Arkansas Blog

There are some interesting "local stories" about the Rainbow
Famiily...such as bathing their children in the restroom at one of the
grocery stories.....

Striped Elephant,

Where do we find such interesting scoop?

10% of the 2000 have gotten violation notices?

That must be a crime wave up there in Fallsville.

I have the scoop on this one...I'm blogging the event. Click my link. I'm also covering the skateboarding story.

As far as people washing their kids in public restrooms...I think this is something that ALL parents do. Sorry.

anothergirl,
My parents live in Clarksville. Apparently, they are expecting 8,000 more of these "Rainbow Family" people by the end of next week. Wish I was there to see them!

sounds like the police are scared to death. 10,000 people chanting for peace. that is a mighty scary idea if you ask me. buying gas, eating, quiet except for a little dope smoking . what a scary bunch. the crowd is 1/7th of a hog football game, shouldn't much of a problem and i doubt they are not nearly as rowdy as a texas or alabama game crowd after a win.

The first day they were in town I think the police were at the Family Dollar store three times - shoplifting.

the clarksville police have also been busy escorting the peace-lovers out of walmart for the same reason.

Local stores have new signs on their doors: No large purses, no backpacks.

Grocery store had signs everywhere: eating food before paying for it is a crime and will be prosecuted.
I didnt really see the need to put one infront of the whole pork tenderloins, though. ever seen anyone eat one of those four-foot things raw, in the grocery store?

but evidently the local merchants are having a hard time.

Maybe they'll all invade Clarksville's new XXX Adult store and shoplift a bunch of sex toys.

Let's quit romanticizing the hippie lifestyle. 10,000 people doing drugs in front of their kids, spreading STD's, urinating in public, shoplifting and being filthy? I see nothing romantic about that.

prouster where are those facts coming from. do you have spies in the camps? not many of the people following the hippie lifestyle practice the things you talk about. these are decent people wanting peach. what you are talking about sounds more like the redneck idiots who blew up the murrah building and his friends who are generally republicans and gun nuts. they live in the woods alone collecting guns and explosives and come out occasionally to blow up something or kill someone. the republican nuts are the dirty backwoods people not the hippies . most of the ones i know have jobs such as teachers. you need to quit knee jerking and think.

That's quite a bill of particulars, Prouster. I'd question whether they truly constitute the "hippie lifestyle", whatever that is. However, let's take them one at a time:

"people doing drugs in front of their kids"

I see that every day, as people drink alcohol, take caffeine, and smoke tobacco in front of kids. No one seems to object too much to that.

If you object to breaking the law in front of kids, say so. You'd have a better point, there--and then we could discuss speeding tickets.

"spreading STD's"

Are they? Do you know that they have a higher rate of STD transmission than their peers? I have a suspicion they do not.

"urinating in public"

This isn't much of a crime, especially if there's no toilet nearby. I doubt there are many Arkansawyers who haven't done it rather than pee their pants.

"shoplifting"

I can't argue with this one.

"being filthy"

Seems like one of those stories was about a mom washing her kid. Again, if you spend a few days outdoors, you'll smell, too.

Now, that said, I am personally sick of hippies, and have been for, oh, twenty years or so, but the one time I went to a Rainbow Family gathering, way back in 1980 in West Virginia, the people in the central camp--the vast majority--were sweet, friendly, and clean.

Who you're seeing getting in trouble in town is the fringe, mostly. (Consider what it must be to be a fringe element among the Rainbows!)

You're also seeing people searched at legally questionable roadblocks who, if fourth amendment rights were respected, would seldom be in trouble.

Anyway, Prouster, that's my take on it.

I have to think the hippie movement that started up in the mid-60s, taking over for the beatniks, who never really got their bongos together, was a wild swing of the pendulum caused by TV, JFK's assassination, the Pill, the Beatles, Stones, lots of drugs and the revolt against the men in the gray flannel suits.

As the hippie movement grew so the US became a worse mess. RFK, Martin Luther King, George Wallace, and the big mother...the Vietnam War. No wonder so many people chose to Tune out, Turn off, Drop out.

We're a little light in assassinations these days, but everything else fits. I'd rather have 8000 hippies pissing on my yard than 3571 dead US troops buried under our soil.

Nothing those 8000 will do during their stay in Arkansas will equal the evil done in one hour by President Cheney, The Black Adder and the pack of criminals under their command in the White House.

Forget the hippies, forget the Mexicans, forget the gays.....our common enemy lives at the US Naval Observatory & 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. 20500.

I might just become a hippie some day, but I promise I'll never ever be a war criminal......never

jeremiasx raises an interesting point on his blog: what is the point of the Forest Service's stack o' cops staying in Fort Smith, a good hour and a half away from the scene of the action? Wouldn't Clarksville (nearest town with full services) or Russellville (where the Ozark National Forest headquarters is located, and is closer to Fallsville that Fort Smith) make more sense, or do they need a Best Buy and mall to be effective (or maybe a burning desire to be close to DBI -- you never know!), while burning lots of taxpayer money on fuel.

get off the subject but crooks and liars brought up how sick bush looked giving his speech about the amnesty program today. if he had tried to work with somebody the last 5 years something might have happened.

Zonker,

I wondered if I werre the only one to notice that Bush looked haggard.

Maybe Captain Oblivious has a limit to his powers of disregarding reality.

PS I am going up to inspect the Rainbow People tomorrow. I'll get some pictures and see if I can figure out how to post them.

My San Francisco sister is taking my dad to Burning Man for Labor Day. This is too close to home not to check out.

Hmm, lots of people, no hatred, probably virtually no guns, no WONDER the police are worried.

If people realize things can be done this way, without a central authority telling everyone they have to behave, what reason would we have for police? Can't let THAT get out!

Real scary, those Rainbow people. Reeeeeel scary.