COAST TO COAST IN SUNNY FLORIDA

The photo above is from the annual, end of the year, Christian peace witness that is held at Offutt AFB in Omaha, Nebraska where the Strategic Command (StratCom) is headquartered. The Global Network will be holding our annual space organizing conference there next April 11-13. StratCom is now in charge of U.S. first-strike planning, the U.S. nuclear arsenal, NSA warrantless wiretapping, and all Space Command planning.

I am in St Augustine (Atlantic ocean side of the state) this morning at the home of dear friend Peg McIntire who I recently wrote about on this blog. Peg is a 97 year old activist who is still as busy as ever.

I spoke yesterday at a Peace Day event in Sarasota (on the Gulf coast side) and my message was well received. It was a day long event and I got to speak to the 150 people there early on and then after lunch they gave me a two-hour block of time for a more in depth discussion with questions.

The day before I was the speaker at the Bradenton Unitarian Church service and again was well received. Over the years I've been black-balled from a few Unitarian Churches for being too radical but the folks at the Bradenton church were probably the most enthusiastic Unitarian group I'd ever met with. Don and Jane Thompson, old friends from my days at the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice, made the arrangements for the Bradenton and Sarasota talks. Don is a retired minister.

Tonight I drive an hour north to Jacksonville to speak at the meeting of Wage Peace, the local peace group in that community. I have many old friends there and it will be a pleasure to see them all. On Thursday night I will be back here in St Augustine to speak at a meeting organized by Peg.

On Friday I head back west again and speak in Clearwater at an event being organized by Samm Simpson who was a candidate for Congress two years ago. She has stayed very active and is working hard to educate and mobilize the public in her district.

On Saturday I will be lucky to have lunch with old friend Karl Grossman who is on vacation in the state with his wife. Karl was one of the co-founders of the Global Network when we created it in 1992. Karl is a journalist and was the one who introduced me to the nuclear power in space issue all the way back in 1988. Without a doubt he is the father of the "no nukes in space" message.

On Sunday I will drive further south along the Gulf (golf) Coast to Naples where I will speak at the Unitarian Church. So I will be getting to talk to many Unitarians on this trip.

I return to Maine on Sunday evening. It's been snowing quite a bit in Maine the last few days. It seems that every time I leave Maine they have a big snow storm. I miss doing my share of the shoveling which I really enjoy.