righteous grannies

The Village Voice has a good story today about the Granny Peace Brigade, 18 members of which are in court right now on charges of disorderly conduct for committing civil disobedience at the Times Square recruiting station--they walked up, demanded to enlist, held a sit-in, got arrested, and gave birth to a burgeoning movement:

"I said, 'Sure, see you there,' " recounts Marie Runyon, the oldest of the New York brigade at 91. Runyon is legally blind and walks with two canes, yet she trekked from Harlem to Times Square. "I thought it was a great idea to get the message through to that son of a bitch in the White House," she explains. "Our men are dying and the Iraqi people are dying and for what—for that idiot Bush!"

Betty Brassell, 76, of the Lower East Side, decided to shuffle uptown with her walker after spotting a leaflet on the enlistment. She didn't know the grandmas who would become her fellow defendants. Simply put, she says in a soft Southern lilt, "the flyer said Grandmothers Against the War and I'm strongly against this war."

Runyon, who sang "If I Had a Hammer" at the recruiting station, also told the reporter: "Oh hell! I would go to jail if I had to just to make the goddamn point! You've got to make a statement." If I make it to the age of ninety, I want to be just like this woman.