The Right to Poo and Van Jones Skepticism: Just Another Day at OccupySF
As I noted in my previous post with the self-explanatory title “Excrement, urine, vomit and tampons” mark new site of OccupySF, San Francisco’s municipal health department recently cited the OccupySF encampment for numerous sanitation violations. But an article that subsequently appeared on SFGate claimed that by noon on Thursday, OccupySF was “an utterly transformed encampment” that was no longer “a crash pad for chronically homeless people, with a contingent of activists thrown in”:
Suddenly, there were people who looked more like office workers than hippies strolling among the 50 tents pitched on the concrete and grass. Tourists gave high-fives to the campers. A group resembling yoga instructors set up a huge rug and spent the afternoon meditating.
Overnight, it went from Rainbow Nation redux to a kind of cross between an antiwar demonstration and a company picnic.
By happenstance I passed by OccupySF while doing errands later that same day (Thursday afternoon), and I took the opportunity the check out its latest location (my previous coverage of OccupySF had been at its three earlier locations, before it moved to the Embarcadero). But what I saw during my ten-minute visit just before nightfall didn’t jibe at all with the SFGate description of the encampment as “relatively tidy.”
We’ve been reassured that as of today there may be less human feces in the area — but there is still a serious problem with dog feces, which can be seen and smelled at various places around OccupySF. Many of the homeless or semi-homeless Occupiers keep dogs as pets (pit bulls being the most popular breed) as well as puppies that haven’t all been properly housebroken, and the owners either simply let the dogs do their business wherever they want, or take them on “walks” about 20 feet away from the tents for the dogs to relieve themselves.
The encampment is directly on top of some new bocce ball courts that the city had just installed. The area on the right side of this picture I found to be particularly malodorous, though I didn’t see any large steaming piles as I had on the other side of the camp (as seen in the previous picture). I think what happens is that people unwittingly step in the dog poop and then tramp it all around the camp.
As for the human feces situation: Almost every single item on the official OccupySF bulletin board concerned itself with the poop crisis (see following pictures for close-ups).
“Defensive posture on compost solution to fecal BC prob imposed on us. Consider: a.) self-defense b.) freedom of speech in re: Better system! c.) RIGHT TO POO!”
“RESPONSE TO TODAY’S BLACK P.R. Editor, the lack of porta-potties is equivalent to B.C warfare and Black Press. VI5 suggests to demonstrate WELL-MANAGED (Key: must be well-managed) composting of fecal matter. It is better than chemtoilets they refuse + good P.R. and better than BC warfare as well.”
I’m not entirely fluent in Occupese, so I’m not sure what the abbreviations “BC” or “B.C.” stand for in this context. “Black P.R.” and “Black Press” seem to be Occupese for “unsympathetic media coverage.” (As an aside: Can you imagine the uproar if the Tea Party used the term “Black Press” to complain about media coverage they didn’t like?)
“Composta Potty: need Toilet Seat = Good PR! REAL solutions!”
Zombie, that symbol has to do with another kind of piece.
Heh. But considering that it also says “Glide” over a heart, which is the logo of the Glide Memorial Church, SF’s premiere soup kitchen for the homeless, I doubt it has a sexual connotation, since Glide is theoretically at least a Christian organization.
I actually did a bit of searching to see if there was any other source for the “Y in a circle” symbol, and could not find anything. Reminded me a bit of both Onggh Yanggh and also City Lights.
Excellent reporting as always, O Undead One. (While I’m at it, Happy Halloween, too!)
I think the center stroke of the “peace” sign may have been left out for a reason. Whatever the origins of the symbol (I once read it was adapted from the position of the flags for the letter “P” in the International Semaphore Code), it looks like an inversion of the Nordic “Mann” rune. Upside down, it is the “Mann” rune inscribed in a circle.
Subtract the circle- and you have the form of the rune which the SS used instead of the cross on the graves of dead Waffen SS troopers. Which in the runic alphabet, is actually also the “Death” rune.
No, I don’t believe this bunch is generally aware of the resemblance, or the original meaning. But whoever subtracted the center upstroke from the inverted one might just be.
All through the Bush 43 administration, a “progressive” type down the street from me flew a “Peace” symbol flag upside down, no doubt as a symbol of his personal “distress” at having “Dubya” in the Oval Office instead of Saint Al. Somehow, I never got around to telling him what his “distress” flag actually meant. Especially to any of several local WW II Army combat veterans of the ETO. AFAIK, none of them “clued him in”, either.
