Several people have emailed me expressing curiosity as to my take on Inauguration 2009. As this was my fourth Inauguration experience from near “ground zero” – I do have experience with these types of events.
However, I am not sure I have much to add to what one could easily see’ on the television in regards to the festivities.
This afternoon I walked by the back of the White House to get to work about 4:00pm and there were nearly 1,000 people in the near vicinity trying to take pictures of themselves next to the White House. This was different in that usually I get to hear at least seven languages being spoken as I wend my way on what I consider a thorough fare sidewalk and most people consider an opportune time to stop and take pictures (while backing up to the far side of the fenced sidewalk) and then calling everyone they know on their cell phone to say “guess where I am right now?” )
If I stopped to let everyone take their pictures… then it would take at least an hour to make it 100 feet. So, unless they are counting off one-two-three- I duck and keep moving. So far I am probably “included” in on several hundred thousand digital camera downloads as a deleted image= weird American actually walking forward on sidewalk in camera zone.
Today the crowd was different, 95% were black Americans with their small children, here to celebrate a moment in history. I overheard one man talking on his cell phone “I am here at the White House, um… I mean Barack’s House.”
What also felt different to me was that there were three serious motor cades that arrived during my walk by the back end of both the Executive Office building and the White House. Usually for these all pedestrian traffic is diverted to the other side of Constitution Avenue for a lovely additional four block walk towards 15th Street. Either anybody got a ten car motorcade complete with ambulance, motorcycles, dummy cars and blacked out SUV’s and a Hum-Vee this afternoon or? Who knows, in the past if Bubba’s dog needed to poop on the south lawn, rush hour traffic was diverted for hours.
It will be interesting to see if there is any change in the landscape crew this spring… I have anxiously awaited the breaking news by some enterprising reporter = “No green cards for White House Landscape crew.” and/or “tractor trailer sized shredder trucks seen leaving grounds late a night prior to transition.”
Understandably security is at an unprecedented level. While I didn’t see the machine guns and Haz mat suits of the post 9-11 weeks…things are being taken seriously. As they should be. This evening when I left there was a six square block lock-down, roving motorcades, helicopters, airplanes inside the no fly zone…and hundreds of people lining the streets in anticipation of getting a glimpse of B in transit. Geez.. and instead of being excited I was strategizing on the possibility of making it to my car in the near zero wind chill after walking six blocks and escaping the Manhattan rush like traffic jam to Constitution avenue at 11:00pm.
So…did I get to “see” the parade?…through one window, in the glare if sundown, between five fences, fifty porta-potties, seven stashed tour busses…yes I did! as they turned the corner for the last lap to the White House.But, after one hour of sleep on the floor of the restaurant, five days of four hour plus public transportation commutes, and five days of eating cold leftovers standing up …I still was amazed by the notion, that probably there wouldn’t be another moment in my lifetime that I would be in close proximity to millions of people that were happy, jubilant and hopeful. If I closed my eyes I could feel the ground vibrating (not the cars sealed with security tape in the garage beneath me, with stickers that indicated that national security concerns might make destroying your car necessary ) rather a moment of hopefulness on a dark, cold winter day- that it just might be possible to face dawn with an empowered enthusiasm.
However- if it is against the “rules” to entertain lobbyists, politicians and CEO’s – with sit down dinners, junkets and/or trips to Hawaii… it is still NOT against the “rules” to invite people to an event with “heavy” passed bite sized morsels @ $400 plus /person.
I will be interested to see just how telecommunication de-regulation in regards to the Internet might be changing in the next couple of months… I might even Goggle this!
Cynical prevails…Landing on the moon may have launched the whole earth catalogue..but didn’t make for a “Whole Earth” …but then again- unlike the Inauguration eight years ago where I saw six years old girls from Texas wearing sable coats that equaled in price to ten Habitat for humanity homes- things are a changing-hopefully the long slow climb back from a global political, human rights and economic melt down- as difficult and daunting as it may will seem at the moment – has witnessed a turn of the tide.
How did you celebrate the Inauguration?
