[PEN-L:1297] Health-nut hoodlums

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

>From a report by Tom Zoellner in the April 29 issue of the Salt Lake
Tribune, a daily newspaper in Salt Lake City:

Two college students who were smoking cigarettes on a Salt Lake City street
Saturday were confronted by a gang of twenty bleach-haired teenagers
wielding chains, bricks, and a giant spray can of pepper gas. A violent
gang called Straight Edge is being blamed for the brawl that took place in
front of The Pie restaurant, which put one University of Utah student in
the hospital after he was beaten on the head with a baseball bat.

The fists started flying at about 1:15 A.M., when some members of the Pi
Kappa Alpha fraternity were leaving The Pie after a night of drinking beer.

A pair of Straight Edgers reportedly confronted two fraternity members and
told them to put out their cigarettes. After an exchange of words, a gang
member purportedly threw a large metal bolt at the fraternity members.

Witnesses said the Straight Edgers went back to their cars as if to leave,
but came running back with bats, chains, a hatchet, and other fearsome
weaponry in their hands.

Straight Edgers blend the punk-rock style of the early 1980s with militant
health standards. They do not drink, smoke, or take drugs, and some are
known to enforce their moral standards on strangers by beating them
severely. Some vegetarian members of the group have been responsible for
firebombing leather stores, vandalizing egg trucks, and torching a West
Jordan McDonald's restaurant, said Sergeant Chuck Gilbert of the Salt Lake
City Police Department's cane unit.

It is not uncommon behavior for them to cruise around looking for cigarette
smokers or beer drinkers, to harass. He added. "They'll get four or five of
them in a car to look for someone smoking cigarettes and they'll beat the
tar out of them."

Last year, a gravel pit in Kearns was the site of two mass battles between
Straight Edgers and a rival group who, in open defiance of the Straight
Edge ethos, call themselves, "Smoke More Pot."

(From the September Harper's Magazine)



Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)