Nothing New Under The Sun

I have been researching homeschooling statutes in Virginia today, looking for some information to help out a friend, when I came across an article on a homeschooling group in North Dakota that inundated their legislature with teabags in protest of unfair regulations hampering homeschooling in that state. Here is an excerpt -

February 20, 1989, homeschoolers flooded the offices of North Dakota legislators with hundreds of tea bags with the attached message: "The consent of the governed for home schooling, too!" The "Bismarck Tea Party" expressed homeschoolers' frustration with years of unfair treatment. Zan Tyler, Homeschool Court Report

Look at that date, 1989! Long before anyone had heard of Sarah Palin or Barack Obama. I know it wasn't the first 'Tea Party', but hey, I do think it's kinda cool that it was homeschoolers who thought of using it first as a modern expression of the unfairness of gov't overregulation! Cool.

Hampton Roads Tea Party June 26, 2009

What a fun 'early July 4th' Hampton Roads Tea Party! It started at 3pm, and was hot out, 95 or so, but the excitement there easily made you forget any discomfort. Ice cream helped too, lol!

The signs say it all:

yes, my kids immediately yelled, "Hey look! It's Fillmore!"

There were a couple of live bands at the amphitheatre, an amazing Janis Joplin sound-alike, and a country group doing all the best redneck standards, including Sweet Home Alabama, some ZZ Top, The Georgia Satellites 'Keep Your Hands To Yourself', and of course a wonderful rendition of Lee Greenwood's 'God Bless the USA'.

Ed Kelleher band

I can't decide what my favorite part was,... the music....

the portajohns....


that's Eric "Toilet Paper" Holder

Janeane "Got To Go" Garofalo

McCain, John

Aww, John, why the long face?


And of course,

The food was pretty good...

But no, the best part was definitely the 'Egg Toss' game....

my girls take aim!

Nancy Pelosi was by far the most popular target of the day, followed by...

BULLSEYE!!!

I didn't get to stay for all the speakers in the second half (it went til 8pm), but I did get to hear Karen Hurd, the organizer of our local Tea Parties, and she was on fire!!

Thank you Karen for all your hard work putting this together!!!

(and of course everyone else who helped!)

It was a gorgeous day at Chesapeake City Park, and the patriots were out in full force!!






There were a ton of kids there this time, and the whole place just had an old-fashioned 4th of July picnic feel to it. My kids loved it, and love to tell people about it. They wanted to wear their costumes, but the heat prevented it. FYI, most of these pictures were taken by my 11yo daughter!

Tax day Tea Party in Va. Beach, VA

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!