My body clock is completely screwed up right now, what with Jonna being gone and everything. Maybe it's just getting ready for the transition back to Pacific time. But it's made for some really sleepless nights. As a result I've been a bit groggy all day, so I'll keep it short again tonight and see if my body will cooperate if I actually try to get some sleep. Wish me luck.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007: Things are going apace: I've been trying for two weeks to schedule a meeting with Senator Feinstein and finally got it accomplished today. We'll be meeting on the 25th. Still pursuing many others. Jonna made it to Kentland, Indiana tonight and is spending the evening with T.J. and Theresa before heading out on the road again tomorrow for Hannibal.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007:  Jonna made it to her first checkpoint and is safely installed at Howard and Donna's tonight. On to Indiana and T.J. & Theresa's tomorrow. I spent most of the day worrying about her. It's in the contract.

Just a couple of thoughts for this evening. While the tasering of the obnoxious guy at the Kerry appearance today was sad, it is also a positive sign in a way. Along with the increasingly rough handling of arrests around the capitol and the over-reaction to protestors at the Petraeus hearings, these are signs that it's all breaking down. The near fascist control our government has been moving toward over the past six years is getting uglier and will ultimately serve to wake up many more somnolent citizens. Say to say, but that's a foreseeable progression.

Monday, September 17, 2007:  We spent the day getting Nessie ready to go tomorrow. If there's anything I've hated about this adventure it's the time we've had to spend apart - and it's really going to be hard to say goodbye tomorrow, especially since we don't know for certain how long we'll have to be apart.

Looking once more to the future, there are a couple of things I'm going to have to put together, and I'd like all my friends in San Diego to see if they can help me out on some of this. We've got a place to stay lined up, which is extremely good news. It will help us get our feet back on the ground. But there are a couple of things I'll be needing:

1. A job. I'm sure I've got one waiting for me when I get back, but if there are any other offers for an ex-clergy, ex-project manager, ex-enterpreneur, ex-air traffic controller and current chauffeur and political activist I'd vertainly be willing to consider them.

2. Wheels. One cannot exist in southern California without transportation - I think there's a law against it. All I need is something that runs...I'm not picky. Any help on this front would be fantastic.

Other than that, we'll be scraping absolute bottom by the time Jonna gets to Hannibal and I get to San Diego. Contributions have nearly disappeared since the walk has ended, so if you're inclined to help, now would be an outstanding time.

Sunday, September 16, 2007:  Looking to the future:

Ever since I began my walk I've been saying that one of the primary purposes of doing this was to try to generate dialogue - to try to get people to think about what we are doing - the consequences of our actions and what sort of world we are creating for our children and our grandchildren. I've mentioned several times here that Jonna and I would like to find ways to continue that effort, and we've made some decisions about how to transform this website along those lines. I want to outline what we have in mind tonight and ask for your input and your help as we move toward launching this evolution of our work.

We want to set up a forum where people can come to exchange ideas and information on topics that we believe are crucial to the future of our country. We will be offering a variety of topic-specific areas where people will be able to contribute their thoughts and ideas and discuss these topics with others who share their interest. It will be a multiple blog sort of operation and we hope to welcome several new voices and - we hope - gather input form people who may have expertise in the various areas. It will not be a fully open blog type of arrangement because we are determined to strive for a genuine dialogue. To that end, contributions will be filtered to keep the conversation civil and worthwhile. I've seen far too many online arenas that almost immediately degenerate into name-calling and what the writers probably consider to be cute personal attacks. As we don't feel this sort of thing either is or contributes to worthwhile dialogue it will not have a place in this effort.

Jonna and I have thought of six specific areas of dialogue that we'd like to begin. They are (in no particular order):

1. Issues related to military personnel and military family support.

2. Religious understandings, with a particular focus on Muslim/Christian relationships.

3. The restoration of Constitutional rights and principles.

4. Cultural understandings, focusing on Western/Middle Eastern cultural conflicts.

5. Immigration - particularly as it relates to the U.S. response to the Iraqi refugee crisis.

6. International cooperation and diplomacy.

We would very much like to begin each of these discussions by offering something written by someone with expertise or significant personal experience in the given area. The problem is that we simply don't know such people. This is one area where we desperately need your help. If you are - or you know - someone who can write about any of these areas in an informative manner, please let us know! I'm not asking for any long term commitment, but I want to be able to begin each discussion with something substantial that will give visitors to the website something worthwhile to consider and prompt clearer thinking and ultimately - we hope - effective action.

We're trying to set this out with a decent amount of lead time before the changes actually take place in order to provide time to locate contributors and give those contributors time to construct their offerings. The changes won't be happening until at least the beginning of October - and probably a bit down the road from there.

Naturally, there will be a major transformation of the website - including a new name. WTETW.com will always be there, but there will be an additional new identity for the website which I should be able to tell you within the next few days. I plan to continue my regular journal of our personal experiences and efforts, but the major part of the revamped website will be devoted to the discussions we are able to generate.

None of this is written in stone yet, so if there are other areas you believe should have a dialogue section of their own please let us know about that as well. We may or may not adopt your suggestions, but we truly do want your input. While we want to begin each dialogue with input from an authority, down the road we would like to find everyday folks who are interested in a regular, continuous involvement in each area - so if that is something that interests you just say so.

Second, a fact check on the so-called liberal media. I couldn't find any coverage at all on CNN's website. On the NBC nightly nrews they talked about "counter-protestors lining the streets along the march route." Ummm...no. As I mentioned earlier, the people lining the streets - with the exception of about a block and a half or so around tenth street - were protestors, not counter-protestors.

Saturday, September 15, 2007 (early): One of the things I wanted to mention before it slipped my mind: We spend a good portion of the evenings after we return from meetings downtown watching C-Span to see what went on in other arenas while we were occupied during the day. I'm not sure now which day it was - I think it was the 12th - I caught a panel presentation hosted by the Heritage Foundation. They had four speakers, all with the credentials of chairing various organizations, writing books or having first hand experience of the Middle East - or a combination of those three. They each presented their ideas on how we can "succeed" in Iraq.

