Restoring sanity and/or fear

Well, Election Day in the US is over. I don’t have much to say about it — no big surprises, a couple reliefs and a couple disappointments, but nothing that isn’t being said everywhere else on the internet. I haven’t finished the third post in my mini-series about religious discrimination, though, so while we’re all thinking of politics it seemed like a fitting time to admit that I, too (like everyone else in my demographic) was at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, DC last weekend.

We managed to find a decent spot to stand, even though it was already very crowded by the time we got there around 10 AM. (Sorry to the people whose personal space I’m sure I invaded by pretending this was a good place to stop.) I’m pretty short, but I had a good view of the stage if the people in front of me all leaned in the right directions at the right time, or if I held my camera way above my head (which, as you can see, a number of people were doing).

The rally was, on the whole, pretty good. I definitely enjoyed myself. To an extent it was a giant free concert, and I did start to notice the false equivalence that vjack was talking about … but I thought Stewart’s keynote speech at the end was a well-done moment of seriousness, and to the extent that the presentation made the message more palatable to the people who are really the problem, I think I can live with that.

Here are a couple souveniers I took home:

a sign that Media Matters was passing out (I didn’t make my own), and one of the free towels that the Comedy Central folks had made up. I love that they gave out towels — I felt like such a hoopy frood!