And a Good Time Was Had by All

-- well, mostly anyway -- at yesterday's peace march in DC. I heard no hard estimates, but from the looks of it there were several tens of thousands of people there. The "mostly" is that, due to poor contingency planning on my part, I missed the charter bus I'd come in on for the return home. But thanks to a fellow Green I met on the nearby New Jersey bus, who took up a collection mostly from fellow Greens, and a lift from another passenger, I had enough funds to catch a train from central NJ and ultimately arrive home, albeit much later (about 2:30 am) than I would have otherwise. An unpleasant thing that wasn't my fault was discovering the hard way that if you leave your sign outside the Corcoran (and I imagine it's similar at other museums), they'll trash it if you don't come back out quickly enough. They don't tell you this when they say you can't bring it in. I'm seriously considering spending my time at the next demo just standing outside a museum and warning people about this. In the meantime I'll have to write a complaint to my MC and USSes. I had the good luck to find some fellow fen to have lunch with. Even more encouraging for geekdom were some of the signs I saw referencing Orwell. They weren't just the usual kind mentioning his name in connection with the Patriot Act. There were also some along the lines of "WE ARE AT WAR WITH IRAN. WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH IRAN."