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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dwight E. Karlsen who wrote (8751)	2/28/1998 12:35:00 AM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 20981

Dwight, the connection to Clinton is that Mahoney was a former intern at the White House. Even though she was probably not being boinked by Billy, she may have discovered something at the White House. It was reported around that time that someone was going to come forward with something of interest to one of the investigations of the Clintons. My own personal opinion is that there is probably nothing here, unless the report that Monica refers to Mahoney on the tapes as well is true, in which case I would be fairly intrigued. But it certainly does look like a hit, doesn't it? San Francisco has the highest monthly stipend for indigents of any city in the United States, so many of them are attracted here from other places. Interestingly enough Seattle has very comprehensive homeless programs, with substance abuse treatment and a variety of programs to get people evaluated, housed, and basically back on their feet if that is possible. If I were homeless, I would definitely go to Seattle. Until recently, however, much of our Golden Gate Park was a very wild and secluded area for year-round camping, and there were lots of neighborhood business districts for panhandling on its borders. During Mayor Agnos' administration, there was something called Camp Agnos in the plaza by city hall, with hundred of permanent campers. Since then, Mayors Frank Jordan and Willie Brown have not had very enlightened homeless policies. As you would expect, there is a liberal political movement to feed them, but a lot of people believe the homeless are being enabled to stay that way. Actually, although it is hard to believe, there was an organization called Food Not Bombs which was feeding them very healthy, vegetarian food from vans in different places around the city, but they were also keeping the issue in the press, making our local politicians feel pressured and uncomfortable. So guess what--it is now illegal to go around in vans and set up feeding stations. The churches can still operate soup kitchens on their own premises, however. Obviously, the problem is very complex. Some of them are able-bodied, and many make somewhere from $20-100 a day panhandling. During the eighties most people gave them money, but now many of us have stopped. There are homeless shelters, but not enough beds, and many of the homeless do not want to sleep in shelters. This is a situation which was caused by such a huge combination of factors--the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, a lot of not quite right veterans coming back from Vietnam, a drug epidemic, the loss of single room only housing in the eighties and cheap housing since then, and throwaway children--that it is sort of unreasonable to expect a city to solve the problem. San Francisco also has the largest percentage of AIDS victims anywhere, and we have had to develop a county health department full of epidemiologists, etc. to deal with that. For such a nice and picturesque place, we have a lot of social problems, and they are really difficult ones. And I am not sure that everyone realizes this is a big town, really, not much of a city. We have a population which I believe is static at about 744,000, not even a million people to support all this civic largesse!!!