I was walking to class today, staring at my shoes and thinking deep thoughts about bullfighting, when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, what looked like a swastika. Normally, the 57th street entrance to the Reg is swarming with passerby and hapless activists asking if you “have a minute for the environment.” Harmless stuff to be sure, except on the odd day where the NRDC sends someone in a polar bear suit to raise awareness about the thinning of the ice sheet, and presumably, the proliferation of lousy animal mascots.But the activists today were of a different breed. I looked up and, sure, enough, there were swastikas, as part of a couple of larger posters showing people marching and…wait a second… LAROUCHE!You can always spot a Lyndon LaRouche supporter in a crowd. They’re always young, slightly disheveled, a little overeager, and of course, batshit insane. And while that description could actually apply to a fair number of students on this fair campus, only the Larouche supports walk around carrying pamphlets entitled “The Sexual Congress of Cultural Fascism” (part iii in the “Children of Satan” series.)Now, back in Boston in 2004, I mistakenly spoke with a few LaRouche supporters, operating under the assumption that Lyndon LaRouche was just a Ralph Nader-type figure with a more cartoonish name. It turns out he’s a raving lunatic with an armies of crazies in his employ. His number one mission in life is to fight fascism, which is unfortunate considering we defeated Hitler 63 years ago. It’s like aspiring to walk on the moon or discover a continent, at this point. After that, his aspirations get a little muddled. I get the sense from his literature that he is opposed to Satan, but its difficult to surmise what effect that would have on, say, his global warming policies. Nevertheless, his supporters maintained that he was the second coming of Franklin Roosevelt, and who was I to judge. Fair enough.So it was with trepidation that I approached the Reg, wary of confrontation. LaRouchians as a rule are relentless. Like Raptors, they operate in packs, and just when you think you’ve fended one off, you turn around and there’s one with a big grin and a photocoppied handout about “cultural fascism.”I sped up as I passed by, careful not to make eye contact, and worried that if I stopped to tie my shoelaces, I may never get back up. Oddly, no one seemed to be talking with any of them. In fact, people were taking detours to keep a 10 foot protective bubble between them and the crazies. Finally, in the safety of the quads, I allowed myself a chance to exhale. A close call to be sure, but if it helped save the world from the fascist menace, well then it was worth it.