Happy Birthday to the Peace Sign

Okay, I'm back for real this time. Sorry for the recent inactivity on here - teaching six classes is proving to be much more difficult than I could have possibly imagined, and being very sick during the past week hasn't done much for my schedule, either. Anyway, I've got lots to blog about, and I've been keeping up with political developments, and as you might guess, I have lots of opinions...

But first, today marks the birthday of the Peace Sign, a sign created by Gerald Holtom. It's hard to overestimate the impact that this symbol has had on the world, and by that I mean a positive impact. It's hard to imagine a peace movement or even a war, for that matter, without the peace symbol being a part of it.

I doubt Holtom could have possibly imagined the impact this symbol would have had when he first drew it 51 years ago, but the symbol sure has endured.

Happy Birthday, symbol of wonder

I nearly forgot this one - the peace symbol turned 50 years old last week, so I wanted to give it a quick mention and share a few cool things I found while clicking around the 'Net. The above image, Dos, by Jonathan Andrés, is from the Happy Birthday Peace Website. There are loads of cool images on the site, and you can upload any peace symbol images you'd like to share as well.

The above footage is from a March 2007 demonstration/peace rally in New York City. I like it ~ I wish we had more of these. I find it deeply troubling that most of America seems to be willfully ignoring this war and its consequences. I was listening to the Bill Press Show on the drive into work this morning, and as usual, it didn't take me long to become outraged. Press is a master at delivering just the right mix of news and rhetoric to get me politically charged up on a Monday morning.

Anyway, on Press' show, a parent of a Marine called in about the '08 election, and said point blank that he would never vote for McCain under any circumstances. Okay, fair enough. But, what this parent had to say next chilled me right to the bone.

"Our soldiers are not allowed to walk anywhere [in Iraq] in groups of less than 10 - that's how hated we are in the world today. I don't think many Americans know that," he said.

Very well put and well done. Sooner or later (stress the sooner), we have to get out of Iraq, and McSame is not the person to get it done. I'm not at all thrilled with the Obama campaign's stance on Iraq, nor am I all that happy with Hillary's stance on the war, either, but it's got to be better than four more years of the same under McCain.