october 31, 2004 - dream of fleeing flood

[the following is taken from my dream journal----october 31, 2004----dream recollection, along with the notes i gathered in my mad struggle to find out whether what i dreamt was a premonition or a re-cognition]

key term i woke with this morning/dream interrupted by viciously-loud cat fight: clover stand clover stand cloverstand

the dream:
with family/extended family, packing the valuables in plastic bags and rushing to catch a boat off our island, only to realize that all boats were booked. somehow we end up on mainland, but find that this place too is threatened by impending flood and high tidal sweeps of ocean. i am in a small slender boat with only 2 of our larger group, and we are rushing to higher land. but know that we will encounter the storm and be tossed about, maybe to our finish. somehow, i end up in what seems to be called hong kong and i am surrounded by chaos and frantic asians rushing to safety. i see people on high rooftops and see that most of the buildings in this coastal city are only 1 or 2 story. i see a bell tower and wonder why no one has taken refuge there. then the phrase or word cloverstand comes to mind. is that where i was from, was that the original geographic location of this spree of fleeing? another word, a place name, flickered into mind, but only briefly and i lucidly thought, remember the easier term, remember cloverstand, it's like understand. the other word was like: mantamount, something mount. mountenmille or something compicated like that.

google results:

Clover Island 1948 flood in Kennewick

Australians tried to plant clover in Concord(?)

Agog He is all agog, in nervous anxiety; on the qui vive, like a horse in clover. (French, à gogo, or vivre à gogo, to live in clover.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GLOBAL CLIMATE ORIGINALLY COMPILED FOR GEOS 596R - SPRING 1991
EDITED AND EXTENDED BY OWEN K. DAVIS   1991-1993 (cite O.K. Davis, unpublished)
Age: 1575-1654 AD
Reference: Stine, 1990
Comments: Clover Ranch High Stand of Mono Lake


*** actuality, which i found out about, upon opening yahoo news @ 10pm:

High Tides Put Venice Sites Under Water

Sun Oct 31, 2:20 PM ET

VENICE, Italy - Unusually high tides sent sea water sweeping through Venice on Sunday, covering 80 percent of the city by afternoon. St. Mark's Square and other famous locations were inundated, forcing tourists and residents alike to don rubber boots and use elevated walkways.

St. Mark's Square, the heart of the city and one of its lowest points, was covered by at least 16 inches of water. A canoeist was spotted in the square.

City officials put out raised wooden walkways, but in some places the water rose above them, the ANSA news agency said.

Leonardo Cossutta, of the city office that monitors tides, said Venice's waterborne public transportation was suspended for about an hour and some shops reported water damage.

Venice is prone to periodic flooding. The government has approved a plan to install mobile barriers on the Adriatic seabed near the entrance to the Venetian lagoon to protect the city when threatened by high tides.

dream fragment - december 8, 2004

[this is excerpted from my dream journal, posting from december 8, 2004 - morning around 7:30am]

onboard ship w/ cut hand, open wound, encroaching storm
pain mounting. feeling pressure to do something. why i
waited, i don’t know. i now have the gauze, the salve or oil
for what’s the word DRESSING my hand. the injury is in my
palm. in the palm of my hand.

back to the ship, seeing the sense of panic in my partner’s face, he the normally very cool and collected shipmate.
now, now is the time we must go, it’s coming, it has arrived.

what?

the hurricane, the gale winds, the storming sweeps of water that could collect
us in its ferociioius arms and carry us off to its depths.

December 22nd, 2004 - dream remembrances

[dream journal entry: December 22nd, 2004]

flood impending. things melting. making waters rise throughout
central u.s. etc. even
i was in several-story house with 2 boys (sons?) or brothers.
put on shorts, i said. clean clohtes. sweaters too. to oldest:
help me shut the windows,, as i grabbed all the little musical
instruments. we are the ones who celebrate with spirit in the
city, so we will be on the top floor or the roof of the house
and we will not show a dejected, failed spirit. the village counts
on us for this.

dream memory : february 1st, 2005

[dream - February 1st a.m. right about 9:30am or 10am - 2005]

who made it home?

one woman with fruits and sea products
paddles assuredly, but slowly in a narrow
rough-finished dugout watercraft.

