Graffiti shows need to defend our spaces

As I took my monthly visit into town recently to stock up on winter reading, this old man was astonished at the splattering of graffiti now adorning our small town.

I've lived in Bonner County since 1957 and it suddenly feels like one is entering the dirty streets of Los Angeles or Seattle. Several businesses downtown were hit with black paint, the bypass bridge, and the old JC Penney at the Bonner Mall, up so high it's like a pack of maniacal monkeys have swarmed our town and left their waste behind. And under the train bridge leading to City Beach is a deplorable contest of racist hate speech and pornographic doodles.

This isn't art, it's pure trash. None of these paintings has even the slightest bit of artistic merit or prudent message, other than saying "Enjoy the decline" or "There goes the neighborhood." I have written before about the "broken windows" theory, and all this graffiti will in short order beget yet more graffiti if it's not dealt with swiftly and severely.

If you see one of these rattle can rascals decorating a public or private space, I urge you to fight back by spraying them with bright orange marking paint so they get a taste of their own medicine. Or even better, administer a spanking. Am I the only one who wants to defend our spaces and kick diversity to the curb?

GEORGE MOONEY

Sagle