I wanted to talk about something the last speaker said and I wanted to be accurate about it, so early this morning I went to the Heritage Foundation's website to see if I could find a transcript or footage of the presentation in order to get it right. I did, and I began watching it. But to my great surprise, I soon discovered that what I was watching wasn't the same thing I saw the other day. It was the same venue - the same speakers making the same points - but when I watched it on C-Span the other day, the proceedings were interrupted three times by protestors. Miraculously, in the video on the internet, the protestors have all disappeared. And it wasn't just a matter of editing - it was quite clear that what they did was to start from the beginning with a closed and screened audience - and do the entire presentation over again! Amazing! Just wanted to let you know that the Heritage Foundation has altered reality - sanitized for your protection - with what they've released on the internet.

The last speaker, Mr. Michael O'Hanlon, who has credentials as long as your arm, offered five possible ways to achieve "success" in Iraq (in the original discussion I'm sure he only offered four, but must have come up with another before they restaged it). I wanted to let you in on his fourth option. He suggests that if we are unable in the next several weeks to get the Maliki government off the dime, perhaps what we should do is look for a "strongman" - someone with the respect of the Iraqi public who could by force of his solitary leadership unite the country and move it toward stability. He strongly suggested that a good candidate for this would be Mr. Allawi.

I want to give you just a moment to absorb that. He's saying that one way to turn this fiasco into something they could subsequently call a success is to install a dictator - a "strongman" - to rule over Iraq and quiet it down. Now, please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this suggestion sound somewhat familiar? As a matter of fact, doesn't this version of success sound like exactly what we went into Iraq to dismantle in the first place? And isn't Allawi the one we recently kicked out of the occupational government we've been trying to establish? Actually, I know someone else who could accomplish exactly what Mr. O'Hanlon is painting as a successful outcome. Unfortunately, they executed him not too long ago. This is not just putting lipstick on a pig, folks - this is dressing the sow up in fishnet stockings and tossing her out on the street to turn tricks! It is mind-boggling to think that people will go so far as to suggest that what we need to do - rather than admit we've screwed up royally and get out so we can try to repair the damage we've done - is to put things right back the way they were before we invaded. Is there no one who will call these "experts" on this insanity?

(Later) Just back from the rally and it was quite an experience. I have no way of estimating crowds, but there were many thousands there. It was simply not possible to see everyone at once. The streets were packed as we walked and the sidewalks were deeply lined on both sides with more demonstrators waiting for the group to pass so they could join in. I've already heard reports that say the news media were downplaying the size and exaggerating the counter-protest. There were counter-protestors - for about a block and a half around tenth street - and that was it. There may have been a couple of hundred of them and, at least as the section of the march we were in passed they were largely ignored.

We met up with Boryana, with Mario, and with a couple of the Vets for Peace we had met in Chicago. I'm sure there were others there that I wish we could have made contact with, but it was just too big of a crowd and we counted ourselves really fortunate to spot those we did. Although I understand that, as usual, peace movement egos prevented some groups from fully backing this rally, we saw people representing most every peace group - and that made us feel very good.

The march actually started more than two hours later than scheduled and Jonna and I were concerned that they would wind up losing control of the thing, but people were patient and it came off well. They had the Iraq veterans lead the march, followed by Vietnam vets, then the rest of the march behind them. The lines became blurred at times, but for the most part it came off that way.

Jonna and I walked with the Vets for Peace contingent right up near the front of the whole thing. The walking is physically a strain for Jonna, so we made it all the way to the Capitol but had to turn back at that point and were not able to stay to participate in whatever else would be happening this afternoon. We waited for a while before heading back to where we were parked, and when we did finally turn around and head in the other direction the crowd was still marching toward the Capitol for at least half a dozen blocks as we went the other way. Like I said, it was a very large group, although I have no way to even guess how many thousands there were. It was also a peaceful group. Police presence was subdued and all the police I saw seemed to be in a good mood as it was pretty clear they weren't going to have to do much beyond traffic control.

I'll have some pictures to post soon, but they are only going to be able to give you a small idea of the scope of this. I only hope that the success of this effort will serve to spur more and more demonstrations - and more and more people - to stand up and speak out.

Thursday, September 13, 2007 (addendum): Forget Nostradamus; tonight we hear from H. L. Mencken:

"The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre - the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

Thursday, September 13, 2007:  There is so much to talk about tonight that I could go on for a long, long time and not cover it all. But I'm not going to do that because I really do have other things to do and am trying to devote as much time as possible to them. I'm only going to address a couple of points that hit me hard.

We sat through the president's address - it's the kind of thing we have to do. I just wanted to ask him one open question right now. He said that the Iraqi government has asked for our commitment for a contiuous, long term presence in Iraq. The Iraqi government. Obviously, he's not talking about the regime we dissolved when we went into Iraq. Nor is he talking about the Allawi government, the one against which we conducted a coup d'etat when we didn't like the direction it was going. He's obviously talking about the Al Maliki government - the occupational government we installed when we dissolved the Allawi government. I hate to point this out to you, Mr. president, but at this point in time the government to which you refer isn't governing anything. In fact, the Iraqi people are presently engaged in a civil war (in case you hadn't noticed) which will eventually determine what government they are going to have. If you're going to make commitments to an occupational government, you really do need to have someone read to you some history of what happens to occupational governments; what their odds of success or continuity are. So my question is this: do you expect us to fall in line behind you and support a very long range promise of a continued military presence at the request of one faction in a multi-sided civil war (as that's what this occupational government has become)? How do you envision that this will bring any sort of stability to Iraq - either short term or long term? And forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it just a very short time ago that I heard the leader of that occupational government himself tell us that we were welcome to leave any time we wanted to...and even more recently intimate that he was about ready to tell us to get out and leave him alone? And haven't the people of Iraq themselves in poll after poll over the past several years said the same thing? Exactly who is it, sir, that you are now making open-ended commitments to regarding the future allocation of our money, our military might and our soldiers' lives? I would like to know that before I agree to fall in line.

The second point I want to address tonight is one you probably didn't hear. I was watching MSNBC's commentary after the speech. One of the people they had on was Mike Huckabee, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination. As he was speaking, he said five words that made my blood run cold. He said something that I've heard once in a while from someone on the far, far fringe of the radical right, but never from a (theoretically rational) presidential contender. He said, "This is a theological war." A theological war. That is to say - a religious war. That is to say - a holy war.

