Just a quick note regarding our local Tea Party today..
Network coverage for Tidewater area was adequate to unsatisfactory, natch. The one network that captured my kids on raw video had the least coverage. I think the guy who was sent (sans logo-tshirt, sans microphone wielding talking headster) to get the raw footage, spent a grand total of 10 minutes there, and from the looks of the film, he only shot towards the end, after 90% of the attendees had left. Pathetic. However, it was an AWESOME tea party, with speakers and a huge collection of tea bags and pork rinds, approx. 10 huge lawn bags full that I could see, and more that had already been taken for delivery to the various senators' and congressmen's offices locally. I spoke with a reporter from an online news service, www.virginianewssource.com , and he estimated the crowd at about 1800. Not bad for unseasonably cold weather, considering the organizers were hoping for 1000 if the weather was nice! We scored a couple of free Randy Forbes for Congress tshirts, and a nice gentleman was handing out pocket Constitutions to all the kids. If you want to see the pathetic 'raw footage' from channel 13 with my cute kids on it, click here! They are at the very end, not that the footage is very long, snort.
They each had a large trashbag with TEA written on it in electrical tape (yes, I am the MacGuyver of crafts), stuffed with newspaper. The homemade tags they wore said "9 years old and $42,000 in Debt!", "Future Congressman", and "Only 7 years til I can VOTE!".This gentleman had the biggest flag there. It was tattered, and he was flying it upside down. His wife stopped me and wanted to make sure that my children understood the significance of the upside down flag and explained to them the feeling of distress he was trying to convey, and how tattered they felt. She said the flag had been shredded in the hurricane, but he could not bring himself to burn it.
Here they are posing with their teabags and a few of the lawn bags filled with tea and pork rinds everyone donated. The organizers insisted we put ours in the bag too, and the kids loved it!
I wish I had better pictures of their costumes, but it was raining and freezing, and I only had my cellphone to take pictures with. Here is a close up of my oldest in her Martha Washington costume.
What a fun day and a great opportunity to teach my children about civic responsibility and freedom of speech!
