My OperaAstroturf
Friday, July 30, 2010 1:54:14 PM
A week ago Wednesday, Therese DuBois of the Convention Center, put out this notice:
The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), will hold it's "Save the Dream" event at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Friday, July 23 through Saturday, July 31, 2010. Daily activities begin at 6:00 a.m. and conclude at 12:00 a.m. Attendance is projected at 30,000 + over the life of the event.
You may expect to see the attendees for this event queued outside of the Convention Center and an inordinate amount of pedestrian and vehicular traffic. NACA attendees are being encouraged to use Metro, but many are expected to drive. Daily activities begin at 6:00 am and conclude at 12:00 am.
There are no shuttle bus operation associated with the NACA event. At this time, there are no road closures expected, but this may be subject to change with little or no notice.
There were, in fact, crowds. And yesterday there was a demonstration and a de facto street closure at Ninth and M, lasting until about 11:00am. The editor missed the singing and dancing since he had a dental appointment.
This was an astroturf, as opposed to a "grass roots", demonstration. And not the kind of astroturf that the Dallas Cowboys switched to in 2002 from natural grass to keep their cheerleaders from grazing the field. Anytime there are that many free tee shirts being handed out, somebody's paying for something.
But it was organized. The guys in the blue shirts had things under tight control.
The editor is still not sure of the point of it all.
The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), will hold it's "Save the Dream" event at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Friday, July 23 through Saturday, July 31, 2010. Daily activities begin at 6:00 a.m. and conclude at 12:00 a.m. Attendance is projected at 30,000 + over the life of the event.
You may expect to see the attendees for this event queued outside of the Convention Center and an inordinate amount of pedestrian and vehicular traffic. NACA attendees are being encouraged to use Metro, but many are expected to drive. Daily activities begin at 6:00 am and conclude at 12:00 am.
There are no shuttle bus operation associated with the NACA event. At this time, there are no road closures expected, but this may be subject to change with little or no notice.
There were, in fact, crowds. And yesterday there was a demonstration and a de facto street closure at Ninth and M, lasting until about 11:00am. The editor missed the singing and dancing since he had a dental appointment.
This was an astroturf, as opposed to a "grass roots", demonstration. And not the kind of astroturf that the Dallas Cowboys switched to in 2002 from natural grass to keep their cheerleaders from grazing the field. Anytime there are that many free tee shirts being handed out, somebody's paying for something.
But it was organized. The guys in the blue shirts had things under tight control.
The editor is still not sure of the point of it all.
Unregistered user # Monday, August 2, 2010 3:57:29 PM
Alley Denizenhaldavitt # Tuesday, August 3, 2010 3:04:59 PM