Susan Oehler writes from Asheville beginning with a quote from my blog yesterday:

“I keep thinking: how will Iraq remember this war. How will its children learn in the future about the great war to free them and the civil war it spawned.”

Susan comments

I guarantee they won’t remember it as a ‘great war to free them’ any more than the Poles remember WW2 as a ‘great war to free them’.

No invading army does that to “free” people for their own benefit. And from the crowd that says “stuff happens” when civil society is falling apart and “we don’t do body counts” when civilians are dying by the thousands - we can be sure they don’t care one whit about the Iraqi people or what happens to them. The only FREEDOM that Bush is bringing to the Iraqi people is the FREEDOM OF THE GRAVE. And the only DEMOCRACY that Bush is bringing the Iraqi people is the DEMOCRACY OF DEATH.

I believe there are three ways to do a counter-insurgency: bribery, civil war, and genocide. The Bushies are too dumb to try bribery, so they went for civil war. It was not ’spawned’ it was planned. And if that does not work, we will see genocide next.

Jackie Newberry writes

Last night, Chuck Norris, film star and martial arts expert, filled in for Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity on his show last night. Interviewed an Iraqi American young man who was a rapper and recorded an anti war video. Talk about slanted leading questions. Kid answered questions by hop-skipping over the utter ignorance. Colmes, Hannity’s partner, saved his butt. Norris not much worse than Hannity I guess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70DcahyMkrQ

Sarah Maquire writes:

I think the Rally was a great success for the time of year it took place. Think of how many hundreds of thousands more including me would have been there if it was was in warmer weather. If anyone is planning a RALLY against the MEDIA, they should take into account the time of year, warmer weather?

I didn’t listen to Bush’s S of U Speech As per Bush mentioning global warming and saving fuel in his State of the Union Address. Why is no one mentioning all this JETTING aroungh the country he is doing, just to give a speech that not many are interested in? Think of the fuel and polution, global warming, he is causing. Why doesn’t he bike to these speeches as he supposedly bikes for hours each day?

As to adding or making this oil depository reserve larger, are we pumping oil out of the ground to pump it back in? Is he making it larger to increase profits for Oil while the price of oil is still high. I can only hope more people will start to think about ererything that is going on in this country and the world, and try to make a difference instead of just going along.

Adam Kenner writes:

I was at the rally/march and I have been watching the reporting to see how the media would report the size. On the train back to NY, I read CNN’s coverage stating “tens of thousands.”

I could tell from the ground that the numbers easily were in the hundreds of thousands, but I have only seen “tens” of thousands reported until recently. My own estimate before seeing any coverage was over 200,000; An estimate of 400,000 or 500,000 seems reasonable.

C-SPAN did cover the rally live for a long time. I spoke to a friend in NY who was watching. Once the march left the mall, I saw news cameras from various channels carried at various places, perhaps recording but not broadcasting live.

Panoramic photo here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51321884@N00/371981341/

Jim Leonard writes:

We need a march on the media. I live in Davis,CA. Let me know when the march will happen and where. Hopefully it will be close since I don’t have a lot of money to get there.

Carol Hoen: “I just have to tell you I really enjoy your writing style.”

DEBATE, IRISH PUB SYLE

The best intra movement debate that I ‘ve been to in awhile took place last night at a packed Rocky Sullivan’s pub in New York last night where activists in the Irish Republican movement faced off on the question of “Should Irish Republican join or support the police forces in Northern Ireland. The arguments were passionate and discussed all sides with the main divide over what strategy is likely to bring change. There were shared values in the room but serious divisions on how reformist Sinn Fein can or should be. The details were meaty and fascinating but the orderly, should I say, comradely way it was conducted was most impressive against a background of some forward motion and lots of continuing abuse in Northern Ireland.. Other political movements can learn from this process while downing a few pints. People who disagree can speak to each other not just at each other when there are ground rules.

Harpers includes this news in its weekly summary.

Steve Jobs was questioned by federal investigators about his role in an options backdating scandal. Scientists in Jena, Germany, who had been using spaghetti and cucumbers as bait to make a sloth climb up and down a pole, gave up after three years, and veterinarians at Aquatopia in Antwerp announced that Mozart, an iguana that has had an erection for a week, would have to have one of his two penises amputated. In Leisureville, a retirement community in Florida, a registered sex offender died of heart disease while looking at pornography on his computer while naked, and a ring-neck duck named Perky, who was found alive in a hunter’s refrigerator two days after being shot, died, then came back to life in Tallahassee. A molecular scientist who owns a café announced that he had found a way to put caffeine in a donut. Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that being the only female Supreme Court justice made herfeel lonely, and Ryszard Kapuscinski, Polish reporter and author of several acclaimed works of nonfiction, including *The Soccer War,* died. At the Gulf Cup tournament in Abu Dhabi, Iraqis painted their faces and cheered their national soccer team. “By God, football unites us,” said one woman in the crowd. “I wish we could be like that back home.” The team failed to make the final round.

And my week goes on, with its ups and downs, editing one minute, writing the next. Please check out my partner Rory O’Connor’s excellent reports from the Libby trial in the belly of the beast.

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