Tropical Funeral

Yesterday at work I found out about a New Orleans-style funeral march up the main drag for our state, and there wasn’t time to go home beforehand, so I apologize for the lack of photos. A brass band played as hundreds and hundreds of us trailed afterwards, blocking rush hour traffic and being cheered on by tons of local business owners. They know who eats at their restaurants and buys their goods – Union workers! Certainly not billionaires from the East Coast or anything. My two favorite signs:

(Around the neck of a black Lab) “Animals for the Ethical Treatment of Humans.”

“We the People of Wisconsin have declared Scott Walker an LTE.” (Limited Term Employee.)

Up around the Capitol they had set up inflatable palm trees because of some news footage on a “non-biased” news station that was showing how violent the protests have become here. Since they have not been one bit violent, this news station found some footage of protesters getting in people’s faces… with palm trees in the background. Now you can say a lot of things about Madtown, but I’ve never heard anyone refer to it as “tropical.” Here I have lived in this city for many years and never realized that I didn’t have to go all the way to Mexico to see palm trees in winter – I could have just gone up to the Capitol Building! How could this have escaped my attention all this time? Just look at this photo that I clearly took and didn’t doctor or anything.

Madison, Wisconsin in Early March

 
Famous Hat