The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Michael Wolraich's picture

    Rally to Restore Sanity - New York City Solidarity Party

    By Michael Wolraich on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 6:36pm | Politics

    Saturday, October 30, 2010 - 12:00pm - 3:00pm
    The Village Lantern, 167 Bleecker Street (between Thompson and Sullivan)

    For New Yorkers who can't get to Washington DC for Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity and Stephen Colbert's March to Keep Fear Alive, you can still show your solidarity for the cause at the Village Lantern in Manhattan, sponsored by dagblog.com.

    We'll show the rally on big screen televisions and supplement the speeches with local talent, including comedians Jamie Kilstein and Lee Camp and a reading by Michael Wolraich, aka Genghis, author of Blowing Smoke: Why the Right Keeps Serving Up Whack-Job Fantasies about the Plot to Euthanize Grandma, Outlaw Christmas, and Turn Junior into a Raging Homosexual.

    RSVP at Facebook

    Topics: 
    Politics

    Comments

    I'm going to the rally!  I hope I get some camera time:  I'll be the one with the sign and the youthful appearance!


    by CVille Dem on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 6:40pm

    Great! I'll look for a youthful-looking person holding a sign on television.

    PS Say hi to Jon and Stephen for me.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 7:32pm

    No problemo!  Maybe I'll have a Genghis sign too!  That might set me apart just a bit!


    by CVille Dem on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 9:35pm

    Dude, I'm afraid the president is pre-empting you as well as Jon Stewart. He's going to be in Bridgeport at 1:00, and I am going to be there.

    I don't think I can make it up to Bleeker Street by 3:00.

    =(

    Maybe I'll take my book and throw it at Obama for you, tho.

    =D

     


    by Bwakkie (not verified) on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 9:50pm

    That bastard is always stealing my limelight. Aim for the solar plexus.


    by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 2:50am

    Books, sponsorships, professional entertainment and big-screen TVs. Dagblog has arrived!


    by acanuck on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 2:04pm

    We still of have Obama '08 bumper stickers too


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 10/27/2010 - 5:26pm

    Sounds like BS.


    by anna am on Wed, 10/27/2010 - 1:19pm

    There will certainly be BS involved.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 10/27/2010 - 4:18pm

    I was just reading that Stewart finds antiwar activists er...crazy.  That true?  I haven't kept up with his show online for quite a while.  And some antiwar activists are arranging parallel events?  I'm wondering what the focus is; any help?  Or is this akin to explaining such a Big Deal event to a mentally challenged child?  I had hoped for more out of this event.  Now critics are being attacked as pissants.  And not all the criticism seems to be coming from the Idiot Beltway Punditocracy.

     


    by we are stardust on Wed, 10/27/2010 - 5:07pm

    Stewart may lean left, but he's no standard-bearer for the left wing, and I don't think that that the rally is designed to promote any particular agenda. It's just a call to restore...uh...sanity.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 10/27/2010 - 5:34pm

    Okay.  I officially don't get it.  Back to my corner....  


    by we are stardust on Wed, 10/27/2010 - 5:37pm

    Oh, come on, why so coy? There are reasonable arguments to be made for all sorts of ideas that may be completely, devastatingly wrong--war, lower taxes, states' rights, small government, etc.

    But reasonable arguments are seldom heard this days, particularly from the right. Instead, we get misresentations, conspiracy theories, bigotry, and fearmongering.

    While Stewart may think that conservative ideas are wrong, demonstrating against them is not point of the rally. He's demonstrating against the way the right has been promoting its ideology.

    The left is not immune to insanity either. There's a reasonable argument to be made against war, but there are also unreasonable ways to try to stop war, and Stewart evidently thinks that some anti-war protesters are unreasonable, which should not be terribly shocking.

    PS Let's not forget that the rally also serves to promote the popularity of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Reprehensible really, organizing a rally to attract attention and promote your own work.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 10/27/2010 - 5:53pm

    So people get that it is sort of a Daily Show Extravaganza?  I guess I'd assumed it really was more...directed, somehow.  Shoot; now I'll have to go read Howard Fineman's take on it.  And you know how I hate that...   (no seriously; he's come around on a lot of issues.)


    by we are stardust on Wed, 10/27/2010 - 6:21pm

    Maybe you could just watch Stewart's closing speech.  The reason for the rally is there.


    by Ramona on Sat, 10/30/2010 - 9:53pm

    You GOT it, Genghis!  I am exhausted after this day -- the train was 1 hour and 40 minutes late leaving Charlottesville, so we had a "disadvantage" as to where we could stand.  But this whole thing was all about civility and toning down the rhetoric.  It was brilliant!  

    FYI, these are the 2 hand-made signs I went with"

    I WANT MY COUNTRY FORWARD!

     

    REFUDIATE INSANITY (you betcha!)

    Lots of people took my picture, but I'm too tired to check it all out.  When I upload my pics and short videos I can send them here if they are any good.

     

     


    by CVille Dem on Sat, 10/30/2010 - 8:30pm

    As the proud owner of a now-personally-autographed-in-real-live-person copy of BS, I would like to encourage everyone who can to make it to Michael's rally, if for no other reason than to meet him in person. He's even cuter than his avatar in real life, and an all 'round good guy!

    Sorry to miss it, but I'm sure it will be a blast!


    by stillidealistic on Wed, 10/27/2010 - 8:08pm

    I plan to drop by the lantern with little destor in stroll.  See you tomorrow, probably around 2.


    by Michael Maiello on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 3:36pm

    Excellent. The comedy and readings will start at 2, so I hope you make it by then.


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 6:45pm

    You've probably seen this video, but some may not have.  I just ran into it, and thought it would fit here.  The Stewart Event is featured on their website:

    http://www.votesanity.org/


    by we are stardust on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 5:09pm

    I hadn't. Thanks.


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 6:44pm

    It was great to watch, the music was excellent. It made me sigh, and it really made me think of my teenaged years in the 1970's, you know that rally made me  feel good. 

    I guess cause this was the message of the rally, we all have names,  we ain't that heavy, we are all brothers (and sisters!) even when we aren't getting along. Now off to have cocktails with Bruce Campbell. Laughing


    by tmccarthy0 on Sat, 10/30/2010 - 8:47pm