I went to my first ever march on Saturday. Somehow I manage to have the best friends ever, including but not limited to, Brian and Andre, who went with me to join the hippies for a bit, hoping perhaps for a little molotov cocktail action. No such luck. It was a silent march, so quiet along Sherbrooke on a rainy Saturday that Brian decided he *wanted* to chant. The organizers shouted a couple in English and French once we reached "Norman Bethune Park", ie the sliver of dirt on the corner of de Maisonneuve and Guy. I was wondering: is it weird that Norman Bethune was so tied into China when we're discussing their unispired lack of action vis a vis Burma? Just a thought.

It felt good to do something that can be qualified as solidarity. But I am no fan of what seems like "professional activism". Someone Brian knows, who he calls "an extreme vegan" (ie eating honey is "obviously" immoral) was a busy bee these days, going from this "demo" to another about the next controversial topic du jour. Not my thing. I guess it is this type of person who must be in charge of sending emails entitled "protest went great!" Is this, like, "tried your recipe, it went great!"? Or "had that date last night; it went great!"? Woohoo. I don't know. Not my thing. I'm still really glad I went, and I'm thrilled Brian and Andre were there too. Some people are just awesome.

An article in WIRED about `open source politics` and the group on FB through which I found out about the protest.