Waiting

The dolphin show at the MN Zoo remains in abeyance after Dolphin Allie's calf didn't survive her birth on March 26. In fact, the pod was only recently re-united. The guys and gals were segregated these past few months after behavioral issues made Allie's pregnancy risky and the G-rated shows impossible. But all 4 seem to be doing well now and team building with trainers is under way.

My baby baby turned one year old herself this weekend. I love you all the way to the moon and back SJ. Our pod is healthy and beautiful. Here’s a neat pic of a couple of my zoo babies from this weekend.

Darjeeling

It's take a lot, but I was left agape today. While perusing the on-line news with a cup of joe, as is my early morning custom, I scanned a caption that immediately caused my mouse finger to twitch and my gag reflex to tickle.

This week, Republicans across the country have been hosting "Tea Parties" to protest President Obama's tax policy and bank bailouts. We had one here in St. Paul yesterday. I guess they found it cute (ironic?) to hold the event on "Tax Day", because many of them were scheduled for the 15th. Of course, these events are in reference to the infamous "Boston Tea Party" of 1773 whereat colonialists dumped shiploads of tea into Boston Harbor rather than pay the British tax on it. That protest eventually led to the American Revolution. I don't think many of the news outlets here even covered the get-together of, self-proclaimed, teabaggers on the Capitol lawn.

But I'll tell you what they're all talking about today. That snarky, not-gay, could be straight, who cares which way he goes , Anderson Hays Cooper and his potty mouth. Last night, on AC360, while talking with a panel of pundits about the Prez' Georgetown speech on the financial crisis earlier in the day, this went down:

David Gergen: "They still haven't found their voice, Anderson. This happens to a minority party after it's lost a couple of bad elections, but they're searching for their voice."

Cooper (and the headline): "It's hard to talk when you're teabagging."

!!! If I could insert one of those shocked face smileys here, I would. And he barely even smirked! Impressive. Sorry Chester, but I don't make this stuff up and this was too funny to pass on. I'll even dangle a little video out there for you. Not really appropriate for a news person on National television but, man, what a zinger!

Ominous

Bumper sticker on a silver Honda Element at Pilot Knob Rd. & 494 around 3pm:

Every Month is Zombie Awareness Month

Mii Oh My

Just when I think the Germans have the market cornered on quirkiness, something comes along that makes me remember that one country’s fetish is another country’s fun. Case in point: Japan.

Last year, Kyoto’s video game giant, Nintendo, released an “amazing virtual pee experience” for their wildly popular Wii gaming console. The game, called Super Pii Pii Brothers, requires the participant to strap-on a Wii controller and whiz their way to points by soaking targets in on-screen toilets. Players control the flow by twisting their torso and gyrating their hips. Sounds super fun! With “amazingly realistic pee fluid dynamics”, 100 different “peeing environments”, multiple toilet & urinal styles and a competitive “dueling pee stream mode”, what more could you ask for in a video game? Japanese school girls are reportedly lining up in droves to take a swing with the new thing. They say it can’t be beat.

OK, confession: that game was made up, but not by me. It was done as last year’s April Fool’s Day joke by the Internet culture web site, Think Geek. (Check out today’s “Squeeze Bacon”.) I just ran across it for the first time the other day though and totally fell for it. The Japanese put out some weird stuff, especially technology wise, so I hardly questioned it. But, when I found out it was a gag, I did feel bad for the disgruntled gals that wouldn’t get to experience the “first time pleasure of urinating while standing” that the fake Super Pii Pii Brother’s box promised.

If you were feeling the same way, don't worry! All is not lost my gal-pals! And don’t be ashamed either; urinating while standing truly is a pleasure. So, for you, I pose the P-Mate! A “portable urinating device that allows women to urinate standing up wherever and whenever they need to, without losing their dignity.” Handy.

And if poise and decorum isn’t your thing, I offer you the Shenis. Sounds like “penis” and looks like a 12 inch long, gold colored, hard plastic penis. But it's not. It's a 12 inch long, gold colored, hard plastic “urinary director” that's shaped like a penis. I only wish this was a joke. Happy April 1 nonetheless.

Guten Appetit!

