"What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!"

I'm standing shoulder to shoulder in a crowd of hundreds of thousands of American men and women from all over the country. We're massed on the lawn of the Whitehouse late morning on Saturday, September 24, 2005. While much of the Gulf States were bracing for another hurricane, we were getting geared up to march for peace. To end the war in Iraq. And to end the conflict in Israel. As I looked back and forward through the throngs of people, I was empowered to see the great diversity of people who made the trip to D.C. to take part in this historic event. Men, women, children, and people of every conceivable ethnicity were present. There were multitudes of signs with slogans like "George Bush, Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina . . . All Disasters," "War is a lack of Imagination," "Impeach Bush," "Who Would Jesus Bomb," and so many others. Buses rolled in from every state in the union sponsored by groups like Answer Coalition, United for Peace and Justice, Neighbors for Peace, Impeach Bush.org, etc. In many cases, buses were sponsored by community groups of like minded individuals who just needed to be there and make their voices heard. I had never seen so many people united for a cause in all my life. We listened to speeches delivered by Rev. Jesse Jackson, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Elias Rashmawi: National Council of Arab Americans, Ben Dupuy: Former Ambassador At Large for the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Malik Rahim: New Orleans community activist who survived Hurricane Katrina, Cindy Sheehan, Wesley Clark, George Galloway: British Member of Parliament, Jos Williams: President, President of the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, Curtis Muhammed: Community Labor Union of New Orleans, Peta Lindsay: Youth and Student A.N.S.W.E.R. Student, Howard University student, Jeanette Caceres: Spoken word artist from New York University, and representatives from the two major groups who organized the event: A.N.S.W.E.R. and United for Peace and Justice. Then we took to the streets of Washington D.C. A river of protestors chanting slogans like "What does democracy look like? I'm what democracy looks like!," "Impeach Bush," "What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!" The march route took us from the Washington Monument grounds passed the Whitehouse and throughout downtown D.C. We effectively shut down all transit in the city. They're were protestors everywhere, as far as the eye could see. There were so many people that the protest line moved in a slow step by step progression. There were people lining the route from end to end, spilling out from city buildings and hotels, intersecting the route from sidestreets. Our contingent became especially vigilant in front of the Whitehouse where chanting became feverish and people screamed for peace. As the day ended, we reconvened on the Whitehouse lawn for a concert featuring Joan Baez and other socially minded musicians. On September 24, 2005, the American voice was heard resoundingly. The American people's presence was felt.

Going into this event, I didn't really know what to expect. I had frivolously been trying to come up with a plan for my birthday weekend. Last year, I had gone to New York City and this year wanted to plan something as fun. It was my friend Jamie who initially told me about the march and the local group out of Evanston that was sponsoring a bus to get there. I hesitated to make a commitment to going for a couple of weeks, but soon decided that I needed to take part in this and that it would be the best thing I could do with my b-day weekend. I traveled on a fairly uncomfortable bus for 15 hours each way through the night making a few stops and eating the worse possible food. However, none of that mattered because I was with an amazing group of people who had come together from all across Chicago. I was amongst people from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnicity who were united for a cause. My friends Jamie, Cathy, and I also had the opportunity to visit both the WWII Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. We walked from end to end of our nations capital and at the end of the day knew there was no better way to have spent 8 hours in a day.

Music and Movies

I don't know about you but I had a great weekend. Saturday I went to the Hideout Block Party. Normally, I rarely attend these kind of events. I don't really care for large, open crowd kind of shindigs but the lineup and the fee were perfect. It was $10 bucks for a bunch of awesome bands. Although, the three that really stood out were Eleventh Dream Day, The Sam Roberts Band, and The DB's.

Eleventh Dream Day did alot of new material but rocked us like they are known to do. The way Rick Rizzo plays guitar shows just how much fun he has. They played a couple tunes they haven't even named yet. Following them was this group out of Canada called The Sam Roberts Band. I had no idea what to expect, never having heard of them before, but they are like a 70s/80s rock and roll band (hair and all). They do the kind of songs that could easily become anthems. They sing about social change and the betterment of society. I know, doesn't sound like a rock band but they are. Following them were The DB's who haven't played together since the early 80s. They still have that 80s new wave sound and their songs were all about screwed up love. Ha! They were also the only band that the Hideout crew aloud to do an encore. We all cheered for both Eleventh Dream Day and The Sam Roberts Band to do extra songs but The Hideout was trying to stick to a tight schedule. I guess b/c The DB's hadn't played live in so long, they let them do it. You can check out the whole lineup at The Hideout.

