Photographer under attack for photographing pothole victim

[Don Simon]

So, municipal authorities don't do their job, nobody gives a damn and the only guy to do something to help the situation gets attacked and accused.

I was expecting this to be followed by "... business as usual".

 

[darin3200]

We should all get "Free Liu Tao" t-shirts and make giant banners and send hate letters to the government. :riot smiley:
...and a riot smiley!!!

Ok, but we will protest in Canada, I wouldn't want to protest in china :meh:

EDIT: and now I have to make riot smilies, I will make "peaceful protester" "police in riot gear" and last but not least "smilie with bandana over their mouth throwing a molotov cocktail"

OH YEAH

 

[Alexandra]

these are gonna be hot!!!

...and hey, we've got our own pothole drama going on here in Cn. It's like "oh, ****, I hate our roads!" "-We have roads?"
They closed a tunnel for about 5 months and everybody knew it was rather a rocky trail... when they opened it back, thre was nothing changed, seriously, the potholes were still there, so wtf have they been doing in there? changing light bulbs?
"Hey, how many monreal road workers does it take to change a light bulb?"

ok, back to China, now.
!!!!!FREE LIU TAO!!!!!

 

[orangetree]

that picture kills me its hilarious... id say use 2 hands next time and maybe he wouldnt have duffed it... LOL

 

[orangetree]

If all they have to show in the news is a pothole victim, then real crimes must be wayyyyyy down, im moving to china LOL

 

[JTHphoto]

I understand the "end defines the means" theory. But come on. As humans we use common sense to make our decisions. I understand that he did this to prove that someone can get hurt because of the municipality's lack of duty.
He could have used his camera to take pictures of the pothole and show it to the municipality. I do not know how his conscious allowed him to photography such a hurtful accident. For all we know, the guy could have broken his neck and spine. I guess this one man's ultimate extreme suffering , according to the photography, is worth proving his point. Which really isnt a valid point. I dont need to burn my hand twice to know that fire is hot and that driving blindly into a pothole will be painful. The photographer has no soul. He could have avoided it and been a hero. Hero infront of the people for saving the (his) people and hero infront of the government for being a smart citizen who saves his fellow man and contacts the municipality. Instead of cause such a havoc politcally.

This whole debate is really interesting to me. I know I personally would not have been able to sit in wait for someone to biff it, but sometimes the only way to get anything done is to wreak havoc "politically". I don't want to get too crazy with with hypotheticals but who's to say he didn't notify the "municipality" and they ignored him?

Our community griped about speeders on our road for years and that we needed stop signs or speed bumps or more speed traps or something and nothing ever came of it until a young boy walking home from school was killed by someone speeding - there was a stop sign up within a week. Who's the hero here? What about all the citizen's that brought this to the attention of the municipality prior to the accident?

This photographer put the situation in the spotlight and got a dangerous situation resolved, that makes him a hero in my mind. if a cyclist had to take a little humiliation and scrape some knees & elbows to get it done, that's unfortunate but he can take comfort in knowing he played a roll in saving more people from the same accident (or worse). And I bet he'll be wearing a helmet from now on when riding one handed in the rain (cautiously avoiding large pools of water...)

 

[Alexandra]

Our community griped about speeders on our road for years and that we needed stop signs or speed bumps or more speed traps or something and nothing ever came of it until a young boy walking home from school was killed by someone speeding - there was a stop sign up within a week. Who's the hero here? What about all the citizen's that brought this to the attention of the municipality prior to the accident?

In comparison with this case and considering the impact the pictures will probably have, i say that the bicycling guy's few bruises... (can't we just give him a name, too? what about Tian?)... so Tian's few bruises, as i was saying, are a very minor threat and and a quite reasonnable sacrifice for the sake of society. As Jason said, It's sad, but that's what it takes.

People just can't get rid of that pseudo-humanism of "the poor Tian hurt himself, that's bad" and of only looking at the individual. I don't mean to get any political/theological stuff in here, but there has to be something like placing the comunity's inetersts above the individual's. I don't mean we should all get sadistic and go harm people all around for the sake of some supposed "community" which is not one anyway, I'm just saying that we should admit that s**t happens and sometimes we can get some some good out of it.