50 years ago today: "May 2, 1964, saw the first major student demonstrations against the war in Vietnam."

"In New York City, 1000 students marched through Times Square to the United Nations to protest what was then called 'U.S. intervention' on behalf of the legitimate government of South Vietnam. More than 700 students and young people marched through San Francisco. In Boston, Madison, Wisconsin, Seattle, there were simultaneous smaller demonstrations. A start, but nowhere near enough. Nowhere near enough because very few students even knew about the war, or if they did, knew what it means, or what they could do about it. Now thousands know the nature of the war in Vietnam and its corollary deceit in the press and in our universities, and its concomitant at home. The May 2nd Movement calls that war and the resulting lies about it at home the products of an imperialistic system."

From "What is the May 2nd Movement?," a historical document preserved at The Sixties Project.

A Google news search on the term "the May 2nd Movement" turns up nothing, and I'm not finding anything more general about those protests. I'm particularly interested in the protests that took place here in Madison, and you might think Madison folk would be likely to commemorate 1960s protest. But a news search on "madison wisconsin vietnam" only brought up a couple of articles predicting the level of disorder that may occur on this, the weekend of the Mifflin Street Block Party, which, we're always told, originated in 1969 as a Vietnam War protest.

From protest to beer fest... and no one takes note of the half-century anniversary of the first major Vietnam Protest.

"Madison Mayor Paul Soglin walks with his wife, while observing the crowd control at the annual Mifflin Street Block Party in Madison, Wisconsin."

Meade messages me that and says "That's your caption." Here's the photograph.

The local newspaper reports: "Mifflin Street: A peaceful day in the neighborhood."

“Certainly, we’re very pleased with the way things have gone,” [said the spokesman for the police]. “What we’re seeing today is not the Mifflin Street party of two years ago. We worked hard over the last year to get the word out to people as to what our expectations were for this day and, by and large, people have been keeping the peace and policing themselves.”

Of course, if they had failed to do so, there were plenty of Madison police officers and Dane County Sheriff’s deputies around to help them out. Instead, they spent more time posing for photos with students, than arresting them. And by late afternoon, officers were already being sent home, DeSpain said.

Brian Figueroa, a UW-Madison senior from New Richmond, could’ve told them that the show of force at the start of the day wasn’t necessary. “It’s like a wasted resource,” said Figueroa, enjoying his fourth and final Mifflin Street bash. “Just take a look and see how many cops there are for how many students. It’s such a waste. Nothing bad is happening. It’s just a lot of people having fun, drinking and enjoying a sunny day that finally came. It’s good to let loose and have fun. We’re just celebrating a mess of hard work.”

We drove by a couple times in the mid and late afternoon and the place was loaded with police — including police horses. There were lots of students mostly standing around on porches and balconies. Presumably, everyone was drinking beer, but nothing looked rowdy. There wasn't even any audible music. It looked like a beautiful spring Saturday happened and everyone simultaneously came outside, but just outside — young people, like very old people, coming out only as far as needed to be outside. But here is — a much awaited festivity, consisting of the most mundane, low-energy activity: having a drink on the porch. 

"We are a group of adults making the choice to learn but also have fun while we do it."

"That's one of the main reasons people love Wisconsin. And if you think Madison would be the same without that idea, you're wrong."

"The police stopped at our house and said if we have anything that resembles any kind of party they would shut us down... I feel like it's unfair. Our entire house is 21 and we should be able to drink on our own property on any weekend we want."

Madison Mayor Paul Soglin uses city money to try to get students not to have a party.

The Mifflin Street block party is a big spring festivity, an annual event going back to 1969, when Soglin was himself a student, partying. The heavy drinking entails law enforcement problems. ("[T]he 2011 party was marred by two stabbings and three sexual assaults.")

Soglin said he wants to put any unused portion of the $190,000 designated for policing the unauthorized block party toward funding summer day camp or employment programs for youths. The budget amendment would require City Council approval.

“Is he trying to make us feel bad?” asked Lauren Cochlin, 23, who lives in the 500 block of Mifflin Street....

Soglin called it a “real-world decision” for attendees who in recent years have gone beyond “the right to party and the tradition” associated with the event with “some very serious situations that have been life-threatening.”

