Rattle wrote:
] C-CPAN has a camera looking around 7th Av ...

Typo?

CPAN is for Perl. C-SPAN is for watching your government at work.

You'll find some striking similarities between reading Perl code and watching politicians in action, but they are different. Technically, anyway.

Jeremy wrote:
] Typo?

Yep. Thanks for pointing that out. Typo corrected.

] CPAN is for Perl. C-SPAN is for watching your government at
] work.
]
] You'll find some striking similarities between reading Perl
] code and watching politicians in action, but they are
] different. Technically, anyway.

Heh. I'm not sure how much can be read into my typo, but there is room for quite a few jokes to be made after your comment. [ Insert something about bureaucracy and spaghetti code here ]

C-SPAN has a camera looking around 7th Av, which as far as the eye can see is packed with protesters. All was looking like a nice peaceful protest until some group decided it would be a good idea to set a big green float on fire. I just finished watching a big green thing burning in front of the McDonalds just north of The Garden. Seems very early for burning things in the street.

I have been hoping that the people would respect the city, respect each other, and even respect the rights of the political opponents being protested. Stuff like the burning floats will only force the police and fire department to close the street. Not a good sign of things to come.

I was planning to head into the city Monday or Tuesday, however now I have a feeling I will not be able to get anywhere near the place.

.....I came into work and the title of the AJC said "RNC focuses on Unity" or something like that, and I got such a great laugh. Unity. Bush. Right.

Rattle wrote:
I have been hoping that the people would respect the city, respect each other, and even respect the rights of the political opponents being protested. Stuff like the burning floats will only force the police and fire department to close the street. Not a good sign of things to come. I was planning to head into the city Monday or Tuesday, however now I have a feeling I will not be able to get anywhere near the place.

My wife and I were about two blocks down the march from the burning dragon. Things like that are annoying, and do no good for those of us trying to turn "four more years!" into "four more months!". On a personal note, I was in charge of keeping our three year old nephew entertained, and thirty minutes of standing still meant it was increasingly difficult to distract him from using our protest signs to poke people. It was cute, and the signs had nothing harder than foam, but it was still a relief when we began moving forward again.

On the other hand, with a few exceptions, the marchers and the police were very mellow yesterday. The NYPD were among the friendliest cops I've seen at this type of thing, and the marchers responded to that. Our small group was vocal in thanking the police, and from reports in the papers today, many other people were also doing that. I don't think police ever love the disorder caused by political marches, but the fact that the police are getting screwed by the city government and don't have any contract, may make them more understanding of these kind of rallies. The police themselves have been holding rallies regarding their (lack of a) contract, and amazingly, the department has been sending Internal Affairs units to photograph, and otherwise monitor, which officers are so disloyal that they believe they should have a work contract.

Yesterday may also have been helped by the strong support the police and firefighter unions have shown for John Kerry. After 9/11, I think the NYPD and NYFD both feel shafted by the Bush administration, and while they probably don't like some of the marchers' appearances or methods, they agree on their goals.

Finally, I really don't think you need to worry about heading to the city. The city is huge, and except for yesterday, I think will pretty much run the same as normal. I don't think there will be any more huge rallies, and the Republican Delegates are spending most of their time indoors, at Gardens and the Broadway shows. Even yesterday was more normal than you might think. As we marched, tourists lined both sides of the street, gawking at it all. We just became another part of what makes New York such an interesting place to be.