The Monday noon vigil was bolstered by our out-of-town guests, we had all corners and medians covered. Join Citizens for Peace in Space to protest the Broadmoor 24th National Space Symposium later today!
Reminder: Citizens for Peace In Space will be protesting the Space Symposium held annually at the Broadmoor. As usual the event is 99% about space weaponry. Come see all the smarmy businessmen (suntans and loafers) and their military meal tickets (top brass). CPIS activities include a protest at the opening cocktail hour MONDAY 17:00-17:45; then at 19:00-20:30 a panel discussion at Penrose Library with CPIS guests JN Rao of India, Jan Tamas of the Czech Republic, Damian Moran of Poland and Mary Beth Sullivan of Maine; TUESDAY 15:00-16:00 bannering at Peterson AFB; WEDNESDAY 10:30-12:30 bannering at the Broadmoor while schoolchildren are bused in to see the pseudo- scientific displays which glorify US military superiority.
Colorado Springs has several attributes which make it a pleasant place to live. Our dry sunny climate of course, and Garden of the Gods, Manitou, The Broadmoor, Colorado College, the Smokebrush Foundation, to leave out quite a bit. Pikes Peak, the Olympic Training Center and NORAD separate us from other provincial backwaters only by giving us a sense that we are on the map.
Since Amendment 2 Colorado Springs has been on the map for our unpleasant demographic. The sagging mental acuity of the Pikes Peak area is something of legend, and lo, increasingly deserved. We owe this to the abundance of military employers, to the continuing influx of fundy revivalists and of course the standard American low expectations for education. But no entity has played a more detrimental role in shaping our pinheads than our city newspaper, the “libertarian” Freedom Communications Gazette. Since the demise/absorption of its competitor the COS Sun, the Gazette Telegraph has warped our city news with impunity.
And none have done it with more mean-spirit and Rush Limbaugh alacrity than Gazette Editorialist Sean Paige. Our own top-tier asshole.
And he’s leaving! Hurray! I wish it had been with tar and feathers. And it’s a rather selfish joy, because doubtless he’s moving somewhere. Wouldn’t it be more noble to know to where, so that instead of passing him off, we could give them a shout and prevent Paige from wreaking his cynical damage in their unsuspecting community?
Ralph Routon’s recent diatribe in the Indy about the impending departure of Michael DeMarsche was lame. But you have to understand. Having Ralph write about the arts is akin to having John Waters write about the Superbowl. You can only imagine how funny that would be. To us. But not to sports fans. You might as well call Jesus a homo or spit on an Indian before you sully such sacred land.
People. Look at the picture of Ralph. Then consider that no one chooses their worst picture to present to the world. This is likely as good as it gets. Which means that he is a beer-swilling bratwurst-gobbling sports-worshiping manly man. He spits. He scratches. He has issues with dingleberries. But he LOVES sports. And by sports, I don’t mean fencing or horse racing or curling. Sport involves a BALL of some sort. And a distinctively American connection (which rules out rugby and soccer, although rugby is the ultimate masculine sport…even basketball doesn’t totally qualify for reasons I can’t quite figure out, but I think it’s because there are so few good white players).
One of the most memorable arguments that Dave and I ever had involved music. We were in our late twenties; we lived in downtown Denver and we were cool. He was a surgical resident at the U and I was a financial guru for a hip software company. As such, we were invited to many events. When these invitations came in through medical channels everything was great. Orthopedic surgeons are always jocks who were inspired to become surgeons while recovering from their own sports-related injuries. But when the invitations came from my side of the channel, things were unpredictable.
We were invited to Josephina’s on Larimer, to drink wine and listen to some groovy jazz with fellow yuppies, a term Dave hated. We got there. We drank Coors Light while they drank "whine." They listened to the "music." In a very unfortunate turn of events, the girl that Dave took to junior prom, Alison, the fantastic skier, the one that paid only friendly attention to him due to family connections, walked in with her new husband, Clark. Clark was an attorney who was, tragically, wearing a knee-length fur coat. Dave was wearing Levis, tennis shoes and a yellow t-shirt (with red letters, like a hot dog) that said "NO LIGHTS AT WRIGLEY FIELD!" (which is now framed in the basement, I kid you not). Things went rapidly downhill from there. ‘When’s the music gonna start? I could probably fix that pinkie for a fee. Let’s go to the sym-PHONY next week."
Dave is the guy who slept through the birth of most of his children. Our 10-year-old had the lead role in Oliver! at the FAC and I had to beg Dave to watch a single performance. Brendan was in Colorado Christmas at the Broadmoor, performing for 1,000 people every night and Dave came to watch only once and rolled his eyes at all the "religious" bullshit (he doesn’t know any Christmas carols). Brendan was hand-picked by Debbie Allen to be in Pepito’s Story at the Pikes Peak Center and Dave was sort of embarrassed and wondered if Brendan might be gay.
This same guy sobbed like an 8-year-old girl when Brent Musburger retired from sportscasting. I’ve been to two Broncos Superbowls, Northwestern’s first Rose Bowl in 80 years, several Olympic games, the Citrus Bowl when Peyton Manning was senior quarterback and headed for greatness. Weeping and gnashing of teeth all around. My children paint, and play music, and sing, and dance. None of it matters. But Dave is elated for days if 6-year-old Devon, the only girl on the team, makes a double play to win the game. Booyah! Fuck yeah!
My point in all this is that Ralph Routon DOES NOT and CAN NOT care about the arts. We will have to leave it to the psychiatrists to figure out why. Ralph Routon does not care who or what is playing at the Black Sheep, Theaterworks, the BAC. He won’t attend Pridefest, nor the Diversity Fair. Not even Springspree. But he will agonize over the legal troubles of Michael Vick and any injury sustained by LaDanian Tomlinson. He did, after all, draft them to his fantasy football team and he’s got 50 bucks hanging in the balance.
John Weiss, not exactly a manly man and therefore less than qualified to diagnose the problem, better figure it out soon and bring in some new blood. Or the Indy will become the Indy 500 and he’ll have to find a whole new group of advertisers and readers. Of course I’m kidding. Car racing is most definitely not a SPORT. Duh.
