Santa Rosa is Evil « Media Vulture

Santa Rosa is Evil

07Sep08

Reunification of Courthouse Square

Courthouse Square, the heart of Santa Rosa, doesn’t actually contain a courthouse. And it’s not really a town square. And, if the truth be told, it’s not much of a “heart of the city” either. [They are planning a] reunification plan, which is estimated to cost around $5.3 million.

Insane Situation: Sonoma County’s Mental Health System is Nothing But Crazy-Making

Nowhere to Go

Sonoma County’s mental healthcare system made headlines recently over the closures of two acute psychiatric inpatient facilities. Last June, the county shut down Santa Rosa’s Psychiatric Emergency Services, known more familiarly as the Norton Center… And this February, Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital closed its psychiatric hospital on Fulton Road… That leaves the county with no inpatient care for people facing acute mental health problems.

With at least three police killings of mental health patients in less than a year, the county is experiencing a mental health crisis of its own. Families of two of the victims have filed suit in federal court. Chass’ family is suing the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department, and both the wife and mother of the late Richard De Santis, a bipolar man killed by police in September 2007, are suing the Santa Rosa Police Department.

One of Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite locations: Sonoma County

The degraded feelings or moral depravity suffered by Hitchcock’s aggressively pathetic brood of malefactors appear in the form of divesting other people of their basic humanity. In Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) justifies his serial murders on the idea that the widows have outworn their right to stay alive. How did he develop such a feeling?

…the entire movie keenly illustrates the sham of orderliness working through Santa Rosa, the quintessential American suburb. A seemingly benevolent form of stunted feeling for people is exhibited at the dinner table (everyone sits at the same place each evening) where Mr. Newton and Herbie Hawkins (Henry Travers and Hume Cronyn) dream up exotic ways to murder people.

for more, go to Everyone’s a Critic…