Candlelight Vigil at Green Lake, Seattle

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Little girl at the candlelight vigil

I was just starting to go through my regular online reading tonight when one of the first posts I read was Shelly Powers’ post about the candlelight vigil she was planning on attending (Update: her post about the vigil she attended is up). I checked the MoveOn page where the vigils were being organized, and found that there were many planned for Seattle. The largest was being held at Green Lake, so ten minutes later I was on a bus out to Green Lake.

The entire vigil was very nice. Hundreds of people turned out (literally — when I was on the MoveOn page, over 500 people had signed on with intent to attend, and I’m sure that many more showed up that hadn’t hit the website) for the walk around the lake. Greenlake is already one of the prettiest areas of Seattle that I’ve seen so far, but it was absolutely gorgeous tonight. Lit by an incredibly bright full moon, at any point along the three mile path you could look across the shimmering waters of the lake and see the softly flickering lights of candles being carried along by participants. An area by the main parking lot had been set aside as the primary staging and meeting area, and some people had set up a quick sculpture that looked like it may have been modeled after an American Indian dreamcatcher (I’m not sure if the design had any special significance, it’s just that that was what it reminded me of).

As has been the hallmark of the recent demonstrations, the assembled people were from across the spectrum, from students to businesspeople to entire families. Everything was nicely low-key, as people worked their way along the path either singly or with friends, talking quietly, enjoying the cool weather, the walk, and the companionship of so many others gathered together in their hope for peace. As people left, one section of flowerbed started gathering candles that hadn’t gone out yet, carefully placed between the daffodils, creating a softly glowing island of serenity on the way out of the park.

As I made my way around the lake (candleless, unfortunately, but with camera in hand), I came up behind a family with two little girls. One of the girls (shown in the picture at the beginning of this post), striding in front of the group, carried her candle in front of her and proudly set the pace for her family by singing “My country ’tis of thee.” The simple sound of her young voice singing that song as she walked gave the lyrics an air not of irony, but of hope — words of a land of liberty, letting freedom ring from every mountainside.

How I hope she’s right.

I’ve posted some pictures (those that weren’t too dark to be visible) of the evening’s walk on my family’s website. Feel free to take a look.

Evergreen student killed in Gaza Strip

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Evergreen College student Rachel Corrie, a peace activist/”human sheild” in the Gaza Strip, was killed yesterday when she was run over by a bulldozer.

Joseph Smith, 21, of Kansas City, Mo., said he, Corrie and five other British and American protesters who are part of the pro-Palestinian “International Solidarity Movement” had spent the afternoon “trying to disrupt the work of the Israeli bulldozers” at the Rafah Refugee Camp.

Wearing a fluorescent orange vest for visibility, Corrie then “sat down in front of them like we had done all day,” Smith said. “But this time the bulldozer didn’t stop.” Protesters heard her scream, then “we were hollering and waving our arms.” The bulldozer then backed over her again and retreated, he said.

On the one hand, this is a tragic incident, and my condolences go out to Rachel’s friends and family.

On the other hand — and I’m certainly not trying to belittle Rachel, her ideals or work, or her death — I have to admit that I’ve always found the idea of “human shields” to be naïvely optimistic, at best, and quite possibly downright suicidal at worst. You’re placing yourself in an extremely volatile and dangerous situation, between two factions that have repeatedly shown very little regard for human life, be it military or civilian. As horrible as any resulting deaths may be, I can’t see them as unexpected or surprising in the least. If you’re going to stand in between two warring sides, you’re knowingly taking the chance that one or the other (or both) is going to end up killing you.

I’m very sorry this happened, but some of the indignation I’m hearing from other people strikes me as a rather ludicrous response to an event like this. Being sad, upset, or even angry makes sense — being indignant doesn’t. At least, not to me.

More protest songs

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Salon has posted links to six protest songs that have been released by the artists to the web as free-for-download .mp3’s:

  • The Beastie Boys “In a World Gone Mad…” (which I posted about earlier)
  • Billy Bragg “The Price of Oil”
  • Chumbawumba “Jacob’s Ladder (Not in My Name)”
  • Ani DiFranco “Self Evident” (which Kirsten quoted in February)
  • John Mellencamp “To Washington”
  • Saul Williams “Not in My Name”

Remixes of the Saul Williams track, along with two other tracks from him (“Bloodletting” and “September 12^th^”) can be found at the Synchronic Records website.

This is cool.

(Via Kirsten)

News, not propaganda

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Jon Dennis, deputy news editor of the Guardian Unlimited web site said: “We have noticed an upsurge in traffic from America, primarily because we are receiving more emails from US visitors thanking us for reporting on worldwide news in a way that is unavailable in the US media.”

The American public is apparently turning away from the mostly US-centric American media in search of unbiased reporting and other points of views. Much of the US media’s reaction to France and Germany’s intransigence on the Iraqi war issue has verged on the xenophobic, even in the so-called ‘respectable’ press. Some reporting has verged on the hysterical — one US news web site, NewsMax.com, recently captioned a photograph of young German anti-war protesters as “Hitler’s children”.

Mr Dennis said: \”American visitors are telling us they are unable to find the breadth of opinion we have on our web site anywhere else because we report across the political spectrum rather than from just one perspective.

This surprises me not at all. Many of the links I’ve either found or have been pointed to over the last months that actually contained information have come from overseas, where they’re not filtered through US economic and political interests. The ‘net really is changing the way we as Americans see both the world and ourselves, and I’m quite glad to be around for the shift. Maybe, eventually, we’ll be able to see ourselves as a global culture — I think things like this are the beginning step.

