"Let's believe in change" balloons explode, burning 144 people.

"Let's believe in change" is the slogan of the Republican Party, the governing party in Armenia.

One year ago today at the Wisconsin protests: Meade encountered the cleaning crew scraping stickers off the marble.

Some interesting video, in which Meade tries to figure out just how damaging the tape was. He's able to talk to a worker, but the supervisor intervenes and even lays his hands on Meade. (This is the same man who pleads guilty later in the year for a confrontation that occurs in July, in which a protester's balloon is popped.) There's also a woman who says (about Meade): "They're filming that really well and that's what everybody in America thinks this is about — how much work it is to clean up after us." So, covering the protests, also we covered the fear that the coverage was causing.

The Return of the Heart-Shaped Balloon.

You might remember last year's protest kitsch: a red heart-shaped balloon that — for months — remained inflated and trapped high up in the Wisconsin Capitol dome.

We were at the Capitol today, and somebody's managed to get a balloon back up there....

"Bring back Wisconsin to me!"

A lyric sung today in the Wisconsin Capitol rotunda. I've finally figured out how to add subtitles, so I can call attention to a few things, including where some guy points me out:



Some stills. Man in a reversed "Wisconsin" shirt:



Women with songbooks:



Hanging banners:

"Capitol balloon popper charged with disorderly conduct while armed."

The Wisconsin State Journal reports:

Ronald J. Blair, 56, of Jefferson, told police that he hadn't intended to pop a balloon that was held by protester Leslie Peterson on July 25 but that he snapped and "it just happened," according to a criminal complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court....

[Blair told Peterson] he was tired of retrieving balloons from the Capitol....

Isthmus picks up Meade's confrontation with the state worker arrested in the balloon-popping incident.

Hmmm. It will be interesting to see how the comments play out over there (where Meade has been a long-time gadfly and I am pretty much hated).

"A state employee was arrested on suspicion of endangering safety with a dangerous weapon Thursday in relation to an argument over a balloon in the Capitol."

"Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne could not be reached to say how long it would take to decide whether to charge the employee. The charge the Capitol Police are recommending is a misdemeanor."

"The heart-shaped balloon community must have heard about the loss of one of its own because it was out in force Tuesday at the Capitol."

"I counted a dozen trapped at the top of the dome and dozens more held fast by some of the 150 or so participating in the 'Solidarity Singalong' in the rotunda."

A day after a Department of Administration employee allegedly stabbed the balloon, shoved its owner, and somehow received a minor injury that scattered his own blood on the Capitol floor, attendance for the daily a cappella airing of grievances was running about twice what it had been, about 150 people, according to organizer Chris Reeder.

"We'll continue to be here every day," Reeder told singers, "even if they attack our heart balloons — or us."

See what happens when you give them a martyr?

UPDATE: The worker who popped the balloon has been arrested.

"Wisconsin weird: Cops probe balloon popping."

The balloon story — which we talked about yesterday — hits Politico.

Pro-union activists have taken to releasing red heart-shaped balloons into the rotunda as a silent protest against Gov. Scott Walker, and [Leslie] Petersen told the paper she was posing for a photograph with her balloon when a state worker approached her with a knife and began “stabbing the balloon.”

Petersen said she went to retrieve the “balloon carcass” and was then shoved into a door by the state employee, who during the incident cut himself, leaving a trail of blood on the rotunda floor....

About 50 balloons were released into the rotunda after the skirmish Monday.

Sounds like a photo op for Althouse + Meade. And speaking of Althouse + Meade photo ops, that state worker is identified by Peterson (the balloon owner) as Ron Blair, an assistant facilities director at the Capitol, and — as I noted in yesterday's post — Meade got shoved by Blair last March, caught on video here:

At 0:58, the supervisor pushes Meade. At 2:20, the supervisor expresses the theory that Meade "want[s] a confrontation" then admits that he put his hands on Meade, which might have been "a sin." Meade says, "I'm not talking about a sin. I'm talking about a tort." The supervisor tells Meade to "go away."...

9:34: Meade asks, "When did [the protesters] catch on to the idea that they should use blue painter's tape?" Worker: "I'm not sure." Supervisor: "Just don't give him any comments... probably not the press, because he's no credentials, but just another one of the bloggers."

I'm just one of the bloggers, pointing out that we saw Blair get pushy last March.

