Protest

TWO ACTIVISTS arrested at a pro-marijuana protest on Independence Mall on Saturday had different reactions to the same bad news in court yesterday. Authorities say Adam Kokesh, a former Marine, and Richard Tamaccio, a comedian who goes by N.A. Poe, "assaulted, resisted, opposed, impeded, and interfered" with National Park rangers at Saturday's "Smokedown Prohibition. " U.S. District Judge Thomas J. Rueter ordered both men held for a detention hearing scheduled for Thursday after Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Goldberg said Kokesh has been silent and uncooperative and pointed out Tamaccio's alleged "substantial drug use. " "Are you guys serious?

JERUSALEM - An Israeli protester set himself alight during a rally Saturday night marking the anniversary of a wave of demonstrations that swept the country to protest the high cost of living and other social issues, authorities said. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the man in his 40s poured flammable liquid over himself at a protest in Tel Aviv and set himself on fire. He was later rushed to a hospital, where he was being treated for serious burns, Rosenfeld said. Israel's Channel 10 TV showed footage of the man on fire.

There she is, smartly dressed in red, trim and blond, eagerly plugging her new book on the perils of popular culture. Tipper Gore is sitting at a card table at Encore Books on Walnut Street, happy to autograph copies of her book, Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society. But wait - she is not swamped by similarly worried parents or even pin- striped shoppers on their lunch hours. Outside, a dozen teenagers stand holding protest signs. And inside, she is surrounded by kids with rainbow- colore d hair, spiked jackets, shredded jeans, and earrings.

About 50 people in wheelchairs blocked the driveway at the Greyhound bus terminal in Center City yesterday to protest the company's failure to provide access for the handicapped to its buses. Police made no arrests.

The Grim Reaper, dressed in the dark robe of death, walks around the chalk- outlined bodies of 75 protesters sprawled across the sidewalk in front of the Sun Co. building at 18th and Market streets yesterday. Pretending to be corpses, the demonstrators held signs to their chests in protest of any changes to ease laws enacted to reduce air pollution

Pro-life demonstrators sing and pray in the rain yesterday morning outside the Northeast Women's Center on Comly Road in Northeast Philadelphia. Their protest closed the clinic for a while until they were threatened with arrest and dispersed. Some then joined a demonstration at the Reproductive Health and Counseling Center in Chester, where nearly 100 people were arrested. The protests came two days after the Supreme Court ruling that permits tighter restrictions on abortion.

RECENTLY, I've seen numerous announcements of various groups planning to "protest the Republican National Convention. " These announcements do not talk about, say, "protesting Bush's policies" or "protesting Republican support of big business at the expense of labor and the middle class. " No, they say they will be protesting the convention - one of the hallmarks of our democracy. Direct your protests at the actual issues - rationally, calmly, one-by-one. Don't feed the conservative stereotype of liberals as emotional noisemakers.

Members of Dignity Philadelphia lock arms yesterday outside the Cathedral Basilica of Ss. Peter and Paul. Some two dozen members of the group, an organization of lesbian, gay and bi-sexual Catholics, staged a demonstration inside and outside the cathedral to protest Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua's stand aginst the proposed domestic-partnership legislation before City Council. When the cathedral's pastor, Msgr. James Howard, began reading from Bevilacqua's letter, Dignity members got up from their seats and walked out of church.

TWO ACTIVISTS arrested at a pro-marijuana protest on Independence Mall on Saturday had different reactions to the same bad news in court yesterday. Authorities say Adam Kokesh, a former Marine, and Richard Tamaccio, a comedian who goes by N.A. Poe, "assaulted, resisted, opposed, impeded, and interfered" with National Park rangers at Saturday's "Smokedown Prohibition. " U.S. District Judge Thomas J. Rueter ordered both men held for a detention hearing scheduled for Thursday after Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Goldberg said Kokesh has been silent and uncooperative and pointed out Tamaccio's alleged "substantial drug use. " "Are you guys serious?

