By BLAST BY SETH BARNES
Everyone loves a good whining fit once in a while. In a postmodern world where openly displaying unconscious angst is encouraged and often lauded as a terrific release of negative energy, never has there been such an incentive to pitch a fit. Showing your emotions or losing your cool is healthy. You can’t keep all that rage bottled up inside. You might burst! So by all means, take it out on somebody. Preferably a meek, innocent and defenseless bystander.
We’re in the age of the gripe. Our own vice president told off a member of Congress on the Senate floor and afterwards boasted about how it made him feel better. Here in Los Angeles, celebrities engage in daily combat with the paparazzi as they attempt to secure the world’s supply of funny looking handbags from elite fashion boutiques. With the proliferation of new media, average Dicks and Janes are even getting into the act, churning out bits and bytes of their own vitriol in Internet chat rooms, blogs and over podcasts and talk radio. Everyone has a right to bitch and moan.
All of this has been exacerbated by an oppressive California heat wave that has turned the mild-mannered lady next door into a bitter, cantankerous hag with a hair-trigger temper. It’s a well-known fact that as the mercury rises, crime and murder rates increase. Personally, I’ve been putting a little extra into my normal sneers, rude remarks and overreactions. When human beings are forced to live in a boiling cauldron, they like to turn their own disposition to boiling and bitter. Scientists would say we’re mimicking the conditions of our surrounding environment. Others might say the race is composed entirely of self-absorbed jerks who don’t give a damn about anyone else.
I don’t think I have to tell you the subject Santa Monicans love to gripe and whine about the most. If Santa Monica were a poet, the homeless situation would be her muse. In truth, complaining about transients is the perfect gripe because it’s an ever-present problem that never will be completely solved. So for affected whiners with nothing better to do, there’s an endless amount of material to hash and gnash over. Some of these folks might not be poets, but they probably were drama majors in college: Their breathtaking descriptions of the problem besetting our city could convince an outside observer that this enclave by the sea has turned into some sort of tent city that might be more familiar in say, Mogadishu.
Last time I checked, the only permanent encampments and canvas tents downtown were those selling overpriced organic produce to yippy yoga moms a few times a week. So far, the weekly markets haven’t morphed into refugee camps, but I’m sure there’s some ad hoc community group monitoring the situation.
This isn’t to say there isn’t a homeless problem in the city. Undoubtedly there is. Undoubtedly, transients consume a disproportional share of resources compared to the rest of the population. But it’s also true that the issue is a perfect launching pad for civic-minded residents who just want something to complain about. And considering Santa Monica is one of the most expensive zip codes in the country — by median home value — it isn’t like we can argue about a broken stoplight on Main Street that, darn it, just hasn’t been fixed yet. We’re so privileged, so spoiled by our prime location and glittering assets that we’ve picked one relative inconvenience and blown it out of proportion.
There are always going to be mentally and physically destitute individuals, and a certain percentage of them are always going to be living on the streets. Always. So get used to it. That doesn’t mean you and I shouldn’t do anything about it,but it also doesn’t mean that we should devote our lives to stoking our egos and gratifying our individual need for attention by using the issue as a personal soapbox.
Mind you, I’m criticizing both sides of the issue here — the bleeding hearts who set up buffet-style brunches for the homeless and the hard-liners who want to crack down on the problem with militaristic force. You both need to tone it down. Why is it that the majority of Santa Monicans can live their day-to-day lives without getting whipped into a fervor about homelessness? Would your time be better served working quietly behind the scenes on policy and budget initiatives? Of course, there’s a time and place for public dialogue. But I’d submit that we’ve had our share of that for awhile to come.
Imagine if we had a “homeless free” zone in the pages of this newspaper for a week? I bet as much would actually get accomplished as any other week. Maybe more. Sometimes toning down the rhetoric and actually digging your heels in and snapping into action can be the best medicine.
So maybe we should all put a sock in it.Just for a little bit. Or at least until the heat breaks. (Seth Barnes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 3, 2006. Read the original PDF.