VOICES OF DISSENT
Area religious organizations and peace groups mark
the second anniversary of the U.S. attack on Iraq with a monthlong series
of meetings, vigils, concerts, and protests.
The observances begin Saturday, March 19, with an 11:
30 a.m. interfaith service at the First Church of the Brethren, 2116 Yale
Blvd., followed by a noon vigil for peace at the steps of the Capitol,
Second Street and Capitol Avenue. (Three more Saturday noon vigils follow
on March 26, April 2, and April 9 at the Paul Findley Federal Building at Sixth and Monroe streets.)
At 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 23, area poets and writers
speak out on peace in the Carnegie South room of Lincoln Library, Seventh
Street and Capitol Avenue.
Noon-2 p.m. on Good Friday, March 25, peace activists
will observe the Way of the Cross, starting at the southeast corner of
Second and Capitol. (For information, call 217-523-4049.)
Jessica Gonko, director of the Springfield Peace
Camp, leads children’s readings in Carnegie North, Lincoln Library,
on Saturday, March 26, from 1 to 3 p.m.
At 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 29, Tim Godshall, outreach
and development director at the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund,
speaks in Carnegie North, Lincoln Library.
Sue Morris of Pax Christi Springfield, speaks at 7
p.m. Tuesday, April 5, in Carnegie North, Lincoln Library.
On Friday, April 15, a tax day fundraiser to benefit
the Springfield Peace Camp will be held at the Abraham Lincoln Unitarian
Universalist Congregation, 745 Woodside Rd.
The events are co-sponsored by Church World Service,
the Mary Wood Branch of the Women’s International League for Peace
and Freedom, the Middle East Peace Project, and Pax Christi Springfield.
For more information, call 217-546-5454.
UP IN SMOKE
WICS News Channel 20 anchor Elizabeth Wooley last
week (March 2) reported on the growing use of salvia, a legal drug with
psychoactive effects similar to those of LSD.
Wooley’s feature included extensive footage of
the leafy substance being rolled into joints and directed viewers to Penny
Lane, the head shop on South MacArthur Boulevard.
The business has sold salvia for years but began
carrying high-potency extracts of the drug two months ago, says store
manager Harvey Utterback.
If the news report was meant as a warning, it had the
opposite effect. After Wooley’s story ran, sales went through the
roof, Utterback says.
“We must have had 100 people come in the next
day,” he says. “There’s been an unbelievably heavy
demand.”
Attempts to reach Wooley and WICS general manager
Johnny Faith for comment were unsuccessful.
This article appears in Mar 10-16, 2005.
