The Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear

This will be pretty picture-heavy; be forewarned.

In The Beginning...

This past weekend was Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert's Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear. I suppose you could consider it a parody of Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally, except with less tea bagging and more unadulterated awesome. Let me begin by saying it was a very long, exhausting day of essentially standing still. We got up around three in the morning to leave at four. The bed was pretty stiff which, combined with the fact that we were a bit sick, basically meant that neither of us slept very well; I think I slept for, at most, a few hours. Four a.m. hits, and it's time to hit the road; two and a half hours later and we arrived at the metro station just outside of D.C Thankfully, there are 3,400 parking spaces and we were able to park and wait for the trains to show up at 7:00. I was excited seeing the people around who were headed to the rally; 'twas refreshing seeing older people going and not just young people looking for a free show.


After settling in, we were greeted by various games and videos on the Jumbotron, which made it less painful to wait for the show to start. All in all. waiting went by fairly quicker than I'd have thought. There were all kinds of people with all sorts of signs all similarly excited for whatever it was that we were all about to witness/ It was exhilarating/

Our Surroundings...

Settled in for a long day, we found a place to stand (and stand, and stand...). We were actually surprisingly close. If I had to guess, I'd say we were maybe one hundred feet away or so. Alas, neither Krissy nor myself are very tall, so without the perfect conditions, seeing stages can be tough. The media pit was in front of us and to the left; one of the comedy central cameras was in front of us; and a tent, which I think was another media tent (for viewing and such) was in front of us and to the right.

Some fellow rally goers in our surrounding area


Unfortunately, to say Krissy's view was obstructed would be an understatement


There was an older lady sitting behind us (this was before the rally, some people had brought chairs so they weren't standing for 8+ hours). Personally, I really liked her sign.


This Sikh gentleman was next to me. He was on camera a lot (probably the turban and beard). He was nice. He was pretty patient with a girl who insisted on everyone surrounding him putting towels on their heads in an effort to get on tv.


This guy was to our right.


This one, too.


This girl was to our left


This was our view. You can see the edge of the media pit to the left (note the stairs), the tent to the right, and the cameraman (and his damned ladder!) basically right in front of us.


Even Jeffrey came along for the trip! Here he is in our free noisemaker/megaphone type thing.

The Media Comes Calling...

Here is one of the anchors giving a report during the rally. I'm not sure who he is but hes older and looked distinguished, ergo I liked him.


Then there's these two (from CNN). The woman was taking notes, asking people questions, etc. She seemed so bored and uninterested, though. Then there's the hotshot in the aviators and leather jacket. He seemed pretty happy with himself hopping about; he seems like a douchebag to me.


A cameraman from NBC News


Before the rally began, one of the cameramen (I think) was carrying his son around on his shoulders. I feel weird taking pictures of kids in public sometimes. Not that I don't want to. I always want to. But I know adults, and I don't need some errant parent going apeshit on me because they take offense, so this is the picture I got.


I liked this photographer. In a sea of telephoto lenses and ultramodern digital cameras here he was taking a photo with a panoramic camera. It looks like his other camera might be a Leica, too, but I can't tell (and, truth be told, have never seen one in person)

Let The Games Begin...

Jon Stewart singing was an interesting experience. The song was exceptionally funny.


Sheryl Crow performing with Kid Rock backed by The Roots (who are actually kind of awesome)


Mick Foley (who is awesome) accepting his award


The O'Jay's performing Love Train


Papier Mache puppet Steven Colbert: The fear monster


John Oliver (dressed as Peter Pan) coming out to help Jon Stewart slay the fear monster


Tony Bennett performing America, The Beautiful, which was awesome/ The picture is a bit low quality though.


The end performance. Mavis Staples, Tony Bennett, Ozzy, Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam), Jeff Tweedy, Sheryl Crow, The Roots, The Mythbusters, and many more!


I like John Oliver's expression in this picture


A better picture showing more of the people on stage than the previous pictures


Headed home (tired, achy feet)! At this point we still had a two hour drive back to Delaware. I liked these advertisements set out by Media Matters though. Very nice tie-in to the rally. I'm not sure if they were only in the metro or not, since we didn't explore too much of D.C. but there were banners inside the metro stations, too. Very cool. I approve.

