Panties for Peace -- Let's go, ladies!

From John Curry, October 20, 2007
Subject: Maybe Husted, Mandel, Jones, & other supporters of HB 151 should part with their pants!

It would be just as effective AND .... would entail far less losses for our public pension systems, wouldn't it? Jon (Husted), ..... better box up your boxers!

John (Curry)

Oct 19, 2007 Source: Jill Zimon's blog http://writeslikeshetalks.com/

Help Burma: send panties for Junta panty raid

From Jill Zimon, October 20, 2007

Local writer, Jeff Hess, blog author of Have Coffee Will Write, sent me this Associated Press story an hour ago:

Women in several countries have begun sending their panties to Myanmar embassies in a culturally insulting gesture of protest against the recent brutal crackdown there, a campaign supporter said Friday.

“It’s an extremely strong message in Burmese and in all Southeast Asian culture,” said Liz Hilton, who supports an activist group that launched the “Panties for Peace” drive earlier this week.

The group, Lanna Action for Burma, says the country’s superstitious generals, especially junta leader Gen. Than Shwe, also believe that contact with women’s underwear saps them of power.

To widespread international condemnation, the military in Myanmar, also known as Burma, crushed mass anti-regime demonstrations recently and continues to hunt down and imprison those who took part.

Hilton said women in Thailand, Australia, Singapore, England and other European countries have started sending or delivering their underwear to Myanmar missions following informal coordination among activist organizations and individuals.

For his local part, Hess provided me the following:

Here in the United States, send those panties to:

Union of Myanmar Embassy
2300 S Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20008

And just for fun, here’s some more contact information:

Phone: 202.332.9044, 332.9045 and 332.9049 Fax: 202.332.9046 Email: thuriya@aol.com, thuriya@aol.com

Tomorrow I’m going to set up a collection box on my table at the Lee Road Phoenix [an Eastside coffeehouse in Cleveland Heights] to collect panties to ship to the embassy in Washington. I’ll be there most of the day starting at 7 a.m.

I’ll box everything up and ship them off on Monday morning.

Hess confirmed to me, by email, that he is not only not kidding but that he is “as serious as a heart attack.” Let’s hope the only people who experience panic are the ones committing the atrocities in Myanmar.

Cross-posted at Wide Open (yes, I posted it there).