STL DPB ON THE ROAD - TWO DEMONSTRATIONS IN REGENSBURG

 

After devouring our sausages in Regensburg Sunday afternoon, we went out to the street to find a large and loud group of young women and their supporters marching through town. The themes were feminism, consent and, to use an American expression, enough of mansplaining. I doubt that Google Translate got all the subtleties, but the orange and green sign means something like "unsolicited advice from strange men," and the black on orange "protection is not a privilege, but a right."

Around the back of the cathedral, there was a smaller group who were apparently supporting the old Iranian monarchy. I think that is the pre-Islamic Revolution flag, and I heard the name Pahlavi mentioned. I wonder what they hoped to accomplish.                                  

SUPER POWERS

Sometimes I feel near despair for my country, allowing this incoherent, childish egotist to run things. I have hope that our November congressional elections will bring a strong tidal change but fear that the process and results may be suppressed. As it happens, we will visit Hungary late this month. It will be interesting to see how things feel there.

It should be a pretty Easter weekend in St. Louis but I'm not very mobile. Thursday's nerve root ablation can't come soon enough.                   

NOT MY PROBLEM

 

I didn't listen to the president's speech last night - I wanted to get some decent sleep. Everything I needed to know was on the news this morning. Here's something that struck me. Although the U.S. and Israel started the war and Iran's closing the Straight of Hormuz was an obvious consequence, Trump thinks it's the rest of the world's problem to reopen it. Not ours. We spilled all the candy but somebody else has to pick it up.               

FREE BURRITO

 

Catholic Worker is a long-established left wing Catholic organization based in New York City. When I was in high school and had the run of the city by subway I think I ended up at some event there. A contingent of them was at No Kings Saturday, with this man calling out "Free burritos! Don't march hungry!" They gave a neatly foil wrapped snack to anyone in need. I guess that was part of their point.                     

MUG SHOT

 

I think I will leave the commentary to you, gentle reader. He does like his face and name on absolutely everything possible. Think of the opportunities.                 

NO KINGS

 

The third No Kings demonstrations took place across America yesterday. There were 50 scheduled in Missouri, with a big one in downtown St. Louis. Mrs. C and I went, and an absolutely perfect day brought out a big crowd. No estimates yet of numbers. The mass of people marched 2 miles / 3 km down a main thoroughfare to the baseball stadium, where a game was about to end. My spine didn't carry me that far.                     

PATRIOT

 

The president and his sycophants claim that the people at the No Kings rallies in every state were left wing loonies [sic], Hamas agitators, Antifa operatives (as if such an organization exists, while we are reminded that every American soldier who fought in World War II was antifa) or cranky, out of touch geezers (like me). All lies, and yet more lies.             

PROTEST THEOLOGY

 

In general, I think that mixing religion and politics creates a volatile brew. Your reaction may depend on whether you support or oppose the point being made this way, but in either case rational analysis suffers. Using religion with satire is maybe not so bad.                 

CONTRARY TO WHAT SOME PEOPLE SAY . . .

 

And that was the universal tone at No Kings. No America haters, just people who want to preserve the values of our democracy. And it was the same all across the country.           

HONK IF YOU LOVE INFLATABLE HIPPOS AND HATE AUTOCRATS

 

St. Louis’ No Kings protest spilled out of Kiener Plaza to the edge of Market Street, downtown’s main east-west thoroughfare. Lots of passing motorists honked their approval, even a city fire truck.                 

AXOLOTLS FOR FREEDOM

 

As with everywhere across the country, many protestors at No Kings day wore absurd inflatable costumes. It’s known as tactical frivolity. As the writer Gary Shteyngart said in the New York Times, 

it shows the absurdity of the charge that all the protesters are armed militants. In contravention of the Trump administration’s claims that the protesters were all Hamas agents or antifa interns, the protest [in Chicago] was wholesome, nonaggressive and almost shockingly middle-of-the-road. It’s hard to call an inflatable chicken dangerous.

By the way, axolotls are Mexican.       

NO KINGS

As most of the world knows, there were thousands of No Kings protests around the U.S. yesterday, attended by millions of people. There were several around our metro area, with the biggest in our main downtown plaza. It rained all day and I wondered if anyone would show up. People dressed for the day and there was a big crowd. More to come.                      

WE’VE HAD IT

There were demonstrations all around the U.S. on Monday, our Labor Day holiday (an observance with increasingly dark irony in this country). The subject is clear, as Trump makes evermore aggressive threats to our democracy. There were two in St. Louis, this one on the viaduct where a local street crosses a major highway. It was well attended.            

SENIOR OPINION

Some of the senior members of the St. Louis community take a break from the heat and humidity at the No Kings rally. No way to get him out the door until the 2026 mid-term elections.                      

PLACE NAMES

To be determined by geographers and cartographers, not politicians. I note that both Google and Apple Maps have caved on this. Shame.               

VISION

I am so proud of this woman, out at the demonstration with perhaps her son helping her, expressing her conscience. Hard to see at this resolution, but her shirt has a face known to most Americans, Smokey the Bear (only you can prevent forest fires or, more recently, only you can prevent fascist liars). The bear wears mirrored sunglasses, reflecting the desert in one lens and mountains in the other. The word RESIST is  written across the hat. Hooray for her.            

ACCORDING TO MARK TWAIN

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

Another image from the No Kings demonstration in downtown St. Louis. It was scheduled to go from 2 to 5. I got there at 1:30 as a brief shower broke out. By 2:45 Kiener Plaza was very crowded, my old creaky spine was wearing out and I was soaked in perspiration. I left but people continued to stream in. Only the next day did I learn that thousands more arrived and began a march many blocks long along the adjacent main avenue. I missed it but it’s a consequence of getting old.

And by the way, Mr. Twain, it doesn’t.                      

 

 

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - FREEDOM FOR IRAN

   

Yesterday looked like it was going to be a tough day physically for me. I'm getting old and my back is not in great condition. We started the day walking the length of the Portobello Road Saturday market. It was so crowded that if you stumbled you might be trampled. So we thought the National Gallery would be a nice change but I was so tired that after a while I thought that if I looked at one more Tintoretto I was gonna - well, you know.

We stepped out on the portico so I could get some wide shots of Trafalgar Square and found a large demonstration for freedom and democracy in Iran. That perked me up. It was pretty intense.

               

MARCH FOR OUR LIVES

There were demonstrations across the U.S. yesterday demanding greatly increased regulation of firearms. They were organized by March For Our Lives, founded by a survivor of the Parkland school shooting in Florida. The anger keeps rising and rising with every massacre, people like these take to the streets, and yet nothing ever happens. The culture of much of this country and big money political influence make lots of lawmakers rigid, as I see it, valuing firearms over lives. And since voting districts can be so manipulated in this country and one party leans toward throwing out election results it doesn't like, I fear for the future.            

IN THE LOOP

Not in the sense on being in the know or having the right information. The Loop is a stretch of Delmar Boulevard that straddles the line between St. Louis and University City. The area got its name a long time ago because trolleys from the city proper would barely edge out into the newly forming suburbs and turn around on a loop of track to head back in. Now it's full of interesting restaurants, offbeat shops, an art house cinema and the bar where Chuck Berry used to play. The feel is adventurous and the politics pretty far left.

The Loop has been the scene of several recent demonstrations. Many businesses have boarded their windows as a precaution. I walked the strip yesterday, taking pictures of some of the things painted on the wood. This got my attention.