I want a Big Wheel!

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Big Wheel!

From a Yahoo! Messenger conversation with my friend Laura back up in Alaska…

Laura: dawn just got a bike!!! i’m so jealous!!!
Michael: really? wow…cool!
Laura: not a harley…but still…
Michael: Big Wheel? lol
Laura: LMAO
Laura: that would be cool
Michael: dude
Michael: I would so get an adult-size Big Wheel
Michael: haul my happy ass around seattle on it
Michael: that would rock
Michael: r
Michael: a
Michael: w
Michael: k
Michael: rawk
Laura: HELL YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Michael: lmao
Laura: that would be so very very cool
Laura: lol
Michael: y’know, I think the front wheel would end up something like four feet high
Michael: sweet
Michael: lol
Laura: someone could probably make a lot of money off people like us….
Michael: no kidding
Michael: i need to go into business
Laura: it’s another get rich quick scheeme

No, really, it's not propaganda

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Whether or not you’re old enough to remember seeing them in theaters (I’m not), you may very likely know about the old MovieTone newsreels that used to be shown in theaters before movies. Well, it looks like they’re going to be back, in the form of short films created by soldiers currently overseas.

“We fell on this idea of recreating films that looked like and were the length of the old Movietone forms of the 1940s,” said Marine Lt. Col. Jim Kuhn, military producer for the undertaking called the Movietone Newsreel Project. Kuhn says the objective is to put together a short film that combines the commentary of real-life soldiers with the kind of footage civilian journalists would be unable to get.

The planned films based on the Iraq conflict mark the military’s second attempt to create a modern, government-sponsored version of the wartime Movietone, a short-film format that was popular among studios in the days before television news broadcasts were widely available. The first effort by the Navy and Marines, titled Enduring Freedom, was based on footage collected from troops in Afghanistan.

Enduring Freedom was not without its Hollywood flourishes, including the fast pace of an action movie and a soundtrack reminiscent of a happy-ending scene in a big-budget drama. O’Connor, a former producer of Marines recruitment ads, says the films are crafted as documentaries and “are not propaganda.”

I may not remember Movietone newsreels, but I do remember when I could go to see a movie and actually be able to see a movie. Now, in addition to all the commercials and ads before we even get to the trailers, we get government sponsored and produced propaganda as well?

Pardon me if I’m not jumping up and down for joy.

150 SETI@home possibilities

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A few years back, I was part of the SETI@home project, which uses spare processor cycles on your computer to help look for possible signals from life elsewhere in our galaxy. Unfortunately, various reformats, computer changes, and my own fickle interests led me to stop contributing to the project a while back.

As it turns out, though, the project has produced a list of possible candidate signals, and three members of the team will be going to the Aricebo telescope in Puerto Rico later this month to investigate 150 possible signals! Very cool!

Of course, one has to wonder how much of a bill 150 intergalactic wrong numbers would be…

Beastie Boys: In a World Gone Mad

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The Beastie Boys have released an anti-war protest in the form of a rap track, freely avaible to download from their website, called “In a World Gone Mad“. Not their best work, admittedly, but interesting nothenless. While artists like Ani DiFranco have kept the “protest song” alive, the Beastie Boys are the first big group (no offense meant at all to Ani fans!) I can think of to do something like this.

Okay, they’re no Dylan. Still, it’s something.

Lyrics below, courtesy of Blogcritics…

In a world gone mad it’s hard to think right
So much violence hate and spite
Murder going on all day and night
Due time we fight the non-violent fight

Mirrors, smokescreens and lies
It?s not the politicians but their actions I despise
You and Saddam should kick it like back in the day
With the cocaine and Courvoisier
But you build more bombs as you get more bold
As your mid-life crisis war unfolds
All you want to do is take control
Now put that axis of evil bullshit on hold
Citizen rule number 2080
Politicians are shady
So people watch your back ’cause I think they smoke crack
I don’t doubt it look at how they act

In a world gone mad it’s hard to think right
So much violence hate and spite
Murder going on all day and night
Due time we fight the non-violent fight

First the ‘War On Terror’ now war on Iraq
We?re reaching a point where we can?t turn back
Let’s lose the guns and let’s lose the bombs
And stop the corporate contributions that their built upon
Well I?ll be sleeping on your speeches ’til I start to snore
‘Cause I won’t carry guns for an oil war
As-Salamu alaikum, wa alaikum assalam
Peace to the Middle East peace to Islam
Now don’t get us wrong ’cause we love America
But that?s no reason to get hysterica
They’re layin’ on the syrup thick
We ain’t waffles we ain’t havin’ it

In a world gone mad it’s hard to think right
So much violence hate and spite
Murder going on all day and night
Due time we fight the non-violent fight

Now how many people must get killed?
For oil families pockets to get filled?
How many oil families get killed?
Not a damn one so what?s the deal?

It’s time to lead the way and de-escalate
Lose the weapons of mass destruction and the hate
Say ooh ah what’s the White House doin’?
Oh no! Say, what in tarnation have they got brewing??!!!!???!!
Well I?m not pro Bush and I’m not pro Saddam
We need these fools to remain calm
George Bush you?re looking like Zoolander
Trying to play tough for the camera
What am I on crazy pills? We?ve got to stop it
Get your hand out my grandma’s pocket
We need health care more than going to war
You think it’s democracy they?re fighting for?

In a world gone mad it’s hard to think right
So much violence hate and spite
Murder going on all day and night
Due time we fight the non-violent fight.