ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Climate strikes and protests brought the heart of our town’s Old City District to a grinding halt this morning, prompting one local retiree to say people should just run the bastards over and get on with it.
Over a dozen young activists glued themselves to the pedestrian crossing on the corner of Remienko Boulevard and Cooper Avenue at 8am while six others chained themselves to the tracks at the Rue De Branlette Metro Station in the French Quarter.
Underground services were halted across the network, causing catastrophic delays that resulted in many businesses telling their employees to work from home.
Police arrested a total of 34 people, all were granted bail this afternoon at the Old City Local Court.
Many locals, however, were not sympathetic to the climate protesters’ cause.
The Advocate spoke to a number of angry locals who were mildly inconvenienced in town this morning but none were as irate as Roger Stephens of Betoota Grove.
“They should just run those bastards over! God damn fucking kids!” he yelled into our reporter’s recorder on the scene this morning.
Stephens (71) shot to local fame in 1966 for throwing rocks at former Us President Lindon B. Johnson’s motorcade as it passed through Betoota on his ‘All The Way With LBJ’ world tour.
Missing the car carrying LBJ, the rock that Stephens threw collided with the throat of a motorcycle policeman in the motorcade, causing much pain and discomfort.
It was revealed at the time that Stephens had dodged the Vietnam Draft and when the authorities approached him about it, he explained to them that he’d rather go to prison.
“I don’t want to die in some rice paddy in some unjust war,” he was quoted in The Advocate at the time.
“A generation of young men are going over to Vietnam to die and I don’t want to die. I want to live,”
“So take your war and shove it.”
Stephens was arrested for dodge evasion but was later released when it became clear that his father had enough influence to prevent him going to jail or going to Vietnam.
When asked by our reporter today if he saw any parallels between himself and the climate protestors, Stephens just walked away.
More to come.