(somehow i know that she has been away, maybe displaced, for some time, and has survived a long absence maybe not of her choosing. it has been a long haul, but she is serene with relief, knowing that she is almost back to her home place. a world of ocean and sea life that is comfortable to her.)

dirty h2o is home. a pocket of dingy, well-populated
turf in the cove. again, it feels asian/eastern.


seaside vacationing hoteling:

sleeping in ocean
(comfortable sea-steeped lodging)

a beautiful series of sculptures in the water
at shallow’s edge, i guess, for how could they
be rooted in the seabed, miles and miles below
the water’s surface?

one particular sculpture that fascinated me was
high and curvilinear, tall as a tree, with beveled
shelving abutments. it stood lone, provocative
and mononumental. it seemed utilitarian or had
the potential to be.

a friend, “my friend flirt” (?), gave me a brief tour.

i saw a stubby white tourist couple sink into
adjacent sleep pockets, seemingly fashioned of
material resembling whale blubber or thick black
rubbery vinyl. little wombs in the warmth of the beach-
fronting waters.

Family together - "Christmas Story"

Last night, I had my immediate family (mom the matriarch, sis, bro, and niece) over for a home-cooked meal. I barely arrived home from the grocery store before they showed up, but fortunately I'd already prepped a few things earlier in the day. I swear they musta made a pact to go easy on me and "if you can't say anything nice, well...." because I noticed they were so so patient and cool with everything. It's as if they (particularly mom and sis) left their critical mode batteries at home, and this was very relieving. I confined them to the front room--it was the least cluttered of the house--and strictly forbade them from following me into the kitchen. It was fun playing chef for 90 minutes, emerging from the cocina with bowls and plates of steaming victuals (potato soup, bratwurst, sauteed spinach, french bread, and more) as they munched and chatted among themselves. Once I sat down to join them, for a cup of Mexican hot chocolate and a cup of soup, they seemed content and relaxed by the meal. It was the right time to read them something, which was "Christmas Story" by John Henry Faulk an Austinite who tried to have a career in radio broadcasting in spite of rampant McCarthyism. I just heard Faulk's reading of this story on NPR the other day, and it officially put me in the holiday way. The story, which you too can hear Faulk read, helps me imagine the Depression-era christmases my own father musta had, back in west Texas in the early 1940s. By the end of my own living room reading of the story for my family last night, we were all teary-eyed and full of w.f's (warm fuzzies).

Side note: During the 1980s, Faulk traveled the nation urging students to be ever-vigilant of their constitutional rights and to take advantage of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. The Center for American History at UT-Austin sponsors the John Henry Faulk Conference on the First Amendment, and the Texas Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Handbook is dedicated to the memory of Faulk.

MY FORT WORTH: Kino Monda Cinema presents---tonight!

[John Singleton's got me on his e-mailing list, so I get the announcements about the weekly film screenings at TCU for his Kino Monda series. John's one of those people I hardly ever see, but whom I imagine is probably one of the tribe--folks you ultimately would count as cool and close. Somebody said that about me once, after watching me dance and carry on at a radio station fundraiser in Austin: "Tammy, when the end of the world is near, and everybody's reaching out for someone, I wanna be dancing with your tribe." That's kinda how I feel about John. Hmmmm, maybe I'll cut out from work tonight and go see this flick--free food is always a nice enticement too.]


free thought **free food **free cinema

wholewideworld.tcu.edu

 
tonight's film: "Love Actually" (dir., Richard Curtis/UK/2003)