I have to catch my breath here. I have heard so many reprehensible, irrational, repulsive, dangerous statements over the past six years that it is difficult to rank them, but wherever the rest of them stand in terms of irresponsibility, this one ranks way up there above any and all of the others.

I don't care where you are in the political spectrum - but wherever you are I implore you to stand up as strongly as you possibly can and reject the notion that we are engaged in a religious war. There is absolutely nothing that we could do that would be more dangerous or threaten the very existence of our nation and the future of our society more than to allow ourselves to become convinced that we are engaged in a religious war, and I want to outline clearly why.

If we buy into the premise that this is a religious war, here is where we stand: we are now aligning ourselves as a nation not against Al Qaeda, not against a political entity, not against Islamic fundamentalists, but ultimately against the Nation of Islam itself - against an entire religious community more than a billion strong. If we frame this as a religious war, we are not fighting against terrorism, we are not fighting against sociopathic criminals, we are fighting against a theology and all of its adherants - not merely its lunatic fringe. If we do this, if we buy into this concept and begin to portray this as a theological war, we will inevitably force all of Islam to choose a side and, loathesome as the choice may be, Islam will ultimately side with its own just as surely as if fundamentalist Christianity were under seige by a military power and Christians were forced into choosing a side. This is the sort of insanity we must avoid at all costs and for a great number of reasons. But perhaps the most self-serving of those reasons should be enough to illustrate the danger. If we allow this to be turned into a religious war - We Will Lose. And not only will we lose, but it will wind up being bloodier, more destructive and more horrible than we can even begin to imagine. Imagine all the crusades, all the inquisitions, all the jihads of the past rolled into one - and then throw in nukes. That is precisely where we are headed if we allow this insane notion to prevail. And why do I say that we will lose? Because we will be going down the very clear and very predictable path of the Roman Empire. We do remember what happened to the Roman Empire, don't we? The straight-out fact of the matter is that in all of history there never has been - and never will be - any government or secular power that is capable of winning a war against a theology. Period. And one more thing. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, the handful of misquided crazies fueling the current terrorism would love more than to see us buy this perversion. It is their wildest dream that we would be deluded into thinking this is a religious struggle - thereby creating the very worldwide schism they desire but cannot possibly hope to achieve on their own. Mr. Huckabee, go back to your pulpit. At least the damage you can do there will only be limited and local. We cannot afford to allow you to promote it globally, for that way lies madness.

Anyway, I'd mentioned previously that when Jonna and I go to visit legislators I dress in a suit and tie and Jonna dresses similarly. If the pictures of the photo op get published you'll see, however, that I'm dressed just as I was for the walk. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, I came directly from walking with Mario to the photo op, so I was dressed as I was while I was walking, and - more importantly - since this was the moment when we officially presented the petition I had carried across the country, we felt it was appropraite that I should be dressed as I was while I carried it. So even if I had not been walking with Mario, I would have arrived for this particular meeting in my familiar jeans, white dress shirt and hat.

Our meeting with Congressman Grijalva this afternoon began with a bit of disappointment. When we arrived the receptionist told us that since there were no votes this week and Mr. Grijalva was not scheduled to participate in the hearings, he had returned to his home district - we would be meeting with his staff instead. We had really been hoping to meet with Mr. Grijalva in person, but our initial disappointment was relieved as we sat and talked with Glenn Miller, Mr. Grijalva's Senior Policy Advisor, and Dan Brito, his Legislative Assistant. They were both very interested in and receptive to what we had to say and indicated that they were going to look into acquiring more opportunities for us to meet with people - and perhaps participate in some meetings where we could offer our thoughts and experiences. That would be a truly wonderful development and we hope something comes of it.

One area that particularly interested Glenn and Dan was our narrative about the emails we've received from military families about what has been happening to them throughout this long nightmare. They believe this is something that really needs to be highlighted - and we agree. When I came home this evening I began to do some further research online and encountered a very interesting phenomenon. First of all I was not able to locate any references to data that have been collected any more recently than early 2005. Secondly, I was unable to locate the actual data, but rather only various articles that referred to the data. And finally, the numerous articles I was able to locate offered conclusions that ranged the entire gamut from divorces, suicides and emotional distress being sharply higher to assertions that things have not changed significantly to some that claim that there has been an actual reduction in such problems. In other words, without the actual data - and without more recent data that would reflect the effect of multiple tours - none of what I located is going to be useful.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007 (early): Our dictionary word for today is Federation:"an encompassing political or societal entity formed by uniting smaller or more localized entities: as a : a federal government b : a union of organizations".

This is the most recent word to be Orwellized in Washington in order to convince us that Failure is Success. Ambassador Crocker is using this word or, more precisely, federalization, to describe what is transpiring in Iraq. He uses it in a context that is designed to give us the impression that it is a good and desired outcome that illustrates the progress we are making in Iraq, more or less as an equivalent to unification. But in reality, federalization stands as the opposite of unification - what it actually means is that the political structure in Iraq is shattering, breaking down into separate tribal regions under separate authorities and only loosely identifiable as a nation - a federation - known as Iraq. In other words, what the Ambassador is telling us is that despite the lives lost and the time and money spent, what is happening in Iraq is precisely what we have been attempting to prevent: under our occupation the country is flying apart rather than coming together. But by using the word federalization, he is attempting, with a word that sounds to most Americans like a good thing, to mislead us into thinking that we should be applauding this development. It's a way to tell us that what we're doing isn't working...while making it sound like what we're doing is working. Just wanted to make sure everyone is clear on how we're being manipulated this time around.