On Sunday, I went to see the funniest movie I've seen in a long time. The Baxter cracked me up. I almost never laugh out loud to the point of tears but Michele Williams is a gem in this flick. The writer/director/and lead Michael Showalter was great as "the baxter." Others in the cast were Paul Rudd and Elizabeth Banks. The infectious humor reminded me of the same kind of things I liked about Kissing Jessica Stein, though not a laugh out loud. I highly recommend this movie to everyone who has an ounce of a romantic nature and you can even take a quiz to see if you're a baxter here.

Next weekend, I'm flexing my activism muscle and marching on Washington. There's going to be a huge peace rally featuring Cindy Sheehan's group, bands, speakers, and folks from all over the country converging on D.C. I'll tell you all about it next week. Get a preview here.

An overly eventful weekend!

Friday was a big opening night for many of the Chicago area galleries and one of my favs was showing the work of Audrey Niffenegger. She's this amazing, prolific artist whose work is kind of mystical and dark and comic. The perfect mix of attributes. She places herself into almost all her pieces, a little self-indulgent, but her work is an expression of her inner thoughts and experiences, so why not? You have to see it to really appreciate it. The show is very thought provoking. In fact, it provoked me into buying two of the pieces. Going into debt for art seems like a noble thing to do. It's probably the closest I'll ever get to doing anything noble at all. Luckily, this particular gallery and I have a long standing relationship, so they "work" with me on payment arrangements. One must have connections when investing in art. Ha! My old friend Trish, who used to do their accounting and was my neighbor, introduced me to them and ever since they've been very accommodating.

I also got my bound MFA thesis back. I had no idea what it was going to look like. I thought, well, binding, what? like spiral bound? staples? a binder clip?! It's nothing brilliant but the lady in the liberal studies office handed me this book, like a real book-book, and I looked at it like . . . what is this? You want me to hold this? And then I realized it was my thesis! They made it look pretty cool. It's hard bound in dark green and has the thesis title and my name along the spine. I had my friend Sherri, who I work with, glue a postcard of one of Audrey's pix to the cover. If you're ever over, I'd be happy to show it off. Into poetry?

Here was the bad, very distressing, and drove me to drink (not that I need an excuse) part of the weekend. I have to give a little back story as I go into this. See, for the past few weeks, I had developed this wierd rash on both my arms and I couldn't figure out what was causing it. I thought it might be poison ivy, detergent, an allergy, something I ate, etc. Well, Saturday morning as I awoke and opened my weary eyes, my head was flat on the mattress and I saw these little things scurrying to and fro in front of my eyes. Getting the chills? I sat up and grabbed my glasses to get a better picture. The upper, right corner of the bed was crawling with little bugs! I jumped out of bed and began pulling back the sheets, slowly, so nothing suddenly jumped out. I sickeningly discovered my bed was infested with bed bugs. Did you're mother or father ever say to you "Don't let the bed bugs bite" as you went off to bed? Well, they really do bite. They're icky blood sucking vamps that feast on you while you sleep and then sneak away in the day. I can't believe I didn't know they were there for almost three weeks. I had to throw everything out. The bed (mattress, box spring), all my sheets, two pillows, my deco frame, and a bunch of old bags that were under the bed. I spent all of Saturday cleaning that room from floor to ceiling. On the upside (there is one, right?), I got rid of a lot of stuff I didn't really need. One the downside, I have no bed. I'm couching it for now. My sofa is pretty comfortable and I'm not ready to bring another bed into the house right now. I have to be sure the vamps are all gone. Anyway, I just agreed to buy art! Art/bed/art/bed . . . art!

By the time Sunday rolled around, I really needed to have some fun. Luckily, I had prearranged plans for the roller derby with my friends Charlotte and Linda. We were joined by a few others and had a blast. We began our outing at Arturo's, one of three 24/7 Mexican restaurants along Western Ave right next door to eachother. Margaritas, a haunted juke box, and the girls said the bathroom may have had a visitation too. I guess the toilet flushes itself.

After getting our buzz on, we meandered over to the Congress for the School Daze Showdown. It was The Fury vs. the Double Crossers and Smells Like Fish (aka The Manic Attackers) vs. Hell's Belles. Roller Derby is everything you might expect if you haven't been before. I hadn't but it made me think of being at a boxing match. Really loud. Groups of unusual people. Team signs and banners. Girls with kick ass names like Jackie Trip'her, Sadie Masochist, Ida Ho, Coco Bang Bang (loved her), Lucy Furr, Quiet Storm (loved her), Ana Mission (rocks!), etc. Booze of course, but really over priced. It's a vicious sport with lots of cattiness and camp, but what a riot. I highly recommend it as a start to the dreary work week.

