He would be 69, if he had not been killed. It is one shame of my people. I am so sorry that it happened, so sorry that white people did that.
Boom.
Lovely day. Many speeches, tirades, prayers, invocations, blessings, pledges, singing of patriotic songs. Didn’t spot any racism, but did find a food vendor or two. If there were any infiltrators or agents provocateur about, I didn’t see them. (I’d make a bad spy.) Signage was somewhat subdued compared to past events – it did feel like people were holding back for fear of being considered racist. My wife says there was a woman in a Statue of Liberty costume but I somehow missed that. It was a fairly big crowd – I would guess a couple thousand all told.
Took a few pictures, enjoyed the nice people, look forward to this November. There were a few counterprotestors, but none interesting enough to intentionally photograph.
OK, so they don’t believe us.
Normally I would say “whatever”, but in this instance what “they” think has some bearing on what we’ll pay.
So I think that perhaps we need to show them a second time.
I was at the rally. I’ll be honest – I don’t think were two million of us there; I somewhat doubt there were one million.
But there were a hell of a lot more than 70,000 of us.
And now they want to PUT US IN JAIL if we don’t want to buy their insurance policies. Man, I wish I was an insurance salesman with that kind of firepower! “Ma’am, I suggest that you just sign the policy. I don’t want Officer Murphy over there to have to put you in the squad car, ma’am.”
Not just no. Hell no.
And so I think, this once, that we do actually have something to prove.
Forgive a personal aside. After the rally, my wife and I took the opportunity to visit Mount Vernon, to pay our respects to General Washington and his wife. Neither of us had been before and it was invigorating to see where Washington had been, where he had lived and led. Yet, both while we were there and after we left, I felt saddened to think of what Washington would think of us today. Perennially indebted, led by rogue after rogue, paying shattering taxes for a debilitating nanny state – what a spectacle we would present to that titan!
Yet, there are things that our Founding Father would approve of, too. One, I think, is that despite whatever initial astonishment he might feel at the prospect, in time he would be delighted to know that the liberty he established has reached the stage where an American of African descent could become its chief executive.
The other is that he would be delighted to know that as the Republic was threatened, there would continue to be brave men and women who would defend her, both on and off the battlefield.
I propose another March on Washington, to make unmistakable what has been mistaken. I propose that two million American patriots, taxpayers, lovers of freedom – at least two million – come to Washington this fall, to demonstrate once again – and this time irrefutably – that there are millions of us, that we are angry at what has been done and is being done to this our beloved country, and that we will not stand by and watch.
I propose that the March be held on December 15, 2009, the 218th anniversary of the day the Bill of Rights became law in these United States. (April 15 would be an even better day, but that’s too far in the future – we’ve got to put a stop to these people now.) October 31, 2009. It’s a Saturday, the last one before the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons take over the memespace. It’s Halloween – the best time to resist The Man. We can have one heck of a barbecue/picnic/protest march/rally in the daytime, and a heck of a party that night.
And I propose that there be a central registry for attendees to sign in, attest their name, address, and citizenship – you know, the things that are impossible for us to expect voters to do – so that whether the media decides to cover it or not, we’ll have proof that we were there.
I’d love to organize it (and will if drafted) but the people who facilitated the 9/12 rally would be the obvious choice. I’ll go. I’ll sell the contents of my garage if I have to to pay for it, but I’ll go.
We have a country to defend.
My wife and I ended up at the huge health care protest today. We hadn’t even known there was going to be an event (cut us some slack, it’s been busy) until I read in the paper (yes, I read a paper – I hope my 75 cents keeps the Post alive for another day or two) that the organizers of the event had a bomb threat yesterday. We decided to go, and it was very interesting.
Capitol police say about 1.5 million people were there; other estimates have topped 2 million. Honestly, that seems (very) high, but it’s notoriously difficult to get a good count when you’re in the middle of the crowd. I would have guessed a few hundred thousand – maybe a million on the high end. It was a very polite crowd, and from what I saw the (tiny) group of counterprotestors wasn’t abused. (OK, I did march along with them for a few moments shouting “I want free money! Free money now!”, but my wife made me come back. Spoilsport.)
99% of the crowd were people who have never been in a protest in their entire life. The crowd was older – lots and lots of vets and cornfed Midwestern types. Interestingly, the Mall was left quite clean when everyone had left – conservatives pick up their trash, I guess. The other half of the mall was reserved for a black family group having a huge “family reunion” and picnic – despite the rampant racism and black hatred, our 2 million didn’t go and beat up their hundred thousand or so. (Maybe the racists didn’t want to embarrass the black people marching with us.)
LOTS of signs, mostly handmade. Some organizations and media figures have been beating the drum for this apparently (I can’t stand Glenn Beck so we never watch his show) but everybody there we talked to had gotten themselves to DC, no astroturf that we could see beyond the scattering of pre-printed signs. I was absolutely shocked at the size of the crowd; we got onto the Metro to go into DC at Shady Grove, the northernmost red line stop, and the line for the farecards filled the entire lobby as a bunch of people who had never been to DC before tried to figure out the system. (It didn’t help that there are now two different kinds of farecards.) The whole Metro system was semi-overwhelmed by the numbers, but they did a great job keeping everybody moving and other than the crowds the transportation situation was quite smooth.
It’s hard to figure the impact of events like this. But if I was a moderate Democrat congressman on the fence, I think I would have just been pushed off. There are a lot more people out there who won’t stand for what they see as socialized medicine, than people had guessed.
