Read Writing on the Wall

Scholarship and television offers to the “tagger” who scrawled Chaka on buildings, vehicles and city-owned structures some 10,000 times illustrate how pathetically misguided and shallow some members of our society have become.

Untold hundreds of diligent, deserving and hard-working, economically disadvantaged youths struggle for recognition and educational rewards honestly and honorably. Meanwhile, a publicity hungry kid with too much time on his hands, and such a limited imagination that he can only reproduce his “name” over and over again, is sought out by the entertainment and liberal educational community who fall all over themselves to “recognize the artist” in him.

As a college educator and professional performing artist, I have news for my misguided colleagues: Vandalism is not “art” and taggers are not “artists.” Those that would abet and encourage them (directly or with money) are not “patrons.” They are “enablers,” pure and simple.

A word of caution to law enforcement officers: Next time you catch somebody urinating on the side of a public building, don’t arrest him. He’s probably just practicing to be a urologist.

GARY BOLEN, Studio City