Europe loves Barack Obama. They love him; even the French. But the Germans are Obamamaniacs. The Germans LIEBE him. Karsten Voigt, Germany’s Coordinator for Trans-Atlantic Relations, declared: "Germany is Obamaland” during the Prez' January tour of the continent. You can buy a collector worthy Obama doll, created by renowned German doll maker Marcel Offermann, there for a mere $216 US. "The doll works more on a symbolic level," notes Offermann. I would agree. In an another attempt to capitalize on his popularity, German frozen food company, Sprehe Feinkost, (that’s Sprehe “fine foods”) has produced a new poultry product they decided to dub: Obama Fingers. “Tender, juicy pieces of chicken breast” that are “coated and fried" and served up with a tasty curry dip.

When the possibility of consumer backlash was posed to the co. by a German magazine, Sprehe sales manager, Judith Witting, said: “The word ‘fingers’ in the name refers to the fact that it is a finger food. It's like ‘hotdogs’…No one would ever think they are actually from dogs,” missing the point completely. Now, I feel that political correctness can get a little rambunctious at times (e.g. Freedom Fries) and, to be fair, it doesn’t sound like the racial undertones have even registered with Sprehe yet, but this should have at least been a blip on someone's radar.

It is another country though. I shoulden't be so ethnocentric. Some things won't have the same ring in Deutschland as they might in the States. For better or worse, I suppose. Take for instance the “Gutvik” children’s bed sold by IKEA. Although originally named after a sleepy Swedish village, “gut vik” in German means, “good fu*k”. German IKEA’s sold the good f*ck children’s bed for a while. They also have “Vulva” perfume? It's the German scent that smells like...apple blossoms. I'm just kidding; it smells like vagina. This wasn’t an accident though. It’s vagina scented perfume for women who want to smell like a vagina all over. (Check out some reactions.) And then there’s “Ejaculada”, the German alcoholic sports drink that may or may-not contain actual semen. Yum?

I don't know, but I guess, with products like that, naming your fried chicken after America’s first black President isn't the most peculiar marketing ploy after all. And Germany is Kookyland.

Dear Diarrhea...

Rotavirus is a genus of nonenveloped, double-stranded RNA virus in the family Reoviridae that affects the gastrointestinal system. It's the most common cause of severe diarrhea among children. Every year, about 55,000 tots in the US contract it. Worldwide, 660,000 die from it. It's serious shit and it seeped into our household this weekend.

We don't have a confirmed diagnosis from the CDC or anything, but I looked it up on WebMD and that's just as good, right? Anyhow, after ruling out Shigellosis, Campylobacter, Food Poisoning, Drug Overdose, Giardiasis and Lactose Intolerance, Rotavirus it was. (Actually, their mom, our medical professional, called it after a couple hours.) I'm sure some dirty little day care kid spread it to my family with their dirty little poop fingers. It started out with vomiting. First the baby, then her sister, then the other. They went down like dominoes even before their their temps began to rise. The diarrhea came a day later. Oh God, the diarrhea. It was horrible; this soupy, sour smelling, rota-rhea. My little angels were knocked on their stinky asses by this infectious agent. They were reduced to sacks of 101 degree mush. They couldn’t eat or drink or even sing along to Annie, which we watched, like, 5 times in 4 days. They just laid there, puking then pooping on themselves and me. All I could tell them was, "the sun will come out tomorrow my dears."

I feel a little guilty for getting huffy every time I had to clean up a mess. Things were much worse for my girls than me, I know, I really do and I felt so sad for them; but it was such a mess. I kept saying, “hate the diarrhea, not the diarrheaer”. But man, we went through a month’s worth of bedding and clothing this weekend. 9 loads of laundry. I cursed the little urchin that brought this plague upon our home! I bet it was Brandon.

Turns out half our day care group was struck; including Day Care Lady herself. She was at some board meeting Friday night when it hit her. I’ll confess, that made me laugh a little. (Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now.) She should be hyper-vigilant about hand washing this week though. She better be because kids can become re-contaminated and I don't want any of us to go through this again, ever. And if I end up coming down with it, lil' Brandon better watch his back.

