Monday August 29

Two of us at 5:00PM, people coming and going throughout the vigil, five at 6:00. A young man stopped to ask (I think in response to the "NO WAR" sign): if a foreign country invades the United States and we don't fight, won't our people be enslaved? One answer was, nothing like that has happened in fifty years; instead the United States is using its military to oppress and to exploit other countries. What do you think?

Sunday August 28

Nine or ten of us throughout the hour. An uneventful Sunday afternoon.

Saturday August 27

Ten or eleven of us throughout the hour. Only today I returned from the Tarsands Action in Washington, in which about 50 people a day are getting arrested to try to convince the US government not to permit a pipeline from Alberta's tar sands to Texas. The Tarsands folks spent much effort to present the message clearly and to attract publicity. Here in Corvallis we do less of that. Is there something for us to learn? I am not sure.

Friday, 26 August

Two holding signs & opinions beneath the prayer flags when I arrived.  Two more soon after me and one just paces behind.  We six were later joined by 4 more and one of the first departed.  It is rather a dance we do with greetings and departures, signs and commentary. What flag is this?  Palestine? Iraq?   Shouldn't we know?   Blackberry picking & green tomato relish. Senator Merkley spoke for ending the (catastrophic) war in Afghanistan.  We appreciate our newest Senator for many reasons.  A long angry blast of a car horn passing by; driver's finger jabbed up above the roofline.  Inevitably, I ponder what it is about our presence that prompts such fury.  

Thursday, 25 August

7 folks talking about heat and harvests and the insanity of the current political climate.
1 left & another arrived - 7 for the hour.
 The daily newspaper was circulated for the front page story highlighting local activists and the civil rights movement and the new Martin Luther King Jr.  Memorial on the Washington Mall.  Change (that we regard as positive) does happen!

Wednesday, 24 August

Our numbers were amplified by the return of two travelers - regular vigil folks who've been visiting kin. 12 to stand for peace.

Tuesday, August 23

Summer is really upon us.  Visitor from Monmouth brought his visitors from Michigan.  Interesting conversations.  Books. Education. Violence & the alternatives. Egyptian Coptic Christians in peril.  How will we respond to the wounds of these ongoing wars?  There's always money for the profitable waging of war.  Where is the money for healing the wounded?

Monday, August 22, 2011

Ten of us this day. One came bearing homemade chocolate cookies.  Delicious, homemade chocolate cookies!  Verbal assault was much less welcome; a hostile intoxicated man confronted us by standing in the parking margin and shouting "Excuse me.  What are the wages of peace?"  But he was not really wanting our answers; only our attention to his angry religious tirade.  I have great difficulty with intoxicated men who shout at me from a close range.  The violence of it is painful.

Sunday, August 21

Winds returned this afternoon and fluttered the colorful peace flags we stretch across the sidewalk these days.  9 folks with conversations flowing through a wide assortment of topics.  Several hostile shouts and a car sending mixed messages with the backseat passenger giving us a cheery wave & thumbs up while the driver scowlingly flipped us an angry thumbs down.  I pondered the conversations that might ensue in that car crowded with four men.
how many acts of hot & deadly war punctuated the decades of the Cold War?  we recited a list of what we could name. grim & ugly behavior on the part of our government.  Did the placement of the Shah as Iran's ruler count as war - hot or cold?

Saturday August, 20

HOT on the pavement.  No breeze.  We four celebrated the gift of the cherry tree's shade.  The gardener turned the sprinklers on around the courthouse & we availed ourselves of the cooling spray of water.  Visited by a young man from Rome, Italy.  His American friends said he wanted to take our picture as they'd told him we'd been out for the vigil for two years.  We clarified the duration & frequency; welcomed the photo session and happily posed with him holding our "peace is the way" sign.  He said he believed it was true. We closed the hour with five and a conversation about Tunisia and the October elections there.  And, what are Tunisians saying about the crisis in Libya?

Thursday August 18

Seven or eight people throughout the vigil.
Some of us had a long conversation from a family, recently moved from Long Beach to Corvallis. The pre-school children were some of the youngest vigil-ers we have had.
We had some discussion of the Tar Sands Action, a civil disobedience action in Washington DC which will try to convince the US government not to grant a construction permit for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta Canada to Texas.

