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# Silverstein has no idea
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/silverstein-has-no-idea-editor/
- Published: 2003-02-03T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T01:28:29.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Pico, #archive-import, Homeless

*By Todd Work Santa Monica*

Ed Silverstein has done it again (Daily Press, 1/29/03). He has written yet another bitter essay in which he finds fault in all of those who might manage to take a stand in life on either side of the fence.

It was only two weeks ago he lambasted Sean Penn for his visit to Iraq as self serving and narcissistic when in actuality Penn decided to go and see for himself what this pending war was really all about. Now Mr. Silverstein has decided all liberalism is too extreme and would prefer instead we join him on the fence top where we can do nothing and just sit and bitch about what we find fault in on either side.

His writing is at times as absurd as it is comical. Mr. Silverstein, you state, “Too many liberals descend from their ivory towers to tell the rest of us how to live, then at the first hint of darkness, retreat to safety, sipping hundred dollar cabernet and feeling good about themselves for giving a few bucks to that poor panhandler who is at that very moment shooting it into his veins, prolonging his misery and shortening his life.”

First of all, this bastion of liberalism you have painted doesn’t at all look like my one-bedroom down on Pico and Ocean avenues. And, secondly, I don’t know where you shop for wine (you should really try Trader Joe’s they have some great deals). But I will tell you I see a lot things down here by the beach. I walk each day to work early by the women’s rehabilitation center on Ocean Avenue across from the Rand Corp. There is a procession of some 20 or so homeless women who wait daily in the morning sun up against the building. I have seen the face of shame on some as our eyes never meet. I have seen mental illness while some murmur out loud to themselves, and I have seen stoic self-pride as others stand tall waiting quietly for the center to open. But, I have never seen a one “shooting their veins.”

Your broad-stroke essays are just what’s wrong with your writing style. You never support any of your diatribes with parenthetical data or even examples but rather lie solely in fictitious anecdotal little stories of absurdity. You write further that you feel liberals to be “condescending” and attack them for wanting to just “throw money” at problems. Well, some liberals have other names as well, such as altruistic and philanthropic, and I don’t mean the kind that donates just to the Getty. I never once thought it to be condescending when man, woman and child alike give their free time on many a hot Saturday morning to clean our beaches under the auspice of Surf Riders or Heal the Bay. It may be futile, but at least they did something. I did not see condescension on the face of the skinny, long haired kid who stood in the rain in front of Albertson’s on Lincoln Boulevard with a clipboard trying to register voters during the elections. At the very least... he did something. You ironically go on to suggest that “it is far better to cherry pick the ideas that seem to be grounded in reality,” and yet you offer us none.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 3, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/020303.pdf?ref=smdp.com)