A Bomb Threat and a Gay Marriage Rally

MUNI bus rides during rush hour in San Francisco can be hellish at the best of times, but Wednesday evening on Van Ness was particularly nightmarish.



It took about fifteen minutes to go three blocks up Van Ness at 4:30 PM from Market to Grove, where police had set up roadblocks because there was supposedly a suspicious object at a bus shelter above.



The police and fire squads seemed to be having a jolly time but as usual they didn't bother interacting with the bus drivers or citizens who were actually trying to get somewhere so the scene was utter chaos.



Never mind that that a bomb has never gone off in San Francisco. Law enforcement have all been trained to be extra diligent in these Homeland Security times and to hell with anybody else's inconvenience.



The one-block stretch of Van Ness between Grove and McCallister was closed for over three hours in both directions, and yet nobody bothered to tell bus passengers standing further north on Van Ness that no bus was going to be picking them up and taking them South of Market or to the Mission District.



To add to the civic confusion, a couple of thousand people marched from the Castro district at 6PM down Market Street to City Hall for a rally in support of overturning Proposition 8 in the California Supreme Court on Thursday.



Though the march and rally had nothing to do with the "bomb threat," it all blended into one Civic Center stew, with both Van Ness and Polk streets closed by the police.



Even Abraham Lincoln got into the act.