WHAT IF THEY GAVE A PROTEST AND NOBODY SHOWED UP?

Slogans scrawled on cardboard always do
the trick.

Two years ago, Black Lives Matters marchers could be seen here in New York on a daily basis following the death of George Floyd. Many of them always wound up in our neighborhood by 5:30 p.m., stopping off outside of Gracie Mansion, the official home of  the mayor. Over time, the marchers essentially converted the entrance of Carl Schurz Park into BLM Plaza.

Once Derek Chauvin, the cop who killed Floyd, was found guilty, the marches quickly lessened in size before stopping altogether.  Time for new protesters in my neighborhood!

"Pay no attention to the guy who got
knifed on the 6 train."

This time, it's anti-vaccination folks who are all hot and bothered, and laying the blame at
the literal doorstep of Mayor Eric Adams. Adams, in office since January 1, will likely never inherit the nickname I gave his predecessor Bill de Blasio, which you may remember as Our Idiot Mayor. For the time being, however, he is definitely in the running for Our Clueless Mayor.

However, while Adams seems unwilling to do anything about our soaring crime rate other than make sorrowful comments following each random stabbing, shooting, or racist/anti-Semitic attack, what seems to be getting the goat of some New Yorkers is his insistence that public workers get vaccinated in order to keep their jobs.

Hey, don't these people know how to
spell?

Judging by the "crowd" outside Gracie Mansion yesterday, that doesn't seem to bug many people -- six, to be exact. But unlike the BLM folks, the unkempt crew I saw are getting personal.  

When the worker vaccination mandate was put in place under Mayor de Blasio, there was a protest outside Gracie Mansion, with hundreds of people attending. Some of the marchers included cops and firemen. (None of them wore masks; as I recall, there was a spike in COVID cases the following week.) They barked their comments through bullhorns while holding professionally-printed banners. News outlets took video, helicopters buzzed overhead, people stopped and stared. In other words, it was an event.

Because Milk Dud are brown -- get it?

The pathetic thing I saw yesterday attracted nobody except a few cops to keep order --  meaning, making sure the losers scrawling messages on the sidewalk and stairs and holding cardboard signs didn't climb over the temporary fencing separating them from their target. 

I would have taken photos of them, but I was afraid they'd have responded in a touchy way -- like beating me up, with or without cops nearby. But you have to trust me when I say that at least one of them seemed to be slightly better educated than the others, since his homemade flag, unlike a similar sidewalk message, spelled "FUCK ERIC ADAMS" correctly. Who says public schools don't do a good job?

When in doubt, always take medical advice from
a conspiracy nut armed with chalk.

Unlike the BLM protests, it's unlikely that the anti-vaccination mob-wannabes will be a
regular presence in my neighborhood. They likely believe that their two-hour appearance was enough to raise hackles. 

Forget that there was a boy of around 12 years of age and his mother laughing at them as they passed by. If anyone is ticked off as the protesters, it's the parents of young kids who are exposed to nasty comments outside what is supposed to be their urban idyll. At least the BLMers placed pretty candles outside their signs.

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