So I'm driving home from work listening to All Things Considered when we come to the end of an hour. Local news comes on, and they mention that George was in town today. I knew he came to visit a water treatment plant to tell us how we needed to spend more money on terrorism prevention. He visited a high school and talked about the new government re-org they're doing... It turns out he also stopped in to do a fundraiser for Jim Talent, and we have our contingent of anarchist protesters out. I figure it's about time I did some on-site reporting, so I looked up where they were and headed downtown.

I first got out there and had trouble finding parking. Security was less tight than I thought it might be, but they did have the parking garages right next to the Marriott shut down. I found parking and it wasn't tough to find the protesters.

The protesters were in fact out. They were a small group of silly anarchists, greens, some guys protesting Social Security reform (is that still even on the table?), and one woman with a sign saying "15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. These are our friends?" A fair statement, if you ask me.

So I decide to go ahead and interview someone... I choose the guy holding the sign that reads "Bush Smells Fishy".

Derek: I'm Derek.
Ryan: I'm Ryan, what are you here about?
Derek: I'm here because I'm a concerned individual.
Ryan: What are you concerned about?
Derek: Lots of things. Uhh, free thought, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, speech and of being human and of doing the things that I want to do and that I have passion to do without having to be beaten down by The Man.
Ryan: Do you feel those are under threat right now?
Derek: Yeah, quite a lot and lots of other things are too, but I just like coming out and bringing humor to events that are usually very humor-less.
Ryan: Good deal, I had some friends that went out to the New York protests protesting protesters.
Derek: Yeah, I have some friends and we're thinking about starting an organized group... There's two of us right now, and we're thinking about protest.. protesting... wait.. Protest Protesting Protesters. There's two of us now, and we can't really come to an agreement so we're thinking about splitting into different factions.
Ryan: That's always how it goes, isn't it? Any good movement is going to factionalize like that.
Derek: Yeah...

After that I realized that my interview skills weren't really up to snuff, I just wasn't mixing too well with this crowd, and I was out of cigarettes besides, so I decided to wander around and find somewhere to buy cigarettes. I don't know if you've ever spent any time in downtown Kansas City (I hadn't before tonight), but it kind of dies after 5:00. I'm only assuming that it is alive during the day, but I had a hell of a time finding an open store to buy cigarettes. Finally I saw this bar, John's Upstairs. I had heard about it, and some friends of mine have told me that it's a fun place to hang out. So I decided to pop in there to buy some smokes.

While I was buying smokes, I had to go ahead and get one of those $1 margaritas. So I drank that down, smoked a cigarette, and prepared myself mentally to head back amidst the protesters.

The next guy I talked to was a candidate for the Progressive Party, which I guess is an offshoot of the Green Party.

Matt: My name's Matt Larson, I'm the Progressive Party candidate for the 51st district. I came out to support the people who believe what I believe, that this administration in the first place is illegal, because it was not rightfully elected, and the policies are completely out of sync with the way that most Americans, and most humans, see that the world should be.
Ryan: OK, so you're a candidate for the Progressive Party.
Matt: We're the green party, uh, uh, I hate to say franchise, but affiliate in Missouri.
Ryan: Is there an official Green party candidate running against you, or...
Matt: No, I'm working on signatures so I can get on the general election, so I don't have to deal with a primary. Right now there are only two of us running in the entire area, there's myself in the 51st, and theres Mel Scribner in the 50th, I believe.

Ryan: You're running for Congress?
Matt: The Missouri state house...
Ryan: Do you have any ideas of what you would want to do if you were elected?
Matt: I personally fell that my district, the western part of Independence, the eastern party of Kansas City and Sugar Creek, I feel that the state of Missouri has just neglected those areas. Truman Rd. and 23rd. St. are state highways, and they're falling to pieces. I know for one that I've had to replace my shocks and tires a lot sooner than I would have needed to if the state had felt the need to keep it up. Really, I'd love to see a decent, safe and affordable public transportation system, but until that time, we need to live up to our commitment to the roads.

On top of that, the Missouri river forms the northern boundary to my district. I grew up around it, and I've never been to the bank. I've never felt safe dipping my toes in the river that is such a part of this area. I'd like to see the river cleaned up, the streets safe, well those are the two main ones.
Ryan: Is the river particularly polluted? I'm new to the area, is there something upstream that's dumping into it?
Matt: The Missouri/Mississippi river system has consistently been ranked as one of the top five, if not the worst polluted and endangered river systems in the western hemisphere... I want to feel that it's safe to canoe down, drink from and fish in...
Ryan: That's not a bad thing, I used to live in Arkansas, and that it was nice that way...

It turns out that the Progressive Party is having an open pot-luck picnic June 23rd at Longview Lake. Maybe I'll head out there. Free food at the very least, and maybe it'll finally give me an excuse to smoke a brisket.

So after I got done talking to him, I milled around for a bit, then started to get bored again. I talked to an irish guy for a while... He was against the Bush administration generally. He said he was split between voting for Gore or Bush... I didn't tape my conversation with him, so it's fuzzy. He just seemed to think that we were going about this war in the wrong way, and that it was somewhat our fault. I do agree with him in some ways... I know we have been propping up ugly folks in the middle east to get their oil, and to say that that had nothing to do with breeding the anti-Americanism that has come back to bite us in the ass is disingenuous at best. The fact is that the anti-Americanism has been bred, and what do we now do about it? I'm not foreign policy scholar, but I haven't been too terribly upset with how the war has been handled so far. I worry about civil liberties, but haven't seen anything yet that's gotten me too worried. The protesters are out, the cops weren't fucking with them, and they get a chance to vote again in two years. We'll see what happens between now and then...

Anyway, by then I needed another beer, so I decided to wander again. I came across this group of Bush supporters. (In the interest of fairness, I will mention that it was a smaller group...) I crossed the street just as the street was closed off, and Bush's motorcade drove up the street.

He drove by very quickly, but I did get a picture of his car. He was looking out the window and waving.

I went to another bar a bit down the road and drank a beer. I wandered a while longer around downtown Kansas City, and finally noticed that a thunderstorm was rolling in. Oh yeah, that must be that tornado watch they were talking about when I was driving out here. I figured it was about time to get home. When I got home, my roommate had ordered pizza. I like pizza.