Primero De Mayo Marching All Over Your Commute

You can don your black sweater and black jeans and join the march today, or you can get your ass out of downtown early. We suggest you do one of those, though. People are supposed to congregate at Judkins Park at 4:30pm and we've marked out the route from there out above. Over on Jackson, up on 4th, over on Pike or Union and down on 2nd to the Federal Building.

Elsewhere in the world, namely Europe, May Day is celebrated religiously. It's the anniversary of Chicago's Haymarket Riot, which resulted in the 8-hour workday, a measure of "enough" that white collar America has yet to recognize. Today it's a kind of lefty, socialist, organized labor kind of holiday that is completely ignored in this country.

Except when a post about an immigrant rights protest can be co-opted momentarily. We're back on track now, though. Today's march is another in a series in response to overly penal legislation that's pending in Congress currently (being in the country illegally is a felony and that kind of nonsense). "What would you do without us?" is the question posed by participating immigrants who won't be showing up for work today. "How will you get home with us walking in front of your bus?" is the question that will be asked this afternoon. The city expects 15,000 people to participate in today's demonstration and anticipates traffic being all messed up. Buses will be rerouted and auto routes downtown will be jammed for rush hour, but you've got plenty of notice. Marchers are supposed to wear all black and march in silence which will be pretty weird to see if it really goes down like that.