I went to the peace protest in downtown L.A. earlier today, and the pics are here. Only a few hundred people showed up, and it was a peaceful protest, with the organizers working with the cops, and vice versa. This was in contrast to today's Westwood protest, yesterday's Westwood protest, and last month's Hollywood protest. And, it was the antithesis of the recent S.F. protests. (Going to the Westwood version of the protest would have been a better bet, but I had to go downtown anyway, and until I'm a paid blogger I'm not driving to the Westside during rush hour. I got the feeling that Christina and the L.A. Times photog also wished they'd been at the Westwood protest instead.)

This was held next to Olvera Street, and it had a Hispanic flavor. I spoke briefly with KTTV's Christina Gonzalez, who's even prettier in person than she is on the TV. In other words, she's hot. (The other young lady to whom I gave this blog's URL is also quite attractive, but she's not on the TV.)

Same old speeches. "We know Saddam has WMD because we've got the receipts yuck yuck yuck..." The Bus Rider's Union was there, banging a few drums. Apparently, the Los Angeles Public Library librarians passed their own anti-war resolution. Their representative made it clear that their resolution had preceeded the one from the City Council. Nothing like claiming the moral high ground. One of the slogan-leaders began enumerating a list of special interest groups, asking "are there any Latinos here?" "are there any [fill in the SIG here]." He got to "Are there any gays or lesbians here?" and then he realized that he couldn't think of any other SIGs.

Waving the Mexican flag is more than a bit bothersome, but I guess it's better than waving an Iraqi flag. After an hour of speeches and such, the marchers started their brief march down Los Angeles St., chanting, en Espanol, "Bush, You Racist, You're The Terrorist."

In other words, just another peace protest.