Some events this month

The annual Durham Creek Week is March 19-26; see http://www.durhamcreekweek.org/ for a calendar of events. There will be trash cleanups throughout Durham on the Saturday and the 26th, hikes, kayak excursions, workshops, and storytime events throughout the week, a panel discussion at the Hayti Heritage Center on the 24th, etc.

The first Friday after March 15th is also Arbor Day in North Carolina.

March 20th is the anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003, though murderous sanctions and bombings had been going on for over a decade. Lots of events in the USA and elsewhere are listed at warisacrime.org/content/upcoming-events, but nothing in North Carolina. [ Actually, a rally March 26th in Fayetteville is listed by ANSWER: www.answercoalition.org/national/news/march-19-day-of-action.html ]. NC Peace Action's Spring Lobby Weekend is this weekend in Washington. The weekly peace vigil in Chapel Hill continues on Fridays at Village Plaza, and is probably on the summer 5-6pm schedule starting Friday, instead of 4:30-5:30. There is also a monthly vigil, 12-1 on first Wednesdays at the Raleigh Post Office, 300 Fayetteville Street. The Durham peace vigil might still continue 12-1 on Saturdays at Brightleaf.

I believe "humanitarian interventionism" in Iraq and possibly soon in Libya (but not in Bahrain or Yemen or any other Arab country) only masks imperialist aims, and now the Arab people are carrying out their bourgeois democratic revolutions without the US having to invade and devastate their countries. The Arab revolutionaries should be wary of imperialists trying to subvert their revolutions, and halt them at the overthrow of authoritarian leaders, before they can go deeper.

The 100th anniversary of International Women's Day was March 8th, and the media here was praising women leaders like Hillary Clinton and Condolezza Rice. According to Wikipedia, International Women's Day began with American socialists, the Second International, and later the USSR, and it is only a legend that it originated in an 1857 demonstration by female textile workers in New York. Whatever the truth about its origins, I did not hear about any local commemorations for peace, socialism, or economic justice to post about.