Somehow I completely left out a couple of the photos of memorable people who turned out to see Michael Moore last week.  I have no idea how I did this as there was much laughing over how the woman in these photos looked like “Samurai Bush”.  Which is a funny though unto itself.

I don’t remember what her shirt said, but the sign she’s holding says “No more blood for oil” and the flag on her back says “one nation in denial”.

I also got some good news from my dad yesterday.  My younger sister’s best friend is a 21 year old man who decided after high school that he wasn’t ready for college, and so he joined the army.  (Very typical of the men from my hometown, and several of Sarah’s classmates are serving in Iraq right now.  I’m not sure about my public high school class because I didn’t graduate with them and I lost touch with them a long time ago.  My graduating class–I finished high school at a public-private school–had a very small amount of students who joined the army.)  At any rate, this young man served for a year, then was sent to Afghanistan, to Kabul.  He served there until we declared war, when he was part of the 3rd Infantry and marched on Baghdad from the south.  He spent several months in Baghdad, and then was sent home.  His enlistment was up, but he wasn’t allowed to leave the army, instead being forced to re-enlist for another year.  He doesn’t want to stay in the army as a career, he never really did, he just wanted to take some time before college.  At any rate, his unit may be going back to Iraq again just as his enlistment is up, again.  However, he’s at home on leave right now, and provided that his unit doesn’t get sent back to Iraq in the next three months, he will be done.  I know its selfish of me to want him to be able to be done, but I saw him last Christmas when he was home on leave then.  At age 21 he looks like he’s ten years older, he has worry creases that mar a face that used to smile constantly, and there’s an aura of sadness about him.  He happened to be right near the reporter that was imbedded in his unit when that man was shot and killed.  He’s not allowed to talk about the majority of what he saw and I worry about how that bottling up of emotions could harm him later in life.  Anyway, he’s safe for the time being and I just hope he gets to stay that way.