12:40 pm
I was walking to catch a train when I saw something I’d never seen before at Union Station – a guy sitting down and eating something!
Homelessness is Terrorism?
It turns out that we are more afraid of homelessness than we are of terrorism. Even with all the uber-security necessary for air travel these days, LAX is still a more welcoming, friendly, and accommodating place than Union Station. At LAX we’ll screen for terrorists, but at Union Station, we’re downright paranoid about the homeless. At LAX it will take you a few minutes to get through a TSA checkpoint and you might have to take your belt or shoes off. At Union Station, nobody (except the rich) can even sit to eat a meal that they buy there because we’re so terrified it might give a homeless person a place to sit.
And then there’s this guy!
Where did he get a chair?
A chair to sit in
I realized later what I was looking at. I think this is a Trimana employee on his break. Like everyone else, he knows that human beings are not allowed to sit at Union Station, but since he works there every day, he’s gone and kept a folding chair in the back somewhere so he can drag it out and actually sit down for a few minutes during his break.