  Totally lost on me this weekend. I had a quiet weekend planned of making a list of the things that I own so the movers don't "lose" anything in transit. I was mistaken thinking that because I had to work this morning, it wouldn't burned my weekend. Thanks to the anti-"W" activists here in Sicily, the gates to the base are closed until further notice.
Apparently there's a protest of sorts here today and we can't leave the base because there could be an "International Incident" if we quarrel with them on the way out. The last time there was a "protest", of the 4000 expected, about 150 showed and all they did was paint peace signs on the road and write "Fuck Americans" on the street in spray paint (they never spelled it right either). I don't understand why people do this. We have little to no bearing on the things going on in Iraq (the local Sicilians have a fraction of a percentage of our activity there too it should be noted) other than shipping people over there to relieve the ones who have been serving there for the past year and a bit.
When the whole MJ thing was going on about his supposed molesting of kiddies, I saw a "parade" of 6 people with t-shirts and a banner (or a close representation of one) walking up the street saying that he was innocent. I like Sicilians (most of the time) but they don't have the right method of thinking to be totally politically active.
To be honsest, most of the Italians here aren't interested in things that go on outside of the country or on TV and frequently talk about things in the past or the really big events in the recent past. I think that they're a little to "unmotivated" to put it kindly, to take an active in terest in the rest of the world. THis has both good and bad points, but so does everything... 
