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Fredericton's anti-war rally + funny police comment
by Asaf Rashid
Sunday, Mar. 21, 2004 at 12:58 PM
Well, my throat was a bit raspy this morning and all of yesterday evening, but it was well worth it. It was a beautiful day.
Most people who helped with organizing were hoping for at least 50 people, but that was quadrupled. There were performances by the Raging Grannies and poet Bob Young. And a 2 or 3-year old child even participated in the open mike, with the a short but sweet, "hello".
Congrats go to the the organizers. One of the best offorts for an event like this that I've seen in the last couple of years in this city. We had our own marshalls to direct the traffic, chant sheets, extra signs and placards, and a sound system that was apparantly audible all around.
One of the most fantastic things, and quite unbeleivable actually, was that there were no police around when we started. I was thinking that this was a bit odd, but then I thought that someone might have actually convinced the police that we had things all taken care of. Eventually, we did see the police though. They arrived when we re-convened at City Hall at the end of the rally for the open mike session. Their comments were along the lines of "We're ready whenever you are". This isn't a joke. They actually thought we hadn't started yet. I have never seen/heard anything like this before. We marched through the streets for about an hour or more with about 200 people, and they completely missed us. That's got to go on an all time list somewhere. Someone else has the exact line. They were a bit ticked off that no one notified them ahead of time, but of course failed to acknowledge that we did fine without them.
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