peace as nuisance

[realthog]

Thanks to my niece Zoe for this link: http://publicmeditationproject.blogspot.com/2007/09/me-vs-mall-security.html.

First of all you laugh aloud. Then the implications begin to sink in . . .

Comments

[quilterbear.livejournal.com]

I am gobsmacked. This is quite scary, actually.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"This is quite scary, actually."

Exactly.

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

It's considered "loitering" if you "sit" in mall areas undesignated for such activity. As for sitting on a bench with one's eyes closed, there are no laws anywhere prohibiting such an activity in America. But if you are "lying" on the bench with your eyes closed, the guards or police will give you the bum's rush for loitering and sleeping in a public thoroughfare.

Legal tedium.

Now, if our meditator were to merely sit with his eyes closed in medtitation on a mall bench, nothing would come of it. But to draw deliberate attention to himself by wearing a shirt that announces his activity tends to annoy people. It's basic human nature to react in this manner -- not that basic human nature is a wonderful thing. It simply "is".

Obviously the meditator's prime objective was to draw attention to himself with his signs, and he got it.

As for the implications being scary...everything about the human animal is scary.

I invite debate...;D (But I think I will regret the invitation...maybe)