Washington Post:

Dozens of Israeli flags fluttered in gentle breezes and scores of homemade signs bobbed under a perfect sun as supporters of Israel massed on the west side of the U.S. Capitol today in an impassioned defense of its right to strike back against Palestinian attacks against civilians.

I've been to a few protests with similar weather conditions, but never has any description (even on sites like Indymedia) approached the sappy romanticization and one-sidedness contained in that article. The intentionally vague and inflated estimates of turnout are just the icing on this sickly sweet cake. In coverage of the Quebec City protests, however, the number of 75,000 reported by the local media had dwindled to 20,000 by the time the NYTimes had got around to covering it, and one had the impression that it consisted of solely of spoiled, violent white kids, not the crowd that had come from all over the continent to protest peacefully, or the hundreds of people dancing in the streets, even as tear gas filled the air. I'm romanticizing only a little; it was quite moving.

"Words don't work here," said Sausen, 56, a businessman, who said he was "overjoyed" with Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's decision to get tough. "I think he should be tougher," he said.

Want to feel sad? You can read the weblog entries of people who attended the rally.

Tom Tommorrow summarizes a talk given by Tariq Ali. The speech by the Marine General he quotes at the end is very interesting.

Updates will be few and far between until April 26, the make or break deadline for a large number of essays that I need to finish. But I bet you haven't read that many of my articles yet, so that should keep you busy.