January 18th, 2003. Brian and I drove down to our nation's proverbial capitol to protest George's plan to invade Iraq.
Check this out. If we'd have opened the balcony door of our hotel room, we would've fallen to our deaths.

Fortunately, there was this handy warning sign.

This was the first time I'd noticed that the Washington Monument looks suspiciously like a klan member. Terrible job.

The protest was coincided with MLK day, and was also a tribute to him.

Signs and flags and whatnot.

Chumbawamba. Did you know they've been around since '82?

Nice.

The Code Pink crew.

Here's a good one.

Reverend Al.

It was ridiculously cold that day. Not only could you see your own breath, you could see Jessica Lange's.

Jesse's pissed at Bush.

And he's down with the King.

According to Fox News, one person attended the protest and march.

Today's birthdays:

Ronald Reagan, actor.

Babe Ruth, baseball player who played on three of the Boston Red Sox six world championship teams. As hard as is to believe today, the New York American League ballclub won some titles--last century--a few of which featured Ruth as well.

My mom, author. Happy birtday, mom.

There's nothing more humiliating in football than the safety. It's like finishing Double Jeopardy! with a negative dollar amount, making yourself ineligible for Final Jeopardy!

Not only have you failed to reach your opponent's end zone, but you were tackled in your own end zone, over 100 yards away. (110 yards Canadian.) You couldn't even stay within the field of play.

The other team gets two points, and to add insult to injury, you still have to give them the ball.

Capped off by it's ridiculous referee's sign--two hands held together aloft, praying to the football gods for mercy on your futile soul--the safety is bound to make your coach crazy.

Current odds that there will be a safety in Super Bowl XL: 6.25/1. I'm down for a ten spot. I even talked Chan into throwing in ten as well.

Come on, safety!

Beckett gets one-year deal.

It's 3:30 AM. Do you know where your Chan is?

San Franciso's SBC Park, formerly Pac Bell Park, is being renamed AT&T Park.

Is that about the stupidest sentence in baseball history? I am so proud our park is called Fenway Park. Say what you will about those three dudes who brought us a World Series title, but at least they never tried to change Fenway Park to American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Incorporated Stadium.

The date should tell you what that line refers to.

What I want to know is, who are you people talking to all the time? I have some really good friends, but not once in my adult life have I been leaving work, on foot or by car, and thought, "It is imperative that I talk to someone right now. It can't even wait til I get home."

And that is why I still haven't bought a cell phone.

Maybe people by them and think, Well, I better get my money's worth and talk on this thing every single chance I get.

Or maybe, as George Carlin once said, people are afraid of their own thoughts. They can't just sit there thinking. There has to be a distraction--music pumped into their ears, or the voice of a friend, annoying all the people around them, too.

I'm down with music and communicating, but I'm also down with being by myself, and being able to walk to work without anybody being able to get a hold of me and without the temptation to get a hold of them, especially when it can wait. Like always.

Emergencies just don't happen enough to justify getting a cell phone for me. In fact, I've never been in an emergency. Besides, at this point, I can just assume that if I really, really need to make a call due to some dire emergency, there will be someone very close by with a phone I can use.

In the pun department, Chan and I were walking around downtown one night a few weeks ago, and a vehicle went by with a huge glass enclosure on it. It literally looked like a fish tank, maybe 10 feet long and six feet high, all lit up inside. With mimimal hesitation, I came out with "Glass houses gather no moss!" I thought it was a beautiful meshing of cheesy sayings. By the time I explained to Chan the meaning of each individual saying, as well as why they worked when put together in this case, though, well, it was a little anti-climactic.

In my mom's book news, they reviewed it on NPR's Fresh Air today. Listen to it here. That name again is Girls of Tender Age.

I watched the State of the Union address on Tuesday, for my weekly dose of comic relief. I don't know if Georgie is lying or just plain stupid. Actually, I do. He's both. Still confusing Iraq with 9/11. And much of this country is still brainwashed.

People are dying every day. Innocent people getting bombed by the U.S. U.S. soldiers getting blown up. All for no reason. Not like there'd be a reason anyway.

I saw a documentary called Why We Fight tonight. Definitely stuff I already knew, as far as the current war is concerned, but it's just good that people are coming out and telling the truth. The main theme of the movie is how Eisenhower warned of the "military industrial complex." And since he left office, this country has basically kept wars going the whole time, basically depending on them. The companies that produce military equipment are trying to make as much money as possible, so they keep making it better, and the government spends way too much on it, and will start a war to be able to use it, as they send our poor and uneducated off to die under the guise of "fighting for freedom."

Or, as Chan put it, "It was like Fahrenheit 9/11 without the jokes."

Did you know that the first 50 "smart bombs" the U.S. used in this war in Iraq failed to hit their target? Those weapons designed to minimize collateral damage caused it repeatedly. In the film, they talked to a doctor who showed the records of the casualties from the first wave of "shock and awe" attacks: Housewife, child, child, young girl... He said 90% killed were NOT soldiers.

And what is this war for, anyway? They had a dude on there who talked about how the government uses a technique to make civilians think that attacking someone is a justified retaliation, when it's really not. Or, in this case, it's Bush & friends telling the public that we're getting back at the people who attacked us by attacking someone totally different (who we originally supported, armed, and helped gain power), instead of the people who really did it (who, surprise, we also originally supported and armed).

What I can't believe is how so many people, in 2006, still either refuse to believe the truth or are just so stubborn to the point that even losing thousands of their own country's soldiers, not to mention thousands of innocent others, won't make them change their minds.

There's some other good stuff in the documentary. Like Eisenhower talking about how many people we could feed for the cost of one weapon. And John McCain's huge left cheek. Stuff like that. Check it out.