The Travels and Rants Journal

1. “Tell me, do you really think you go to hell for having love?
Tell me, and laugh at thinking everything that you’ve done is good?
I really need to know, after soaking the body of Jesus Christ in blood
I’m so tired of America
I really need to know”

-Rufus Wainwright, “Going to a Town”

2. From washingtonpost.com, a story about a poor sad hummer owner who can’t understand why anyone would take a bat to every window, a knife to each 38-inch tire and scratch into the body: “FOR THE ENVIRON.”

“The thought of somebody vandalizing it never crossed my mind,” said Gareth Groves, 32, who lives with his mother in a three-story home in the 3400 block of Brandywine Street NW in American University Park. “I’ve kind of been in shock.”

Now, as Groves ponders what to do with the remains of his $38,000 SUV, he has been the target of a number of people who have driven by the crime scene in his upscale neighborhood and glared at him in smug satisfaction.

“I’d say one in five people who come by have that ‘you-got-what-you-deserve’ look,” said his friend Andy Sexton, 27, who is visiting from Arkansas and has been helping Groves deal with fallout from the crime.

Of course I don’t condone vandalism, but…

Groves, who grew up in the District and works in marketing for a local radio station, said he wanted the car in part because he is starting a company, Washington Sports Marketing, that is “image-based.”

Maybe he’ll remember that image.

But I doubt it.

3. Photo from this spring. Bryson City, NC: