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Just look at this sniper eating a banana on a rooftop during the inauguration.

Cory Doctorow at 7:44 pm Tue, Jan 22, 2013

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Just look at him.

Noticed some snipers hanging out on the roof during the inaugural parade. Zoomed in to find him enjoying a banana. (Thanks, Richard!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE:  bananas • dc • just look at it • not food • politics • wide

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  • http://twitter.com/eksith Eksith Rodrigo

    Spotting bad/crazy guys makes you hungry

    • Jake0748

       If he did spot a bad/crazy guy he was gonna throw that banana peel on the ground right in front of him. 
      Yucks would have ensued all around.

      Talk about your non-lethal weapons. 

      • Brainspore

        No, he already apprehended the bad guy and forced him to drop the banana. He is now eating the banana, thus disarming him.

  • Hirsty

    The skin makes a great elbow rest

  • hobomike

    Good thing inaugurations aren’t like fishing boats…

    • Boundegar

      Good thing they aren’t like subway tracks – Cory woulda got tazed.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YDTN7MUIUZNGTVOYR7ZJSXZAN4 kid_a_ok_com…

        My thought exactly.

  • flappy

    Clearly a tactical banana. The peel can be used as the first line of offense against a perambulating perpetrator. 

  • http://twitter.com/hoffasaurusx Michael Hassall

    Maybe he had that thing where your muscles twitch, a dangerous ailment for a sniper. Old wives cure is to eat a banana, and he’s doing just that.

    • flappy

      Did not realize there was a cure for old wives…

      • ocatagon

         It’s called divorce.

    • Jonathan Roberts

      It’s more dangerous for anyone the sniper’s aiming at, IMHO

  • Bruno Cardoso

    Can’t see a sniper rifle, though. Can’t see how “secret service on the roof checking stuff out” == “sniper”.

    • http://profiles.google.com/joshuabardwell Joshua Bardwell

      I agree. I would speculate that these guys are spotters and/or are guarding the rooftop.

      • t3kna2007

        Or on the lookout for unauthorized photography.  You can’t take pictures here.  We’re gonna need you to delete those photos.

        • http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan

          Or on the lookout for Scolopacidae, authorised or not.

    • http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith

      My impression is that the secret service have done the sums and worked out that keeping guns away from the president, as well as installing barriers is the best way to keep POTUS alive.

      • Bruno Cardoso

        Agreed. So, no need to call this two gentlemen snipers. 

      • Charlie B

         Your impression is likely wrong.  I used to drag my VT-100 terminal out to the roof of the Academy of Natural Sciences on the Logan Square in Philly in the summertime and work outside where I could smoke cigarettes and enjoy the sunshine.  When the President came to town, large men hung all about with equipment banned me from the rooftops for the entire day, but I saw them setting up sniper rifles longer than my leg at the roofedge.  They made me get away from the window when they saw me looking at them and talking on the phone.

        Looks to me like one of these guys is probably a radio officer, equipped with extra comm tackle for city work, and banana man is either a spotter or off-duty.  But I’m just guessing.

        I saw even more interesting things when I worked in a building overlooking the airfield where the President’s plane used to land whenever he visited Delaware.

    • Jake0748

      Can’t see how that matters to the joke Cory was making, and the rest of us were trying to play along with, buzzkill.

      • Bruno Cardoso

        Sorry, I keep forgetting this is the internet. 

      • Antinous / Moderator

        buzzkill

        I can’t hear any buzzing and no one seems to have been killed, so I don’t know why you’re calling him a buzzkill.

        • oasisob1

          That sound you don’t hear? It’s the buzzing that was killed?

          • http://twitter.com/chriscoreline chris coreline

             your all monsters.

          • http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael

            Two Roman senators are sitting in the back, chatting as the speaker drones on and on. One of them is clearly impatient and bored, so after an hour his friend asks “Why don’t you leave?”

            “Because I’m waiting for the verb.”

          • cellocgw

            Actually in reply to OtherMichael but not allowed to reply to deep replies (?). Anyhoo, I would have laughed but I had to translate Cicero’s orations in high school.  Still gives me the shakes.

    • http://twitter.com/AdamDavechick Dave

      Photo one, not zoomed in, about one man length in front of them, the barrel of a rifle is silhouetted against the sky. These are counter-snipers, looking for snipers or (hopefully not) to react to and find the source of a shot.

    • http://twitter.com/chriscoreline chris coreline

       maybe he is just a really really good sniper.

  • rattypilgrim

    It seems like a distraction from his duty. What if he had a bag of pop corn in his hand?

    • DreamboatSkanky

      Or what if he had been juggling?  Or had had his hands in a cat’s cradle?  Or a bucket of quick-drying cement?  What if??  Very irresponsible.

      • Charlie B

        Or one of those big pots of glue like the Katzenjammer Kids!

        It’s irresponsible of us not to pre-emptively punish anyone that we can imagine might do something unsavory.

    • marilove

      They are up there for hours at a time. I’d imagine his stomach growling and he being hungry would be a far bigger distraction, wouldn’t you? Or do you think snipers are robots who don’t get hungry?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=504242836 Jon Harris

    That’s a direct line to the President on that Banana Phone!

    • http://twitter.com/writebastard Ian Wood

      ring ring ring ring ring ring ring obama phone

      • Antinous / Moderator

        Hello? Yes, this is Banana.

        • Wreckrob8

          Canaan Banana?

