This is why I don't comment on "opinion" blogs.
Because on Jezebel, Huffington, Gawker, etc, you can only express your opinion if it matches everyone else's. The minute you say anything different, you'll get the virtual shit kicked out of you.
If you were bummed about missing the opportunity to take the HuffBus to the Rally to Restore Sanity earlier today in Washington DC, you needn't be. Most of us didn't see anything. I showed up at 5:20 to ABSOLUTE CHAOS. There was one security checkpoint for 10,000 people. There was no order to the line, no one telling you where to go, just Ariana Huffington there with a film crew waving to us as we shivered. We were told to expect a 6AM departure, and I didn't make it onto a bus until 8. We had been told there would be coffee and snacks for the bus ride courtesy of sponsors, and there were none. Add in the DC traffic and a complete stop to the Metro, and I was at the rally for no more than an hour, of which time you couldn't get close enough to the mall to see or hear anything. I can't imagine how the people who showed up later than 5:30AM fared. While I appreciate the intent of offering all of us a way to get there, the execution of this 'EVERYONE ON THE FREE BUS!" plan was extremely flawed, and I can't help but feel I wasted my time.
I looked around all the message boards, but can't find any opinions other than "ARIANA, YOU ROCK! AWESOME RALLY! SO GREAT!" I wonder where the 8,000 of us who didn't see anything are? Oh, probably still waiting to catch the bus to come home.
The only plus I noticed was that everyone, from the Legalize Pot people to the Anti Tea Party group, were nothing but nice and polite. Everything was "excuse me" and "pardon me" and people helping with baby strollers and taking pictures for strangers. That part was kind of cool.
NOT 12 hours on a sweaty bus cool, mind you, but cool.
UPDATE: Oh. Now the stories about the Huffington Bus clusterfuck are starting to be posted, I see (twitter is calling it "#HuffbusFAIL", but I can't speak hashtag, so there you go.)
If you were bummed about missing the opportunity to take the HuffBus to the Rally to Restore Sanity earlier today in Washington DC, you needn't be. Most of us didn't see anything. I showed up at 5:20 to ABSOLUTE CHAOS. There was one security checkpoint for 10,000 people. There was no order to the line, no one telling you where to go, just Ariana Huffington there with a film crew waving to us as we shivered. We were told to expect a 6AM departure, and I didn't make it onto a bus until 8. We had been told there would be coffee and snacks for the bus ride courtesy of sponsors, and there were none. Add in the DC traffic and a complete stop to the Metro, and I was at the rally for no more than an hour, of which time you couldn't get close enough to the mall to see or hear anything. I can't imagine how the people who showed up later than 5:30AM fared. While I appreciate the intent of offering all of us a way to get there, the execution of this 'EVERYONE ON THE FREE BUS!" plan was extremely flawed, and I can't help but feel I wasted my time.
I looked around all the message boards, but can't find any opinions other than "ARIANA, YOU ROCK! AWESOME RALLY! SO GREAT!" I wonder where the 8,000 of us who didn't see anything are? Oh, probably still waiting to catch the bus to come home.
The only plus I noticed was that everyone, from the Legalize Pot people to the Anti Tea Party group, were nothing but nice and polite. Everything was "excuse me" and "pardon me" and people helping with baby strollers and taking pictures for strangers. That part was kind of cool.
NOT 12 hours on a sweaty bus cool, mind you, but cool.
UPDATE: Oh. Now the stories about the Huffington Bus clusterfuck are starting to be posted, I see (twitter is calling it "#HuffbusFAIL", but I can't speak hashtag, so there you go.)