8oo8le55

Slip in your pocket protector and polish your slide rule. We're gonna party like it's March 3, 2009. Happy Square Root Day Everyone! This rare holiday happens when the day and month are both the square root of the last two digits of the current year. It only occurs nine times a century folks. Mathematically, March 3, 2009, can be expressed as 3/3/09 or, as the cool kids call it: 3² = 3 × 3 = 9. Woot Woot! Ron Gordon, a Redwood City, CA. driver's ed and substance abuse teacher, dreamed up the day as a way to get kids excited about math.

“These days are like calendar comets, you wait and wait and wait for them, then they brighten up your day — and poof — they’re gone,” says Ron.

And if the mad math itself doesn't motivate you, how about the prospect of pocketing 339 dollars straight outta Ron's own wallet? That's right; pull off the biggest Square Root Day event and it's yours. You have to sign up on his daughter's Facebook "Square Root Day" event page to get in on it though. Believe it or not, there are several sites dedicated to the day, so make sure you hit up the right page.

Now, you might be wondering, how does one celebrate such a magnificently mathematical milestone? Suggestions include: cutting root vegetables into cubes and cooking up some hash; baking a carrot cake in a 9x9 pan; watching a VHS marathon of the second season of Square Pegs; square dancing and mowing the square root symbol in a corn field. Gordon's own students will be dining on "root" beer in "square" beakers. (Damn, he's good!)

If you're thinking, eh, this is just another made up holiday, you'd totally be right. But know that the next one won't come before 4/4/16. However, if you do miss it, there's always March 14 (3.14), also known as Pi Day. Or the other "calendar comet" of November 11, 2011 (On the Power of One Day, at 11:11:11 am, on 11.11.11, something weird will happen). And on 03.06.09, geeks everywhere will be escorting their Real Dolls to the Watchmen premier. Watch out.

Myself, I'm going to find, at least, one person to tell the story of the lass with boobs that weighed 69 lbs. to. I'll break out my calculator to show them that 69 is too, too, too heavy. So she had to go to Fifty First St. to see Dr. X, who gave her 8 operations, that equal 55378008, which spells out the poor girl's fate...when I turn my Casio upside down!

Bridge and f-holes

From Steven Isserlis to YoYo Ma to that dude from North Park who played on the Siamese Dream record, cellists everywhere are breathing a collective sigh of relief and thanking their lucky stars that their seed factories are out of harm’s way. The scourge of the violoncello world is no more! Actually…it never was.

The list of Repetitive Strain Injuries seems to grow longer each year. We continue to abuse and misuse our tools to the point of tissue damage and chronic pain. There’s "writer’s cramp", "tennis elbow", "Rubik’s wrist" and "Blackberry thumb". Until recently, there was also "Cello Scrotum". Often snicker about by the flautists in the orchestra pit; this distressing disease was no laughing matter to serious cellists. In fact, for over 30 years now, it has been the bane of their professional careers. Well, the players with dangly bits bane. Turns out, if they were having problems with their beanbag, it wasn't from playing the cello.

The hoax started, in May of 1974, when Dr. Elaine Murphy, and her husband John, responded to a letter in the British Medical Journal regarding the (bona fide) condition of Guitarists Nipple (a painful irritation of the nipples experienced by classical guitar players). Dr. Murphy, a former Professor of Psychiatry of Old Age at Guy's Hospital in London, now a Baroness and member of the British House of Lords, detailed the harrowing inflammation some cellists experience after rubbing their testicles on their instrument too much. Apparently, the Murphys, believing the original article to be a cock-and-bull story itself, decided to one-up the account with a made up malady of their own and Cello Scrotum was coined. As guitarists nipple is real, the BMJ considered the Murphy’s claim authentic and published the piece. They were stunned, but stayed mum. The sham syndrome was cited in a research article later that year and Cello Scrotum has been a diagnosable disorder ever since.

About a month ago, after seeing another real references to their bogus diagnosis, Baroness Murphy could remain silent no more and turned out another letter to the BMJ to tattle on her own transgression. “Perhaps after 34 years it’s time for us to confess that we invented cello scrotum.” They seem to still be laughing at their own joke too. “Somewhat to our astonishment, the letter was published...Anyone who has ever watched a cello being played would realize the physical impossibility of our claim.” The editors of the BMJ said no harm, no foul and appear to be glad they were let in on the gag.

