Of plants and protests.

Since I have plenty of entertaining stories about providing legal support for the protestors at the over the last few days, I'll instead post pictures about my balcony garden. Okay, okay: a few summary thoughts, with more to come.

The police response was properly described by one activist as a "bumbling and violent police action."

The cops did a whole lot of arbitrary shutting down of streets with rows of riot-clad cops, when zero protestors were anywhere nearby. In this picture, at Liberty Ave & S. Millvale Ave near Western Pennsylvania Hospital, the cops had watched the protest march continue down the street. They were about a third of a mile away when i took this picture (I had to hotfoot it to catch up.)

And as usual when the police engage in the overwhelming show of force, shock-and-awe style repression of dissent that has been popularized since Seattle, the cops did some pretty stupid stuff, and beat down some people who had nothing to do with the protests. This included University of Pittsburgh students who happened to have the nerve to try to walk through their campus, and deploying of tear gas and peper spray on narrow residential streets.

Police outnumbered protestors approximately five to one, or six to one.

I'm going to break up these posts and do the gardening pics separately...