Oh, I wanted to mention something I saw this May Day. As with most cities, we see some people every year using May Day as an opportunity to smash stuff, start fights, and engage in random violence during otherwise peaceful protests. I don’t know whether we’re better or worse than most towns, but it’s seemed pretty bad by my estimation.
Well, this last May Day, there were lots of protests and very little violence, which was nice. But the great thing was what I saw. A room full of riot cops all decked out and ready to go, sitting around bored and playing with their phones. Something about the sight really made me happy. Sure, it was to some degree wasting taxpayer money and they obviously overstaffed by a big margin, but frankly I’m still delighted that they found solace in Candy Crush or whatever instead of going out into the protests and making trouble where there wasn’t any before.