w  w  w  .  s  c  h  u  m  i  n  w  e  b  .  c  o  m

7 minute read

June 16, 2025, 11:01 AM

June 14 was a fun day.  I took the day off of work in order to burn a day of emergency leave that I would have otherwise lost at the end of the month, and went up to Baltimore.  It also worked out that June 14 was the day of Trump’s military parade down in DC, so rather than being at work transporting the relatively small crowd to the military parade, I had a good time in the next city up.  I attended the Baltimore Pride parade, and also attended the “No Kings” protest, which was a direct response to Trump’s military parade, and one of many held across the country, later in the day.  I’m pretty sure that I hadn’t double-dipped events like that since I photographed the teabagger march and also did an Anonymous raid on the same day back in September 2009.

First of all, be advised that there will be no photos of Baltimore Pride in this Journal entry.  I took some 1,800-odd shots at the Pride parade alone, and that’s going to get its own treatment as a photo set later on.  [Edit: here it is.]  So stay tuned there, but don’t look for that any time soon other than a photo feature here or there, as I’m going to complete it as part of my normal photo workflow.

Meanwhile, the “No Kings” rally occurred in Patterson Park.  It was one of those political demonstrations where people gather around a central location and listen to speeches while holding signs.  There was no march through the streets of Baltimore, and it was a rather sedate affair overall.  In other words, as far as political demonstrations go, this one was safe to bring your dog along.  It also was not lost on me that this was my first political demonstration in nearly twelve years, as the last political demonstration that I had attended was back in August 2013 regarding the sentencing of Chelsea Manning.  It was nice to attend another event after so much time away, but I don’t anticipate going to another one any time soon, as my work schedule precludes that a lot of the time.

So let me show you some of what I got…

Crowd views.

Dual messages: the sign plays on the phrase “no fucking way”, while the shirt tells people not to conflate racism and patriotism.

I loved this sign that played on Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street.  Very fun.

The sign on the left amused me thoroughly.  And the sign on the right is a reminder that the Constitution is the sovereign, and not any one individual or group thereof.

This sign was great because it was a rather blunt reminder that Trump did not rise to power on his own.  He had the help of about 77 million voters to get where he is today.

I generally don’t take well to messages that point out Trump’s apparent skin tone or any other physical features on his body in that “do better” sense, but for some reason, I liked this one.

This child’s mother and I tried to get him to hold up his sign, which said, “Loves naps, stays woke,” for a photo, but in the end, he was more interested in picking up the sign and then throwing it down.  Oh, well.  His mother was apologetic about it, but I loved the cuteness.

Another cute kid photo, with this girl holding a sign saying, “America needs kindness, not kings!”

We also had a few black bloc/antifa type demonstrators around, though I didn’t see any coordinated group.  Just random masked people in somewhat dark clothes, and none fully covered, i.e. we could probably identify them all later because they didn’t disguise themselves particularly well (a pet peeve of mine with black blocs).

This woman was wearing a COVID mask at the event.  This was my first political demonstration post-pandemic, so I wondered how people would handle things, i.e. is it for prevention of disease or for anonymity.  This woman had it down under her chin, and only put it on when I asked to take a photo.  Not surprised that the COVID mask is the new anonymity mask.

This man was carrying a “FREE HUGS” sign.  I know that he meant well, however, he came off as a bit too eager to dispense the hugs, with his arm out as he walked around with that big smile.  The whole “free hugs” thing generally works better when the person offering the hugs is stationary, and people come to them.

No kings sign that also includes the “doge” meme.  All I know is that Trump’s use of the term “DOGE” has absolutely ruined the meme.

This sign, meanwhile, absolutely slayed me, as well as the people that I was with, because, you know, my driver’s license may tell you that I’m 44 years old, but in reality, I’m clearly still twelve at heart, laughing at penis humor and all.

As far as my photos went, I felt like this was not my best work, because the results felt a bit uninspired.  I suspect that a few factors played into this.  First, this was my first political demonstration in more than a decade, so I felt a bit out of practice moving around this sort of event.  Additionally, the day was overcast and the sky was hazy, which dulled my shots somewhat, and sapped me of a lot of my inspiration.  And on top of that, I was starting to wear down a bit by that point as far as energy levels went.  I had gotten up around 6:30 AM under the mistaken impression that the Pride parade was at 10 AM, when it was actually not until noon, i.e. I could have probably slept for another hour.  Then I also was trying to strike a balance between staying properly hydrated and not having to go pee every twenty minutes, and probably ended up a bit on the dry side of that equation, and needed to fix that.  And with this being the second big public event on my docket, I had already expended a lot of energy on Pride, and so I felt a tad tired coming into this one.  All of that is to say, I don’t believe that these shots were my best work, but they convey a moment in time.

During the event, I briefly participated in some “spontaneous theater”, where a few ladies recruited several people to read lines off of a script.  Reading over the script, it came off as dull and quite generic, but you know, in the spirit of things, I gave it a shot, though I somewhat regretted agreeing to participate in it just because it wasn’t particularly memorable, fun, or exciting.  No one paid us much mind, and none of the lines were particularly impactful or inspiring.  I suppose that it was an experience, though one that I will probably not repeat, at least not as a participant.

I also had a surprising moment while one of my companions and another lady were going through a box of vintage political bumper stickers and other similar items.  I saw a square card with a logo containing the name of an organization written in Impact and a magnifying glass on one side, and “Ban fracking now” on the other side.  Yep – it was Food & Water Watch, my former employer.  My response was swift: “BURN THAT THING!”  I was only halfway kidding.  I absolutely would torch that little card, in that “destroy it with fire” kind of way.  The one lady was a bit surprised to hear me have such a strong opinion against them, but I quickly explained that it wasn’t about the issues that they championed as much as it was personal, citing my past employment there, and what a toxic environment it was.  I also remarked that the only good thing that organization did was when its employees formed a union back in 2019.  I suspect that I overwhelmed her a little bit, since I got the “duly noted” treatment as a response to that.

Overall, my companions and I spent about two hours at the No Kings event, participating in the latter half of it.  I would say that we all had a good time, as I got some photos, I got to chat with a lot of different people, and I saw quite a few smiles.

Categories: Activism, Baltimore, National politics