Thursday, October 19, 2017

Tragic Inevitability






Mayor of Berkeley,
get this case solved pronto


This striking 40-year old Mother
who was deaf left a dental office
on Alcatraz in the Lorin district
and was induced to go to
the encampment that calls
itself a "Homeless Protest"
under the BART tracks where
the HERE/THERE sculpture is

She was found dead in a tent
the next day
Her wallet phone and
the people she met
were nowhere to be found

The denizens of the camp said
that they saw her in distress
and had her lie down but sought
no aid for her because
they are reluctant to
"deal with authorities"
They left her alone to die

This is precisely what
is so appallingly inhumane
about the new permissiveness
around letting the indigent
and the desperate
set up tent cities
in our open spaces,
Human nature under duress
turns ugly
no one protects the innocent
and the vulnerable


The core group and ringleader
are the same opportunists who
took over the legit protest
in front of the central
Post Office
They stayed over a year
long after the building sale
was canceled

Mayor Bates let them
stay and it caused
permanent bad blood and
a hostile iron fence to
half-block the pedestrian sidewalk

These guys who I spoke to
has little to no political stance
They looked like a mean hippie
biker gang from a Roger Corman movie

They were not at all familiar faces
to this 40 year resident
and merely selected
Berkeley because it is a soft target
for opportunistic desperados
who are territorial and no good
to the poor neighborhoods they colonize.

Lastly I don't see Berkeley
allowing tent camps
in affluent parts of town,
Let's start one in the round-about
over the Thousand Oaks tunnel
and see how long it lasts








No comments: