Can we finally admit that it didn't work?

The experiment has been going on for more than 50 years now.  It was obvious that it didn't work after the first 10.  I am talking about closing the state mental hospitals and dumping the mentally ill onto the streets.  Thus began a flood of homelessness.

The idea sounded good, release them to community based facilities, where they would receive care close to their homes and families, not in the snake pits that many state hospitals had become.  But in a short time those community based facilities first became for-profit businesses, squeezing out the treatment part to increase profit margins.  Snake pits worse than the state hospitals they were replacing. Then the funding for even those dried up.

What we have today is a patchwork of good, bad, and non-existent treatment, and none of it is designed to address truly long term problems.

There is no cure for schizophrenia.  For many, it can be managed with medication, but it doesn't go away.

So those with schizophrenia require life long treatment.  Not necessarily life long hospitalization, but neither can they be shoved out into the street with nobody checking in with them, making sure they are taking their medication.  We no longer have any system to do that.  Unless someone has a rich relative to pay for private hospitalization, they are out of luck.

Not all the homeless are mentally ill.  There are runaway teenagers.  There are people that used to have a decent job, but our economy has failed them.  There are people with substance abuse problems. And even among the mentally ill, there are probably many who with treatment could be re-integrated into society.

Rebuilding the state hospital system is not a cure-all.  It doesn't solve all the problems of homelessness and mental illness.  But it does something, which is much better than the nothing or almost nothing that we are doing now.

The old system had serious flaws.  I hope we have learned what we did wrong in that old system, so we can do better next time.  But even with all of it's flaws, it was better than what we have replaced it with.

We tried something else, and it didn't work.  Is there anyone who thinks what we are doing now is working better than what it replaced?  I mean really, anyone?

For all it's flaws, the state hospital system was a treatment of last resort for many.  It is time to bring it back.
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One more rock and roll

Last Sunday I went to my first stadium rock concert in years. I had been given the ticket by a friend or I wouldn't have gone. Looking at the lineup, well, it wasn't bad but none of the bands were ones I had been dying to see. At least that was what I thought.

The first band, Tower of Power, was pretty good. Next up was The Doobie Brothers. I had never seen them and I had never really thought all that much about them one way or another. As they played, I realized how many songs that I really like are theirs. It is often the case that I enjoy music and never have any idea who the artist is.

The next band was the Steve Miller band. I was most interested in them for some reason, because I had never seen them (I hadn't see Tower of Power or the Doobie Brothers either for that matter) and was curious. They started pretty slow. The first song very perfunctory. The second was a little better and then things picked up and it was a good set.

The fourth band was Santana. I heard them once, a long time ago, as the opening act for the Grateful Dead. For whatever reason I wasn't impressed and was not really looking forward to hearing them again. I was about to be surprised.

The band came out on stage and the drums started. For the next 45 or 50 minutes, they didn't stop. There was no "this next song is", not even a breath of air. Even when the guitars were not playing, the drums were going and the transition from song to song was seamless. Carlos Santana is of course a great guitar player, but the band he has put together was tight and inexhaustible. After that 45 or 50 minutes they finally stopped, said thank you and walked off the stage.

For two minutes the audience applauded, then the drums began again. As the drums played the musicians returned to the stage and they all picked up right where they left off. All the band members got their spots in the light during their 45 minute encore. The highlight was the drummer.

Cindy Blackman was an accomplished jazz drummer long before she joined Santana. And during that drum solo she showed how good she is. While drum solos at rock shows are OK, I have never looked forward to one, never been spellbound by one. This drum solo had 40 thousand people spellbound. When she finally stood up from her drum kit, everyone was on their feet. She got louder applause than any of the bands that preceded the Santana set. And moments after receiving that applause, she was cranking up the beat again, the band picking up right where they left off, churning out song after song.

Journey followed Santana. I kind of felt sorry for any band that had to follow that set. They were OK, but it was Santana that made it a night to remember, made me glad I came.

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