Apr 5, 2003 05:15 PM GMT

From Brooklyn, the war this morning looks like an endless parade of gorgeous, dark-eyed, smooth-skinned children, lying twisted and footless on hospital stretchers, crying in the rubble of their flattened houses, or even celebrating a birthday in a grassy backyard, trying to maintain some normalcy. I've spent my morning reading through the endless news stories that friends and fellow activists send me, trying to stay caught up with what's really happening in Baghdad. These stories of course never make the mainstream press, and I wouldn't expect them to. The spin-doctors know all too well that this would destroy American support for this war. Their surveys even say so--a Time/CNN poll last weekend reported that 47 percent of Americans would oppose this war if 5,000 Iraqi civilians were killed. If the war killed even 1,000 Iraqi civilians (and Americans were informed of it), the poll found that 50 percent of Americans would be against it. It feels odd to try and quantify how many Iraqi lives Americans would be willing to sacrifice, but the point is important: the media knows that it must sanitize this war in order to sell it.

But back to what this war looks like to me. My gorgeous, 6-month-old daughter has been sleeping peacefully in her crib as I've pored over these stories. Like a previous poster on this site, I used to scoff at people who told me that having a child "changes everything." But it does. I love my daughter more than I've ever loved anything in my life. I love her so much it aches. I can't imagine what it would feel like to see her sliced and bruised by shrapnel, the way that so many parents in Baghdad have had to see their children in recent weeks.

Worse, I can't imagine watching her die. It would kill me. And knowing that she died for the sake of an arrogant, rich brat's pursuit of a new American Empire would make my head explode with rage.

This war must be stopped.

Tristin Adie, Brooklyn, NY

Apr 4, 2003 12:04 AM GMT

So far here in Minneapolis war looks a lot like the brink of war, which looks a lot like peacetime. But it feels a lot different. Today at work a police car startled me with its siren as it passed by. I was not the only one to poke her head up out of her cubicle and admit to thinking it was an air raid siren. It was only for a split second but it was a long and perhaps telling split second. Do we even have air raid sirens in Minneapolis? We have tornado sirens. Ah I remember with fondness the good old days when March came in like a lion bearing only blizzards and tornados.

Chris Schey, Minneapolis, MN

Apr 1, 2003 07:53 PM GMT

The day the war started, the newspaper had a four inch high headline WAR, to wake people up, I guess. There had been little talk about the situation before that, and the day after the bombing started a few people at school spoke out, but that has died down. All critical thinking seems to have collapsed. Today a few people started wispering about the affect the war might be having on our clients, but not much about their own personal thoughts and feelings. I told a colleague about an alternate website to his favorite FOX news, and he told me it was propaganda from "their side".

The war is not visible here, not like a hurricane is visible. Someone told me a few weeks ago at a peace vigil, that demonstrating against the Vietnam War was a way to meet people, but now, he said, people are busy, and you have to take time out of your life, time away from the beach, or bike riding to be active, and besides, it's not popular, you lose friends if you're against the war. Maybe the silence reflects the collective need to deny and project the guilt for harboring the terrorists right here in Hollywood. Or maybe I just miss New York.

Joanna Oleson, Hollywood, Florida

Mar 25, 2003 03:38 AM GMT

I went to the protest on Saturday, but missed the festivities at the end. I guess that I'm too well behaved for that, or too old. In the march (which should more appropriately have been called a "shuffle") I tried to stay away from the spartacists and DSO, both of whom I would be embarassed to march with (where are the real socialists?) and thought about marching with the UAW people before I realized that it wasn't the wing of the UAW that builds automobiles. So I slid along between the groups and saw a girl that tried to date (unsucessfully) in 1997 and another that I knew from 8th grade.

On the whole, there wasn't as much puppet activity as I would have liked and the signs were mostly pretty boring; the best ones were an old Gulf station sign, with "No" and "War" above and below the brand and some people along the route who had a sign that said "I prefer my toast 'French'! Vive le resistance!" Indeed. Note to self - live dixieland is great for marching. If there's a protest with dixieland, I'm there!

No real evidence of Op Atlas Shrugged in the Boogie Down, although I am sure that it will be metal detectors for everyone when the season finally opens. I have seen a million national guardsmen in Grand Central Terminal, Times Square Station, Union Square and Herald Square. Today, I even saw some on the PATH train! wheeeeeee! I'm not sure that white guys with automatic weapons makes me feel any safer.

D Train, The Bronx, NY

Mar 25, 2003 02:50 AM GMT

March 17, in Little Italy, New York City, at an old bar where the locals go, where there's sawdust on the floor and two open rooms with battered wooden tables like you're at some old pasta joint but really it's just a place to sit with your pals and drink. I'm there, sitting at the bar in the front, and there are maybe five other people, including the bartender, a husky guy who speaks very quietly. President Bush addresses the nation, and a few minutes into his speech, other people wander in. Most of them are guys, although a couple are men -- firefighters, to be exact. One of the firefighters sits at a table, bottle of Bud in hand, and the other is standing next to me, leaning on the bar, staring at the TV. He asks me, Did we start bombing? No, I tell him, he's giving them an ultimatum; they have 48 hours. Bush starts talking about how we're gonna be forceful when we go in, if that's what it comes down to, and a few of the guys yell "Yeah!" Bush is visibly angry, in a purposeful, contained way. Everyone in the bar can sense it, and the place starts to get that adrenalized feeling you experience in the movies when it's a Bruce Willis picture or maybe Mel Gibson. When the address is over, everybody claps loudly, and most of them shout things like Woo! The firefighter at the table, he's had a few drinks before he got here, and now he yells, Stick it up their asses! Let's go! And when the newscaster who comes on after Bush notes that the terror alert has been raised from yellow to orange, someone else shouts, Let's take it to red! Then everyone starts ordering drinks, everyone at once, it seems, and the firefighter next to me says some things to the quiet bartender, things in support of going to war. He uses an expletive maybe every third word. Then he turns to me and gently apologizes for his language. He's wearing thick glasses with really thick lenses that magnify his blue eyes. They make him look vulnerable, and his blue uniform makes him look boyish even though he must be in his 40s. Then he says some more things things to the bartender, and more profanity too. I'm alone here, it's dark out, and Little Italy is empty of the tourists and the other benign wanderers out admiring the shop windows. Even the waiters who try to charm passersby into coming into their restaurants for a meal are gone. I pay the bartender, leave a good tip, reassure the firefighter that it wasn't his curse words that are driving me from the bar. And I walk home, every so often looking over my shoulder, for what I do not know.

