The sunshine patriot...

That will probably be me today. I do not yearn to be part of a tribe, and I do not like the big tribal events called political demonstrations under the best of circumstances. In cold weather with heavy rain that is moving horizontally because of 25 mph winds (plus gusts) I completely loathe them.

So unless there is a significant change in the weather between now and noon, I will not be lending my person to a tea party protest.

Besides, I spent the money for twelve stamps to communicate my displeasure to my elected officials.

UPDATE: Oh, what the heck. I have to go buy some groceries, anyhow, might as well stop by the protest and see what's what.

I usually find Michelle Malkin pretty shrill, and I believe she's a social conservative to boot, but I think this column of hers pretty much sums up the attitude of a lot of folks to piggy Republicans:

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/04/15/an-army-of-tax-revolters-and-a-warning-to-fair-weather-republicans/

Crummy Day for a Protest

090415_01teaparty
Originally uploaded by lb_philly.

I needed to go out and get a few things anyhow, so I decided to take in the Tea Party protest along my route. There was one guy with a Ron Paul banner; otherwise, it seemed to be pretty much a "jeebuz, who's going to pay for this deficit?" crowd.

I heard an estimate of 300 people, which sounded about right to me. To help set the scale, LOVE Park is a full city block wide, and this shows about 3/4 of it. The crowd was eight to ten deep in a lot of places.

It was a nice mix of ages, mostly white, mostly extremely sheepish about making a lot of noise.

Still, they started cheering some time after I headed down toward the Reading Terminal Market, and I could still hear them two blocks away.

There's another event scheduled for Saturday, noon to 2:00 p.m. The weather is supposed to be glorious. But I'll be giving a tour of the Union League.