Then, to top off the evening, we went to Margie's Candies for home-made ice cream creations! Mmmmm! I had a turtle sundae (3 scoops, hot fudge, caramel, nuts, whip, wafer, and a cherry). My friends all had other similar creations. As it happened, Margie's was my dinner Sunday night. Well, it makes sense to have a sundae on Sunday. I think it's okay, even required, to sub ice-cream for a sensible meal (aka my diet plan) on ocassion. Don't you?

An uneventful weekend

It's funny that I'm booked up next weekned but that this past weekend with its extra day, there were no advanced plans, so everything was on the fly. I saw two films: Junebug and The Constant Gardner. Both are worth a see. Junebug is your quirky family dramedy set mostly in North Carolina but with a Chicago connection in the story. This'll be particularly funny for people who know my friend Jennie Wood because she is from NC and this film will give everyone a little notion as to why she fled from there. There's also a great Henry Darger knock-off character, who plays an outsider artist that paints civil war pictures of soldiers with big dicks shooting bullets. Oh yeah!

The Constant Gardner is way more somber but a fantastic story about a diplomat (Ray Fiennes) and his activist wife (Rachel Weiz) living in Kenya. I won't give it all away but in the film's credits there is a dedication to "All the United Way workers and others who died giving a damn."

I also had Thai food with my friend Tamara followed by the best margarita's this side of Mexico. I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo and exhausted myself following my friend Christina and her six year old daughter around. Although, I also ran into an old friend who I thought was living in Germany but has since moved back to Chicago. Incidentally, I also have another friend from Chicago who is living in Germany still.

Saturday morning I had coffee with my downstairs neighbor while I was waiting for my wash to finish and met some of my other neighbors too. I found out one of them had been in the building as long as I have (5 years) and neither of us had seen the other before. The building isn't that big.

I've also been going through the Xena series. I'm up to season three. There's a lot more to that show than I ever realized. I hadn't really watched when it was on and I am surprised by the quality of the show.

The world we live in

I don't think that the world we live in today is really all that worse than it has been throughout the ages. It seems in relation to the amount of devastation we are currently experiencing that things are worse than they were 6-8 years ago but I think it's a question of perspective. The past always seems less-so in hindsight. However, it does seem like we are getting more than a fair share, in such a short time, of catastrophies that effect not just one region but have a rippling effect worldwide. I'm thinking about the Iraq war, of course, but I'm also thinking about global terrorism. I'm thinking about natural disasters like the Tsunami and the more recent destruction of hurricane Katrina. I'm in shock about the flooding in New Orleans. I've seen pictures of places my friend Kelley and I walked through that today we'd need a boat to get through. All that wonderful history just washed away. I'm also thinking about the disasters that are in our control to avoid versus the ones that aren't, or that we have less control over. When I think about the misuses of power propagated by the Bush administration, the lies, and the manipulation of Americans, it makes me angry first, then it makes me sad. What will governments do for power? What won't they do? It's interesting how when the earth shakes us up with its fury through natural disasters, we band together across political lines to aid one another but we can't effectually do the same to prevent man-made disasters. I'm not denying the work that individuals, groups, and, at times, nations have tried to bring us all closer together but it's not lasting enough. We forget too easily. The past always seems less-so in hindsight.

Take part in the anti-war movement

A.N.S.W.E.R. Chicago now has tickets ready for the September 24 March
in Washington. If you want to purchase a ticket the cost is $80 round
trip. The buses will be leaving from Columbus Drive between Jackson
and Adams behind the Art Institute. We will begin boarding between
5:00 and 5:30 pm on Friday, September 23. The buses will leave at
6:00 pm. The buses will arrive in DC between 9:00 and 10:00 am,
Saturday, September 24. They will leave DC to come back to Chicago
around 6:00 pm on the 24th and will arrive back at the Art Institute
around 9:00 am, Sunday, September 25.

We might possibly have buses leaving from other locations but for
right now the only buses that are for sure are the one's leaving from
behind the Art Institute in downtown Chicago. I will send out an
additional email to all those who have requested information if and
when we have additional pick-up points.