What if back during the Wisconsin protests, Governor Walker had pointed at the extra money that the state would be paying for law enforcement and said that he'd put that money into some program for children if the protesters would knock it off?

A government official should not use public money (or sentimentality about the children!) to pressure citizens out of exercising their freedom. The fact that some people cross the line into committing crimes is not a reason to go after everyone. Government should target its law enforcement on criminals. It's obviously easier to manipulate the good people into giving up their liberties. Imagine feeling guilty, when you're having a beer at a block party, that you're causing some child to miss out on day camp! Ironically, it's the very people who would be sensitive to that guilt trip who'd be most likely to bring good behavior to the party, diluting the proportion of louts who don't care about anything — not the laws, not common decency, not the mayor's creepy bribes, and not the damned kids playing games in the park in July.

"Let me get this straight: The police department’s job is now dictating when I should have a party, and that’s OK?"

"This is what gets at the heart of the issue. It isn’t 'Mifflin concerns us,' it’s 'you guys shouldn’t party that weekend," writes University of Wisconsin student John Waters, denouncing the Madison Police Department's "condescending letter." ("Mifflin" is an annual Madison block party that dates back to 1969.)

For students only, and on this weekend only, the city thinks it is OK to turn downtown into a police state, where they will seek and destroy any attempt at having unsanctioned fun. Ridiculous.

Next: “If you look under 21 and have alcohol, you will be asked to provide proof of age.” It’s official, the Constitution is being thrown out that weekend. I’m 23, but people say I have a baby face, so go ahead, demand my ID — the Fourth Amendment is really more of a guideline anyway. Ridiculous.

The super-liberal Madison authorities go in for this show-your-papers business to thwart the freedom of individuals to associate with each other over music and beer, but let the GOP at the state level require IDs for voting and they'll say we've descended into a police state. I can just hear these "progressives" righteously lecturing about how requiring IDs for voting is really underhandedly a way to discriminate. But the police department's policy is openly discriminatory against the young (and — if you want to talk about what's really going on — I'd suggest that that it's underhandedly discriminatory against males).

I defend Mifflin more than any event we have, not out of some misplaced adolescent desire to get hammered, but because it represents everything about this school that makes me proud to wake up a Badger. Yes, our academics are awesome, but it is the social life here that sets UW apart for me. Mifflin happens to be the pinnacle of that life, and is, as it has always been, meant to be a celebration of everything it means to be a Badger.

Simply put, it’s just fun to get up early and party with your whole school after a winter of cold and two semesters of hard work at a top-notch university. To the powers that drove us to this point, I would ask that you pay attention to the entire reputation of this school, not just your idea of what that reputation should be.

2 choices: "step aside" or "step the f*** up and show the world how Madison..."

"... has consistently earned our spot in the top five party schools while continuing to excel academically."

University of Wisconsin students have been protesting for a long time. Is this too not an issue of freedom?

"We still have rights; we have a house on Mifflin... Long live Mifflin."

Should they not fight for their right to party... especially on Mifflin Street? The history:

The Mifflin Street Block Party began in 1969 as a street protest, which involved dancing in protest against the Vietnam War. Its original date, May 3, was set to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the French student rebellion. Anti-war sentiments had accelerated in Madison since the 1967 Dow Chemical protest in which thousands of students occupied and were violently expelled from Ingraham Hall. The original event arose as part of a continuing conflict between students and police in the "Miffland" area, centered on Mifflin Street. Police refused to allow permission for the street dance and when they entered the area in response to a noise complaint, a confrontation ensued that lasted three nights and spread into the surrounding student areas. Students threw stones at the police and constructed barricades to defend themselves. The police responded with tear gas and billy clubs. At the end, 70 people were injured and more than 100 arrested, including future and current mayor, Paul Soglin.

The iconic red Solo Cup.

Suddenly, it's everywhere. Or... I mean... it appears in 2 different (and excellent) articles on the front page of the nytimes.com right now.

1. It's in that article — which I just said I loved — about the political microcosm that is one nutty garden club:

[April Ward] listed many indiscretions she said she had seen, smelled or heard around the shed area on summer nights. Smoking (of more than one substance). Grilling. Bonfires. Club money used to pay for charcoal, propane and food. Composting bins used for Solo cup storage. Physical fighting, once resulting in stitches. “Sex noises.” At least one instance of adultery and a resulting divorce.

