Students gather for sanity rally

Abandoning their spooktacular costumes Saturday, some students chose to stay in and watch John Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity.”

Stewart, host of the satirical news program “The Daily Show,” on Comedy Central, sponsored the event in an effort to fight sensationalism in the media.

Junior Andrew Cambron, a Collins LLC resident, helped coordinate a screening of the rally from noon to 3 p.m. at the residence hall. The rally was broadcast live from the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and was said to have drawn a large crowd.

“The most important message of the program was that we, as Americans, have a lot more in common than we have to argue about,” Cambron said. “We should step back from the media messages and just get along with each other.”

A longtime fan of “The Daily Show,” Cambron said the broadcast would be a fun way to get everyone up Saturday.

However, the junior faced a bit of an unforeseen setback during the day.

The gathering at Collins was originally scheduled to be outside, but Cambron and his crew had problems getting a projector screen to stand up.

“We started set-up at 10 with an inflatable outdoor screen, but because of the cold air it wouldn’t inflate properly. There was a glare, and then the sprinklers went on,” Cambron said. “It could have been all sorts of catastrophe.”

Junior Jeremiah Trotter, who was in charge of the technical aspects of the production, said he believed the Collins mini-rally was still a success, despite the change in location.

“Clearly Stewart wanted to put the rally on to get a bunch of ridiculous people together to restore faith in our world not being destroyed,” Trotter said. “It told us not to be afraid of the crazy nutcases.”

The program’s theme was to help question the lines between sanity and insanity. It called Americans to listen not to the loudest voice in the media but the most reasonable.

Stephen Colbert, host of another satirical news show, “The Colbert Report,” on Comedy Central, help played a comedic role while Stewart acted as the serious counterpart.

Trotter said the most memorable part of the program was a poem by Colbert, which named every “horror-story” broadcast by the media. The fears ranged from drinking bottled water to bear attacks.

“The bear attacks — those were the best,” Trotter said. “I just like people getting killed by bears.”

A variety of musical acts also performed with the witty prose throughout the rally — The Roots, Ozzy Osbourne, The OJ’s and Cat Stevens were just a few.

At the event’s close, Stewart quoted Franklin D. Roosevelt, saying, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” He then went on to apply this idea to present-day America.

“We live now in hard times, not end times,” Stewart said. “Sanity will always be and has been in the eye of the beholder. To see you today and the kind of people you are has restored mine.”

IU students at Collins greeted his statement with a roar of applause.