Ugliness....

Today while walking home from a shopping expedition I came across the above truck. It's a graffiti clean up truck and I was happy to see it. One of my frustrations with Europe is that graffiti is way too prevalent and really messes up old historical sites. (Duh!) While the building above isn't hugely historical we've seen some places where the graffiti does destroy historical buildings and sites, and is quite destructive, ugly, and just plain sad. Take the recent assault upon the Muslim section of a French cemetery by Neo-Nazis




or in the Jewish cemetery in Lyon, France.

These are but two examples of a very prevalent problem. I don't know exactly where I'm taking this other than stating the obvious: It's rude, cruel, hostile, immature, obnoxious and destructive. I guess that's the point of vandalism and that makes me sad. So, to see that there's such a thing as a get-rid-of graffiti truck did make me happy. Fortunately Alessandria's graffiti, while present, is less than what we've encountered in Milan, Vienna, Turin, etc. Also, much of the graffiti here is only slightly political (anger over financial issues) or often something like "Chiara ti amo" or an attempted drawing gone awry (nothing like the complex works in Vienna). Nonetheless, I hope they will use the graffiti destruction truck much more.