police riot

The Occupy Wall Street protests, now in their eighth day, heated up significantly yesterday when New York's finest were ordered to crack down.

Yesterday's march started off small, with significantly fewer than 1000, but as the scrum neared Wall Street, they were joined by many others. The weekend warriors had arrived, because what could be more fun on a Saturday than going downtown and getting your face pushed into the pavement?

As the crowd of protesters grew, the cops began shoving and arresting people. In perhaps the worst incident, a group of women was corralled behind an orange crowd-control net, then pepper sprayed for no apparent reason.

That will bring out reinforcements like nothing else could.

Way to go, New York's finest. You're helpin out every way you can, and like a large, stupid animal, stumbling and bumbling right into the pit they dug for you.

It makes me feel nostalgic for the good old days of my youth, and I wish I was there, joining in the fun.

I'm glad for what these kids are doing. There really aren't all that many of them, but then, there were only 300 Spartans at Thermopylae.

All it takes is a few.

The events of the past week were predictably accompanied by a media brown-out. The New York Daily News to its credit has front-page coverage of yesterday, and the ABC affiliate in NYC had some excellent, partly-live coverage. The Times is showing its true colors and not reporting on the protests at all, but using their space to heap contempt and snide sarcasm on the dirty, smelly, ridiculous hippies.