Kristina Feliciano, New York City

Mar 24, 2003 10:08 PM GMT

Thursday 3/20 at about 7:30 p.m.:

I have spent the week fitfully, feeling a vague sense of unease at the unfolding of the "War On Iraq". Into the night I surf the global network to educate myself and to find like-minded individuals, finally stumbling upon something to which I can contribute: http://www.anotherposterforpeace.com

From here it was looking like the least I could do was to use my humble little office cubicle to mount a display in support of peace. I dot my walls--and my walls only (not to be confused with the "public" space of others)--with several of these peace posters. None of which, I might add, spoke disrespectfully of Bush or America, but rather stated simply that war was not the answer to this--or any--crisis.

Friday, 3/21 at about 11:35 a.m.:

From here it was looking quite ironic that someone who had neither the courage nor the decency to confront me personally stuck a hand-lettered note next to my wall of peace: "America--love it or leave it !!" I leave the note, as it says volumes about 'peaceful aggression'.

Sunday, 3/23 at around 10:45 p.m. or thereabouts:

I find myself watching The Oscars, because I can't bear to watch the new Reality TV show "War On Iraq" broadcasting on all stations. The recipient of the Best Documentary Feature invites his fellow nominees on stage and makes an anti-war pronouncement. Cue the "time's up" music and low-level booing of some in the audience, but they got to make their point. Susan Sarandon flashes the peace sign. Adrien Brody makes a touching and ("wait..just one moment please, just one more moment") emphatic plea for a peaceful resolution. Even Nicole Kidman has something to say. From here it looks like some folks in Hollywood have the courage to speak their minds.

Monday, 3/24 at around 11:15 a.m.:

I arrive at my desk to find that someone has taken down all the posters in my cubicle. Not only that but the posters are nowhere to be found, which means they were either thrown away or hidden.

From here, it looks like I am not allowed to think for myself any longer. Or, if I dare to, then I am not allowed to give voice to my thoughts. From here, that sounds just a little too much like fascism.

From here, Freedom and Democracy are looking like shadows of what they once really meant. One truth Bush uttered in all this was "If you are not for us, you are against us." If we the people cannot engage in a civilized dialogue about our differences on a day-to-day level, how can we possibly expect our world leaders to do the same on the global playing field?

From here...from where? From space, Earth is a shining blue and green marble, land and sea in a swirling harmony, the colors of race and religion indistinguishable, seemingly peaceful and unified,

From here, down here on the planet, it is anything but. From Earth, space looks like someplace I want to call home. Here, in my head, is the only place peace can exist peacefully.

Esther Lee, New York City, New York

Mar 24, 2003 10:03 PM GMT

Saturday's peace march was supposed to gather on Broadway between 38th and 42nd Streets, but when we got off the subway at 34th, there it all was in front of us: a line of satellite trucks parked across from Macy's, and beyond them a sea of bobbing, waving signs stretching as far as the eye could see. We wandered uptown a few blocks, trying to find our way in past the ubiquitous metal police barriers, though it hardly mattered - the barricades, in a weird reversal of the usual police practice, were meant to keep demonstrators in the street and off the sidewalks, but as protestors poured in from all side the sidewalks soon become just as thickly packed.

The main competing peace coalitions - United for Peace and Justice, Not In Our Name (rumored to be controlled by the Revolutionary Communist Party), International ANSWER (undeniably a front for the Workers World Party) - had churned out plenty of mass-produced signs, but there were equally as many handmade ones jn display. "This Bush Does Not Speak For War," with a drawing of a burning bush. A man with a piece of paper pinned to his chest, on which was written "Hillbillies Against War - NO DAMN WAR." A woman who'd exuberantly inked peace symbols all over her jeans, except that she'd unfortunately confused the peace symbol with the Mercedes logo. And countless invocations of Picasso's Guernica, including a large papier-mache horse's head, and a small reproduction of the painting bearing the simple caption: "Shock and Awe."

This being New York, it naturally took forever to get going, so we stood happily baking under the spring sun; nearby a pizza delivery man rested a precarious stack of boxes atop a barricade, and we wondered aloud if someone had had the chutzpah to order pizza for the crowd. When we finally set off on the two-mile hike down to Union Square, and Washington Square beyond, the spirit was loose, friendly, almost joyous - we chanted call-and-response style "No war!" "Peace now!" like a mantra, some among us singing it in a melodic cascade. There were a ton of kids, in strollers, in backpacks.

I'd made up peace flag stickers - the old dove's-foot symbol in red white and blue - to hand out to passersby, and quickly ran out. Not everyone took them - can't say that I argue, since despite the many signs and chants of "Peace is patriotic," it's hardly a time to take pride or solace in being American - but I found that not a single Middle Easterner turned one down. Make of it what you will.

No one is sure of how many of us there were: One estimate said 100,000, another a million, with the consensus pick seeming to hover around 250,000 or so. There would later be reports of violence, of cops charging into crowds on police horses and roughing up demonstrators who had sat down in the street, but we were long gone by then, along with the bulk of the marchers. We lingered for a while in Washington Square Park, where people were taking large chunks of sidewalk chalk someone had provided, and marking the hexagonal paving stones: a sea of peace symbols here, of hearts there. Then we wandered off into the East Village in search of food, finding that tens of thousands of our fellow New Yorkers were doing the same thing, so that hardly anyone in sight wasn't wearing a "No Blood for Oil" pin or carrying a "Support the Troops - Bring Them Home" sign. On this day, it was as if the entire city were a protest site. Liberated territory.

The one sign that sticks with me from the day in the sun was hand-painted on simple brown cardboard: "World, we are sorry."

Neil deMause, Brooklyn, NY, neild@heremagazine.com

Mar 22, 2003 03:56 AM GMT

Well from where I am, San Andreas, California, it looks like a bunch of talking heads on television and splashy headline grapics... video footage of nightscopes with flashes and choppy video of vehicles driving in a desert.

I saw reporters call the explosions and destruction as "Fireworks" (if they think those are fireworks, I'm glad I'm not at any of their celebrations) and list our casualties in the single digits.

