Occupy The Shark Tank

They guy on the radio had it right. He was grumbling that the Occupy Oakland movement had "jumped the shark." If you're not familiar with this term, it comes from a syndrome in which a situation comedy has used up all its ideas and has put on water skis in order to jump a pool of man-eating fish with the hope of revitalizing its tired storyline. A leather jacket helps. In the case of the Occupy Oakland brain trust, they seem to be stuck in a mode where confronting the police is their best trick, combined with a liberal amount of vandalism and property damage. The shark tank this past weekend turned out to be Oakland's City Hall.
The protest march swarmed around the downtown area, and besides trashing City Hall, the mob attempted to trash the YMCA as well as trying to take over the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center with the intention of turning it into a homeless shelter. Somewhere in all that chaos is the seed of a good idea: Turning unoccupied buildings in to shelter for those in need. If you stop on the way to spray paint public property and burn flags in the lobby of City Hall, you might not get the kind of support a more relaxed gathering would engender.
It is important to note that the Occupiers in Oakland are one of the very few slivers of the movement that refused to embrace non-violence in their platform. Consequently there have been plenty of special guest agitators who have shown up in this city by the bay to get their anarchist ya-yas out. Meanwhile, Oakland continues to sink further into debt and an overtaxed police department continues to be stretched beyond their means. The ninety-nine percent will continue to repair, clean up, and go back to work and eventually pay a disproportionate amount of the tax dollars to fund those reparations. Meanwhile, Fonzie dons his face-covering bandanna and heads out for another evening of mischief, high above the shark tank.