I Stand for... Everything

I passed this group of Americans exercising their patriotic rights on the way to work this evening. My initial thought (inspired, no doubt, by the NPR* I was listening to) was that they were out celebrating the liberation of Egypt. I assumed they had procured an Egyptian flag from a Flags of the World and Cigars type shop (Sonoma has a lot of random shops as far as I can tell), and were out showing some democratic solidarity.


I thought Awesome! Go them. Go Freedom. Freedom totally rocks! And how cool of them to randomly celebrate Egypt's fledgling freedom in historic downtown Sonoma! I snapped this quick picture (unfortunately blurry) and started to wave as I drove past.

Then I realized that the flags were a rainbow flag and a California state flag. And the signs all said different things, like "No Nukes" and "Peace IS Patriotic" and... actually, I don't know what else, because I was driving and not reading signs.

Anyway, it seemed to be a gathering of local people, supporting disparate causes, with a central theme of "peace." I'm certainly not going to judge them for that - Go Peace! after all. But. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't even get to do a drive by support of a Yay Egypt! rally.

So I'll dedicate today's blog post to the people of Egypt. Way to go!

Incidentally, and totally unrelated to Egypt - When I was driving home from work the other day, I passed two men standing outside Sonoma Mission Inn holding signs that said "Shame on Sonoma Mission Inn." They looked angry. And they were dressed like monks. I really want to know what they were protesting, but the sign was again too wordy to be read as I drove past.

*Save NPR!