Winter 2014
By George Turlow
...To say that after more than 50 years (click here) of history Isla Vista is at a
crossroads is too kind. Isla Vista is stuck in political gridlock and civic neglect.
It is now the fifth largest community in Santa Barbara County, far ahead of
Carpinteria and Lompoc, and yet its citizens have the least amount of political
control of any urban area in the state.
crossroads is too kind. Isla Vista is stuck in political gridlock and civic neglect.
It is now the fifth largest community in Santa Barbara County, far ahead of
Carpinteria and Lompoc, and yet its citizens have the least amount of political
control of any urban area in the state.
Isla Vista has gone through booming development, ugly riots, invisible
demographic changes, and a long history of special reports and studies, mostly
long forgotten and ignored. Little seems to change, other than the names of
Pardall Road restaurants and the style of bicycles that clog its few main
arteries....
If a city is surrendered to blight, there is only one path that follows, regardless,
of commercial development. If people and their quality of life is left out of the
equation the moral content of communities deteriorates.
...The collapse of the Isla Vista RDA meant locals had to rally this past summer
to save the Isla Vista Neighborhood Clinic building from being sold by the state
for commercial development. More importantly, it means that new funding for
traffic, safety and aesthetic improvements in Isla Vista has evaporated....
people. Why do we need cops at all?
The population of Isla Vista is about 7% of the county’s population, but
close to 25% of all serious crime in Santa Barbara County occurs in Isla Vista.
That figure includes burglary, robbery, grand theft, sexual assault, and other
violent crimes.
Many of these crimes result in injury, and sometimes death. In addition, other
calls for paramedic services are due to alcohol poisoning, alcohol related falls,
and other accidents; such calls are all too frequent. Often police officers or
sheriff’s deputies are the first on-scene, and are an integral part of the
emergency response system.
There are many officers, deputies, firefighters and paramedics who work very
hard toward the safety of residents of and visitors to Isla Vista.
Just for the record: UCSB students account for about 60 % of I.V.'s population
Just for the record: UCSB students account for about 60 % of I.V.'s population
and 35% of its crime....
What is so different than Aurora Colorado in 2012? Guns everywhere and a
young man's displaced identity into violence?
May 24, 2014
By Adolfo Flores, Rosanna Xia, Richard Winton
...Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown (click here) said a video titled "Elliot
Rodger's retribution" "appears to be connected at this time" but would not
elaborate. Brown called the shooting "the work of a madman.”
The video appears to have been made by a young man who identified himself
on his blog as a student in Santa Barbara.
“I’ll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you. You will finally see that I
am in truth the superior one, the true alpha male,” the man says on the video,
sitting in a car.
On the six-minute video, he talks about feeling alienated and rejected by
women....
Yep, sounds like a great reason to kill innocent people with absolutely
nothing to do with his social ineptness. How old was he? 19?
Holmes sanity plea is in question, too. These guys are NOT insane, they are
deranged within their lifestyle. Closed off from the world, alone in their self
identity and violent. I would never expect any of these young men to be
successful with women. They are social outcasts for the strange lives they lead.
The Trow Report
In the wake of the Isla Vista riots of 1970 the President of UC commissioned a
7-member panel (which came to be called the Trow Commission) to study ways
to “eliminate or ameliorate the causes of unrest in Isla Vista.” The panel
concluded that UC Santa Barbara had to take a more active and aggressive
role in creating stable civic institutions in the community, improving housing
and living conditions and ultimately taking a high profile in terms of building
and land use in Isla Vista.
Almost 45 years later those recommendations seem as current today as then....
There is no social engagement by these young men. They are isolated and build
a world dictated by their passion for violence. They are always misunderstood
and blame their social alienation on 'judgement by others.' They don't know
how to laugh at their own 'social two left feet' nor engage how to move out of
the awkwardness of 'growing up' even at that age.
The closed world of 'private violence' is a real problem for the USA. It results in
domestic violence when there are women and children within the home and
when there is no domestic target it turns to the street and strangers for an
outlet.
Young people need to have enough of an income to engage socially in clubs, in
running clubs, fitness centers and places where hobbies occur such as a quilting
clubs. Our society is not healthy. Not in the way that removes the cloak of
lonesomeness enough to actually move into 'social risk taking' where rejectionis the only bullet through the heart.
Our young people, especially our young men, are not prepared to be 'resilient'
to social rejection to move past it and eventually navigate successfully through
it. Lonesomeness in a world created out of adrenalin powered violence is too
easy as a retreat. It is too convenient to 'be a man' based in guns and death. It
is too acceptable an identity with a ready made political clout that insures
welcome among strangers only to be left empty to personal comfort.
Seven people dead. If he only knew and cared about at least one of them
enough to find compassion in life rather than anger. The rewards for social
growth in our young men are not there. The Lone Wolf is becoming the standard
enforced by guns and violence. A gun is a powerful friend. Unfortunately.
