17-Month Street-Corner Vigil for Peace Grinds On

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protest11apr11,1,5439786,print.story
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0411-02.htm

Published on Sunday, April 11, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times

Long Vigil for Peace Grinds On
Alhambra street-corner activists press a 17-month battle for hearts and minds

by James Ricci

At the end of a week that saw the lives of 50 young Americans erased in a reinvigorated war 7,600 miles away, a playful wind kicked through the intersection of Garfield Avenue and Main Street in Alhambra.

It was Good Friday, 5:30 p.m. Traffic was a little lighter than usual and some drivers shielded their eyes from the low-angled sun in the west. On the northeast corner, peace activist Al Maldonado and half a dozen others from San Gabriel Valley Neighbors for Peace and Justice had to keep propping up the placards ("Liberate Iraq from Halliburton," "Bush Lied, 640 U.S. Troops Died," "These Colors Don't Run the World") that the breeze kept flattening.

However dire the week's news or earnest the protesters' message at Garfield and Main, they had to compete with the natural buoyancy of an emerging weekend in a peaceful, thriving place.

The mosaic-inlaid concrete fountains at the Alhambra Renaissance Cineplex Plaza splashed and gurgled. Lines began to form at the box office of the 14-screen Edwards theater, which offered such fare as "Starsky & Hutch" and "Scooby-Doo 2." Pedestrians strolled, rather than hurried, through the plaza. The conversation of early diners at the outdoor tables of chain restaurants rang with gaiety. Even the bleating horns of motorists signaling their sympathy with the demonstrators seemed festive.


..more..