The "anti-war" protestors demonstrated how peaceful they are yesterday, by rioting and sacking a convenience store in Canoga Park, California.

Unfortunately, this is typical behavior for many of our students, at least at the high school level. Some administrators quoted in the article indicated that the good intentions of the many were subverted by a few bad apples. I think just the opposite is true. In protests I've seen and had to deal with, my experience has been that for every student who has an issue he truly believes in, and about which he feels an intellectually honest need to participate in some sort of protest, there are at least ten students who will use the issue as an excuse to leave class and run amok. I'm not saying all of these illegitimate protesters would rob stores, but they simply see the issue as a get out of class free card. The principal may be right that it was "just a few kids" that actually robbed and vandalized the store, the superintendent may be right that only "a handful of youngsters" were involved in this violence, but they are both fooling themselves if they think that every non-robbing, non-vandal, is a legitimate believer in the cause.

These kids were obviously in traing for protests against the next meeting of the World Bank or G7 or World Monetary Fund.

"I'm against domination of the poor and disenfranchised of the world by the evil corporate and political megalomaniacs and to prove it I'm going to skip phys ed and go steal candy bars and soft drinks and comic books!!"