If you’re a fan of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, you’ve probably heard of Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity event coming up in Washington D.C. later this month.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to show up to thes rally on the National Mall, and yesterday, we learned that UA students Roger Haak and Michael Baker Brown are organizing a local version on Friday, Oct. 29 at Wilson Park here in Fayetteville.
For those who aren’t familiar, Stewart announced the rally on his show on Sept. 16. The idea is to host a non-partisan gathering for the “70 or 80 percenters” in America who, as Stewart put it, don’t have the time, or the “theatrical flair necessary for today’s 24-hour a day, 7-days-a-week news media.”
From the website:
Ours is a rally for the people who’ve been too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs) — not so much the Silent Majority as the Busy Majority. If we had to sum up the political view of our participants in a single sentence… we couldn’t. That’s sort of the point.
Since Stewart’s announcement, other rallies are being organized around the country for folks who can’t make it to D.C., including three in Arkansas.
Poster for the event
The Fayetteville version will follow a similar format to Stewart’s, Haak told us.
“We’ve got some people in mind to come speak, and we’re contacting some others,” Haak said. “People can come in costume if they want. Also, we hope people will bring signs.”
“I disagree with you, but I’m pretty sure you’re not Hitler,” “9-11 was an outside job,” and “I’m not afraid of Muslims, Tea Partiers, Socialists, Immigrants, Gun Owners, Gays, but I am kind of scared of spiders” are some of the signs Stewart suggested for the rally.
Afterwards, a local version of Stephen Colbert’s “March to Keep Fear Alive” will make its way down the trail from Wilson Park to Dickson Street.
Haak created a Facebook event with a bit more information. He is still looking for speakers for the event, and you can also email rally4sanity.nwa@gmail.com to get involved.
NWA Rally to Restore Sanity
When: Friday, Oct. 29, 5-9 p.m.
Where: Wilson Park
Cost: Free
More: Facebook Event, RallytoRestoreSanity.com
You will note that the Fayetteville event is October 29, NOT October 30. Proofread, please, Fayetteville Flyer. Those old basic techniques really do have a purpose.
Thanks Deborah. Corrected.
Jeez, Deborah. You should try to relax a little. Maybe drink a nice herbal tea or treat yourself to a massage.
BTW, Dustin, you Flyer hacks spelled “Colbert” wrong. Totally unprofessional and offensive to all fluent readers!
@George Thanks man. Deborah’s right though. I need to slow down. Yeow.
OMG and he says Tea Pariers instead of Tea ParTiers… unacceptable!
@deborah, I read the Flyer Daily, and I rarely see any mistakes, and the few I have seen have always been promptly attended to, with apologies. I find them very professional. And Deborah, follow @LOCAL540 on twitter, they post all kinds specials for various local businesses, including drink specials, which I reccomend you try.
God Bless you all, I will pray for a safe and positive event.
@Mr.Tea Thanks so much! Please come attend if you can!
Thanks Dustin for the great article!
Just to pile on, I’ll note that the next-to-last paragraph, in which the “March to Keep Fear Alive” is mentioned, contains a misspelling of either “version” or “Verizon”– I’m not sure which.
And Mr. Haak should be made aware that the 29th is not the day before Halloween.
Such laxity and indiligence…
When it rains, it pours.
It’s been fun. FOR ME.
Come on folks… Let’s get off the English Major merry go round and be happy we live in this great Nation and have the freedom of assembly and the right to express our views!
Mr. Tea–
We are enjoying our freedom to assemble here and our right to express our views on the article. Fortunately, the Constitution doesn’t require that our assemblies or views be meaningful.
David you are correct, God Bless you and may we all enjoy and prosper from our freedom of expression…. But isn’t this posting really about the Rally And its promotion?
Mr. Tea–
Granted, snarkiness in correcting errors in the article is not clearly related to either restoring sanity or keeping fear alive– certainly not to the rally and march. I know a lot of people who associate English class with fear; I tend to think the correction process has more to do with sanity.
While I would hope to not detract from the thrust of the article, I, like the others, was unable to resist the temptation to gibe Deborah a little.
Yea… After re-reading Deborah’s post…. Let’s move on… Gibe away and get it overwith.
I believe that I have concluded my gibery– at least until I discern another remarkable error in the story.