So, from here - I see it as either TV's new 'reality show' with the few tantilising bits over-played and over-stated while they dig for more morsels to pump up their ratings... or as a big bully country knocking around a smaller country (which in part is for good reason) but definitely it is not an even match or even anything close the 'war' they seem to make it out to be...

Larry Anderson, San Andreas, California

Mar 21, 2003 04:58 PM GMT

Eventually the numbers of "mostly student" protesters in Boston last night are said to have reached 4,000, but at rush hour I felt dismayed. I had spied a number of people striding the streets wearing "I Walked Out on the War" stickers, and I had imagined this city might find a significant force in its young population.

I'm not a student, and it was work to find out about protest plans. I got sick as the war started, but still wanted to register my rage publicly. As people began to trickle into the edges of the great riot-proofed bowl of Government Center, the gathering gained more speed, but still didn't coalesce, fill the space, block traffic, or stage a die-in. We remained separate joined by outrage.

At a podium, various organizations and impeachment committees dogma-barked, and I wished they would sing and join people together instead. A guy with a band poster shouted "AC-DC!" In the center of the crowd, where the energy finally began to unite, it was because folk danced together with their signs to water bottle and bucket drums. A row of women behind me chanted like a Greek chorus "This is what democracy looks like."

My boyfriend began to squirm uncomfortably, lumped into one team with various oddly matched fringe groups. We soothed my sore throat with soup and stayed to be counted. As we eventually wandered off into the night, the protesters on the edges glared at us like traitors. We walked through an old hotel lobby two blocks away where the Independent Oil Marketers Association was meeting in a ballroom.

We still didn't feel like we belonged anywhere.

Bethany Ericson, Boston, MA

Mar 21, 2003 02:21 PM GMT

Here in the ethnically-diverse People's Republic of Astoria, I look in the faces of my Middle Eastern neighbors and think: this is not a war, it's a slaughter. And it's not just "starting," it started on August 6, 1990 when the U.S. imposed the sanctions and has continued since then through non-stop bombing in the alleged "no-fly zone" and 5000 children a month dead from sanctions....children who look just like the kids I see walking to school past me every day.

It seems our so-called leaders no longer feel the need to plan in secret. They no longer classify documents. They think they can publicly announce their war crimes before committing them...I'm wondering: Are they wrong?

Mickey Z., Astoria, NY

Mar 21, 2003 12:24 PM GMT

We're at war. I want to run outside and scream in frustration at all of the quiet, inoffensive, indoor people who live on our tree-lined street; I'm yelling at the television whenever it's on, furious at the retired generals diagramming strategy like plays in the AFC championships and turning this war into Monday Night Football.

At the office, laughs are nervous and forced, talk is quiet and furtive -- who's against the war? Who can I talk to and be safe, not lose my job? Whenever I walk past the wall of safety awards and pictures of drilling rigs out in the Gulf, I cringe away, sure that I'm as obvious as a drag queen in a posh shop in River Oaks.

In the suburbs of Kingwood, a moron spray-paints "Scum go back to France" on a woman's garage door -- nobody but her neighbors knew she was French. One kind neighbor is so embarassed that he repaints her garage door all alone before the evening news even picks up the story. Houston is a cosmopolitan, modern city and proud of it, but we still hate; we're just more dishonest about it. In the fancy restaurant on the eve of the first attack, loud voices brag about kicking Saddam's ass over lobster and scallops. The Lebanese guys who run the place down by 610 look nervously about as they close up for the day.

Outside, people sick and tired but still not beaten stand around the Mecom Fountain with signs, candles, and ideals in their hands. There aren't many, not nearly as many as last weekend, before the other shoe had finally dropped, but cars still honk, and people still cheer.

Jeremy Hart, Houston, gaijin@ghg.net

Mar 21, 2003 03:32 AM GMT

March 19, Late Evening: US Bombing starts in Iraq

March 20, Early Afternoon: My Yankees season Tickets arrive

March 20, Mid Afternoon: I exchange my season tickets for the right ones...

From the area right by yankee stadium, the war doesn't really look like anything. and why should it? No one in the US is being asked to sacrifice anything; the protests have been minimal at best; and can it really be considered a "war" when it's so one sided? Right now, it just seems like exceptionally bad manners on the part of the current administration...or maybe this is what happens when elderly men get a hold of viagra...

D Train, Bronx, NY

Mar 21, 2003 03:30 AM GMT

What does war look like from where I am? 9:15 a.m., V train Manhattan bound. A crazy person sounding off on the subway. Nothing unusual. Only this one is speaking in Russian. Kind of interesting, wondering what he's saying. Usually I can just ignore these outbursts. They're so common. Yet the Russian keeps getting louder and louder. Starts screaming about Americans going to hell. Starts screaming about Saddam Hussein. I see he's carrying plastic bags and I start to wonder. Should I leave the car? After all, I have a young child now. I don't want my sister to raise him. My heart races and I feel fear, where normally I would have just felt annoyed. He leaves the train at 36th Street. A crazy person sounding off on the subway. Nothing unusual but war has made me wary.

Nancy Nisselbaum, New York

Mar 21, 2003 03:26 AM GMT

War looks like my co-workers taking opposite sides.

War looks like protesters in the rain in front of the Washington Monument.

War looks like my boss taking the day off and going to the circus (no, really).

War looks grim to those of us in Baltimore who know that our domestic/economic war will continue regardless of where the bombs land.

Worst of all, war here looks like any other day.

Davida Gypsy Breier, Baltimore, MD, davida@leekinginc.com

Mar 20, 2003 09:42 PM GMT

Looks like the first day of spring in suburban Detroit. Sunny, 65, wet ground, no coats. In my realtor office, one lender predicted a 1/2 point rise in interest rates once war starts. Our processor -- daughter of Ford union man, staunch Democrat with no use for Dubya -- beckons me into her office to tell me the latest outrage she's heard on the radio or read in the Free Press. My friend Suzanne is comforted by the promises of surgical precision in bombing. I heard on tv that the bombs are 90 percent "smart" compared to 10 percent smart in the Gulf War. I sounded a little hysterical to her when I quoted something I read about how 40 percent of the population of Iraq is children. There's a prayer service next door at the United Methodist Church tonight at 6. For one client I rejected an offer to purchase her home -- an investor low-balled the price by $20,000. For another I insisted that a window company honor its lifetime warranty and replace a picture window with a broken seal.

