jackboots and krazy kids

couple years ago, i remember reading about flash mobs. bunch of kids get a text or an e-mail, "show up at this place at this time," and they do. (yeah, remember spontaneity?) it took a few years before the creator outed himself in harper's. basically performance art ridiculing hipsters and their faux-non-conformity, placing them squarely in the center of a conformed and rigid demographic. these were astonishingly fast bits. 15-30 seconds and everybody went poof.

didn't take long for this to morph into silent raves. (which, if their point is their pointlessness, i'm all for the full-circle irony, but i digress.) same organizational idea -- get an untraceable text and show up someplace public. this time, everybody is plugged into their i-pod and they dance around awhile in outer silence, then skee-daddle. last week, over 1000 kids showed up in nyc's union square, and by all reports there was no trouble. cops and on-lookers were amused, and some perhaps puzzled. then poof, it was like it never happened because the modern merry pranksters were outta there.

this weekend about 20 baby libertarians decided to honor thomas jefferson and silently rave in front of his washington d.c. memorial, an area that is open to the public 24/7. groups larger than 25 do not need a permit to gather.

it was scant minutes before park rangers told them they had to stop and leave. when asked, "why?" f-bombs were dropped and handcuffs snapped shut. a few got threatened and one girl was arrested. was it so outside these officers' orbit to simply ask, "what the heck are you guys doing?" instead of instantly going fascist? times are tense in the nation's capitol (and elsewhere) thanks to our chief-in-paranoia and his subversive snarling henchmen, and i have never known too many cops who think outside the box. but this was a very small group, not making any noise.

the arrested girl has since been released and charged with the laughable offense of "interfering with an agency function." they couldn't even muster disorderly conduct or resisting arrest.

much like last year's adult swim lite-brite fiasco here in boston, i fear law enforcement has lost all sense of proportion and balance.

one night in college, we had an lsd-fueled impulse to get in the reflecting pool at the christian science center. (if i'd known then it was full of freon as part of their complex's cooling apparatus, i doubt i would have been first in, ok?) it was 2 or 3 in the morning and only a few blocks away. it never occured to us the place had cameras everywhere, but we were just splashing around. guys with severe suits and earphones appeared out of the dark. very politely they asked us to leave the pool. "the water isn't safe for swimming and it's very late. you kids should go home." that simple. so we left, sopping wet, laughing our asses off and to this day i think of those guards as such good sports. i mean, i know they're all about clean living, but we could not have been the first and only group of toasted students who went for a dip, ya know?

i'm no hippy, but i can only see this as a corner that cannot be unturned. warrant-less wiretaps, payrolled media flacks touting the progress of all of our wars (except that pesky war on drugs -- that's so passe these days) so as to purposely mislead the public, and an administration that blatantly disregards the constitution every moment of every day.

after 9/11 so many sheeple were happy to sacrifice personal liberties for that nebulous tenet of national security. careful what you wish for, folks.