Sweet. Now that the Baroness and her John came clean, we can all get back to wild, reckless, unprotected, cello jams, thank you!

Iambic Tetrameter

Beloved American author and illustrator, Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to most as Dr. Seuss, has become part of our household's bedtime ritual. I’ll be honest, I enjoy his work. It’s fun to read his sing-songy poetry aloud. Geisel, by the way, pronounced it “Soice”; rhymes with “voice”. His father and father’s father were both Massachusetts brewmansters and young Theodore really, truly, liked to drink. He likes to drink, and drink, and drink. The thing he likes to drink is ink. The ink he likes to drink is pink. He likes to wink and drink pink ink…and beer. He wrote 51 books under the Dr. Seuss pen name. 13 more as Theo LeSieg (Geisel spelled backwards) and 1 as Rosetta Stone.

Arguably, his most famous literary accomplishment is, The Cat In The Hat. According to lore, after the 236 word text became a hit 1956, Random House publisher, and co-founder, Bennett Cerf (rhymes with smurf) bet the good Dr. that he could not produce a book using only 50 words. Geisel won the $50 bet with…Green Eggs and Ham.

Who can recall those 50 words? I, would not, could not, recall all 50 words. Not in a house. Not in a box. Not with a mouse. Not with a fox. I tried for the better part of my work day, in fact. I did get close though. Could you, would you, attempt to name all 50 words? Give it a whirl and then let me know how you did. I’ll even give you a hint: only a single word in the entire story has more than one syllable.

If you can’t do it, and it’s driving you crazy like it did me, here is the list. Try not to cheat. And if you think you really know your Seuss, here is an actual timed test that gives you 10 minutes to complete the task. Try it and you may I say!

Year Of The Ox

Happy New Year everybody! It’s been a while, I know, but the holidays were a busy time for our household. What’s new, right? We did have a wonderful Christmas though. Hope you and yours were filled with the spirit and enjoyed your own festivities as much as we did ours.

So what is new for 2009 here at HQ? Well, as if we don’t already have enough gadgets to plug in and maintain (cell phones, iPods, Leapsters, breast pumps, etc.) the Mrs. and I have allowed a couple new electronic strangers into our home to eavesdrop on our “media exposure”. That’s right, we were asked to be Arbitron…um, Subjects? Guinea pigs? Suckers? I’m not sure, but they’re going to monitor every second of our waking life with a newfangled gizmo called The Portable People Meter.

Arbitron has been spying on American radio listeners since 1949. Until now, they relied on hand written diaries each participant mailed to them every week for a year. But that all changed with the introduction of the PPM; the “next generation of electronic ratings.” It’s a pager sized device that we, for some reason, agreed to actually wear on our person throughout the day. The rep on the phone last night said “we know when it’s on you and we know when it’s not.” That was a little freaky, but I was still interested. Apparently, radio stations embed sonic code within their broadcasts that come out of your speakers, along with the regular audio programming, but are undetectable by the human ear. It’s like a radio dog whistle. Scientists call it "psychoacoustic masking." Arbitron calls it money in the bank.

These little bits of code are not limited to radio either. Arbitron will know when I'm watching broadcast television, HD Cable, TiVo, MPEG video, even streaming Internet radio and Podcasts. They will know the sounds I’m exposed to in the elevator, the football game and the produce isle of my grocery store. It’s kind of neat. Unfortunately, I can’t get detailed info on my unique media exposure, but that’s something Arbitron is “working on”. They do compensate a little for the time too. I don’t recall exactly, but it like $10 for signing on, $20 for plugging it in and, depending on how much you wear the thing, they send cash money - up to $109 a month each. Not bad, I say.

Oh, and if in the near future you start seeing a whole lot more House Hunters International, Classic Albums and The Backyardigans on your tube, sorry ‘bout that. At least the music in the elevator might be a lot better.

4 Alarm Holiday

Here you go Mrs. M. The twinkling is hard to capture in a photo. That's the part I like best, but I did get some fresh falling snow. Awwwww.

"Is your house on fire, Clark? No, Aunt Bethany, those are the Christmas lights."

