Do People Have A Choice?

encounters

Do People Have A Choice?

Some time ago I went to the book reading “The River in My Backyard” by Mikkel Aaland. I wrote about his books before. In the book the author writes about his brother murdering their father because “God told him to do so.” It turns out that his brother has schizophrenia – a mental disease. He was acting odd during his life and consumed big amounts of marijuana in his teenage years. During his talk Mikkel pointed out that consumption of the marijuana can stimulate the development in those who have predisposition for the disease. Unfortunately, in spite of acting weird, sick people do net get adequate medical assistance until like in the case of the brother, the murderer is locked up and receives all necessary medications to control their condition.

I thought about this recently while visiting Portland, Oregon. When we stepped out from our hotel in the downtown, we noticed quite a few weird people, who by their behavior looked crazy to me. And not in the way I would like to photograph them. When I saw a man, whom I noticed before as lying on the pavement, vomiting on the road, I wondered who will wash it out. The solution came the next day – it rained. (It rains a lot in Portland.) With the population of about 600,000, Portland is a diverse and green city and had quite a few areas to visit. But it also has problems with over 1800 homeless population. Perhaps similar to one we have in San Francisco.

Lately there is a lot of attention to this problem and press coverage. To help to solve homeless conditions, four cities in the Bay Area put measures on November ballots tout tax hikes bonds to build 20,000 low cost units by generating 3 billion for the next 25 years.

During the recent dinner in the friends’ house, one of the guests asked what I think about an article in the San Francisco Chronicle regarding construction of the prefabricated buildings with the 160 square feet units for the homeless. My view is that unless there is a system, which will help less fortunate people by offering medical assistance to get rid of the drugs habits and to put away mentally sick people, nothing will work. The goal should be to assist those who are capable and willing to become contributing members of our society, to repay the cost of helping them. So far it costs San Francisco about $80,000 a year per person to deal with the problem. But this problem is not new and probably will never go away. In the book “Talks on the Parasha” Rabbi Adin-Israel Steinsaltz points out “The pauper says “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but provide me with my daily bread” (Proverbs. 30:8). Proverbs were written by King Solomon, who lived in 10th Century B.C. He also pointed out that “There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

P.S. Haight-Ashbury, which was the heart of the Hippie movement, still serves as a magnet and attracts drifters, which are easy models to photograph. You will find a few of the images and stories in my book “42 Encounters in San Francisco.” @ encounterspublishing.com.

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Cheers,

Manny<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> Signature