Omigod, I hate sticky, but do I love sticky?

LONDON, England (CNN) — A protester who wanted his message to stick managed to superglue himself to the British prime minister Tuesday evening.

Dan Glass was at 10 Downing Street to receive a charity’s award for his work on transportation issues when he staged the unusual protest. Just before Prime Minister Gordon Brown presented him with the award, Glass squirted superglue in the palm of his left hand. He shook Brown’s right hand and then grabbed the prime minister’s sleeve.

“I’ve just superglued myself to your arm,” Glass said he told Brown. “Don’t panic. This is a non-violent protest.”

Glass is affiliated with the group Plane Stupid, which campaigns against airport expansion and climate change. He said he acted to protest Brown’s “hypocrisy” on the issues.

“I just wanted a few more minutes of his time to get the message across, because he’s not listening to communities affected by airport expansion,” Glass told CNN on Wednesday.

The prime minister managed to free himself in about 30 seconds, Glass said.

“He can shake off my arm, but he cannot shake away climate change,” he added.

Surprisingly, Mr. Glass was not fed to the Queen’s Corgis. But we don’t live there. We live here.

Since we can’t shake off the hangover caused by two endless wars, the destruction of an American city, the destruction of our military, the emptying of our treasury, the evisceration of the Constitution, the absolutely avoidable corrosion of the middle class, the union busting, the jobs loss, the wholesale incarceration of the poor, the corruption of the Department of Justice, the environmental policies written by oil lobbyists, the installation of unqualified political hacks into significant positions, the xenophobic and homophobic invective and legislation, the unforgivable fleecing of the Department of the Interior, the cruel and stupid border wall bullshit, the poisoning of political discourse, the stacking of the Supreme Court, the outing of Valerie Plame, the loss of American credibility on human rights issues, the hollowing out of Roe vs. Wade, the dismantling of contraceptive and AIDS prevention programs worldwide and the unbelievably cruel abandonment of women in Iraq and Afghanistan, let’s watch Beeker sing Ode to Joy. Because why not?

For a few weeks, I’ve felt run down, sore and exhausted. I wish I had time to take a day off and lie still while charming young things bring me restorative chicken liver pate and tropical fruit. I don’t. No matter. My co-worker got hit by a dump truck that launched his car fifty feet into a telephone pole, totalling the car and cracking his rib. He’s sitting at his desk now, telling us about the Have A Heart trap that survived the various impacts that turned his car into crushed metal. It’s a fucking miracle! Well, shut my mouth.

I haven’t been able to bicycle to work. Yesterday was the sixth successive day topping 90 degrees, and almost every forecast contained some mention of lightning. It’s raining lightly now. That’s why today is the only day this summer I’ve worn suede shoes. Because, you know, because.

The Weavers at Carnegie Hall has been on my mind. Daria, Todd and I spent a lot of time alone together, singing these songs. In my lifetime, the way people listen to music has changed fundamentally. Let’s call this American History: our parents weren’t wild about television anyhow, so they’d put on records. A listener had a respectful, attentive duty to records: motion was limited to what did not disturb the needle for 24-26 minutes, and sometimes all a person did was hold still and really listen. Sometimes, we’d sing along and often dance. Sometimes we’d dance to the radio. Until we started buying our own records – no mean feat since we didn’t live anywhere near a record store – we had this intimate relationship with our parents’ music. Thus, somewhere in the back of my child mind, I know every note, every catcall, every thunderous cheer of The Weavers at Carnegie Hall.

Because I remember my father coughing on his restaurant breakfast and whispering, “That man over there – he was blacklisted by McCarthy” and because I’ve been in a foul mood since warmongers started flinging around the word traitor in 2002, and because there was never any reason to invade Iraq, I see this treachery for what it is. Somewhere, there is music and we should be dancing.