March 19, Wednesday evening -- At the war protest

In front of city hall protesters came together after a full day of actions.

Reading a speech, in which she quoted another speech, by a Lebanese artist who said, here I stand in front of you with anger and sadness squeezing out of my heart....and dignity and humanity...it is time to stop this machine.

Reading, aloud, to her friend, to familiarize themselves with the candidate's views: The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama. She was looking at a passage about how he was not for gay marriage, though, he stated something to the effect of, some day I might find myself on the wrong side of history. She said that, if he was going to make a stand about racism, he should also make a stand about the discrimination of gays, and other groups, as well.

Addendum from the reader:
Would it be possible to clarify my critique of Obama's position for your blog? I feel like what you wrote oversimplified it a little bit. Specifically, my feeling was that, in his recent speech on race relations in the U.S., he said, "Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools." And yet, he claims in his book to support marriage for straights and civil unions for queers; that there is justification for having separate institutions for straight people who can procreate. My position, on principle, is that this is the same kind of argument used to support school segregation, and that, even if he thinks gay marriage is not politically viable right now, he can still acknowledge that it is fair. And let me say too that I'm not into marriage at all. I think people should have health care and hospital visitation rights and adoption rights that are independent of what kind of relationship they're in or how they define their families. I just think he has to be consistent, that's all. I am not attempting to privilege one form of oppression over another, or to equate homophobia with racism. The distinction for me is an important one.

Not reading, just boycotting with Code Pink. Her favorite books are The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, the second of which she said she cried all the way through--it's about the women of Afghanistan. The country needs a rest. Her daughter, who teaches High School English is going to have her class read The Kite Runner.

And, from a table of books for sale (click on picture to increase size to read the titles),

Reading The Forging of the American Empire, by Sidney Lens. Recently he read Downtown: My Manhattan, a book by Peter Hamill about New York history. His favorite book-- Buffalo Boy and Geronimo, by James Janko , about Vietnam.

Have you read anything recently about this war or other wars?