As Vandals Deface U.S. Parks, Some Point to Online Show-Offs

[cpzilliacus]

N.Y. Times: As Vandals Deface U.S. Parks, Some Point to Online Show-Offs

SAGUARO NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. – When Steve Bolyard checked out a report of black paint on some of the park's majestic saguaros – cactuses whose towering bodies and upraised arms are as emblematic of the American West as red-rock buttes and skittering tumbleweeds – he did not expect to see ganglike calligraphy covering more of them than he could easily count.

"It was too much,"  said Mr. Bolyard, a park ranger. The same sort of symbols one might see on a subway train were scattered along the spiny forest last month. Rangers eventually found at least 45 graffiti tags in the park, including 16 on the slow-growing and fragile saguaro, the paint obscuring part of the green skins where the plants store the chlorophyll to draw nourishment from the sun.

[corco]

Fuck Tucson; I'm so glad I got out of that hellhole. It's slowly being overrun by gangs.

[kphoger]

I fondly remember the saguaros outside Tucson.  By the way, only fools go horseback riding in southern Arizona in July.  Apparently I'm a fool.