“We have people in the club who are recovering alcoholics or addicts; they can’t be around people drinking,” Ms. Ward said. “You come to the garden, you expect it to be people gardening. And these people aren’t gardening. They’re having a party.”

2. It's in this profile of the fascinating internet character Jenna Marbles, who puts up junky YouTube videos that young girls love so much she's up to over 1 billion clicks.

In a hushed tone, she chews over a thorny problem of young adulthood: how to apply full evening makeup when you’re already inebriated from drinking all day?

She begins her tutorial by wielding that totem of collegiate binge drinking everywhere: a red plastic Solo Cup. One jump cut later (after a “Law and Order: S.V.U.” drinking game), she re-emerges, thoroughly intoxicated. She misapplies a gob of glue. It dangles from a false eyelash. She lines her lips with a black pencil....

The video, titled “Drunk Makeup Tutorial,” is completely awesome to some, bewildering to others — and above all, classic Jenna Marbles....

Searching the back archives of the NYT, looking for the source of devotion to this icon, I see (from last fall):

Last year Toby Keith literally stumbled his way back into pop culture relevance with “Red Solo Cup,” an ode to the drinking vessel of choice for soused common folk everywhere....

Okay, obviously, I need to catch up with this meme:



I get it. Apparently, you do not have a pair of testicles if you prefer drinking from glass. Henceforth, I will keep track of this pop culture symbolism. Sorry I was slow on the uptake, readers. I'm trying. I'm really trying. Some day, if I can sharpen or blur my perceptions sufficiently for internet purposes, maybe I too will have 1 billion clicks.

Meanwhile, speaking of activities involving red Solo Cups — which you're free to buy at Amazon — here in Madison, the Chief of Police, Noble Wray, would like you to know:

There will be no Mifflin Street Block Party on or around Saturday, May 4th in 2013. The spring student party will no longer be a City permitted or sanctioned event... The nuisance house parties on Mifflin Street, with the rampant over-consumption of alcohol and the attendant safety issues will no longer be tolerated by the City of Madison....

If you are considering hosting a party in the downtown area on or about 05/04/2013,the City of Madison is strongly recommending that you reconsider....

Among the laws that will be enforced with a "no tolerance" policy that day:

The City of Madison has established a glass ban on Mifflin Street and surrounding areas from 05/03/2013 through 05/05/2013. This ban is meant to help keep residents, guests, visitors, police and fire personnel safe. ALL GLASS containers will be banned on public property, even if it is not alcohol. Please avoid any glass containers. If you have glass on the street, sidewalk, or terrace, you will be cited.

No glass, but — I heard it from Toby Keith — you, sir, do not have a pair of testicles if you prefer drinking from glass.

"Ponchos and sombreros: Partygoers don ‘insensitive’ attire despite student efforts."

Imagine! Student efforts failing to sear prick the conscience of the Mifflin Street Block Party people.

The student group that wants respectful seriousness and no horsing around on the subject of Cinco de Mayo calls itself Badgers Against Racism... or "BAR."

IN THE COMMENTS: pduggie said:

"sear the conscience" is the opposite of what you mean.

To have a seared conscience is to have one that is locked out from all claims of injustice.

I think you mean wound or prick.

He refers me to the New Testament, 1 Timothy:

¹The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. ²Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. ³They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. ⁴For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, ⁵because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

I stand corrected. Prick is a much better word.

And by the way — I'm sure I'm not the first person to notice — there's a nice biblical argument for same sex marriage. St. Paul contemned the bad religionists who "forbid people to marry," and — right at that point — said "For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving." Did God not create gay people?

Here we are "in later times." Is your conscience seared or pricked?