Kim Stroud, Detroit

Mar 20, 2003 09:40 PM GMT

In Minneapolis the cold drizzle turns to snow for a while, then back to rain. The sky brightens infinitesimally.

Midday I walked over to the community college down the street where about 250-300 students had gathered (having walked out of classes as planned at noon) and were taking turns talking. Audibility was slight, despite a microphone. Nevertheless, students sat quietly, paying attention. The student body at MCTC is heavily represented by immigrants, especially from Africa.

A blue-jacketed man walks jerkily below my window, toward a tree. There he stops and pees.

The most hopeful thing I've read all day is commentary by Brazilian novelist Paulho Coehlo, something forwarded to me after I which I spent some time hunting down the source. Here it is: http://www.opendemocracy.net/other_content/article.jsp?id=1033&type=satire

In half an hour I'll walk downtown to the Federal Building for a demonstration, for my own mental health, if nothing else.

I've felt as though I've been on a plane with a flight crew who are hell-bent on a murder-suicide mission.

What next?

Two geese fly overhead together, honking.

Chris Dodge, Minneapolis

Mar 20, 2003 08:57 PM GMT

I slept in today, woke up at 1pm. It's rainy and cold, and the puppy and I stayed up all night trying to convince my boyfriend that the President is still an asshole, that what's going on now is terrible and in no way good for any human being. I got rid of the last one sometime during the week after 9/11 - I'm afraid this one's going to turn Republican before he even finishes med school. Thursday is girls' night out, and I'm hoping we won't be spending it at South Gate Tavern (South Gate of West Point). I hope the war is over quickly. I'm going to write to my friend Mike now, he's studying nuclear physics for the Navy. He got me through abstract algebra in college, maybe he can help me understand this.

Outside, there's the normal volume of traffic on 9W and military helicopters flying overhead about every 15 minutes. Maybe it's the same one circling the perimeter of Indian Pt.

Pamela Nugent, Fort Montgomery, NY

Mar 20, 2003 08:49 PM GMT

I've been in a continual state of outrage for many months now. Though I had held some hope that our government would come to its senses, I now feel a gray grimness like the foggy chill over the slice of East River I can see from my 22nd-floor office window. One of my co-workers just asked me if I'd heard about the threatened attack on the big nuke plant in Arizona, and I said, "So it begins." We traded shell-shocked looks and mumbled about how we're not going to be yanked around by the flood of fear to come. After the soul- sucking numbness of post 9/11 TV, and the pre-game war-toy show after Bush's broadcast on Monday, I know better than to watch the Milatainment we get instead of news.

For a pagan, my dreams are embarrassingly Christian lately: listening to the Pope preach against the war and helping him up when he falls, building an ark as it rains for 40 days and 40 nights, negotiating with aliens to be included in the Rapture, as carfuls af people are sucked into the sky above Hudson Street. Maybe it's because our increasingly religious right government is invoking god in a scary way. I keep thinking about the T-shirt Susan Sarandon wore at a recent protest: What Would Jesus Bomb?

Before class my yoga teacher asked us to think of a person and dedicate our practice to that person. I thought of Rachel Corrie, the young woman from Olympia, Washington who was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer while she protested the illegal bulldozing of Palelestinan homes in Gaza. It's too late to pray for her. Instead I pray that I, and all of us, will find that kind of courage, the Rachel Corrie kind of courage, to stand against this insane violence whenever and wherever it comes.

Shannon Rothenberger, New York City

Mar 20, 2003 08:43 PM GMT

I'm at work, and I keep wondering if everyone else is just working, or if they're thinking about it too. I can hear news on the radio somewhere; my coworker stopped by to say how awful this all is; one of the temps gave me a hug because I looked so sad. Small signs that everything's not just going on as usual.

I work for a student travel agency; I book flights for kids studying abroad. So when they talk about the war here it's usually whether bookings are down or people are cancelling. And what to say to the worried parents whose kids are planning to travel. They want us to tell them if their children will be safe. I don't know! They'll be as safe in Paris as they would be here, does that help?! I think they will be safe, only because the chances that they won't be are one-in-a-million, lightening strike kind of chances. But I can't guarantee it, anymore than I can guarantee that the plane won't just crash for some other non-war-related reason.

It all seems so trivial; who cares about people's vacations at a time like this? If only that was the worst thing anyone had to worry about!

And yet I try to tell myself that it does matter. Not the individual problems, but what I do in general: enabling students to travel by selling them tickets they can afford. Maybe that one kid's trip doesn't matter in the scheme of things; but if you add up all the kids I've sold tickets to, the thousands of kids who've traveled and experienced the world and been forced to question things they had always just accepted as the way things are done, then that has to make a difference. So I tell myself that those kids will be out in the world soon, with their open minds and their respect for other cultures and their knowledge that your way isn't always better than their way, it's just different. I don't know if it will change anything, but maybe it will help a little; I hope so anyway.

Karen Weeks, Boston, Massachusetts

Mar 20, 2003 06:39 PM GMT

I went to bed around 8:30 last night, trying to sleep off the effects of the root canal I had on Tuesday, and didn't wake up until 8:45 this morning. That's twelve hours with no TV, no radio, and no Internet. This is not my normal routine, to say the least, but for one day I was happy not to be connected with the world outside my bed.

Of course, as soon as I started my car and heard Bob Edwards still on the WDET after 9:00 AM, I knew it had started. I listened to stories of illegal scuds and maimed civilians for a half hour, and briefly considered putting the webcast on in my office. In the end, not wanting to get into a headache-exacerbating discussion hawkish coworkers, I just decided to fall back on some light internet browsing.

At 10:44, an email comes down from a corporate someone or other:

With the outbreak of war in Iraq, I know you will join me in sending our best wishes and our hopes for a quick end to hostilities to our colleagues and their families who are touched by these events.

--- is a global company of 137,000 people with operations in 60 countries. The safety of our colleagues is as important to us as the security of our clients' data and processes. Throughout this crisis, ---' priorities must remain constant: Safeguard --- people, serve our clients well, and act in our shareholders' best interests.

One room away from me, coworkers discuss our division's plans to move hundreds of jobs currently filled by people I know upstairs to a new call center in western India. One coworker describes the disaster recovery processes they are putting in place there in case of a war. My officemate is eating Thai food, I have submitted my March Madness picks for a pool, my jaw hurts. To anyone who's touched by these events, please accept my best wishes.

