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As exhausted as we at the Clog are by the seemingly endless protest at the Nuclear-Free-Vegan-Save-The-Trees-Zone (satirical and probably factual representation here, thanks to the SF Chronicle), we found this surprising parallel to the rude, crude and socially unacceptable– in anywhere but Berkeley – behaviors of the tree people: the homeless.
It makes sense to us – neither appear to have jobs, homes or showers, so they do what they can: squat on someone else’s property.
The Chronicle’s article points out just how little security guards at San Francisco’s Transbay Terminal actually do to serve their employers’ interests – unless ignoring the de facto homeless shelter is in the Transbay Terminal’s interests. The homeless who reside there aren’t cited for defecating or urinating on the building’s floors, nor for loitering or spending the night: only for letting their feet leave the floor.
And while toilets for floors are certainly a good enough reason for us to take BART to San Francisco instead of using the free (with AC Transit Class Pass) F line bus, the vagrant population seems eerily familiar to those who reside in privately-owned public places on our side of the bay, like the oak grove at UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium.
The odd community the tree people have formed with the UC police officers isn’t quite as passive as that of the Transbay Terminal, but maybe that’s because the homeless, unlike the tree people, aren’t fighting for anything other than a warm place to rest.
Either way, both parties are–for the most part–equally irritating, equally unsanitary and equally taxing on the communities who have to deal with (or ignore or take pictures of) them every day.
Image Source: Shamim Pakzad, Daily Cal
Guards, homeless form odd kind of community at Transbay Terminal [SF Gate]
Meyer’s Take: Thursday, September 20, 2007 [SF Gate]
Campus sideshow overshadows facts [SF Gate]
Friends in High Places [Daily Cal]
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