On holiday in the Seattle area, I spent yesterday walking around the centre of the city and, after a lunch of clams and fish and chips, took a ferry across Puget Sound to Bainbridge Island.

Bainbridge Island

After a visit to a bookshop, I was stopped by a member of the American Civil Liberties Union. He was looking for support for among other things, their campaign to close the POW camp at Guantanamo Bay. I explained that I was a foreign tourist, but he said that he had signed up someone from Australia recently. While I, in broad terms, agreed with the ACLU’s stance, I couldn’t bring myself to contribute to an organisation involved in political struggles in a country that is not my own. I meekly offered a link to the ACLU on my blog as a sort of substitute.

Before I went on my way, he offered me an apology on behalf of his country for its foreign policy mistakes in recent years.