Modern Day Bear Baiting...

Ok, so last night I got on the bus, said hello to the driver, then sat down. I was aware of a person to my left across the aisle staring at me so I deliberately looked ahead-NEVER engage these people in conversation....surely everyone knows that? Except that apparently they don't. That day's weirdo was a man who was obviously under the influence of something, and he was staring across at me and yelling loudly about needing help, begging someone to help him. Now you may think that I was being very mean for staring ahead and ignoring him, but let me explain; he was just another sad, drunk/drugged up human being who is all too common in today's world...rambling sometimes incoherently about his various woes; his lady who was pregnant but was drinking every day, then crying, then laughing, then talking about his old days "robbing banks and stealing motor bikes from the Hell's Angels" etc and so on. I make it a rule never to get involved with this type of person. Don't get me wrong, I'm as compassionate as the next person, even more so if I can be. I sponsor a little boy who lives in Africa, I donate each month to a further four charities, I recycle, and have set up a recycling box in the office, whereupon I bully everybody there to put  their stuff in it, instead of in the bin. But I will not get involved with drunken/troubled people on the bus, as they are usually the cause of their own troubles and I'm afraid I would rather use my efforts elsewhere. A young man sitting nearby started engaging the weirdo in conversation, and I realized he was filming him on his iphone-another one for Youtube I'm sure. And I thought to myself, amusing as it was, isn't this just a modern form of bear baiting? It's kind of sad to be exploiting this person I think. Sure, he probably made the choice to drink or abuse whatever else was in his no doubt overloaded system, and he's probably wholly responsible for the state he's currently in, but I felt sad that the young man felt the older man was a form of entertainment to be played with. Of course, seeing people like that is maybe a warning to others to be a bit more careful with their own lives, but it's sad to see. The weirdo never realized he was being filmed, although he did tire of the conversation and started shouting and swearing and the bus driver politely told him that "Sir? This next stop is yours." After he had gone another passenger warned the young man not to provoke this kind of person in the future, because you never know if somebody would pull a knife out or where the situation would have escalated to. So, once again it was a somewhat exciting ride home, but it's pretty sad how often you can see this type of person anywhere in the world......