San Francisco, città pazza

 

 Typical NYC Subway Train in 70's

I know that this could happen in any city, but somehow it seems appropriate here in the Peoples' Republik:

Greg and Christy Baciocco, who have run NuStar Heating and Metal Supply on Otis Street since 1989, are resigned to their graffiti curse. Sometimes they get tagged two or three times a week. And don't tell them to put up security cameras. "The guys who are doing it look right into the camera," Christy said. "They are not concerned at all." They must clean up the wall or face a city fine, so the Bacioccos bought paint so they can clear the tags themselves. That civil effort was recently noticed by a city health official. She notified the couple that keeping paint on the premises in gallon containers would require them to pay a hazardous materials fee.

 Judge Scalia recently confessed that he felt thwarted by the Constitution sometimes, because his instincts were perhaps more reactionary than the Founding Fathers' text allowed. Me, too. Vigilantism appeals. And all that fuss about "cruel and unusual punishment." Were it up to me, these thugs would be put in the stocks and thoroughly graffiti'd and then thrashed. Then we'd turn to the City Fathers (and Mothers!), with their endless laws and their overpaid bureaubots.

I lived in NYC in the 70's, when it was a hellhole. Two things helped to demoralize the population: the massive graffiti, all over everything. And the junked and stripped stolen cars, again, too numerous not to see. Some folks thought the graffiti was art, but it sent the message out to everyone that they were powerless and living in a shithole where barbarian teenagers got to represent back to them who they were. The Broken Windows theory is true.

From the online edition of The Chronicle, SF's local tree-killing paper. HT to faithful Chronicle Reader FamilyMan.