"GIVE ME LIBERTY or GIVE ME GAS"  was  the theme of one of the entries in this years Doo Dah Parade in Columbus's Short North. A lot of the Doo Dah Parade this year was about gas prices... not all of the parade was gas prices... but a lot of it was gas prices.

The Doo Dah Parade is not your ordinary 4th of July parade. The Doo Dah Parade is parody... the Doo Dah is living editorial cartoons.

Today's Columbus Dispatch editorial cartoon is about gas prices.... and about the state of the news.   Jeff Stahler, Editorial cartoonist for The Columbus Dispatch - July 6, 2008, All gas prices, all of the time.

Using restraint Stahler only used editorial cartoons about gas prices twice in June 2008.

I like variety in the Doo Dah Parade but I really like it when the Doo Dah parade is very local... back in the days when Buck Rinehart was the mayor there was lots of fun local things to pick fun at... Rinehart was the 2008 Doo Dah Parade's "Less Than Grand Marshall. "

Rinehart was quoted in the Columbus Dispatch that this was the first year since leaving office (1992?) that he was at the parade.  He said

" I went every year during office to see what they were going to do to me," he said. "They liked to make fun of me."

Even with all the crazyness the Doo Dah Parade has rules which include:

"NO FULL NUDITY!"

and all politician's have to wear  a funny hat...

Of course there were perennial Doo Dah favorites like the Marching Fidels but the Doo Dah Parade 2008, had lots of pedicabs, bikes and mopeds.  Bicyclists with WAD (Westerville to Arena District Bikeway) dragged an SUV up Neil Avenue.  ;-  )

The photo of  WAD in the Columbus Dispatch in "Whoop-de Doo Dah!" is better