E-Mail This Article to a Friend Unconventional observations BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN

TUESDAY, July 27, 2004 -- Observations from my first 48 hours of Convention Coverage: The Revolution is not forthcoming. Hands down, the most impressive protest demonstration I have seen was the Falun Dafar gathering at the Copley Square Mall Sunday afternoon to protest China’s treatment of Falun Gong cultists. (Actual slogan on banners: "Falun Dafar is good.") There were more of them waiting in line for the portable toilet than the total attendance at Monday afternoon’s Socialist Party rally at City Hall Plaza.

Coincidence? The Falun Dafar people were wearing the exact same color T-shirts -- bright banana-yellow -- as the Church of Scientology priests who handed me literature that afternoon near the Park Street Station.

Best gig of the week. The Tufts Political Science major who has an internship following around and observing Alan Solomont.

Second-best gig of the week. The independent filmmaker following around and documenting the Missile-Dick Chicks. (Billionaires for Bush, you have met your match.)

Sorry Alex, I wrote about it first. Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam, seeking directions, approached one of several police officers who were circled around a peace protester’s construction of a large street installation in an intersection near the Fleet Center. The officer brusquely instructed Beam to move immediately away from the seven-foot Mahatma Ghandi.

Bad for business. Sunday I grabbed a calzone at Bova on Salem Street in an eerily empty North End. The woman serving me said that it was even quieter on Saturday -- and this was a Saint’s Feast weekend. Mike’s Pastries has no line.

My bizarro twin. On the T outbound to Kenmore Square Sunday evening, I find myself standing next to a guy wearing a New York Yankees hat, a Bill O’Reilly T-shirt, and a crucifix on a gold chain. And he was short.

Why would he do that? More than one person has told me that Republican pollster Frank Luntz was at the AIPAC event Sunday at the World Trade Center, telling people that the remaining undecided voters are primarily women.

This is the sort of thing that rarely happens on other weeks. At an event Monday morning I was handed a business card, on the back of which was written: "David -- FYI, Mrs. Kagame -- wife of President Kagame of Rwanda -- will arrive ~ 10:30 a.m."

On second thought, leave Cheney on the ticket. A man was pushing his children in a double stroller along Tremont Street, along with an official "Bush/Quayle" sign on a post.