Throngs tell Bush and Co. where to go...

The poet Sharon Olds, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award and professor of creative writing at New York University, was invited along with a number of other writers by First Lady Laura Bush to read from their works. She responded with the letter below... Three years ago artist Jules Feiffer also declined to attend the festival's White House breakfast as a protest against the Iraq War in "Mr. Feiffer Regrets."

Dear Mrs. Bush,

I am writing to let you know why I am not able to accept your kind invitation to give a presentation at the National Book Festival on September 24, or to attend your dinner at the Library of Congress or the breakfast at the White House... Read the entire letter in the Nation's "No Place for a Poet at a Banquet of Shame."

OpEdNews.com invites you to...
"Get to Know Ben Marble, an Interview with the Guy Who Told Dick Cheney to Go Fuc* Himself."

Military Families Speak Out is an organization of people who are opposed to war in Iraq and who speak out for relatives or loved ones in the military.

C-SPAN will cover some of the hundreds of thousands of people around the world and in Washington DC who are also speaking out - live today, beginning at 10:30 AM Central Time.