Before I get to my story I have a quick thought. In the last 8 hours I've seen/heard 2 references to the Aristophanes drama Lysistrata. For those who don't know the plot of this...the women folk want the men folk to stop a war, so they withhold sex until the men stop.

I'm down with the concept, but while the rest of you guys would be freakin out, I'd be taking over the world. Sheeeee-it, I've been in training for this since the Eisenhower Administration. OK, I wasn't born during the Eisenhower Administration, but you get the point. Bring it on, Chicas!

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I think I blogged on Medea Benjamin last year...before the great blog purge. I first heard of her from various Green Party circles, then I started reading some of her articles on Common Dreams. She's run for US Senate, Co-Founded Code Pink and Global Exchange. But the biggie for me was her foray into the Republican National Convention last year. She got on the convention floor, reaked a little havoc and it was taped and played on Democracy Now. When I heard that piece I knew - Medea Rocks!



So Code Pink has just started a chapter here in Rochester and they got Medea to come to town last Monday to speak in a few places. So a bunch of us Greens went to see her. She was pretty cool. We were supposed to go out for a drink after, but she was beat and had to work on an op-ed for the Washington Times...but as we were talking she mentioned that she had to go to Binghamton the next day (about 3 hours away). She was going to rent a car.

"I have the day off tomorrow. I can drive you."

Who said that? Shit, that was me. I mean, what the hell am I going talk to Medea Benjamin about alone in a car for three hours. Well, too late now. So we drove to Binghamton the next day. The details of the conversation isn't important. As we talked, she coordinated stuff for the upcoming war protest in Washington, went over some of her hate mail, stuff like that. I got to ask her what she thought of the NY State Greens, and other Green...um...iconoclasts. We seem to draw the same conclusions about a lot of these folks and I just read about them..she actually works with them.

I got to feeling like a serious light-weight. I mean, I know all the stuff she's done, but when she would ask me about stuff in other parts of the state I would have no clue or my explanations of the problems the Green Party is having in Rochester...she didn't have an attitude about it, but it was obvious that if it was her she would have done something that probably would have gotten her arrested. (she's been arrested a few dozen times, probably) It was more of my insecurity and frustration than Medea's attitude. It's funny...dumbasses & slimeballs I meet...I don't care what they think of me. I'll say whatever at meetings, hearings, etc...but she's the real deal...someone who walks the walk. With cojones bigger than I'll ever have.

The hardest time I had with her was getting the point across of just how big of a stick Rochester has up it's collective ass...so it seemed like all I did was bitch about Rochester the whole time...defensive mechanism. But she didn't seem to be too put off by it.

My intention was to get to Binghamton, slow the car down so that Medea could do a tuck & roll and head back to Stickville. But Medea says, "You're coming to the trial right?" She was going to Binghamton to lend support to the St. Patricks Four. If you haven't heard about them, go to the website...it's messed up.

So the next thing I know, I'm sitting in a packed federal court room watching the (odd) opening statements of the defendants. I actually met one of them during a break. I admire what they did, even if I can't connect with the religious aspect of it.

I pretty much followed Medea around like a little errand boy, which was actually fine with me...I'm in touch with my submissive side. If I could be menacing, I would've tried to pull off the bodyguard look, but it just wasn't going to happen. Eventually we had lunch and I had to get out of there...I kept teasing her about all these people who would come up and hug her as if they were long, lost friends. She didn't do the "Hey........you." thing, but it was pretty obvious to me that she didn't know who the hell most of these people were...or at least couldn't remember where she knew them from. It's not really Medea's fault...you should have seen the number of people who approached us...it was mind-boggling. So when I was going to leave, she told me that when we met again, she would actually remember me.

Yeah...that's what they all say. I haven't heard from Stanley Aronowitz in years.