Well Thought Out Twinkles

“The Holidays” are here. Everyone is wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of the season. I know I am, at least. So much to do, only 19 shopping days left. Our older girls love the holiday lights on people’s homes. LOVE them. Every time they see a house that’s decorated, they both scream “Christmaaaaas!” If four houses in a row are lit up, you will hear four Christmaaaaas’ in a row. It’s not even annoying. So, knowing how much they enjoy this and, I’ll admit, to keep up with the Joneses a bit, I decided to wire the little dogwood at the end of our front walkway. I planned out the design for a week. I did it right too; lights, cords, a photocell timer. I even had a buddy help me rewire the closest outside outlet. I did several strings of solid white lights and several strings of “twinkling” that I planned to intermix. That should have produced a beautifully glowing white with random sparkles. And you know what? It did just that. The girls squealed with glee when they noticed the brilliantly lit tree in their own front yard. I was pretty proud of myself too. Except for that one hole on the right side.

I tried to leave well enough alone. I really did. The Mrs. insisted there was no “hole”; but I could see it. After a few nights it's all I could see. So, the other day, I stopped by Menards and picked up one more string of lights. I pulled out the ladder, plugged it into the end of one of those twinklers and meticulously wrapped it around the non-illuminated branches of the upper right quadrant of the dogwood. My masterpiece of flaming holiday festivity was now complete. Wanting to share the joy, I ran inside and grabbed the girls so we could all admire my handiwork in the warmth of the other side of the living room windows. We got there just in time to see the tree seemingly extinguish itself.

Did you know those light strings have fuses? I’ve also learned that those fuses are exactly why they tell you, on that little warning tag, not to string more than 3 sets of lights together. A landscape-architect friend was pretty surprised I initially had 11 running all at once. #12 did the trick though. Pop. Last night, as I worked through the entanglement of Christmas lights trying to identify the bum wire, I was not a happy Santa’s helper. I ended up removing all 12 strings in the 12 degree cold. I have a new design that I will implement this weekend though. Wish me luck. And if I don’t get back here to post anything in the next couple weeks…Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night. See you next year!

Await

"The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” - Morrie Schwartz

Today, our good friends, K&J, will board an airplane that will take them to the country of Kazakhstan. They are going to meet two boys who will be joining their clan and their household will instantly double. In a few months they will all return to the US and the journey of four lifetimes will merge. The plan's been years in the making. You wouldn't believe the diligence required for this complex undertaking and you couldn't imagine the amount of waiting. I am so excited for this new family. I’m proud of my friend. May peace and felicity be with you and yours, today and always, my man.

It's a Super Tuesday

Fishy

Our older girls love the dolphin show at the MN Zoo. LOVE it. It is absolutely one of their most cherished activities. I suspect their current love of Ariel is directly related to their first love of dolphins. Since so many families seem to share this common experience, you could imagine my surprise when we entered Discovery Bay one August afternoon to find no line for the dolphin show. Usually, there are hundreds of abandoned baby buggies at the foot of the winding stairway that leads up to auditorium. I knew something was amiss as soon as I spied the empty stroller coral. Sadly, we were informed that one of the dolphins is pregnant and the dolphin show has been put on indefinite hiatus. It could even be on hold until this particular marine mammal births her baby. Not sad for the dolphins mind you; but for me, who had to explain to our girls why we weren’t going to see the dolphins that day…and maybe for a long time after. Surprisingly, they accepted the pregnant dolphin story hook, line and sinker. Even today, when something dolphin comes up, it’s highly likely one, or both of them, will say: “the dolphin show is having a baby”, followed by a sigh, but then a quick return to whatever they had been engaged in before dolphins had come up.

Fast forward to last week when I run across an odd little news item from the Pioneer Press regarding the dolphin show. Apparently, the zoo staff had significantly streamlined their story. Yes, one of the female dolphins, Allie, is pregnant and expecting next spring. However, April, Allie’s mother, who is not pregnant, is behaving as if she was. She’s also not eating. Zoo biologists can’t figure out why. To make matters worse, all this pregnancy and fake pregnancy is apparently making Semo, Allie’s babydaddy, really, really, horny. He’s chasing that mother-daughter tail as fast as he can and neither the mother or daughter are making it hard for him. Quite to the contrary.

