ustxtxb_obs_2004_09_24_50_00016-00000_000.pdf

RNC, continued from page 7 ing gloves spars with a stand-up Bush punching bag. Across the street, the Infernal Noise Brigade, an 18-piece protest marching band from Seattle, plays. At least two of the hundreds of police officers videotape all of this, as activists ft: 41ri ,evi \(9.y “41 “88’4E6400D \(orrot-2net Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst photo: Jana Birchum radio show back home. Wearing cowboy boots and a wide-brimmed hat, he towers over the reporters who swarm him. One asks if he’s worried about the activists. “I think they are harmless,” Moore says. “I’ve never seen a pig attack.” Earlier in the morning, inside the Hilton, David Barton, widely credited for building the modern Texas Republican Party, lampooned the protesters from the podium for thinking the breakfast was sponsored by Halliburton. “I guess having intelligent information is not a prerequisite for protesting,” he said. When Parkin is informed of Barton’s comment, he responds with a smile: “Oh really? I was here for the Haltiburton breakfast. Oh, shoot.” After the protest, the Tejas Bloc takes a breather to plan for the next demo: the Fox News Shut-Up-Athon. F41 ven among the roughly 4,000 activists, media, and police crammed onto the sidewalks outside Fox’s Sixth Avenue office building/studio, it’s hard to miss the 7-foot carrot. Dressed in a huge carrot-suit, he identifies himself as Chris P. Carrot, and hands out campaign flyers. Sponsored by the animal activist group PETA, the Carrot is running for president under the slogan, “It’s a vision thing.” Nearby, a skinny shirtless man in American flag shorts and matching box shout “Hey, hey, what do you say, how many lies did you tell today,” and “The more you watch the less you know.” One of the Tejas Bloc members who gives his name as Jose R. is soaking it all up. He arrived on Monday, part of a group of 15 that drove from Houston in a biodiesel bus that runs on vegetable oil. They left Texas on Thursday, and stopped in Arkansas at a Vietnamese restaurant to fill up. The bus then broke doWn early in the morning outside of Dayton, Ohio. A new hose fixed the problem but the activists missed Sunday’s main march. Arriving Monday morning, they left the bus at a church in Yonkers. “There are so many people here,” says Jose. “I’m impressed. We are not alone.” Neither is Fox. Monday night, Fox broadcast its prime-time coverage of the Republican National Convention to 3.9 million viewers. It’s hard to know how many of the assembled activists note the irony of several thousand people shouting at a skyscraper while inside, continued on page 29 16 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 9/24/04