we are them

For my friend Tulsen and her friends

We all have a lot of work to do, and lists to make, and commuting to hate... but I needed to a teensy little Life Pause to talk about this.

You and I are the "anti-government protestors" in Istanbul. They are us.

You and I, along with our friends, live in a first-world, democratic, constitutional republic with an elected president.

We peacefully and lawfully gathered at a lovely neighborhood park asking our elected officials to overturn a decision to let developers tear it up. It's important to us because it's one of the few precious remaining greenspaces in our crowded city, and it doesn't make sense to us to replace it with more of what we already have.

Istanbul, Turkey.
See that teensy spot of green in the midst of a huge megalopolis? That's our park.

On May Day, the government suppressed a peaceful march being conducted by another group of us. So, when the peaceful and lawful (downright quiet, or even BORING) Gezi Park sit-in commenced, police officers were already agitated.

Police overreacted to the sit-in by using water cannons and tear gas bombs. Countless people and animals sustain injuries. Today the deputy Prime Minister issued an apology. That's a tough apology to accept.

there we are, trying to help our dogs, who got caught in the cross-fire

This is basically like us being punished today for something we did a month ago when what we did wasn't even wrong in the first place.

And it's at this point that we and our friends go from being called PROTESTORS to ANTI-GOVERNMENT PROTESTORS by the international news.

I just want it to be really, really clear to all my lovely and law-abiding first-world American friends that if we use our voice, and our government reacts, we could be called ANTI-GOVERNMENT PROTESTORS by our own press.

Anti-government protestors aren't radical unwashed political junkies. They are us. They took a day off work to use their voices. No big deal.

They do what they think is right and fair, and they abide by the law, and then they are given a title which makes you think of this guy...

... when it really should make you think of this girl.

the only thing I'm currently plotting is what to have for dinner

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

PS. I bet The Man is watching me now. Hey, The Man, you're gonna see me do a lot of really mundane things like buy groceries. Jerk.

Read more about it 
BBC news Gezi Park Q&A
BBC Turkish Govt Officials issue apology
USA Today uses "anti-government" terminology