A long range prediction: Our military has already achieved whatever military success was achievable in Iraq. They did it back in 2003 (remember Mission Accomplished? It was). Unless a continued increase in military and civilian deaths is a military goal, there is nothing left that the military can do in Iraq to resolve the situation. The remaining objectives in Iraq are political and diplomatic objectives. If the Republican party manages to hold onto the executive branch of our government in 2008, you will hear the rhetoric shift from the "unification" of Iraq to the "federalization" of Iraq. This shift will then allow the Republicans to declare that they have succeeded, as Iraq will have become federalized (it's already well on its way, actually). Violence in Iraq will wane as each tribal area purges itself of members of other tribes in its midst and the population gravitates toward their individual tribal regions. With the regions chronically unable to cooperate with each other, the resulting quasi-nation - or federation - of Iraq will be incapable of defending its borders, so a permanent U.S. military presence in or very near Iraq will be necessary to prevent aggressive acquistion of Iraqi territory by Iran, Syria, Turkey or other neighboring nations. This will all be trumpeted as a great success and, with the elusive political victory now at hand, we will be able to bring substantial numbers of troops out of Iraq while leaving a sizeable permanent military presence. The reality, however, will be that Mr. Bush's war will have ended up as a complete, abject failure, because the "federalization" of Iraq is exactly what the effort was trying to prevent - the dissolution of Iraqi society into multiple tribal regions loosely and tenuously organized into an ostensible nation known as Iraq. But with the shift in dialogue from unification to federalization, the whole thing will be neatly packaged and sold as a great triumph of foreign policy, and subsequently be used as a model for dealing with other global conflicts. Orwell lives on. And remember, you heard it here first.

(Later) We went into town late this morning to meet up with Mario and join him for the final leg of his walk. Unfortunately it has been an on-again off-again day of drizzle and rain in D.C. which delayed Mario considerably. We did manage to meet up and I walked with him to within a few blocks of his White House destination, but I had to break off before he actually arrived in order to get over to the Hart building in time for our meeting with Senator Boxer.

The meeting with Senator Boxer was primarily a photo op, which we knew in advance. Even so, since she is the first actual legislator I've had a chance to meet with since my arrival, I had hoped to formally present her with the petition. Jay's lobbyist friend gave us a piece of advice we took in preparation for this. Those of you who were able to sign our petition in person know that when we designed the signature sheets we opted to put as many signatures as possible on each page. This was because of the fact that for at least part of the journey we knew I'd be carrying this stuff in my backpack and needed to conserve weight and space as much as possible. Jay's friend, however, talked to us about the importance of the visual effect, and noted that the ordinary practice when presenting a petition such as ours is to put only about 10-12 signatures on each page. This winds up producing an impressive looking stack of paper containing the signatories to the petition.

I couldn't do anything about the signatures we collected in person - they were the way they were. But when I transferred the online names onto paper I took her advice. Each page contained the petition itself, with the names of ten online signatories below it. This wound up producing a document for presentation that consisted of roughly a ream of paper.

As is apparently the case with most Senate photo ops, I was but one of several people Sen. Boxer was meeting with this afternoon. When she arrived, however - and despite the fact that we were not the first ones to show up at her office - her aide directed her to me first. We shook hands, the photographer took a few pictures and we excahnged a few words. I asked her if she would like to formally receive the petition and she said she would be more than happy to do so. When I pulled it out of the portfolio I was carrying I found that Jay's lobbyist friend was right on the money - the visual effective of a stack of paper that size was not lost on the Senator - she was quite impressed. She thanked me for my efforts and dedication - I thanked her for hers.

I want to remind everyone that although we did not have time to spend actually discussing the walk or the petition with Sen. Boxer, we will be having another meeting with her staff where we will have that opportunity. That meeting is not yet scheduled, but I did talk to her foreign affairs advisor today and he assured me once again that he will be callling soon to set that appointment.

That leads me to my next announcement of a slight modification to our future plans. The last I outlined here - I believe - is that Jonna and I would be leaving D.C. within a day or two after the demonstration that will be taking place this Saturday and driving Nessie back to Hannibal, and that I would then fly back to San Diego on the 28th while Jonna and the guys remained in Hannibal while I got some things in place there for our immediate future. With the strong possibility arising that I will be able to schedule more - and more significant - meetings in the near future, that plan has been altered slightly. Jonna and the guys will still be leaving shortly after the 15th, but I won't be traveling with them. I will remain here in D.C. to continue doing what I can here as long as possible, and will fly from here directly to San Diego on the 28th.

And that leads me to what I expect is going to be a reasonably lengthy personal rant. Before I even begin I know for certain that I am about to offend some very nice people out there. I do not mean to offend. I offer the following as carefully considered constructive criticism in the hope that it will assist in some way to raise the level of dialogue and debate and assist in bringing about our mutually cherished goals of ending these wars and restoring our Constitutional norms and balance. So here goes.

I speak for Jonna and myself, who are both possessed of, shall we say, a reasonable number of years which have afforded us a certain opportunity for observation and perspective. We have seen and participated in a variety of civil actions and protests over the course of our lives - Jonna in considerably more than myself. We would like to harken everyone back for a moment to the protests of the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam war.

When you have a chance, look at some documentary footage of the protests surrounding both of these movements. I'm not talking about a few seconds worth of video clips, because those short clips will invariably feature the weirdest, most ourageous moments of any given event and will not reflect the core reality. You need to look at something of more substance. A film of Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech and the events surrounding it, for instance.

If you take the time to do this, you should notice something you may find a bit strange. In the Civil Rights demonstrations in particular, nearly every protestor you will see will be - to use an old-fashioned phrase - dressed to the nines. The men will be in dress shirt, tie and usually jacket. The women will be in tasteful dresses. You'll see a bit more casual dress in footage from the Vietnam war protests, but you will still see people - primarily students in this case - dressed in attire representative of what students were wearing at the time. The costumed, outrageous figure will be fairly rare in the Vietnam protests and virtually non-existent in the Civil Rights protests. There would be an occasional piece of street theater, but it was occasional. Yes, it attracted media attention, and if you view enough footage you'll see the same outlandish costume or the same piece of theater several times. This is because it was the exception and, as such, drew inordinate attention from the media.

Fast forward to 2007. Yesterday evening, as I watched the House hearings, I witnessed two women, both dressed in something that appeared to be a cross between the Statue of Liberty and a Pepto Bismol commercial, being forcibly evicted from the conference room of the Cannon building. You may have seen it, too. And here's the thing: I remember quite clearly what they looked like...but I'm afraid I don't recall exactly what they were saying - and I actually care about what they had to say.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think there is anything wrong with street theater or the outrageous appearance that is almost certain to attract the eye of the camera. I assume these two women were representaives of Code Pink and I deeply respect and admire the work and commitment of Code Pink and the other peace organizations out there. But our experience is that the outrageous has now become the norm. Where once the unusual appearance or startling act served as an exclamation point to the message of a protest, it now seems to have nearly taken over the entire venue, so that the protest becomes little more than a string of exclamation points - with no message attached.

