Cincinnati is unproudly as conservative as Seattle is liberal for reasons I don't want to go into (we can start with race relations and a proactive police force though). Nevertheless there have been war protests here, the local independent weekly is full of outrage, folks on campus seem as anti-war as ambivalent (only a few people I've talked with are solidly hawk, and they are undergraduates who haven't experienced war). What I find uncomfortable in the mainstream media is how quickly a chilling effect has settled in. Even those democratic senators speaking out about Bush's lip service at "diplomacy" a few days ago likely will quiet down now. The press has to cover the events and not be perceived as unpatriotic. But if anyone is likely to kill or be responsible for the death of Americans now, it's Bush. And those servicemen and women (and innocents, if there are terrorist retaliations) have extended families back home who want to believe in the president and feel pride in their efforts on behalf of the country.* Those families are voters. So it will be interesting to see who in Washington is still willing to speak up, even this time next week. I copy and paste from the close of Bush's Orwellian address to the nation: "My fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others. And we will prevail." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wendy Robinson wgrobin@uc.edu Asst Prof, Dept of Comm wgrobin@fuse.net Univ of Cincinnati homepages.uc.edu/~robinswg 620C Teachers College, ML #02-0317 tel: 513-556-4468 Cincinnati, OH 45221-0184 fax: 513-556-0899 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At 12:01 PM 3/20/03 -0500, you wrote:

Message: 1 Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 14:19:47 -0800 (PST) From: david silver <dsilver@u.washington.edu> To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: [Air-l] peace Reply-To: air-l@aoir.org

i attach a few preemptive apologies to this post: apologies if the topic strays from what some believe to be appropriate discussion areas for the list, apologies for leaping to a soapbox to exclaim a personal position.