Hi there. Me again.

I've gotten a good deal of negative email about The Challenge, from both sides. I don't really understand the mentality that it would take to send a complete stranger an email that says "you're evil" or "you're selfish" or "you're ignorant" or "fuck you". I do understand the Code Pink folks who are worried because of their own past personal experiences with the Protest Warriors. We just had to make a decision that was right for us, and we did.

I know who I'm dealing with here in this "competition". Frankly, I have little confidence we can "beat" them, but that's not the point afaic. The reaction we've received has been overwhelmingly negative, and I will be pleasantly surprised if it's competitive in the end. But what are they going to do, mock us? They do that already. Send us nasty emails? They do that already too. Claim they're more "generous" than us? Petty and ridiculous. No matter what happens, money has been raised and that's part of our goal. They've already raised about $8,000. Would they have done that without the challenge? Nope. We started later, and our folks don't tend to have that "crush them" mentality that they do, so we don't have near that much

All I can be is responsible for MY behavior, and I feel that I'd be a hypocrite by saying I work for peace, but I can't even attempt a de-escalation of tensions between them and us. As it is, at least the leadership of these two little groups are speaking civily to one another at the moment. There's always that slight chance they'll realize they're talking to actual human beings here who are sincere about what they're doing, and get out of our faces a little bit. If ONE person did that, I'd be happy. If it turns into some ugly scene, it won't be my doing. That's all I can care about or control. So maybe it's silly or naive, but that's ok with me.

I'm just venting because we've caught hell from all sides, and it's on my mind.

It's not been an easy week. sigh....