busy weekend

[Kragen Sitaker]

Yesterday, Bea, Ben, I, and three other people went to the Renaissance
Faire; we had lots of fun.  Very hot, though.  A woman sitting near us
during the belly-dancing passed out and vomited, apparently from
heatstroke.  Some medical folks hauled her off in a wheelchair.

Beatrice wore a shirt, sunglasses, cutoff jean shorts, and a black
leather vest.  At one point she went to get lemonade.  The wench
serving her lemonade dipped her hands in a bucket of ice and put the
icy hands on Beatrice's neck, cooling her down.  It felt good.

"I didn't think you'd mind if I did that.  Want to run away with me?" 
she asked.

"I'm sorry --- I'm engaged!" replied Beatrice.

"Your fiancee must be a very lucky woman," grinned the woman as she
drew lemonade for Bea.

Bea came back to us and told us the story.  After we drank the
lemonade, we went back to get more, and Beatrice introduced me as the
"very lucky woman."  I got my neck iced down, too.  Beatrice stuck a
dollar bill into the serving girl's bodice, prompting a surprised cry
of "Huzzah!"

Today Beatrice and I attended an antiwar rally with about twenty or
thirty thousand other people in Union Square in San Francisco.  I saw
many people with many different viewpoints; pacifists opposed to any
war, folks opposed to Bush, folks opposed to war for economic reasons,
and folks opposed to the destruction of civil liberties.  I saw
hippies, hackers, Communists, veterans, old men and women, small
children, college students, and

We gathered at the foot of a huge monument to the American Commodore
who attacked the Spanish fleet at the start of the Spanish-American
war a little over a century ago and listened to music and speeches.
One reggae song was about going to Zion.  Bonnie Raitt addressed the
crowd through the amplified speakers; six-year-olds led chants.

The crowd cheered wildly as our MC announced the arrival of each new
group of protesters.  A marching band with drums, but no uniforms or
brass instruments, walked around the plaza, drumming loudly.

I thought of Einstein's opinion of those who loved marching in
formation and yelling in groups and wondered if such tactics could
ever change the world for the better.  They don't seem to promote
clarity of thought.

We passed Wavy Gravy in the crowd as we left.

Policemen sat on the roofs of the buildings around Union Square with
binoculars.  None seemed to have rifles or tripods at the ready, which
I was happy about.

We each drank about a quart of water to keep cool in the intense heat.

Apparently forty thousand people showed up to the New York protest
today, and there are 24 other cities that also held protests.

I haven't found much coverage so far; here's some about yesterday's
protests:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/10/06/iraq.protests.ap/index.html

I plan to put some pictures up on the web later.

After the protest, we went to an exhibition of Holocaust-survivor
photos by Beatrice's godfather's wife at a Jewish library.  I felt
sad.

I think Lessig will argue the Eldred case before the Supreme Court on
Tuesday.  I sure hope he wins.  For some reason, copyright extensions
and tightening of intellectual-property restrictions don't seem to
have the same level of public awareness that mass detentions and
violence do; I don't think most people understand that copyright
enforcement means keeping people from publishing things, so 

It's election day in Brazil.  It sounds pretty well-run, but it's
mostly being done by computer, so there's the opportunity for massive
undetectable electoral fraud.  It sounds like they have started
rolling out machines that produce printed ballots so as to avoid this
problem, but these machines aren't yet widely deployed.  I hope things
will improve in the future.

-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra died in August of 2002.  The world has lost a great
man.  See http://advogato.org/person/raph/diary.html?start=252 and
http://www.kode-fu.com/geek/2002_08_04_archive.shtml for details.