Thursday, June 10, 2010

Intermediate Urban Living: the Midterm

Our friends had an interesting urban encounter last week!

The cast of characters included:

Three aggressive men who had cornered a street person and were threatening to beat
the crap out of him.


Now that sounds pretty bad, of course. Immediately, you are thinking "those three aggressive men are bad. I don't like them." But then there was:

The street person, who had just urinated on the three men from atop a parking garage.


As events unfolded, the street person kept making mild slurs at one of the three men who happened to have dark skin. This did nothing to calm them down.

This being the City of Roses, the scenario would not be complete without:

An earnest but arrogant young man who kept saying that he wanted to "stop the violence."


Now our friends found this to be an ethically interesting situation. They found themselves deeply sympathetic to the impulse of the aggressive men -- to wit, to lay a beating on the guy who had peed on them. But, they also didn't want any actually bloodshed to occur. And although that theoretically put them in the camp of the young man -- ie., wanting to stop the violence -- they also kind of secretly wanted to see someone lay a beating on HIM.

Discuss.

6 comments:

Rebel said...

Were the "three agressive men" police officers by any chance? This is Portland afterall. =/

Elaine said...

Oh, dear. How about just calling the police? Aside from the 'assault,' I am guessing that the homeless guy was drunk as a skunk; how else to explain the terminal stupidity?

For some reason, my Google identity keeps disappearing on this site, and I am caught in some kind of loop whereby I put in Username and Password, only to have a verification word that I must enter. Then I get an 'Incorrect Password' message--and I know it's correct. Any ideas?

The Calico Cat said...

Too many Microbrews in one town...

DrSchnell said...

Put all three in an ultimate fighting ring, and let 'em duke it out on pay-per-view TV, then use the proceeds to fund homeless shelters.

Jenners said...

No bloodshed. The street person is probably being punished enough already.

Aviatrix said...

I recommend that the victims of the initial assault retaliate in kind, and pee on their assaulter, while completely ignoring the earnest young man.