Downtown merchant and blogger Duncan McGeary compared Wednesay's Tax Day Tea Party with Saturday's Earth Day Procession of the Species and decided the latter came up short.
"What if they gave a parade and nobody came?" he asks.
"They just did."
"You know those fainting goats? We just had a fainting goat of a parade. It went by so fast, I didn't notice. I look out the window and see a vast sea of empty parking spots - and no people."
"I suppose everyone who liked the parade, was IN the parade."
"Heh."
In an afternote, McGeary threw in another sneer: "Score: Angry right-wingers, 10. Lefty Species lovers, 2."
The Eye has to wonder whether Dunc actually ventured out of his shop on Saturday to see what was going on or just poked his head out the window for a few seconds.
We went to both the Tax Day Tea Party and the Earth Day event. The tea party (as we reported the following day) drew a good-sized and energized crowd, but there were at least as many people milling around Troy Field on Saturday as there had been on Wednesday afternoon.
The Earth Day thing, of course, didn't have the benefit of a non-stop advance buildup by Fox News and its army of conservative pundits, or the money and organizational clout of well-funded right-wing organizations like Americans for Prosperity. And the tea party no doubt drew participants from all over Eastern Oregon, while the Earth Day event most likely attracted only people from Bend and points nearby.
We know Dunc hates any event that results in the closing of downtown streets, and that might have colored his perceptions, just as our political bias might color ours. But taking all the factors into account, we still think the Earth Day festivities weren't the flop McGeary made them out to be.
