Here are some pix I took @ the DC "Rally To Restore Sanity".

We were nearly a half mile from the stage. Couldn't really see it at all. We were about 50' in front of 7th street, which I believe was the official back end of what they'd reserved. That's where the TV trucks were parked, anyway.

When the rally started, the MythBusters guys came on stage and did some "experiments", including timing a crowd "wave" from front to back. The waves took 55 seconds or so to make the trip, and I'd say we were at about the 2/3rd mark, at that point. So, the crowd was well past the officially-reserved part of the mall.

I have no idea how many people were there. But reports of 200,000+ don't surprise me. It was gigantic.

This is zoomed-in as far as my camera would go. If you look realllly close, you can see the 20' Steven Colbert puppet on the stage. Sometimes, if the people on stage were wearing something really bright, and moving enough, I could catch a glimpse of them. I saw the sun flashing off The Roots' tuba once or twice. Otherwise, I couldn't see them at all. I'm glad there were all those giant TV screens! (no, they weren't fuzzy)

Early on, two of our crew left to use the facilities, but never made it back - they couldn't push their way back through the crowd. And nobody could get a cell phone signal. So the rest of us stayed put for the day - and it was a long, thirsty, hungry five-ish hours for us. And then a long walk back to the hotel, where every pub along the way was packed. A lonnnnnnng day.

There were tons of excellent signs - most of them very clever, ironic, and completely apolitical. Though there were plenty of signs mocking the various political faux-outrages that have zipped through the culture this year, explicit political activist signs were definitely in the minority. And I didn't see any giant puppets (except for Colbert's prop). This wasn't a WTO protest, by any stretch of the imagination.

And some strange signs...

Even the stuff on-stage wasn't explicitly political. It was more cultural - anti-fear, anti-dumb, pro-reason, pro-common ground, pro-sanity - for example). The musical stuff was fun - though there was a lot of slow stuff from The Roots and John Legend and then Tweedy/Staples that kinda slowed things down more than it should have. Yusef Islam v. Ozzy ==>The OJays was pretty sweet, though.

'Twas a good time. And Georgetown kicked my ass. So many beers to drink. So much food to eat. Still dehydrated.