Something worth writing about happened today. What was it again? Ah yes. The election recount protest which went on in Times Square today. Or actually, not the protest, but a few specific moments. At one point, having exhausted my film, I ran into one of the ubiquitous overpriced camera stores of the Tourist Zone, leaving the outraged Democrats and handful of opportunistic Socialists and Greens (some of whom were clearly trying to hold their gorge down about being associated with Gore supporters, but most of whom were trying to get the recount fanatics to look at something more meaningful than Florida) howling on the designated protest island that had been established by the police. (There was no way these GODLESS ANARCHIST MANIACS were going to be allowed to interfere with a SHOPPING DAY! One of these toddler-carrying L.L. Bean-wearing lunatics might be just itching to get back to the window-smashing job he started in Seattle!)

anyway. In the store I confided to the tan-skinned clerk that I was a little too late in reloading-- the police had already hauled off the rabble-rouser in the red shirt who had screamed himself hoarse over the bullhorn. "Good," said the clerk. "I hope they all get arrested. They are going to start a civil war." I asked him where he was from. "Syria," he said. As he counted out my change I tried to assuage his fears... I wanted to tell him that these people specifically were not going to be starting any trouble-- they were waving Gore/Lieberman signs, not red and black flags-- but what came out was a vague platitude about there being a long history of nonviolent protest in the U.S.

I went back and took more pictures. The protest eventually dissolved. The guy who set up the website at the center of all this spoke to the assembled over a bullhorn the police handed him, telling us there was another protest at the Federal Building downtown on Monday.

Then things got surreal. A middle-aged white policeman with a moustache took the bullhorn back. He thanked us all for coming. "Your next protest will be at the Federal Building on Monday," he reiterated. I don't know what in hell was going on-- he'd helped cuff and remove the red-shirt rabble-rouser not half an hour before. No policeman is ever supposed to encourage protests, except maybe as an agent provocateur. Maybe he was just a sympathetic Democrat himself? I think he was just enjoying the bullhorn-- his next step was to announce some sports scores to the remaining throngs.

"Arrest that man!" I yelled out. "He's using a bullhorn without a permit! That's what you just dragged the other guy off for, right?!" The officers near me chuckled. Across the street, the older man turned the wide end of the cone towards me. "I'm losing my voice," he said, "I have to use it."