The presence of a female and a male is all it takes with dolphins,” said Kevin Willis, director of biological programs at the Apple Valley zoo. “Dolphins are a species that are pretty easy to breed. They’re big, and they do it often. They’re not shy or secretive. Parents found themselves even having to explain the dolphin trio’s behaviors to their kids, Willis said. The dolphins were so sexually distracted that trainers had to cancel their shows.

What you talkin ‘bout Willis! It’s like a Jerry Springer cast you got swimming around up in there. Willis says: “all four will now be managed as breeding dolphins to get ready for next year's calf birth." Spree, Semo’s 7 y/o dtr. has so far kept her relationships platonic. "Until now, they'd been managed as show animals. So we just decided, with one confirmed pregnancy and one we're not sure about, let's just take away any stress, take away the show element of the day…Not an easy decision, but we decided we would just let those animals have a break." Except, from the sounds of it, those animals aren't resting much. Holla!

Contaminated

We received an email last night that appeared to be a side by side comparison of McCain and Obama’s tax plans, entitled: “2008 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE COMPARISON TALKING POINTS”. It was the type of viral email I wouldn't usually bother responding to, but, it came from family. I won’t say who, but they're born and raised in MN. And they’re parents. Old enough to be my parents, in fact. I’ve mentioned I’m from Massachusetts, right? Born and raised in Mass. Anyhow, here’s an example of of some of these “talking points”:

Sen. McCain on Income Tax: Single making 50K = tax $12,500 (No change). Sen. Obama: Single making 50K = tax $14,000 (Under Obama, your taxes could almost double!)

Voted against making English the official language: Sen McCain: No, Sen. Obama: Yes

You get the picture. Total Republican propaganda. So, in an attempt to reply to this nonsense as politely as I could, I did a little Internet research on this chain letter. First of, Snopes.com (the urban myth web site) has this to say:

Every recent presidential election cycle has brought e-mail forwards that paint the Democratic party candidate as a proponent of a "tax and spend" philosophy (who will inevitably implement significant tax increases on taxpayers across all income levels) and present the Republican candidate as a model of fiscal conservatism, and the example (here) fits this pattern....According to the Tax Policy Center's analysis (View Here) of the candidates' proposed tax changes, the primary difference between them would be distributional, with Senator Obama’s proposal favoring lower-income taxpayers and Senator McCain's favoring higher-income taxpayers. (Read the full post here.)

Second, and don't ask how I got from that to this, I just did and your hair band may be made with used condoms.

In November 2007, news emerged from China that some hair band manufactured there were found to have been made from recycled condoms. The prophylactic hair ties were discovered in Dongguan and Guangzhou, two cities in the province of Guangdong. The “secret ingredient” came to light when a young woman in Dongguan thought to investigate the hair bands given to her in a local salon after one began to fray, revealing an unexpected color inside.

I'm not sure which story grosses me out more. Wait, it's definitely used condoms in people's hair. Although, both are pretty offensive. Here's the full post, with pictures! And for gosh sakes, don't put those things in your mouth anymore.

Lactiferous

The folks at PETA have apparently sent Jerry Greenfield and Ben Cohen , better know to most of us as "Ben & Jerry" an odd little letter. In it, the animal welfare organization urges the ice-cream magnates to stop using cow's milk and replace it with human breast milk. "The breast is best!" they say. "Won't you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow's milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry's ice cream?"

They cite Swiss restaurateur, Hans Loche, who recently unveiled plans to include human breast milk in recipes on the menu at his restaurant, Storchen, as the inspiration for their idea. Their dumb, dumb, idea.

Damn right, it's better than yours

Gift

Every day there are thousands of people waiting for some kind of transplant to save their life. 30% of people in need find a donor from within their own family. 70% need the help of a stranger.

Right now, NASCAR is paying the $52 tissue typing cost for anyone who meets the eligibility criteria for the National Marrow Donor Program. A bone marrow transplant is often the only option people with Leukemia and Lymphoma have left to live. Donor's don't even have to be a "perfect match", but a patient does need a donor whose cells are as close to theirs as possible. We did the tissue typing this week. It's as simple as swiping 4 cotton swabs across the inside of your cheek, closing the envelope and dropping it in a mailbox. The eligibility determination is done on-line. It takes 10 solid minutes. If you pass, they send the typing kit to you in the mail. You send it back. You're on the Registry.

