5/01/02
I'm trying to figure out something I saw on the news on Saturday. I think that various people around the valley got a call last week: "Meet at the state capitol, 10:15 Saturday, dress warm." They showed up and were handed signs. They marched around, they yelled, they posed for the cameras. They went home. What they didn't do is look at the signs or ask "What is it we're protesting?"
I looked and looked in the yellow pages and I couldn't find a listing for idiots for hire. I wonder if maybe it's something like the secret train platform number 9-3/4 in Harry Potter that's not visible to us in the muggle population. I don't know where they get these people, but I know the organizers hope that if they can scare up a few protestors others will get excited and want to be involved.
You saw this in Seattle a couple of years back. Hey! Dude, there's a protest. Coo-ool, Dude, I'm in! After about the third day of protesting these people were saying "Dude, like, what's this WTO I keep hearing about?" "I dunno, Dude, but if it runs on Sega, I'm like all over it Dude."
But these poor souls deserve our pity not our derision. No, seriously, it's a disease just like Alcoholism and Clintonian Sexual Addiction. Imagine the torture they feel at having missed protesting the Vietnam War. The medical term for this is Delayed Unhappiness in Missing the Brouhaha Against Soldiers in South East-asia Syndrome.
PETA (Protest Everthing That's Available) is a group that uses DUMBASSES a lot. During the Olympics they perfected techniques to make a lot more stink than you'd expect from the mere seven people that were in their group.
Now I suspect the reason behind this is that there are no more than seven people in Utah dumb enough to believe in the brand of terrorism that PETA preaches. I may be wrong. There may be as many as 14 people that dumb in Utah. But 7 of them realize that rodeo cowboys daily kick the living sweet willy wonkas out of 2000 pound bulls and would think nothing of pausing between bull rides to skin a PETA protestor with a sharp rock.
There were seven people at the protest on Saturday. No, I counted them. They spread them out so that all seven just almost fit in frame, and the viewers at home are thinking, "Sweet Jessie Q. Sharpton, there must be hunnerts of 'em." Then they move the camera around to a different background and four of the same seven hold up a banner while the other three poke signs into frame from the sides. "Waal lookey there, Clarisse, I'll be dipped in yogurt and rolled in cracker crumbs if there ain't purt near a thousand people there." Of course, that illusion is bolstered by the passers by who see the cameras and gather around to see what's going on. You always have the charming youth who is convinced that the whole viewing audience is amazed at his cleverness in making faces at the camera.
But the people who organize these rallies are starting to hurt for funds. I'm getting that impression 'cause they've had to recycle signs. In the protest on Saturday, they were holding signs that said (I am not kidding): No blood for oil! Now, those of you without training wheels on your bikes recall that slogan from the Persian Gulf war. Those in the training wheel corps (meaning, those holding a sign) may need to be told: The only oil in Afghanistan is what might have dripped on the ground while we were doing maintenance on our tanks.
I now believe the words on the sign are a code. We are indebted to Algore for alerting us to that technique. During the debates GW said something about leaving the judicial branch to the supreme court. Algore was too sharp, he caught that right away. He jumped up, all red in the face and panting like Clinton on a jog, and said "That's a code word! That's a code word! That's code for Roe v. Wade!" I'm glad the genius behind the internet alerted me to that. I've been keeping my eye out for that since then. Really, it's pretty simple to figure out.
If you're holding a sign protesting our involvement in Afghanistan for oil, the words on the sign don't matter. What the sign says is "I am an idiot."
Frank Leany