These Are Not End Times

The rally was amazing, and awe-inspiring. It's hard to fathom 250,000 people, but one can't help but feel flooded by all sorts of emotions. I can't express how happy I am that we attended the rally; it was amazing feeling a part of something. The experience was absolutely amazing and I hope that people will learn from it, and that the rhetoric in this country can change.

Thumbs up from Tricky Dick

Take It Down A Notch (Or Three)

A bit of a departure today...

People are needlessly crazy. Perhaps it's a poor choice of words, since name calling tends to just feed the fires of crazy, but crazy is the best way to describe what surrounds us every day.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand. 

I feel that Yeats' Second Coming perfectly describes today. Nowadays we are complacent; we just don't care enough. Or is it simply that we've given up? Unfortunately, in today's media the more controversial, or extreme a person's view, the more attention they get. Really, when's the last time you read an AP or Reuters report and thought, "Wow! That was interesting!" Yeah, it's probably never happened. Take in your surroundings, and think; look at things objectively and think to yourself, "What is this doing for humanity?" What is more important: The real Housewives of [fill in the blank] or the actual housewives everywhere trying to make a go at this thing called life?

I feel like the media has a certain job to do and for the most part, they do a good job. No one wants to pay for their news anymore; once one gets something for free it's hard to justify paying for that same information (sometimes). There are a lot of people who argue that the media is unabashedly liberal, as if it is some giant conspiracy. To these people, Fox News is a breath of fresh air—the lone David struggling against the Goliath that is, well, everything else. But Fox News is also the most popular, and as a result, the most influential news organization as such I feel they have a certain responsibility to the American people. Lately, Fox News' latest crusade is against NPR, that is, National Public Radio, and therein lies the problem. Fox News is conservative; no one denies that (except for the latter half of their Fair and Balanced slogan). Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the Wall Street Journal and basically everything else in the media, but that's neither here nor there. Republicans don't like NPR; and lately that anger has boiled over and is crackling and steaming on the burner. Every few years, Republicans try and pass some sort of bill killing public financing of NPR, PBS, and the like. It doesn't work though, because people like NPR and PBS; I mean, who wants to kill Big Bird, Elmo, and Oscar the Grouch? (I won't even mention Cookie Monster.) NPR is incredibly important as a news (and entertainment) organization, as is PBS. The problem, for some, is that NPR recently fired Juan Williams for his rather unnecessary remarks about his fear of muslims. which leads me to this quote from Karl Rove:

45 percent of NPR listeners were Saddam Hussein.

I don't even know what that means. It doesn't make sense, neither logically or grammatically. Let's begin by attacking this from a mathematical standpoint. Let's assume Saddam Hussein did listen to NPR  (I know, I know) For the former dictator to make up nearly one-half of NPR's listeners would suggest no one even listens to NPR. Anyway, to suggest that half of the people who listen to NPR are dictators (dictators in training mayhaps?) is completely asinine. To even make a comparison bewilders me. But then again, Fox seems to like comparing everything to dictators.

To be fair, crazy isn't limited to conservatives and Fox News. Who cares that Linda McMahon kicked a guy in the nuts on the WWE, or that Christine O'Donnell dabbled in witchcraft as a teenager. Isn't there a maxim about people not throwing stones and glass houses? Yeah, that. Why not instead focus on their platforms (or in their cases the complete lack thereof). Christine O'Donnell wants to bring God and Jesus to public schools, convinced the Constitution makes no mention of the separation of church and state. Or, there's Linda McMahon who has slammed all of Connecticut in ads belittling and attacking Richard Blumenthal. But what are her plans? I've seen an awful lot of her commercials pleading to mothers to vote for her, but why? I've not seen a single ad of hers suggesting why I should give her my vote. So far, I've seen that she can afford nicely produced ads, she can get her friends to say what a wonderful person she is, and that Richard Blumenthal has slipped up a couple times. Oh, and that she has no experience, but Blumenthal has been in government for too long.


[As it happens, I wrote this post before Election Day. I'm glad Richard Blumenthal won Connecticut; truth be told, it's nice to be rid of her ads as well]


I feel like this video from Crossfire sums up the premise of this blog: