Black as Night, Bitter as Hell

there is this other weird thing happening with me. i read this post on scott's blog and it made me all irkitable.

why why why?

basically, some guy got arrested before the RNC and then blogged about how bad the sandwitches were in jail.

now, it's been a while since i responded in a huff to scott's post and yet, my huff remains. i get that this guy wasn't really doing anything illegal and that the cops could have just written him a ticket or even processed him much quicker, but...

maybe it's because he's such a freakin' cry baby about it.

wait.

maybe it's because he went out to protest (or be a documentarian of a protest) about people BEING KILLED or about people being thrown in jail with no contact with the outside world or lawyers FOR YEARS or the systematic destruction of the enviroment for profit and he wants me complain because he was served D grade bologna after he got arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time (even though he specifically went to the wrong place at the wrong time because he thought it would be fun).

this leads me to the following conclusion. protesters today need some toughening up. if instead of complaining about being arrested they demanded on being arrested by demonstrating civil disobedience -- say, sitting down around the RNC and refusing to move -- all 500,000 of them -- you bet your ass they'd be on the front page.

nope. they're busy complaining about the luncheon meat.

not that you see me flying to new york to protest. maybe i should be more political instead of so irkitable.

i'm starting small. i'm looking for a new bank. fuck the bank of america. those guys are twats. did i ever tell you the story of the bridge to skye?

it's kind of a long story, but to shorten it up considerably, the isle of skye, off the west coast of scotland, was only reachable by ferry -- a considerable inconvinience to the islanders. the government decided to build a bridge but couldn't afford it so they jobbed it out to the B of A. part of the deal was if they built the bridge, they shut down the ferry.

so guess what? they built the bridge. it's lovely. the toll to get across is 5.70. that's not five dollars and seventy cents. that's five POUNDS and seventy pence. in dollars that's $10.28 to cross a bridge that's the only way for you to get home.

imagine if you worked in Oakland and the only way back to SF was over a bridge that cost you over ten bucks! why is it so expensive?

ask the bank of america.

there have been all sorts of protests and blockades and arrests and if you go to skye you can get a hysterical tour from this local guy whose name i can't recall or find on the web...

but you should go. go to skye. and find this guy who gives minivan tours and make him tell you about how they shut down the bridge by driving up to the toll booth one by one, asking how much the toll was, tying up traffic for ten minutes (there's one booth) by being shocked at how expensive it was and pleading poverty with the attendant, then giving in and rummaging around the car for change which they'd previously scattered and hid around the auto, pulling 1, 5 and 10 p coins out of the carpet, glove box, etc as slowly as possible until they found 5.65 worth of change and then, not finding another 5 pence, suddenly discovering a pre-paid bridge ticket tucked under the visor. HAH! FUCKERS! then they'd drive off and the next person would drive up and do the exact same thing.

they tied up that bridge all day. hah!

i bet he would have gotten arrested though and he would not have complained about the sandwitches.