Good: Pacific Palisades, which has exactly one dedicated LAPD car, had more than eight on Sunday, with their emergency lights on, sitting in the Will Rogers State Beach parking lot. Police were outside enjoying the fresh salt air as they chatted with one another. They were stationed to prevent people from using the bike path or parking lot.
Bad: People who generally travel to the beach to escape small apartments that house many people (and sometimes more than one family) were not allowed on the beach, even with promised social distancing. But there were bikers and even a runner on Pacific Coast Highway, because they are not allowed along the ocean.
The beaches were closed to the public. LAPD were stationed at entrances and along the bike path.
Good: During the Covid-19 shutdown, workers from Beaches and Harbors has been stopping by several times a day to clean the bathrooms at Will Rogers beach at Temescal Canyon. When asked if they were telling people not to come to the beach, one worker responded, “We don’t do that; our only job is to make sure the bathrooms are kept clean for the homeless.”
Bad: No one else but the homeless are allowed on the beach.
Good: People wear a face mask when interacting at the grocery store, generally keeping a six-foot distance and washing their hands when they return home.
Bad: Some people don’t understand that a face mask is not a vaccination, and so they call the police to report that someone doesn’t have on a face mask while jogging.
Good: Families schooling, eating and working together.
Bad: No parks open, which means kids are playing, riding bikes and skateboarding in the streets. Councilman Mike Bonin spoke about trying to close some streets so that kids could play in safety. How about just reopening a park or two and getting kids off the street?
Good: Some people have really pulled together and volunteer to buy groceries and other goods for seniors or people in need.
Bad: People like the person who sent this letter to some residents. Why not go talk to the person, rather then send letters?
Good: People who do whatever authorities tell them to do.
Bad: People who do whatever authorities tell them to do.
Good: People who question everything, including politicians (Trump, Garcetti and Newsom) and the media.
Bad: The 1963 Stanley Milgram experiment. In a 1974 article (“The Perils of Obedience”), he wrote: ‘The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations.
“I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist.
“Stark authority was pitted against the subjects’ [participants’] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects’ [participants’] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not.
“The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation
Sue –
Just a thought experiment (NOT advocating for/condemning any other COVID-related details!): A person walking on the beach is approached by police and told to exit the beach immediately. The person (who is not homeless) calmly responds “I’m homeless, and I’m looking for a bathroom.” How would the officer respond? He cannot question or disprove the person’s assertion. My theory is that the cop would leave, and the person would continue walking. Keep in mind – this is only a “What if?” scenario!
This isolation is clearly giving me too much time to think, but Bonin’s whole “the homeless can use the beach but no one else can” policy is simply insane.
Amazed at the wasted Police and other public resources directed to protecting all of us from citizens from the open air. There is NO Science that supports the current restrictions and from what I have observed, people are very aware of social distancing to the extent neighbors are crossing the street to avoid each other. Our elected government officials are the ones that demonstrate no faith in their constituents to do what is right. They also refuse to even speak to the economic impact of the quarantine but rather continually bombard use with the same public health announcements as if we are all children. L.A. County can begin to open up if we follow the recommended protocols which 90% of us will!