From The New york Times
'Grannies' Charged in Peace Protest Are Acquitted

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Published: April 27, 2006
They came, they hobbled, they conquered.

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Dima Gavrysh/Associated Press
Members of the "Granny Peace Brigade" outside Manhattan Criminal Court today.
Eighteen "grannies" who were swept up by New York City police, handcuffed, loaded into paddywagons and jailed for four and a half hours were acquitted today of charges that they blocked the entrance to the military recruitment center in Times Square when they tried to enlist.

After six days of a non-jury trial, the grannies — who said they wanted to offer their lives for those of younger soldiers in Iraq — and dozens of supporters filled a cramped courtroom today in Manhattan Criminal Court to hear whether they would be found guilty of two counts of disorderly conduct for refusing to move, which could have put them in jail for 15 days.

The 18 women — gray haired, some carrying canes, one legally blind, one with a walker — listened gravely and in obvious suspense as Judge Neil Ross delivered a carefully worded 15-minute speech in which he said that his verdict was not a referendum on the Police Department, the anti-war message of the grannies, or, indeed, their very grandmotherhood.

But, he said, there was credible evidence that the grandmothers had left room for people to enter the recruitment center, had they wanted to, and that therefore, they had been wrongly arrested. He then pronounced them not guilty, concluding: "The defendants are discharged."

The women, sitting in the jury box at the invitation of the judge, to make it easier for them to see and hear, let out a collective "Oh!" and burst into applause, rushing forward, as quickly as elderly women could rush, to hug and kiss their lawyers, Norman Siegel, the former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Earl Ward.

"Listen to your granny, she knows best!" crowed Joan Wile, a retired cabaret singer and jingle writer who was one of the defendants.

Outside the courthouse minutes later, the women burst into their unofficial anthem, "God Help America," composed by Kay Sather, a member of a sister group, the Raging Grannies of Tucson, Ariz., which goes, "God help America, We need you bad. Cause our leaders, are cheaters, and they're making the world really mad."

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Gus says it's a sad reflection on our pragmatic and opportunistic younger generation that grannies have to come to civic action rather than give wordly advice from their rocking chairs on the why and therefore of the reality of apple pie.. Good on them for doing so and exposing the con of our moronic leaders who are prepared to send some grannies' grand kids to meet their death in a useless war, a war they lied about the purpose and intent of...