Premature Burning

So something incredibly ridiculous happened the other day, a guy attending Burning Man set fire to THE Burning Man (ie a 40 foot wooden construct that is shaped like a stick figure) several days before it was slated to be burned. This guy is being charged with felony arson. Even though the item that was burned is going to be burned this weekend by the folks running the event, they are pushing for Felony Arson I guess because this guy did what they were going to do. What the Hell???? So because some drunken/stoned moron stole your thunder you want him thrown in the pokey on a Felony. Even though your event encourages the imbibing of and ingesting/inhaling of substances designed to alter one's state of mind you are punishing this one guy with a Felony because he jumped the gun. Vandalism maybe, because he damaged your property, but not Felony Arson. If he set fire to someone's trailer or tent okay that's arson, but something that was constructed for the whole purpose of being set on fire but gets set on fire ahead of time, that's not arson. I personally don't get this event anyway. It started out as a bunch of Hippies longing for the Summer of Love and Woodstock who went out in to the desert of the Black Rock State Park (which is BLM land so lot's o' restrictions) and smoked much cannabis and drank much alcohol and ate much mushrooms, etc and danced around dirty and partially/fully naked all the while a 40 foot "wicker man" made of wood was set ablaze. Wow!!!! Woohoo....sounds like fun. Never been, but I've never had a desire to go. The person that surprised me by absolutely loving it is the Perfect Line. He goes every year (he may be there now, I'm not sure) and thinks it's great. Although a new breed of "burner" has started to attend and they are more like PL. Yuppie Burners I guess you can call them. The new "hippies" I guess you can call them. Although now that PL has moved to LA and is digging the Club Scene out there, he might not want to be around a bunch o' dirty hippies.


EDIT: Per comments from the Craftsman in the comments section Burning Man was actually started in 1986 on San Francisco's Baker Beach, until they got kicked out for illegal bonfires. Oh yeah, and apparently The Perfect Line likes boobies too. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.