Metro Pulse correspondent Dean Novelli (who previously wrote one of our Health Care Confidential essays, "Self-Pay in America") is attending the Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington D.C. and will be sending us eye-witness reports. Here's his first entry:
The countdown clock on Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity website read 01:03:49:26 (dys/hrs/mins/secs) as I shut down my computer and headed into the sunrise for a road trip to Washington, DC. (Note to self: next time leave later so you don't have to drive with the sun in your eyes.) And so I'm off to attend a rally, possible the rally to end all rallies -- no seriously -- and maybe more. If you believe all the hype.
The last time I attended a rally it was compulsory; me being in Junior High and it being Homecoming Week. What an adolescent excess-fest that was. But having recently lost my own sanity (and my job in the process), I thought it might be helpful, maybe even fun to go to a Sanity Rally.
Despite the fear and loathing, "pretentious whining", and general blather of the pundocracy that has jammed the blog-a-sphere since Stewart and his protégée/nemesis Stephen Colbert announced their (now joint) Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, I don't think a couple of professional satirists having a "rally" on the Nation's Mall is necessarily a bad thing. Especially when they don't have a cover charge.
However some people -- mostly those who make a living spouting gloom and doom -- seem to be deeply concerned that a rally for sanity will be anything but sane. If you listen to them, it shouldn't be held at all for it will bring about anything from the end of politics as we know it to the End of the World.
Wolfwhistle commenting on a Salon.con post ("The Rally to Restore Sanity: Why the secrecy?" by Mary Elizabeth Williams) is so incensed at the thought of sanity gaining a foothold, he/she wrote: "Beat up the fake progressives burn down the venue and kill some people."
Despite Wolfwhistle's obvious confusion over what kind of mall the National Mall is, it makes me wonder, maybe I should bring my 9mm along, just in case, as the NRA tells me, I need to defend myself.
No, what am I thinking. Bringing a gun to a sanity rally, well that's just insane!
But with leftist extremists like Wolfwhistle calling for killing people and right-wing nuts like Rand Paul's ralliers actually knocking down and head stomping an opposition supporter, you've got to wonder (worry) where this -- the rally, politics, America -- is headed. And what I (and you too, dear reader) should do about the sorry state of our country's public discourse.
So, slightly paranoid that putting Rally to Restore Sanity posters in my car windows for a road trip through Red States might be inviting trouble, I'm off to see the wizards of satire and attend their super-secret, not-a-politcal-rally rally on America's Front Yard.
If nothing else, I'm hoping for a few good laughs for my trouble. And maybe, just maybe I'll find some sanity along the way.
P.S.: If you're watching from home, I'll be the old(er) guy holding the FEAR sign; False Evidence Appearing Real: Why keep that alive?
Comments » 1
AndrewJ writes:
In a few hours people will try to reclaim sanity in Washington, and about time.
Hopefully the focus will be on fun, amazement and wonderment – these were goals of royal jesters which were necessitated after a thousand years of European diplomacy, intrigue, and occasional friendship. The tradition was discontinued by Cromwell and others who thought laughter was foolish. But laughter is a good remedy for the evils of intrigue and diplomacy.
When a person speaks it is polite to listen and smile irrespective of their words or lies, it is not evil to be polite, but it is evil to allow known deception to continue without comment. When Abu Ghraib was blamed on a few bad apples, the appropriate response was hysterical laughter; and when Indonesian President (General) Yudhoyono says the torture seen in the videos recently smuggled from Papua is the work of a few bad apples, the appropriate response is hysterical laughter.
People who can laugh generally have a better appreciation of reality.
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