Funk the Police

Just one more reason why I love DC as a place to live and work: Here we have a random incident, witnessed during my brief circuit from office to liquor store to bus-stop, after work on Friday.

Vermont Avenue: Looked like the youth protest group FUNK THE WAR was holding another march action. A group of maybe fifty young white folk was heading north from the direction of the White House. For a workplace neighborhood, Farragut West beats the hell out of Capitol Hill for these kinds of things.

As is my habit when I see stuff like this, I stake a claim on a nearby corner, pull out the camera, and wait. What the hell, something interesting might happen. It looked like the Funkers had been corraled into a very tight group by a team of blueshirt chaperones; DC's Finest.... Presumably this was to keep 'em out of traffic as much as possible. But the group seemed intensely packed-in, practically stumbling over each other's feet. At L Street where I was, the march turned east.


And conveniently, here it went a bit wonky. Looked like one of the escorting coppers knocked over a couple of marching folks (middle of the crowd in the shot above).

Accident or no? Tensions mount! Aiee!


And there followed that deliciously electric pause. Before the shouting began. Some of these kids seemed more experienced than others at such protests and confrontation. Some were reactively timid and pensive, while their seasoned companions launched fists and bellowing madness against the cops for felling one of their own. The cameras came out, held aloft from within the mob. And the barking frenzy got louder.


Middle fingers thrust into cops' faces, the crowd hurls verbal abuse at the Blueshirts and chants of SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! as the cops stood, consulting whatever little rule-books they have implanted in their brains: what to do in situations like these...

Any War-Funkers out there? What was this scuffle all about? Was it an accident gone weird, or was it the work of some evil bastard with badge and holier-than-thou complex?

It was a lively distraction, anyway. Reminded me a bit of my own younger days in this town (insert wobbly flashback effect here). I think Positive Force DC still exists, but what about No Business As Usual? Are them cats still around?

The effectiveness of street actions is debatable, but when you're involved, there can be a tremendous sense of importance and passion. I still have fond memories of the "Punk Percussion Protests" against Apartheid, outside the South African embassy in the late '80s. Deadly serious but fun as well. Perhaps it's that tiny splash of "fun" that keeps the "deadly serious" from spilling over into rage and riot. But finding the right balance can be damn near impossible.

AIPAC of wolves in the halls of power

M and 9th Streets NW, Washington DC: Big-head war-criminal Bushie and a Code Pink activist duke it out like champions outside the Washington Convention Center during this morning's bit of the AIPAC conference.

As I was strolling past on my way to work, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and House minority leader John Boehner were inside the Convention Center doing.... whatever it was they were doing in there.

AIPAC? That's what this was?

Living in DC encourages news-junkie behavior, and I'm as guilty as anyone. But I need to detox once in a while, and go into a self-imposed current-events exile. It's like a purification ceremony.

Thus, I've been in total news-blackout mode for a while, and I had no idea the big American/Israeli dry-humping fest was going down. All I knew was, for the past three days, there have been an UNGODLY amount of chartered buses traveling in police-escorted convoys across downtown, to and from the Convention Center.


I hop off the 79 bus at 9th and M for work, so that puts me in the thick of the action in the morning. Yesterday, I finally looked past the dozen or so idling buses at the fluttering banner and saw it was the annual American/Israel policy conference.

Ah. Okay, so that explains it.

But still, I don't care who you are: Congress-folk, executive branch, visiting foreign heads of state: Ain't NOBODY important enough to warrant all that noise and gridlock.

These are supposed to be the leaders of democratic nations, right? So how the hell can they be expected to sensibly govern the "free world" if they're carted around like emperors? Sends the wrong message, says I.

If you're a high-ranking diplomat and you're due to attend or speak at a conference of global importance, just book a room at a decent hotel somewhat close to the venue and get there early, like any of us normal peons would. Jesus Christ, y'all, you'd think there was an air-strike on Capitol Hill or something.


And that's another thing: seems like it's wasting the DC Police Department's time, putting too many officers on duty guarding empty buses while they idle outside the convention center.

At least Code Pink was there to lighten the mood this morning.

Lunch with AIDS at the White House

One of the interesting things about my job is its proximity to the White House. It's a few minutes' walk, which makes for some great, paranoia-laden thrill rides during lunch.