6:30 pm, Wednesday, December 21st
Sid Richardson Lecture Hall 4

Love Actually!     If you’re already in the holiday spirit, this film is like a steroid shot of Christmas cheer. For some (me), anyway…this movie threads functional and dysfunctional romance, hope, loss, reemerged hope, lost again, found again.  Spoofs on icons like rock stars and presidents, improbable loves and probable pre-disasters, all set around the Christmas holiday.  If I were psycho-analyzing a planet, I’d suggest "Love Actually" is the same message delivered to earth that was delivered by Jimmy Stewart in "It’s a Wonderful Life", only it is translated into a language we speak now.   Moral purists might prefer the Nutcracker. - J.Singleton

Remembering the Blue Flamingo days

I was just reminded of the Blue Flamingo, the former Austin hole-in-the-wall punk-noise-rawk club that the AusChron referred to as being "in all likelihood the stankiest, most low-down joint to ever qualify for a TABC liquor license." I loved that place. When you got bored at Emo's (and that's saying alot, as you could easily count on free admission performances by the likes of El Vez, Stereolab, and Blonde Redhead at the Emo's mainstage--even on weeknights), it was fun to cruise over to the Blue to get your earholes flossed, i mean good. Miss Laura, the obese Black transvestite proprietess, staunchly defended your right to party hard in s/his space--all eight by ten feet of it. It was always sweaty and screeching, blow-your-eardrums-out loud. One night I stumbled by myself into the Blue only to find the sweatiest, funkiest punk outfit calling themselves the Cleofus Trujillo Trio. I loved them. That was the mid-1990s. And guess what? The Blue Flamingo may have gone the way of all awesome rock clubs--blues and overdues done 'em in. But--the Cleofus Trujillo Trio has re-emerged as Snowbyrd. Still based in San Anto, Snowbyrd is amping up and playing out in Austin and beyond. Matter of fact, they are scheduled for a set at Room 710 on Friday, December 23rd, in Austex with none other than (and I thought they had died too--lo and behold, rock-and-roll resurrection is for real!)the legendary Hickoids. Highly highly recommended.

I'm going to jail today!

A Special HOLIDAY CELEBRATION
FOR THE CHILDREN OF WOMEN INMATES

AT DAWSON STATE JAIL in downtown Dallas
ON FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16 FROM 4-8:00PM

The women are minimum-security prisoners who participate in a creative new pilot project of Hope Literacy. Hope Literacy programs at Dawson, Hutchins and Gatesville Prisons train inmates to serve as tutors for their fellow inmates. These women are participants in the literacy program who have also been selected to participate in a program in which the inmates live together in a dorm unit -- which they have named Unity City -- and practice the principles of self-government.

Their children, from toddlers to young teenagers, are being given a unique opportunity to spend quality time with their mothers during a holiday celebration in the Dawson gym. Invitations have been sent to about 75 children.

I'm going to be reading the Tex-Mex version (!) of 'Twas the Night Before X-mas, and helping kids create a mural for their moms to take back to their unit and display during the holidays. I sat around late last night, imagining what it will be like to be in such close proximity with mothers who only rarely get to visit with and have physical contact with their own flesh and blood. I found myself already bracing for the inevitable tears and hearttugs that I will probably witness. I cannot take a camcorder in with me to document the experience to share with others, but I will most certainly bring back my own impressions. It's been a few years since I've had to visit a prison in painful circumstances. But then again, visiting a prison can never be like going off to play a round of Putt-Putt, can it?

Hopefully, I can offer some moments of cheer and entertainment pleasure for these separated family members trying to experience an evening of closeness and sharing. Wish me luck luck luck.

Here's more about the Hope Literacy project.

MY FORT WORTH: the Chicano Luncheon - a Cowtown tradition since 1965

The CHICANO LUNCHEON is an amazing and unique (cuz i don't know of any other city in the US that does this) opportunity and concept.  Folks (you the public) show up for an EXACTLY ONE HOUR IN DURATION noontime meal and networking gathering.  Once you step through the portal of that salon (Spanish pronunciation of this word, with the connotation that it is a "hall" or "community space"), other attendees smilingly offer you their: flyers, business cards, brochures, event promo info, etc.