AND: Though I've read the New Testament many times (though mostly the Gospels), my experience with searing the conscience is overwhelmingly from something written by Felix Frankfurter, in a passage I've used repeated in my constitutional law classes. The case is Baker v. Carr — a great Warren Court landmark — and Justice Frankfurter articulates what is, to me, the most memorable statement of judicial restraint in the Supreme Court reporters:

We were soothingly told at the bar of this Court that we need not worry about the kind of remedy a court could effectively fashion once the abstract constitutional right to have courts pass on a statewide system of electoral districting is recognized as a matter of judicial rhetoric, because legislatures would heed the Court's admonition. This is not only a euphoric hope. It implies a sorry confession of judicial impotence in place of a frank acknowledgment that there is not under our Constitution a judicial remedy for every political mischief, for every undesirable exercise of legislative power. The Framers, carefully and with deliberate forethought, refused so to enthrone the judiciary. In this situation, as in others of like nature, appeal for relief does not belong here. Appeal must be to an informed, civically militant electorate. In a democratic society like ours, relief must come through an aroused popular conscience that sears the conscience of the people's representatives. In any event, there is nothing judicially more unseemly nor more self-defeating than for this Court to make in terrorem pronouncements, to indulge in merely empty rhetoric, sounding a word of promise to the ear sure to be disappointing to the hope.

I'm quite shocked to discover Frankfurter misused the phrase! But then — did you know? — English was a second language for Felix Frankfurter, who was born in Vienna.

"We need a mom and I'm anxious to be that mom and bring us back together."

Said former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk at the Scott Walker recall candidates debate.

I'm breaking that out of the context of my much longer post, below, because it's the most blatant and absurd gender politics I've ever seen. I want it out there where everyone can see it.

I'm thinking: motherhood... apple pie... Will she bake us an apple pie?

♫ I'd like to bake Wisconsin a pie and keep it company... ♪♪



Feel free to steal my ad idea, Executive Falk.

ADDED: Meade says:  "Anxious? Anxious to be that mom?" Me: "Who wants an anxious mom?"

By the way, is this the "Age of Anxiety"?

It’s hard to believe that anyone but scholars of modern literature or paid critics have read W.H. Auden’s dramatic poem “The Age of Anxiety” all the way through, even though it won a Pulitzer Prize in 1948, the year after it was published. It is a difficult work — allusive, allegorical, at times surreal. But more to the point, it’s boring. The characters meet, drink, talk and walk around; then they drink, talk and walk around some more. They do this for 138 pages; then they go home.

Digression: Are they drunk yet at the Mifflin Street Party? It's 10 a.m.

ADDED: From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report:

The winner will take on Walker, and the Democratic Party has scheduled a rally for Wednesday on the Capitol steps to unite Democrats and build momentum for the recall election....

Falk said moms are the ones who bring fighting families together and she would be like a mom for the state.

Putting the mom in momentum.

AND: The Miffliners were drunk and tweeting it by 9 a.m.

Should students who party on Cinco de Mayo be shamed for their ethnic insensitivity?

That's what's going on here in Madison.

“It was a good opportunity,” said [a UW-Madison student who designed a Cinco de Mifflin T-shirt, "Mifflin" being the name of the location of an annual block party dating back to 1969.] "People have been calling it ‘Cinco de Drinko’ for the last four years and they’re very much relating it to a drinking holiday anyway.”

... [A]nother student and shirt designer, said that “it’s part of American culture” to drink alcohol while celebrating holidays.

Other students are disappointed by the misappropriation of Mexican culture. The organization Badgers Against Racism formed over ongoing conversations between students concerned with the lack of cultural sensitivity on campus.

Racism?!

“As members of the UW-Madison community we strive to create a learning environment that promotes social justice education, cultural awareness, and respect,” the group said in a statement obtained by The Daily Cardinal. “We should be able to participate in traditions like Mifflin without promoting stereotypes that dehumanize our peers.”

What's the stereotype? The only stereotype I see is UW students as drinking and partying too much. And (other) UW students getting all censorious and political.

IN THE COMMENTS: Don't Tread 2012 said...

Acro-observation:

Badgers
Against
Racism

In the spirit of race-baiting, the first round is on me.

I know. I noticed that too, and when I read your comment, I thought maybe it's a satire, and I took it seriously. I went back and reread the article. Is this really dry humor? But taking into account the context — Madison, Wisconsin — no, it's real. I'd love to be wrong!

"On Sunday, UW-Madison Dean of Students Lori Berquam produced an awkward, stilted YouTube video advising students 'Don't go'..."

"... to this year's Mifflin Street Block Party. The video went viral and students almost immediately began to heckle Berquam on social media."