Steve Bernard, Troy, MI, USA

Mar 20, 2003 05:24 PM GMT

Here I am, in Chicago, at work, pregnant.

I never thought I'd be one of those women who made it a point to tell everyone that she was pregnant and that it made any difference in her view of the world. I still don't think it makes a personal difference. My views haven't changed. I do think that some people think it makes a difference. The same reason why people listen to veterans more than just 'stupid kids' when discussing the war. So here's where I sit and what the view is:

I'm 21 weeks pregnant and pregnant with a very lively one. Kicking, stretching, moving, & flipping with vigor. I think s/he knows what's going on and wants out NOW. I look down at my growing belly and rub it, trying to send peaceful thoughts. Not just for my physical well-being, but for its well-being. I know my baby will have enough wars to fight once it starts to grow up. I'm just sorry that I couldn't stop this. I tried to stop GWB from becoming President. I tried to stop Ashcroft from being Atty. General. I tried, really I did. Now the bombs are falling and I can't stop them either. All I know that I can do is to have the healthiest baby and raise him/her to love everyone and everything, to respect others, to work towards peace.

Roni Arreola, Chicago, Illinois

Mar 20, 2003 05:21 PM GMT

Went out in search of a pint of strawberries and signs of "Operation Atlas," New York's announced security crackdown in response to the war. Either the city can't be bothered with us here in darkest Brooklyn, or it thinks terrorists can't, or both, because there's no sign of police presence at all. Last time we were at Code Orange, there was a cop car stationed outside the 24-hour laundromat around the corner; today, our nation's precious laundry reserves go unshielded.

A propaganda check of our block reveals no new entries: the huge American flag dangling from our next-door neighbor's porch has been there since Monday, as has the sign tacked to the front of the house across the street that reads "I SUPPORT REGIME CHANGE" with Bush's name in a slashed circle. A friend in the neighborhood reports, though, that she's seen fresh U.S. flags posted on the houses of a pair of Pakistani families, and can't help wondering: How much of this is patriotism, and how much self-protection?

Neil deMause, Brooklyn, NY, neild@heremagazine.com

Mar 20, 2003 05:09 PM GMT

I'm learning to play the guitar, and my most recent lesson was on Monday, the day the president was to make yet another address on whether he intended more "diplomacy" or a war on Iraq. For some reason--and it wasn't just that I hadn't practiced enough--everything I played came out strained and tight. I was strangling all the sweetness out of an instrument that usually holds it so easily. "Bill," I told my teacher, "I don't know what my problem is today. Why do I feel so on edge?" (Sometimes my lesson feels more like talk therapy.) "Um. Could it be the coming Armageddon?" he said. I blinked. "You mean St. Patrick's Day?" I hate the holiday and had just passed several drunken revelers in lumpy Aran sweaters and green headbands who, at noon, were getting an early start. He laughed a little. "No, I meant the war." I looked at Bill's face, so kind and pliant, so easily stretched into an expression of sympathy or joy. I thought of Linda downstairs, the quiet woman with a shiny dark bob who was always smoking a cigarette, and how she'd referred to the harp as the most primal instrument--just strings, completely pure. I thought about what gentle people these were.

Yesterday, as Saddam's "deadline" wound down, I stopped by my office. There it was business as usual, which somehow flummoxes me every time I see it. I was going about my own business too, of course, but I also felt as confused as I did at the age of 8 when my pet goldfish died: my heart had broken for the first time, but nothing had changed for anyone else. If I'm still trying to learn the guitar, if the people at work are worried about the same tripe that always occupies their minds, if the kids are getting drunk the way they did last March 17th, then the question of this war isn't when or who or even why but HOW? How can this be just one other thing that people do to each other?

Katie Haegele, Philadelphia, PA, khaegele@philadelphiaweekly.com

Mar 20, 2003 05:07 PM GMT

My two young children attend a small Montessori school in the New Jersey suburbs, dozens of miles west of New York City. Yesterday I was told that the teachers had been briefed by the county prosecutor's office on procedures to follow in case of an emergency evacuation. Emergency evacuation? I can't for the life of me imagine what could ever happen to require that. How could my quiet, border-line rural small town be anywhere within the scope of a terrorist attack?

I could be overly confident that my community is untouchable. Pre-Sept. 11, many people in New York would have thought the idea that they could someday be racing down streets to escape debris of collapsing office towers to be unimaginable and absurd. Even though I saw the smoke from the towers as I walked into my office in Jersey City, even though my boss was among those running to get away from the falling concrete, I still do not feel very vulnerable, even in war time. Sure, I'm alert, watching my own back now and then. But my subconscious assumes it will never happen to me or my family.

Perhaps my feelings are the result of living my whole life in the cocoon of suburban America, truly believing that our country and my community within it is invincible. I have grown to expect to see severe violence and human suffering neatly packaged on CNN. Painless. Remote. My mind's eye thinks senseless mass murder and destruction only takes place in the movies and on TV, where it does not seem real. I am used to watching it with a beer in hand from my comfortable couch, as I did last night.

- Joe Territo, Denville, NJ, jterrito@advance.net

Mar 20, 2003 03:46 PM GMT

A cell phone call comes in from a friend on his way to work here in New York this morning. "I'm so worried," comes his voice. Walking down the street and worrying, afraid, scared. I flash back in my mind to how I felt after September 11, 2001, how for weeks I felt an ill-defined anxiety that kept me immobilized, jumpy, depressed, convinced that my next subway ride would be my rendezvous with anthrax.

After following the news last night about the formal beginning of this unbelievably bankrupt war, I laid down in bed, listening to the sirens and the helicopters outside at 1:00 am, and I made a vow to myself: I will not be fooled again. I will not internalize the bullshit code-orange psychological manipulation that the jackals and spooks who have hijacked our already lame government want me to internalize.

No matter how many threats there are to our safety, there are two things to hold true: first, we are still a lot safer than anyone in Iraq has been for more than a decade; and second, the real terrorists in this pathetic18-month melodrama are named Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, Ridge, Ashcroft, and Powell. They want you and me and everyone else to walk around paralyzed, debilitated, panicky, freaked out. They want our streets empty of protest, intelligence, analysis, interaction - empty of democracy. But remove that fear and you can hear how comical their language of panic is, how there is no argument for war, no compelling evidence, no logic, no intelligence.