We used to joke around the fire at Camp Casey about whether we were being surveilled or infiltrated by agents or disruptors even, as has been done with historic regularity to opposition political groups and their organizers. Even to discuss it today with CPIS or PPJPC feels self-aggrandizing. We know ourselves that we do not pose such a threat that law enforcement would need to monitor our actions.
Let’s dismiss out of hand the idea that struggling activists in Colorado Springs would merit infiltration. So too wiretapping or bugging devices. Have we ever raised but a timid excuse-me to authority? Have we ever mobilized even more than a smattering of protesters ready to press our local leaders for accountability? We have not. We might grab the news on occasion, but in that respect we seem quite willing to telecast our intentions on the local news. To eavesdrop on us then would be redundant.
Alright then, how about email exchanges? Any need to monitor our email passing to and fro? Local ISPs handling the email could flag potential buildups of momentum. Is law enforcement in touch with them? Maybe, maybe not. Who wants to sort all that, or file the paperwork to get the analysis from Buckley.
At least an observer might want to watch our general mass mailings, for calls to arms. What about checking those weekly announcements at a minimum to see what we say we are doing?
And what about the websites? There are less than a handful of community websites which post and discuss upcoming actions. Would the police be looking at websites like this, or csaction.org, or ppjpc.org to try to sort out what’s up?
Police Chief Myers, in explaining the mishandling of St. Patrick’s Day, pointed the finger at the PPJPC and myself for duplicity in joining the parade. Myers explained that our websites made no mention of our intentions to march with the Bookmobile. Well, putting aside their erroneous conclusion, Myers’ statement confirms the answer to the last question: are the police checking in on us online? They say they do.
The police check the websites
If they had looked at our website, they would have seen what? Our calls for participation in the parade, our discussion of the parameters of the permit, our reservations, when we would be assembling, where we were parking, even the larger plans we had to conduct a peace rally in adjacent Pioneer Park. Those were plans we were still trying to juggle. I was hoping to gather onlookers from the parade route and have them join us afield for an impromptu peace rally. These plans were fully fleshed out and debated online, in multiple places. If the police studied our websites as they say they did, they would have seen our plans for that Saturday.
So even if the police weren’t infiltrating us, surveilling our meetings, wiretapping our phones, monitoring our communications, sifting our email, or reviewing our public announcements, they would have known from our websites that the PPJPC was marching with the Bookman, in green peace t-shirts, as we had done, announced and recruited for, online, the year before.
The police excuse of having been taken unawares on St Patrick’s Day, of being confronted with not knowing whether we had a permit, of stopping us in the parade route instead of earlier in the assembly area, begins to ring a little of falsehood.
The odds of us encountering a smiling Erwin Paladino of the CSPD, head head-cruncher of the 2003 anti-protestor police work, begin to look very improbable. The strategy then to throw us to the ground creating a scene, creating an obstruction themselves, making a lesson out of dealing with people stubbornly clinging to their rights, begins to look a little premeditated.
That is, if you believe the police are keeping their eye on us. We disrupt at the Broadmoor, we seek redress at our representatives’ offices, we banner the main streets, we interfere with military job fairs and recruitment strip malls. We show up at City Council and have them scrambling amok. We don’t plan any of this in secret. Probably somebody’s responsible for keeping themselves abreast.
So did Erwin Paladino draw the plum job of getting to apprehend us one block from the official parade start? Or was it a big coincidence? At the staging we could have rallied or prevailed from a dialog unhurried by the pressure of holding up the parade. At Tejon and St Vrain the police got to appear improvisational and exercise executive authority to take us down.
Protesting at the side of the street does seem futile at times, it certainly seems so just thinking about it. But out there catching each others eyes, you’re reminded of its mysterious power, particularly when you’re shown to what extent those against you are willing to go to keep you from being there.
When we first turned up Monday at the Broadmoor Space Symposium Arms Bazaar, we were quickly moved from a section sidewalk declared off limits to us. The police could not explain exactly what ordinance or why, except that they had orders to keep us off the Lake Circle sidewalk. We complied the way reasonable people do, because the area to which we were confined seemed at first glance perfectly suitable. We occupied the corner of Lake and Lake Circle, where we could hand fliers to symposium attendees crossing to the Convention Center. But this gave us contact with only a fraction of the participants in attendance. The majority of the weapons dealers stayed inside the center, whose windows faced the sidewalk area forbidden to us.
We decided to accept the “free speech zone” given us until we could research the new restriction, mindful of the recent Appeals Court verdict which upheld the Broadmoor’s discretion to cordon off its entire neighborhood as a security zone for the NATO conference some years back. Citizens for Peace In Space lost that appeal.
It took Bill Sulzman until 10pm Wednesday to get someone at the CSPD to speak to the issue of the exclusive use permit granted to the Broadmoor. That representative, a Commander Overton, agreed to meet Bill the next morning to negotiate where protesters would or would not be restricted.
Was this a victory of discourse and civility? It certainly was a victory for the Space Arms Symposium. They effectively kept us off their turf until the last day, then thwarted a legal challenge by deciding to give in. We got to stand on the contested sidewalk for a snowy hour of the last day of the conference.
This is where less confrontational pacifists hinder their protest efforts. It might be well to resolve your differences by arbitration, meanwhile the bad guys hold the real estate. In the end our message does not get out, the war rages on, we are entangled in bureaucratic battles until our rights are upheld. This was the tactic used at the DNC, RNC, FTAA, WTO, and indeed our own St Patrick’s Day: detain the dissidents until their opportunity to be heard has passed. It’s an abridgment of our civil liberties, and the government factors into its budget the liability of likely legal judgments.
But what price lost free speech? What cost for every day the war goes on? We know that number. What cost for each further contract for more WMDs? If protest could stop that, that’s the price the government owes us. Could street protest have that effect? Somebody thinks so.
Last year at the Broadmoor, the reaction to our protest was very telling. The first day we were nearly arrested for trying to walk along the edge of a cordoned area, the same contested sidewalk. The head of Broadmoor security was screaming for officers to arrest us. The next day I was assaulted by an overwrought Marines commander in jogging shorts. He circled right to me and flung his hands around my throat, pushing me back until policemen pulled him off. The next day we rode a bicycle up and down the bike path adjacent the blocked sidewalk, to relentless harassment and endangerment by the security vehicle. Somebody doesn’t like to have to gaze upon our message. We could see military brass last year watching from the windows with arms crossed.