Today's walk yielded some good action in the form of a protest-and-arrest session of AIDS activists. The Post estimates about 150 people were involved, but it looked to me like a big chunk of those must've been media people and camera-toting thrill-seekers like myself. These folks obviously know how to pimp a good press release.

There was the typical fleet of cops walking around with weapons and sneers. Four of them pranced around on vicious, snarling, beastly war-horses (hell, I'm a city kid. All horses look like this). Other cops paced in their jackboots like wolves, praying for a riot to allow the "fog of war" to rain down on these hippy bastards until none survived and Lafayette Park was awash in a tide of blood and despair.


And yet the cop that freaked me out the most was the one with the video camera, filming the protesters. Filming the bystanders. Filming the camera-toting thrill-seekers like myself, who couldn't resist photographing the video cop in some twisted attempt at justice...

Do these people have some kind of archive of protest and street footage, with face-mapping technology index-linking everyone to their Secret Government Profile, meta-tagged with potential Thought-Crimes Against the State?

Jeezus, coppers, calm down. These folks just want to keep AIDS research a priority on the national scene; that's understandable. But ambushing the White House seems like an waste of good media attention... I just can't see how Mr and Mrs America will "get it" if any of the footage even makes it to the Evening News. Using the Zaphod Beeblebrox scoring system, I'd give the protest 15 points for style, but minus 150 for true effectiveness. But then, how could it be more effective?


I mean... Evidently this administration can't even spell "AIDS" and it certainly can't be bothered with anything that doesn't involve killing brown people worldwide.

So it was an interesting lunch-break. Just be careful. Those goons are stealing souls out there.

aaah, Capitol Hill in the Springtime...

Sometimes, I truly love working 2 blocks north of the Capitol grounds. You take a step outside for a lunchtime walk, and almost immediately hear the roaring static of protesters.

Usually the cause they're shouting about is reasonable, some policy gone horribly wrong, etc... This time, the cause du jour was a bit harder to figure out.

These strange characters were being sheep-dogged around by the Capitol Police while they sang like happy summer campers... They sang, in a charming-yet-grating lack of harmony, and to the tune of "Country Roads", something about how God is killing our troops because he didn't like Brokeback Mountain very much.

I've since discovered they're part of a Topeka-based organization whose evident aim is to spread hopelessness and despair, supported by carefully chosen bible passages. The point seems to be that God has lost patience with our misbehavior. It's too late. He will shake us off like dust mites from a filthy carpet.

Now don't get me wrong; I dig nihilism as much as the next guy... probably a bit more than the next guy. But this interpretation of Christianity seems devoid of even humorous irony (and I dig humorous irony as much as the next guy, etc...)

It's amusing to reflect how we chastise the Iraqi people for their inability to get their religious sects to agree on a new constitution, while back at home, we can't even agree on what a Christian is. The Bible has inspired everything from charity to genocide to "sale-a-thons" at your local Toyota dealership, so what IS this religion Americans seem so intense about? What is a Christian? One of these people?

Now, according to this tiny, bizarre protest, the Christian god is also a movie critic. When he/she/it gets a regular spot on the Post's OpEd page, THEN I might actually subscribe...

Satan and the Hot Dog Lady

Agents of Lyndon LaRouche often set up shop here, on First ave NE, near G Street. They never seem happy. Of course, when you're out to disclose the Administration's links to Satanism, "happiness" seems quaint and expendable. This is serious work. Worthy of a serious megaphone. (Alt. action view here).

Meanwhile (inset), after a month-plus of hiding, Hot Dog Lady has set up shop again, in the same spot as before. Now, all seems right with the world, despite the epic battle against Satan being waged just one block away. Beware the brimstone, Hot Dog Lady!

A nice doomsday

Pennsylvania Avenue, at the membrane between the White House and reality. In the foreground is the last surviving "peace park" vigil, as it has stood since 1981. By the late 1980s, there was a dense colony of protest-shelters down there. Since I left DC thirteen years ago, the Avenue has been closed to traffic and the vigils cleared out. ... Miraculously, this one remains. I moved back to the DC area last summer, and the park is still haunted by the shadows of those who used to live there, with their signs and leaflets. Where there was once a unique micro-culture, there is now the stale taste of suburban laundry detergent and disposable cameras. "Peace Park" has become "Lafayette Park" once again, but we still have Concepcion and her Doomsday sign to keep us humble.