Looking for a good protest?

Hello, and welcome to Protest Week. Hope you've already picked up your posters and megaphones. This should be quite a show.

Got a gripe? This is the place. Our philosophy: If you don't have anything good to say about someone or something, come sit next to us.

With President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld coming to town to speak to the American Legion convention, protesters are coming out of the woodwork to make their messages heard. Tomorrow, Salt Lake residents will wake up and think the '70s broke out again. It's Down with Nixon and 'Nam all over again, man; only the names have changed. Where are Abbie Hoffman and Jane Fonda when you need them?

Seven protests are scheduled by six different groups. Scheduled? Well, it turns out that these are not your father's protests. These days, protesters get permits and are assigned places and times for their rally. In the '60s, that would have been like calling ahead to schedule a robbery.

Ah, for the good old days. They really knew how to protest back then. Protesters protested when and where they wanted, sometimes under the influence of certain drugs; they weren't interested in cooperating with authorities, or they wouldn't have been protesting in the first place. What was the point? The idea of getting a permit and scheduling a rally with the authorities would have seemed pretty silly.

The way it worked in the '60s was they took their protests to places where the people were; now the protesters make reservations for a certain area and people come to see them, like a zoo. Note: Please, do not feed the protesters.

We now have quite a lineup of protest rallies Wednesday for your viewing pleasure. Here's the schedule:

1. "Death to Israel" rally. Begins at 9 a.m. in downtown Salt Lake City and ends at 11 p.m. or until the first act of violence occurs. Should be fun. Just one question: Is it legal to come right out and say you want a certain group to just die already? At the very least, isn't this bad manners? A hate crime? How did they get a permit for this? At the very least they probably should have softened the name of their rally to, say, "Hooray for Israel's Enemies Rally."

2. "We the People for Peace and Justice" rally. Anti-war activists will meet at Washington Square and later begin a march. They will be joined by celebrity protesters Cindy Sheehan and Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, the head cheerleader for protesters protesting presidential visits.