Wednesday August 17

A quiet afternoon at the vigil. Two folks to start the hour, eight or nine of us at the end.

The results of the penny poll at the Benton County Fair

At the Benton County Fair, August 3-6, the Corvallis peace community, with the leadership of the local Linus Pauling chapter of Veterans For Peace and the help of several vigil-ers, sponsored a penny poll. 

Passersby were offered ten pennies, representing the roughly one trillion dollars which the United States has spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and asked, how would you spend that money? Each participant divided the pennies among six labeled jars. Here is how some Benton County residents chose to spend the money.

Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya                           $1.07      4%

core military, courts, nat'l government     $1.84      7%

fire and police, infrastructure                   $5.04    18%

foreign aid, building peace                      $4.09     15%

health, human services                           $9.01     33%

renewable energy, climate change         $6.48      25%

Thanks to the volunteers who staffed the booth and to the fair visitors who stopped for conversation.

Tuesday August 16

Two people at 5:00PM, eight people and two dogs at 6:00. There were a couple of honks for drivers of commercial trucks. It is interesting that an air horn noticeably encourages us vigil-ers.

Monday August 15

Half a dozen people throughout the hour, with several people coming and going.

Friday August 12

Two people at the start of the vigil, eight at the end. Today, as occasionally other days, we saw a car in which the driver and the passenger have different opinions about the vigil. Often they are "three-finger cars". :)

Thursday August 11

Four people at 5:00PM, ten to end the vigil. A Tucsonian, temporarily in Corvallis, commented that in Tucson, it is very hot at the end of a morning protest from 8:00AM to 9:00. Corvallis is fortunate for its temperate weather.

Wednesday August 10

Four to seven vigil-ers throughout the hour. A pleasant and quiet day.

Tuesday August 9

Nagasaki Day. Three started the vigil at 5:00PM, ten ended it at 6:00. We got reports from different people about health checkup results and looking for jobs, both hopeful, so the day was encouraging for us.

Monday August 8

Four or five to start the hour, ten or eleven at the end. There were only a couple of signs today, but lively conversations among interesting people. We had visitors, a couple from eastern Maryland and a man from Tucson, an uncommonly wide representation.
The Maryland folks are members of a long-term once-a-week vigil. They reported that once or twice they have had visitors with videocameras, posing provocative questions and perhaps trying to elicit thoughtless responses to embarrass the vigil.

Sunday August 7

Three or four of us throughout the hour.

Saturday August 6

Half a dozen of us throughout the vigil. On this day in 1945 the United States dropped the first-ever atomic bomb on Hiroshima Japan. And we are still at war 66 years later.
Just at the end of the hour a young man stopped by. He said, "I've got something to say to you. And before I say it, I want to say that I don't want to be an a***. I have walked by you several times, and your presence here is a deep insult to my brother-in-law, who died in Iraq." The young man turned to leave, but one of the vigilers, a veteran, caught him and was able to explain at least that the vigil intended no disrespect to his brother-in-law. We hope that there was some reconciliation in the encounter.

Friday August 5

Half a dozen vigil-ers throughout the hour. At the end, a young man passing on a bicycle said, "I'm on your side, but this is ineffective! Anything else you do, I would help you." Sometimes we too think about effectiveness. As we said to the young man, if you want to do something concrete, come on down and help us think about what to do.

Thursday August 4

Four at 5:00PM, nine when the vigil ended.

Wednesday August 3

The first day of the Benton County Fair. Vigil participants are spending a lot of time at the peace booth at the fair. Today we had four or five vigil-ers. A visitor from Great Falls, Montana, reported that a driver-by had fired shots at a peace demonstration there.

Tuesday August 2

About ten people for much of the hour. We had a visitor from Tucson, a man who also visited Corvallis and spent time with the vigil in the 2011.

Saturday July 30

Six to eight of us throughout the hour. Some pedestrians across the street waved peace signs, otherwise it was a quiet evening.

Thursday July 28

Ten or a dozen of us at the end of the hour. Because of an accident which blocked the eastbound bridge over the Willamette River, a lot of traffic was sent down Fourth Street, and many people who normally do not pass saw the vigil, maybe for the first time. Several of our new audience objected loudly.