We don't have newspapers; we have walls

(My translation of a clever piece of graffiti I saw in New Belgrade the other day. I don't remember the exact wording in Serbian.) A couple of posts ago, I mentioned the photos of Vojislav Seselj that every so often will crop up on the walls of Kragujevac like toadstools on your lawn, and my childish desire to vandalize them. (Sometimes I want to change the words "Seselj Serbian Hero" so they say something obscene; other times I think a handlebar moustache would be sufficient.) Around the third anniversary of the death of Zoran Djindjic, the Democratic Party started its own picture campaign, and as I write this, reproductions of Djindjic's face occupy more territory than Seselj's.

1. Optimistic interpretation: Honestly, it makes me feel good to see that someone is at least paying lip service to a progressive political vision.
2. Pessimistic interpretation: Then again, the hard right represents itself with the image of an indicted war criminal, and the left chooses the image of a dead man. These aren't political leaders, they're ikons.
3. Ironic factoid: Radical Party graffiti are also common in Kragujevac. On Tuesday, I was in Novi Sad, and I saw Democratic Party graffiti for the first time. Novi Sad's city government is run by the Radicals.

With apologies to William Saletan's "Human Nature" column on Slate.com.