The Good, The Bad, The Chronic

Here at Real Change, we’ve told everyone for years that homeless people don’t all fit the stereotypes. Now it’s the government line. The stereotype is officially referred to as The chronically homeless, and the whole point of the government line is that The chronically homeless isn’t typical. So we have made progress.

Speaking of what’s typical, did I mention that I am a mathematician? We mathematicians love that people use “typical” and “average” interchangeably. We would like you all to also use the words “typical” and “median” interchangeably, the words “typical” and “mode” interchangeably, and the words “typical” and “kangaroo or, alternately, [insert optional crude expression]” interchangeably, so we can hear you call everything a kangaroo or, alternately, [optional crude expression.] Just for the fun of it.

Also I like to hear the word The whenever possible, even if it doesn’t belong somewhere, and even if its use is deceitful, misleading, or shovels policy goals under the rug. Because the word just makes everything it touches sound so Special.

In this case we are speaking of The chronically homeless as opposed to speaking of some people being more chronically homeless than others, or so-and-so is 7.5 chronic while his brother is only 3.8 chronic, etc.

It’s like talking about The up. Once you’ve decided that there is a The up, you don’t have to say how up is this or that up. Some up isn’t more up than other up. Everything is either up or not-up. The fact that all up is the same simplifies thinking about it, which is useful for people who don’t like thinking or don’t know how. “Which way to the ceiling?” “Up.” “How high is the moon?” “Up.” “How screwed are we?” “Up.”

In reality, though, there IS such a thing as how chronic is chronic, but it’s buried in policy papers if it’s been decided at all. The distinction between being chronic enough to be called chronically homeless, and not chronic enough, is not however made by looking at the homeless people themselves. It’s made by looking at budgets and figuring out how much money is available to house and serve people.

In other words, the distinction between the chronically homeless and the non-chronically homeless isn’t a discernible fissure running across the landscape. The chronically homeless don’t have “tells,” like nervous ticks or unusual fashion choices that give them away. They’re separated from the crowd by the fact that they have a history of costing more, by an amount to be determined.

It’s that “to be determined” that makes the use of the word The a lie. There should be a different class of chronically homeless for every different budget. But the policy makers want to shovel that part of the discussion under the rug. First you have to agree with everything they say about The chronically homeless. Then when the budget numbers are crunched they’ll tell exactly you who they’ve been making you talk about. Or they make an arbitrary definition of chronically homeless up front and don’t tell you that the definition was selected with an eye on future available funds.

The biggest problem politicians seem to have is figuring out that everything they have government do to fix a problem changes the problem.

If you spend all the money you have housing and serving The chronically homeless, denying funds to short-term fixes already in place, like shelters and public free meals, then the whole system will turn into an engine that creates more chronically homeless people by whatever definition you end up choosing.

Meanwhile, in real estate news, the word is that prices for homes will be heading up for the foreseeable future. This is called good news by our major local daily newspapers, as if there were an absolute or objective good in inflation, so long as it enriches the right people.

And politicians read about it in the Sunday paper, and think all is going well.

I Can Picture Butts Anytime

As you might expect, we here at Adventures in Poetry care a lot about freedom of speech. When I say "we", of course, I mean mostly me, since I am the one spouting off.

However an event has occurred that has made me concerned for the safety of Real Change from the enemies of free speech, everywhere. And do I ever mean everywhere. I am talking naturally about a recent High Court decision in Australia to let Joe Gutnick of Melbourne, Australia, sue the publishers of some website for libel in Australia instead of in the US where the website originated. Needless to say, in Australia libel is easier to prove.

Can you see my concern? Prior to hearing about this decision, nothing could have induced me to say anything that could possibly be considered libelous about Joe Gutnick of Melbourne, Australia or any of his compatriots. But now I have been tempted. I find myself uncontrollably entertaining entirely speculative thoughts about Joe Gutnick, about his personal and physical attributes, thoughts that if given expression might provoke litigation. I am even having these thoughts about Australians in general.

For example, there is Senior Sergeant Michael Purcell, police prosecutor somewhere in Queensland, the Australian state I have previously known mainly for its surplus of cane toads. Mr. Purcell has said, and I quote, "If we allowed everyone who wanted to drop their pants and moon police officers, we are undermining the authority of the police." Mr. Purcell was reacting to the claim by a citizen, a Mr. James Togo, to the effect that mooning a police officer ought to be protected free speech in Queensland at least.

Here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking an Australian court has said Australia has a right to tell me what I can say on the internet, even though I'm thousands of miles from Australia. OK, then I should be able to weigh in on the police-mooning debate in Queensland. I say, Queenslanders, go for it. Moon them all. It should be totally legal. If they can say you can't speak with your butt, what'll they say next, that you can't speak with your fingers? That would be tyranny. Are you going to allow tyranny in Australia? What, are you all wusses?

But it doesn't end there. Mr. Purcell had to go on to say that he could not imagine naked buttocks replacing the kangaroo and emu on Australia's Coat of Arms. I read that and immediately Mr. Purcell fell into the Joe Gutnick category in my mind. It was all I could do to resist saying bad things about Mr. Purcell, things that in all likelihood could be proven to be libelous in Australia, if only Mr. Purcell were willing to say, "Liar, liar, pants on fire," under oath.

In order to resist the temptation to libel Sergeant Purcell, I am right now imagining naked buttocks replacing the kangaroo and emu on Australia's Coat of Arms. Hey, it's easy! I bet you can do it too. Imagine a kangaroo. Imagine an emu, next to it. If you don't know what an emu looks like, think of Big Bird without all the yellow. Now instead of the kangaroo and the emu, imagine a naked butt. There you go, it's not that hard when you take it step by step. I believe that proves that Sergeant Purcell has the imagination of a bottle of ketchup.

Speaking of butting in (ha!) on other people's free speech issues, I've got to talk about the cross-burning case that just landed at the feet of the US Supreme Court, because it is very important, even though there do not seem to be any Australians involved, only Virginians.

I'm not going to say how the Supreme Court should decide this one because I'm no lawyer and I don't know, maybe there's a flaw in the Virginian law that I don't know about that needs addressing. But I am going to spout off about the free speech issue of cross-burning in the abstract.

I think if cross-burning is to be protected speech, then gun-pointing should be protected speech. They both mean the same thing.

In my opinion all would-be cross burners should go to Australia and moon policemen. Then this would be a beautiful world.