Our banners, then and now, quote Henry Ford “Take the profit out of war and you’ll have peace tomorrow” and President Eisenhower “Beware the military industrial complex.” We also have this haunting question: “will your children survive your work?”
The arms manufacturers in attendance at the Broadmoor are normally well buffeted from the real world. They work in industrial complexes and high rises out of reach of humanist and spiritual voices of conscience. They certainly don’t have to see the results of their work, the suffering or the poverty. They ride high on the war gravy train.
The Broadmoor gathering for me is the rare chance to look these people in the eye, to examine the war profiteers in their insular habitat. They might be bellicose, or proud, or defensive, and they may deride us. If it seems their consciences are not keeping score, the symposium organizers seem to have more faith in them than we do.
On this occasion the military industrial complex beat us, they kept us out of sight for most of their event. But we won too. No we didn’t get to challenge their method in court, but we did get to stand in the forbidden zone of their periphery, if but for a morning, a cold snowy morning. Though I believe the increasing snow fall lent our message the credibility of determination. We got to aim this banner right at them: “Will your children survive your work?”
For Immediate Release: April 12, 2006 9:00am
Contact: Bill Sulzman (719) 389 0644
Activists challenge the blocked sidewalk at the Broadmoor
Colorado Springs, April 12, 2006 —
At 11:30am, TODAY, April 12, members of Citizens for Peace in Space and supporters from Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission and Springs Action Alliance will challenge the suspension of 1st and 14th amendment right to peaceably assemble on the sidewalk in front of the Broadmoor Hotel on Lake Avenue. Citizens for Peace in Space and the ACLU have challenged the blocking of sidewalks for the Space Symposium in district court and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals before.
The annual Space Symposium at the Broadmoor Hotel, through Friday, has arranged a special event permit with the city that says, in part, “This permit grants exclusive use of the sidewalks on the east side of Lake Circle, from the south of Lake Avenue, to the north at the edge of the parking garage during above listed dates/times.” Negotiations with the CSPD have been ongoing and may resolve the situation. If not, the legality of the special events permit, blocking the sidewalk will be challenged, as it was at the NATO conference, and that challenge may include civil disobedience arrests.
National political organizers from around the country including Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the “Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space”, Tim Rinne, director of “Nebraskans for Peace”, and Frances Mendenhall of “Speakout at Stratcom”, from Omaha, will not be attending this year as in other years, but Citizens for Peace in Space will be present as always.
Bill Sulzman of Citizens for Peace in Space said, “The special events permit refers to Chapter 3.2.209 of the City Code as its authority.” “It does not go into detail but says : ‘The event organizer will be billed for the cost of the police officers during the event at the appropriate rate.'”
“This is obviously a huge ‘cash cow’ for the CSPD, and that’s why they agreed to shut down the public sidewalk,” he continued.
As always, the organizers urge everyone in attendance to be lawful and peaceful in word and actions, even in the event of civil disobedient arrests.
On Monday Citizens for Peace In Space greeted attendees of the week-long 23rd Annual Space Symposium held at the Broadmoor. It’s the annual gathering of the world’s leading war profiteers. The corporations who hold the contracts to put weapons in space are the same ones earning billions off the war in Iraq, with no end in sight. The air was so convivial even we were treated like regulars.
And there was also the regular escalation of counter-protest measures. This year they closed the sidewalk. We left to regroup.
UPDATE: The Broadmoor and CSPD police are enforcing a new permit ordinance whereby they can close the public sidewalk for the duration of the Space Arms Bazaar. Freedom from Speech by city permit? Come on Thursday to see if that’s constitutional!
Bill Sulzman got hold of the Special Event Permit, it reads: “This permit grants exclusive use of the sidewalks on the east side of Lake Circle, from the south of Lake Avenue, to the north at the edge of the parking garage during above listed dates/times.”
Recently, at the Broadmoor Hotel:
Following dessert, couples file into the adjacent ballroom. Seven ballerinas appear in white gowns with tulle skirts, carrying on their shoulders a large, rustic wooden cross that they lift up and rest on a stand. A woman cries as she presents each of their three ceremonial dances, one of which is called “I’ll Always Be Your Baby.” Afterward, two middle-aged pastors stand at the cross with heavy rapiers raised and announce that they are prepared to “bear swords and war for the hearts of our daughters.” The blades create an inverted “V” under which girls and fathers kneel and lay white roses that symbolize purity. Soon there is a heap of cream-colored buds wilting beneath the outstretched arms of the cross.
This lovely ritual ended the Seventh Annual Father-Daughter Purity Ball. A hundred couples–fathers dapper in tuxedos, daughters resplendent in backless floor-length gowns, long gloves and tiaras–gathered together to celebrate and pledge to protect the girls’ virginity until marriage.
Okay, I’m sorry. I cannot, for the life of me, think of anything creepier than being in a room full of middle-aged men knowing that each and every one of them, including my own father, is thinking about my vagina. My hymen more specifically, if Christian men even know that word.
Thank God I grew up Catholic where I only had to pretend to be good. If my father would’ve suggested that he and I, or any of my three sisters for that matter, attend the Purity Ball to celebrate virginity, I would’ve perished on the spot. More likely I would’ve had sex with the mailman or my priest or someone, anyone, just to get out of going. “Too late, Dad,” I’d say, bloodied and bedraggled. “I guess we can’t go.”
When it’s time for dads and daughters to take the pledge (some informally exchange rings as well), the men stand over their seated daughters and read aloud from parchment imprinted with the covenant: “I, [father’s name], choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity….” The men inscribe their names and their daughters sign as witnesses. Then everyone returns to their meals and an excited buzz fills the room.
Yeah, an excited buzz like “thank fucking hell that’s over.” I know, I shouldn’t be so jaded. It’s not like I’m exactly a fan of promiscuity. And I do think that a strong relationship with dad lays a foundation for future interaction with the male species. But this is just so icky. And, no surprise, ineffective.
88% of the pledgers go on to have premarital sex. Of course, with more than the usual dose of guilt. They are less likely to use condoms because that would mean planning to have sex. Best that it “just happens.” They are more likely to engage in anal sex (PROTECT THAT FLOWER!), again sans condom, which is risky behavior. Thus, as a group, pledgers have a higher-than-average rate of STDs.
