On diversifying one's tactics

The most violent of the Obamavilles that have sprung up around the country this fall is the one in Oakland, California. As the San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Later in the evening, Occupy Oakland protesters gathered for their general assembly meeting and withdrew a resolution calling for future demonstrations to remain peaceful. A faction of the protest group has advocated for violence as a "diversity in tactics" approach to demonstrating.

Evidently that was just before a man was shot and killed just outside the Oakland encampment, the fourth death in an Obamaville this week. The other died by suicide or from natural causes, in New Orleans, Salt Lake City, and Burlington, Vermont. As even the New York Times admits, occupying Wall Street (or Oakland or Burlington or even Washington, D.C.) is just not a healthy lifestyle:

Dr. Philip M. Tierno Jr., the director of clinical microbiology and immunology at NYU Langone Medical Center, said the conditions could leave park-dwellers susceptible to respiratory viruses; norovirus, the so-called winter vomiting virus, which can lead to vomiting and diarrhea and which could quickly overwhelm the limited bathroom facilities in the area; and tuberculosis, which is more common in indigent populations and can be spread by coughing.

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford