Coalition of the shrilling

I could never be a journalist. It takes too long for my thoughts to gel (or congeal), which means it can be days between an event that sparks an idea and the idea being put to paper in coherent form.

Which maybe why so much of what we see on TV or read in the paper is incoherent gibberish. It has just been flung together in a hurry, without time to reflect, ponder and have a few beers.

A few days have passed since I had a look at the APEC rallies. Countless trees have been felled (and CO2 released into the atmosphere) to provide coverage of the event, which had global warming as one of its themes. Dozens of arclights have burned day and night to provide proper television coverage, consuming vast vats of electricity. Coal has been burned in abundance to keep the TV crews well lit. I don't remember anything about carbon offsets being purchased by the rally organisers, so I guess my attendance contributed to the death of at least one polar bear.

Personally, I prefer clubbing baby fur seals, but a polar bear will just have to do.

The rally, which I think was supposed to be about stopping Bush, was supported by at least 31 disparate groups - you can get a list of those that provided statements of support here.

Some might say that in order to drum up the maximum possible numbers, they cast the net far and wide. I prefer the term "scraping the bottom of the barrel".

When you have 31 groups acting together as one, you have a coalition. In this case, the Coalition of the Shrilling. After hearing the furious termagant (more thesaurus work there for you) speak the other day, I was thinking of calling them the Coalition of the Shrieking, but I settled on Shrilling as it rhymes with "willing".

In the days leading up to the rally, the mouthpieces yabbited on about how it would be peaceful etc etc etc. I want to know how they can make statements like that, given that so many different groups were involved. Can the organisers personally vouch for every single group that provided a statement of support? Do they know the organisers of each and every group, and can they be sure that they are only bringing along sane, sensible people?

The answer of course is "no". They had no idea who was going to turn up. They just want maximum numbers, and I don't think they are too fussy about how they make those numbers. Since that is the case, they have no way of excluding those that might want to trash every multinational franchise such as Stabucks, McDonalds and the Body Shop. It's just not possible. When you cast a wide net, it's like long line fishing. You're going to haul some things out of the ocean that you weren't fishing for, but took the bait anyway. Like dolphins, turtles and albatross.

Expecting everyone who turns up to be peaceful and law abiding is something no one can guarantee, and only a complete fool, or a liar, would make such a statement. Just because you have good intentions doesn't mean that everyone you attract will feel the same way.

After all, they attracted me to the rally. I don't think I am the sort of person that they had in mind when they started trawling for victims.