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SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2011
VOL. 3 NO. 68
PORTLAND, ME
PORTLAND’S DAILY NEWSPAPER
699-5801
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‘Monumental change in the Arab world’ Code Pink cofounder, witness to Middle East revolution, speaks today BY DAVID CARKHUFF THE PORTLAND DAILY SUN
OK, there’s the freedom revolution in the Middle East to discuss, and, of course, the killing of Osama bin Laden, but Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin was asked to clear up one matter right up front: No, she has no plans to change the peace group’s name. “We’ve outlived the government’s colorcoded alert system, why would we change our name?” Benjamin asked. Benjamin, guest speaker today at the annual peace supper for Peace Action Maine at Portland’s Woodfords Congregational Church, said that now that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has dropped the color-coded alert system that inspired “Code Pink,” the anti-war group won’t be in a hurry to give up a label that is so familiar that Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” name-checked it recently. “We have a lot of national recognition,” Benjamin said. And if there’s a time that Code Pink can sell its anti-war message, it’s now, she said. While speaking in a telephone interview earlier this week with The Portland Daily Sun, Benjamin noted that the death of bin Laden, while a source of mixed emotions for many peace activists, provides an opening to push for a withdrawal of American troops from Medea Benjamin, cofounder of both Code Pink and the international human rights organization Global Exchange, joins protesters in Egypt during the prodemocracy revolution. Medea will be speaking at Peace Action Maine’s Peace Supper today in Portland. She said she won’t skirt controversy. “There is one issue that I will be bringing up,” Benjamin said, “and I’m not sure of the reception, and that’s Israel Palestine. (COURTESY PHOTO)
see PINK page 9
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On Mom’s Day, remember the deception It’s when you become a parent yourself that you first realize just how deceptive moms can be. My niece had one of those “ah-ha!” moments recently as she wrestled with a two-year-old on a relatively long drive. She remembered being a kid and helping her poor dim-witted mom read the road maps, becoming the navigator on many family trips. Now, my sister — her mom — can read a map the way a really good surgeon can read your MRI. She
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has an intuitive feel for the things, knowing that those lines snaking along the page likely mean
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mountains and which backroads bypass traffic. My niece suddenly realized that all that navigation had to do with other kinds of paths. Every Mother’s Day (it’s Sunday, by the way) I recall that my mother’s deceptive ways focused on reading. Now, my mom is a retired third grade teacher who saw her role as a sort of “literacy goalie.” Nobody got past her without reading, and she considered teaching other subjects to nonsee ROBINSON page 4
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