I understand the outrage that fuels the outrageous. But I promise you that if this becomes the substance of our protest our ability to effect change will be severely impaired. Does anyone really expect that dressing up like a refugee from a Mardi Gras float will inspire anyone to listen to what you have to say - let alone take it seriously? I want to ask each and every person who is active in protest to sit down for a moment and honestly consider whether the methods they are using in their protests are designed to reach the hearts and minds of those who need to be persuaded of the validity of their cause - or, in truth, are your actions engineered more to work out your own rage and frustration? Be truthful. If what you're doing is actually more cathartic than communal that's OK - there is often a genuine need for that. But if it's all you're seeing around you - if no one in your protest action is a figure who looks normal and speaks in words that are accessible to your average working fellow citizen, then how do you expect to effect the change you want to see?

A long time ago I learned in a class I took that there are two essential elements that must be present for communication to take place. The first element is the transmission of the message by one party. The second element is the reception/comprehension of the message by a second party. When both of those elements are present, communication is effected. But the presence of only one of the elements does not constitute communication. You can scream your head off all day long and into the night, but if your message is not received and comprehended by someone you have not accomplished communication. In the process of communication, it is generally understood that the person offering the message has a certain responsibility to ensure that the message is delivered in such a fashion as to optimize the chances that the intended recipient will receive and comprehend that message. The receiver has a corresponding responsibility of feedback, letting the messenger know that the message has been accurately received. Through this entire process, either party can consciously or unconsciously do a number of things that will reduce - or increase - the chances that actual communication will occur.

I may be wrong. I may be hopelessly out of touch in my relentlessly encroaching geezerhood. But I am fairly confident that there are at least a couple of generations still tottering about on this planet that will be chronically incapable of taking anything seriously that is offered to them by a shocking pink Statue of Liberty. And since it is imperative that we reach as many people and as broad an audience as we can, we must carefully consider how to present our message so that the ears we are able to reach can receive it. All I'm trying to say here is that we have come to a place where many of our actions - too many, I think - inhibit rather than enhance the chances that our message will be heard and understood. We need to work on this. Our message is too important to allow it to be lost.

Monday, September 10, 2007: I met up with Ashley, Michael and perhaps a couple dozen supporters at Arlington cemetery this morning and walked with them for their final leg to LaFayette Park just north of the White House. It was a friendly group, accompanied by several reporters. Mario (March of the People) came in to walk with them as well. He'll be officially arriving tomorrow afternoon and we'll be there for that as well. Mario was looking much, much better than the last time I saw him back in Fort Wayne, where he was aching quite badly and his feet were raw.

Jonna was feeling poorly this morning so she could not join me for the Walk for Peace final leg, so I had to leave LaFayette Park shortly after the group arrived there in order to walk back to Arlington, jump in the car and head back down to Alexandria to change and collect her for our meeting at Senator Hagel's office at 3 p.m. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but for our meetings on Capitol Hill I've been in a suit rather than in my walking outfit - I guess I'm just old fashioned enough to think it's more appropriate. There will be an exception: our meeting with Senator Boxer has been moved from Wednesday to tomorrow at 3:45 p.m. and since it will be closely following Mario's arrival and will primarily be a photo op, I'll be wearing what I wore during the walk.

Once again our meeting went well. Jonna and I sort of double-teamed Ms. Oliver, Senator Hagel's military affairs advisor, talking her ear off for more than half an hour. She was very receptive and attuned to what we were saying. She also said a couple of very interesting things: first of all, she intmated that the coming two weeks are going to see some major shakeups in Washington. She didn't elaborate, but seemed very certain of this. Secondly, she asked if we could provide her with a list of the legislators we'd like to meet while we're here and she'd see what she could do to help us out. I've already emailed our short list to her and we're hoping she can come through for us.

One point that we made during the meeting obviously and genuinely surprised Ms. Oliver - and that was the observation that, of the very little resistance we encountered to our message as I walked across the country, nearly all of it arose from people who have become convinced that this is a religious war - that we have to "kill all the Muslims before they kill us". That, indeed, was our experience - and it is a more prevalent attitude than people realize or are willing to admit. As I wrote a long, long time ago in this journal, among all the incredibly damaging things this administration has wrought, this may well be the most horrendous - and it will be the one that will take the longest to heal.

I know there are those who have been following my journey that are a bit less than satisfied with what we're doing now. They were hoping. I think, that we would do something more flamboyant - that we would arrive in D.C. and storm the gates. I confess that there is a large part of me (and even a larger part of Jonna) that would love nothing more than to grab as many of our legislators as we could be the ears and shake them until whatever they're using to fill the space between their ears rattled like a BB in a boxcar. But we recognize our strengths, and our strengths are that we are fairly intelligent, fairly atriculate people who are offering what we truly believe is a different way to frame the debate - a different way to think about and talk about what our country is doing that resonates very strongly with those of our fellow citizens who still remember what our nation is supposed to be about, who still remember what patriotism is, who still love our country deeply - and want it back. There are plenty of people making the noise and staging the demonstrations (although we believe there should be many, many more), but we truly think we can be more effective by putting on the suit and tie, sitting down in the offices of those who holds the reins of power, and offering what may well be a brand new perspective for them. And we are beginning to believe that what we are doing might actually make a difference. We do know this: it is worth the effort.

And speaking of making a difference, it is always both heartening and a bit disturbing to us to hear people with a national audience voicing things - sometimes in almost the exact same words - that I have voiced here in the journal months and months ago. It sometimes makes me feel like I'm being plagiarized. Today it was some of the legislators questioning General Petraeus, followed by John Dean on Countdown, who was talking about his newest book and relating that unless the people step up and end the inexorable dissolution of the Constitutional balance of powers being perpetrated by those currently in charge we stand in imminent danger of losing our entire system of government. Under normal circumstances the office of citizen is a fairly benign responsibility; we vote, we participate in government, we stay informed on issues and policies. But these are not normal circumstances, and we who hold the office of citizen are right now being called into service to defend our very republic - to uphold the Constitution which is our foundation and which is under direct and unrelenting siege. If you think this is overstatement you're simply not paying attention.