There will be no need for a hotel or any overnight accomodations
because the bus drops you off at the demonstration and you get back on
the bus shortly after the demonstration is over. There is no need to
bring anything since the bus will be making rest stops along the route
where food and beverages may be purchased. However, if you don't like
or eat fast food, you will probably want to bring along your own food
and drink. Please no alcohol, no smoking and no dairy (bus company
rules). The no dairy rule doesn't apply to cheese but just liquids
that can get into the upholstery. A pillow or small blanket might
make your journey more comfortable

To purchase a ticket make your $80.00 check or money order payable to
"8th Day Center for Justice". Write "Sept 24 bus" in the memo section
of your check or money order. Please make sure you include your name,
your phone number and your email address (if you have one) with your
check or money order. If you are buying tickets for more than one
person, please make sure we know the names of all the people you are
buying tickets for. When we receive your check we will email or phone
you with the ticket number/s we have assigned you. We will have a
master list of everyone going and what ticket number was assigned to
them. Once at the bus on September 23, you will be able to pick-up
your ticket from the will call table and board any bus by handing your
ticket to the bus captain.

Mail you check or money order to A.N.S.W.E.R. Chicago, 27 N Wacker
Driver, Box #199, Chicago, IL 60606. If you have not received either
a call or email within 10 days of mailing your check or money order
letting you know your ticket number/s, please call 773 920-7545 or
email answerchicago@gmail.com.

The only way we can accomodate requests for people to travel together
is to get to the bus early. The earlier you get there the faster we
can give you your ticket and you can be first in line when the buses
start boarding.

If you are unable to go to DC for the March but would like to
contribute money so someone who can not afford the full cost of a
ticket can go please make your check or money order payable to "8th
Day Center for Justice", write "Sept 24 bus scholarship" in the memo
section and mail to A.N.S.W.E.R Chicago at the above address.

If you would like to be considered for a scholarship please email
answerchicago@gmail.com or phone 773 920-7545 with your request and we
will put you a list. You don't have to tell us your life story but a
little bit about your circumstances will help and if you are able to
afford anything toward the cost. We will only be able to accomodate
you if we are able to raise the funds. In the past we have always
been able to give scholarships due to people's generosity. Do put
your name on the list.

Please forward this email widely to spread the word about the buses
from Chicago to DC for September 24.

Beth Massey

A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) Chicago
AnswerChicago@gmail.com

A storm is brewing

By Joseph L. Galloway, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Wed Aug 24,12:44 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Old-timers could be forgiven this week if they hummed a few bars of "For What It's Worth," Buffalo Springfield's 1966 anti-war tune. The one that begins, "There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear. ..."

The air of unreality only seemed to thicken as George W. Bush, dogged by opponents of his war in Iraq at the gates of his beloved Texas ranch, hit the road for a pair of speeches aimed at bolstering support for that war and shoring up his sagging poll numbers.

There was a time when August brought a blissful if hot and humid peace to the nation and its capital. Congress stayed home until after Labor Day, and the republic was safe for a brief spell. Presidents went golfing or drove their speedboats off Maine or even walked around Key West in coat and tie and Panama hat.

Not this week. Not during these Dog Days. A heretofore confident if not cocky White House is on the defensive and the spin patrol has been deployed in force to tell America that this is no time to think about quitting the fight against the evildoers in Iraq. No time to think about getting our troops out of the quicksand that's taken the lives of 1,873 young Americans.

Bush stopped in Salt Lake City to speak to a friendly VFW convention, but he sounded for all the world as if he were talking directly to Cindy Sheehan, an anti-war mother whose son was killed in Iraq whom he refuses to see and whom some of his acolytes on talk radio and cable TV have trashed. Bush did meet Sheehan once soon after her son was killed.

The president expressed sympathy for the families of those killed in the two and a half years of a war that the majority of Americans no longer think he's managing well.

For those who wonder how much longer the war might continue, Army chief of staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker said he's now planning rotations of soldiers and Marines four years out - 2007 to 2009, should they still be needed then.

Even amateur practitioners of the art of public relations said that if the president had just invited Sheehan in for a sympathetic talk, a cup of coffee and a hug all of this might have been postponed, at least for a while.

Where was his spinmeister Karl Rove? What were they thinking? When the White House did react, it was to set in motion a counter-demonstration of pro-war Republicans assigned to show the flag in Crawford and the ranch, and another group to patrol Sheehan's home state of California.

After a Republican maverick, Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record) of Nebraska, said it was time to begin thinking about how to get out of Iraq, Bush counselor Dan Bartlett was dispatched to make the rounds of network and cable talk shows to say that Bush did, too, have a strategy, and it was a sound one. Even Fox News was skeptical.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pooh-poohed any thought that civil war was imminent in Iraq while Iraqi Shiite Muslims and Kurds drafted a new constitution over the objections of the Sunni minority who've fueled and manned the insurgency from the beginning.

The defense czar, who earlier was caught using a machine to sign his name to letters of condolence to the families of service members who died in Iraq, declared that anyone in his position "has to feel a great deal of empathy" for those who've lost loved ones in the war.

