Ben Cohen, a 66-year-old businessman from New York, isn't the most high-profile guy around. In fact, you've probably never heard of him. And yet, he's almost certainly been personally responsible for some happy moments in your life - because he makes up one half of Ben and Jerry, one of the world's favorite ice cream manufacturers.
As well as being an expert in all things ice cream, however, Cohen is also a dedicated philanthropist and social activist. Just recently, for example, he ran a promotion in one of his stores to support Women's History Month, in which he promised customers a free upgrade to a larger scoop if they shared some cool information about a notable woman from history.
And while his activism is obviously a great thing, it's also got him in trouble once or twice.
Yesterday afternoon, Cohen was taking part in a protest against the housing of F-35 Jets in Burlington, Vermont. The jets are notoriously loud and disruptive, and the ice cream mogul decided to show his opposition to them being kept in a residential area by proving just how annoying they would be.
And how exactly did he do this? Well, he strapped a couple of amplifiers to his car, blasted a loud sound through them, and then drove about town. Understandably, this irked a number of people, and Cohen ended up getting cited by police. When he refused to stop his protest, he was arrested along with two other people. He'd been driving around for approximately four and a half hours by the time he was officially apprehended.
Before he'd even gone ahead with the protest, Cohen had warned people on Twitter of his intentions. "There is no way in words to describe what the F-35 jet blast sounds like," he wrote. "If you want to be an informed citizen, join me at the intersection of Church and Main st in #BTV at noon on March 3 and listen."
He also posted details of his intended route:
However, it was sort of Cohen's intention to get arrested all along, as it proved that the noise he was generating (and therefore, the noise that the F-35 jets would generate) was illegal.
"It's either legal or it's not, if it's legal for the F-35 to make this noise 16 times per day, 52 wks a yr, for the next 50 yrs, it should b legal for us to do this limited demonstration of extreme jet blasts which are the subject of Item #6 on the March ballot," he tweeted just before his arrest.
Residents of the area will have an opportunity to vote on the matter this coming Tuesday. However, as the vote will be non-binding, and the Vermont National Guard has already invested $83 million dollars into the project, it's quite likely that the move will go ahead anyway.
Cohen also caused a stir recently by endorsing Stamp Stampede, a non-profit organization which encourages putting red-lettered stamps on dollar notes in order to protest corruption in politics. He has been particularly vocal on the matter, and it seems that nothing - not even an arrest - will make him back down.
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