The leader of the union that represents health-care employees at Temple University Hospital on Sunday threatened a strike over an arbitration dispute involving a terminated employee accused of sexual harassment. "We're prepared to shut it down," said Henry Nicholas, president of AFSCME District 1199C, which represents hospital employees across the city. There's almost no chance, union representatives said, of an actual strike - the union contract contains a no-strike clause. But for its president to even mention a strike - at a hospital that has historically enjoyed a strong, amicable relationship with its union - shows how upset the union has become over the arbitration dispute.

The union representing health care workers at Temple University Hospital has planned a protest outside the entrance of the medical facility on North Broad Street for 4 p.m. Sunday over an arbitration dispute. In a statement just issued, the hospital said the dispute is over its decision to appeal an arbitration decision requiring reinstatement of "a terminated employee who repeatedly sexually harassed a co-worker. " The hospital said the arbitrator had concluded that the employee should be reinstated without back pay or retroactive benefits even though she had "engaged in a pattern of conduct that cannot be tolerated in the workplace.

MOSCOW - Russia's capture of a purported U.S. spy made the news for a second day here Wednesday, as the Foreign Ministry handed the U.S. ambassador a formal protest over the affair but otherwise appeared to want to let the matter rest. The sighting of the ambassador, Michael McFaul, fleeting as it was, provided an opportunity for Russian television to dwell at length on images of unkempt wigs, wads of euros (not dollars) and a compass that officials said they found in the accused spy's bag of subterfuge.

JERUSALEM - Forming human chains and using metal barriers, Israeli police held back thousands of ultra-Orthodox protesters who tried to prevent a Jewish women's group from praying at a holy site Friday, the first time police have come down on the side of the women and not the protesters. The reversal followed a court order backing the right of the women to pray at the Western Wall using religious rituals Orthodox Jews insist should be practiced only by men. Wearing prayer shawls, phylacteries, and skull caps reserved for men under strict Orthodox tradition, the women sang and prayed out loud.

ROME - Thousands of supporters of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi rallied in a northern Italian city Saturday to protest the media mogul's recent conviction by a Milan appeals court for tax fraud, cheering their hero as police in riot gear separated them from jeering opponents. The backers turned out for the "Everyone for Silvio" rally by his Freedom People party in a square outside the cathedral in Brescia, a small industrial city that is a bastion of the conservative leader's political support.

Gambling foes filled the audience at Wednesday's hearing before the state Gaming Control Board, silently standing to strongly protest the building of another casino in Philadelphia. About 75 people, mostly from Chinatown, held anti-casino signs during back-to-back testimony from gaming opponents at the end of the fourth and last day of public input on a second license. The protesters represented a coalition of community groups called No Casino in Our City. While most of the earlier speakers were endorsing one project or another, the 11 people to testify at the end of the hearing denounced gambling as bad public policy that was promoting addiction.

Hundreds of city students gathered Tuesday outside Philadelphia School District headquarters to protest budget cuts that threaten to strip their schools of counselors and support staff, swell class sizes, and chop all extracurricular activities. Musicians sang and played instruments. Teenagers toted handmade signs, waving them at cars beeping their approval. Others lined up to give brief speeches shouted into a bullhorn. "No ifs, no buts, no education cuts," they chanted. Students from around the city - including Central, Bodine, Girls High, Franklin Learning Center, Academy at Palumbo, Masterman, Furness, Frankford, Shawmont, and other schools - were represented in the crowd, which spilled onto North Broad Street.

The same coalition of labor unions that shouted down Mayor Nutter during his budget message to City Council in March is organizing a two-day protest May 22 and 23, tied to a U.S. Conference of Mayors event in Center City. "NO MORE Mayor 1% Nutter," says a flier advertising the protest, an afternoon rally May 22 outside the Westin Hotel at 17th and Chestnut Streets followed by a morning rally and march to City Hall the next day, when Council may be voting on a budget. "The mayor represents himself one way nationally with the U.S. Conference of Mayors," said Cathy Scott, president of AFSCME District Council 47, "but a very different way when he is dealing with local city workers.

HOUSTON - National Rifle Association leaders told members Saturday that the fight against gun control legislation was far from over, with battles yet to come in Congress and next year's midterm elections, but they vowed that none in the organization would ever have to surrender their weapons. Proponents of gun control also asserted that they are in their fight for the long haul and have not been disheartened by last month's defeat of a bill that would have expanded background checks for gun sales.