Like me, they probably concluded that it was pointless to try. As P.J. O’Rourke has said, “There’s just no getting through to the highly enlightened”.
cheers
eon
Flying the US flag upside down is distress signal or request for aid/assistance/rescue.
Did you happen to notice anyone sitting nearby, blinking SOS or RESCUE ME in Morse code?
The churches have been sex crazy since the book “Honest to God”was published in 1963.
Glide Memorial does stellar work, but compared to St. Anthony Dining Room, they’re small potatoes on the soup kitchen front. I think Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul are also bigger, though you have to wonder if that’s a good thing or not. Glide’s programs for women and children are outstanding, too.
It would not surprise me if the Occupy SF crowd was getting fed at the soup kitchens, unfair though that seems to me when there are so many working poor in SF who actually depend on the kitchens to keep going.
Great report, zombie.
Here’s the source of the sign:
http://glidesf.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/img_0910.jpg
And if you look at the rest of their blog, you can see the people drawing them:
http://glidesf.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/come-march-with-us-occupysf/
Silly as they are, I actually have a great deal of respect for Glide Memorial Church. I work almost across the street from them and they tirelessly feed/clothe/care for/sing with/etc. the downtown homeless–it’s a thankless job and a totally lost cause, in my opinion, but they do it with a truly inspiring dedication.
Yuck! This had me laughing…. Absurdity meets Ab-turd-ity! Here’s more laughs on the topic: A Funny vid that makes fun of the whole mess with a hilarious Dinner Party (no lie!) it’s called Funny Occupy Wall Street Dinner!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z02HHKSd8pw LMAO
Maybe this time a cigar is just a cigar. And the upside down MB Symbol is a sign of Mercedes Benz distress because Daddy won’t come up with a new one.
Janis, is that you?
The fact that the Ukelele player is using a Capo is enough. These posers can’t even play a damn Ukelele right,let alone Occupy anything
and Remember Zombie, Peace Through Superior Firepower!
Yrgal
This is most certainly the first time in the history of the English language that “Venetian,” “yogini” and “ukulele” have all been used in the same sentence.
And also the first time I laughed upon seeing a pile of shit.
Kudos on both achievements!
Trying to decide whether that beats my same-sentence use of “y’all” and “schlep.”
But weighing Onggh Yanggh and City Lights … Zombie, you are clearly too hip for the room … er, plaza.
I’m going to a party as a bean sidhe … I may have to cobble together an “I’m pro-Zombie and I vote” button to wear in your honor, because you so totally rock.
Obama’s OccuPooper Army.
“Remember, remember the 5th of November…”
These ignorant lovers of Guy Fawkes make me wonder… In the future willl their ilk wear Mohammad Atta masks?
“…think Guy Fawkes is some kind of variation on Robin Hood, a hero for all to admire.”
They may also have gotten that idea from today’s New York Times, which described Guy Fawkes as a “folk hero”:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/fashion/guy-fawkes-mask-is-big-on-wall-street-and-halloween.html
That NYTimes column is filled with rank stupidity. It says “He failed, then killed himself to avoid execution, but became a British folk hero whose effigy is burned each Nov. 5, Guy Fawkes Day, a rough British counterpart to Halloween.” But he was burned in effigy each year BECAUSE HE WAS HATED, not because he was beloved. It is only in the last few years that communists and anarchists have tried to “flip the script” and make Guy Fawkes into a folk hero. And this NYTime article, wittingly or not, is part of that attempt.
Fawkes “Killed himself to avoid execution”?
Ahem;
“Show trials convicted the plotters, along with the Superior of the Jesuits in England, who admitted learning of the plot in advance by hearing the confessions of two of the conspirators. All were given the treatment reserved for traitors. Each was dragged to the gallows in a litter, hung briefly by the neck, and cut down while still conscious. The executioner sliced of the man’s private parts before decapitating him and splitting his torso.
“On a dreary day in January, 1606, Guy Fawkes met this fate. Broken by his tortures, his joints painfully swollen, he needed help to climb the scaffold. as the noose tightened around his neck, he stepped off into history.”
-Kelly, Jack. Gunpowder- Alchemy, Bombards, & Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive that Changed the World. New York; Basic Books, 2004. ISBN 0-465-03722-4 (pb). Chapter 8, “No One Reasons’, p. 129.
It says much about the NYT’s belief in their own ability to “shape the narrative” that they would print a confabulation that is so easily refuted.
cheers
eon
I saw a play about this a couple years ago – a fiction based on the real story wherein Shakespeare is hired to write a propaganda play about the gunpowder plot. He interviews the Jesuits in their cells before they’re executed.
