things move around

I make pilgrimmage to a well known exploitative globalised capitalist fast food outlet for lunch, and on the way back to my office am distracted from the agonies of my inner gut by a faint cheer and a solitary whistle. Anti-Bush rally. Divert to take a look. Couple of hundred commies and eco-warriors, with the odd granny sprinkled in for the attendant TV cameras, bearing witless placards and clad mainly in Gore-Tex ™ or seemingly home-made knitwear. One placard reads, and I swear I’m not kidding, “Bush doesn’t care about the environment.” Some bloke on a podium ranting about war crimes and how great the Palestinians are. I get a free coffee. Anyway, I’m infiltrating the mob, trying to get a gander at the politburo in back of the podium, dodging vendors of anarchist pamphlets (just two bucks!) when everyone starts going nuts, shaking their flagstaffs and howling and screaming and so on, their faces purpling into paroxysms of loony rage. Imagine the Barbarian hordes at the start of the movie Gladiator, but with cell-phones instead of bastard swords, and you won’t be far wrong. I’m carrying none too subtly a copy of the right of centre National Post under my arm, so I mumble my excuses and leave the irate sloganeers to their bored-looking police escort and their defiant plod round the chilly Downtown streets. Not sure what they’re hoping to achieve with all this ruckus - can hardly see Bush being born again again, converting to the far left cause and replacing Condee with CP - but I guess it warms the cockles on a late November day. Lumber and beef, now those are two things I could get gnarly about, but it seems this crowd are less excited by free trade than by free coffee, free Willy and freeee-ky!