Hunting for News

(A scene from the protests at the state capitol.)

Work's been a little slow, so I decided to walk around and find some news. (Well, I actually decided to walk around and find a hamburger, but I never did.) The convention's pretty silent, so I chose to go the other way--toward the protests. The protestors weren't quite so loud as yesterday, though, so it took some hunting.

The Bomb
I struck out east, heading through the gate to the media camp, past the National Guardsmen at the end of the street, around a cordon of reclining (and yet intimidating) police drinking bottled water and eating pretzels, and out into the real world. Immediately, a man bearing a camera tripod in one hand and a cell phone in the other tore past, shouting that the bomb squad had arrived and that he "had to get this shot." I tagged along, of course.

The National Guard begged to differ. As police vehicles roared down the street, I and my fellow disaster-chasers had to poke around across the road. I never did see what the fuss was about. But they did let find whatever they were looking for, and finally let us through--to find Chris Matthews holding forth on a podium in the middle of a park.



I was crestfallen, of course, but I vowed to continue my search.

The Protest
After the bomb debacle, I walked around the perimeter of the convention zone--until I heard what sounded like drums in the distance. Where there are drums, there are protestors. I made a beeline for the sound and found myself at the state capitol, in the middle of an enormous rally. Thousands of people stood, lay, danced, chanted, or simply milled around on the lawn outside the capitol building. As I walked, I gradually became aware that my suit and my credentials set me apart from the crowd--particularly when two rather large young men asked me if I was a Republican. So I tucked my credentials inside my jacket, made my press affiliation clear by taking out my camera, and walked into the thick of the crowd.

As I walked in, a young man talked to the rallygoers in a deep baritone about the elections.



He asked them how, if they knew that John McCain and Hillary Clinton were "shapeshifting reptilian overlords", they could be sure that Obama was not, also, a shapeshifting reptilian overlord. (Because he would have shapeshifted into a white man, in case you are wondering.) He went on about Sarah Palin in a fairly offensive way; I wandered on.

At the stage in the center of the rally, a group from Iraq Veterans Against the War finished a talk. Afterward, two men came on stage and started playing music in the peace-and-unity vein: "Hello, Hello/Salaam, Salaam..." I looked around at the protestors around me. A young mother danced on the grass with her small child; a man dressed like Jesus bowed in some personal ritual; college students holding ribbons and flags pirouetted around the lawn.



(If you can't hear, the man in the background is saying, "Is the kitchen in the house?/Is the bathroom in the house?/Is the closet in the house?")

Walking Back
I'm a moderate Democrat and no protestor, but it was hard not to get caught up in the spirit of the moment. I had to return to al-Hurra, though, and so I walked south from the capitol. On the way back, two young men (not so large as the ones before) asked me who I was. I explained that I was with the press. They had seen several people at the rally in suits, and they wondered what was going on. The men seemed perfectly benign, but the next time I try to report on a rally, I'll bring a change of clothes.

A group dressed in white walked by me across a bridge. One of them started talking to a police officer, and I feared it was a protestor trying to get smart. Then they walked up to another officer, and I found out what they were saying: "Would you like some water?" They were from a Christian group called Living Water, and they were carrying sacks of bottled water. Their shirts bore the verses from John 4:13-14. They offered me water as well, but I declined.

As I entered downtown, I came across a long line standing outside a building. Protestors again? There were probably a few in the crowd, but these were ticketholders. I had stumbled upon the building where the Daily Show is being filmed. I don't know when they will start filming, but I'm sure that the folks in that line will be waiting for at least three or four hours yet. And I'd be among them, but...I had to get back to al-Hurra.