And let me add that I think protesters releasing helium-filled balloons inside the Capitol is a serious problem that the building managers need to control. Now that you don't have to go through a security check to get into the building, it can be a terrible problem. A thousand protesters holding balloons could march into the rotunda at any moment and release a thousand balloons that float up into the space under the dome, which is 280 feet in the air. I'm sure they'd think that was amusing/heart-lifting/justified, but it cannot be tolerated. It damages the building, and it will cost a lot of money and effort to undo. If it is not undone, it creates a free-speech forum, and the state will need to tolerate future balloons representing the full spectrum of messages, and the dome will become the world's most ridiculous gigantic, inverted pile of litter.

Balloons and blood in the Wisconsin State Capitol.

"The incident allegedly involved a citizen, a state worker and a balloon..."

Protesters have been releasing red heart balloons throughout the months of demonstrations... More than a dozen balloons were released in the rotunda Friday, but all of those had been removed by Monday morning.

The protester involved in Monday's incident told a Capitol police officer that the worker came at her with a knife. She did not appear to be injured, but was holding a blood-smeared paper bag and what looked like popped red heart balloon.

Other protesters who had been attending the daily singalong in the rotunda told the State Journal that the worker said he was sick of removing balloons from the dome and attempted to pop it. They said he apparently stabbed or cut himself in the process....

More balloons were released in the rotunda Monday afternoon after the incident.

The words that jump off the page are "came at her with a knife," but if you settle down and read that carefully, it seems more likely that you have an exasperated state worker clumsily attacking a balloon. Obviously, an actual knife attack would be terrible, but it doesn't sound as though that's what happened. On the other hand, deliberately releasing balloons inside the rotunda is vandalism. It's not cute and fun-loving. Dealing with this new "protests" is wasting state money and, apparently, upsetting at least one state worker.

UPDATE: Here's the story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

"The citizen allegedly brought a balloon into the Capitol and the state employee allegedly broke the balloon. The state employee indicated that before the incident he slipped on the stairs and cut his hand," a statement released by the Department of Administration said. The statement made no mention of how the employee cut his hand or broke the balloon.

The citizen...  said... an assistant facilities director in the Capitol, approached her with a knife and slashed her balloon. She said that when the incident occurred [he] had a handkerchief over his hand, which was bleeding.

So the approach with the knife, it seems, was about popping balloons to prevent the troublesome release into the dome. No one was attacked or threatened, and the state worker carrying out the balloon-release prevention technique somehow managed to cut himself.

ADDED:  I have heard from an extremely trustworthy eyewitness that the police were talking to a weeping woman who claimed to have been assaulted.

AND: Blue Cheddar has some more detail:

Jenna says that she was standing with Leslie when Ron [Blair, the assistant facilities director,] approached “out of nowhere”. Leslie was holding a heart-shaped balloon that according to a @joevittie tweet, she had brought to give to a legislator. Jenna says Ron rushed at the balloon and popped it and then darted down a back stairway. In the course of the action Jenna says he did not say anything she could clearly hear, though he may have been mumbling.

Jenna says they were on the 2nd floor of the Capitol and he ran down to the 1st floor. She and Leslie followed close behind yelling at him and asking him why he popped the balloon. Jenna said he stopped at the 1st floor and turned. At this point they were very close, only “a couple of feet away” from Ron. Jenna says Ron lunged at Leslie grabbing her wrists and throwing her into a bathroom door. The force of the lunge was enough to push Leslie into the bathroom and he also came in the room with her. Jenna says that at this point Leslie started to scream and call “Help!”.

Interestingly, Ron Blair pushed Meade last March, as recorded in this video.

At the Wisconsin Capitol today: The Silent Majority Walk.

The pro-Scott Walker folks showed up today, with signs...



... and T-shirts:



They marched silently around the square and part way down State Street, competing with the bicyclists and the Farmers' Market...



... and a sprinkling of other politicos....



(Enlarge to read the signs. The guy under the red and white umbrella is promoting the philosophy of Ayn Rand.)

There were about 100 people in the silent walk. Here they are getting prepped about the route and the no-talking rules:



Madison is a street festival on a Saturday like this...



So silent walkers for Walker don't get too much attention:



But there was the occasional remark, boo, or thumbs down...



There was also the World Naked Bike Ride, but that's on video, and it will take a little longer to process. Hang on! Hang on tight...

Madison men out and about in their shorts...

You know I think most men in shorts look like overgrown children, so what can you say when the man carries balloons? You can say the younger man is carrying a little girl, and the older man must be carrying the girl's balloons for her.

The New York crime of having a balloon.

In NY, a court found helium a "noxious substance" and upheld the charge of "unlawfully possessing or selling noxious material" against a man who sold 2 helium balloons. It says "possessing or selling," so I must infer that even having a helium balloon is a crime. So watch out kids.

The Meanings of Balloon Boy.

Here are 5:

Liberals Take Their Cues from Balloon Boy...

