Please join local designers (architects, landscape architects and artists)
as we explore the memorial’s next steps:
SATURDAY, JUNE 28
9AM TO 1PM
Mount Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church Gilmartin Building
55 Eckley Lane, Walnut Creek
We plan breaks: please bring snacks and drinks Space is limited: RSVP to Baika Pratt (baika2@gmail.com)
Read the powerful new poem by Fred Norman on our poetry page, which pretty much belongs to Fred anyway, and rightly so: Poetry Page.
I sang a song I composed a year ago last Good Friday, in honor of my brother, David Reuben Zwickel. You may down load a PDF of it. Feel free to share it widely:
Located on the corner of Deer Hill and Oak Hill Road, across from the Lafayette BART station.
DIRECTIONS: From Oakland/ Berkeley: Take highway 24 east to the Oak Hill Road exit. Turn left. Turn left again on Deer Hill. The crosses are ahead on the right, and parking on the left. From Concord/ Walnut Creek: Take highway 24 west to the Central Lafayette exit. Turn left on Deer Hill Road. The crosses are on the right, and parking on the left.
Sponsored by:
The Crosses of Lafayette
Mt. Diablo Peace & Justice Center
Lamorinda Peacem& Justice Group
Buddhist Peace Fellowship
All notices here have been archived to the bottom of this page. To read them, click on the graphic below:
North of Hwy. 24, Lafayette, Mt. Diablo Bio-region, California
I’ve seen the Lafayette crosses. I’ve been working for peace and against war’s madness all my adult life. But not until I heard Laura Zucker’s music with Ko Blix’ photo compilation did I cry my eyes out.
The clear, heartfelt earnestness of the people in the photos and the words on their signs, the posted notice of Marie Coon’s death by her own hand … and then “following a leader or following a hearse” and I just lost it.
Thanks to everyone who contributed.
Mike Ferner
Veterans For Peace
Background
In November of 2006 residents of Lafayette, CA and neighboring towns began to put up crosses above Deer Hill Rd acoss from the Lafayette commuter rail station and Highway 24. The crosses are meant to represent and memorialize the American soldiers who have died in the ongoing Iraqi war. A large sign above the crosses displays of the number war dead. By the end of March 2008, a cross has been put up for each of the 4000 troops who have
died. During its existence the memorial has rallied awareness
of thecost of the Iraqi war and garnered wide media coverage. However, it has also evoked anger, contreversy, legal threats, at least two acts of vandalism and more recently, counter protests.
Mission Statement (from Chris Eaton’s Weblog)
This video web log is a multimedia exploration of the Lafayette, CA memorial to the more than three thousand US soldiers killed in Iraq. Here we critically interogate the phenomena of anti-war activism in afluent suburbs, why it has provoked controversy and why has it received
country wide media coverage. We further ask what do the efforts for and against the memorial signify for the state of American life and if the memorial suggests a shift in the cultural and demographic climate of the suburban Bay Area. Rather than "accurately" report on the memorial project, lafayettecrosses.blogspot.com
seeks to expand perspective and understanding
of life in the United States. We hope that the expanded understanding encompasses the political, legal, religious, symbolic and emotional elements of American lives, their interactions and their media. Perhaps a better understanding of home will guide us towards a new path abroad. I hope this new path brings the troops home immediatley.
All of my footage (but not all of that which I link to) is under a creative commons licence. Feel free use it in whatever way, however I'd like to hear about it
if you do.
Chris was raised in Lafayette and currently lives in Oakland. He graduated from Acalanes High School in 2002 and Brown University in 2006. Chris is pursuing a career in media. His homepage is www.chriseaton.net, keeps the blog afuturedistributed.blogspot.com, and he can be
contacted at christopheaton[at]gmail(dot)com
We had a beautiful Veterans Day vigil, with passionate words from Chris Donton, Jeff Heaton, Lynn MacMichael and others, with, of course, a special poem from Fred Norman, whose book of his poetry is now available by e-mailing him, for a $5 donation to help with materials for the Crosses. His latest has been posted on our Poetry Page.)
I sang a song in honor of my father, Abraham, one of the thousands of unacknowledged veterans who served as conscientious objectors. You may listen to it here.