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ONE OF FR'S FINEST
MrConfettiMan has the distinct honor
and privilege to have laid the cornerstone for
the DC Chapter by being the first, solo freeper
to protest againt the Clinton Administration in
front of the White House on a cool, crisp
Saturday morning back in September, 1998.
MrConfettiMan
Freeper since 8-11-98
West River MD
MrConfettiMan chose his
screen name from the "cartoon" character, shown
above, that his wife and her sister have been
drawing for years.
On September 26, 1998, MrConfettiMan
invited people to join him in front of the White
House. He showed up with a sign that read GET
OUT OF OUR HOUSE! and IT'S THE LAW, STUPID! The
next weekend FIRE THE LIAR and JAIL TO THE CHIEF
would become his signature protest signs.
Only one other person joined him that
day--a lurker--so MCM went home and wrote the
first after-action report challenging the rest
of Free Republic by asking: "I Was There, Where Were
You?". The next week, 24 people
showed up with handmade signs. Kristinn and
Angelwood were among that first group of 24
protesters. This protest, only their second
effort, made it onto CNN!
MCM was extremely active during the
early days of the DC Chapter and for that he
enjoys a lot of respect and gratitude from many
long time Freepers.
Here is a collection of links to the
various FR threads written during the early
months of the DC Chapter by MrConfettiMan. These
include protest announcements, after action
reports, and photo spreads. Most of the links of
this page point into the FR archives so certain
pages will respond with the dreaded "This
article has been deleted." message.
MrConfettiMan Threads (September '98
- February '99)
On October 31, 1998 thousands of
Freepers from all over the country gathered in
the shadow of the Washington Monument and joined
Jim Robinson in his cry, ”IMPEACH, IMPEACH,
IMPEACH”. This was the March For Justice and
MrConfettiMan was there. Here is a link to his
excellent report.
MrConfettiMan’s March for Justice
Report
MrConfettiMan organized a protest
outside the Rayburn Building on Thursday,
November 19, 1998, the day Judge Starr first
appeared before the House Judiciary Committee.
He put out a last minute "Call to
Action"stating: “All right everybody. It's time.
It's now or never. This is the week we've been
waiting for and now that it's upon us we must
seize the moment and let our voices be heard.
Think of our weekly White House protests as mere
training exercises preparing us for the start of
the Impeachment Hearings. The media presence
around DC during the next week and a half is
going to be huge and it's an opportunity we
can't afford to miss."
The protest was another huge success
garnering television coverage from Fox News,
MSNBC and CNN, as well as various print
media.
Another highlight from MrConfettiMan
exploits is the first freep of the White House
Correspondents Dinner. The weekend of this event
coincided with Free Republic's Tribute to the
House Managers Dinner and Rally, which meant
there would be lots of freepers on hand to
pester the so-called media elite as they passed
by our gaunlet.
During the Tribute Rally for the House
Managers, MrConfettiMan was presented with one
of the Significant Freeper Awards for 1998-1999
awarded that day and the DC Chapter was
presented with the first annual Most Valuable
Chapter Award for 1998-1999.
Specifically for the White House
Correspondents Dinner freep, MrConfettiMan came
up with the idea of handing out "dishonor"
awards to media personalities as they walked by
(those who didn't walk by had their's mailed to
their place of business). Freepers voted on the
categories and then voted on the winner in each
category. For example, Joe Lockhart won the
coveted "Josef Goebbels Achievement Award - For
Exhibiting the Characteristics of a True Master
of the Art of Mass Propaganda."
FReepers also awarded three awards to
the "good guys." Paul Sperry, Joseph Farah and
Brit Hume were each awarded "The Endangered
Species Award - For Being True to the First
Amendment by Pursuing and Reporting the
Facts..."
Our own Registered created the grapics
for each award.
You can view all of the award graphics
using the link below
Award
Graphics
“Do you remember what you were doing
when John F. Kennedy was shot? Do you remember
what you were doing when the space shuttle
Challenger exploded? Do you remember what you
were doing when the Impeachment Trial of Bill
Clinton ended with his acquittal by the
Sentate?" So begins MrConfettiMan's after-action
report from his day at the Capitol with other DC
Chapter freepers written later in the evening of
February 12, 1999.
