Seattle mayor Paul Schell has now declared a civil emergency and enacted a 7
pm curfew for the downtown area.
I'm about four blocks -- towards downtown -- from the 6th & Pike
intersection that's getting all the TV coverage. Here it's been only very
slightly different from normal all day. There's a little bit of tension in
the air, people hurrying a little more, more cops, and some signs.
We have a TV set up and are watching the real rampage going on a few blocks
away.
I was outside the last half hour trying to get a latte! MOST OF THE COFFEE
SHOPS CLOSED AT 4:00!!! OK, so I guess it really is an emergency. It seemed
really weird that I couldn't hear the uproar from where I was.
The other funny thing about this is that whatever the real merits of this
issue, virtually nobody here can actually tell you what the outrage is.
Certainly *I* don't have a clue, and I know quite a few people who were
going out to protest today.
I think Cindy's velveeta hypothesis is exactly what's going on: We're mad,
we're not going to take it anymore, and the stuff They manipulating Us with
nowadays, you can't even get a grip on it. At least with Vietnam, you knew
what to yell about...
So I'm going to go read Balachander Krishnamurthy's post -- it looks like
there might be some real information in it!
Cheers,
Mike