February 2012 vigils

[Brian]

Reporting on last week's Montrose Peace Vigil, I wrote that we hadn't been joined by any spontaneous participants since the day after Thanksgiving. This week, Tim from Jeanne's church came to the corner for the first time, then a young mother and her toddler stopped to talk and stayed to hold signs for about half an hour. Official attendance for the first vigil of February -- the beginning of our seventh year -- was 12.

While a good number of peaceniks faced the traffic in the traditional stance, Jeanne, Anni and I sat on a square of AstroTurf next to the Vietnam War memorial for about 15 minutes in silent contemplation. It's my turn next week to bring the opening inspirational quote or story for our third Imagining Peace experiment.

Thankfully, Mike was back after a two week absence to straighten out the mess we made of the ropes for the portable telescoping flagpole he engineered. Attached below is the PDF we compile weekly from the Department of Defense website and post below our American flag:

Attachments:

[Jeanne]

Feb 4, 2012 0:02:13 GMT -8 Brian said:

This week, Tim from Jeanne's church came to the corner for the first time

I forgot to mention that Tim is wondering if anyone wants to host a Move On screening of Inside Job next week.

[anni]

Brian watched "Inside Job" and says it's GREAT. We'll be enjoying 'the TUBES' next weekend so we'll be unable to participate. Hope that you all get to see the movie, though. It comes highly recommended.

[anni]

This photo from last Friday, Feb. 3. An exclusive behind the scene shot by Brian, for our viewing enjoyment...I think you can see two of the new drop by people and some camera shy regulars...

[Brian]

When I arrived at the corner around 6:15, Jeanne reported that the goodwill from both vehicular and pedestrian passersby had been especially warm and frequent at this Friday's Montrose Peace Vigil. Soon, a Vietnam War veteran, wearing a cap with his unit's insignias, stopped to say that not only are our troops long overdue for leaving Afghanistan, now we need more vigils to prevent a war in Iran.

Our attendance this week was eight participants. The counter protesters outnumbered us when Roberta and Jeanne went across the street to talk for awhile and give them printouts of the editorial and our comments three weeks ago on Montrose Patch. They didn't know they had been written about online.

For the reading at our new weekly sub-vigil, Imagining Peace, I brought the lyrics of Bob Dylan's "License to Kill." This rollicking version was performed live on "Late Night With David Letterman" early in 1984:


Like last week, we had two deaths to report on the flyer posted on our portable half-mast flagpole, but neither was combat related. General Hildner is the highest ranking officer to die in Afghanistan:

Attachments:

[Jeanne]

We had a very good visit with our neighbors across the street. They received the copies of the Patch article that Roberta had copied for them. And one of them was at ease enough to joke about our situation a bit, saying that some people think that they are throwing stink bombs at us. Roberta introduced an idea to them regarding the memorial that they want to build at Two Strike Park. She said that if they would consider including words for hope for peace on it, that they might find broader support in their fundraising. That would include some of us. I think it's brilliant because it requires us all to take in the complexity of the issue. Will they say, "No, we really don't want to hope for peace?" It would require us to work with people that we have been comfortable disagreeing with from a distance. If we can work with them through that discomfort for a higher shared purpose, we will truly be peacemakiong.

License to Kill- Thanks for that selection, Brian. Your reading made the lyrics very clear, something one doesn't get from hearing Dylan sing it once. And it did lead me to a very peaceful visualization of the "woman on my block" being Everywoman rising up together to take away his license to kill, similar to the way the women in Liberia did. Everyman is welcome, too.

[Roberta]

Thank you for the good summary Jeanne. As soon as I got home from the corner last night I went to the Montrose Patch and added a comment to the editorial about the vigils, so it would be there when/if the veterans go there.

I tried again to express my wish that the improved war memorial might include a hope for peace. Not brilliant prose, but a darn good idea, if I do say so myself, and thanks for the high praise, Jeanne! I included their website:

www.twostrikememorial.org

We'll see if anyone else likes the idea.

[Brian]

A solid turnout of stalwarts were on the corner for this Friday's vigil and more great weather. Last February it rained twice. Bill moved from Montrose years ago, but he was back again with Nikki and Conni, who I cannot count as participants because of their status as canines. The month's attendance so far:

• Feb. 3 - 12
  
• Feb. 10 - 8
  
• Feb. 17 - 12
  

All six of the photos Roberta took of the Imagining Peace sub-vigil turned out so beautifully that I can't imagine which one Anni's going to choose to post soon in this thread. And here are this week's Pentagon death announcements -- three young men from different branches of the military -- as attached to the Montrose Peace Vigil's temporary pole and our flag at half mast:

Attachments:

[anni]

Feb 18, 2012 0:45:43 GMT -8 Brian said:

All six of the photos Roberta took of the Imagining Peace sub-vigil turned out so beautifully that I can't imagine which one Anni's going to choose to post soon in this thread.

And I choose this one...showing us in deep Imagining:

[Brian]

The sun officially set on the Montrose Peace Vigil at 5:46 this Friday, and in two weeks, sunset time will be almost 6 p.m. Then Daylight Saving Time begins, returning Anni's bag of candles to storage. Already, the sidewalks are teeming with lively people of all ages, many of them stopping to talk or to watch us demonstrating and Imagining Peace during a winter that never came. Our attendance this month:

• Feb. 3 - 12
  
• Feb. 10 - 8
  
• Feb. 17 - 12
  
• Feb. 24 - 11
  

Average weekly attendance in February was 11 participants, up from 9 in January and 10 in December.

Everybody on the corner was talking about the seven Marines who died training in helicopters this week in the California desert. They were not included in the military death announcements that we posted on our portable flagpole at half mast -- they were identified just a few hours ago -- so we will commemorate them next week. The PDF attached here from the Department of Defense includes its January suicide data after the press releases announcing another seven troop deaths since last Friday:

Attachments: