Evil

"The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones." William Shakespeare
"The evil that men do lives on and on... " Iron Maiden

Photo Friday this week has the theme of Evil. It is hard to find a photo that fits the theme well. To judge from some of the current entries I viewed, the other photographers are finding it a bit of a stretch, too.

I experienced two forms of petty evil today. The first prevents me from posting the photo I wished to choose for Photo Friday. The second was much more personal.

Regarding the first: I had taken a picture of some of the graffiti that has been littering my neighborhood. I thought it was gang-related and the gang activity where I live is a true evil. Well, it turns out the graffiti might be produced by young idiots who do not have gang links. However, they certainly think they are cool. I know this because they have a Flickr account and post the photos of their "work" that they have stolen from other photographers without permission.

This is what they write on their Flickr profile:

"Though many of our members who have pushed the name in graffiti hardest are cooling out during at the behest of the courts lest they spend actual time behind bars for painting (which would be pretty stupid) , we keep the culture alive. Blood in, blood out.

The photos here are mostly stolen. Our apologies go out to those who haven't recieved credit; we only upload here to save record of our work in case the compters it's saved on be damaged or stolen. That's happened before and much graff that's long met the buff has been sadly lost forever. If you want your photographic work credited, please email us and we will get to it.

If you want us to take down/pay you for use of your photos, stop being an asshole."

These idiots are responsible for thousands of dollars of property damage according to the limited sources I could find on the internet. But they think they are heroes and artists. I think we know better.

So I cannot post my photo because it will be stolen and used to glorify this petty crime.

Evil number two happened more directly to me today. I have had to ponder over what details I can post for privacy reasons and can only post vague details.

For the first time in my life, an individual called me a truly nasty ethnic epithet. It was a horrifying experience and I lost my temper in a disgraceful way. Perhaps I have had a sheltered life, but despite working nearly daily with the mentally ill for years, I have never been insulted in this way before. None of the drunks, schizophrenics, drug addicts, homeless and so forth was ever as rude as this "ordinary guy". And I may have used bad words in the past but I have never once used a racial or ethnic slur to another individual.

This day has really shaken me up. I'm not even sure I should post as much as I have. I hope tomorrow is a better day for me.