Yep, sounds about right.
> Family members deny being violent, saying it would go against the group's message. Several said they told the authorities that they love them and sang the national anthem as they formed a circle around the officers, locking hands. The officers drew their weapons, and the family members eventually stepped aside, they said.
I believe that happened, and I'm willing to believe that the folks joining hands and singing the National Anthem were completely sincere in extending their love to the authorities. I know these people, at least indirectly, and they're capable of being just that goofy.
Those poor cops were probably very freaked out... and I'll bet the altercation with the forestry officials consisted of 200 Rainbowers mostly wandering around and chanting, with perhaps two or three picking up something and throwing it, and a dozen others telling them to cool it, that violence is not the way. The newspaper tells it like 200 people were chucking rocks, and yet no one was injured? Methinks it was a very small altercation.
Thing is, tens of thousands of these folks compries something else -- a huge plague of locusts descending on a town that can't deal with them.
See post #68 for an article about some locals reaction to their gatherings.