Those of us who are old enough have seen this movie before were reminded of other presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, who were haunted by another war and dogged by war protesters and a nation that lost confidence in their leadership and wound up divided against itself.

Will history remember this week as the tipping point for George W. Bush and the Republicans who control Congress? Can they stay the course as they head into mid-term elections next year?

One more question: Will our children and grandchildren and their children harvest a bitter crop of budget deficits, higher oil prices, Islamic militancy and a broken Army and Marine Corps that was seeded in Iraq by this president, his vice president and his secretary of defense?

Will that bitter harvest, not a cakewalk, a mission accomplished and a Mesopotamian march of democracy, be Bush's legacy?

---

ABOUT THE WRITER

Joseph L. Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young." Readers may write to him at: Knight Ridder Washington Bureau, 700 12th St. N.W., Suite 1000, Washington, D.C. 20005-3994.

Copyright © 2005 KnightRidder.com

An excellent turn of events

Oh my gods, my life has been a bit traumatic of late and I haven't felt like writing a word for weeks. However, things are looking up. Where should I begin? Hm. Well, the biggest issue that's been on my mind since I completed my thesis was that the Registrar's Office managed to screw me royally by registering me for the wrong thesis unit. See, in my program, one has to complete 6 credit hours of thesis work but in most programs one only has to complete 3. You can take additional time, up to a year in some cases, but you have to pay the regualr rate for the initial 3-6 credit hours. That's anywhere from 2-4k. So, I was supposed to have registered for 6. 3 in the spring and 3 in the summer. Well, when I registered for summer, the registrar insisted that my advisor had written the wrong code on my form and they registered me for the thesis completion course, not the regular 3 credit hours I needed. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this at the time. Even though the tuition was reduced, I believed everything was in order. It wasn't until I was on the verge of turning in my completed thesis that I received a call from my department coordinator. She told me about the discrepancy and that I would owe more money as a result. Oh, I was so P.O.'d at her and took it out on her undeservedly. Bad me. However, once I cooled and got my thesis in on time, I decided I wasn't going to just accept that what I thought was paid for, I actually had a balance on of $2036.00!

First, I went right to the source. I complained to the Registrar's Office and they had me fill out a tutition petition form. I outlined the situation and submitted it to some unknown committee to review. This was to take two weeks. In the mean time, my thesis came back from the Graduate Dean's office who said it was spectacular! The Registrar's Office, on the other hand, were not so gracious. My petition was rejected. They wouldn't completely own up to the mistake and they based their decision on the basis that this scenario had never happened before. In other words, they had never removed a tuition expense because of a university mistake. Hard to believe but I think most people just accept it and don't try to do anything about it. However, the head registrar had a scheme that he thought could help me. He suggested they move my 3 hours from spring over to summer, which would give me 6 in summer and make me elligible for financial aid for summer. However, this didn't seem too savory to me. It felt like fraud. He did it anyway but managed to screw it up. He not only moved my credit hours but the charge for them as well, which I had already paid in the spring! Now I owed $4027.00! Can you believe this? At this point I'd had it with the Registrar's and decided I needed to go to the next level. The Provost.

I contacted the very person who said my thesis was "spectacular" and told her my story. This woman totally went to bat for me. Over a two-day period, she made calls to the Registrar, the Senior Provost, maybe the University President, Financial Aid, etc. In the end, she vindicated me and totally rocked my world! Because of her intercession on my behalf, I no longer owed a cent! I have my full thesis hours requirement. And, this awesome woman, recommened me for Honors. This last point is especially poignant because graduate students do not normally receive honors recommendations. We're expected to do honors level work because we are grad students. So the only way to get the recommendation is by "special circumstance."

I can now yell "whoo-hoo" and have it mean something! I feel much better about this degree now than I did a few weeks ago. Life is good. AH!

Also, the problem I had been having with my AC making me sick has been resolved. I was such a bozo about this. I didn't realize AC units had filters in them that you had to clean periodically. Also, the unit in question had mold inside. After cleaning the thing up, it now works better than ever. HA!

This one, no one will believe! Work is better. It's true. A circumstance arose recently where one of the Acquisition Editors left the company and she was managing a very large project. I was her sole assistant and she actually recommended me to fully take it over. So I did and almost completely stressed out in the first three days. HA! I wasn't used to so much responsibility at this job. Anyway, once I adjusted, I've found that I'm beginning to enjoy my work more. This is so wierd because, as you all know, I've hated this place forever. The question is, if this project ends well, will they offer me the editor position?