As someone who works in New York City, I take very seriously the almost daily stories about security concerns. New York has been on terror alert level orange since September 11. Please, protestors who are planning civil disobedience or other actions that will cause havoc during the RNC, stay home. New Yorkers don't need this kind of stress in their lives. Getting to work that week will be stressful enough without people like this woman insisting on her illegal march to Times Square. [ I don't have the level of intensity that Flynn did in his response, but it sounds pretty crass to dismiss this lady's right to be heard over a matter of stress. There were many responses to 9/11, but I've never been comfortable with the "Batten down the hatches" approach that seems so common. A lot of people felt like this was the end of the world. I'm not trying to minimize the event, but it wasn't like whole cities were vaporized in a nuclear strike. It just wasn't the end of the world. I say, if you want someone to be angry at, be angry at the callous and opportunistic asses who chose to hold their convention in New York to capitalize on the imagery of 9/11, re-instilling the american people with xenophobic terror for political gain. Be angry at these people who will curb our freedoms and chip away our liberty, who will thereby play directly into the hands of our enemies, for pure greed or power or political expediency. Be angry at those who will talk constantly about winning the "war on terror" while simultaneously abandoning Afghanistan and bin Laden, destroying our worldwide credibility, engendering hatred across the muslim world, and spending all the money that COULD have been spent on port inspections, first responders, air marshalls, in short, on homeland security, on a misguided and misrepresented war in Iraq. I don't doubt that it's going to suck to be a New Yorker for the next couple of weeks, but the blame must necessarily fall squarely on the RNC and the administration. -k edit 8/26 : here's a link which touches on some of the very point i made: http://dailykos.com/story/2004/8/26/112826/771 ] New York Braces for Protests | 