If we don't get scared, we will always see through the smokescreens and grand-scale versions of cheap-ass magic tricks that this administration and its chattering parrots in the media are perpetrating. And I believe that as a New Yorker, I have a special responsibility not to be scared; this is the city that is trotted out as symbol, because of the 9/11 attack, and I'm really sick of what's being done supposedly in our name. In this most diverse and loud city anywhere, we of all people have to get out in the streets and protest, talk, think for ourselves, live.

It's a small vow, maybe, but it's the one I can take right now: I ain't scared. I'm pissed. And I'm not staying indoors.

Peter Cenedella, New York City

Mar 20, 2003 03:43 PM GMT

Started the day with TV presenters talking nonchalantly about Cruise Missiles, damage limitation and other war speak horrors. My daughter says I'm watching it on Channel 4. We all sit round the portable TV in the kitchen before she goes to school. (She's just done the second world war for Higher Grade History). Is this what we raise kids for?

The day progresses with wall to wall reportage, still haven't heard a word from any Iraqis or Kurds on the ground in Iraq. Just loads of white western men in suits whingeing about gas suits.

The day brightens up no end when news comes in of protests by school children in England. My home city of Leeds is having to cope with "civil disobedience", traffic delays and die ins. I'm very pleased that the Stop The War Coalition has taken the time to involve young people. Mainstream politicians in the UK make absolutely no effort to connect with anyone under about 45 years old!

I am so proud of these young people, to me it means HOPE!

Have just received a request for assistance for something "more robust" here in the Highlands. I might use my time to help the kids do more.

John, Easter Ross, Highlands of Scotland

Mar 20, 2003 03:41 PM GMT

The sky is gray above Minneapolis and drizzle falls. Yesterday afternoon I left work early to go to stand vigil on the Lake Street bridge with hundreds of others (this morning's Star Tribune says 1,000). Cold rain began to come down as passing drivers honked their horns in what seemed to be pervasive solidarity with those holding messages of peace. I stood with a friend, with whom I'd talked earlier in the day upon his return from vacationing with his children and grandchildren. He was holding a sign he'd had made that read something like STOP MURDERING CHILDREN. I was holding an umbrella.

All war is internecine.

Chris Dodge, Minneapolis, steetlibrarian@bigfoot.com

Mar 20, 2003 03:40 PM GMT

I'm about to leave the house to join a demonstration tonight in Zurich / Switzerland - although I know how useless it seems - the only good thing about it is the feeling lots of people judge this american government

Peter, Zurich

Mar 20, 2003 02:26 PM GMT

In our house, the demilitarized zone runs across the middle of the living room. On one side, the TV blaring scenes of the war; on the other, the sofa where we sit feeding Jordan, and the window where we've set a lit white candle (as suggested by the folks at MoveOn.org) and a small peace sign.

I say "scenes of the war," but even more than usual right now, the TV seems to be showing reports from Bizarro World - a place where people talk blithely about "targets of opportunity" and "decapitation strikes," where the president's disembodied torso reappears every few hours to inform us that we must bomb Iraq in order to save it, where death tolls are reported as indicators of the "effectiveness" of U.S. missile attacks. The airspace of our living room is a gulf of incomprehension: We stare at the serious faces on the screen and have no idea what they're talking about; and of course the government spokesmen and war correspondents and military officials (retired) utterly fail to understand our nursing baby, let alone our candle.

Neil deMause, Brooklyn, NY, neild@heremagazine.com

Mar 20, 2003 02:15 PM GMT

The view from here is bright yellow. That's the color of the mucus I'm expelling from my system this Thursday morning, the night after the U.S. military began expelling its bombs and missiles upon the country of Iraq. I imagine these incendiary projectiles produce explosions similar in hue.

I usually get sick two or three days after I'm exposed to whatever virus or pathogen is going around, and I have a very strong suspicion that, in this case, the toxin in question was Monday's speech by President Bush. When I learned that he'd decided to abort the United Nations Security Council vote on his war resolution - just a week after he had publicly promised to make nations "show their cards" whether they were for or against - I felt my blood pressure spike and sweat stain my palms. I stalked into my boss's office and spat, "That piece of shit lied again and is going to start the war!"

And now my psychological stress has translated into a physical illness - a minor thing, really, compared to the cries of terrified Iraqi children, or the silence that follows the rumble of collapsing walls when a stray missile strikes a Baghdad home. Yellow for me indicates my body is fighting its infection, and I'll probably feel better in a few days. For President Bush, the military and paranoid patriots, yellow reflects the caution that led to this pre-emptive war, which will save our country from "grave danger" through ridding the world of the disease that is Saddam Hussein. It's a Code Orange terrorist alert in the United States right now, but for my runny nose and the Iraqi people, it's nothing but yellow.

Vincent Romano, White Plains, NY

Mar 20, 2003 01:50 PM GMT

3/20/03 7:30 AM
Early this morning, riding on the trolley with all of the glum faces (probably half asleep and not wanting to go to work, like every morning), the clear and chipper voice of the driver/conductor announces the available pamphlets on what to do in case of a terrorist attack. Eyes roll, as if work wasn't bad enough.

It is almost a strange flattery, that somehow our lives could be in danger when people are most definitely being killed in other countries. The past thirty years have basically been the businessmen and politicians bombing tired people in little countries that have never done anything against the tired people riding the trolleys early in the morning.

Darin Prey-Harbaugh, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Mar 20, 2003 01:49 PM GMT

Woke up with a tight heart. Usual routine, shower. Lit a prayer lamp to God, and prayed; saying this world is yours and I have no idea what's your plan. got ready for work: 8am after breakfast, the countdown showed 1 hour 15 minutes.

Vijay, Singapore

Mar 20, 2003 04:19 AM GMT

A short, blood-red sign spears the muddy ground near the county library in Durham, N.C. "Stop War," it says. I love its ambiguity. This war. That war. Any war. Stop it. Stop it all.

North Carolina is a conservative state, meaning it didn't take long for people here to rename French fries. Everyone seems to know someone who's "over there in the Middle East," and to hear people talk, it could be another galaxy, far, far, away.

The pictures on TV show blowing sand instead of yawning irises, rumbling tanks instead of the gas-guzzling SUVs that today are waving flags in red and white and blue and white - for the basketball teams at N.C. State and Duke. For about a day, the newspaper and television reported that the NCAA basketball tournament could be postponed in the event of war.

It won't be. People want life to go on as normal.

