11 January 2005

Those scruffy kids

Earlier this year, I ran into an artist whose online journal I used to read. Being surprised to have recognized her, I couldn't think of what things I liked about the journal, so I rather dopily told her just that I enjoyed it without saying why.

Well, I discovered her new journal recently, and this rant is the sort of thing that I liked.

They gather their camping gear or a bag of random sentimental possessions and come here, in droves, where they have heard they can live for free on the street.
...
If you're so fiercely free and independent, why are you trying to sleep on the porch that someone else pays for? Uh huh. Right. Go home to mommy and daddy, or go sleep at the church. Oh wait, you can't do that, there are real homeless adults there, and they scare you.
Now I'm unusually patient with these folks, who I encountered in droves in Berkeley. I figure that some of them are running away from situations more horrendous than I can imagine, and many of the others will be returning to mommy and daddy soon enough, with both parent and child much the wiser for the experience.

But still, but still. She hit the nail right on the head, there.

Update: Queen Skarre, the artist and provocateur in question, comments with her experiences of dopey punk-ish anarchism as egocentric justification, to which I say indeed indeed.

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