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In a news event of national importance that even the journalists involved do not appear to fully comprehend, Fortune magazine just informed us of a looming solution to the homelessness plague which infests the State of California.
To recap, California cities have so many homeless people pooping on sidewalks and in stores that "Poop Finder" apps have proliferated to tell people the latest poop forecasts - and allow the more public-spirited of them to alert the authorities, not that that merely scooping up poop seems to do much long-term good.
Mr. Trump has pointed out that untreated feces washing down storm drains into the sea violates EPA regulations against discharging toxic pollutants into the ocean. Oddly, for once the otherwise terminally-aggressive California environmentalists do not seem overly bothered by this particular violation, even though it is no doubt just as harmful to the speckled gnarf as anything else mankind emits.
In common with all other Democrat-mismanaged disaster cities, The Hill observes that this statewide environmental and public health disaster is fully owned by California's ruling Democrats.
Maybe the media will take California Gov. Gavin Newsom's own words to heart: "We own this issue. ... The issue of homelessness is a crisis in the state of California. It's happened on our watch, and we need to meet this moment." [emphasis added]
California, home of the Hollywood elite, is a liberal media haven. So it is no surprise the Trump administration's actions - to force California to finally prioritize its homelessness crisis - have been ignored. ...
Even if [Housing and Human Services] Secretary Carson and [Los Angeles] Mayor Garcetti don't reach an agreement, they've made more progress on the issue than we have seen in years just by giving this crisis the attention it deserves.
Giving the issue more high-level attention on top of all the prior California virtue signaling and media hand-wringing is all very well. We fear that the crisis is entirely too well-known in circles less inclined to actually help, who would rather use the opportunity to fleece longsuffering California taxpayers in keeping with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's timeless advice to "never let a crisis go to waste." How much more so, when the crisis itself is waste?
We've pointed out that the Homeless Industrial Complex in the city of Scat Francisco lives high on at least 76 organizations fulfilling 800 contracts with the city. And yet, somehow, despite countless billions being dumped in, the problem only gets worse, raising calls for yet more money to be spent.
At least The Hill pointed out that money is not the limiting factor.
Furthermore, the Trump administration has provided California more than $1.2 billion in homelessness assistance in the past three years. [emphasis added]
That's in addition to the billions of California tax dollars the state is spending.
We know from experience that no matter how much money they're given, the Homeless Industrial Complex will spend it without solving the problem - there's no money next year if we solve the problem this year.
However, history teaches that when something can't go on forever, it doesn't. Just in the nick of time, along comes Fortune, announcing that a solution to the plague of homelessness is at hand.
Despite, or perhaps because of, their best efforts, California will soon be fighting plague with plague.
The novel coronavirus is shed in the feces of infected people, which may help explain why it's spread so fast, according to Chinese researchers.
The finding of live virus particles in stool specimens indicates a fecal-oral route for coronavirus, which may be why it's caused outbreaks on cruise ships with an intensity often seen with gastro-causing norovirus, which also spreads along that pathway. More than 600 Covid-19 infections were confirmed among passengers and crew aboard the Diamond Princess, the ship quarantined for two weeks in Yokohama, Japan.
"This virus has many routes of transmission, which can partially explain" its rapid spread, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report Saturday.
... stool samples may contaminate hands, food, water" and cause infection when the microbes enter the mouth or eyes, or are inhaled," they [the Chinese CDC ] said.
... A virus-laden aerosol plume emanating from a SARS patient with diarrhea was implicated in possibly hundreds of cases at Hong Kong's Amoy Gardens housing complex in 2000. [emphasis added]
Chinese cities like Wuhan have open gutters which carry sewage in addition to waste water, and people have been known to save a trip to the loo by discharging waste matter directly into the gutters. We've seen similar arrangements in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Africa, and any number of backward uncivilized literally "s***hole countries." Alas, this same phenomenon can be seen throughout California and other similarly misgoverned Democrat "stanktuary" cities throughout the blue parts of other states.