It's very convivial!  Once we are formally greeted by the wonderful RENNY ROSAS (long-time Chicano activist in the FW community), we are invited to line up for the food (yummy $5 enchilada plate). You sit, where you like, and then the introductions begin.  EVERYone in the salon is invited to introduce themselves and tell who/what they're with.  After that, we continue eating as the PROGRAM begins.  It is TAPED FOR LATER BROADCAST ON FW CABLE TV (multiple-broadcast, i should say).

During the PROGRAM, various folks announce their community events at the podium.  Then, the keynote speaker(s) are intro-ed and they speak for no more than 15 minutes.  Short and sweet.

So---today, in 12 hours (eek, i need to go to bed!) THURSDAY, DECEMBER FIRST, I am slated to present for 10 minutes.  As spoken word artist, and as member of Peaceful Vocations. Hope you can join me there!

The specifics:

The Chicano Luncheon.
Thursday Dec. 1, 2005.
12:noon to 1:p.m.
La Trinidad United Methodist Church.
1300 Gould Av. @ Northside Dr.
Fort Worth TX 76106
Program:
- Tammy Gomez - Spoken word artist
- Brenda Gonzales - Free income tax service
- Steve Lerma - Tarrant County

This will be the last Chicano Luncheon for 2005.
Jan. 5, 2006 begins the 14th season at La Trinidad United Methodist Church.
 
The Chicano Luncheon, keeping our tradition alive since 1965.
Renny Rosas
817.924.8181 ofc
chicanoluncheon@gmail.com

I was gonna tell you to go to the..

Nineteenth Annual Peacemaker Awards Dinner, sponsored by the Dallas Peace Center, in Dallas tomorrow night. BUT the event, folks, is OFFICIALLY SOLD OUT. Guess that's because they were not only going to honor the tireless peace & justice activists Johnny Wolf and Hadi Jawad (i've met them both, and these men are true warriors for change), but the activist-celeb CINDY SHEEHAN herself is confirmed to make an appearance and, probably, a speech. Photo oppportunity, folks. But, alas, since there are no tickets left for this, I guess you'll have to settle for visiting the DPC website and eating on your own, you little Peacemaker, you!

Hey, we're on the Michael Moore website!

The "Calls to Serve Met with Anger" article that ran in the Dallas Morning News last week got posted on Michael Moore's website as well. kewl. The more folks that read about this issue--no matter the forum--the better off they'll be. Says me.

Go directly here to see the article.

On a related note, my friend Ramsey and I visited two classes at Trimble Tech HS on November 17th. The students were cool and responsive, but the teacher absolutely floored me. She was so supportive and was 100% in agreement with our emphasis, which was to give the students info in order to better decide their future fates vis a vis military recruitment. One kid had been approached by a recruiter during lunchtime and was given a business card. The teacher, during our session, told the student to give me the business card because, as she put it, "You don't need that..." How 'bout that? Hopefully, I--along with other Peaceful Vocations members--can make more regular visits to h.s. campuses in the 817 after the xmas holidays.

For more information on PEACEFUL VOCATIONS, email peacefulvocations@yahoo.com.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR HEALTHY HEART STUDY in Fort Worth

[from the Internal Medicine Clinical Research Office at UNT Health Sciences Center]

The Department of Internal Medicine is looking for healthy people to participate in a research program.

Men and women, age 50 years or more and no history of heart disease, with normal body weight and normal cholesterol. All ethnic groups are needed to participate.

Qualified volunteers will receive laboratory studies and state-of-the-art CT scan of the heart at no charge.

If interested, please contact one of the following persons:

Enisa - 817-735-5159
Della - 817-735-0304
Mabyn - 817-735-2493
Joice - 817-735-2324

C.W.Spellman, PhD, D.O., FACOI
Associate Professor of Medicine
Head, Endocrinology
Director, Diabetes Center

You might want to try this link to information on CT heart scans.

38 shopping days before irony

Coach Baby---style for mile-high prices. Why compromise good taste in times of starvation, homelessness, disaster-imposed migration, and war?

