Michael Tisdale runs near the Federal Building in downtown Miami in a small bathing suit to protest the Bush administration. The run ended at the Freedom Tower.
Posted on 10/07/2007 9:38:10 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
Making a run for freedom
Posted on Sat, Oct. 06, 2007
By NICHOLAS SPANGLER
The remarkable thing about running through downtown Miami at lunch hour in nothing but Nikes and a red, white and blue thong is how many people don't notice.
They were talking on their phones; shuffling documents; concentrating on walking.
Not until he climbed the steps of the Miami-Dade Courthouse did a few lawyerly types point and smile at the nearly naked man. He was Michael Tisdale, a lumberjack hailing from the Redland, protesting the state of the nation.
This had nothing to do with his being a lumberjack.
Internet research had revealed what he took to be a sinister conspiracy of immense scale, linking the war in Iraq to the global military-industrial complex and profits for key figures in the office of the president of the United States, basically at the expense of young soldiers who are getting their arms and legs blown off on a daily basis, and nobody cares!
''I don't get it,'' Tisdale had said earlier over coffee at Diana's, on Northwest First Street, clothed.
``Does someone in your own family have to be killed or wounded before it hits home?''
He has stewed for months. The memory of an event he knew only from newspaper accounts came back strong enough to be a vision: ``I see this Buddhist monk -- a man -- pour a gallon of gasoline over his head and set fire to himself and sit there and burn. That's a statement!''
His own statement was be less dramatic, maybe, but also much less fatal: a solitary man's final desperate sacrifice, retooled for the age of irony.
So at noon, outside the federal building on the corner of Southwest First Avenue and First Street, Tisdale said to those around him, ``I'm going, brothers.''
Then he took off his shirt and dropped his drawers. At this moment a man in a blue Volkswagen drove by and yelled ``Freedom!''
One block north, outside the county courthouse, 50 demonstrators materialized with signs calling for the impeachment of the president.
PATRIOTIC THONG
Tisdale's back wore a henna tattoo that read Freedumb Run and his nether-region a stylistically hideous but patriotic thong, bought some days in advance at a Lincoln Road boutique.
Tisdale is 44 and has gotten to this point in his life never having worn one. He's the kind of guy who, should he get to the beach, would wear swim trunks down past his knees.
His job, which involves salvaging dead mahogany trees, keeps him in decent shape but he is by no means buff.
Also, probably, only underwear models should wear thongs.
Now he jogged north, with a short jogging-in-place interval before the light changed at Flagler Street.
The bells of Gesu Catholic Church pealed; the kids at Miami Dade College used their phones to take pictures; the Haitian cabbies outside the Holiday Inn on Biscayne Boulevard nodded, because nothing under the sun ever surprises a cabbie.
FREEDOM TOWER
The Freedumb run was 1.2 miles long and terminated, sweatily, at Freedom Tower.
''What's going on here?'' said the guard.
''Freedumb run,'' said Tisdale.
''I understand that,'' said the guard, who didn't, ``but this is private property you're on.''
This might have been grounds for debate but before long, from out of nowhere, a beautiful woman on a black BMW motorcycle swooped down the boulevard and stopped next to the sidewalk.
Tisdale got on back and they headed south toward the courthouse on Flagler to the impeachment rally, already in progress.
bwhahahahahahahah!
Michael Tisdale runs near the Federal Building in downtown Miami in a small bathing suit to protest the Bush administration. The run ended at the Freedom Tower.
He may be a lumberjack, but he’s far from OK....
Stupid idiot. Running down the street like that exposes you for the ass you are. Nothing more.
He should try protesting dressed up like that in Iran or Saudi Arabia.
Tisdale would then find a certain anatomical limb or extremity being lopped off by an Islamic sword...
Yep, seeing a man run down my street in a thong bikini would make me want to lay down my arms and declare peace. I’m sure it will have the same effect on our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan … not to mention our President. Asshat!
What is it with lib protesters that they are compelled to remove their clothing? This guy, tree huggers in Bezerkley, PETA fur protesters... Scratch any lib (eeewwww!) and you’ll find an exhibitionist.
Just prove the fact that Liberalism is a mental disease.
I love to press wild flow'rs
I put on women's clothing
And hang around in bars
He cuts down trees... He's a lumberjack...
I cut down trees, I wear high heels
Suspendies and a bra
I wish I'd been a girlie
Just like my dear papa
He cuts down trees... He's a lumberjack...
You know, posting a pic of a good-looking woman in a red white and blue bathing suit would have been kinder.
How one gets from that to wearing his shorts and running, I dunno.
His own statement was be less dramatic, maybe, but also much less fatal: a solitary man's final desperate sacrifice, retooled for the age of irony.
"Irony"--the ultimate "reason" for those who have no ability to reason.
And they’re always people who should never be naked anywhere they could possibly be seen by anybody. Old, fat, dirty, smelly, unwashed pothead losers.
To torture people to look at their unkempt, dirty, out of shape bodies. In other words, they are mentally ill.
Well , that oughta do it . Start cuttin those peace dividend checks cuz this war is O-VER .
Rofl I haven’t though of that in a long time..fits him well. Thanks ~P~
Note his “friend”, in the right rear of the pic, wearing the White Suit running after him. Is the guy in thong the
“Run Away Bride”?
Now, how can we continue to support the war in the face of this kind of logic and conviction?
/do I really have to?
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