A TALE OF TWO CITIES

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdon, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

That is the opening paragraph of English Author Charles Dickens acclaimed "Tale of Two Cities," which was published in 1859, and has sold more than 200 million copies to date.

That famous paragraph raises the curtain on Dickens' epic depiction of the plight of the French peasantary demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the French Revolution, and the many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same period.
And those unflattering social parallels resonate through the ages right up to today, and the prevailing attitudes held, and actions taken, by most of our society and our government toward the citizens of homeless nation.

Now, the French and the English had different ways of dealing with their unflattering social parallels. In Paris, they had the guillotine. In London they had Old Bailey.

Here in homeless nation, we have two cities, that just like Paris and London are separated by a large body of water. And just like Paris and London, Both cities have social problems, and both exhibit unflattering social parallels in their attitudes and action toward those social problems.

Social problems like unemployment, poverty, and crime are rampant in our two cities, In addition to that, and perhaps, in part because of that, homelessness ranks right up there as another major social problem. And both cities in their way, have their own unflattering way to deal with their social problem of homelesslessness.

The French and English had their guilliotine and Old Bailey. We have County Commissions and City Councils and Workshops. And their attitude, and their action, and their and aim is the same. "Get rid of the problem." Not solve it. Get rid of it.

Now, These two cities have been wrestling with quite a dilemma for a long time. Homeless numbers going up, more street puppies pouring into homeless nation. Patience of the townpeople going down.

Patience of the townspeople going down, as in, they want street puppies off their lawns, out of their alleys and parks, off their benches, and heaven forbid, at least one hundred feet away from the front door of their favorite restaurant, or shoe store, or video arcade.

And the townspeople don't want us to ask them for money. Heck, they don't even want us to put on special colored vests and work real hard and sell a product to them for money.

For instance, we homeless nation street puppies are taking up way too much space on medians and corners, and interstate ramps trying to sell them a newspaper ...and on Sunday morning of all things, when they're all on their way to church!

And the townspeople of our two cities have an action ace up their collective sleeve. They vote.

They vote other prominent townspeople right on to, and off of, County Commissions and City Councils.

Which gives these so called prominent townspeople a social problem to hoot about, and then get their picture taken a lot, and maybe grovel enough to get enough voting townspeople snortin' mad enough to fortify some of the grimy lot of hooting, groveling , photogenic, prominent townpeople in a future election campaign for the top slot of the County Commission or the City Council.

Anyway, one of the cities' City Councils, buoyed up by the complaints of homeless people blocking their way into their favorite establishment, decided, enough is enough, time to make a hot potato, so they passed an ordinance which basically said "Off With Their Vests!"

Actually, the ordinance /potato basically said, "You homeless people can't panhandle or sell newspapers on our corners, medians, or off ramps anymore, hand over that vest! "

So, the clever homeless road dawgs in that other city, hid the vests and came across the bay, put the vests back on, and quadrupled the number of homeless people selling newspapers on our corners, and medians and off ramps.

Here is where it gets sticky. That other city. by passing that ordinance, had tossed their hot potato right into our hot potato pan.

Not even thinking about the social implications. Like, maybe not good to mix up road dawgs with street puppies.

So, yet another potential social problem lurked here. Chaos in the streets maybe. A real "West Side Story" adventure shaping up, you know, the "When yer a jet, yer a jet all your days..." kind of thing.

Then, the townspeople in our city became restive. And they thought, "Well, heck, the other city did it. Took back their streets and medians and off ramps. But, now those road dawgs are coming over here and blocking our way into our Wal-mart! Yikes! We gotta do something!"

So our townspeople called our groveling, photogenic, hooting City Council members...and County Commission members.

Ok, so our County Commission members met, Our City Council members met. And they tossed that hot potato around a little. But, no dice, couldn't up come up with anything.

Then, the other city even sent one of their helpful County Commission members over here to show our County Commission and City Council members how to do it. Still no dice. The whole thing was starting to look like Abbott and Costello'a famous "Who's on Third?" routine.

Anyway, our County Commission and City Council members finally did the right thing. They formed Workshops to study the hot potato, er, dilemma.

That's a way to give the hot potato some time to cool down.

And it worked, for the time being, that is.

And the County commission and City Council meetings in our city revealed something important, and meaningful....maybe even memorable. An ethic lurking there in the social dilemma.

There are actually ethical people in our hooting, groveling photogenic, lot who have a heart, and some common sense, and well....ethics.

Some of those people with a heart, and common sense, and ethics proclaimed they were not going to vote on an ordinance which would deprive homeless people of the meager income they had in this putrid economy by depriving them of the right to sell newspapers in this city. They were going to table that vote. Until the issue comes up again.

And it will. So long as there is one person who thinks it is offensive to have to pass, egads, a homeless person with a colorful vest on selling newspapers to people on their way to church, and one hooting, groveling, photogenic person lookin' for a vote.

In this ongoing tale of two cities, you can count on it.