It was called “Equivocation,” and it was, seriously, the best play I’ve ever seen in my life. (And I see a whole lot of plays.)
These guys don’t know Guy Fawkes from Guy of Gisbourne. All they know is “V for Vendetta” and its anti-establishment message.
for all that I enjoy the movie. I especially enjoy V’s waterfall of verbiage when he meets Evie.
“I encountered an apparent peace symbol that not only lacked its central leg, but was upside-down.”
It looks like an old New York City subway token.
The upside down, three pointed peace sign is vaguely reminiscent of the BYU football/athletic logo. Maybe they’re Mormon missionaries. Or maybe they’re good old fashioned clean living, Mitt Romney-supporting BYU alums.
But probably not.
As to the missing center “leg” of the peace symbol: I’ve had it explained to me that the center line is a misogynistic, phallic symbol and should be left out by all contentious feminists.
I’ve heard this explanation more than once.
The weird irony is, if the peace symbol really is based off of the semaphore flag for P, in order to do it without the lower leg, you’d have to be doing that cheerleader thing.
I’m not entirely fluent in Occupese, so I’m not sure what the abbreviations “BC” or “B.C.” stand for in this context.
Speculation… “BC warfare” means biochemical warfare?
I guess the #Occupiers are building Weapons of Massive Dung.
If they haven’t adopted it yet, let me nominate it. Up-twinkles anyone?
Instead of nominating it, you should copyright it, or trademark it, or whatever it is that would require them to pay you royalties to use it.
I stopped going to SF in 2007 after my wife was accosted by a transient who smelled like liquid sewer. We were there for a semi show in July.
Never been back since.
Wait for the composting toilets to built. There could
be some interesting “fireworks.”
I am old enough to remember outdoor toilets. They smell
from a distance because of the concentration of
urine and feces. They also produce methane gas which can
and will explode.
This could be fun.
This has Hollywood hijinks film written all over it, or perhaps Michael Moore will use it in his next “documentary.”
Can’t you see the reviews? “Explosive!” and “This behind-the-scenes look at the Occupy movement blows the lid off the composter toilet!”
The idea of Michael Moore using a composting toilet is disturbing. Michael Moore likely lays waste to most toilets he uses. To get as fat as he is, you’ve got to shove some serious garbage down your pie hole on a constant basis. Nobody in their right mind would want to be anywhere in the vicinity when Mr. Moore’s bowels decide to unleash their fury. But at least the typical toilet flushes. A composting toilet, however, collecting and fermenting Mr. Moore’s intestinal output under the seat might even be too much for the Occupy crowd to bear. It might even get classified as a weapon of mass destruction.
I think I’ve got the answer for them.
http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/6444/cookpooh.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=fztNCJy-GXI
BREAKING: we finally have a cogent, intelligible statement from a OWS leader on what it is the hell they want.
Up-twinkles. Totally up-twinkles.
The Glide Church soup kitchen must be feeding them. If they get bathrooms they will never, ever leave.
On Thansgiving and Christmas little old ladies from Mill Valley will be bringing them Turkey Dinners and all the local TV stations will cheerfully report it.
Well, with the weather hitting most of the other Occupiers, they could all go to SF where the protest would effectively end and they would all simply be seen as “locals”.
Just say “Oy!”
I wouldn’t hire a SINGLE one of these filthy, nasty, stinkin’ freaks.
’bout says it all, doesn’t it?
Ezra Levant and Andrew Breitbart on the Occupy Movement
“The right to poo”??
Normal people PAY for proper waste disposal, either directly through sewer bills, porta-potties, or septic field maintenance, or indirectly through rent to their landlords.
Cholera outbreak anyone?
Sadly, with the way these sites are run, I suspect cholera will be the LEAST of their problems. Good grief, these camps are a pathogen’s playground! These OWS dopes are claiming capitalist greed is bad, yet the alternative they present is disgusting! At least in a greedy capitalist system, you have working toilets and disposable paper with which to wipe your posterior when you’re done using it. Between the filth and the cooling weather, I shudder to think what’s going to happen to most of these people in the coming weeks.
Cholera maybe, pathogens probably, e coli definitely. The last is all it takes for food poisoning – and that’s seriously no fun.
