I don't know what it means.

Which is what I could say about a lot of things, but this undecipherable sign, dripping blood red paint that defaced an otherwise perfectly nice public rubbish bin in the Hillcrest district of San Diego signals a soul who cares not at all for the community.  Don't think because of something I wrote earlier that I'm giving up ranting... and I'm definitely not throwing in the digital trash bin the half-written journal piece about religion that I mentioned yesterday.  I'm letting it stew and simmer before I finish it.  In the meantime I've decided try to figure out why the defacers of public property do what they do.  Some clearly stupid and meaningless behaviors are provoked. Lashing out suddenly at some offending gesture or obscene word is understandable, but the people who sneak around in darkness with spray cans of paint looking for clean surfaces to spoil apparently aren't acting impulsively against some sudden outrage.  What's that about?

The other pictures today are from the vicinity where the spoiler lurked... the last one, with the palm trees and bougainvillea, is the scene I pass every time I go into the street where I live, so I know there is beauty enough all over our city to inspire anybody to do good things.  For example, while I waited for a bus, I watched a lady take pity on a hurt bird.  When I first saw her, she was eating a banana; then when she was about to take the last bite of it, she stopped and dropped a small piece in front of the bird.  The bird ate it. 

I said to the lady, "That was a very nice thing you did," and she smiled at me and said her mother taught her never to ignore any creature that is hurting.  We had a quarter-of-an-hour to talk before our bus came to take us to Mission Valley.  She's from Florida.  A man waiting with us joined in the conversation saying he was born and raised in Mississippi. I said I was born in Arkansas, and the lady offered the opinion that Southerners generally don't like to add more hurt to creatures that are already in pain.  I asked, "Why do you think that it so?" She said she thought it was probably religion that makes the difference. She said she is a Baptist and that her faith has a lot to do with how she treats people... and even birds and other animals.  The man, who was also African American, said he goes to church every Sunday... "I always have," he said.

She was so nice... I didn't want to spoil the moment by telling her about hearing a man who was a deacon in a Baptist Church say that black people are just like mules.  He said they don't have souls. 

I didn't say it because it would have sounded too strange out there on University Avenue, but I thought to myself that the Dalai Lama probably wouldn't have lasted long in that man's Southern church. He would definitely have loved the lady who fed the bird.  I wonder what he would have thought about the deacon.  I wonder what he would have said to the deacon.

Perhaps I can go on tomorrow with that writing about religion.  I've got to find a way to do it without ranting.

I took a picture of the bird, and I asked if she would mind if I got a picture of her.  

She said she didn't mind and went right on talking about doing the right thing... even to birds.