This was a comment to BooMan's frontpage article today about arrests of anarchists.  I post the comment here, following some additional video evidence I've uncovered.

Video of some of the arrestees.

Video of Anarchist Amy Goodman being arrested today..

More video of the vicious "anarchist" actions, with the well reasoned response of police officers on the scene..

Here is my comment to BooMan's bit:

Prelude

This is an experimental writing project; just the execution of an idea I've had for a while.  Here are the rules.  When moved to despair by our present state of calamity, find a historical Wikipedia reference.  Substitute modern references for Historical references (and be prepared to show your work).  Use ellipses to delete the non-applicable.  And make only minor word insertions for clarity, set off by brackets, e.g., [T]he, the[ir], etc.

As I suspected, it writes itself.  My first entry is spawned by the collapse of Lehman, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (which should be kind of complete by Monday -- in some form or another).  Does anyone else feel the empire falling?  I used the wikipedia article on the "Crisis of the Third Century" in Rome as my historical reference.

And without further ado:

I would very much like to pray that as I spun around last night and attempted to volley the football on the goal, I did not severely sprain my ankle.  I'd like to pray I won't be out two to six weeks while my team, Chivos Viejos, fights on in the summer season.  But I know that praying for such things will not make them so.

Resigned to a lethargic Saturday, I crutched into my den, elevated my leg, and started to finish a book I had heretofore greatly enjoyed:  The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann.

On Wednesday, May 28 (tonight) at 8:00 p.m. EST/5:00 p.m. PST my publisher is hosting an on-line chat for the release of my second novel, Skinny Berry.

For those unfamiliar with my work, I think it is a bit of a mix between John Grisham, Michael Crichton, Carl Hiassen and Ayn Rand (if only she were progressive).

This particular novel is a fictional look at the potential problems with the introduction of genetically modified organisms into our food supply.  My publisher will be giving away a few copies of the book during the on-line chat, so if you haven't bought the book yet, this might be a good chance to get a copy at the rock bottom price of $0.

This diary is about the irresponsible statements made by Hillary Clinton on this 23rd Day of May, 2008.  I'm not going to link to the statements.  BooMan has done a sufficient job laying it out.  I simply want to comment on the seriousness of what she has said.

As a trial lawyer, one of the cardinal rules I have been taught about a jury presentation is that it is most effective to lead a jury right up to the point of making a decision.  But to pause on the door step.  To let them take the last stride themselves.  People want to make their own decisions.  It makes their positions more firm.  They become committed to the idea, because it is their own.  Given that Mrs. Hillary Clinton and I were both educated in American Law schools in the same quarter century, I am almost certain she has come across, and probably internalized this rule.

So my second novel is going to debut in brick and mortar stores on Thurdsay, May 22nd at 7:00 p.m. at Everybody Reads Books & Stuff at 2019 E. Michigan Ave., Lansing, Michigan.  And it is going to be birthed into this world with great reviews.

Terry Olson's Skinny Berry is a highly intriguing legal thriller that's ripped from straight from tomorrow's headlines.

<snip>

Full of likable and despicable characters caught in tense situations, Olson's paperback thriller is a timely, enjoyable and entertaining follow-up to his earlier book, "Direct Actions."

It's called AOH.  Apparently.

Have you ever had that moment, when it just clicks?  The metaphors and cliches describing the the moment are myriad.  It dawned on me.  I was struck by the notion.       Then I saw it clear as day.

I was reading Booman's recent observation about the press yet again  seeming to manipulate things in an anti-Obama way. And Boise Lib's take on finger gate.  And plasticseapolluter's catch of the job the foreign press is doing on our country's embrace of torture and terror tactics, while the U.S. media more or less ignores these crimes.  And OPOL's ode to a love -- and to a life as an activist artist.

I turned forty-one last year.  I am fairly certain, in biological terms, I'm on the downhill slope of life.  But I still feel magic in the world.

As I get older, I've come to understand that magic is different for all people.  We all have to find our own sources.  You know it when you see it come into your life.  It is the moment you spend totally immersed in nature.  Or perhaps, when you saw the one you love stand somewhere up the aisle.  Saw your child born.  The sources are different and many.  You know them.  You have felt them.

I believe the following clip of Hillary on the campaign trail is important and deserves wider play.  I heard about this moment a couple of days ago on a blog (maybe this blog -- I don't recall).  But I hadn't seen the actual moment until just now.