Ideally, the daughter goes from being under the virginity contract right into the marriage contract. More tuxes, more pretty dresses, more cake. Forget the hidden clauses and caveats. Just enjoy your big day. And your special night as you present your treasure trove of earthly delights to your new headmaster.
I deeply wish that the lovely things I have seen tonight—the delighted young women, the caring, doting dads—might evolve into father-daughter events not tied to exhorting a promise from a girl that may hang over her head as she struggles to become a woman. When Lauren hit adolescence, her father gave her a purity ring and a charm necklace with a tiny lock and key. Lauren’s father took the key, which he will hand over to her husband on their wedding day. The image of a locked area behind which a girl stores all of her messy desires until one day a man comes along with the key haunts me. By the end of the ball, as I watch fathers carrying out sleepy little girls with drooping tiaras and enveloping older girls with wraps, I want to take every one of those girls aside and whisper to them the real secret of womanhood: The key to any treasure you’ve got is held by one person—you.
That’s the lesson that we should be teaching our children.
Read the entire scary article in Glamour Magazine.
I have nothing, nothing, nothing against sorority girls, nor society girls, they’re just fine.
I remember sororities at college. They provided camaraderie and support for women in educational institutions that had only comparatively recently become co-ed. And sororities prepped girls for the veneer surface of — I don’t know — a life of little academic enterprise after college?
Sororities taught girls social skills and cemented a community fashion. Not fashion in the creative sense but rather a pageant of the accepted norm. Beauty as a dress code that everyone could feel excited about despite it being ludicrously conformist. Sororities also reinforced the preening considered necessary to attract the ambitious corporate male who sought a domestic arrangement in much the same way that he courted a career. For girls who were neither creative, independent, nor perhaps all that complicated, sororities extended the home economics lessons to the prospect of hiring maids.
What do sorority girls do after college when their only idea of extra-curricular means to hold an ice cream social? I don’t want to demean what they do, they have children of course, and run communities. And when there is time, they do lunch. And when there’s charity afoot, these girls do as their sororities did and conduct a benefit.
I saw such a benefit recently, an enormous social function, an annual society event, the cumulative product of countless sub-subcommittee meetings. I could say that the beneficiaries of the charity could have mattered not the least, but that would in this case be most inaccurate. Two factors:
At Newborn Hope the fuzzy bunny factor is in overdrive. Money raised is “for the babies!!!” Specifically babies born prematurely in rural areas without access to urban hospital programs. The money goes for brochures and nurse training programs which teach, basically: Get that baby to the city stat! Money sometimes goes directly for taxi vouchers to accomplish that end.
So it’s not just that the NBH charity is for a demonstrably compelling, in-your-arms-tangible cause, but the chief beneficiaries, as with traditional sororities, are the sorority girls themselves. Making a rough estimate of the figures, I can approximate that well over half of the resources generated by NBH go to feeding itself. Throwing the big party, holding all the planning meetings, that’s the primary function. The money these women spend goes to pay for the luncheons and the overhead. It’s a great boondoggle for The Broadmoor and the shops which get to advertise through the annual function, the NBH fashion show.
The time which the girls expend toward putting it all together is also a large resource redirected. The girls are not driving the taxis nor holding any babies. These philanthropists are holding lunches, paying for the lunches themselves, eating the lunches themselves, and planning for themselves the next one. While it might be uncharitable to ask these ladies to give directly, albeit unselfishly to a good cause? Do premature babies have to settle for only a fraction of their self-serving dollar? Such sorority-style events are very similar to a retail store charity model where an advertized small percentage of sales, nothing extra from the customer’s pocket, is promised to go to a charity.
And what about the charity of premature babies? Wouldn’t a public health matter be best addressed by a public health program? Here you have rich Libertarians who would rather contribute their table scraps to the cause, rather than support taxes to improve the health system thereby resolving many health problems, among them premature births.
And in Colorado Springs there is the Christian Anti-abortion element. NBH plays straight into the hands of the Respect Life crowd. Anything that forces a pregnant woman to commit to her pregnancy, prematurely.
On Thursday and Friday I, along with 1600 of my closest friends, dolled up and went to the Broadmoor International Center to attend the annual Newborn Hope luncheon and fashion show. This is a spectacular event, something that we look forward to all year. Filet mignon, chocolate mousse and champagne are culinary staples. Beautiful models from Denver, both male and female, entertain us. We have a silent auction (Botox, rounds of golf, ski jackets, jewelry), we sell table decorations and Christmas ornaments, we have a balloon raffle. We have fun. We raise money.
I have been involved with Newborn Hope for more than a decade. I have co-chaired the event, co-chaired the Advisory Council, been a member of the Corporate Board. Newborn Hope is about prematurity prevention and maternal/neonatal healthcare. I could go on and on about my passion for our mission and for the organization, but I think I’ll save that for another time.
What I want to talk about are the women who are Newborn Hope. Shortly after I became involved with the organization, I discovered that I was pregnant with twins. I had had 4 easy pregnancies in the past so this discovery did not deter me from my normal behavior in the slightest. At 26 weeks (normal gestation is 40 weeks) I went to my doctor for a routine check up. Ironically, she informed me that I was in pre-term labor and that I needed to walk across the parking lot and check myself into the hospital.
The long and short of it is that I ended up enduring 10 weeks of strict bedrest. I had 4 young children at home but was told that I was allowed to get up only once every 2 hours to go to the bathroom. Yeah, right. Puh-lease.
My Newborn Hope friends, none of whom I knew well at the time, heard of my plight and knew how important, and how impossible, compliance was. In order to help me and my little preborns, they arranged for a different committee member to deliver a meal to my home, enough to feed the 6 of us, every night for 10 weeks. A woman I hardly knew called me and said, politely but firmly, “I will be in your driveway every morning at 7:45 to take your kids to school. Please have them watch for me.” Another woman drove my little David to preschool three times per week, a thirty minute round trip.
Twice during my confinement, 20 women or so brought me a moveable feast. They showed up on my doorstep with egg dishes and waffles and bacon and sweet rolls, flowers even. They arranged chairs around me, hugged me, talked to me, made me laugh. Two hours later they gathered everything up, washed and put away every dish, left me with a few good books, and out they went. It was a bit surreal. Kind of like Cat in the Hat.