  • http://twitter.com/HubrisSonic HubrisSonic

    That’s your Tactical Banana there, those things are lethal. Buddy of mine lost an eye just playing around with one. He wasn’t apeeling after that…

    • http://www.gyrofrog.com/ Gyrofrog

      Is that like the gorillas.bas banana?

  • M Turk

    It’s important to be prepared for the possibility of gorilla warfare.

  • crimpers

    /Gay Agenda 21?

    • That_Anonymous_Coward

      I’ll admit sometimes my agenda does involve handcuffs… but I think beyond that we aren’t on the same path.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/MWNNAJTTXSXFUN4A6FLTKAT264 Michael

    But where was he storing the banana?

    • http://twitter.com/Friendorfoe10 Reasonable Doubt

      he was storing it in a banana case- http://www.amazon.com/Banana-case/dp/B0063J5GAG

    • Charlie B

       It was in a sling.

  • That_Anonymous_Coward

    HOW DARE YOU!
    Your giving aid to terrorists!
    Noe they know they just have to poison the banana’s before big events to render random dudes on a roof incapable of standing there looking like they are doing something important!

    for the impaired… yes its humor…

  • Michael Vilain

    Keep Calm.  And always bring a banana to a party.

  • sam1148

     It’s a tactical banana. The peel can thrown ninja like into the path of a suspicious person tripping them up, a non-lethal method and perfectly fine. 

  • bzishi

    Sadly, two minutes later the other gentleman slipped on the peel and fell off the roof. After hitting several flagpoles on the way down and bouncing off an awning, he was trampled to death by a marching band followed by a steamroller.

  • Finnagain

    You’ve got to wonder just how further advanced their banana slicing technology is though.

  • xgad

    What about pointed sticks? http://youtu.be/4bCyIAsSid8?t=24s

  • Preston Sturges

    Those rooftop guys are around for every event.  They were on the Lincoln memorial for the Glenn Beck rally and there were no weren’t even any elected officials.

    The real action is when they spot weld the manholes shut and remove the mailboxes and trashcans on the parade route.   I remember reading an old story about someone sweeping their balcony on inauguration day, and the phone rang, and the police said “Please put the broom down, you are making the snipers nervous and you don’t want to make the snipers nervous.” 

    • oasisob1

      Aren’t they around for every non-event, too? I’ve visited DC several times in the last few years and they are there. Sometimes they are eating apples.

      • DreamboatSkanky

        Apples?  Seriously?  Pix or it didn’t happen.

  • Renoun

    “Now that you mention it that is a banana in my pocket.”

  • caseyd

    drone spotters

  • http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

    THE PEEL IS DOWN, I REPEAT, THE PEEL IS DOWN

  • peregrinus

    Did you check out all the spotters?  How awesomely NRA-baiting it would be for POTUS to have ordered the entire security detail to ostentatiously display bananas instead of weapons.

    • http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland

      No, no, this is just Steven Spielberg’s re-edit.

      • cellocgw

        You mean,  Han ate one first?

  • http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland

    Miller… One banana… TWO kills…

  • ludd

    Yeah, it’s an easy mistake to make at this range.  It is not a banana. That is a .50 cal Plantain. Standard issue.

  • Thorzdad

    Those guys are stationed up there for hours at a time.  It’s “best practice” to pack snacks.

  • cheshireforhire

    The banana is the natural prey of the sniper.  You can tell from the photo that he is the alpha of the sniper pack and receives first rights to feed, the others will just have to wait their turn.  

    Not only is it a good snack, but I would imagine the potassium would be helpful in his line of work.  Last thing a sniper would want are muscle spasms or cramps.

  • Dan Metcalf

    Sniper + no gun? = MIND BULLETS

    • Felton / Moderator

      Scanner snipers?

    • Antinous / Moderator

      Or ass bullets.

  • Tonewah

    They’re obviously time-travelling nazi’s (note the armbands) come to see how good things turned out, who just happened to bring a snack to eat while watching the future unfold.

  • http://blog.doomsdayzen.com agonist

    I was the sniper eating that banana on that rooftop, you insensitive clod! (Sorry, am I mixing memes?)

  • http://sorcerersworkshop.org/ Sorcerer Mickey

    A clarification:  If it’s  Bad Guys or Perps, we call them “Snipers”; if it’s Law Enforcement or the Military, we refer to them as “Sharpshooters.”

  • http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael

    The bananas were a salute to Biden’s hometown of Scranton, PA:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30,000_Pounds_of_Bananas

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfFM4Ilt4Rs

  • http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael

     The Bat-Man (Tony Millionaire and Chip Kidd) has this problem all the time.

  • fenester

    I hear they are chock full of potussium.

  • CLamb

    I find it more interesting that they are wearing red armbands.  Reminds me of the Chinese Great Cultural Revolution.

    • L_Mariachi

      That’s likely the “color of the day,” announced to Secret Service & law enforcement the morning of the event so they don’t get mistaken for bad guys setting up rifles on rooftops. Undercover cops frequently do a similar thing (although not with armbands,) wearing a scarf or hat or something of a particular color so they’re recognizable to other cops.

  • Mister44

    I think the potassium in bananas are supposed to help you not shake – or steady yourself – when shooting. IIRC. He could have just been hungry and some asshole already ate all the doughnuts.

  • EichaelThe0ne

    No, Lieutenant. Your men are already dead.