Obama had just announced his troop surge. The Mountain View Voices for Peace decided to go public with our opposition to it. We met where we always do at times like this, the corner of Castro & El Camino.

     

  

Once Fred showed up we got a lot more honks out of the cars. He has lots of fans.

        

Somewhere in there I found myself talking to somebody about what it might mean that Blackwater changed their name to Xe. I pointed out that Xe is also the chemical symbol for one of the heavier Noble Gases. I can think of uses for Helium (He) and Neon (Ne), but what good is Xenon? What a coincidence! It's as useless to me as the company formerly known as Blackwater...

     

The names on the flags in the cartoon are Iraq and Afghanistan. The woman explained that her husband had seen the cartoon in the paper and liked it so much they made it into a sign to carry at demonstrations and vigils.

    

The couple in the picture with the "Peace Please" stickers are from Arizona. They are spreading these stickers around as a grass roots project. I'd not met them before. She is a piano player. It was a treat to talk to them at our vigil.