Feel conflicted NOW!

Judge NOT Lest Ye Be.

I am trying not to be so goddamn judgemental. Judgmental of the way i spell JUDGEMENTAL. Judgemental about the potato soup which has burned onions; judgmental about the herbal combination capsules which are not vegan; judgemental about the turkey sandwich which isn't vegetarian; judgemental about the cow which ain't a vegetable; judgemental about the cute guy who has no clue about politics; judgemental about the politically-astute activist who has some slight physical flaws; judgmental about the visual artist who is mal-appropriating Chicano/a culture and making it kitschy-cute; judgemental about the fat neighbor not cuz he's fat but because he is unself-conscious about barenakedness as he waters the lawn shirtless for all to see; judgemental about the wind blowing northward instead of southward; judgemental about the stranger who coughs as they pass me and i wonder if this is some subtle psychological affront to my personhood; judgemental about the unassuming stacks of paper which clutter my room and collect dust as if it could ever be its fault; judgemental about my lack of decorum and faith in my own ability to just be loving and not be qualming so much so friggin everydayin' much.

!Ken Saro-Wiwa! !Presente!

10th ANNIVERSARY OF THE EXECUTION OF NIGERIAN
WRITER KEN SARO-WIWA TO BE MARKED AT FW EVENT---

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10TH, 2005, marks the 10th anniversary of the hanging of Nigerian poet/playwright KEN SARO-WIWA, and poets in Fort Worth will gather to offer a memorial that evening--one of many taking place internationally to commemorate Saro-Wiwa and the ongoing struggle of the Ogoni people.

Join us for a free performance/reading/memorial at:

Beto's Caribbean Cafe
3000 South Freeway (1 block north of W. Berry St.)
Thursday, November 10th
7pm-8pm
free admisssion
817.923.1177

Ken Saro-Wiwa, a successful television producer, playwright, and poet, became deeply involved in the campaign against Shell Oil Co. in the 1990s because of the deplorable human rights violations and environmental devastation--of the Niger Delta--wrought by the company. The Ogoni people, one of many ethnic minorities who live in the Delta, joined in a nonviolent campaign led by Saro-Wiwa against Shell.

It was the international outcry against Saro-Wiwa's execution that led to Shell's hiring of high-priced p.r. consultants to recast its image as a company that put "principles before profits"....

History:

Since Shell began drilling oil in Ogoniland in 1958, the people of Ogoniland have had pipelines built across their farmlands and in front of their homes, suffered endemic oil leaks from these very pipelines, been forced to live with the constant flaring of gas. This environmental assault has smothered land with oil, killed masses of fish and other aquatic life, and introduced devastating acid rain to the land of the Ogoni.

After Ken Saro-Wiwa, an outspoken writer and activist, and eight other Ogoni leaders were hanged after trial in a military court, two witnesses against them admitted that Shell and the military bribed them to testify with promises of money and jobs with Shell.

for more information:

www.remembersarowiwa.com
www.priceofoil.org/
www.mosop.org/
www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/11/2326226

"When crude oil touches the leaf of a yam or cassava, or whatever economic trees we have, it dries immediately, it's so dangerous and somebody who was coming from, say, Shell was arguing with me so I told him that you're an engineer, you have been trained, you went to the university, I did not go to the university, but I know that what you have been saying in the university sleeps with me here so you cannot be more qualified in crude oil than myself who sleeps with crude oil."
-Chief GNK Gininwa of Korokoro, "The Drilling Fields", Glenn Ellis (Director), 1994

Please share your thoughts & feedback with a comment!

Dear friends, I had been remiss in choosing the optimal settings in order to most conveniently allow you to use the COMMENTS SECTION on my blog. I've now adjusted the settings, so please start sharing your comments. I really want to know if anyone's actually even reading xxcommunicator and if you have any feedback on the news and writing posted therein. Mil gracias!

Getting my first mammogram today!

