false alarm!

[realthog]

Denver Police Brace for Convention

reads the headline in this morning's New York Times. Not unnaturally, I was alarmed. I could understand the cops becoming nervous at the prospect of invasion by the likes of ellen_datlow, Bob Eggleton, Marianne Plumridge, Jane Frank and some three thousand others attending the World SF Convention in Denver this coming weekend, but surely this was overkill. Were my various friends likely to be coming home bruised, battered and with, for the first time in their lives, a profound aversion to handcuffs?

As I read on, however, I was reassured . . .

Federal and local authorities fear that the Democratic
National Convention will become a magnet for militant
protest groups.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/us/politics/05security.html?th&emc=th

Phew!

Comments

[realthog.livejournal.com]

You're right: it's embarrassing. These young fans just don't know what it's all about, do they? Time was, we'd have the con hotel trashed by midway through the Thursday evening, and the bars'd be desperately sending out for fresh supplies by the end of Friday breakfast. Now, though? Just look at those acne-faced whippersnappers. They wouldn't know how to pee in a flower display even if we showed 'em.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Not just young fen. At the Western Political Science Association conference in San Diego this March, I was reminiscing with Steve Erie of UC San Diego of the old days when I was a grad student and he was a young instructor there, and a current graduate student was in awe of the shenanigans we were talking about.