Continuing…”Most of the day, there
were clouds in the sky and a brisk breeze was
blowing. But shortly before noon, the skies
darkened and the wind really started howling. I
turned to those around me and said, 'You know,
I'm not a very religious person but the sudden
change in weather seems almost Biblical coming
so close to the actual vote”
“Eventually, the Senate was called to
order. The North-East lawn of the Capitol is a
rather large patch of grass resting between the
Senate and the Supreme Court. More than 80% of
this area was empty with the majority of people
up close to the Senate. I decided I wanted to be
alone as the voting started so I walked into the
very middle of this empty space and continued
listening to CSPAN [on my Sony Walkman]. As time
wore on and the impact of the vote started to
hit home for everybody, the rest of the freepers
came over to join me. We stood there, in a
circle, in the middle of this large open space,
in silence, until the vote was over."
Concluding..."While today was an
extremely sad one for the country, I was glad to
have been a part of an important moment in our
history. I was happier still to have done so
with people who, less than six months ago, were
total strangers to me. This is the power of Free
Republic and the Internet. This is what has the
media and the power brokers of government so
frightened. That ordinary citizens now have a
means to organize must scare the crap out of
these guys. What JimRob has started, we must
keep alive."
You can read MrConfettiMan's
after-action report of this historic day using
the link Below.
This is the
Power of Free Republic and the
Internet
This photo was taken the day the
Senate acquitted Clinton of the impeachment
charges. MrConfettiMan is on the left, holding
the page from the Washington Times that FR had
published. This photo appeared in newspapers
from Annapolis to Anchorage and a Freeper in
Alaska sent MCM a copy of the photo from his
hometown paper.
MrConfettiMan was born in Newark, NJ
and is mostly of Italian descent (75%). (Being
both from NJ and Italian, he says he gets "all"
the jokes on The Sopranos.) He received all of
his schooling in NJ, graduating from Stevens
Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ with a BE
Degree in Electrical Engineering. Following his
college graduation, he accepted a job in his
field with Bendix Corporation and has been in
the Baltimore-Washington-Annapolis area ever
since.
For the techies...though
MrConfettiMan's EE degree may seem like a
natural fit for a hardware technical career
path, he decided on the software path. In his
own words, "Basically, my entire career I've
been developing real-time, mission critical,
embedded systems. I spent my first five years
working on air traffic control radar systems and
pretty much the remaining years have been spent
developing command and data handling flight
software for small astronomy satellites at
Goddard Space Flight Center. It's my privilege
to know that there are three satellites in orbit
running software I helped develop." Currently,
MrConfettiMan is once again working in the
aerospace field.
MrConfettiMan has been married for
seven years to a “wonderful, loving and
beautiful woman” who hails from San Diego, CA.
The story of how they met and why they decided
to settle on the East Coast would simply take
too many screenfuls of text to explain.
Once on the East Coast, MrsConfettiMan
started working as a math tutor and substitute
teacher before getting a full-time position as a
fourth grade teacher. Several years later, she
moved to the county level as a math resource
teacher working with the teachers throughout the
county not only to help teach math but also to
help the county create the math curriculum.
Mr and MrsConfettiMan don't have any
children yet but they do have a black lab, which
they adopted from an animal shelter a little
over a year ago. Her name is Maggie. She loves
the snow, the water, magazines, running around
inside and out, and is “100% pure energy
disguised as a puppy.” Oh, and she has her own
chair and couch, the latter of which you see her
lying on below.
When he's not working, freeping or
playing with Maggie, MrConfettiMan enjoys
playing video (GameCube - Metroid Prime, Star
Fox, Zelda, Resident Evil) and computer (PC -
Diablo II, Jedi Knight II, NOLF II and RTSs)
games, reading fiction and non-fiction, and
mountain biking.
Enjoy Your Day, MrConfettiMan
YOU ARE ONE OF FR’S
FINEST
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