Yeah, I know, NATIONAL BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH was LAST month. But hey, I made the appointment with the County Public Health Department in October, so does that count? I am excited and not very nervous about this. After all, it's a free service that the Tarrant County Health Department provides to lower-income (yay, that means i qualify!! woo-hoo!) women. And if you want (and who wouldn't?), you can receive a bonus: gyn.exam and pap smear analysis. Now that's a deal, Camille.

As far as I know, breast cancer doesn't run in the family, but hey, I'm constantly exposed to breast-harming environmental poisons--even in this "first world, western nation" I live in---so you never know. I want to suggest that you look into the BREAST CANCER FUND, my favorite non-profit organization working on behalf of our breast health. This org is based in California, so alot of their initiatives focus on pushing for legislation in that state. But their work does have national impact. Back in the summer of 2000, I left scorching Texas for a coupla weeks in Colorado to do a Peak High in Crested Butte. Walking up a beautiful mountain, on a cool summer morning alongside women (some of them breast cancer survivors), men, and children--to raise money for the Breast Cancer Fund--was one of the best experiences of my life so far.

MY FORT WORTH: indie and free events in November

Sound Culture presents :
Indie & Free!
an occasional calendar of FW indie love.

November 6th - Sunday
FWAC (Fort Worth Artists’ Consortium) Artists & Musicians Swap Meet & Sale
2-5pm
Arts Fifth Avenue
1628 Fifth Ave. at W. Allen
fmi: christy@fwac.net

November 6th - Sunday
Fascist Watch Film Series presents
“Wild in the Streets” (d., Roger Corman)
7pm
1919 Hemphill Street
fmi: www.1919hemphill.org
If the voting age was lowered to 15, would a rock star be elected president? The folks from No-Nonsense in November will be there to speak against Proposition 2. Bonus: free organic popcorn!

November 8th - Tuesday
Auditions for the Vagina Monologues
6:30pm-7:00pm
Lancaster Lofts– Warehouse Gallery
1324 E. Lancaster
fmi: www.vdayfortworth.com or
vdayfortworth@hotmail.com

November 10th - Thursday
Commemorate the life of Nigerian activist/poet Ken Saro-Wiwa on the 10th anniversary of his execution on false charges. He dared to rise up against Shell Oil Co., which continues to wreak havoc for the Ogoni people.
6-8pm
Beto’s and the Black Bookworm
Berry St. at I-35
fmi: sound_culture@hotmail.com

November 12th - Saturday
Truth Be Told luncheon 
(a project that offers support and arts therapy to incarcerated women)
11:30am-1pm
Polytechnic United Methodist Church
1310 S. Collard St. (near TWU in FW)
fmi: RSVP to Melodie Minshew at eidolem@wt.net.

November 12th - Saturday
Peaceful Vocations group meeting
2-4pm
Coffee House Gallery
Jennings & Pennsylvania Streets
peacefulvocations@yahoo.com

November 12th - Saturday
Improvised Silence - Experimental music
6 to 10pm
Firehouse Gallery
Meadowbrook at Oakland Streets
fmi: Terry Horn - nothingexists@mac.com

November 12th - Saturday
The Gadabout Film Festival
(this fest tours in a vegetable oil-run ambulance - bring ‘em some veggie oil)
7pm - 10-ish pm
1919 Hemphill Street
$5 donation requested
fmi: www.1919hemphill.org or
http://gadaboutfilmfest.com.

November 25th - Friday
Buy Nothing Day
swap meet & freebie fest
1919 Hemphill
fmi: www.1919hemphill.org
(in the spirit of open source activism)

November 26th - Saturday
Somalian Family Support
at the Black Dog Tavern
downtown Ft. Worth
8pm - late
fmi: sound_culture@hotmail.com or
AfricanRefugeeHelpers-owner@yahoogroups.com


Mark your calendars, lovelies. Let me see your face out at one or more of these cool, community-building events.

