Late-breaking Photographs from the Rally To Restore Sanity/Fear
(I’d originally intended to title this post “My wife went to the Rally To Restore Sanity/Fear, and All I Got Was a Bunch of Pictures,” but I realized I was already far too tired of that particular trope.)
Yeah, I realize that I’m exactly two months late with this post. Since about September through about a week and a half ago, I’ve been far too busy to even think of anything as unlikely as writing a decent LJ entry. And this one isn’t going to be that good, from a writing standpoint. Instead, I’m only going to comment on some happy snaps Kathy took at the Rally To Restore Sanity/Fear on 30 October.
(I happened to be in Washington DC for a scientific meeting merely four days later. If I’d had any free time I’d’ve contemplated going early, but would have wound up not going anyway because accommodations were unbelievably expensive that weekend, as you’d imagine. Kathy and her friend bussed down from NYC for the event-a much more reasonable approach, twelve hours in a crowded bus notwithstanding.)
I asked Kathy to take some pix of humorous signs at the rally for me while she was off having fun and I was madly preparing for my talk at the following week’s meeting. She did a much better job than she gave herself credit for. Below are eleven of the best ones. (Unfortunately, because she’s slightly challenged in the height department, she caught a fair number of backs of heads in some of the shots, but she can hardly be blamed for that.) These signs seem to be fairly representative of the overall selection (here’s a collection of 100 more good ones).
Click on any picture for a somewhat larger version. I inexpertly cropped several of them, so they may be unusually sized or shaped. Sorry about that.
A surprisingly large proportion of the signs were of the “ironic” or meta- type. Sanity ralliers, like Tea Partiers, seem to know all about what God hates.
Not surprisingly, many of the signs lampooned or criticized the Tea Party and its followers. This one, one of the more insightful anti-Tea Party slogans, does a little of both. (The obscured word is ANGRY. I mean, that’s what the word says; I don’t mean that the word feels angry.)
Misspellings were another favorite theme. The sign at right is amusingly ironic, but has offical spelled incorrectly. So I guess it’s doubly ironic.
Here’s a sign that hews closely to the stated theme of the rally. (The obscured word is, of course, Hitler. I’m not making an accusation-I’m just telling you what the word says.)
Heh-heh-not an expression of paranoia, but General Akbar’s most famous quote. The “It’s a Trap!” meme runs all through the Internet; Bog knows why. You could hardly assemble this many geeks and not see at least one of these.
Of the signs in this collection, this one looks the most like an authentic Tea Party sign: very wordy, odd coloring of the letters, and pointless name-calling. (The obscured word is POTTY.) Actually, the colors of the word AMERICA may be intentional: rica is Spanish for rich. That would be kind of clever.
Not sure what to make of this one. The misspellings are probably intentional, or we have someone with a thing for Ds. The “oh, look-a puppy!” at right is another Internet meme.
It reads, “Obama is a MUSLIИ (Biden is a LINEN)”, a play on a classic racist Tea Party misspelling. You’ll have to look at the large version to make it out, sorry. I sure would like to know what the sign in the lower right corner says. It starts, “Masturbation….”
Another “ironic” sign. Personally, within this theme I prefer “Reunite Gondwanaland.”
My favorite counter-protest signs of the lot. The one reflecting the sun reads, “I have no problem paying taxes because roads don’t pave themselves.” The sign at far right says “Sanity? I thought you said ‘Vanity’!”. I can’t make out the woman in the picture, but the lady carrying the sign looks just a tiny bit like Sarah Palin.
We’re all tired of hearing variations on "I can see Russia from my house" by now, but she gets points for cheerfulness.
Postscriptum. Based partly on missing this bit of mass political humor, I’ve resolved not to overschedule myself anymore. The last six months have been hell on wheels, and I look forward to having time to write stuff on LJ, among many other things.
Yeah, I realize that I’m exactly two months late with this post. Since about September through about a week and a half ago, I’ve been far too busy to even think of anything as unlikely as writing a decent LJ entry. And this one isn’t going to be that good, from a writing standpoint. Instead, I’m only going to comment on some happy snaps Kathy took at the Rally To Restore Sanity/Fear on 30 October.
(I happened to be in Washington DC for a scientific meeting merely four days later. If I’d had any free time I’d’ve contemplated going early, but would have wound up not going anyway because accommodations were unbelievably expensive that weekend, as you’d imagine. Kathy and her friend bussed down from NYC for the event-a much more reasonable approach, twelve hours in a crowded bus notwithstanding.)
I asked Kathy to take some pix of humorous signs at the rally for me while she was off having fun and I was madly preparing for my talk at the following week’s meeting. She did a much better job than she gave herself credit for. Below are eleven of the best ones. (Unfortunately, because she’s slightly challenged in the height department, she caught a fair number of backs of heads in some of the shots, but she can hardly be blamed for that.) These signs seem to be fairly representative of the overall selection (here’s a collection of 100 more good ones).
Click on any picture for a somewhat larger version. I inexpertly cropped several of them, so they may be unusually sized or shaped. Sorry about that.
A surprisingly large proportion of the signs were of the “ironic” or meta- type. Sanity ralliers, like Tea Partiers, seem to know all about what God hates.
Not surprisingly, many of the signs lampooned or criticized the Tea Party and its followers. This one, one of the more insightful anti-Tea Party slogans, does a little of both. (The obscured word is ANGRY. I mean, that’s what the word says; I don’t mean that the word feels angry.)
Misspellings were another favorite theme. The sign at right is amusingly ironic, but has offical spelled incorrectly. So I guess it’s doubly ironic.
Here’s a sign that hews closely to the stated theme of the rally. (The obscured word is, of course, Hitler. I’m not making an accusation-I’m just telling you what the word says.)
Heh-heh-not an expression of paranoia, but General Akbar’s most famous quote. The “It’s a Trap!” meme runs all through the Internet; Bog knows why. You could hardly assemble this many geeks and not see at least one of these.
Of the signs in this collection, this one looks the most like an authentic Tea Party sign: very wordy, odd coloring of the letters, and pointless name-calling. (The obscured word is POTTY.) Actually, the colors of the word AMERICA may be intentional: rica is Spanish for rich. That would be kind of clever.
Not sure what to make of this one. The misspellings are probably intentional, or we have someone with a thing for Ds. The “oh, look-a puppy!” at right is another Internet meme.
It reads, “Obama is a MUSLIИ (Biden is a LINEN)”, a play on a classic racist Tea Party misspelling. You’ll have to look at the large version to make it out, sorry. I sure would like to know what the sign in the lower right corner says. It starts, “Masturbation….”
Another “ironic” sign. Personally, within this theme I prefer “Reunite Gondwanaland.”
My favorite counter-protest signs of the lot. The one reflecting the sun reads, “I have no problem paying taxes because roads don’t pave themselves.” The sign at far right says “Sanity? I thought you said ‘Vanity’!”. I can’t make out the woman in the picture, but the lady carrying the sign looks just a tiny bit like Sarah Palin.
We’re all tired of hearing variations on "I can see Russia from my house" by now, but she gets points for cheerfulness.
Postscriptum. Based partly on missing this bit of mass political humor, I’ve resolved not to overschedule myself anymore. The last six months have been hell on wheels, and I look forward to having time to write stuff on LJ, among many other things.