General Petraeus has begun to deliver his report, which is exactly what had been expected - and the talking heads are all over it, predicting that a) it will defuse any effort by Democrats to bring an end to the war or even a significant reduction of forces in Iraq until after 2008, and b) give shaky Republican legislators a lift in their 2008 re-election campaigns by convincing their restive constituencies that they are actually in the process of both making progress in Iraq and bringing some of our troops home. What they're all failing to address is that this is a direct political corollary to the quick-change scam artist who, through the use of confusion and misdirection, scams a hapless cashier out of an extra ten or twenty bucks. If we do reduce our military presence by 30,000 people it will a) bring the level back to what it was in January of this year, and b) be a move necessary in order to prevent either a draft or the further extention of tours of duty next spring. In other words, ladies and gentlemen, both the media and the politicians believe that you are too stupid to notice that you're being scammed - again. They also think you're too stupid to notice that the reduction in violence they're trumpeting as progress in Iraq is a) the result of cooked books, and b) also the result of the fact that the purging of previously violent neighborhoods and cities in Iraq has been successful - either the Sunnis have forced the Shias out or vice versa - so that there isn't anyone left against whom to perpeturate the previous levels of violence. You're being scammed and they truly believe you're too stupid - or distracted - to notice. I don't believe you are - and I think...I hope...you're going to let them know. No more a)s and b)s for tonight.

One postscript for tonight. It is always tremendously uncomfortable when I find myself in agreement with Pat Buchanan, but we hit one of those tonight. On one show, he was being asked why the now Democratic controlled Congress isn't doing more to end this war because, despite what they're telling you, they could actually do it. The questioner asked whether it is not possible that they really don't want to end it at this point - they want to keep it going for the value they see in having the issue front and center for next year's elections. Buchanan replied that he believed there were some Republicans who were capable of that level of cynicism, but he doubted that Democrats could be that cynical. Then he paused and said, "Then again, maybe they could".

Sunday, September 9, 2007:   I did it! I am cross-eyed and hunch backed, but I did it - I finally got all the names of online petition signers transcribed out of the website admin, moved into a separate file, then plugged into a word processor and printed out. It makes for an impressive chunk of paper. Since Senator Boxer will be the first actual legislator we'll be meeting with on Wednesday morning, I expect that we'll present her with the official petition and the complete list of signatories. Don't ask me how many there are - I suppose we'll get around to counting them one of these days, but right now I don't want to look at them again.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day. At ten a.m. we're meeting the March for Peace people at Arlington Cemetery and walking the last leg with them to the White House. Then in the afternoon we'll be meeting with Senator Hagel's staff which, given the events of this weekend, should be an interesting meeting.

By the way, people are still more than welcome to sign the petition, and as more people sign we'll keep on adding them to the pile. But for tonight, this is it - I have to get away from the computer for a while.

Friday, September 7, 2007 (addendum):  OK - this can't wait. Our House majority leadership, once again allowing the administration to redefine the debate, are now talking about needing to make compromises. I have news for them - they have nothing left to compromise! You probably have not heard about this, but on July 20th, seventy members of the House sent a letter to the president. The text of the letter was as follows:

"Dear Mr. President:

We are writing to inform you that we will only support appropriating additional funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq during Fiscal Year 2008 and beyond for the protection and safe redeployment of our troops out of Iraq before you leave office.

More than 3,600 of our brave soldiers have died in Iraq. More than 26,000 have been seriously wounded. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or injured in the hostilities and more than 4 million have been displaced from their homes. Furthermore, this conflict has degenerated into a sectarian civil war and U.S. taxpayers have paid more than $500 billion, despite your assurances that you and your key advisors gave our nation at the time you ordered the invasion in March, 2003 that this military intervention would cost far less and be paid for from Iraqi oil revenues.

We agree with a clear and growing majority of the American people who are opposed to continued, open-ended U.S. military operations in Iraq, and believe it is unwise and unacceptable for you to continue to unilaterally impose these staggering costs and the soaring debt on American taxpayers currently and for generations to come."

The signatories to this letter were:

Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey, Maxine Waters, Diane Watson, Barney Frank, John Conyers, Bob Filner, Bobby Rush, Ed Towns, William Lacy Clay, Albert Wynn, Bill Delahunt, Eleanor Holmes Norton, G. K. Butterfield, Hilda Solis, Carolyn Maloney, Jerrold Nadler, Michael Honda, Steve Cohen, Phil Hare, Grace Flores Napolitano, Alcee Hastings, James McGovern, Marcy Kaptur, Jan Schakowsky, Julia Carson, Linda Sanchez, Raul Grijalva, John Olver, Sheila Jackson Lee, Jim McDermott, Ed Markey, Chaka Fattah, Frank Pallone Jr., Rubin Hinojosa, Pete Stark, Bobby Scott, Jim Moran, Betty McCollum, Jim Oberstar, Diana DeGette, Ellen Tauscher, Rush Holt, Maurice Hinchey, Ed Pastor, Danny Davis, John Hall, Nydia Velazquez, Charles Rangel, Paul Hodes, Earl Blumenaur, Stephen Lynch, Artur Davis, Hank Johnson, Donald Payne, Emanuel Cleaver, John Lewis, Yvette Clarke, Neil Abercrombie, Gwen Moore, Keith Ellison, Tammy Baldwin, Donna Christensen, David Scott, Ron Paul, Luis Gutierrez, Peter Welch, Lois Capps, Steven R. Rothman and Elijah Cummings.

First of all, if your home representative is on this list, it might be a good idea to write an email to thank him/her for taking a stand. But more importantly, we can do much to encourage additional co-signers to the letter. The more legislators who jump on board, the easier it will be to move others in that direction. If your representative is not on the list, your email to him or her could help persuade another signature to appear there. Most importantly, there are a select number of Congress members whose names should be included but for one reason or another are not yet there. These should be the first people to hear from you. They are:

Anthony Weiner, Zoe Lofgren, Loretta Sanchez, Chris Murphy, Tom Lantos, Xavier Becerra, Madeleine Bordallo, Robert Brady, Corrine Brown, Micael Capuano, Peter DeFazio, Rosa DeLauro, Sam Farr, E.B. Johnson, Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Dennis Kucinich, David Loebsack, George Miller, Jose Serrano, Louise Slaughter, Bennie Thompson, John Tierney, Tom Udall, Mel Watt and Henry Waxman.

