It's about an hour up the road from me. ANSWER/LA sent me a flyer to tell me about the planned demonstration. So I'm heading up there, to arrive about 2:00 to get a sense of how the crowd builds.
I'll walk around with my FlipVideo and talk to as many people as possible, then upload over the Sprint broadband card directly to my YouTube channel.
www.youtube.com/roadette
You'll be able to see the debate in the church on live TV...CNN will be there. I'll be covering the demonstrators outside the church. I'll add updates to this diary throughout the day, posting the URL of the videos on youtube as I post them and maybe writing a word or two as well.
It's a gorgeous day in SoCal, likely to be a few degrees hotter inland where the church is than it is in my home town, San Diego.
I'll check comments here too if there is anybody you know you want to say hi to or anyone/anything you want me to shoot or ask or find out about.
Roadette
UPDATE 1: 4:10 PM PDT: It's a zoo here. There are about 400 demonstrators split among the four corners of the street at Saddleback Parkway and Portola. It's in Lake Forest, a suburb about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego, in the county between them, Orange County.
It looks like the entire O.C. Sheriff's Dept. is here...
The video is uploading now to youtube. The ANSWER/LA people on the NE corner have a megaphone...they had it almost exclusively for about an hour until the Christians on the SE corner got one. The Xtians have been yelling "leave America, you traitors," while the ANSWER LA people have been yelling at the Xtians, "We want abortion now!"
The Obama people lost best position, they're stuck on the NW corner, but people driving up get a good look at them. And they have a big crowd -- it's the Obama Country (Orange County) group.
Huge press turnout. Mona ran into an Egyptian TV
journalist...they are talking in Arabic now.
UPDATE 2: videos uploaded to http://www.youtube.com/... All are dated Aug 16. The one that's 2 mins long...just the front end shows signs, then I didn't hit stop button hard enough and it rolled on the seat for another min and ahalf...dump out after first pix.
Otherwise, short shots...you'll get the flavor. I'll upload again in about 10 mins. Back to shooting...
UPDATE 3: 2 anti-war protexters arrested. I don't know what for. I'm uploading a little video...nothing much, just cops escorting a guy to the car. But apparently 2 people.
UPDATE 4: Riot squad just showed up. Just before, about 18 motorcycle cops came out of the church drive and turned right, heading north on Portola. Now a squad of about8 helmeted riot squad cops showed up. Not a great sign.
Have to say the ANSWER/LA folks have won the audio war here. Thehy are far more enthusiastic and must have quite a cadre of substitutes to keep throwing into the yelling group. The wingnuts have pretty much quit making much noise. Or maybe they are just drowned out.