Consider what happens when raw sewage flows down an incline or over a rock in the gutter - droplets containing bits of fecal matter splash up into the air, drying into particles caught by the wind. The virus spreads eagerly through the air. These particles can be inhaled directly into the lungs by passers-by who've never come near an infected person.
The WSJ reported that after testing 3,063 of the 3,711 people quarantined on the Diamond Princess, 634 tested positive for the virus, along with "a few" of the medical workers who visited the ship. That's a bit over a 20% infection rate, and it remains to be seen how many more of that select group will test positive over time.
Half the people who tested positive showed no symptoms at all, and many of the remainder had only a mild fever or cough. This makes early-stage virus sufferers into stealth carriers who are indistinguishable from seasonal flu patients without costly, time-consuming testing.
Chinese researchers have confirmed that a person who isn't showing symptoms can spread the disease, and it can take a long time before an infected person displays symptoms. To a degree, the degree of contagion depends on where the virus is. If it's in the lungs and the person isn't coughing, the virus may not spread well, but if it's in the intestines, some will come out whenever the victim goes to the bathroom.
Any individual carrying the virus in his or her intestines who flushes a toilet without washing hands first - in other words, just about all of them - is going to leave virus on the flush lever. They will convey it from thence to the doorknob without a careful hand wash, and from there everywhere else within range as people take their turn in the invisibly polluted loo.
It's going to be far worse in places like Scat Francisco where poop accumulates on sidewalks. This is produced and spread around by nearby homeless people who don't have access to hand washing, even should their mental state suggest the need to them, leaving the disease "Blowin' in the wind."
This isn't just a Left Coast phenomenon; it's becoming Big City Democrat business as usual. The New York Post reported on May 26, 2016, that the city council had passed the “Criminal Justice Reform Act” which eliminates criminal penalties for a host of anti-social acts such as public urination. On February 18, 2020, the Post reported that summonses for infractions such as public urination are down 48 percent since such acts were decriminalized - no surprise there. The need for poop apps can't be far behind.
Piles of human excrement on the streets is a visible crisis, but our nation also has invisible, long-term financial crises looming in our state and national budgets: we've discussed the looming train wreck of unaffordable old-age pensions that state and local government cannot shed due to union-Democrat collusion.
In addition to relieving the homeless problem, the virus may also return our pension systems to solvency because it is particularly hard on the elderly. The two Japanese Diamond Princess victims and the two Iranians who have died were in their 80s - an ideal time of death from an actuarial point of view, not too long after any taxpaying productivity ends but before prior to enormously expensive years in a nursing home.
Harmful as it is to our current global economy, the coronavirus may very well reduce both future health care and pension spending. Many elderly and homeless people suffer from other diseases which weaken their immune systems, making it more likely that they'll catch a severe case of the coronavirus and ultimately succumb to it. Based on the infamous aerosol diarrhea-spread vector observed in Hong Kong with the similar SARS virus, we'd say that the homeless are more at risk, but who knows?
As has been richly documented, many of the homeless are entirely devoid of any sense of public decency or order regarding where they relieve themselves. Human excrement is dangerous toxic waste in the best of circumstances. How much more so when it also carries an invisible, fast-spreading, incurable, and deadly plague to which very few are naturally immune?
We are reminded of the Californian small-business owners who are forced by government malfeasance to clean up the filthy infected feces of the local indigent. One hopes they have good health insurance, or at least access to suitable hazmat gear - though that wouldn't have helped the poor unfortunate citizen who encountered a deranged bum armed with a bucket of diarrhea he threw all over her.
We also note the longstanding historical connections between Scat Francisco in particular and the country of China - as well as the fact that Chinese airlines are still serving American cities nonstop from China. How many symptom-free arrivals are carrying the virus into the crowded warrens of Chinatown? If enough people die, the virus will relieve the California housing shortage and make the state a less attractive destination for illegals.
If - no, scratch that, when - the latest coronavirus plague gets loose in any homeless area, the Homeless Industrial Complex might well find itself out of homeless to "serve." The only question is - will they find themselves equally out of taxpayers to steal from?