And so it does. The squash-colored school bus chugs along Route 54. At the Harris Teeter, people buy bananas and soy milk and rotisserie chickens.

Dinner time is still 6 o'clock. In my house, we're having quesadillas. Our neighbors are having pork chops and onions.

The sun sets and Saddam Hussein's deadline comes. Then it goes.

"Time's up," they say on the news, and I think of that perky woman on "Trading Spaces" saying the same thing.

Time's up.

The air outside is damp and the birds have settled down for the night, fat on our grass seed.

So far in Durham, war remains something we hear about, but nothing we see.

Madelyn Rosenberg, Durham, N.C.

Mar 20, 2003 04:18 AM GMT

I've got a pinched nerve in my neck, so the past few nights I've been jarred awake at about 4:00 a.m. as pain shoots through my arm. And the first thoughts I've had upon awakening each night has been about the impending bombing. Last night I wondered how terrifying aerial bombing must sound, how it must feel to have these huge, concussive explosions going off everywhere around you. How our smug military people talk about "precision" and "surgical" bombing, as if that were ever possible. And I wonder how things would be if any of these gung-ho Rumsfeld types ever experienced that kind of terror, that kind of horror. Bombing is such a cowardly act, orchestrated by grandiose men isolated in bunkers and command centers far away from the destruction. Perhaps that's why the French and Germans wouldn't be part of the "coalition," because they know what aerial bombing felt like sixty years ago. Which makes you wonder whether Tony Blair and his British cohorts have no sense of history whatsoever.

My son and I came home from an afterschool event and he turned on the TV, wondering if there was a sports event he could watch for a few minutes before going to bed. Every channel had that grim view of Baghdad, awaiting the bombs falling. I told him to shut the TV off.

Tom Goldstein, St. Paul, Minnesota, info@efqreview.com

Mar 20, 2003 04:17 AM GMT

It's the spring of bottled hate here, with dim bulbs of peace glowing brighter in darkened windows despite massive efforts for a silenced spring.

We're not hearing all the truth in this country -- you have to go to the London Times to read about a speech made by George Bush, Sr. on March 10 at Tufts University in Massachusetts: "In an ominous warning for his son, Mr Bush Sr said that he would have been able to achieve nothing if he had jeopardised future relations by ignoring the UN. 'The Madrid conference would never have happened if the international coalition that fought together in Desert Storm had exceeded the UN mandate and gone on its own into Baghdad after Saddam and his forces.'" http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-605441,00.html

We've been encouraged to visit the website www.ready.gov to learn how to protect ourselves against terrorism, including nuclear attack. We've been encouraged to buy plastic, duct tape, and bottled water, (preferably from Wal-Mart, which gave $610,748 in contributions to the Republican Election Campaign in 1999-2000. If you'd rather buy soda, get it from Pepsico, which gave them $749,494. The website www.bethecause.org tells about their organization's "Boycott the War" campaign, with five companies targeted -- these two, plus Kraft/Phillip Morris, Exxon-Mobil, and UPS.) It's the 60's meets 1984, Big Brother!

Despondence, until the moment when hope begins to seep back in as you remember that we are the people. Hope can be re-lit in your mind by the spirit of anyone. Hope rekindled through the lighting of candles, hope expressed in websites like www.moveon.org and www.truemajority.com. Receiving Ben Cohen's e-mail in the middle of this day, about participating with groups like those at www.unitedforpeace.org reminds one that we are not alone.

I'm scared for the Iraquis. I'm particularly scared for their children, and for ours. The New York Times today reported that the American Academy of Pediatrics stated that no one, in this country, or abroad, is prepared to help the children, either with the appropriate medical equipment, or with knowledge about the pediatric treatment regiments for biochemical or radiation attacks.

I'm sitting here, and they are bombing right now, and will continue to bomb, and all I can do tonight is push the goddam computer keys and pray. My family sent two packages of toiletries to the Iraquis along with packages from others here. It's not enough. What will ever be enough to stop this madness? Thank God for France and Germany and Canada and Russia and China and the others who said no.

Peace,

Deborah Patterson, St. Louis, MO, dpatterson@eden.edu

Mar 20, 2003 04:12 AM GMT

I'm watching NBC. Tom Brokaw drones on and on. Some retired general drones, also. The oddly legendary Peter Arnett joins the chorus of monotony. Pictures of dawn breaking over Baghdad, punctuated by occasional anti-aircraft fire, repeat themselves endlessly.

Is the sheer overwhelming boredom of this coverage supposed to make me forget what's happening?

I am confused and sleepy and desperately sad.

David Dyte, Brooklyn

Mar 20, 2003 01:29 AM GMT

I feel like an extra in a really bad war movie, being moved around as part of the (endangered) scenery by a director who learned to use a megaphone by shouting "Boola, boola" into it. But I would probably be wiser to think of myself as an extra in a movie like On the Beach. Before our imperial behavior reaps the whirlwind, I hope there's enough of a break in the action so that I can lay aside my continuing task of trying to rescue our history from the memory hole, leave my bunker and, whistling "Waltzing Matilda," walk down to the beach for one more peaceful swim.

Ward Harkavy, Long Beach, NY, wharkavy@optonline.net

Mar 20, 2003 01:28 AM GMT

In Seattle, we can get a Canadian TV station on cable channel 99. The news on the CBC is dramatically unlike ours, with real reporting rather than regurgitated White House talking points, and in-depth analysis of not only what's going on now, but also what has led up to this -- what's been going on with our unelected ruling junta since before the 2002 elections. What's scary is not just the war, but how obedient and pliable our news media are at a time when they should be particularly informative and critical.

To repeat a cliche, it looks as though the terrorists have already won. This is absolutely the low point of American civilization.

John Pastier, Seattle

Mar 20, 2003 01:27 AM GMT

I was walking down Broadway this morning, beneath the el tracks at 125th Street, about to climb up Morningside Heights. Two large men walked downhill towards me. One of them was talking loudly. "It's like Rome," he said, and waved his hands. "It's like Rome or anything. The Romans, they kept conquering people. You have a little run there, you're going good for a few hundred years, but then in the end, what have you got?" I kept walking downtown and uphill as they walked uptown and downhill behind me and their voices faded away.

