Saturday, June 4, 2011

Thomas Jefferson And The Cha Cha Slide : NPR

Thomas Jefferson And The Cha Cha Slide : NPR: "There's a meet-up planned at the Jefferson Memorial today. People are invited to bring their own music, listen to it on earbuds, and dance.

I'm not sure the meet-up began as a protest. It's become one now.

In May, an appeals court ruled that the U-S Park Police were right to arrest a woman named Mary Brooke Oberwetter for going to the Jefferson Memorial with a group of friends shortly before midnight on April 12, 2008, and silently dancing to salute Thomas Jefferson's 265th birthday.

The court said that the dancing 'distracted from the atmosphere of solemn commemoration' Park Service regulations uphold for all visitors.

Ms. Oberwetter, who has described herself as a libertarian, said dancing is free expression, and that schoolchildren on a field trip create more noise and distraction."

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