The Rally to Restore Sanity - The National Mall - Washington, D.C.

I wish I could say Fear the Beard and not hate myself on the inside for baseball related reasons.

Instead fear the goatee!  I think it's to blame for the increased level of foul language that may have exited my mouth Saturday afternoon and possibly the need to drink an excessive amount of scotch Saturday night.  That goatee don't take shit from no one.


It may even be able to do a Triple Lindy if not for the 230 lbs of dude attached to it.  Triple Lindy's and goatees aside, Pics of Me in Front of Stuff ventured down to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
Leading up to the event, no one knew what it was about.  Don't look for a recap here.  It was hard to define just what the point of the rally was before going there and experiencing it.  Some journalists went as far as to predict it could be this generation's Woodstock or some grand defining moment.  Would it be just a series of insults to the major media outlets especially Fox News but without ignoring CNN, MSNBC, and the others of their ilk?  It's hard to define an event whose basic message seemed to be moderation.  John Stewart is obviously a proponent of the left and Stephen Colbert is a clear parody of the right, was the intention to be 3 hours of comedy for them to poke fun at the Tea Party, the GOP and the rest of the far right. 
In a brief sober moment on Pics of Me in Front of Stuff, our generation's defining moment happened on a sunny Tuesday in September 10 years ago.  In this age of limited attention spans, there will never be a person who will forget just what they saw that day.  Some rally held by a cable network's fake news anchors/pundits is never going to change that.  No matter how many clever signs the participants produced.

This is among my favorites.

This one is also among my favorites.  Thank you, South Park.

On a related note holding up a sign comparing anyone but Hitler to Hitler is not only a slap in the face to the people who suffered through the atrocities committed by Hitler, a slap into the face of the brave people who fought and lost their lives stopping Hitler, but it also makes all of us look fucking stupid.   

So what was the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear?  It was about showing that the majority of Americans are not the nut jobs on either extreme.  The extremes make for good news.  The extremes on both sides are also what make us Americans look like a bunch of assholes.  John Stewart called the 80 % of us not on either extreme a silent majority.  Are we?  I don't know.  The initial impression I most often give people based mostly on where I came from, I usually get confused for being conservative.  With my more conservative friends, I'm the closest thing some of them will ever see to a liberal.  I do not want to fit into either of those boxes.  And that's what the 80 % is.  Nobody fits completely into either of those boxes. 

Did the rally accomplish anything?  

I don't know.  We did the wave.

A co-ed wave...

..and women only wave...

...and a men only wave. 

So what was this other than a chance to do the wave with 150,000 of my closest friends?  No idea.  Hopefully, it will be a chance for the majority to actually gain a voice.  Then again, a calm soothing voice doesn't sell ads.  At the very least, it was a nice day and a good time.