It's been awhile e:strip, but I'm once again making a new year's resolution I find myself making nearly every year alongside taking off a few pounds and taking the dog for more walks: I'm trying to renew my posting habits on da Strip. Rest assured, I still rock the orange magnet bumper sticker promoting estrip.org in NoVA.



Yesterday was the big DC demonstration in protest of the escalation and to put pressure on the Dems to be hard on the President & Co. I'm not going to get into a political debate here -- the numbers are finally on my side and I'm calling it like this:

If you can't see that Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld & various of their peers are guilty of nefarious, dangerous and idiotic activities then you are a complete moron.

These activities are illegal for a number of reasons, but primarily because they involved clear mis-representations to a variety of groups and have resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives (American and foreign).

Thus, these people need to be investigated and charged accordingly. Impeach Bush, then Cheney, and continue down the line. Anything less is an injustice to the American people.



The rally began well before I got there around 11am, and there were thousands and thousands of people. The Metro trains were packed coming in from every direction. Sarah and I went with our friend, Kevin, not affiliated with any group, but sympathetic to many of the folks at the demonstration. There were plenty of people on he train talking about protesting the Vietnam war, as well as the 2004 winter protest just before the Iraq war began.

There were a lot of children all over the protest. It was clear that many of the parents in the crowd were motivated by a desire to save their children from dying in the desert. And many of those children seemed to have an idea of why they were there: Killing is wrong. Stop killing people.



There were thousands and thousands of people. The march was moving so slow that we got out of liine and walked across the capitol to see the front of the march, with Jesse Jackson, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Jane Fonda, and Sean Penn. There were plenty of non-Hollywood important people there, but I don't remember all of their names... I am an American, after all. By the time those people returned to the starting point of the parade there were still thousands of people waiting to march. There was a ring of people at least 100 deep surrounding the entire capitol. It was pretty damn awe-inspiring.

The sheer diversity of groups: Military people, unions, parents, anarchists, feminists, quakers, and tons more. There was some great protest baroque including giant paper-mache Bush Regime figureheads, lots of people on stilts, and even a marching band and a few drum cores. It was like the Macy's day parade, except everyone was chanting about impeaching the president.



It proved a few things to me. First of all, fuck all those right-wing dickwads who call the protestors dour and weak. These people were energetic, hopeful and strong. There is certainly a vibe of outrage fatigue in my day to day life, but at this demonstration people were vibrant. They were psyched to be exercising their rights and fulfilling their duties as Americans. They were having FUN making their voices heard. It was NOT a "sorry retreat" kind of vibe. This is about re-taking control of our government and steering us away from ignorance and greed, towards peaceful prosperity.

That's not to say there weren't somber moments. Speaches from soldiers and war widows choke me up right away. The display of shoes representing the number of Iraqi dead was pretty heavy. The protestors took up the estimation of 600 thousand Iraqi dead from Johns Hopkins University's study. Bush says 30 thousand -- but he also said there were weapons of mass destruction.

The whole thing was really moving in a lot of ways, mundane and sublime. Early reports indicate it will get some decent news coverage -- I hope it does. I hope the protest is remembered as being a part of the impetus for the tide to finally turn on ruthless George W and his cohort. I'm proud to have been there, and it was a sight to behold.

I've been there a dozen times since I've moved to DC, but I don't think I ever felt so proud to be an American as I did yesterday afternoon in front of the Capitol watching all those people for as far as the eye could see.

²°ž

I got a bike today. It was kind of exasperating searching, but once we bit the bullet and went into an actual bike shop, things got a lot better. It really makes a difference on something like a bike or a computer to get some good first-hand advice. I was afraid of getting upsold, but I actually got down-sold after I explained what I wanted.

Here's my issue: I have a 5-10 minute window to catch one of two buses to the metro each morning. If I miss that window, then I must wait another 20-30 minutes to catch the next bus. That happens regularly because I am consistently running just a little bit late.

I only live a mile from the metro, so it is easy enough to walk. But walking takes me 20 minutes or so. So it's not really that advantageous. Plus, it's frustrating because it's not a super nice walk along a busy road and multiple buses I could have caught will almost always pass me.

Because, of course, catching a bus isn't quite as straightforward as it sounds. It's not like you can ever really know whether the bus is running 5 minutes early or 5 minutes late, and it's not unusual to find the bus is 10 or 15 minutes late. Rain seems to really disrupt service. I can only imagine what will happen when it finally snows.

And the ride home is even more capricious. The bus is sometimes 5 minutes early and often as much as 30 minutes late. It's as if they randomly skip the 6:28 stop entirely and wait until 6:58. That happened to me and Sarah last week when it was raining.

And, of couse, taking the bus isn't free. It costs $1.35 per day.

So today I bought a bike. This one:



It's a Schwinn Frontier (http://www.schwinnbike.com/products/bikes_detail.php?id=620). They said that it was pretty much bullet-proof and has no complicated parts. It's almost impossible to get a bike without shocks these days... Am I the only one paranoid about having complicated bikes?

I was stoked to see that the Schwinn website shows they havve brought back several classic style Schwinns. How cool would it be to have a Sting Ray? Or a cruiser? Maybe if the bike riding thing works out Sarah will let me trade up to a nicer bike. But for now I have pretty much the cheapest bike you can buy and not feel like you're totally riding a deathtrap...

Wow, I can't believe how awesome these Japanese signs are. I also can't believe there are FIVE PAGES of these things. I learned so much about Japanese Smoking Etiquette: 1) Don't smoke around other people. 2) Always carry a portable ashtray. 3) Cowboys lived in old movies. 4) Don't abuse children or snow (or snowmen). 5) Always check behind you before you fart.

As far as I know, these are real signs. I got to them through a post on the old Boing Boing.