Ooops Mr. Tea–you capitalized an “And” incorrectly–
“…the Rally And its promotion?” At least you didn’t put an apostrophe in “its”.
(***dig*** ***dig*** ***gibe*** ***gibe***; tongue-in-cheek and all that)
Mr. Franks you are really outdoing yourself. Keep up the good work.
Smile, guys. You are really being very entertaining. Even more so, I suspect, than the rally will be, but I’m probably going to try to attend anyway. There’s some promise there of a good time. Or at least a chuckle or two. And we can all use some more of those!
Just my opinion. To which their own everyone has the right.
My lovely wife and I don’t get out much at night, but this event should be a good reason to brave the evening. If I an able to be in Fayetteville that weekend, I will see if I can convince the Mrs. to go for it.
You guys could of picked a worse time to have your stupid liberal rally with Halloween,homecoming, and not to mention most of all with all the fans coming up for the football game that weekend .
Also to note marching to Dickson street the day before a football game is a bad idea.
Dont make the rest of state of Arkansas look bad with your stupid rally .
TRF, I hope you know the difference between of and have, but you don’t seem to be very adept at English even though I’d bet dollars to donuts you want it made our official language. Except you’d probably write it as “are” official language.
TRF–
I am so glad to know that some sensible soul values the sanctity of a football weekend over political expression and a secular good time. That certainly won’t make Arkansas look bad.
Next step: stop writing. People might get the idea that people in Arkansas are ignernt.
Comment removed. See our policy.
@TheRealFayetteville
Nay I say! You got it all wrong. The football game, Halloween, and homecoming were in poor taste in scheduling their events so close to my rally! They knew months ago that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert would announce this rally and march, so the powers that be put the homecoming game and Halloween on the calendar to mess everything up!
It’s just like when Martin Luther King Jr. purposely told everyone he had a dream on that specific date, August 19th, because he knew Glenn Beck would have a rally to restore honor. MLK Jr. just wanted to mess everything up and cause conflict of interest and argue it was in poor taste. Talk about inconsiderate of MLK Jr. How dare he get in the way of Glenn Beck’s rally by talking about dreams of civil rights and basic freedoms of the people!
Even though they are quick to forget that this is a non-partisan event, I bet the conservatives created Halloween centuries ago just to conflict with the rally! Oh well. Just goes to show they like tricks for others and treats for themselves.
And besides, everyone should go to the football game and party on Dickson the night before instead of attending the rally. Seriously. Don’t come. Keep the fear alive by refusing sanity! We all know throwing pig skins is way more important than civilly discussing the issues and introducing the problems that our society faces.
Because instead of solving the economic crisis, you should be afraid of gays getting married and those crazy liberals murdering babies. Instead of taking care of the ever increasing deficit, you should be tailgate and drink as much beer as possible! You know what they say! A beer a day keeps the terrorists away, so what if you drank four or five? That’s what I call Homeland Security at it’s finest! Drunk!
@DavidFranks
I hope to see you and the Mrs. there!
Also, the last comment has an “it’s” and “its” problem. My apologies. Apparently these comments are home to grammar lovers like myself. I hope you folks don’t rip me apart too much…
Did you know there are sane citizens of Fayetteville who would love to attend the rally, cheer the Hogs at the football game, AND have fun taking part in a lighthearted grammar debate? We exist.
The average American doesn’t have an idea in his head that wasn’t put there by his television set.
All that really differs is which channel you prefer.
burgerboy–
That’s why I have so many ideas: I watch a little television, and a lot of TV.
UGH! All of you…please focus on the initial posting. God Bless you all.
David–We’ll be looking for you at the rally….and possibly at our mutually favorite restaurant afterwards. Gotta get back to boning up on gibery and grammar now. Oh, and Dustin, thanks for another great local news article!
Thanks Kim, and grammar… Whatever… Gibery, OK. Thanks all for playing along.
Mr. Tea–
Six of the eleven posts between your last post and your previous post were about the rally; one was my reply to your non-rally-related post.
Speaking of the rally as requested, will you be attending?
Why yes I wlill and I wlii be the old fat guy wearing the Gadsden Flag cape…God Bless America and our great Constitution…May we all prosper by our united efforts to succeed. As free individuals.