Posts Tagged ‘protest’

The marching club has a ‘practice parade’ a week before the real deal. The only thing they really practice is drinking, staggering through every Irish bar in the city over the course of the day.

As Charlie puts it, “Where else are hundreds of drunks going to get to stop traffic throughout the city- with a police escort?!”

Bemused tourists stop and gape. A few beads are carted along to give away, but mostly it’s just about hanging out as a guy-time. Charlie had to work and so he missed the kickoff, but I dropped him off around lunchtime.

It was my intention to catch up to them and see how everyone was holding up, but it was kind of a nasty day and I had to get back to the office, so I headed back to the car, and I’m glad I did, because I got to see this most interesting form of protest:

They’re an organization called Katrina Rita Express taking this trailer around the country to show people what people have been living in for two years now and explain what kind of ‘help’ the government has provided most people.

Very admirable, and I think the more people who know and actually see them the better. My only issue is that their idea of a fix isn’t entirely clear.

On one hand “Eviction is not the answer.” *

But on the other hand they’re (absolutely justifiably) upset that the trailers are poison.

I’m sure they have ideas of what the solution might be, but I sort of looked at it and it was one of those things that make you go “hmmmm.”

Pics of the other sides of the trailer after the jump. If you’d like to see pics from St. Pat’s after all this practice, they’re here.

*(most parishes are starting to pass laws that the trailers need to be hauled away)

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So once again I find that somehow we’ve gotten to Friday when I wasn’t paying attention, and I have to head off to the bank.

I really need to start making a serious effort to get there on Thursdays, because aside from the fact that my bank has the dumbest parking lot setup known to man (Capital One St Charles, for those in the know), there’s a women’s clinic next door.

Every Friday brings out a group of abortion protesters, timed to hit high traffic banking hours. So I sit there, growling, just trying to get the hell out of the lot, only to get treated to a good 10 minutes of bloody fetus posters, baby killer signs and the like.

I’m not even going to go into what it must be like to cross that nightmare to go into the clinic, whether for an abortion or general services.

I’m not even going to go into the fact that about 80% of the protesters are men old enough to be getting Social Security. Unexpectedly finding themselves preggers doesn’t appear to be an issue for these people.

Oh, but their visual aides. I’ve watched as many a mom tries to navigate the perils of the vacuum tube, unaware that her tot’s eyes are bugging out at R rated images of little limbs and crushed heads. There’s only one way out of the lot, and it’s past these people, so even the parents who spot it and try to distract the kids don’t have much luck.

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I’ve typed and erased several different wrap-ups to this, but honestly, I can’t do it without going into a rant, so I’ll just say this: obviously, their real goal is simply to hit as many people over the head as possible. It’s not education. It’s not intervention. And it’s certainly not an offer of help to a woman who’s in trouble. If the welfare of children was really their main concern, you’d think they’d pay more attention to the ones who aren’t “pre-born,” whether they’re little ones in mom’s car, or scared and heading to the clinic. And now I’m getting off my soapbox and going to bed.