April 9, 2018

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Cloudy morning.

Cloudy afternoon.  With snow.

Feather on the sidewalk.

I mentioned a few days ago that we are getting some grid enhancement.  Yay.  It's been a long time since I took this pic.  Writing this post on May 11, and one of those metal things is still below this telephone pole.  Maybe I should call the utility company.  These can't be cheap...........

Um.  Spotted this as trash on the sidewalk.  I don't generally pay that much attention to the trash I pick up.  But this is odd.  Closed ziplock, with clean paper, and small bits of something hard and dark -- aquarium gravel, maybe? -- inside the bag.  Ok, that's weird.

Walking on.  I find another one.  And another, and another.  I think 5 altogether.  With different messages, which I come to understand are hate propaganda.  Groovy.  In MY neighborhood!

When I got home, I called the police.  The officer I spoke to was attentive and promised to send officers to pick it up.  Good.

When they showed up, they didn't want it.  They said someone else had already called, and "detectives" already had an example of the trash.  Given that spreading hate speech is not a crime in this country (SHAME ON US!), the police did not want to accumulate more stuff to have to catalog and store.

I'm not a judge of what it's important to catalog and store, but something that seems to me likely to have fingerprints if not DNA is something worth storing, to show a pattern of bad behavior later, when the dirtbag does something that IS a crime.....  But what do I know.

I looked up this group on the Southern Poverty Law Center's website, and it's a known group, associated with what happened in Charlottesville, and also other places.  Dirtbags!

SPLC has a "hate watch" section where a random person can report this sort of thing, so I did that. 

Sheesh!

In my town!  In my neighborhood!

I was talking to a neighbor, who said she thought our neighborhood was a stupid place to put this sort of thing.  I asked why, thinking that disaffected youth are everywhere.  She said "Because in our neighborhood it's more likely that someone will be picking up trash than that disaffected youth will find it, and the nasty stuff will end up in the garbage."

Hmmm.  Good point.  Trying to imagine youth picking up trash off the sidewalk.  Basically failing.  And disaffected youth?  Picking up trash in the 'hood?  Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.    No.  Smoking by the basketball court in the park, maybe.  But picking up trash?  Not a chance.

Still.

Disturbing that people are spreading hateful stuff.  Clearly intending to make people uncomfortable.

At best.

I decided I wanted to inform city council, and the mayor.  Because I thought they should know.  They were even less interested in it than the police, but I feel like I did what I could.  And three of them did get back to me.

I hate dirtbags.

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