Defacing Antiquity

People are odd. Not just me. I am also referring to tourists who do stupid things while visiting scared sites. Take the Roman Colosseum for instance. Two American tourists were arrested the other day for carving their initials into Rome's ancient Colosseum, before posing for a selfie.  Sigh...a selfie is more valuable to society than the Colloseum? Well, in our world of techie addiction it may be to those morons. Anyway, the two women from California, aged 21 and 25, inscribed a "J" and "N" before being caught. Haha Maybe the judge should sentence them to clean all those "Call Mary for a good time" messages that are scrawled on the walls near men's toilets in public bathrooms. take a selfie of that! 

In November 2014, a Russian tourist was fined 20,000 euros and given a four year suspended jail sentence for carving a 10 inch "K" onto the wall of the Colosseum. Three other incidents of vandalism were reported in 2014, of the six million people who visit. It seems small, but such vandalism was far rarer in previous times. And vandalism like that in churches is unheard of. So why do idiots deface sacred shrines? I mean, besides their stupidity as a contributing factor.

Part of it is the me generation thing, that people think they are entitled to please themselves before pleasing society at large.  And there is also a difference in perception between an old ruin and a pristine ancient church or modern museums. Museums are treated like churches, sacred places where there are things of great value. Whereas the Colosseum is an incomplete building which has already been robbed.....so idiots crave their initials and take selfies to show to everyone on Face book. They know not what they do is wrong because the thought of it being so never enters their minds..

Maybe those fools just provided a teaching moment for the other nuts out there. News comes to us that the radical Islamist group ISIS's  is systematically destroying  ancient monuments in Iraqi city Mosul, as well as the archaeological site of Hatra. Hmmmm I wonder if they will post their selfies of their conquests.