Keep looking, Mr. Brooks

Editor:

Wow, Albert Brooks makes one little movie — “Looking for Comedy in The Muslim World” — and look what happens. Albert, I guess here is your answer: um, there ain’t any?

Henry Rosenfeld
Santa Monica



Doctor obviously doesn’t know the cure

Editor:

I was surprised by the awful simplicity of Dr. David Sirkin’s most recent letter (SMDP, Jan. 24, page 4). The language and “reasoning” he employed seems more like that of a struggling high school student than that of a physician. Furthermore, it is sufficiently self-evident that almost everything he discusses therein is substantially outside the scope of medicine, so it is not clear to me why he chose to sign off with his medical degree.

Dr. Sirkin apparently believes that we need a big homeless shelter in downtown Santa Monica that will ideally meet the emergent needs of all homeless persons in the area; that we need more police to protect homeowners and businesses from dirty homeless criminals and psychotics who won’t go to that shelter; and that wealthier Santa Monicans — who benefit fiscally from a relatively mild climate (he apparently forgot about our petroleum, phone, water, internet and cable TV charges) — should surrender more tax monies to pay for the big downtown shelter and the extra police. Apparently, if we follow his prescription, “homeless persons and their filth on our streets” will be sufficiently reduced in Santa Monica and “they will learn that they must have incomes in order to have the kind of freedom they want, unless they want to live as survivalists in wilderness areas.” Wow, what a doctrine.

I think we need to drastically reduce our police force and concomitantly demonstrate more compassion toward the homeless in Santa Monica. I see our homeless community almost everyday and I say they’re about as law abiding and flawed as every other group. With a third of the current force, the police can adequately do their important work addressing actual criminality by the homeless and the rest of us, if they stop making false arrests and tormenting say — marijuana consumers — and alternatively focus their efforts on matters concerning the abridgement of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There’s always more than enough there to keep police busy. Conversely, we really need to stop arresting people for doing things that don’t really harm anyone else, like being homeless.

In fact, Dr. Sirkin should spend a few days viewing “criminal” proceedings in our courthouses. If he did that, he might learn about the great injustice, cruelty, inequity, and waste that our already hyper-criminalized police state has created. And as for his “creative” remedy of raising taxes to pay for his unnecessary procedure, I am reminded of Moliere’s time-proven aphorism that “nearly all men die of their medicines, and not their illnesses.” If Dr. Sirkin observed our hyper-criminalized legal system at work for any reasonable period of time, he could see that adage in action. Criminal prosecutions, fines and legal fees only serve to keep poor homeless people poor and homeless.

Finally, I think signing off on letters with reference to advanced degrees is only successful in swaying decent readers after two important conditions have been met: First, such letters should be especially well written.

After all, each piece should be judged on its own merits anyway, and that is true whether or not the writer possesses or notes an advanced degree. Second, mention of advanced degrees best suits essays or letters that address matters within the scope of the degrees. I can be swayed by experts who express themselves well about matters that seem related to their areas of expertise, but Dr. Sirkin’s letter didn’t satisfy either condition.

Ivan Smason
Santa Monica