In her book THE GRASS CROWN, Colleen McCullough has an interesting take on Pompey Strabo’s death. He’s camped outside Rome as a counterweight to Marian rebels, but he does not act, just sits with his army for weeks. Nor does the bumpkin from Picenum give a fig for camp sanitation – feces everywhere.
People on the Esquiline begin to die of fever, and they petition Strabo to clean up or move – he runs them off. When Strabo himself dies of the fever, people on the Esquiline steal his body and drag it through the streets.
I don’t think e coli can foul the groundwater and get into people’s plumbing in SF as McCullough postulates it did on the Esquiline – lots of taxes go to assuring potable drinking water in American cities. I think it’s just the camp kids themselves at risk.
I’d be happy to sit back and watch this experiment on these modern-day, know-nothing Luddites who smile when you say “organic” and curse when you say “chemical”. I feel bad for the local small businesses they’re bankrupting, though.
Should scare you these people have the right to vote
Most won’t register or be sober/motivated to do so but still….
Don’t worry, some Democrat front group will register them all and they’ll all vote – whether they know it or not.
Good point Art
Always found it curious why such a large percentage of the dead and inprisoned vote Democrat
You can’t spell Democrat without the RAT; their inseperable
Trademark the OY symbol so they have to pay you for it.
What a bunch of intellectually confused and misguided these OWS people are. North is south, east is west, the sun rises in the west, and they scoff at the Moon being too white on most nights.
OCCUPOCALYPSE NOW: THE POOPSTORM (starring Barry Obama and a cast of stinking thousands)
interesting they would complain about usual toilets and sewers for “composting” toilets. The introduction of modern sewage systems had about as much to do with extending and improving the life of the common man as anything else. Maybe matched only by development of vaccines. But then they don’t like vaccines either.
Ewwwwww! How can they stand it? I mean the locals! And similar in NYC. But we can laugh…. LOUDLY! This man made a FUN youtube vid that uses FOOD to make fun of the mess AND the movement! Funny Occupy Wall Street Dinner!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z02HHKSd8pw
It is great and just what we need to see! XD XD XD
could not but help to see a connection between the guy with Venetian mask and the stench of POO.
The long noses of the masks were filled with scented herbs to prevent the wearer from having to smell the stench of death and disease, many worn by doctors during the black plague.
cannot help but think the #OWS is a sort of plague as well, a contagious mental illness
Since Occupy will accomplish nothing I have nothing to say. This will be these punks memory of having done something great, just like abandoning the Vietnamese and sabotaging the war on terror have been for so many others. They will make their own reality… with the help of the Grass they seem to be able to afford.
Let’s look at the obvious, there are thousands if not millions of people going about their business just fine all around a handful of malcontents. May be if we ignore them they will go away or better yet clean up and start looking to get interviewed to actually produce something besides waste. If not to their liking N. Korea doesn’t have many banks, wall street or a carbon foot print for that matter. Sounds like UTOPIA (nowhere) doesn’t it?
no corporations either.
Of course there is no food, electric, bathrooms, iphones,
Subaru’s, pot, universities, vintage clothing (except mao jackets).
Heck they don’t even have cardboard!
So then, they’re twinkling about tinkling?
“Trademark the OY symbol so they have to pay you for it.”
It’s the symbol of Yogurt, and knowing him, he’s already trademarked it for merchandising purposes.
Oh, definitely up-twinkles on the upside down Mercedes logo.
Something about the combination of bad hygiene, human stench, hippie chicks and non-Western drum music brings to mind the old Beavis and Butthead episode where the boys get sent to the school nurse, “Dreama,” for their bad body odor. That a good cross section of Occupiers sound as articulate and well-informed as Beavis and Butthead is purely coincidental.
Clearly Zombie’s equipment for further reporting on Bong Hits for Barack, excuse me, Occupy [whatever] will need to include hip waders.
The longer an squat lasts… I would start looking for typhus, dysentery, and maybe for good measure cholera starting up and spreading among these dimwits.
I’m surprised it took this long for composting toilets to come up. I thought those dumb things were a lefty hallmark. Guess they didn’t plan that far ahead.
What gets me, is the amount of people that don’t think basic modern conveniences are evil and not good for society or “the planet”. What do people have against PLUMBING? All the old folks that I have talked to, that didn’t have indoor plumbing or electric when they were kids, speak warmly of the day of getting those things. There is a reason why people chose to be modern and to leave centuries of disease and filth in the past. Doesn’t occupy realize what happens when you keep pooing in the park? (and no the answer isn’t getting hassled by the “man”).
Funny how the tea party never had a problem with poo.