My new friends came and took my little ones to Happy Apple Farm to get Halloween pumpkins. They showed up every day at 3:30 to lift my little Lara out of her crib after her afternoon nap. They heard that I was having a hard time reading so they blazed in, taught me to cross stitch, brought me everything I needed to complete a project, and raced back out to their own lives.
A severely premature infant is the most expensive medical patient there is. Much more expensive than a cancer patient, a transplant patient, an accident victim. More importantly, premature babies can have developmental delays, vision problems, physical difficulties that last a lifetime. My twins, had they been born at 26 weeks, might be very different children today. I am grateful for their good health. I’ll be forever thankful for the women who helped me carry to term.
I took a friend of mine, a guy, to the luncheon this year. I wanted to share with him an important part of my life, to show him what I’ve done for 10 years, to introduce him to the people who’ve made a huge difference to me and to Devon and Ryan. He was one of only a few men among 800 women. I thought that it would be fun. Educational. Inspiring perhaps. Sadly, he saw a bunch of middle-aged women, shoved into leather pants and halter tops, flaunting back fat and delightful but embarrassing fake boobs, hoping to regain lost youth. How sad and how jaded. I’m really sorry that that is all he saw.
I saw my angels. I saw my friends. I saw love in action. I saw gorgeous women who’ve made a difference to me and to the community.
Relax, guy friend. You don’t need to tell us about our faded beauty. We already know. Many of us who are involved with Newborn Hope have had heartbreaking experience with prematurity. We’ve also dealt with breast cancer, aging parents, learning disabilities…you name it. As a result, we don’t worry too much about our saddlebags. Our chin hairs. Our wrinkled foreheads. Our sagging boobs. We’d rather revel in the potential and perfection of our children. And in the beauty and kindness of our aging friends.
So go screw yourself. You’ll never again be invited to hang out with the ladies who lunch.
Come protest Vice President Dick Cheney’s campaign stop at the Broadmoor. This is your chance to tell him you don’t think the US decision to use torture is a “no-brainer.” (Read about one of the first US female casualties in Iraq. A recent FOIA has revealed her death was a suicide, covered-up. Her motive? She did not want to participate in US methods of torture.)
CSAction Activist Alert from Mark Lewis:
On Friday, November 3 at the Broadmoor Hotel, “The Dick” cheney will come to do a fund raiser for lamborn, who is close to loosing the 5th congressional district seat to Fawcett. The supporters will start arriving at 4 pm (according to the local GOP office) and must be inside for the security sweep at 6pm just before cheney arrives up Lake Avenue.We need to be there in force to “welcome” cheney (that’s Mr. Dick to you) with orange hunting vests, signs about halliburton, war profiteers, Abu Ghraib, POWs, Gitmo, Iraq, “Who would Jesus torture?”, maybe a “water board” display?
Maybe the same location as the 2004 NATO protest at 2nd and Lake, where the motorcade will have to slow for the “round about” and where there is parking in the church lot?
The sat trucks will go live at 5 for TV coverage, so we need to be in place at least by then. Spread the word.
White Mountain met its match last night, at their homecoming football game. The idea usually is to pick an opponent to beat at your homecoming festivities. Later you might visit a fellow school on their homecoming weekend and lose to them in return. But “South,” the underprivileged shoe-in with half the athletic department and budget, would not play ball. And that was the good news.
There was a distinct home advantage, the bigger, better lit bleachers, the multiple cheerleading squads, the band, the fireworks, everything uphill and upwind from the diminutive visitors stands. But the Indians got whooped by the visiting Pueblo South Colts, and maybe expected it. It felt like a surprise to most, and it was pretty dark out there. Add to that the anonymity of shiny football helmets under high school stadium lights, but if you looked closely you could tell it was darker on the south side of the field. The Pueblo South High School players were black and hispanic.
White Mountain gets its name because there are no children of color there. Well, there are the occasional adopted black children, and the whitish black children of privilege, but few others. Cheyenne Mountain is very very white. Nothing wrong with that, it’s an affluent neighborhood and welcomes all who can afford to be there.
But at the base of Cheyenne Mountain is a racism more overt and the children of White Mountain pass it everyday. Cheyenne Mountain Resort is a terribly exclusive country club with amazingly expensive membership fees and golf tee fees. And all the attendants there are black. It’s the Pullman porter valet concept with plantation era uniforms. They look like lawn jockey figurines. Thin black people in pure white clothes. Smiling black faces, happy to be there. Nothing illegal about the hiring standard, here’s how it works:
Cheyenne Mountain Resorts applies for an immigration waiver to hire international workers. They claim the jobs which resorts offer cannot be filled by the local labor force. The pay’s not enough, the career prospects are not enough, and true enough, the local populace is not enough either. Too fat maybe, poor work ethic, have social problems perhaps, and locals have their own transport to bring or fetch complications for the resort. Locals bring too much financial baggage to the table.
On the other hand, imported laborers are housed at company apartments. They’re shuttled to and from work. When they’ve finished their three month stint they are sent home. Deliriously uncomplicated and cheap. Cheyenne Mountain Resorts does its hiring in Jamaica. Know any white people in Jamaica? Well, they don’t appear to sign up to work across the sea, away from their home and family, on a rich man’s plantation.
The Broadmoor takes advantage of the same immigrant labor waiver to staff its hotel and restaurant, except they hire exclusively in Eastern Europe. I’m not sure that’s not racist to another extreme. The slavic labor force is the least expensive in the world, in the world of white people. There are no colored peoples there.
The immigrant labor waiver is an unfair means for local employers to escape contributing to a sustainable and healthy local community. It’s a foreign aid program of sorts, but at the expense of what could be local jobs. And when it’s racially segregated, it’s ugly. I plan to ask around if White Mountain prefers its golf jockeys all black. If they can’t say it with a straight face, they should stop it.
This isn’t about racism, it’s about economic justice. If we want to believe in the notion that the American dream is available to people of all shades and heritage, we must not teach our children that racial differences dictate social status.
