Some of the protesters seemed like decent enough sorts, just trying to get their message out to a wider audience. Others were of the sort that make you despair for the future of humanity:

The banner reads “9/11 Was An Inside Job”. I asked one of the less wild-eyed in this group this question: “If George Bush HADN’T known about 9/11, if it was just an awful attack that took him by surprise same as the rest of us, what would be different today?” I’m not sure if he called me a tool or a fool. It was noisy, and they had to keep marching.

These protesters were “Radical Women” and they were very unhappy about Mr. Obama’s accession:

One of the sadder sights of the convention area was the tiny protests by people who were obviously very passionate about their issue, but who couldn’t muster more than one or two eye-rollingly tolerant friends to march with them. It’s hard to have a popular revolt when you’re the only guy who shows up. I wanted to hook this guy with the Radical Women, to assuage his loneliness:

All other protests, all other issues, must in the end acknowledge the supremacy of the one cause that every decent American agrees with: the fight to stamp out bird porn. I’m not kidding:

This petite – one might even say, bird-like – woman was with a couple of allies, despite the picture, and apparently in all sincerity they were extremely concerned about bird-watchers observing mating behavior in birds in the wild. Apparently senior citizens are going out into the woods and getting their jollies by watching bird erotica live and one on one. (Still not kidding.) And this MUST. BE. STOPPED. From every effort to talk with the lady and her friends, they are deadly serious about this. Never mind the economy, forget Darfur, South Ossewhere’sthatnow? No, these issues all pale in comparison with keeping bird love pure and untainted by the despicable moral rot of our bird-watching population. Leave the birds alone, people.