A Double Whammy

I just heard that two people were shot at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. and that the gunman apparently has ties to hate groups.

This news comes on the cusp of a disturbing event I recently experienced. Every morning, my beloved dog and I walk in part of a city park that few people know about (and we want to keep it that way). There is a stormwater creek running the lenght of the park. On each end of the park, there are wooden pedestrian bridges that make it possible to cross the creek. Several months ago, I noticed some graffiti on one of the bridges. The graffiti consisted of what could be gang symbols - I am old enough to have no clue about such symbols. I just figured that someone was bored and made their way to that part of the park to find a graffiti "canvas". Since, few people use that part of the park, I didn't bother reporting it.

On Monday morning, I noticed some additional graffiti on the bridge. The additions included three swastikas. Even though my guess is that the "artists" were high schoolers and not members of hate groups, seeing swastikas outside of an historical documentary or book is pretty disturbing. I did inform a friend of mine that happens to be the director of our city's park system. He called the police to investigate and then had a staff member paint over the graffiti.

The "artists" are, at a minimum, ingorant or, at a maximum, bigoted. Let's hope that they are merely passing through a phase that will end soon - for their sakes and for ours.