Protests light at MCC poem event

Upon arrival this evening at MCC for Marc Falkoff's talk about a book of poems by Guantanamo Bay detainees that he edited, there were about 10 protesters standing outside the main entrance to MCC. When I paused in front of them, one man aimed his camera at me and took my picture before I could even approach them. At that point I lost interest in asking them any questions, but I took a couple of pictures.

They had pretty good manners during the presentation portion of the program, but two of them lost it during the Q&A. Event rules allowed one minute to ask one question. The first woman protester asked numerous round-robin questions and was more interested in hogging the microphone time than any answer Falkoff might give. The moderator had to caution her more than once.

A few minutes later a man rose to ask a question. Both he and the woman were argumentative. The woman was finally escorted from the conference center, and the man would not stop talking as he walked out. At that point the audience clapped loudly for a long time, so that he could not be heard.

There was an opportunity for the protesters to learn, but they clearly had no interest in learning anything tonight. They seem to live by "Don't confuse me with the facts. My mind is made up."

No doubt that these folks are really hurting over a personal loss. They were at another event at MCC sponsored by the Student Action Peace Network. The grief and opposition to injury or death of U.S. troops is fully understandable.

That isn't what tonight's program was about. What they were unwillingly to grasp is the possibility that there could really be innocent people who are detained at Guantanamo Bay.