Inept Photojournalist

Today I would have had three great pho­tos if I’d had my cam­era with me. The emp­ty-sock­et­ed win­dows of the Schofield Build­ing on East 9th and Euclid, (it looks noth­ing like this any­more), a sod­den couch and smashed bigscreen TV sit­ting in the mid­dle of a vacant lot next to a shut­tered porn shop on West 25th — like some­thing out of The Wire — and a fes­tive­ly dec­o­rat­ed run-down with the words “Mer­ry Chrit­mas” [sic] sprayed on the win­dow. See­ing all this in my first Cleve­land snow­fall of the sea­son was appro­pri­ate. There are signs of pover­ty every­where you look. You can ignore it, mock it, or give it a hand, and whichev­er you choose, it prob­a­bly says a lot about how you treat Cleve­land.

Most of us should choose the third choice more often, I know I should.