George,

December 11th was my second visit to the Supreme Court, this visit a much more comfortable one. Instead of shivering in the dark, I went up with Debbie Macdonald and Betty Mooney in a Volvo station wagon complete with a hired driver. We were dropped off with Debbie and Betty's yellow signs (STAY OUT OF FLORIDA and COUNT THE VOTES) at the court, and after an hour of protest, took a break to get coffee down the street at Au Bon Cafe. We were the latte generation of protesters.. placing our protest signs against the cafe window, and eating curried turkey and grilled chicken sandwiches.

Other latte protesters were also in the cafe. We were cheered on and thanked for coming all the way from Charlottesville. Betty and Debbie, who had protested during the 60's and 70's, felt ambivalent about our cushy ways, but any protest is a good protest, I thought, especially since I had already suffered the week before. In the cafe we found a orange ribbon on our table and an accusatory paper that said that Scalia's son works for the Bush attorney team, giving contact information for both the son and Scalia.

I returned to the protest, taking the Scalia paper and a bottle of Perrier. Debbie and Betty's signs got thumbs up along the way.

The media portrayed this protest as larger, but I experienced it as smaller, though at least 1500 people were there. It was only larger in the number of people actually in front of the Supreme Court on the sidewalk. Last time there were hundreds of people on the other side of the street also.

Certainly the Democrats outnumbered the Republicans this time, and quite a few of the Republicans and Democrats had that latte protester feel: smiling and posing for pictures that their friends were taking, feeling comfortable about leading their children into the crowds, and looking warmly dressed and well fed. Many were silver haired, though every once and a while a group of students would parade by chanting.

John Boyd with "Forty Acres"

One of the most interesting members of the crowd was a mule named "Forty Acres" brought up by a farmer who represented an African-American farmers' association. The mule was dusty and calm, and the farmer told news reporters that if we no longer could get forty acres at least we could get our votes counted. Meanwhile Republicans held signs over the mule's back, leeching a photo opportunity away from the mule's Democratic owner while one of them complained about dander.

Legs, left to right: Reporter, Democrat, Democrat, Republican

The Governor of Montana was booed, Jesse Jackson was cheered (tell em' about it Jesse, tell them how they turned us away) and meanwhile a large collection of orange ribbons was moved through the crowd, each ribbon revealing the name of a Florida voter whose vote was not counted.

Alex Searls (electronic mail, December 12, 2000).