YAAAAYYY for the march for women's lives!

it was a great day. speakers were on message (not to mention, smart, funny, angry, proud, and overjoyed to see so many of us) -- a mixed blessing in many situations, but not here. over and over again, in many voices and contexts, we learned that the right doesn't own religion; that this is not just about abortion; that the lives of women here and abroad are under a fearsome attack; that we have to beat bush in november in order to turn the tide.

it's true. we do. i had a wonderful time and the day was full of almost tearfully positive moments, but the truth about the right's agenda is, and should be, frightening. luckily -- hats off to the organizers! -- the day was about celebrating solidarity in the face of the republican attack. i'm scared into action, not paralysis.

what was beautiful about the weekend? well, there was the guy who congratulated us on our new kerry bumper sticker as we drove out of philly. there was the march-car-spotting game on the way down, and saturday's gorgeous weather. there was the march itself, and the whole families, from grandparents to babies, who came out. (i happened upon a four-generation family picture mid-afternoon. great-grandma was probably eighty-five or ninety, and her infant great-grandkid was probably a couple of months old, and both of them, plus everyone in between, were wearing pink "stand up for choice" shirts.) there were the silly hippies with the drum circles, and the little kids i marched beside for a while ("GEORGE BUSH, YOU'RE FIRED. GEORGE BUSH, YOU'RE FIRED. GEORGE BUSH, YOU'RE FIRED..."), and all my lovely friends, and the big swarthmore banner up front in the crowd. afterwards, there were so many "march cars" leaving DC that the traffic was horrible, but friendly waves and honks and signs abounded. just before the fort mchenry tunnel, we spent ten minutes, and exchanged multiple greetings, with a van full of adolescent girls and parents whose sign said something like, "honk if you support choice. if you don't, you suck."

george bush needs to meet those girls. they would shake their hot pink streamers at him and set him straight.

on a more irritating note, THE WASHINGTON POST IS FULL OF ASSHATS. BOOOOOOO HISSSSSSSS. why? because their "photo gallery" is fifteen photos long, and six of them are of anti-choice demonstrators. let's seeeeee...a VERY conservative estimate would be 750,000 pro-women marchers, and 1,000 -- oh, hell, let's be ridiculous, try 10,000 -- anti-choicers: at least a 75:1 ratio.

heaven forbid the media should ever portray this event accurately. rar.