Go to www.marrow.org. Look for the "Event's" box on the right side and click on "NASCAR Foundation Drive". The drive ends Sept. 22.

Politicization

Your true political self?

The Anarchists Scare Me.

Really, they do.

McCain's speech is hours away and things are already getting tense downtown. Coast Guard boats with machine guns are cruising up and down the river. Clusters of cops, some in riot gear, are everywhere and we're a mile from the RNC. Traffic is totally erratic. A posse of protesters gathered on the South side of the river and had people heading towards the Capitol, over the Wabasha St. bridge, in staggered squads of 8-10. The sky is ominously overcast. Everybody here in the office is restless, at best.

The news is releasing more and more info on the anarchists. Apparently, they have been watched pretty closely over the last year. I suppose it wasn't that hard, seeing how they have their own web site and MySpace page. Police raided their home base, a banquet hall on Smith Ave., last Friday and confiscated a good amount of bad things. Plans that were, at least, discussed at one point or another included the possibility of kidnapping delegates, blockading bridges, using liquid sprayers filled with urine or chemicals on police and throwing marbles to trip police and their horses. But they do provide childcare to visiting anti-authoritarians who are coming to town. How weird is that?!

You can follow some of their actual chatter here, here and here on Twitter.

Bull On Parade

Although not as large scale as Monday’s protest, two smaller groups met in downtown St. Paul last night as their respective, and peaceful, events concluded. One was the 1000 person strong Poor Peoples March that started in Mears Park and was sponsored by the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. Cheri Honkala, leader of the campaign, urged participants to remain pacific, pointing out the large number of children in attendance. She went as far as to single out the anarchists, that she knew had intermixed with the crowd, and said she would hold them personally responsible for any violence that occurred during their event.

As the march made its way down 7th, to the Xcel Center, the crowd suddenly tripled as they were joined by concert-goers leaving the Ripple Effect festival on the State Capitol lawn. It just so happened that Rage Against The Machine showed up, unannounced, to end the show. Police, however, seemingly chose to pull the plug on the concert rather than let the band play. Apparently, they were not included on the permit and the cops felt it was too close to the event’s 7PM curfew to make changes. Until this point, the crowd, who was predominantly hippy, had peacefully burned bundles of sage and grooved to the likes of Matisyahu, Michael Franti and WookieFoot. When RATM was denied access the stage, singer Zach De La Rocha and guitarist Tom Morello successfully riled up the gathering by jumping onto the lawn and leading a cappella versions of old RATM songs. Radio reports of a free Rage show had expanded the crowd to about 2000. Then, the band members started the now en-raged fans in a procession off the Capitol grounds, straight towards the heart of the RNC and the end of the Poor People’s March.

The crowd, which estimates put at 4000 by now, was stopped at the 8 foot fences that cordon off the RNC “security perimeter”. Honkala used a megaphone to chastise the riot police who were there to greet them. "We want to charge the folks that are in the Xcel Energy Center with crimes against humanity" Honkala said as the crowd chanted: “The whole world is watching!" The group peacefully disbanded after no one from the RSC came out to receive the subpoena.

30 minutes later, a smaller crowd of protesters re-formed in the middle of the 7th & St. Peter intersection to block traffic. St. Joseph's Hospital was placed on lockdown from about 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. due to the large protester presence. Police ordered the group to disburse. When they did not, it was declared an “unlawful assembly” and they disbursed the crowd themselves…using tear gas, bean-bag guns and concussion grenades.

Now, I'm not saying things wouldn't have gotten ugly downtown again if RATM did their thing or not (those anarchists are friggin' nutty), but I find it interesting that reports have the band, and the bodyguards that accompanied them, quietly exiting their parade soon after it left the Capitol lawn. Allegedly, people didn't know they weren't following RATM all the way to the RNC. But they can catch Rage when they play their show at the Target Center tonight! Seats are only $60 and available through Ticketmaster.