Tim Morris, Great Neck, L.I., tmorris@uta.edu

Mar 20, 2003 12:10 AM GMT

We live in lower Manhattan. There may not literally be a smoking cloud of ash over my neighborhood today, but from where I'm sitting the war looks like a black and acrid swirl of noise and stupidity, a frightening toxic cloud gathering all around, trying to suck us all up in its darkness. It creeps just outside the door to the room where my 6-week-old daughter sleeps. And I'm doing my damnedest to keep it out of her room. She'll have a lifetime of wars, just like her Daddy and her Daddy's Daddy - let it not start now. And every time I change her diaper, rock her in my arms, or lift her up for a burp, I feel like my body is the only thing that's keeping the war from her, and I pray that my body's enough. And I hope, as I'm sure my parents once hoped for me, that there's still a place in this world for the mundane business of life's joy.

Peter Cenedella, Lower East Side of New York City

Mar 20, 2003 12:07 AM GMT

what can I say about war- the mind can visualize a whole gamut of scenes some uplifting, some heartrending! I had a personal brush up w/a Pakistani bomber plane in North India and the horrendous screeching sound it makes as it lets go its payload on usually innocent heads still gives me nightmares! I was of course forced to get out of harm's way but I lost my grandfather who had a massive heart attack on hearing the blast!

I just hope that this time round this war is shortlived and our beautiful skyline remains pristine! We have survived 911 sort of and right now the apple looks crisp n beautiful from where I am.

Bina Gupta, brooklyn, NY, krisganesh@aol.com

Mar 20, 2003 12:05 AM GMT

What does war look like from where I am? It depends on when you ask.

Sometimes it looks like Ricki Lake, Good Day NY and Joe Millionaire... all the crap television that we drug ourselves with when we can't find the energy to leave the house. It looks like activists giving in to the depressive drumbeat of, "Why are you even bothering, when the fundamentalists in power are willfully ignoring millions of people in the street every month. Why take to the streets when They (the capital T "they") *are* hearing our voices, but They just don't care?"

It looks like a street theater performer known for making people laugh at tragedy, forgetting how to smile.

Other times it looks like solidarity, rebellion, an aggressive thirst for peace and unending outrage at the subversion of justice. It looks like thousands of people walking, marching, chanting, screaming, pushing empty strollers while holding posters proclaiming "Thou Shalt Not Kill (Children)," using everything from feather boas to Gollum masks to our own bodies to make visual, verbal and powerful statements against unjust military attacks. It looks like me forgoing my quiet magazine-reading commute in lieu of debating strangers on the F train about the immorality of preemotive strikes, KO'ing the arguments of smug Wall Street types on the Q train when they claim "the price is worth it," and offering a polite, smiling, "God helps those who help themselves" retort when the fundamentalist Christian lady who, after being informed of the Pentagon's stated plans to drop 3,000 bombs on an urban population, says that what she plans to do to prevent the deaths of thousands upon thousands of innocent children and adults is... well, pray, of course.

In brief moments, war looks like hope: US ambassadors and diplomats resigning their posts, tax resistors refusing to subsidize the machinery of war, Southern and midwestern students hungry for lefty insight, country singers denouncing their hometown idiot-savant-turned-President, UN vetos, FRENCH fries (dammit!), and good, old fashioned, American dissent.

War looks like heroism: like a 23-year-old American student who, staring eye-to-eye with the driver of an Israeli bulldozer advancing to demolish the home of a Palestinian doctor, refused to back away. It looks like a peace activist willing to put her body, her life, on the line to defend the human rights of people she hardly knew in a country that was not her own.

And as we all know, war looks like death: like the crushed body of Rachel Corrie, murdered by that same tank driver who ran over her not once, but twice. It looks like death.

Finally, from where I sit right now war looks like typos and tears, neither of which I have time to clean up (ie., forgive the misspellings and run-on sentences - there's no time for spellcheck when I have five more media outreach calls to make before the close of the business day).

Jennifer L. Pozner, Women In Media & News (WIMN), Brooklyn, NY, jennpozner2@yahoo.com

Mar 20, 2003 12:05 AM GMT

Here in Kingston, NY, the early spring has melted the huge snowdrifts and the crocuses and snowdrops are struggling to meet the equinox deadline.

Our banner from the January March on Washington is still here, ready to go into service again.

We know nobody who supports this war - or any of Bush's heedless actions over the past two years.

I can think of a number of Brecht's songs and poems to describe where we are at:

Our hubris is not unique in world history.

Das Deutsche Miserere: (tr. Eric Bentley)

Once upon a time our leaders gave us orders
To go out and conquer the small town of Danzig.
So we invaded Poland, and with our tanks and bombers
We conquered all of Poland in a few days.

Once upon a time our leaders gave us orders
To go out and conquer the large town of Paris.
So we invaded France, and with our tanks and bombers
We conquered all of France in a few weeks.

At a later date, our leaders will give us orders
To conquer the moon and the floor of the ocean
And it's going badly with us in Russia
For the foe is strong and we're far from home.

God preserve us
And lead us back again home,
Lead us back again
Home.

Henry Lowengard, Kingston, NY

Mar 19, 2003 11:23 PM GMT

Outside my window the last of winter is giving up--aged snow lies in the shadows of trees. A black squirrel in running along the fence. A few blocks away someone is reading poetry on the betrayed dream of peace in a garden dedicated to peace--I know this because of a message that came in to my e-mail.

Outside my window a forsythia bush is already exploring the possibility of budding. A neighbour's cat is brushing a nose against a pane of glass. I can hear, over the traffic of our city, a train along the tracks in the Don Valley--a commuter train emptying our city of people wishing to go home.

There is no overt war here. Tonight a homeless man will curl up in the shadow of the armouries.

Brian Burch, Toronto, burch@web.ca

Mar 19, 2003 11:19 PM GMT

Spring arrived at long last in New York this week: birdsong and shirtsleeves replaced snowdrifts, as clear skies and balmy temperatures had everyone out on the streets, in the parks. Today it's turned colder, but still crisp and sunny. And all the while, part of me keeps looking to the skies and expecting to see something else - but unlike that beautiful autumn day 18 months and eight days ago, today there's no rising grey plume to remind us of what's taking place, out of our direct line of sight.

On the cable news channels, meanwhile, they're playing with Telestrators like it's the NBA Finals, and talking endlessly of "sorties." I don't think I know a single person who could say just exactly what a sortie is - which is probably the point.

Neil deMause, Brooklyn, NY, neild@heremagazine.com