Later we went to the National Gallery of Art and looked at the Spanish swords and armor display, which was pretty awesome. Armor-making by the gunpowder age had become a truly refined science, and they had some replica pieces made of stainless steel you could try on. Anyone who wants to see a photo of me clutching a mailed gauntlet to my chest or wearing a visored helmet should check here next week when I get home and get a chance to upload pictures.
I’m currently shopping for a gauntlet of my own.
Empty desktop. Right click on background, select “New Word document”. Rename it, but forget to type “.doc” at the end of your filename. Bam, operating system forgets that it’s a Word document. Come on, guys. Make the leap of faith that if the user has asked for something to be done, that’s probably what they wanted to have done. I don’t want a generic file of unknown type, I want a G-D Word document. You know how you could have figured out that I wanted a Word document? By the fact that I just asked for one!
If I don’t type in “.doc”, it’s not because I’ve come to this wildly devious method of creating a generic file of unknown type. It’s because I’ve typed the name of my file and I’m ready to go on. You’re the operating system. You’re the one that needs to know that Word document = “.doc file” and you’re the one who needs to make that happen. (Yes, I am yelling at an OS. I’ve yelled at stranger things. Go away.)
ASSUME THE “.DOC”.
Please, my former cow orkers at the house Bill built, please – put some thought into these things.
I went up to a teaparty event outside the offices of Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-01) in Denver yesterday. There was an event scheduled for my own representative, but it would be rather anticlimactic in staunchly red Colorado Springs. (“I’m Congressman Lamborn. What are you protesting for?” “We demand that you vote against this health care bill!” “OK, will do!” “Oh…uh…well…”) The event at the Democratic office promised more exciting blog action.
It was a gorgeous sunny day and I really regretted that fact that the air conditioning in the Black Mamba isn’t working. (Should have turned it in as a clunker and gotten a shiny new Hyundai, I guess!)
I have a secret parking spot in Denver that I often use for events – it’s a shady street with long-term meters and it’s very close to the downtown core. Less hassles and a healthy walk, what could be better? Unfortunately, this time I must have failed my Navigation skill check, because I thought the rally was going to be at the capitol building. Instead, it was a good ten blocks south, and while my parking spot was in fact only seven blocks or so from the event, my chosen route would end up taking me about twenty blocks all told.
I (mistakenly) walked and walked to get to Capitol Hill, expecting at any moment to come across my crowd of protesters. Instead, just mostly-empty parks:
And historic Denver landmarks:
When I finally got to Grant Street I realized that the rally was the aforementioned ten blocks south. It was too far to go back to the car, so I just trudged it.
And trudged it.
And trudged it.
Finally…up in the distance…could it be? A glimpse of placards waving in the air? Yes:
Here’s our team in various poses. There were between 25 and 35 of us there at any particular time. We had a main group on the north end of the intersection and a smaller group on the south side. The Obamanauts were also on the south side.
Our main team:
Our emergency backup team:
Jed and his fellow members of the Tyranny Response Team: ever vigilant.
Want to see those signs better?
(T-shirt text: There are 10 kinds of people in this world, people who get binary and people who don’t.)
Here’s the Obama group. There were usually about 10 of them. Periodically they sidled up and tried to integrate with our satellite group to try and look bigger, or perhaps they were trying out an anschluss. Note the preprinted signs. That’s the sign of grass-roots activism, you know – having your own union print shop with a standing order of “Hope” posters.
Some of our better signs:
During the rally, cars and pedestrians passed by. We got the bulk of the love, but there were some catcalls too. One driver literally leaned out of his car to shout “Are you giving up your Medicare? Are you giving up your Medicare?” loudly. Alas, the obvious riposte (“No, we’re trying to save it from YOU!”) came too late. Catcallers really should go around the block and come around again so that the slower-witted of us have time to prepare our responses.
There wasn’t a great deal of excitement, but it was good to see the people letting their representatives know their opinions. It was nice to see Jed and the boys again, but the summer afternoon was dwindling and the wife was expecting me home…here’s a last parting shot from this tiny outpost of participatory democracy.
And then a long trudge back to the Black Mamba for the return voyage (and date night with the wife) – I’d post a picture of the car but its sheer awesomeness would make you realize the futility of your own crappy life and you’d have no choice but to end it all, and I don’t want that on my conscience.
This is an outrage. An outrage, I say!
Frustrated by scam telemarketing calls from a dishonest extended-warranty company, an Ohio man snapped on the phone and apparently made some threats.
No, he shouldn’t have said that he would come and burn down their building. That was wrong. But at the same time, does he really need to be locked up? Nobody thinks he meant it, that he poses any genuine danger. He was just frustrated with having to deal with these scammers.
Free Charles!
No, no, no, no, a thousand times, NO.
If my fellow citizens want to burden themselves with some horrific tax-and-spend nightmare of socialized medicine, they may. I’ll oppose it, but there’s a right to make stupid choices.
But I will not be coerced into buying an insurance product, whether public or private, to satisfy some bureaucrat’s desire that my spending choices reflect the ones s/he thinks I should make.
Hell, no.
If this atrocity becomes law, I will stand on the steps of the US Capitol and demand to be arrested for my crime of refusing to pay. We are not children subject to the whims of a babysitter, however benevolent. We are free Americans. I will choose the course of my own life, and I do not yield that power to any man or any state.
They can have my taxes but they cannot have my conscience or my choices. Those are mine, now and forever.
End of discussion.
