Will he kill YOU or a loved one in a car accident ?

I have described the plight of a homeless man , aged 66, in very poor mental and physical health, living in a car. But I must also emphasize that the law still allows him to drive until he is caught driving recklessly ( he distraught and strongly medicated) .   I was with him in his car the other day and  I had to routinely remind him to watch out for pedestrians and stop at stop signs in  residential neighborhoods in Cranston and on the East Side of Providence.

        Seeking a home , he is often evicted from hospitals. If he finally ends up killing somebody , don't blame me. I  did try to help my homeless friend.

How many homeless here live in cars ?

   I have sent you a series of short letters describing the plight of a homeless friend living in his car. I wonder just how many homeless people in Rhode Island are  invisible to the authorities . Has anybody  here been able to estimate the number of homeless individuals or families living in motor vehicles ? According to reports on You Tube,  many of these people represent the American middle class in free-fall.
              Unable to accommodate a 66 year old friend in my  cramped  studio apartment,  I sent him with ten dollars worth of quarters to the Warwick Public Library-which still has a public pay phone ( his cell phone is missing in the chaos of this life-style) . He got in touch with some senior center which misdirected him to a non-existent shelter on Howard Road in Warwick. He stopped his junky old Lincoln Town Car in front of a nice home in the neighborhood. Looking like an escaped convict, he rang the doorbell and asked the resident for directions to the shelter. He was redirected to  Howard Avenue in Cranston. This might have been all that is left of the old Welcome Arnold building. He spent a wretched night in that depressing place with some 100  bunk beds.
             Part of my friend's problem in finding subsidized housing is his vagabond history. Presently he has a Washington state license plate.   It struck me while reading a sign on a RIPTA bus this morning :  "  Please offer these seats to the elderly and persons with disabilities ".  My friend is elderly with disability. Should not public housing apply the concept of priority  here ?  " Am I going to die in my car ? " , my friend asks.
           In many ways he is the anti-character of Horatio Alger's " Ragged Dick ".   The theme of " Ragged Dick " is the rise of a young pleasant fellow -by luck and pluck-  from slum life to social respectability. " Ragged Dave " is a story of a precipitous fall in early old age from prosperity to squalor. Such " luck " as Dave encountered on his way down to the lower depths is best described by a Thomas Hardy - not an Horatio Alger.  Alger's universe was fundamentally benevolent. Hardy's was either indifferent or malevolent.  No, everything is not for the best in the best of all possible worlds .

Homeless Dave Gold told of Aunt's Death

I recently sent a rather detailed letter relating the strange odyssey of a homeless friend, age 66 ,in frail health, now living in his car somewhere in Chicago- one of the most dangerous cities in the United States. He is the nephew of a socially prominent woman who just left a fortune to Brown University.
       On Wednesday night he called me as expected. I informed him of his aunt's death. He said he recently was escorted out a hospital by security guards, after the hospital failed to find any shelter for him.
          How many readers of the Providence Journal know about the daily humiliation and terror of being homeless in this country ? Or the joys of living in a broken down Lincoln Town Car ?
         It seems to me that too many people who might help  Dave don't even want to hear his story. He himself is quite articulate. He represents the All-American nightmare- a fear of falling.

The most creepy TV and Radio commercial

     The news media has the public super-sensitive to all forms of child abuse. And yet this very creepy TV and radio commercial has fallen through the cracks : a Stephen King nightmare named with a hint of sadism for naughty kids : " The Total Transformation ", created by a child behavioral psychologist.  It promises to teach a lesson to defiant kids that they will never forget !
             Remember that rotten little kid that hated his mother ? Well we fixed him! Now he is a timid, conforming zombie who loves not just  mommy dearest but even the friendly school police .

Homeless man on edge of fortune ?

I know a homeless man named David Gold, age 66, presently living in his broken down Lincoln Town Car (  Washington state license ABL 4448 ). He now gets only a very meager SSI income. He was once quite affluent but had his own private CRASH. He asked me to try to contact his rich Aunt Gracie -he is her closest living relative . Her address : 53  Windgate Rd. , Providence, R.I.   Her phone number : 401-272-1545.
            The last time Dave tried to call Aunt Gracie, " Wes " , her husband, hung up on him.  I expect poor desperate Dave Gold to call me some time tonight. And I will tell him this : Gracie K. Alpert ( the sister of his mother, Bettye Gold ) age 83, DIED August 22, 2013.  An on line obituary says " she was the wife of Wesley Alpert for 45 years ".  No mention of her nephew, Dave.
           Grace left a considerable legacy  " for a new professorship in neuroscience " , reports BROWN MEDICINE( Spring, 2014 ) - " a magazine for the alumni and friends of the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. ".
            Dave's grandfather, Samuel Kennison, was a pathologist at Miriam Hospital. He also left behind considerable wealth.
  A few weeks ago I  went with Dave to see an East Side rabbi, for help and advice. We both agreed that  " Dave would complicate water ". The name of this rabbi is Y Laufer : 362 Hope St. , Providence, R.I.  Phone -  401-273-7238 . Chabad Lubavitch Center.
                  As a lifelong socialist I can only have a sardonic smile for sacrosanct PRIVATE PROPERTY rights. But I know that there is also a long  benign Judeo-Christian tradition of not neglecting poor kinfolk - no matter how " unworthy ".
                Can this homeless man be SAVED - before he sees Heaven ?

Re: First Amendment vs. Science ?

