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22 NOV 03: TAKE YOUR LUMP-KINS

A car with a North Carolina tag passed me on Veterans Parkway tonight with several bumper stickers along the lines of "Out of Iraq NOW." Either that's an SOA Watch protester -- or Saddam Hussein is hiding inside our own country.

Preparations were made today not only for SOA Watch, but the Sunday "God Bless Fort Benning" rally on Torch Hill Road. Organizer Miriam Tidwell said when she put up a "WHINSEC Wins" sign, several people came up to her and asked what WHINSEC was. No, it's NOT for supporters of a college football conference.

(Instant message to the Tidwell family: What IS the admission price for God Bless Fort Benning, really? On TV they say it's a toy or a gift certificate - but the sign outside your cancer treatment center says it's free. Should I expect a table selling Miriam's Café certificates tomorrow?)

Give the city of Columbus credit -- it tried hard to distract the SOA Watch crowd away from the main gate of Fort Benning. But for some reason, protesters simply were not interested in today's Peanut Bowl at McClung Memorial Stadium.

Ruth Ann's Restaurant on Veterans Parkway was unusually busy for a Saturday evening. I assume this was due to large numbers of SOA Watch protesters. We don't know how many Hollywood liberals dined at the Olive Branch a few blocks away.

Have you wondered why SOA Watch hasn't changed its name, since the School of the Americas was replaced by the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation? I have a new hunch about this - the protest group is so poor it has to finish using the old name's stationery first.

My first SOA Watch protester sighting MAY have occurred Friday morning on Ninth Street, near Fifth Avenue. Three people were walking with suitcases. But then again, maybe they're not protesters - since they weren't carrying big signs or wearing tie-dyed shirts.

(Of course, if protesters are walking along Ninth Street downtown, some would suggest they go ahead and check in at Recorder's Court right now.)

I drove down Torch Hill Road around 12:00 noon Friday - and the only signs I saw of a protest then were the lines of police barricades along the side of the road. You'd think someone would be sitting on the sidewalk pounding a big drum already....

At a barbershop on South Lumpkin Road, a barber told me, "I've had one protester come in and get a haircut in all these years. That's all." If he wants business from SOA Watch marchers, maybe he should sell hair extensions instead.

(C'mon, Mr. Barber - do you really think people would travel hundreds or thousands of miles to Columbus and Fort Benning to get their hair cut? These are military protesters, not movie stars....)

The barber in Oakland Park admitted motels probably are making a windfall from SOA Watch weekend. But there's one question I've never heard anyone ask the motels after the protesters leave Columbus - how much bedding do they have to
disinfect?

A few Fort Benning men in uniform were at the barber shop. You may be surprised to learn some troops DO get days off for SOA Watch weekend - so the commanders seem a lot less nervous than the Columbus Police Department is.

(One soldier joked to me he wants the job of counting casualties from the SOA Watch protest - such as "K-I-A." Yes, killed in action.)

If the barber believes the protesters on South Lumpkin Road look odd, he hasn't visited the Winn-Dixie Marketplace up the street. Several produce racks are filled with 12-packs of soda. I know it's peach-flavored pop - but it can't be THAT realistic.

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