“Peace, prosperity, liberty and morals
have an intimate connection.”

- Thomas Jefferson

Last week a Blaine high school student was suspended from school for 10 days for having a box-cutter, in his car, in the parking lot, while he was inside the school. A couple of weeks ago my nephew — a high-school junior who had been private-schooled or home-schooled throughout his academic career — was also suspended on his second day of public school for having a pocketknife in his pocket (upon his return the administration also confiscated his wallet-chain).

I won't go for the easy comment about "zero-tolerance" policies in institutions that otherwise chant "tolerance" and "diversity" as sacraments (if you can even bring a sacrament into a school parking lot, that is). Lileks, in fact, has already done this to a turn.

No, what I'm concerned about is another headline I just saw:

Man accused of passing gas is charged with battery

If farting is now considered assault, the schools will have no choice but to enforce their "expulsion" policies!

The Strib story detailing the post-concert exploits of Rage Against the Machine fans and the Minneapolis police included this phrase:

87 people were brought in, tagged and released...

I couldn't help but get a picture in my head of some wild child being hit with a tranquilizer dart, taken down in the street and then a police officer named Jim affixing a tracking tag to a part of the dude's body not already obscured with tattoos and piercings, then moving off to a safe distance as the kid staggers back to rejoin the herd. The tag, of course, would be in the hopes of future arresting officers calling in to report the location of the bust, providing important scientific data about the migratory patterns of this species.

Perhaps I watched too much of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom when I was a kid.

Every four years, people who have been dedicating months, even years of their life in preparation come together in front of the TV cameras to live their dream in front of a world-wide audience. Of course I'm not referring to the Olympics but to protesting the presidential conventions. To be fair, there was a Mount Olympus feel to Sen. Obama's dais during the DNC, while the poo and urine-flinging anarchists in the streets of St. Paul for the RNC suggest that a rerouting of the Mississippi River through downtown, alá Hercules' method for cleaning the Augean Stables, might be necessary. While there were a lot of different costumes seen among the protesters, I don't remember any togas though.

The protesters and anarchists weren't the only ones who were busy preparing for their time in the spotlight, however. The authorities were also at work with plans of their own, and launched preemptive raids (with search warrants) on known anarchist hang-outs Sunday night before the convention started, capturing bolt cutters, sling shots, six throwing-style knives, smoke bombs, machetes, caltrops (for disabling tires and vehicles) and other devices for blocking traffic or damaging property. It was also reported that several buckets of urine were also confiscated, no doubt for testing to see if the wild ones had been taking steroids in preparation for their protests. A lot of buttons and propaganda were also taken into custody, and the pro bono lawyers who came to town with the protesters were in court Tuesday, demanding the return of all materials. District Judge Kathleen Gearin, however, denied an emergency motion brought by the plaintiffs to have some of the items seized by police returned to them.

"Who should we return the urine to?" Gearin asked.

I think it's only fair that the buckets be returned full, and with triple damages.

Oh well, God love 'em, I can tolerate and only shake my head in amusement at most of the fey activists. The protests so far have generally been non-violent and even kind of amusing in a precocious way with strange dancing, crude (in craftsmanship and language) signs and trite slogans that perhaps suggest what the TV writers were doing last year in their spare time while they were on strike. At least these folks were willing to show their faces and even to be arrested.

Some, however, dressed oh-so-chic in black garb, masks and hoods, came with the intention of doing property damage, busting windows in a police car and running away; bashing in several storefront windows and running away; one even took a run at cop trying to drag a protester away, knocking the officer down and then running away. These true believers, of course, had to keep their faces covered so that "the Man" couldn't identify them because, you know, civilized cultures have things like "laws" and consequences, which really frosts the anarchists. At least there's a precedent in America for people hooding their faces while committing acts of terror in the name of some hateful cause. Before, though, those hoods were white.


(Photo from WCCO slideshow.)

Update:

Related News Stories:
Anatomy of anarchy: Militant protestors meet police on St. Paul streets
Anarchists damage property, block traffic, attack delegates with bleach
St. Paul protest play out on streets, online

Our internet service crashed Sunday morning and we were disconnected until mid-afternoon today due to a server problem in our area (and fortunately nothing expensive that we have to fix with our home set-up). It's not like being chased out of your home by a hurricane or, say, having to pee in a bucket like some of the visitors to my city apparently chose to do over the weekend, but it was kind of surprising at how much the internet has entwined itself in our lives.

At any given time on a weekend we're likely to have two laptops going and sometimes three, all connected to the 'Net. It's a handy way to look up a phone number, get directions to some place, reserve a tee-time or knock off a quick game of Web Sudoku while waiting for the charcoal to heat up. At least I didn't miss it so much on Sunday ... until I tried to find the results of the Twins' game! I had to revert to the near-medieval practice of watching the ESPN crawler at the bottom of the high-def TV screen. Gadzooks! I also had an on-line coupon ($35 off!) that I couldn't get to in my e-mail inbox that needed to be printed out and used by today; I went over to my brother-in-law's and used his computer to do the deed.

Today it became a little more stressful. My wife is a police chaplain and is helping out at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. With the RNC changing plans on the fly to cope with Hurricane Gustav, she was concerned that she was missing any emails up-dating or re-assigning her to a different location. Nothing a couple of phone calls couldn't resolve, and she was able to show up for an interesting afternoon of supporting our local officers. Her group did such a good job today that they were asked to expand their role in order to support another group of officers as well.

She'll likely have a report and perhaps some photos of her experiences after the event is over; for security reasons it's probably best that she not talk too much about where she's at and where the police units are deployed. It has been an interesting couple of weeks of training and orientation for the chaplains. A special "secret location" in downtown St.Paul was set aside for them and I got to see it for myself when we drove down there Saturday morning to deliver some furniture we and our church were providing to the command post. It was an amazing experience driving through downtown as at every intersection we watched a police cruiser go by. This morning we went to Jerubek's Bakery for breakfast, not far from downtown, and drank coffee and ate our pastry out on the patio, despite the constant thwopping of helicopters overhead. It's going to be an interesting week, but morale appears to be high. I plan to stay as far away from the convention as possible!