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M.T. Janke - Contributor
M.T. Janke
is a business consultant, native Northern Californian, and
author of the weblog "Shaking
Spears." He graduated
from U.C. Berkeley with a degree in Political Science, and
holds a Masters in Business Administration from Golden Gate
University. He, his wife, and two children reside in the San
Francisco Bay Area. [Janke site]
[Janke index]
 Liberating
Baghdad-By-The-Bay
The failure of San Francisco's compassionate liberalism...
[M.T. Janke] 11/24/04
On those
crisp, clear winter days, in between the weekly Pacific rain
storms that cleanse the city, you can stand out on the wharf
and see forever across the wind-chopped bay, from the noble
Golden Gate, back over to Sausalito, the lonely Alcatraz
and Angel Islands, and across to Berkeley. Green hills rim
the
bay and keep it from overflowing its shores, protecting this
intrusion of the Pacific into the mainland.
In the boat slips sea lions compete for buoy space, barking
in a cacophony of marine sounds, and gulls circle and dive
for discarded snacks. Sea smells,
some natural, some from the nearby restaurants, waft through your nostrils
and clear your head. Behind you the sloping hills and terraced buildings
watch out over the fields of water that lap against the pier.
The breeze braces your
face and causes you to bundle up with your wife. You like it here.
This is the “Baghdad-by-the-Bay,” as the late San Francisco columnist Herb
Caen used to describe the City. He was referring to its exotic, bohemian
character that has as its pedigree the Gold Rush and the roaring ‘20s.
Italian immigrants in North Beach, Asians in Chinatown, adventurous mid-Westerners,
African-Americans, Mexican migrants, Gays, Straights, you name it. . .
come
together on this Peninsula and create an urban stew that can be as energizing
as the elements out on the wharf.
But the story doesn’t end here. The natural beauty of its surroundings masks
the deep decay that is endemic on the streets homeless people, most deeply
ill or drug-addicted roam aimlessly and grow coarse as they fight the
elements. Hundreds die each year from overdoses and infections. Paying
for its misguided
romanticizing of the Vagrant, and its encouragement of all across the country
to come to Zion, the City on the Bay now resembles Calcutta more than ancient
Baghdad.
San Francisco continues to reel from its inability to deal with its 15,000
homeless, its political paralysis in attending to the problem, and how
best to allocate the $200 million of public funds that have been earmarked
for its eradication.
Mayors who have confronted the issue head-on have been defeated (Frank Jordan);
Willy Brown, like a modern-day Marie Antoinette, simply ignored it (and was
re-elected), and the current mayor Gavin Newsom has paid lip
service to the issue and opted instead for same-sex marriages. The Supervisors
who run City Hall could be political consultants in a Michael Moore movie.
For the compassion of those who are out on the streets, this issue
needs to be solved.
New York and Chicago have proven that this problem is not intractable Rudy
Giuliani, for example, has shown that a humane public policy focused
on 1) drug and mental health treatment, 2) providing available shelter, 3)
vigorous
welfare to work programs and incentives, 4) food payments instead of cash,
and 5) stepping up street policing of quality-of-life offenses can make the
difference and save lives.
It’s time to liberate Baghdad-by-the-Bay. A city this beautiful shouldn’t
be punishing the weakest within it. tOR
copyright
2004 M.T. Janke
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