The library gang

[ladyofastolat]

Quote of the day on the BBC news magazine:

"I am a member of Appledore library" - Devon teenager asked by New York social workers what street gang she was in.

I think this opens up a whole new world of possibilities in library marketing to teenagers...

EDIT: The above post was made before reading the story behind the quote.

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

The neglect thing is just beyond words. Are parents supposed to always travel in pairs, in case of incapacitating illness?

And frankly, if someone from New York came to Bideford and became ill, then I would bet my SOCKS that their temporarily unsupervised children would be offered every possible form of help by pretty much anyone, official, unofficial, and most particularly by people running the hotel they were staying in.

Seems to me, they went on holiday from their native culture of basically nice, if somewhat parochial and insular, people to a culture of what appear to be complete jobworth bastards.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

Yup I reckon you're dead right there. "Neglect" sheesh! Mind you the US is home to the view that thinks the unborn child has more rights than the mother ... barking!

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I am not offering expiation, but I can see how a culture of egalitarian bureaucracy would behave in the way the New York authorities did. I'd have hoped, rather than expected, that the hotel would have let the children stay in the room.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

If a culture, en masse, has lost the will or ability for individuals to offer help to children in a crisis, then there is no hope for them. If that's what egalitarian bureaucracy does, then maybe they should pitch it out of the window, buy themselves a nice dictator and get lessons in being a human being.

In Devon, I reckon they could have stopped a passer-by in the street and got more help. Which may have been the problem: I would guess that local kids would have put up more fuss at all stages of the process: the Devon girls, I would guess, politely went along with everything they were asked to do.