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Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Friday, February 04, 2005

oklahoma city, once again

we avoided downtown oklahoma city today but stopped in the northwest outskirts to connect w/deann and her partner pam. i met deann in d.c. at the progressive democrats summit - before the truck broke down, i was hoping we could do an action in o.c. when i went thru. deann had also offered a place to crash if we needed.
it was great meeting pam & talking about o.c., codepink actions, and their future plans - it looks like they are going to be leaving o.c. by the fall, off to vermont!!! but there are still other active codepink wimmin in o.c. - i look forward to meeting them as well.
deann told me they had to get a permit to demonstrate at the capitol! i couldn't believe it. i suggested they ask the aclu if this is constitutional, which i don't think it is. we thought it was a measure inacted after the o.c. bombing - and pam insisted they were quite liberal with the permits - they just wanted to know the details.deann joked about the number of police cars that passed them when they demonstrated, calling it a one police car action, or 2 police car action - she said their biggest action was a 7 police car action!
they both felt there was a lot of hostility towards them - lots of reports of people being run off the road if they had kerry stickers, kerry signs being torn down & disappeared, obscenities & shouts & threats from the good old white boys if they tried to demonstrate or vigil. i really wished i had time to vigil or do an action w/them but 5 days delay is a lot for me to deal with.
as we pulled out of o.c., we saw that starbucks had invaded the western outskirts!!! they said they were open for a month now... i requested organic fair trade espresso & they said they'd look into it!
at the border of oklahoma & texas (the panhandle), i stopped to fill up - i do not like to spend $$$, let alone stop, in texas so i make sure i'm full before i head across the border - it is only about 200 mile thru this part of texas to new mexico. as i park & jump out, an older white man approaches me with a 'i love your truck' spoken with such a southern drawl i have to really pay attention to hear. i smile & ask him where he's from. he points behind him & says something that sounds like 'why just over there in comfort'. i nod as if i know what he's just said. then he tells me something like 'where are all the republicans? there ain't none in all of southern oklahoma - everyone i axe is democrat so i want to know where the hell that man got all those votes he claims he got?' i may not have understood the words but i sure did understand the disbelief and disgust. he told me to keep up the good work & i told him the same!
we continued across the panhandle without stopping & without incident (it was dark) & headed to new mexico to tucumancari, where we spent the nite! peace,sam




baring it all in oklahoma!!!

okay so white males have frequently felt the need to expose various parts of their bodies, as they zoom past me - most often is the third finger they angrily thrust at me. on many occasions they roll up their sleeves and make weird & gross looking gestures with their fingers, hands & arms; they also have been known to do some equally contorted ugliness w/their mouths & tongues. then there are the few that feel they need to drop their drawers & stick their naked butts out the window... okay. but today, a young white dude in a bright red new dually pick-up truck felt the need to strip off his shirt, lay his hairy self back in the seat as he drove down the road, and raise his ponderous belly up so he could point his penis up toward the ceiling, all while pulling off the ramp next to the truck - quite talented if you take a nanosecond to consider it - probably much longer than it took for him to figure out how to get everything working & at the right level to be observed by passing vehicles.
he got absolutely no reaction from me, altho if i had been going a little slower i would have loved to have pointed at him as i howled at his pathetic hairy sickly white belly. i can't imagine how he's able to fit behind the wheel & reach the peddles to operate the vehicle.
fortunately my cousin didn't see a thing - i don't think she understood when i tried to explain my sudden laughter. poor orit - she is so enamored of the u.s. she's seen on tv & in the movies - and then she's traveling w/me! today she proudly produced a couple of bright, white napkins she snatched for us from subway when we made a pit stop. i give the napkins (and her) a withering look & ask her what is wrong w/our towel we've been using. she claimed the napkins were just easier & we wouldn't have to wash them. i say okay, so we'll just cut down trees so you can have napkins & we'll just bleach them white & so what the chlorine is contaminating our water supply & soil. poor orit - she has like minus 50 consciousness & she's traveling w/me! she probably feels relieved to know there are plenty of bus stations around, should she need one! peace, sam