Over lunch hour, I walked over to see what was happening at Occupy Baltimore (OB). I first noticed a row of galvanized steel traffic barriers around the square that had a lot of bicycles locked to them. I recognized some of the bikes from Day One. In the middle of the square was a fellow with a small amp playing guitar and harmonica. But there was no central focus. I looked around unchallenged while a few young women painted more signs.

OB had set up clearly defined stations: a food table with a coffeepot, a media table with several guys working on Apple notebooks, a Trash sign pointing down to a public trash can, a Kid-safe area with a few safe kids and a suggestion board with index cards affixed with black tape. One of the suggestions was to not remove other peoples' suggestions as, "This is censorship." On a lower tier adjacent to the empty fountain were an assortment of sleeping bags and blankets for several dozen people.

I recognized a couple of people from Day One. A fellow had mounted a Save My Future sign on a toddler, and was making an iPhone video of the little guy stumbling around. I thought about taking a picture myself, but I haven't used my new cell phone for that yet. I was taking it all in when a young man in a black Battle Destroyer t-shirt approached me and asked me what I thought of it.

We had a great discussion. Turns out that Andrew is on the Security committee. He said that the police had been cool, but that they wanted OB to get a permit. What sort of permit, he didn't know.

I told him some of the information we've discussed here, and gave him a copy of the Occupy Wall Street General Statement that Sync posted. He hadn't heard about MoveOn supporting the movement, but said that the local janitor's union had sent over a delegation. He hadn't heard about St Louis trying to start a run on BoA. He had seen the video of the Hitler's Bankers taunting, and said that they were worried about people being sent in to disrupt their message. He had completely forgotten about Adbusters and was surprised it was still being published.

Andrew mentioned that everything OB put out was checked with the entire group, so as to be agreeable with everyone. I mentioned Genghis' concern that they were leaderless and asked about the core message. He said the core message, and I'm paraphrasing, was that the 1% were taking from the 99%, and were using that money to corrupt the democratic process. He said that they weren't against wealth as such.

I offered my take, which was that Limbaugh has been referring to this tension as, "The Politics of Envy," since back in the 1990s. It isn't about Envy. I don't envy Skilling or Madoff, I just don't think they should have been allowed to steal, I don't envy Garrido or Polanski, I just don't think they should have been allowed to molest young girls, and I don't envy Blankfein and the rest, but I think they have perverted the system to stash away too much money.

Andrew said the main OB activity takes place starting at about 8 PM in the evenings, when they do the human microphone, and such. I have a feeling (Ha, I know) I won't get my wife down there in the evenings, but I do want to stop by again on the weekend.