The Big DumpTruck

You can't swing a dead cat (or a live one, come to think of it) without finding a Boston blogger talking about the DNC. I'm going to talk about it anyway, in case the Boston Globe finds my site, sees how brilliant I am, and offers me a contract to write columns for them. Cause I would.

Yesterday, Mr. Crunchy posted a comment about the trash barrels being removed for our safety and protection.

Call me silly, but if trash cans are good bomb hiding places, wouldn't someone have already done that? Just because the DNC is in town, would any more people be killed or hurt than on any OTHER day in town? Seems stupid to me, and not only that, because people still require a place to dispose of their coffee cups and newspapers, they are using the empty holders and trash is blowing all over the city. That makes a nice impression, doesn't it?

The paranoia is amazing, but what makes it insulting to boot is that we didn't bother taking these measures for the ordinary humans who spend every day working and living in Boston. If it's so high-risk, why wait until now to make these changes? Is the head librarian from Cleveland who is part of the Ohio delegation that much more important than any one of the thousands of people who visit Boston or the Fleet center, or ride the subways with bags and boxes any other day of the week or year? Will democracy cave in if a bomb detonates at the Fleet Center next week? I doubt it. It would be a horrible, horrible thing, but not any more horrible than it detonating during a Bruins game, or an RV show. Politicians are not more important than the rest of us. They are supposed to BE the rest of us. So why aren't we being "protected" as much as they are? Are they not replaceable? We do it all the time - every November some politician somewhere is being replaced.

Sorry, didn't mean to go off on that, but reading about people being forced to take a week off without pay so the DNC folk can frolic at Fenway, have concerts, and go through the motions of picking John Kerry (over, huh, is there anyone else up for the position?) sickens me.

They say having the convention in your city brings in millions of dollars. I'm guessing that with all the extra expense (police overtime of $108k to protect us from...picketing police officers? Are you freaking kidding me?) breaking even is a pipe dream.