Funny you should celebrate graffiti in Charlottesville as I have begun to notice more and more of it. It is usually a sign of urban decay (along with the broken windows that Guiliani et al. have focused on) and is worrisome for C'ville. If we let our public spaces become the play ground of spray-paint artists I think we will regret it. Art is important to Charlottesville, but so are walls as they are meant to be. Graffiti as political expression (especially where free speech is endangered) is something else, but that is not what we have here.

Al Weed (electronic mail, September 8, 2000).