Drumming Against Hate at Giffords’s Office

[RamboLiberal]

TUCSON — By 2 p.m. about 40 people had gathered in front of Representative Gabrielle Giffords’ district office at the intersection of North Swan and East Pima Streets, many holding hand-printed signs, others with hands raised toward the traffic, fingers making peace signs..

Motorists sounded car horns in support, but under the cacophony was a quieter sound, the rhythmic tum-tum of a drum. The drummer was Ilene Thompson, who stood amid the signs that said things like “Hate Speech=Murder.” Ms. Thompson explained that she had been in a store buying that 13-inch drum Saturday morning when she heard of the shooting.

“I actually bought it for shamanic energy exercises, but I just rushed out of the store to come here,” said Ms. Thompson, who like many of those in the crowd on the corner, was a volunteer worker in the last Giffords campaign. “This is just my small way of saying we need a heads-up about the real consequences of hate.”

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“On a typical Saturday this corner is filled with Tea Party protesters,” said Brenda Tyler, who was with her husband, Lyndon. “I’ve seen signs saying things like ‘It’s time to reload’ and ‘One way or another, you’re gone.”‘ A real estate agency in the neighborhood had a sign out front that said “Goodbye Gabby” and showed the silhouette of a witch on a broom,” she said. It had been taken down on Saturday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/us/politics/09scene.html?partner=rss&emc=rss