Day 4: Day for which I can not think of a title

On Tuesday, I headed first to the "Very very Democratic Bazaar", organized by Black Tea Society. But when I emerged at Park Street and headed towards Charles Street, I first encountered the incredible exhibit and protest by practioners and supporters of Falun Gong. About 200 people seemed to be involved in the exhibit or around it.

The banners read simply "This is Happening in China". Right up against the sidewalk of Tremont street, more than half a dozen scenes of torture were depicted. Most featured a man dressed as a Chinese prison guard and a woman dressed as a victim. In some cases they were completely still; in others the people acted out the torture in repeated slow-motion. The first I noticed featured a man placing a dowel in hot coals and then burning the victims knee, over and over again. Everything about the scene (not just make-up and costumes but expression) was done so well and was so moving.

I don't know anything about Falun Gong but I is the general strategy that we should use our trade leverage to stop them from abusing human rights? I ought to read the pamphlet they gave out.

I was at the Bazaar for just part of it's first hour that afternoon, so I probably missed a lot that came later in the afternoon or early evening. There was music. There was a car running on vegetable oil. There was free food, free clothing, but also lots of stuff for sale. I like the woman from the Beehive Collective who, whenever she appared during the weekend, somehow looked as if she had just emerged from a forest. I saw Mark, and then Zach.

I had to run from the bazaar, though, to be at a forum I had to table at. But then I ran into Sadownik on Cambridge Street. We seem to have a habit of running into eachother in Beantown.

I wasn't needed at the forum so instead I went to the Campaign for America's Future (Taking Back America, I think they called this specific event) event over in Cambridge... which you probably already read about on Aerob's blog. Since the main room was way overflowed, each of the speakers would step out on the back deck of the hotel after they finished and give a second speech to the crowd gathered outside. I caught the end of Howard "a crowd pleaser as always" Dean, Robert "should be running for Kerry's seat in the senate but doesn't seem to be" Reich, Carl "I'm the president of the Sierra Club, and an ultra-boring speaker" Pope, and part of Barbara "kicks Tom Friedman's ass" Ehrenreich. I liked Reich a lot, and Ehrenreich was sounding very good, too -- on how it was 1992 when womens' issues were central to the platform (or something like that), and now it's just masculinized words about 'strength', etc.

Oh, and there in the crowd giving out fliers about the RNC demo was none other than Leslie Cagan, the head honcho over at UFPJ. I asked about the rally site, and she said something about how it shouldn't be as big a deal as it is made out to be, and it's just not what is most important right now.

Then on to another event, and then back to NYC and home a few minutes after midnight. Whew.