I went to today's peace protest in Hollywood. The pics are here. Got there a bit late. As with the past protest, I was riding my bike, which makes covering open streets easy but isn't so good for pushing through the throng.

There were the same dumb signs as the past protests, although the number of swastikas seemed to be less, countered by a corresponding increase in the number of nazi references.

Getting near the stage, I was surprised to hear that the "acting President of the United States" was here. Now, of course I wasn't expecting Bush, but for a brief moment I thought Al Gore might be making a surprise appearance. To my chagrin, it turned out to be yet another appearance by Martin Sheen. He lead the crowd in a brief but emotional bleat, followed by someone from UCLA. Something about all the money we spend on the military, better spent here, etc. etc.

Look, I never said I was a photojournalist, OK? Next time, I'll take notes or bring a tape recorder. As well, the pics this time seem to be suffering from a lack of irony.

The Radical Teen Cheer group were kinda cute, especially the little one in the middle. Everything was fine except for the part of their cheer where they talked about their support for Uday. Yes, supporting Uday. No, really, I'm serious.

One guy was passing out duct tape; he had "I'm safe" written on the back of his T-Shirt. In duct tape.

OK, the Mon Dieu sign is reasonable, and the beret over the "F" is a nice touch, but I think we can draw the line at the Reichstag Fire sign. Except, he probably got that idea from the Internet.

Biking up Highland to attempt to get some shots of the protesters against the stars, suddenly all hell broke loose. Cop cars swarmed past me down Highland, and I quickly went back to Sunset to see what was going on. Apparently the cops had decided that it was time to stop marching. They slowly advanced east on Sunset, and shortly announced over a bullhorn that the protest was indeed over. At one point, about twenty bike cops sounded their alarms in unison, in an apparent attempt to keep the crowd moving.

A couple people got swarmed and arrested. A second-unit cameraman from KABC was there, maybe something appeared on the news about these incidents, but I doubt it.

It wasn't that bad, certainly not the 2x4 treatment, but the cops seemed to be a lot less, er, mellow than at the downtown protest in January or at the one in the same area in December. It was a little more heavy-handed than necessary considering that most protesters didn't appear to be making trouble. Or maybe I was just suffering from Stockholm syndrome.

UPDATE: Originally, I thought the police action was just a way to clear the streets and make them safe for transsexual prostitutes. However, apparently, they were responding to a "Black Bloc" breakaway protest. I musta missed that, because I thought I was just in a sparse group of people walking east on Sunset. There's more here and here.

3/24/04 UPDATE: While removing comment spam, I noticed that someone claiming to be from Revolutionary Teen Cheer claims they don't support Uday. I must have been hearing things then, because the cheer I heard certainly seemed to imply that.