Paintbrush Preacher

Pastor and political protester Eddie Romero has created a number of YouTube videos in which he paints anti-government murals in post Beijing hotel rooms to protest Chinese treatment of evangelical Christians and other anti-Communist dissidents. His videos also pay homage to a particular genre on YouTube that garners views: the speeded up art-creation video.

Romero's bio claims that in his youth, he and his wife "experimented regularly with drugs and we were both spiritually lost." But Romero, a Southern California local, apparently also teaches philosophy in the area. According to his students on his RateMyProfessor page, he gets high marks as a teacher.

Romero's videos now link to the "Gadfly project" at Exodus8one.org. As Romero explains his rationale on the website, it almost comes off like some kind of an alternate reality game with titles that include cryptic headings like "Story Emerges from a Shroud of Mystery."

Supporters describe Romero as currently in hiding, although he is likely to eventually face consequences for hsi acts of vandalism.