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Started off the day taking BART downtown to the anti-8 rally. Definitely more a "rally" than a "protest". It being downtown Oakland, pretty much nobody was around on a weekend morning other than the rally attendees and a handful of bored police standing around in clumps. There was a somewhat random progression of speakers and it went on far beyond a critical mass of enthusiasm, with people drifting off while there was still no end in sight. For me the highlight was our newly-elected (lesbian) city councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan putting in an appearance, but she was the only official presence while I was there. (And since she isn't actually in office yet, I'm not sure she counts as "official".) The plaza out in front of Oakland city hall is a sunken semi-circular amphitheater around a raised "speakers platform". Great for photo-ops and press conference backdrops, but I kept feeling that having Greek-theater seating for a protest rally tended to suck a lot of the energy out of the crowd. It had more of a concert in the park feel -- abetted by the 80-degree weather. Lots of couples with young children, which sort of puts the lie to the whole "it's all about protecting the children" thing. I snapped some phone-pictures but don't think I got any good shots except for some generic crowd scenes.

I left with things still going on sometime after 1pm and took BART over to SF, ending up at Borderlands Books for