Balloon Boy Is Out To Get Rush Limbaugh Too...

Balloon Boy Is The Defining Symbol Of Our Times...

Balloon Boy Is The End of Activism...

Balloon Boy Was Magical, When We Still Believed In Him...

Oh, surely, there are more than 5....

Hey, everybody, look at my breasts.

Says Meghan McCain.

Yeah, I know we already talked about this yesterday — Balloon Day. And I just did an "in the comments" update for that, which I think I'll move to this post, so you'll read it.

Chip Ahoy says:

I can't figure out what the fuss is about. I snap on a thick wide leather cock ring that forces my balls upward and to the front then put on a pair of worn tight-fitting 501 jeans that I wire-brushed the crotch area to bare fibers then position a camera with remote shutter activation directly in front of a stool where I sit spread legged presenting a straight on crotch shot to the camera lens with a mirror behind it so I can more accurately judge the angle with greater accuracy all the time. I usually discard the first few shots until I work out the lighting, then post the best ones on twitter and face book. Where these followers come from, I have no idea. Did I mention I'm very serious about politics?

That Meghan makes the pose appear so effortless and perfectly natural is stunning.

Chris Althouse Cohen says:

56 comments and not one of them says "let's take a closer look at those breasts" or makes any reference along those lines? Is it just too obvious to even say?

MadisonMan answers:

Chris: Yes.

The reference is to this old — and much talked-about — blog post of mine, which I was, in fact, thinking of as I quickly wrote this post. I'm interested to see how many of the lefty liberals and feminist poseurs who loved to say that I was attacking a woman merely for having breasts are saying that Meghan McCain is doing anything more than just having breasts.

And in the cleavage between Chris and MM's comments, we have Mr. Forward saying:

Hey boy, look over there. Balloons!

Ah, yes! How thematically satisfying it was to have Meghan's buffoonish, balloonish breasts rising into the public view on the same day as The Boy's Balloon. Now, the Boy in the Balloon has been downgraded to the Boy in the Box. I don't really know what that portends for Meghan's breasts.

ADDED: peter hoh says:

Chris Althouse Cohen wrote:

56 comments and not one of them says "let's take a closer look at those breasts" or makes any reference along those lines? Is it just too obvious to even say?

Is it just too obvious to point out that it was previously stated that "no one in our family can ever say anything obvious"?

"That's horrible. After the crap we just went through. No. No, no, no."

Richard Heene — the father of the Boy in a Box, the erstwhile Boy in a Balloon — protested when asked whether the whole thing was a hoax.

"I'm kind of appalled after all the feelings that I went through, up and down, that you guys are trying to suggest something else."

I'm kind of appalled too, that the media and the whole country is so easily distracted and has so little of the ballast of skepticism.

These people were on "Wife Swap" — I've seen the episode — and somebody had made a flying saucer shaped balloon...

Oh, what can I say? I don't want to hear it — the inevitable defense that your heart went out to that sweet little Boy in Danger.

Anyway, I missed most of the nonsense. I myself was aloft — flying, sans balloon, to Washington, D.C., for this symposium on judicial review.

We began yesterday afternoon with an extemporaneous talk by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is an ebullient man, capable of bouncing up and down on his feet at the idea of the invention that is the American Constitution, buoyed up, not by balloons, but by ideas — ideas into which I must plunge headlong today.

"So I took a fun picture not thinking anything about what I was wearing..."

Uh. Okay.

IN THE COMMENTS: [I've moved the "in the comments" stuff to a newer post.]

Hey, look over there!

There's a boy in a balloon!

&#@!!

"Court upholds free speech of activist rat."

Interesting headline. Not that far from literally true.

Do people become famous because their heads are large, or does celebrity actually cause the head to enlarge?

Over in last night's "American Idol" thread, Trooper York wrote:

The girl that sang "At Last" has an extremely big head. Which is very good since most popular actors have heads out of proportion to their bodies.

This reminds me of something that I read a while back in Tina Brown's excellent book "The Diana Chronicles":

What struck me at lunch was how much celebrity itself had transformed Diana's appearance. I have come to think that being looked at obsessively by people you don't know actually changes the way your face and body are assembled — not just in the obvious ways of enhanced fashion sense or tricks of charm and self-possession, but in the illusion of size. The heads of world-class celebrities literally seem to enlarge. Hillary Clinton's, for instance, has grown enormously since she was the mere wife of the governor of Arkansas. It nods when she talks to you like a balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. The years of limelight so inflated the circumference of Jackie O's cranium, it seemed her real face must be concealed by an oversized Halloween mask. If you looked into her eyes, you could see her in there somewhere, screaming.