calling all cars

The D.C. Examiner is one of the two free morning papers handed out at Metro stops all about the D.C. area. It’s the more conservative of the two (the Express being the liberal, WaPo-published rage) and it has some columnists I enjoy reading so I pick it up along with the Express and work through them on the to-and-fro bus rides. One of the indicative traits of any Metro commuter (bus or train) is arriving at work with a copy of either or both papers – it’s some kind of species identification technique. Anyway, I was reading in yesterday’s Examiner about an “incident” at the Columbia Heights Metro station. This link is to a follow-up story at the dcist.com Web site that further explains some details and has a picture. But, here’s the text of the Examiner story that also included a picture of the stunt:

“The Columbia Heights Metro station was closed for nearly two hours Tuesday morning for the D.C. bomb squad to investigate a weird sight: A stuffed polar bear costume leaned up against a garbage can. The arctic reproduction, clothed in worn pants and a threadbare jacket, was posed to appear as if it were digging through the trash, leading to speculation that the display was street art to protest global warming’s destruction of the polar bear’s habitat. Not everybody got the point, and police were alerted around 10 a.m. The Metro station remained closed and trains were not allowed to stop there while authorities cordoned off the area and sent in the bomb squad. Investigators cut open the bear but found nothing dangerous.” (my italics)

Let me tell you a little something: If I’m in need of hiding something suspicious I’m not hiding it in a life-sized polar bear. I can’t even imagine the discussion that took place between the police while they took two hours to sort out what to do. I understand the police have a tough job and I think Greenpeace more often than not goes overboard when demonstrating, but cutting open the suspicious bear to make sure there was nothing dangerous? Brilliant.

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