There may be antiwar civil disobedience at Rockefeller Center tomorrow morning, as The Village Voice reports, but I'll be surprised if the demonstrators are even remotely as disruptive as the crowds at the annual Christmas tree lighting. I speak from experience: I worked in Rock Center for years, and leaving the office on tree-lighting day was as close as I think I'll ever get to experiencing the fall of Saigon (or at least that Great White show in Rhode Island).

Still, I feel a bit sorry for the people I know who are still working over there. I'm pleased that people are still demonstrating their outrage at the war, but I'm not a huge fan of street blockages -- they piss people off, they don't piss the right people off (the people who run everything are rarely inconvenienced), and, because they happen outside while all the work is done indoors, they don't exactly bring the wheels of The System to a halt (one ex-coworker who learned of the demo said she might get to work early to try to beat it -- if she does this, she's going to do more work tomorrow than she would have otherwise). And I don't like anything that gives the freedom-fries crowd a smug sense of moral superiority -- although anyone who claims that an act of civil disobedience in Midtown Manhattan held up an ambulance needs to know that no ambulance, or any vehicle other than a presidential motorcade, ever moves faster than a crawl in Midtown on a workday.

Sorry, I prefer huge legal demonstrations. Feel free to call me a wimp.