Rant: How to Prove Your Worth to Walgreens

Dear Elizabeth, I will preface my true remarks by disclosing that the writer of this piece is a dear friend of mine. By the way, this means that I DO know him and have a perspective which is different than yours and a true understanding of the intent behind the article. He does not need me to defend him. I choose to do so because it appears that your perspective is colored by recent, understandably upsetting events in your neighbor. And after all, isn't life all about perspective? The author of this piece is a fine, generous, intelligent and caring man. The article simply is showing a disenfranchised woman and her further embarrassment due to her lack of resources and the way she is publicly humiliated by those with authority. Do you really think most people, the ones who have power and the ability to make a difference in the lives of people like this woman,would even notice her and others like her if it were not put into print? I do not see this article from the vantage point of further disenfranchising her - I see it from the viewpoint that says, "Look what happens to those who have no power and few resources. Let's do something, people!" He is putting out there, Elizabeth. THAT is his job! To print/write/edit that which is important and note worthy! If what he prints is not of value to you, you do have the right and it is expected that you will desist in further patronage of the publication at which you are offended. I am well educated with a master's degree and am a social worker. I say this merely to put my credentials out there, so you understand that those who are dissenfranchised are my business and my life. I find it paradoxical that you would do the very thing you accuse the author of, in that you chastise him and belittle him publicly when you do not know him and, obviously, did not read the article with the clear mind it requires. I am sorry to hear about the aweful event that must have been very frightening for you; however, thank goodness that no lives were lost and no one was harmed. May the rest of your day be better, and may you truly think before you make future disparaging remarks that are untrue and quite frankly, offensive.

(Please note: I did not say one ugly thing to you, and it would have been quite easy and in some ways satisfying to do so.)

I'm pretty sure loss prevention isn't really supposed to do anything until you have actually walked out the door anyway. It isn't actually considered stealing until you have proceeded to leave the store with your unpaid item(s).

Mom?!

Oh, btw, how do we know you didn't make this up? Or take it completely out of context>> No sources, no nothing, just a douche making fun of someone and thinking they're so cool, when you'd need a cool transplant to make it up to tool. Oh, yes, if you want a real story, you should look into the shootout we had not far from there, at Broadway and Montgomery, where about 26 shots were fired, at 2:18, automatic weapons from what I hear, but NO COVERAGE at all. I guess they don't want to scare the tourists,. The perps were, of course, East Bay gangbangers, and what was most egregious is that they didn't hit any of their targets, but hit a lot of parked cars and the building I live in. Now, that's newsworthy. Making fun of someone who may be mentally ill makes you look like the Biggest Douche in the Universe.

Wannabe journalist: Gormless, no class faux hypster making derogatory judgemental comments about someone who is probably far more intelligent, more educated, and in all ways a better person than the author of this idiotic piece. Get a topic, lightweight, this wouldn't make the cut in a high school newspaper. And when you are finally forced to support yourself, fail at that and end up in your mom's basement, just remember what goes around comes around, and I'm sure those folks observing your behavior will have quite a lot of nasty things to say about you, too. But it won't be journalism and will have no news value, like this piece. You should work for the SFBG with your "skills"