Do this. Email them. Call them. We need to be doing whatever we can, wherever we can, and if we can encourage enough people to take this sort of stand perhaps it will start to form a backbone in the legislative leadership. But they need to know this is what you want. If you are on any listserves please feel free to copy this information and pass it to whoever you want.

Friday, September 7, 2007:   I have to admit it was refreshing today to be preaching to the choir. Bill Goold, Executive Director of the Congressional Progressive Caucus gave us as warm a welcome as we could have hoped for and was with us through every word today. It was also nice to talk with someone over forty. Mr. Goold has been In D.C. for the past 29 years and says he has never seen things so messed up in the political sphere as they are now. He was genuinely interested as we related our experiences as we crossed the country and expressed the wish that more people would be willing to take the sort of extreme action we have taken. He gave us a proof copy of a new book by Professor William Polk and was surprised, I think, that we knew who he was. I wrote about Prof. Polk's study of terrorism several months ago here in the journal. It seems he will be speaking at a town hall sort of gathering at the House on the 20th. I'll have more to day about this later when I get the chance to put everything together - as well as expanding on some of the other information Mr. Goold offered us.

The upshot of the day is that it seems quite possible that after all the work we have done trying to get our foot into various doors some things may really start breaking open for us. I don't know how that will all work out in relation to our always tentative schedule, but suffice it to say that if some really solid opportunities arise for us to participate in dialogue with people who really need to hear what we have to say it may well mean that at least I will be hanging around longer than we have anticipated.

I'm sorry my journal entries have been so short lately, but I've been really busy - specifically I've been trying like crazy to get all the names of the signers of the petition transcribed from the computer to hard copy. I work at it until I'm cross-eyed then take a break for a bit and go back to it again. I really would like to have it all ready to go by Monday, and that means that I have a couple of thousand names yet to transcribe, then have to get everything out onto a hard copy. It is not fun.

Thursday, September 6, 2007:  We've been adding more meetings to our schedule. Tomorrow afternoon we'll be meeting, thanks to Congreswoman Lynn Woolsey's office, with Bill Goold, Executive Director of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and on the 12th we now have a meeting scheduled with Barbara Boxer which, unless more things are added in the interim, will be our first meeting with one of our legislators in the flesh. We'll also be doing a separate meeting with Senator Boxer's chief of staff, but we don't have a date scheduled for that one yet. We did the radio interview this afternoon - it's on tape and I wish I could tell you when and where it will be aired but I honestly don't know. Jonna and I did the interview together and it was more about the experience of the walk than the purpose of the walk, but that's OK.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007:  There were a few points I missed in my little treatise last night on democracy. The principle one was that if a democracy is based on a unifying principle it may have a chance to succeed. If it is based on a divisive principle it will almost certainly fail. That's why religion (good vs. evil, sin vs. pure) is an unacceptable foundation for democracy whereas humanity (humanity vs - well, um...) is a unifying principle, able to motivate people in a singular direction.

With that in mind, we can now look upon the devolution of our own democracy, because it is rapidly devolving. We are losing sight - at least in the power corridors - of our unifying principle and have established as our central concern a clearly divisive battle along partisan political lines. An excellent case in point was illustrated just today. Mr. Bush's handlers have once again redefined the mission in Iraq. They gave up talking about victory a while back - in case you hadn't noticed - conceding, at least to themselves, that anything looking remotely like victory was not attainable or even definable, and have now been talking about success. And success was redefined once again today. It's a matter of positioning. They are now setting the stage so that a Republican administration in 2008 will have two options: it can either continue this fiasco chasing the New American Century dream of an Imperial America, or it can wind down the war, declaring that we have achieved success (as we redefined it for the 47th time). If we leave Iraq and chaos ensues, well, we succeeded, didn't we? The chaos cannot be our fault, can it?

A democratic adminstration will not have a choice. Campaigning on a promise to end the war - sooner or later, depending upon which candidate is chosen - and facing continuous and mounting pressure to do so, a Democratic president will have to bring our sons and daughters home. Then, if any chaos whatsoever follows, the Republican party will be able to Monday morning quarterback through the next several decades - exactly as they did and are continuing to do over Vietnam - and portray Democrats as weak, and thereby quickly regain power.

But wait. Whre in all this is the human factor? Where is the foundation of equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Nowhere - and that's my point. The power structure has lost sight of our unifying principles. It is now an us versus them power struggle with no hint whatsoever of who and what we believe ourselves to be. There is absolutely no thought of the additional American and Iraqi lives lost while this power play unfolds. There is no consideration given to the immense harm being done to both countries. There is no longer even any talk of freedom or democracy - just success. The outward trappings are all inexorably being stripped away until finally anyone who is watching or listening at all can see clearly what the game is all about - and it is a game. It is now down to a struggle for power, not within Iraq, but right here at home. Lives lost for the remainder of this war will not be lost in service to any dream of liberation or stability...or even vengeance. They will be lost in service to a purely partisan political battle for power. And that has become the foundation of our democracy in the eyes of much of our leadership. And if the public buys it - if the public abandons our human foundation to jump on the partisan bandwagon as the vehicle of our democracy, we are inevitably headed for a train wreck.

Monday, September 3, 2007:  Some thoughts tonight on democracy:

We got lucky. I think perhaps the most important thoughts ever written down in terms of the viability and future potential of our nation were (a) the idea that all men are created equal, and (b) that we are entitled, simply by our status as human beings, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I want to talk a bit about what's contained within these thoughts - as well as what isn't contained in them.

But first, on democracy itself. Most everyone reading this is well aware that ours is not, in the strictest sense, a democracy, which is a good thing. Ours is a republic, which is a representative form of democracy. I'm going to try hard not to go into too much detail here, but I say that it is a good thing we don't have a pure democracy because, to be quite honest, a pure democracy is a pretty lousy form of government and doesn't hold up very well.

We have what most people who talk about this stuff describe as a liberal democracy, but since Ronald Reagan and company loaded the word liberal so horribly a few decades ago I want to avoid the knee-jerk reaction it so often produces and talk about our form of democracy as a

liberating democracy. While it is a democracy tempered by its representaive nature - which makes it a manageable entity - it is based on principles of human liberation as noted in the first paragraph above. There are those who want to contend that our nation is - or should be - a Christian nation. Thank heavens, it is not. It does not have at its foundation any set of religious principles, but rather its principles are staunchly humanist - that we are created equal and are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And like I said, the fact that our founders established for us a foundation of humanist principles rather than a foundation of religious principles is something we can all be immensely thankful for, because were it not so we would undoubtedly have already self-destructed.

