Fight Crime in the Mission: Defecate Where It's Appropriate!
So we waiting for the No. 27 bus in Mission on the corner of 24th and Bryant when we spotted this very odd sign. The message, very clearly, is: 1. It's better to do you business on the pot than crouched in the street, 2. It's better to throw bottles in a recycling container than on the ground, 3. it's better to exchange greetings with your neighbor than gunfire.
Woah! Thanks for the warning!
We decided to look up look up the organization that is trying to reform behavior by a simple pictorial depiction of good behavior vs. bad. Check out the Barrio Libre Web site for yourself here. It seems the campaign started in 2006, with a rash of violence in the Mission. A community group formed focusing on the "broken windows" approach to fighting crime, the Giuliani-esque notion that small acts of defacing the community such as leaving a steamer on the sidewalk can lead to a feeling that anything goes, including gang violence. (Note the physically impossible stance of the defecating man in the photo. Folks who see fit to drop a deuce on the street corner don't usually come equipped with agility that would awe a Beijing acrobat.)
If only they'd posted this sign in front of my Mission District abode. The congregation of human excrement amassed there during one marathon session a few months back lacked only a fecal Sir Edmund Hillary planting a flag atop the foul mountaintop.
Sorry if you haven't finished your breakfast yet.
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