Manufacturing Dissent
There is a private elementary school in my neighborhood, the gates of which are currently festooned with adorable hand-made anti-war posters. I happened to be walking by last week when they were being put up. It was clearly a school activity, along the lines of "draw a pilgrim for Thanksgiving", or "make your dad a paper-weight for Father's Day". They were having grand old time, and many of the signs were quite cute. My favorite went something like this:
$1,000000000000000000 for Tanks
$1000 guns
peace priceless
Trying to get your mind around the irony of a school-sanctioned or -mandated protest is like trying to visualize a Mobius strip. For me, anyway.
So we're walking by today and the Lottery Guy (a kindly, nutty old man who tramps around the neighborhood with a walker, telling everyone "the Lotto is hard to win") is sitting on one of the schoolyard benches.
I expected him to say "the Lotto is hard to win" as usual. Instead he said, in the same exact tone, "the kids sure are mad at the government."
I can't remember having been more surprised in my life.
UPDATE: I went by the school yesterday and I realized I had the sign wrong. It's:
$1,000000000000000000 for Tanks
$1000 guns
good president priceless