Protest Roman style... Bringing Rome to a standstill

[liberal N proud]

Officials unamused by Rome stunt



Authorities took several hours to clean it up - but the stunt has brought huge publicity to the man who staged it.

Visitors to the Spanish Steps on Wednesday were greeted by a rather peculiar sight.

For most of the morning street cleaners and smartly uniformed policemen were chasing little brightly coloured balls, armed with dustpans and brushes.

To everyone's amazement half a million of these balls were suddenly bouncing down the steps.

Within minutes, the famed Piazza de Spagna resembled a children's playground.

The joke was largely on the policemen.

Trevi Fountain

It was another colourful stand from Graziano Cecchini, a man who protests against government incompetence in the most unusual ways.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/also_in_the_news/7192196.stm

[radfringe]

1. :smirk:

wonder if we, the people, have the balls to do that... :rofl:

[Sugar Smack]

15. Hah, fellow cartoonist.

Don't you love the juxtaposition of the brightly-colored balls with the serious and stoic guards?:D

[radfringe]

16. yeah, the only ones the guards have are

[mcscajun]

2. Half a million balls...I wonder what it *cost* him?

:wow:

Great prank. I'll be somebody's got a video of them coming down the steps, too. :evilgrin:

[Sugar Smack]

12. They look so serious, too. I mean the guards.

Not the balls.:evilgrin:

[xchrom]

3. brilliant!

[annabanana]

4. YouTube link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2jnQOhsNu0&feature=related

[liberal N proud]

5. TOO COOL

[mcscajun]

13. Thanks for sharing. Some people have NO sense of humor.

I loved it! :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

And now there are lots more links of it over at YT, including the planning, the aftermath, and the arrest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHV4dUmRlaY&feature=related

[Sugar Smack]

14. *ee!*

Yay!:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: Tell us about it!

[Angela Shelley]

6. Yippee! .. Thanks for the story!

[MercutioATC]

7. The same event in New York City:

In this country, the cops wouldn't have been smiling. Here's what would have happened:

1) IF they could get the giant bags of balls into position, they'd have been stormed by a dozen cops as soon as they released the balls.

2) Riot police would have been called out to provide "security".

3) The area would be cordoned off and the balls examined for a "white powdery substance".

4) The protesters would have been charged with an array of crimes and interviewed by the police, the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security, the Secret Service, the ATF, and...probably...the U.S. Parks Service.

5) The government would issue a no-bid contract for $1M to Halliburton to clean up the balls. Halliburton would subcontract the work to another company at less than the prevailing wage.

6) The organizers would be fined, have their accounts frozen, and be held at Guantanamo for an "undetermined" period of time...after being flown to Syria to be tortured first.

7) The story would be in the news for one day and we'd never hear anything about it again.

[liberal N proud]

8. Yep

[Sugar Smack]

11. But a plastic ball can't say, "Don't tase me, bro!"

:P

[KamaAina]

9. Wow! That sure took a lot of balls

:evilgrin:

half a million, to be exact. Get your minds out of the gutter, people! :-)

[Sugar Smack]

10. I just shrieked.

:rofl:

[TrogL]

17. This is a Harlan Ellison-inspired stunt

It's straight out of "Repent Harlequin, said the TickTock man" (except he used jellybeans)

[mondo joe]

18. What was the protest?

[mcscajun]

19. The article mentions that...

The colored balls were the attention-getter for the press. Now, his comments have gone world-wide.

When Mr Cecchini finally appeared, walking down the steps with balls bouncing around him, he said he had done it to raise the profile of Burma and the Karen people.

The Karen are a minority who have fought for an independent state since 1949, and accuse the military junta of ethnic cleansing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/also_in_the_news/7192196.stm

He does get press, that's for sure; at least, before he was arrested. Yesterday, I'll wager most of us didn't even know who he was.

[Sugar Smack]

20. I'm seriously knocked out by this.