Canceled my newspaper subscription

The reason:

Yesterday I canceled my subscription to my local paper, the Indianapolis Star for several reasons all of which I detailed for the lady who handled my call. Specifically:

The day after taking part in a TEA Party demonstration in downtown Indianapolis I opened my local Indianapolis newspaper, the Indianapolis Star, I discover that there were not 10,000 to 12,000 people there as I had actually seen but a mere 2,500. Obviously I could believe my lying eyes or my newspaper. I almost canceled it then but decided I enjoyed the comics entirely too much at that point.

After returning from the 9-12 DC protest (driving all day 9-11 to get there), spending the day in the midst of a minimum of 1.5m like minded individuals on 9-12, on 9-13 driving all day to return to Indianapolis - on 9-14 I get my newspaper excited to read about an historic event only to find a tepid article that doesn't begin to do the event justice.

On Tuesday 09-22-2009 my local paper offers me:

• A front page article describing the plight of 5 individuals who don't have health insurance and the paper attempts to tug at my heart strings to feel sorry for a 25 year single mother of 3 who lost her $10.25 per hour job along with 4 other stories of people who've made similar bad life decisions. 25 years old, single with 3 kids and I'm to support destroying the best health care system in the world for her benefit? The other 4 were equally inane stories.
• An inside the fold opinion piece (this was not the editorial page) that demeans me for paying attention to Glenn Beck instead of that monument to conservative thought, Joe Scarborough).
• An editorial opinion piece by one Dan Carpenter that explains to me why I'm so terribly wrong about ACORN.

The editorial opinion piece didn't bother me because it was opinion on an opinion page but in total it was the straw that broke this camel's back.I explained to the gentle lady on the other end of the phone that I was simply tired of seeing opinion masquerading as news on the front page and was tired of contributing to the salaries of the other fools whose opinions didn't come near to my own set of values.

Now I have $200+ per year to waste on something useful.

2009 Washington D.C. TEA Party

On Thursday July 2 of 2009 Margie and I drove from Indianapolis Indiana to Washington D.C. This was a 10 hour drive that took us through: Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and then to D.C.

The reason for the drive was to take part in a TEA Party protest on July 4th. TEA stands for Taxed Enough Already, which is an understatement. There should also be an acronym for, The Government is too damn big already, but I can't think of anything catchy to describe full blown fascism, our current political system of governance(?).

We had a great time taking in both the history memorialized by the many monuments and staid buildings while still making our point. Margie actually appeared on a CNN video clip, it was a shot f her that was taken as we "marched" from our parking place to the protest site.

Here are some shots of the TEA Party speakers, signs and participants:

2009 Washington D.C. TEA Party

The TEA Party took place on July 4th but we arrived in D.C. late on the night of the 2nd. That gave us a full day Friday to explore. We visited as many monuments, cool buildings and museums as possible. I think we probably walked 10 miles but the sights were worth it. Here's some shots of what we saw:

2009 Washington D.C. Monuments and Museums

We found a couple of gardens tucked away with some interesting plants and trees. Here are a couple of shots of those:

2009 Washinton D.C. gardens

On the evenng of the 4th we took a dinner cruise on the Potomoc. We were able to watch the fireworks from the cruise boat and it was terrific. As you can see, Margie had a dandy time. I'm a lousy dancer so she had to dance with other sufferers. Anyway we got some shots of the fireworks:

2009-07-04 DC Trip - Fireworks and Cruise