so. The collective effect has been bad enough to keep me away from the touristy areas entirely. It's too bad, because the museums have some great shows now and then. I took a quick look at the event schedule and there are a lot of events that sound like a lot of fun. What a contrast to the RNC convention with Newt University lectures and other fascinating wingnut seminars attended by a lot of older white people in stars and stripes outfits. I suppose the fine citizens of Tampa also probably are 1) more broke than the citizens of Minneapolis-St. Paul were 4 years ago, and 2) more conservative. Part of the reason more people showed up, I think, in 2008 to protest the RNC was that the Twin Cities metro probably has a bigger and more organized progressive community than metro Tampa. And the RNC was just so booooring this year, maybe we all just saw this as a chance to relax and watch the GOP self-deport to electoral lala land. They didn't need a push -- or the optics of counterdemos. If you recall the heavy-handed police tactics of the previous two RNC conventions in Minneapolis and NY, I suppose it could seem that the powers that be have finally won the battle against mass protests. But big protests had already lost their effectiveness anyway -- there have just been too many of them, and the media no longer responds. Both Occupy and the Tea Party have shown