To the contrary, many climate scientists DO vigorously debate many parts of the global warming theories: Specifically, how much influence the increasing trace amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere have on global temperatures. Also, whether humans can make an appreciable or worthwhile difference even with radical measures. Given the extraordinary complexity of climate, there are also difficulties accurately modeling future temperature readings. That is a scientific and political debate that I believe, in the spirit of both scientific and political freedom, should not be censored and silenced.

 I am no science authority. But I just passed the Christian Science Monitor science literacy test - " with flying colors " as they say. Reading  Brian Wilder's letter, "  Journal reckless in publishing dissenting views on global warming " and  the editor's note  ( hardly irrational from the perspective of open democratic debate ) that the issue  is" worthy of vigorous debate "  - I wonder if we have a Science vs. Democracy crisis on your editorial page.   Both the press and the scientific establishment-both fundamentally elitist- must do more to help the average voter understand the scientific method. To be sure, truth in science is not established by majority vote.  It is established by rigid standards of inquiry.   A democratic tyranny is impossible in science. Only Truth is sovereign here. And of course that truth is never absolute or unquestionable but relative and good enough for practical purposes - or just further inquiry.
             It is inevitable that your editorial page promote " vigorous debate " on global warming. But like creationism, this is not a debate within Science.

Of course climate change is complex

     Thank you for your note, Ed.    Just recently scientists made fools of themselves on another GREAT DISCOVERY of the Big Bang theory : evidence for gravity waves at the very beginning of creation. They were already awarding themselves Noble Prizes and drinking champagne..

      Just a few months later this Big Bang Balloon burst. But science here did correct itself. Can we afford a patient WAIT AND SEE attitude for a matter much more critical and literally down to earth ?

       If we cannot stop global warming -whatever the real cause- how do we adapt to it ?

   Other big questions cannot be resolved on the most democratic editorial page on earth: like the existence and benevolence of God.

                             

                                    A constant reader, Ron Ruggieri

Decriminalizing prostitution makes sense

I was pleased to read your article " One time loophole in R.I. prostitution law linked to decline in rape , diseases . Poll  " ( July 14 online Providence Journal ) .  Just yesterday I read  a speech by the famous woman anarchist, Emma Goldman, on the subject,  which she analyzed from the point of view of a radical rational revolutionary. Prostitution is inseparable from class and gender oppression. But only sanctimonious hypocrites will wage war on this symptom of social decay. And it makes perfect sense that it deters rape . Did not the great psychiatrist Sigmund Freud write about the consequences of extreme sexual misery ? So did one Wilhelm Reich.
     What is needed here is a little discreet compassion. The  Catholic Church is moving away from dogmatic drivel in the matter of human sexuality.   To be sure, gay sex is no more " dirty " than male-female mating acts.   Under modern capitalism the human soul is FOR SALE. Now that is obscene indeed . And should not be decriminalized !

Kennedy Plaza can't hide Providence Center crowd

I am a regular at the Kennedy Plaza bus terminal -soon to be terminated. I just read " Riders give mixed reviews to reconfigured RIPTA bus stop ( July 14 ). I can  only applaud any improvement in the location - worthy of the imagination of the famous French writer Zola. So numerous are the scenes of drunken, drug crazed decadence and public squalor. But  do they expect the  mentally troubled denizens of the area to conveniently disappear ?

          Yesterday  near Providence City Hall I was approached by a toothless, alcoholic , drug- burn out hag. She needed two dollars- hardly enough for a cup of coffee these days. But  she quickly remembered me - and both my first and last name- from Washington Park, Providence some four decades ago. And I remembered her as JM - a young woman with a certain Irish prettiness - before her adolescent crack up.  Within a few minutes we chatted about all the dead people we knew from the 70s. So many blue collar- wasted lives . She said she was still with the Providence Center.  And living alone somewhere in South Providence.   For a while JM was underselling the regular street prostitutes. Her price went as low as two dollars for oral sex.

             Poor  wasted JM, I reflected. And I also wondered : why does the Providence Center pay so little attention to a mental patient's body including her dental health ? Would it not help JM to have good dentures ? I  did give her two dollars but  hesitated to buy her a steak sandwich  at the nearby Subway. They will accept my EBT card. JM is ten years younger than I. " You're still just a kid ", I told her.

                             ( Of course, you will never print this . But Zola would understand )

Footnote to Hot Dog contest letter ( tragedy )

 Yesterday I sent  a letter- to- the editor critical of those gross hot dog eating contests. Today I read ( July 8 AP : " Man Dies At South Dakota Hot Dog Eating Contest "..    " turned tragic when a contestant choked to death  ".  What an epitaph - a pig's death on the Fourth of July !

No editorials condemn hot -dog-pig contests

    I know no readers of the Providence Journal will lose any sleep over this non-controversy: those gross 4th of July hot dog eating contests. In a country where so many people need EBT cards- where  real American citizens do go hungry- is it not obscene to hand out accolades for piggish humans ?

        Why should these hot dog eating contests not be controversial ? And not condemned by the New England Journal of Medicine ?  Is it really harmless to down 60 hotdogs in a few  minutes ?  I read somewhere ( A Ralph Nader report, I recall ) that  the classic hot dog ingredients  include chopped cow eyeballs , bits of large intestines with sterilized fecal matter, ground bones, sliced brains, pulverized teeth.

        And these gross contests all on You Tube for the entertainment of a half-starved world.  No, I do not laugh at religious zealots when they warn : " God will punish us !  "