With the LEIU coming to town, June 2-6, many local anarchists are dusting off their old black bandannas to mask their faces. I think protesters should, instead, don exotic Hawaiian print bandannas. That would make cops uncomfortable, simply due to the absurdity. It would also mystify and intrigue all of your favorite people, while subliminally implanting relaxing images of warm sandy beaches at sunset into their minds! There are other equally effective alternatives to masking the face that are not the traditional black bandanna. For instance, imagine the police force's confusion at a group of 500 anarchists wearing Groucho Marx noses and glasses! Rubber clown noses predate bandannas by centuries, masking outlaw vaudevillians. On an e-mail group someone recently suggested wearing a Lone Ranger mask. I can just see the police rounding the corner, to find 1,000 masked Lone Rangers, with black capes flowing in the wind behind them. How surreal would that be, mixed with the police riot gear?--Kirsten Anderberg

We also need to broaden our affinity groups. How about the Anarchist Bird Watchers Association, complete with association patches and baseball hats, marching together? Or the Anarchist Fly Fishing Club? APGA--Anarchist Pacific Golf Association? The Anarchist Curling Team? At the Curling Championships, an announcer would introduce "the Fins, the Canadians, and the Eugenians!"

Protesters could also buy broken cameras from thrift stores. It doesn't matter if they work or not. And those cameras should be given to every protester possible. Then when police misconduct happens, a lot of clicking should be going on. A symphony of clicks, perhaps, could occur. Even if the cameras had no film, the mindset of the police would be rattled by that many cameras present and clicking. And think of the picture in the paper the next day: 100 anarchists in Groucho Marx masks, ALL with cameras, up and clicking in front of the police violence! Street theater is one of the safest and easiest ways to make powerful statements without words.--K.A.

I read that George W. canceled the Cinco de Mayo celebrations at the White House in order to send a message of his displeasure to Mexico--displeasure over the Mexican government's failure to support his invasion of Iraq either in the Security Council or in public. Demonstrating just how complicated all this international-diplomacy-by-temper-tantrum can be, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Battle of Puebla, signifying a Mexican military victory over the invading French. --Troy Skeels

Still a Saddamite. Donald H. Rumsfeld, whose ties to the Saddam regime he now purports to have despised have been well documented, and who was earlier this year proselytizing for Saddam to be granted immunity from prosecution for the crimes in which he, Donald H., was complicit, has explained away Iraqi anarchy by surmising that, "Every jail in that country was emptied, so on the street are looters, hooligans, and bad people. They have to be rounded up and put back in," and promising that, "The forces there will be using muscle."

So while Human Rights Watch's 2002 country report noted the regime's "arbitrary arrest of suspected political opponents and members of their families" (and Amnesty International is tacitly accusing the Bush and Blair Administrations of "A failure to treat" the issue of "disappeared" victims of Saddam's regime "properly and as a matter of urgency"), Donald H.--rather than addressing the dearth of electricity, food, potable water, medicine, petrol (!), basic services, police, and paid employment--is spouting off about the need for a good old-fashioned "round up."

One can't help but wonder not only what the Administration may be trying to hide, but exactly what its future plans for the brave people of Iraq are?--Eddie Tews

In the wake of last week's terror attacks in Riyadh, Colin Powell promised to "commit ourselves again to redouble our efforts" and The Superbrain promised that the perpetrators would "learn the meaning of American justice."

Er, "commit ourselves again?" Powell is all-but-admitting that the Administration's dicking off in Iraq has diverted its attention away from attempting to prevent further terrorist attacks. Not only that, but any fucking two-year-old could see that the region would only be further inflamed by the Administration's raining thousands of bombs and missiles--including those, like radioactive munitions and cluster bombs, that will continue to kill for centuries--upon a defenseless Middle Eastern country, then turning its homeboys loose to steal the nation's resources while the population is left to fend for itself in a lawless world run amok and while epidemics of disease take hold. Yet it did it anyway. The Administration's actions comprised monumental crimes against humanity, and its negligence regarding the threat of future September 11s is tantamount to treason. As if it needed to be mentioned, the two go hand-in-hand.

Yet Dubya, in all his arrogance, invokes "the meaning of American justice." Yeah, well, tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghanis have already discovered the meaning of American "justice" all too well. But as for the comings and goings of the bin Laden-ites the Administration has supposedly been so assiduously hunting down? In the words of one American official: "Who knows?"--E.T.