Eternal Vigilance!

NYC has already had more protest-oriented arrests in the past couple of days than Boston had during the entire Democratic convention last month. Yesterday, ACT UP activists stripped on Eighth Avenue to protest the Bush administration's AIDS policy, among other things, and were promptly carted away by the cops. Mayor Bloomberg didn't flinch:"This is New York. Of course, we had seven naked people on Eighth Ave. What's the question?"

But NYC isn't the only place trying to remain vigilant in the face of anarchy. Take the Home of the Braves. Atlanta, Georgia. Please. School administrators tried to ban some kid for wearing a T-shirt that said"Hempstead, NY 516." Apparently, the Gwinnett County's Grayson High School thought the"hemp" referred to some illicit substance."It's important to remember that the vigilance of our administrators is important. The administrator saw a phrase on the T-shirt that raised a red flag," said the school's spokeswoman, Sloan Roach (the irony is just too obvious).

Well, the kid's family moved from, uh, Hempstead, Long Island, area code"516," to this suburb of Atlanta, and he was just wearing a keepsake from his old home town.