In addition to the obvious, dreadful degree of damage and loss of life that is occurring due to Hurricane Katrina, the economic ripple effect is going to take people by surprise. I'm hearing worrisome stories about the nation's fuel supply, for one.

This is going to reverberate throughout the economy. Scary. Of course the first thought I had was about the cost of filling up our own gas tanks, but it's really so much larger than that. We are soooo fuel dependent in this country, and it is going to affect the cost and the price of everything.

BWAHAHAHAHA

I must get some better sunscreen. I've been outside so much this past spring and summer that my face, and all the areas normally left uncovered by a tank top are quite brown. My legs are another story, because I've frequently covered them with jeans. Anyway, I burned the tops of my feet today. Just a little. Just between you and me, I don't want to get Skin Cancer for Peace. I'll do many things, obviously that's not one of them. I need to come up with something that's cool (cool/hip and cool/comfy, of course!) but protects my delicate skin better. . . .including a maximum spf sunscreen.

I want an umbrella too.

Ok fine. A parasol. Pink and black would be perfect.

The fundraiser was very successful. We raised enough to pay airfare for two to DC, a donation to the Crawford Peace House, and a little nest egg for operating expenses. Woo and hoo!

We met lots of very nice people too. We only had two people gripe at us...as far as I noticed anyway. Nelisse came by with a cooler of drinks, a chair and a bunch of beautiful cuttings from her yard that we gave out for small donations. An Iraqi woman came to see us and said that her organization of Iraqi women know that Code Pink cares about what happens to the women in Iraq, so she wants to join us. Her husband bought two of Candace's paintings. We got an overwhelmingly positive response from people, and sold lots of goodies. I have GOT to start remembering to bring my camera to these things. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.

We had two spaces and we put up canopies and our 12 ft "Women for Peace" sign and my fuzzy pink peace sign that I made for the Pride Parade. We covered all the tables in pink and laid out the goodies. People we buying things as we unloaded the trucks. It was a beautious sight.

A middle-ish aged woman was rolling toward us in her motorized cart and she had American flags flying from the back of her chair, and I could see a "support the troops" button on her shirt. She had on a cap with a flag. I must admit I thought, "oh no, she's going to yell at us" (partly because the previous yeller had been a similarly attired woman). She came up to me and told me she supports what we're doing and in fact Cindy Sheehan had given her the support the troops pin (which on closer inspection said something to the effect of "support our troops, bring them home now.") She talked about how much it meant to her, and I breathed a small sigh of relief.

Tomorrow night, it's onward to the beach for a sunset, candlelight vigil outside the Hotel del Coronado.

CodePink SD is having a fundraiser tomorrow at the swap meet. We need funds for operating expenses, and would like to raise enough to supplement funding for those of us who are planning on going to DC for the mobilization called by United for Peace. We've been gathering donations for a couple weeks now, and have a bunch of good stuff to sell. I think we'll have some success. We've got used household items, plants, original art by the lovely and talented Candace, Princess Di's groovy froggy bags (reuseable shopping bags), knitted goodies from Davette, lots of books and music, and one of our CP friends is going to do Tarot readings from 9-3.

Wish us luck!

Great post by Mark Green at the Huffington Post.

We Owe Pat Robertson and Ann Coulter a Big Thank You.

Today somebunny points me in the direction of TBogg, so tonight I'm sitting here perusing the posts and I see this, which makes my blood pressure rise. (Disclaimer: I didn't watch the video because I have a lame dial up. I read some of the transcript.) Anyway, I've personally had the script read into my face at high volume a couple times, and to be honest, it's starting to annoy me.

I don't even know where to begin. AFAIC, they're trying to make activists look like the bad guys so more people don't join in. I don't buy a word of that "aiding and abetting" crap. They just want to scare people into shutting up and are escalating the rhetoric because more people are visably and vocally opposing them.

From the CNN "breaking news" email:

1:01 p.m. -- A final draft Iraqi constitution is ready to be submitted to national assembly, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi said.

1:02 p.m. -- Why should I believe anything that comes out of Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi's mouth?, terry said.

2:13 p.m. -- Iraqis Extend Deadline for Vote on Draft Constitution, the LA Times said.

Why am I not surprised?

We had our regularly scheduled rally today and about 20 people showed up. That's the best turn out since I've been going. I guess passions are inflamed on both sides of the issue since we also got more negative....ahem....gestures than usual. One guy screamed "YOU'RE ALL INSANE!!!!" as he barrelled past. Personally, I have to question the mental status of someone who does that. There's an almost scary level of anger from some of the people who disagree with us. I see bumperstickers I completely disagree with all day long, but I'd never scream at a person for expressing their foolish damned selves. In better news, a man bike passed and stopped to say, I'm a conservative but I agree with you standing out here like this, stating your opinion. I thought that was a cool thing to say to us. He didn't really agree with our sentiments, but said he respected our right to publicly express them. Would that the others were so cool headed and respectful. As always, we got lots of peace signs, thumbs up and thank yous. Much more positive than negative. All in all, it was a good day.

Link o' the day!

Freeway Blogger

I've ignored you again my bloggish friends, but I did finish updating the CodePink San Diego page so at least there's that.

There was an event this afternoon that was sponsored by a local activist organization, and we (CP) had a table there. I spoke to a man who was one of the people who escorted Cindy Sheehan out to Crawford and helped set up her campsite. This isn't something I'd heard in the news, but he said what happened was she was speaking at the Veterans for Peace convention in Dallas, and while she was on the stage she said something to the effect that she should just go camp out in Crawford until he talks to her. Then she said, "who wants to go with me?" and the place erupted. So many people wanted to go with her that their convention almost fell apart. So...all of the original group of about 50 people that escorted her out there and set up her camp were veterans. A number of the people who have since joined her are also family members of people killed in Iraq. The people who are trying to smear her are making it look like she's one grief stricken, deranged person out there being taken advantage of by those damned hippie liberals. Wrong.