Some of the Sayings from Signs and Shirts
 Osama bin Forgotten The Only Bush I Trust Is My Girlfriend's With Bush, No Child Will Be Left a Dime Bush Lost Iraq Why Is There Always Money for War, but Not For Education/Health Care One Nation Under Surveillance Regime Change Begins at Home It's the Constitution, Stupid War Is Soooooo 20th Century "The damn fool says, 'Push on..'" Elect a Madman, You Get Madness When a Government Lies, Democracy Dies 1.20.09 - Bush's Last Day I Decider the War's Over And my favorite: Those who stand for nothing, will fall for anything.
New York City's Finest....
 ...and they are. After the 30 block walk down Broadway to Foley Square, I found myself at the Javitis Federal Building which had a nice low wall,just right to rest an old woman's bones. There were several of us taking a break as we watched hundreds upon hundreds of marchers coming down the street. A very nice young city policeman came over to us and said, "I can't allow you to sit here. This is federal property." I stood up slowly, old knees creaking, and fingered the leaflet in my pocket. Earlier in the day someone saying, "Know your rights," had given me a paper listing my rights as a demonistrator and what to do if I got into a problem with the police. "Okay," I said, raising the old, tired body off Sentor Javitis's marble wall. "Even though I paid for this slab, I'm standing up." The young cop looked at me and shrugged, "I'm sorry." Later I heard him talking to another young cop. "I hate having to ask these old ladies not to sit on that wall." "Hey! Watch who you're calling old!" I yelled at him. And that's the closest I got to getting into trouble with New York City's finest. And anyone who knows me, knows that I have a big spot in my heart for cops. (RPK)
One of the Most Moving Signs
 I am so afraid that sometimes we concentrate only on the American lives lost when there is so much misery being caused by this administration's swaggering mistakes. Those of us who do not have a loved one fighting, but sit in our comfortable homes, drive our gas-guzzling cars, shop in our large stories,have electricity and running water, who can send our children to school and who can go to work in relative safety - we have no idea of the sorrow we have inflicted on this land. I am reminded of the remarks of a citizen of Gettysburg viewing the battlefield on July 4, 1863 after the armies had departed. She surveyed the thousands of dead and wounded and saw the destruction of farms and fields. "...this blighted land." This blighted nation and it's people - Iraq and us.
The Signs I Carried during the March
 I've come to believe that we cannot be the policeman of the world. But there are times when we, as a humane (not counting the torture this administration had condoned)nation, we should use our influence in specific areas.
More Images from NYC, April 29, 2006
 Start them out young!
Peace March - NYC - April 29, 2006 -
 I was there. I decided it was time to put up or shut up. I was not the stereotypical Peace Marcher from the 1960's. My T-shirt and crop jeans were pressed (although the shirt had a picture of armed Amercian Indians with the saying: "Homeland Security - Fighting Terrorists since 1492"). I was wearing my John Lennon badge, my Mary-Jane Sketchers, Bare Escentuals make-up and mascara. I had my digital camera, my ATM card, some cash, cell phone, and a reporter's notebook (well, that's how I've always imagined myself since I was 12 and today should be no different). I brought a walking stick - not a sign (although I picked up two along the way). No illegal drugs for this old peacenick - four lidocaine patches on various areas of my aching back and two capsules of liquid-gel Advil were the drugs to get me through the day. Yep - it was a peace march for the "geriatric set" - that was one of the remarks I heard along the way - from a marcher. But there were people of ages, all races, all genders (ALL genders) - and The People ("united, will never be divided") filled Broadway from side to side in width and more than thirty blocks long in length. Not wanting to ruin back, legs and knees during the first hour, I took a cab from Port Authority to near the staging area - 20th and Broadway. There I took pictures, received a couple of signs and chatted with fellow marchers. The ladies with the "Another Embarrassed Patriot for Peace" sign are Ann and Joyce from Colorado - veteran peace marchers who view this as their duty - and their right.
"Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Jimmy"
That saying (a Mitzi-orginal) is more than twenty years old, but it holds true to this day. I now add: "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Al....and John." The first slogan (and even the first part of the second one) was not about war - it was about energy - our dependence on oil, Middle Eastern oil. Now, with our 20/20 hindsight we can see just how that dependence (addiction?) has drug us into one of the worst episodes of our history. We have a bumbling oil man in the White House and another one (with more ability and less heart - figuratively and literally) as the Vice President. And now we're stuck in the quagmire of Iraqi. Even full production of Iraqi oil (which will not occur for many years in the future) will not pay for it financially - and nothing will repay the lives lost - Iraqi and American. Don't blame me, I voted for Jimmy - many years ago, because he had the foresight to see that this oil-addiction needed to be curbed. We needed (in the 1970's!) to start developing self-renewing fuel alternatives. We certainly had the technology then - even more so now. But it seems the oil men have this country by the short hairs. We needed (in the 1970's) to push for government-subsidized mass transit in all major metropolitan areas. We needed (in the 1970's) to make sure Detroit produced fuel efficient cars (not the gas-guzzling SUVs that we the direct decendents of the 1980 Me-era) and even alternative fuel cars. Brazil is doing it - why not the US? We need an intervention for our oil-addiction. An intervention not managed by the oil men in the White House. Don't blame me...
March for Peace - NYC April 29, 2006
www.april29.org I am an old woman with a bad back - so bad I have to wear lidocaine patches every day I drive more than 100 miles for work. I can no longer walk long distances and sometimes, if I try, I need a cane. However, I am seriously considering walking in this Peace March in New York City. I missed the marches against the Vietnam War; I missed the Civil Rights marches. I was locked away in nursing school. So forty years later, I feel as if I owe myself a protest rally, a demonstration, a chance to yell with thousands: "All we are saying is give peace a chance..." I also owe it to John. What would Lennon do? He would march. He would sing. He would right a new song. New York City - April 29, 2006. Give Peace a Chance
Click on the title of the article in Rolling Stone. Historian Sean Wilentz says it with such eloquence. This article has broken my self-imposed silence (as I tried to write only my novel and not my various blogs). I could not let it go by without noting it here. We have three branches of government - not just the executive branch. We did not elect any of the Bush inner circle, the policy makers who are leading us to ruin. Oh, for a parlimentary-style of government where a vote of no-confidence could be called and the scroundrels ousted! My country, my country. What have you done to my country, you swaggering, pompous,liar? "Someone give Bush a blow-job, so we can impeach him."
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