El Paso reflects D.C. demonstrators

The Grim Reaper, as portrayed this day by Mrs. Dada. As I warned
her beforehand, "I want no embraces from you while in costume."

Saturday's national protest in Washington, D.C. was echoed in cities and towns across the nation. El Paso was one of those communities which chose to speak out. I had the pleasure of accompanying Mrs. Dada, who is a member of the local peace group, Border Peace Presence, downtown to observe and participate in a show of their displeasure of the administration's endless, pointless, unwinnable Iraq war and their plans to escalate it.

I was impressed with the turnout of demonstrators at one of the downtown's busier intersections. The peace group was joined by church groups, sympathetic citizens and, for the first time, university students organizing against the war and military recruitment tactics in our high schools.

But most impressive was the tremendous outpouring of support shown by passing motorists. The waves, flashing peace signs, thumbs up and the blaring horns evidenced the true tidal wave of public opinion that is taking place against Bush and Cheney's "victory" delusions.

During the two hour event, I personally witnessed only three disapprovals: one thumbs down; a bird which flew in our direction and a funny car with driver's thumb down, his female companion with an ever so coy thumbs up. This small minority is probably a standard representation of the greater national population still buying into George Bush's Willie Loman impression of a man who is no longer able to meet the demands of his own selling job.

Besides the great outpouring of public support, I was also pleased with local TV news coverage of the event. (Dada's "BUSH IS NUTS"sign was flashed prominently three times during one channel's reporting of the event.) But I have to take a moment here to chide the local newspaper.

SHAME - SHAME - SHAME El Paso Times!

Today's El Paso Times coverage of the D.C. demonstration proved puny ("see page 4A"). And coverage of El Paso's own demonstrators proved totally nonexistent!

Maybe the fact anti-war protest took place on Saturday explains why it received no coverage, i.e., it's "newspaper" reporters don't work on weekends.

Thankfully, that's a nice coincidence because, apparently to the El Paso Times' way of thinking, this is the same time of week no news happens either!