Death Of A Shoplifter & The Downward Spiral of San Francisco

Apathy Is Not A Game Plan

I know I have to get off this topic, but it’s difficult to ignore as you watch society crumble around you. I remember when you could walk into the airport and go directly to the gate. You could get on a BART train and the worst that could happen to you was you would fall asleep and miss your stop. I can not imagine being relaxed enough now riding BART to fall asleep.

Since I began this series I’ve heard from my followers that it is an epidemic across the country from the small college towns to the urban cores. I guess the next question to ask is what are we going to do about it?

First of all, we need great leadership on this issue. We need a list of solutions to choose from. We need to support both sides on this; the homeless and the terrorized citizens that are witnesses to the ruin of a precious life.

When I first moved to San Francisco I would walk up to the people sleeping on the street to make sure they were breathing. I would think this strawberry blond young man belongs to someone. He was once someone's baby. Yesterday, I saw a man like this and I just walked on by because there was nothing I could do, but it hurt like hell to do so.

When I consider the tragic altercation at Walgreen I am struck by the implications. It impacts so many people on so many levels. I walked by there and the guards are heavily armed still, even though there were flowers and a tribute to the young man who died. It was chilling.

On this walk, I went into Nordstrom to say hello to my former coworkers. They were sad but resigned to the necessity of the store closure. They were also very shaken by the killing at Walgreens and who can blame them?

Now there is controversy on both sides because they’ve decided not to charge the security guard who killed Brown. It’s simply tragic all around. You can read more about it here.

Apart from needing great leadership to solve these crucial problems we’ve reached a tipping point where we all have to be activists who work to return our college campuses and cities to the next generation. Apathy is not a game plan.

Looking for a silver lining here? The bright spot is IKEA is moving in on Market Street. We will see what happens next.