Monday, November 1, 2010

The long awaited update

It's been a long time since I've last inked my pen, stretched out the mind and typed in the url for this blog, I know. So much has happened: Juan Williams was fired; that whacky senatorial candidate in Delaware did something headline-worthy somewhere at sometime; Halloween; Randy Moss was cut (again); Halloween.

So much fodder, so little time to come up with a compelling, unique perspective.

Instead I attended this weekend's Colbert/Stewart rally on the National Mall. While the jury is apparently still out on whether it was a political/nonpolitical/apolitical/anti-media event, my experience was that of a fairly nondenominational Saturday afternoon outing.

Because everybody was there: The Dems, the Republicans, the Tea Party, the anti-Tea Party, the anti-anti-Tea Party, the legalized marijuana folks (they brought demos with them, by the smell of things), liberals, conservatives, greens and libertarians. And everybody else. Apparently, there's an anti-Hitler Mustache as a Political Symbol movement afoot as well.

The largest denomination of folks at the rally were clearly in the "I like to Make Funny Signs" camp. They turned out in huge numbers. The same remains to be seen of tomorrow's election, where many of them will likely sleep late, scramble to work and have that nagging feeling of forgetfulness as they fight the evening commute.

Given my experience with rallies (none to speak of) Saturday was refreshingly vaudevillian, rather unserious and with the core message of: Why can't we all just get along and talk with indoor voices.

In fact, the only people I disagreed with were the folks who decided the rally would be a great opportunity for a Saturday afternoon picnic, blankets, pillows and all, and then got upset when the other 200,000 of us trampled on their "camp site" trying to get a better view.