COLO. SPRINGS- Last Friday D-12 fifth graders fought the Battle of Saratoga in a private park adjacent Broadmoor Elementary School. Their reenactment meant to teach the horrors of war, and to have fun.
The young British occupation troops in the foothills of Pikes Peak in 2006 discovered the fate of all empires.
Day 3: Wednesday
Was it because I hadn’t had any non-violence training? Is that why everyone jumped in to enforce a stand down from my assailant?
Our protest was just getting started, I was holding half of a banner in one hand and passing out fliers with the other when a very angry man zeroed right in. Maybe it was the bright green peace sign. He was jogging along Lake Circle and he had not even passed us. He shouted “I know people who died for you” and before I could answer, though I must not have looked sufficiently repentent, he repeated himself while leaping to clutch my collar and push against me to I don’t know where. I had time only to ask him if he knew that he was committing assault before the Police officers peeled him off and led him away for a discussion.
I regret not having requested that he be allowed to state his piece, minus the physical aggression, but instead we simply instructed the officers that there would be no need to press charges. I didn’t see it but eventually he must have jogged off. Our banner read BEWARE THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, Dwight D. Eisenhower’s famous warning.
I am a non-violent person, even a pacifist, though perhaps I am not much of a verbal pacifist. I had no intention of matching this guy’s blows, but I had every intention to stand up to being pushed.
I would have liked to call him on his much mistaken, sentimentalist, flag-hugging, bullying world view. Jogging in the Broadmoor area, this red-shorted, military-coifed assailant had probably commanded some soldiers who had been killed. I do mourn their loss. But it sounds like he should have thrown his life into the ring instead of beating his breast about the sacrifice made by others. Who knows how voluntarily their lives were offered? It always amazes me to hear military commanders brag about the casualty rate faced by their units. When ships sink, we expect captains to go down with the ship. Why? Because we expect them to save the men for which they were responsible or die trying.
Am I being harsh? I didn’t try to knock him down. That’s what we’re protesting: people who are knocking others down, and calling it “defending our freedom.”
Day 4: Thursday.
The Broadmoor had the police explain that we would not be permitted to walk in the bicycle path as we had tried two days before. So this time we brought bikes. I got to the protest late, at nine am instead of eight, just as several of our participants had to be shuttled to the airport. So I was left to peddle my bike up and down Lake Circle alone. If ever I have felt like a big dweeb, this was it. And it got on the news.
There was too much wind to trail a banner. I had selected WILL YOUR CHILDREN SURVIVE YOUR WORK? Instead I waved a large peace pirate flag. The peace sign with crossbones beneath it. A peace sign Jolly Roger. Or symbol for poison. Either way it’s a message the war makers do not want to hear. If there was a symbol for what sunshine represents to vampires, maybe that would be appropriate too.
Our protest of the SPACE SYMPOSIUM had everything to do with the fact that space is being militarized out of sight of the American public. How can there be oversight in a democracy if the citizens aren’t told what is going on?
Each day we would see schoolbus-loads of kids parading through the symposium. The event is billed as something much more benign. But did we see any scientists? I doubt it. We only saw men with military haircuts, in uniform and out. I should say that I did see the odd Brit, and they often gave us a closely held thumbs up!
The flag I waved today was to demonstrate that the message of peace has been relegated to renegades. What a perfect example at the Broadmoor! The hotel had closed its sidewalks to keep our protest from being seen from the Convention Center windows. We had to use the bike paths in order to give our message visibility.
So I pedaled up the designated bike lane on one side and down the bike lane on the other. I had to navigate past hotel employees and delegates who were sometimes skirting the security cordons themselves. I had to steer around the security chief’s pickup as he alternated between following me around, or parking and calling out to me each time I would pass. He was counting my laps, starting at zero arbitrarily. At one point, having reached to ten, he held both hands out the window as if to signal to someone that he’d counted ten. I looked but couldn’t see who was supposed to be watching him. Every so often policemen would appear to loiter near to where I would pass, but they would only nod in greeting.
I stayed until past the lunch hour surge out of the center. A friend has informed me that the bicycle act was on the local KKTV news. “Broadmoor protester nearly arrested,” but I didn’t see their camera. Perhaps they were filming through a window in the center. I was busy catching the eye of the conventiongoers on the street. There were smiles and thumbs up, but mostly the attendees rushed past. There was also a “enjoy your freedom there buddy.” As if these very-well-paid guys in suits want to be paid credit for our freedom too. “Freedom can be hard work, actually” I told them.
Day 1: Monday
On Monday we stood, nearly two dozen of us at the corner of Lake and Lake Circle, we sang our song to an Oscar Meyer melody, we held banners, we blew our whistles and we handed out our baloney sanwiches. And nearly got arrested.
The Broadmoor had cordoned off the majority of the sidewalk in front of their new Convention Center. Our protest was relegated to only the corner. True, it was a very visible corner, and we could offer flyers to nearly everyone walking to the Convention Center from the Broadmoor Hotel. But we thought we could accomplish a little more if we paraded our banners more visibly.
Dave Therault noted that all the Harris security personel were bunched up around us. Dave proposed a plan to excercise their legs a little. He suggested that he and I parade a banner along Lake Circle, walking in the marked bike lane adjacent to where the Broadmoor had blocked off our pedestrian sidewalk. Our banner would then be seen by the attendees inside the center, not just those milling about the entrance. Our banner read STAR WARS RESEARCH: A WELFARE SYSTEM FOR TECHNOLOGY.
Sure enough, as soon as we began we heard the security radios squalk. “Stop them” was the gist of the messages. A nearby guard told us to stop but we looked at him and asked why, while still moving forward. He responded with a smile. Each time we passed somebody with a radio, we could hear the supervisor ask why they were not containing us.
When we returned from our first pass, we added another person to our parade and another banner. It was a Henry Ford quote: TAKE THE PROFIT OUT OF WAR & WE’LL HAVE PEACE TOMORROW. This time more security officers joined us. When we returned we noted that they were now quite spread out.
On our third pass, the head of security came down himself. He approached us from the street, simply to tell us, in no uncertain terms and not calmly or with civility, to get back to where they were permitting us to stand. We answered that we didn’t work for him, actually and would proceed how we pleased. He repeated his command and threatened to call the cops and have us taken away. Certainly everything accelerated from there.
Suddenly we were surrounded by a half dozen policemen. They listened and interjected in calm terms that we were on Broadmoor property and had to do what the man said. We argued public thoroughfare, pedestrian right-of-way, to no avail. Dave diffused the confrontation, I assumed my role as hothead.
I wonder, I know why we are so vociferous in our condemnation of the military complex. What is it that drives their enthousiasm to stop us? We’re holding banners. They are killing babies, ruining lives and subjugating unsuspecting masses. We’re holding banners. Who should be the more indignant?
2.
On the way out, walking into the Broadmoor neighborhood to retrieve one of our cars, I encountered a soldier walking the other way. He’d just parked his car perhaps and we crossed paths on this tree lined street. He wore a full dress uniform, lots of medals and a beret, and he carried himself with informal dignity. I was wearing a bright green t-shirt enblazoned with a large peace sign and my Camp Casey cap. I was carrying several rolled banners over my shoulder and walked like I was returning from the front line.
The soldier and I nodded to each other and smiled. I couldn’t help but feel we had communicated a solidarity. He has been doing his job, I have been doing mine, both on the periphery of those making the decisions. The war mongers aren’t the soldiers. The war mongers are the guys in suits, sporting golf tans. Our common adversaries. And boy are there a lot of them. Three more symposium days to go.
Day 2: Tuesday
In conjunction with the Space Symposium protest at the Broadmoor, CITIZENS FOR PEACE IN SPACE held a screening on Monday night in the WES room at Colorado College. We watched the new documentary CONVICTION, about the three Dominican sisters who served almost four years in Federal Prison for protesting at a Minuteman missile silo in 2002. It had screened the day before in Denver to an audience of 350. The director and producer were on hand to answer questions, as were sisters Ardeth, Carol and Jackie. On Tueday night CONVICTION was scheduled to screen again in Greeley, so CPIS decided to make a day trip out of the event and provide an entourage for the sisters.
On the way of course Bill scheduled protest actions at Lockeed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Buckley AFB and Minuteman silo N-8, the site of the sisters’ 2002 Plowshare action.
Noteworthy perhaps was the degree to which preparations were made in advance of our arrival. Even Aurora Community College, where we planned to park and disperse ourselves to three of the defense contractors in Aurora, was ready for us. Bill had mentioned receiving several telephone inquiries from the various police departments, they had been checking CSAction for details of our plans. When we arrived at each location, we found barriers had been installed at the entrance of every parking lot with a minimum of a half dozen security personel standing about. I cannot say they were there to greet us, because they were not. They stood off to the side, or backed up when we approached. They were keeping a healthy no-man zone between us. At Raytheon there were even people posted on the roof to watch us.
At Buckley Airforce Base we were read a letter of greeting from the security officer that sounded like our Miranda rights, although it was full of cautionary advisories should we consider trying to force our way past the security booth. Our only intentions had been to conduct a rally and listen to what several experts could tell us about the activities conducted at Buckley, particularly having to do with those huge golf balls. I wondered if the security detail which contained us had sufficient clearance to be hearing such information.
Here is perhaps why protesters have to expect NSA surveillance. Because we learn too damn much. If the military doesn’t trust its own officers with classified information, they certainly don’t trust us to keep it secret. And we’re willing to let anyone overhear us, maybe that could be a genuine national security risk. In this case, we spoke about NSA/Defense Department complicity in the presence of Buckley AFB part-time security guard contractors.
The highlight of the day was of course Minuteman silo N-8, where the sisters held a press conference to reporters from Denver and Greeley. It was an emotional event and hard to describe. Many of us had never stood so near to a weapon of mass destruction. In this case, mass-mass-destruction, many-many times more powerful than the bombs unleashed upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This missile carries payloads for thirty separate destinations. In light of the fall of the Soviet Union, the Minuteman missile’s purpose is obsolete. Strategically it can now serve only an offensive purpose. Technically its existence violates the non-proliferation treaties to which our nation is signatory. N-8 presents a very, very grave danger to humankind’s survival. It is not a toy.
We drove Northeast from Greely to reach N-8. We probably could have found a nearer missile if we wanted. There are 49 missile sites in Colorado, out of 500 sites nation-wide.
While we conducted our action, wrapping the gate with CRIME SCENE tape, marking the site with a poster designating it as a WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION, and an EVICTION NOTICE, a black helicopter circled. Apparently within just minutes of our leaving, several matte black SUVs arrived and removed our decorations.
Day 3: Wednesday
Was it because I hadn’t had any non-violence training? Is that why everyone jumped in to enforce a stand down from my assailant?
Our protest was just getting started, I was holding half of a banner in one hand and passing out fliers with the other when a very angry man zeroed right in. Maybe it was the bright green peace sign. He was jogging along Lake Circle and he had not even passed us. He shouted “I know people who died for you” and before I could answer, though I must not have looked sufficiently repentent, he repeated himself while leaping to clutch my collar and push against me to I don’t know where. I had time only to ask him if he knew that he was committing assault before the Police officers peeled him off and led him away for a discussion.
I regret not having requested that he be allowed to state his piece, minus the physical aggression, but instead we simply instructed the officers that there would be no need to press charges. I didn’t see it but eventually he must have jogged off. Our banner read BEWARE THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, Dwight D. Eisenhower’s famous warning.
I am a non-violent person, even a pacifist, though perhaps I am not much of a verbal pacifist. I had no intention of matching this guy’s blows, but I had every intention to stand up to being pushed.
I would have liked to call him on his much mistaken, sentimentalist, flag-hugging, bullying world view. Jogging in the Broadmoor area, this red-shorted, military-coifed assailant had probably commanded some soldiers who had been killed. I do mourn their loss. But it sounds like he should have thrown his life into the ring instead of beating his breast about the sacrifice made by others. Who knows how voluntarily their lives were offered? It always amazes me to hear military commanders brag about the casualty rate faced by their units. When ships sink, we expect captains to go down with the ship. Why? Because we expect them to save the men for which they were responsible or die trying.
Am I being harsh? I didn’t try to knock him down. That’s what we’re protesting: people who are knocking others down, and calling it “defending our freedom.”
Day 4: Thursday.
The Broadmoor had the police explain that we would not be permitted to walk in the bicycle path as we had tried two days before. So this time we brought bikes. I got to the protest late, at nine am instead of eight, just as several of our participants had to be shuttled to the airport. So I was left to peddle my bike up and down Lake Circle alone. If ever I have felt like a big dweeb, this was it. And it got on the news.
There was too much wind to trail a banner. I had selected WILL YOUR CHILDREN SURVIVE YOUR WORK? Instead I waved a large peace pirate flag. The peace sign with crossbones beneath it. A peace sign Jolly Roger. Or symbol for poison. Either way it’s a message the war makers do not want to hear. If there was a symbol for what sunshine represents to vampires, maybe that would be appropriate too.
Our protest of the SPACE SYMPOSIUM had everything to do with the fact that space is being militarized out of sight of the American public. How can there be oversight in a democracy if the citizens aren’t told what is going on?
Each day we would see schoolbus-loads of kids parading through the symposium. The event is billed as something much more benign. But did we see any scientists? I doubt it. We only saw men with military haircuts, in uniform and out. I should say that I did see the odd Brit, and they often gave us a closely held thumbs up!
The flag I waved today was to demonstrate that the message of peace has been relegated to renegades. What a perfect example at the Broadmoor! The hotel had closed its sidewalks to keep our protest from being seen from the Convention Center windows. We had to use the bike paths in order to give our message visibility.
So I pedaled up the designated bike lane on one side and down the bike lane on the other. I had to navigate past hotel employees and delegates who were sometimes skirting the security cordons themselves. I had to steer around the security chief’s pickup as he alternated between following me around, or parking and calling out to me each time I would pass. He was counting my laps, starting at zero arbitrarily. At one point, having reached to ten, he held both hands out the window as if to signal to someone that he’d counted ten. I looked but couldn’t see who was supposed to be watching him. Every so often policemen would appear to loiter near to where I would pass, but they would only nod in greeting.
I stayed until past the lunch hour surge out of the center. A friend has informed me that the bicycle act was on the local KKTV news. “Broadmoor protester nearly arrested,” but I didn’t see their camera. Perhaps they were filming through a window in the center. I was busy catching the eye of the conventiongoers on the street. There were smiles and thumbs up, but mostly the attendees rushed past. There was also a “enjoy your freedom there buddy.” As if these very-well-paid guys in suits want to be paid credit for our freedom too. “Freedom can be hard work, actually” I told them.
It’s called the 2006 Space Symposium, and this year it is seeing a record number of attendees. But the participants are not space explorers, they’re arms manufacturers. Space exploration is for NASA I guess, the symposium is about coordinating the militarization of space. Near space. The space from which whoever owns the hardware can rain terror upon whoever is beneath.
Bill Sulzman has been running the Citizens for Peace In Space efforts for several years now. He has organized a splendid action this year in which we are calling for attendees to step out as whisleblowers. We are also admonishing the Defense Department for justifying the arms buildup in space as necessary for “defending freedom.” IT’S BALONEY we shout!
This is the summary of day one. Read about the ensuing days:
day two, a visit to Minuteman missile silo N-8,
day three, accosted by a rabid jogger at Broadmoor protest,
day four, bike path hijinks.
Day 1: Monday
On Monday we stood, nearly two dozen of us at the corner of Lake and Lake Circle, we sang our song to an Oscar Meyer melody, we held banners, we blew our whistles and we handed out our baloney sanwiches. And nearly got arrested.
The Broadmoor had cordoned off the majority of the sidewalk in front of their new Convention Center. Our protest was relegated to only the corner. True, it was a very visible corner, and we could offer flyers to nearly everyone walking to the Convention Center from the Broadmoor Hotel. But we thought we could accomplish a little more if we paraded our banners more visibly.
Dave Therault noted that all the Harris security personel were bunched up around us. Dave proposed a plan to excercise their legs a little. He suggested that he and I parade a banner along Lake Circle, walking in the marked bike lane adjacent to where the Broadmoor had blocked off our pedestrian sidewalk. Our banner would then be seen by the attendees inside the center, not just those milling about the entrance. Our banner read STAR WARS RESEARCH: A WELFARE SYSTEM FOR TECHNOLOGY.
Sure enough, as soon as we began we heard the security radios squalk. “Stop them” was the gist of the messages. A nearby guard told us to stop but we looked at him and asked why, while still moving forward. He responded with a smile. Each time we passed somebody with a radio, we could hear the supervisor ask why they were not containing us.
When we returned from our first pass, we added another person to our parade and another banner. It was a Henry Ford quote: TAKE THE PROFIT OUT OF WAR & WE’LL HAVE PEACE TOMORROW. This time more security officers joined us. When we returned we noted that they were now quite spread out.
On our third pass, the head of security came down himself. He approached us from the street, simply to tell us, in no uncertain terms and not calmly or with civility, to get back to where they were permitting us to stand. We answered that we didn’t work for him, actually and would proceed how we pleased. He repeated his command and threatened to call the cops and have us taken away. Certainly everything accelerated from there.
Suddenly we were surrounded by a half dozen policemen. They listened and interjected in calm terms that we were on Broadmoor property and had to do what the man said. We argued public thoroughfare, pedestrian right-of-way, to no avail. Dave diffused the confrontation, I assumed my role as hothead.
I wonder, I know why we are so vociferous in our condemnation of the military complex. What is it that drives their enthousiasm to stop us? We’re holding banners. They are killing babies, ruining lives and subjugating unsuspecting masses. We’re holding banners. Who should be the more indignant?
2.
On the way out, walking into the Broadmoor neighborhood to retrieve one of our cars, I encountered a soldier walking the other way. He’d just parked his car perhaps and we crossed paths on this tree lined street. He wore a full dress uniform, lots of medals and a beret, and he carried himself with informal dignity. I was wearing a bright green t-shirt enblazoned with a large peace sign and my Camp Casey cap. I was carrying several rolled banners over my shoulder and walked like I was returning from the front line.
The soldier and I nodded to each other and smiled. I couldn’t help but feel we had communicated a solidarity. He has been doing his job, I have been doing mine, both on the periphery of those making the decisions. The war mongers aren’t the soldiers. The war mongers are the guys in suits, sporting golf tans. Our common adversaries. And boy are there a lot of them. Three more symposium days to go.