


If she was an OD case she'd have been unconscious. More likely this
person has schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, a brain injury or
bipolar disorder. Us well-to-do folks tend to assume that "if you're
homeless" or "if you're poor," it's your own damn fault and you should
pull yourself up by your effin' bootstraps and stop bothering me. But
of the estimated 500,000 - 600,000 homeless people in the US, a bit
under half have a serious and persistent mental illness.


Yes, that is also what a friend told me who is a seasoned former police
chief. The question is, how did they get to that point?


How'd that happen? A big contributor was the Reagan Administration
which pushed for closing mental health hospitals to sve money and loer
taxes. The theory was that there would be community menal heath centers
created to care for those folks, but those were basically not funded so
they don't exist to the degree necessary to address the problem. The
result was a gigantic influx of mentally ill people onto America's
street corners. Had the community end of the plan been effectively
organized, the problems would have still been bad but less bad.


If that were truly the case we'd have had these masses of homeless
people already since the Reagan days. However, we didn't. Even 10-20
years ago we didn't. You could walk along the American River Bike Path
and not see a single homeless camp. Now they are everywhere, to the
point where many cyclists and joggers consider part of that trail inside
Sacramento no longer safe to use and avoid it.


Unless people can be adjudicated a danger to self or others by a judge
based on evidence, there is no way to force these folks to have
treatment to control their mental illness- any more than a cancer
patient can be forced to have chemotherapy and surgery. Individual
rights pertain to them as well as everyone else. Unfortunately their
mental illnesses result in poor insight, judgment, reasoning and
decision making.


That's all ok, they have the same rights as we do. However, they also
have the same obligations as we do such as not trashing public space or
making it unusable.


On top of that, there are simply not enough mental health providers and
that is a situation that is worsening. Some 60% of psychiatrists are
pushing 65, there is already a significant shortage of them and we are
not training nearly enough new psychiatrists to replace them. My clinic
has five providers over 80 who are still working because they enjoy it
but also because they feel an ethical obligation to continue to help.
We have 20-some providers over 70 for the same reasons. More than half
of our providers are over 50. The situation is the same in mental
health clinics across the country.

From 1995-2014, the number of physicians in the US increased by 45%.
The number of psychiatrists increased by 12%. The population of the
country rose 35%. Considering the known prevalences of various mental
illness in the population, the number of people with those illness
increased greatly. A fair number of those people will be met by the
rest of us on street corners, acting odd and panhandling and makiung us
uncomfortable. Our typical reaction is, as noted in this thread,
disgust and resentment.


We need to look at the root cause and not at curing the effects and
symptoms later. I strongly believe the root cause in the US is the
haphazard way we look at drug use. Declaring marijuana legal as just
happened in California is _not_ the way to go about it because that
leads to stronger and stronger drugs. Until ultimately you see what I
saw many times on bike paths. Shopping carts full of stuff trashed onto
the pavement and when circling the bike around the trash heap you see
all sorts of bad stuff, including used syringes.


On a longhaul bike path something almost miraculous happened today. A
homelesss guy on a bike came from the other direction, big plastic bag
on top of his handlebar. On such lonely stretches of pavement I
usually greet other riders. Homeless hardly ever react but this guy
enthusiastically wished me a good day. Couldn't believe it. There is
hope for this guy.


So the key to success in life is "be nice to Joerg." Good to know.


No, all I am saying is that if a person has or retains the ability to be
nice to other people they have a good chance of turning their misery
around. Like this guy did who was on our local TV yesterday:

https://nypost.com/2018/07/28/homele...of-job-offers/

Decency goes a long ways and that applies to every person, including the
homeless.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
  #30  
Old July 30th 18, 04:09 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Duane[_2_]
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Posts: 401
Default My Bike Path in the News

On 30/07/2018 10:56 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-07-29 11:37, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:37:22 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

Disgusting. You may need more conservative city leader who don't let
things deteriorate that far.


Hmm.Â* Lawn order is the solution?



To a large extent, yes. Blocking a traffic pathway without a permit is
illegal and a bike path is a traffic pathway.

Many people who travel there have said that New York is now remarkably
clean in most parts because NYPD started to take a hard stance on this
issue. Needless to say there is a lot of caterwauling about that from
the usual suspects but it seems to work.

Sacramento is almost the opposite. They have a mayor who promises to
throw lots of money at homelessness, lots of free stuff and whatnot. A
short time later he was publicly "wondering" about the fast rise in
homeless population. Duh! As a cyclist I could have told him why but I
am rather sure he wouln't listen. The number of homeless in the
Placerville area east of Sacramento that we encounter on the El Dorado
Trail bike path has seriously dropped. Guess why ...

It's not just people with mental problems. In left-leaning states such
as California there is also the myriad rules and costs to developers of
housing. The result is that we now have many places where $1000/mo in
rent will not even get you a toilet with a bunk bed in there. Therefore,
a lot of people fall off the financial cliff. After some couch-surfing
they live in their car. Until they lose the car, then they are on the
street.



Left leaning? Last time I was in New Orleans I was shocked by the
number of tent farms under the overpasses. Louisiana has been bible
thumping conservative since the Dixiecrats in the 70s.
 




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