But even our founders, wise though they were, didn't have all their ducks exactly in a row. They wrote that all men are created equal. To our great good fortune, our society in general has understood that what they meant was that all

people are created equal and we have spent the last two and a half centuries struggling, with great difficulty at times, to correct that little oversight. They could have saved us a ton of grief by sticking the right word in there in the first place, but we will continue to struggle to realize and practice what we know their intentions were in the first place. We have made progress. We are finally becoming comfortable with the reality that women as well as men own this birthright, and that all races also own it. When we finally figure out that sexual orientation doesn't remove the human birthright we'll pretty much have it down.

I digress. My point is that we have a liberating democracy, based on human ideals and not on religious principles. This is what has allowed us to thrive. Everyone is welcome under the tent, and it is a tent of the here and now - of this mortal and physical life. The principles underpinning our nation have absolutely nothing to do with the hereafter. They say nothing about the nature of the God we choose to worship - or choose not to worship. They say nothing about salvation, conversion, scripture, sacraments, angels, demons or prophets.

How we have managed, as a society, to remain true to our foundations is a wonder, to be sure. I think it may have had something to do with being so intent on taming a continent, with exploration and discovery, with throngs of people from every corner of the planet arriving to take part in that process, with working shoulder to shoulder with people of every race and culture and religion and, in our personal, one-on-one relationships with those from different places and different cultures, coming to realize that - son-of-a-gun - they were people, too...and thus also entitled to equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Whatever the mechanism, we've managed to hold on to our foundations...so far. Not because we were brighter or truer or more deserving or more anything than any other people or nation, but more as a very happy coincidence of where we were at and what we were doing at the time.

Which brings me to the subject of "exporting" democracy. Can't be done. Sure, we may be able to, by force or coercion, set up the framework of a democracy in another country or another culture, but unless the people are in a place where they are able to grasp and cling to the human foundation of a liberating democracy, they will almost undoubtedly wind up with a mess on their hands...just as we will if we lose that anchor.

You see, if the people upon whom we impose democracy do not set the human, mortal elements of liberation as their foundational principles, democracy becomes nothing more than a way for the majority of the people to impose their will - or worse - on the minority members of the society. Democracy, imposed upon a people with a primarily theological perception of the world, will wind up as the vehicle by which inquisitions, crusades, jihads and other religious-based atrocities are legitimized and vigorously pursued to purge the country of those elements that are not part of the majority. If "human" is the only qualification, then no one is a member of the minority. If some other, less inclusive criterion is established - Christian or Muslim or Jewish...or rich or white or male for that matter, the democracy so established is predestined to implode in a bloody, horrible mess.

To believe that we can export our form of democracy wholesale to other nations and expect it to succeed is to forget how incredibly fortunate we have been, to delude ourselves into believing that everyone in the world sees things the same way as we do, and to place our faith in the structure rather than the underlying human assumptions that allowed the strcuture to work for us. The best we can do is to offer the example of a successful democracy - and we cannot do that if we ourselves lose sight of the humanity which lies at the core of our success.

Equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's the recipe. If we abandon the recipe, the grand experiment will fail. And if the recipe is not there for other cultures, the process will fail. Let's think real hard about this whole idea of exporting democracy - it isn't as great as it's cracked up to be...we just got lucky.

P.S. Jonna adds a footnote to these observations. She recognized, as I read this to her, how tremendously difficult it has been at times through our history to hold on to the human principles at the heart of our success - and that without the very careful structure of the balance of power among the branches of our government, we would - on many occasions - have not been able to preserve our core principles. While to some it may seem that we're worried about details when we go to the lengths we have to proclaim the danger inherent in disturbing that balance and to demand that it be restored, to us it is absolutely crucial to the maintenance and future prosperity of our society. We hope you can understand why.

Sunday, September 2, 2007:  As much as we're able we had some days off yesterday and today. We spent the weekend sitting our grandson Ben while Jay and Jennifer got away for a weekend. He's a real delight - a wonderful disposition and cute as all get-out. This afternoon we took him and the guys to a park for a walk. People were getting quite a kick out of watching him walk Finn. At 22 months old, Ben is about two-thirds Finn's size, but he had the leash and walked along saying, "Heel! Heel!" Finn, of course, was walking casually along right beside him.

While we've taken the weekend off, we're doing our best to try to firm up some future plans for ourselves. I mentioned earlier that when we're done here in mid-September we'll be going back to San Diego at least for a while. Unless something completely unexpected happens that would necessitate a drastic change, we've now firmed that up a bit - and I want to especially get this out to all our friends back in San Diego so we can give them as much lead time as possible.

I will be back in San Diego on September 28th. When we leave D.C. we'll drive Nessie back as far as Hannibal, where she and the guys will stay for a while as I go back to San Diego and try to get some things together for us. What I'd like to do as soon as I return is to try to get together some speaking engagements, so if any of our San Diego people are interested in trying to set something up for us please let me know as soon as possible so we can start to schedule things. I think I can offer a presentation that will be entertaining as well as informative, and if we can get plans together I might be able to incorporate pictures from my walk and so forth. We'd also like to set up some events that are at leastly partly question/answer or forum type encounters. All ideas, suggestions or contacts are welcome.

As it has been for so long, money is going to be a problem for us for a while, so your donations are still very much needed and appreciated. We've got to get Nessie at least as far back as Hannibal, I've got to fly to San Diego and so forth. It looks like we might have a place to stay when we get back to San Diego - no details yet, but it sounds promising. I'll also need to come up with a car for a month or so in order to get around while I'm back there.

That's as much of the future as we can see right now. It is possible that we'll be concentrating our efforts in San Diego for a while - it is an area that can use as much help in regard to peace efforts as it can get. But we're still talking about going on the road again, and you can be certain that the website will be undergoing significant expansion and modification as the process unfolds. So much depends on what transpires over the next couple of weeks, but you can count on me returning to San Diego on the 28th.