> Yesterday I heard on the news that students from Evergreen"The Geoducks"State College were marching through the streets of Olympia as part of the Mayday Global Action thingy. The protesters said that they were doing it to save starving kids and put an end to the evil global economy. But the thing is, of all the Western Washington cities, Olympia is probably the least likely to be associated with the global economy. Couldn't these folks have even taken the time to drive out to Seattle, or Tacoma, or Redmond? Heck, even Lacey is worse than Olympia, and that's only three miles from where the protests were taking place.
>
> Oh yeah, and it seems that the protesters' most noteable activities of the day included marching through a Barnes & Noble playing music and mud wrestling in the nude. And let me tell you, nothing stops world hunger like some good old fashioned mud wrestling.
>
> Mel
> "...is in a ranting mood today."

Well, if they used Jell-o, that would just be too contradictory.

We (the city of roses 130-140 miles south) had a small dose of protesters as well. It started as a lawful assembly in a park, with a variety of issues. It seems odd to me that they would try to protest several things all at the same time. While seeming to be terribly efficient, it lacks focus. Things began to turn a bit when they started marching through the downtown streets... without a parade permit. That's about when the police presence increased dramatically. The worst vandalism I heard of was some of the mob throwing a postal box at the police.

They eventually joined with another protest outside of a major local bookstore who's denser employees believe that by incorporating a longshoreman's union, they will be better off. I could write an entire post with my opinions on this topic, but I'll spare the rest of you.

Anyway, when the group finally disbanded later in the evening, there were no reported injuries and 19 arrests. Most of which, I believe, were for criminal tresspass.

I'm glad that nothing escallated beyond that.

Tra "protests can be such a riot" nio