It is an example of the bankruptcy of her campaign.

She can only whiff at what Obama has brought to the table and then seek to co-opt his messages.  And then, when she co-opts the message, she sounds as phony as a three-dollar bill.

Man!  I come here to read about another Obama victory in Maine, and I'm forced to turn to CNN?

With 44% reporting.  It is Obama 57%, Clinton 42%, Uncommitted 1 %.

And on the Repub side.  Romney in a runaway.  All 18 delegates to the newly departed Mittster.  McCain a respectable 2nd so far.  The Huckalby is Fourth behind Ronald Paul.  68% reporting.

I bought a T-shirt about two years ago.  I should have realized the shirt's significance immediately, given how it came into my possession.  A friend had tipped me off about a Latino march and rally in a community near me.  It corresponded with the time when large marches were happening in Chicago and Los Angeles.  It was my opportunity to experience the power of the people writ on a smaller scale.  The population of my community is measured in the hundreds of thousands.  The protests had hundreds of people.  Latinos.  African-Americans.  Whites.  And as an activist, I could appreciate what a great turn out it was.  It was good--just to share the space and the energy.

I have two stories I would like to share with you.  One, I would call bad news.  And the other, perhaps good, if I could be permitted to make such value judgments.  I will try to make this short.  But those who know my history will forgive me rambling a bit, I trust.

I would not have written the first story, I think, had it not been for the discovery of the second.  But I came across the second story, just five minutes ago, laying on my kitchen floor.  It is handwritten in neon-yellow highlighter on plain white typing paper.  Its words are laid out in the landscape style.  And while it is poorly edited, it makes up for this defect by being brief and genuine (I presume).  And this second story, it allows me now, to overcome my guilt, and record the first story.

Drawn back here by the primaries.  Where else is a guy going to go for news/opinion in this world?  MSNBC?  FOX!  Moo hoo ha ha ha HA!

Anyway.  I voted in the primary yesterday.  I was a surprise voter.  Because I had (prior to a sudden inspiration on Tuesday morning) completely abandoned politics as hopeless.  But I got to vote for someone I actually wanted to vote for -- for the first time since before 2000 I think (the last 8 years or so spent as a "strategic voter," you might say).  Too bad my candidate is not allowed to stand on the soap-box of network and cable television (except as comic relief, in cartoons where he is depicted as a midget).  No matter.  Democracy worked on Tuesday.  I checked his name.  Near the bottom of the ballot.  Below "uncommitted."  And he was off.  To his 4% point night.  And I was off, to remember, how I had been trained as a soldier to fight against the true evil empire.  Those awful Soviets.  The existential threat of our time.  That threat is, of course, now, so '80s.  And I remembered how I'd been told of elections where there was only one real candidate in this land of our enemy.  How the state controlled the media.  Corrupt leadership in the hands of just a few.  To deny the people the  truth.  Because no people could willingly abide such a system.  Unless they were grossly misinformed and horribly oppressed.

Ah, how the world has changed.  Busy, busy, busy.  We.

I have come to believe, quite seriously, that the only true answer for our society -- should we wish to obtain some meaning -- is to follow the example of San Lorenzo.  The examples of Bokonon.  To invent a myth based on lies, so as to come to a contented truth.

As the scripture says:

I wanted all things
To seem to make sense,
So we all could be happy, yes,
Instead of tense.
And I made up lies
So that they all fit nice,
And I made this sad world
A par-a-dise.

Imagine.  Living in a world where fabulous, harmless half-truths (foma), allowed one to live a life without the pain of suffering.  It would, of course, only differ from our own world, in that the lies were less than malicious.

I am woken this early evening by a thunderstorm.  It should be no cause for alarm.  I have heard the rolling roar of these storms for the better part of four decades now.  The flashes of white illuminating the night.  The torrents of wind-blown rain beating out an improvised base track.  The storms are things of beauty.  A spectacle one should be used to in Michigan.  But it is January.  Just after the New Year.  This has been a land dedicated to icy grays and whites from the first gales of November until the rains of March and April.  And this storm disturbs me so.

These last few years.  We here, those aging who do not sleep like the dead, are now forced to grow accustom to the thunder in January.  It is hard.  Hard to adapt.  I am dry in my McMansion.  But the existence of this storm does not rest well on the mind.  I imagine the mind of the polar bear swimming to oblivion.  He has no theoretical construct to explain these changes.  And tonight I share his unrest.