Is a message a controlled substance?

Before the RNC, I was running around looking for materials to make a sign.
No I couldn’t just take some cardboard and markers, that would mean I had to have a single message and use it for the entire week. I wanted something more flexible. While my wife and I searched a craft store for inspiration, she accused me of being such a geek (you know, she is probably right). I settled on plastiboard (like cardboard but plastic, better than the foam board stuff which isn't flexible and more durable than cardboard) and a sheet of material that is a dry-erase surface. When I got home, I cut the stuff down to suitcase size and glued the dry-erase surface to the plastiboard home and had a sign that I could write whatever I felt at the time—like a blog but better, you don’t need a browser.

This style of sign came in handy because as I and my Seattle friends left MSG. A cop stopped me at a check point and said I couldn’t go that way with a sign. It said :
We can’t afford
4 more years of Bush!
Haliburton Can!

With a swipe of my hand, the message was gone. “Can I go now?” The cop said yeah.
Perhaps the cop had something against signs and realized what I had was a whiteboard. He probably never carried a sign but uses whiteboards for police work.
Or it was the message. We entertained doing an experiment by circling back with “Bush is Cool” written on it. But carrying that message for that long was hard to stomach. A more efficient plan was to insert a "c" so it was "Busch", but there is no accounting for the drinking tastes a Cheney/Rumsfeld company could have.

Anyway, we went on to the rally. I don’t know what that officer's problem was. I hope for his sake he was just misinformed and not someone abusing the constitution with his authority.

Last I heard, signs and words are not controlled substances.


Movies:
The crowd outside of MSG. Business in the area has been off. But this last day, everyone is getting out for one last shot at influencing the public.

The march of the New Black Panthers, and the NYPD following. Again, it's the guys in the suits you have to watch out for. They're called delegates. In fact, one guy has put a bunch of people in harms way so through circumstances, kill another group of people. And he did it with reasons ranging from weak to outright lies.

Some like his work so much, they want another four more years.