My praise of the OWS site still stands, but it's this kind of nonsensical infighting – tension growing between those who want to bang their drum all day (literally) and everybody else — that's going to make OWS a bit of a laughing stock.

Where do I come down on this?  Well, when I visited, the drumming circles weren't playing.  Drumming circles are cool and all (not really, I find them to be annoying and its practitioners very elitist, like jazz musicians), but hardly a necessary component of the movement.  If they drown out actual conversation and dialogue, which (I would think) is one of the main goals of the "occupation", then they are counter-productive.  Or perhaps I should say, as one commenter wrote, "Noise pollution, from drumming to rap to rock to folk to opera, is the province of assholes. Do your thing without space-invading. Contribute without co-opting."

One hopes that the General Assembly has bigger things to deal with.