Slog
News & ArtsTuesday, December 15, 2009
City Seen in Ballard
Posted by Christopher Frizzelle on Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 10:08 AM
A reader writes:
This is a photo I took last night of a sign posted in the Ballard Square building at 2232 NW Market.Maya
7
What's wrong with this? Poor people make me uncomfortable.
This is just what Pat Buchanan suggested back in the mid-90s. If you make it a crime to be homeless, then we can solve the homelessness problem pretty quickly, at the same time helping the economy by increasing the profits of the privatized incarceration industry.
Go for it!!
****NOTE FOR THE IRONICALLY-IMPAIRED: THE PRECEEDING POST WAS INTENDED AS SATIRE. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO AFFECT ANYONE MAKING UNDER 200% OF THE FEDERAL POVERTY LEVEL. IF YOU FOUND THIS OFFENSIVE, I PROMISE TO BE DEEPLY ASHAMED OF MYSELF VERY SOON.****
This is just what Pat Buchanan suggested back in the mid-90s. If you make it a crime to be homeless, then we can solve the homelessness problem pretty quickly, at the same time helping the economy by increasing the profits of the privatized incarceration industry.
Go for it!!
****NOTE FOR THE IRONICALLY-IMPAIRED: THE PRECEEDING POST WAS INTENDED AS SATIRE. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO AFFECT ANYONE MAKING UNDER 200% OF THE FEDERAL POVERTY LEVEL. IF YOU FOUND THIS OFFENSIVE, I PROMISE TO BE DEEPLY ASHAMED OF MYSELF VERY SOON.****
8
There's been quite the brouhaha over bums acting up around this part of town. Not so much the homeless, but the bums that have been drinking, fighting, pissing, shitting, stealing all around Ballard and burning down Greenwood.
I'm actually surprised that the real version of that sign isn't more prominently displayed around Ballard.
I'm actually surprised that the real version of that sign isn't more prominently displayed around Ballard.
10
Not to worry - if Obamacare passes, people who can't afford health care will be thrown in prison. See? Problem solved. No more poor people.
11
At least the sign-writer was smart enough to recognize they lack authority to prosecute poverty. Any un-caring git can persecute poverty...
12
I presume the sign was written by someone with a wry sense of humor. It reminds me somewhat of this epigram, posted on the gates of a cemetery in France (during the upheaval surrounding the Bull Unigenitus):
De par le roi, défense à Dieu
De faire miracles en ce lieu.
De par le roi, défense à Dieu
De faire miracles en ce lieu.
15
Damned if that isn't a near-perfect example of Seattle Tolerance in the written word.
"We're accepting, welcoming and compassionate as long as you're white* and at least middle class."
*Yes, I know the sign didn't say this, but it's kinda implied since everyone knows the homeless are really just half-breed trash from the Kent Valley.
"We're accepting, welcoming and compassionate as long as you're white* and at least middle class."
*Yes, I know the sign didn't say this, but it's kinda implied since everyone knows the homeless are really just half-breed trash from the Kent Valley.
16
To be p.c. at the Ballard fair, this sign should be posted in the Scandinavian languages for a people who once knew homeless impoverishment and loitered unsuccessfully on the New World's lip, oxymoronically naming Greenland.
19
I'm not generally approving of kicking the distressed while they're down and out, but the bums camping the BECU ATM are almost uniformly some of the most gawdawful miserable motherfuckers you'll ever meet.
22
@20: The serial comma is not inherently redundant. In this case, NOT having one serves to imply equal weight and symbiosis between loitering and sleeping, while setting poverty into a different category. (Accurate, but inadvertent.) If you intend your litany to be evenly weighted AND mutually exclusive, the serial comma is preferable.
23
Ah yes, the year I lived in Ballard. The homeless that live in Ballard, literally live. in. Ballard. They aren't urban nomads, and can definitely be territorial, though they don't panhandle as much as Belltown (and I'm not counting the corner of the Ballard bridge off-ramp). Most people that live there and actually walk around the town center there know or at least can recognize them. Send an intern to go hang out at Mr Spots Chai House with them if you want an interview over how they feel about the sign. Careful though, they will engage for the cockblock if they feel the need (I think it has to do with the boredom and need for attention).
However, last year there was a new influx of what I would more term pseudo-homeless or had very questionable homeless credentials. For example the newbies were selling a different class of drugs entirely and way overpricing the booze they were buying for minors.
However, last year there was a new influx of what I would more term pseudo-homeless or had very questionable homeless credentials. For example the newbies were selling a different class of drugs entirely and way overpricing the booze they were buying for minors.
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