Just a note to recap our vigil this past Friday night.....

     Well, we should be in the Examiner this Monday!  (Article) We had both a photographer (George Hagegeorge....who took many pictures) and a reporter, Matt Plum, present at the vigil. For those of you who don't know, the Examiner is a free newspaper available at various locations. ( There is an Examiner box outside of Baja Fresh in Bel Air) 

A great thanks goes out to Joel Andreas who spoke with us about the reasons to pull out of Iraq immediately. He pointed out that there are many of us who want peace, yet we are afraid to want immediate withdrawal in fear of a civil war erupting when we leave.

 Joel spoke quite candidly about how there IS  a civil war occurring in Iraq already, and our presence is only inflaming a bad situation and making it worse. It means so much to many of us to have someone, such as Joel, take their time to come out to the "suburbs" and speak to us and give us a different insight to the war. Even though they only speak for a few minutes, it takes a lot of their time to drive here and prepare for what they are going to share with us....and then they do this solely out of their dedication to the cause of peace. Joel has wrote the book "Addicted to War". To learn more about this book, or to purchase it, go to    http://www.addictedtowar.com/book.html

    We had 62 people present at this vigil. These vigils bring a very eclectic group of people who are very passionate about their beliefs and we try our best to make it all go peacefully and keep us all in unity to accomplish our goal of speaking out against the war and respecting the soldiers who have given their lives.  We apologize for not giving individuals the opportunity to campaign for their candidates running this November, but we feel that it is in the best interest for unity and for keeping focused that we avoid the "best candidate" issue. Mike and I are just 2 normal, everyday working people trying to do our best at running this organization, and all we can do is follow what our heart tells us to do.

    Also, there was a gentleman that purchased 5 peace symbol stickers from us. Please shoot me an email and let me know who you are.. I wanted to ask you something. We were also wondering how the tealight candles worked in the plastic cups. If you have a spare minute to shoot us some feedback on how they worked, we would appreciate it.

    So thanks again to all, and unfortunately we will more than likely be having the opportunity to gather again next month.

    Mike and Susan