Festive rally marks world day for peace
Corvallis Gazette-Times
By Theresa Hogue
September 22, 2006
Heather Daly, 10, holds a sign that has the word for peace in Ghana and her friend Eva Dod, 9, holds one with the word for peace
CORVALLIS, OREGON - More than a hundred pinwheels cheerfully spun alongside Fourth Street Thursday evening, their colorful whorls lining the edge of the courthouse lawn.
To LoErna Simpson, organizer of Corvallis’ commemoration of International Peace Day, the pinwheels were evidence that community members of all ages were participating in the event, even if it was simply their artwork that ended up on the lawn of the Benton County Courthouse.
“I’m thrilled,” she said, after looking at the pinwheels, and scrunching her face as an unaware rally participant trod on one. Members of the Boys & Girls Club of Corvallis made 153 of the pinwheels, and church youth groups made others.
While the rally participants numbered just a little more than the pinwheels, the mood was festive, more so due to the live music and the craft tables full of paper pinwheel supplies that kept the younger crowd, and their parents, engaged.
Oregon State University senior Anne Yemaya and her 4-year-old daughter, Mehalia Irvine, were busy at one of the craft tables. As a mom, a student and an employee, Yemaya said it isn’t always easy to participate in social activism, and the peace rally was her first such event in Corvallis.
“I try to make it more so,” she said of keeping activism as a priority.
Simpson said Pinwheels for Peace was a national project, started last year, that commemorates International Day of Peace by involving students in art projects. More than half a million pinwheels were placed across the nation last year on Sept. 21, the day chosen to honor peace and call for ceasefires across the world.
Music, poetry and speeches were all on tap for the Corvallis celebration, which included the second performance by “The Raging Grannies,” the new local incarnation of a national phenomenon.
Not all the members of the group were grannies, but the singers dressed in aprons, hats and little-old-lady attire, using the outfits to juxtapose the radical, and often funny, lyrics they spouted.
“We follow the tradition of elder women sharing their wisdom and caring to improve the future,” said organizer and “granny” Rachel Ozretich, after the group sang the words, “Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Uncle Sam? Uncle Sam? Anti-war bells ringing, hear the people singing, ‘No more war, no more war.’”
Bolger arrested at White House
Meanwhile, across the country, Corvallis resident Leah Bolger, a member of Veterans for War, reported that she had been arrested in front of the White House earlier Thursday.
Bolger, who is spending a month in the nation’s capitol participating in peace-related activities, was arrested with 34 other demonstrators after attempting to deliver a large version of the International Declaration of Peace to the White House.
She and the others were charged with demonstrating without permits, and were booked and released. They will likely face a $75 fine.
Bolger said the arrest was worth the hassle, and said peace activists are frustrated with the current situation. Polls indicate that a majority of Americans do not favor the war in Iraq and want, at the least, a timeline for troop withdrawal, but she is not seeing those numbers reflected in participation at peace rallies.
“You don’t see it out in the street, and that’s what so curious about it.”