About a year ago, I bought a big puffy raincoat sort of like this picture but in a blue color.  People said it looked like a sleeping bag, and it really was too much, so I put it in the trunk of my car and decided to give it to a homeless person on the street.

But I always seemed to be walking or taking the bus when I saw someone who might need it--until this past week, when a guy by the Safeway at Taraval asked me if I could spare some change. 

I looked into my wallet and tried to find the smallest bill.  I found a dollar and gave it to him.  He thanked me and God blessed me the way people on the street so often do.  I felt bad about having tried to give him so little, and then it occurred to me that I could give him the raincoat in the trunk of my car.

"Would you like a coat?" I asked him, this man who was wearing only a sweatshirt and some sweatpants--and fentanyl.

"Yes," he said, and I got the coat out of the trunk of my car and gave it to him.

"It's kind of like a sleeping bag," I told him.

He thanked me again and God blessed me.

Later I wondered whether it would be to cumbersome for him.  Would he wear it at all?  Would he sell it?  Maybe he would find someone sleeping on the street and give it to hm.  

 

This photo is not connected to George's Donuts and Merriment except in irony.

The person holding this box of donuts is protecting themself against COVID but not the empty calories, sugar and fat in donuts!  

Three friends and I were planning a lunch-getting together, and one of them suggested the new West Portal spot George's Donuts and Merriment, which I was also excited about because I love West Portal and like to support new businesses there.  Then I found this article from the SF Chronicle: 

  https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/georges-donuts-hims-trump-donation-20049321.php

I can understand business owners wanting to do business with leaders whose policies they don't support in order to try to change policies, but look at this:

Dudum posted a photo on Tuesday of the Hims & Hers chief operating officer posing at the inaugural festivities with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s controversial pick to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“Our shared commitment with @POTUS, @RobertKennedyJr, and other leaders to address the US obesity epidemic will help millions of Americans with the chronic conditions too many are struggling with,” Dudum wrote on X. 

 Do people committed to ending the US obesity epidemic open cafes specializing in donuts, probably the worst food choice for health because of the high amount of sugar, fat, and empty calories?

 

I just wrote a letter to Sam Whiting, who so aptly covered the People's March this past Sunday, January 19.

Dear Sam Whiting,

Thank you for your report on The People's March.  I now have my very own People's March tee-shirt, which I bargained down to $15 since that was all I had in this "rotten system of capitalism."  I just hate platitudes, even when I believe in the cause, and I'm too tired and old to overthrow the American government, so hearing "The people united will never be defeated" really irked me. Couldn't they get their platitudes to rhyme? How about "The people we needed will never be defeated" (even though they were) or "The people united should be--not so divided"?

Anyway, I joined SDA (Senior and Disability Action) for as long as I could stand it.  But it bothered me that the first talk spoke of how the powers that be  were getting filthy rich and asked, "But do we ever get a raise."  This was too soon after the hotel workers' strike, and I just wished they spoken instead of how much more CEOs get than do the workers under them.  Is it 400 times more  in the US' rotten system of capitalism?  In Europe's rotten system of capitalism is it only about 65 times?  I really want to know.

Thank you for illuminating the  living and the dead.

Tina Martin

Good illustrations of San Francisco Vistas!  The first photo is the SF sun setting on 2024 at Ocean Beach, where Jonathan, Christiane, and I toasted to the end of the year.  The second and third are of the SF sun rising on 2025 at Grandview Park.