Helping Those In Need

Recently there was an informational session held by the Health and Human Services Committee in regards to the proposed eligibility changes for Section 17 services through Mainecare. In the Mainecare Benefits Manual the service is defined as follows: Community Support Service means a rehabilitative service that is provided in the context of a supportive relationship, […]

Gone is Gone, But Funerals Differ

I recently opened the newspaper to see that someone I knew had died.  This knowledge made me stop for a moment, mostly because he was young and his death seemed not only unexpected but wrong, somehow. Within a day or two there was news of the death of another person I had known, but not […]

Are We All Suffering from Societal PTSD?

  Sometimes I see so much anger and intolerance that I start to wonder that it may be all connected, and that the collective damage upon us results in a general condition not unlike PTSD. PTSD stands for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Soldiers, rape victims, and children of wars can all experience this.  I am […]

Homelessness as a Dying Canary in Our Coal Mine

From the Los Angeles Almanac (on line): According to the Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty at the Weingart Center, an estimated 254,000 men, women and children experience homelessness in Los Angeles County during some part of the year and approximately 82,000 people are homeless on any given night.  Unaccompanied youth, especially in […]

Hate Crimes

  I’m at least a second degree news addict and so I find it pretty easy to get discouraged on a regular basis.  Actually I guess it’s almost all the time.  Violence is everywhere and all the time.  And with the exception of totalitarian driven genocides in several countries within Africa and the Middle East, […]