MY FORT WORTH: bicycle tour

Okay, it's early Sunday morning. Even though you get to set your clocks back an hour, you probably won't see this in time to get in on it:

TOUR de ARCHITECTURE - BICYCLE TOUR 
October 30 at 10:00 am
Begins at the TCU Soccer Stadium on Bellaire Drive S.

"Join us for a bicycle ride through Fort Worth, by architectural monuments and down the Trinity River Trail. The ride will have routes for both beginner and more advanced riders." [from the website]

Yep, in honor of what they're calling the Third Annual Architecture Month (October is Architecture Month in FW), the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has been educating, exploring, and celebrating ARCHITECTURE AS ART, not only with fellow architects, but with the broader community as well. 

The bicycle tour concept is not new to folks in San Francisco, who have been coordinating cool themed tours-on-wheels to explore things such as the historical district of Barbary Coast on a "historical gambling house and brothel" tour. And then there's the "Activist Bike Tour of SF". Led by the San Francisco Bike Coalition executive director, this bike tour led participants through current transportation hot spots, where they learned the history behind current campaigns for better streets in SOMA, the Bernal Cut, Valencia Street, the Wiggle, Golden Gate Park and many more.

I remember when Ramsey, a fellow activist and rider, led a few of us on a bike tour of the 76104 neighborhood, making stops along the way to illustrate specific concepts of democracy and activism. We need to organize more frequent rides such as these, with education in mind.

There are plenty of Fort Worth bicyclists out there and we should figure out how to coordinate tours of this city, so we can grow and improve it together...

For more info on "October is Architecture Month in FW": http://www.aiafortworth.org/

"2000 Too Many" - report on yesterday's march/rally in FW

At our vigil on Wed, Oct 26th, we met at 4:30pm at the Federal Building, downtown Fort Worth. At approx. 5pm, we marched the two blocks to the Star-Telegram main building, carrying signs and a city-block-long banner (with the names of all the U.S. military dead who hailed from Texas), and chanting loudly our various chants. Several members of CodePink FW walked into the main lobby of the Startlegram, apparently startling some of the front desk staff--who weren't quite sure how to interact with us. Hillary spoke to the traffic coordinator, asking to speak to a Star-Telegram editor. (She, on behalf of CodePink FW and the rest of us, wanted to simply deliver a sweetly-wrapped, pink-bowed white gift box--containing a “pink slip”--into the hands of an actual editor.) After a flurry of anxiety and inelegant (FW-ST staff, not us) communication, an editor was finally summoned down to the front reception desk. Two of our folks, who had carried in a large and prominently-worded pink banner, were ordered to vacate the building—despite our assurances that we meant no harm or damage to anything or anyone at the Star-Telegram offices. A few of the staffers who were on their way out for the day, expressed consternation and agitation about our presence at their precious workplace. Oh, the nerve of us! To practice street democracy and to voice our outcry against the invasion of Iraq! What kind of hoodlums were we to leave the quiet confines of our tv rooms and office cubicles in order to voice opposition to the illegal war the U.S. is waging in Iraq.

After a few minutes, we marched back to the Federal Building for presentations of music, street performance, and poetry.
There were about 60 of us gathered there, in the shadow of the Fed. Building. I noticed three young Latinas emerge from the Traffic Court Building, nonchalantly walk over to a pile of protest signs, and pick a sign up each. They walked quietly to the curbside at Throckmorton, facing oncoming traffic, and held their signs up high. Turns out they had just finished doing jury duty, saw the hubub of our public action, and decided to join us. Really, I was very impressed by their sense of civic responsibility, and I told them so. Two of them mentioned that they were students at Castleberry HS, which had recently administered the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test. When I mentioned that they had a right to refuse to take this test, they said that they'd assumed it was mandatory because the school administrators made it seem so.

(The ASVAB is a multi-aptitude test which is given at over 14,000 schools nationwide, and maintained by the Dept. of Defense. The scores a student receives on this test helps the recruiters to determine whether he/she is qualified to enlist in the U.S. military.)

For more information, read on here.