Inauguration Day Madness Update!

Just to follow up on my previous post... I spent Inauguration Day in a news-editing bubble at the ABC News bureau in downtown DC- far isolated from the huge, freezing maddening crowds, but at the same time, hearing intimately from people who traveled far and wide to get to Washington - all for the opportunity to stand for several hours with strangers in the bitter cold and to see an African American man become president. I recorded, and then edited these peoples' stories into soundbites. And the stories I heard changed my perspective - a bit.

I am pretty cynical by nature - I voted for Obama, but never felt the glow that many others apparently did. And while I am still wary of him as I am with any politician, I could not help but be touched by the stories I heard from people who felt the need to be there.

I edited the story of a 70-year-old Louisiana woman who used to drink from a colored-only water fountain... a young woman from North Carolina whose father was the second black player ever to play football at the University of Oklahoma... and another woman who received her education in segregated schools in Huntsville, Alabama. These are people who have seen a world of change in their own life times - like going from the Wright Brothers to landing on the Moon - but at a much faster clip!

I heard from a woman who was watching CNN in her home in Columbus, Ohio last night when she decided she HAD to be in Washington for the inauguration. So she and two friends hopped in the car at 9:45 pm, and drove all night to make it to the Mall. I edited people who flew in from California and Las Vegas - and from a family who crammed 12 people into an RV to make the pilgrimage from Florida. Their dedication to being a part of history was touching and admirable.

As for me - I drove away from Inauguration day with a far better commute than I had any right to expect. After facing unexpected detours in the morning, I flew out of town in the afternoon. We had been warned to avoid driving, and to take Metro, but I made it home - from 17th and K to Olney - in 50 minutes. If I had taken the subway, I might still be on the train!

I am thankful to be done now with the Inaugural hoopla - and I suspect the rest of Washington is as well. Thank goodness this day only comes once every four years!

I do have one small rant to close with. For a world that has supposedly changed - one that strives to embrace brotherhood and a new commitment of acceptance - I think we still have to work on growing up a bit. The way President Bush was treated by the crowd at the Capitol upon his introduction was shameful and immature. The crowd of invited guests - the well-monied, well-respected folks - booed and taunted Mr. Bush with choruses of "Na Na, Hey Hey Goodbye". That disrespects not only Mr. Bush, but also the office he held - the same office President Obama holds today.

If Mr. Obama is to be successful, he will have to find a way to rid the nation of its polarized ways. This little display certainly sent a message that there is still quite a lot of work to do.

And now... onto the hard part! Good luck, President Obama!

Inauguration Day Madness!

"Life On The Beach" comes to you on this Inauguration Day from the ABC News bureau in NW Washington... just a few blocks north of the White House. I'm writing this post at 5 am, and I only have time to write because I got to work an hour and a half early today - that's how paranoid I was about getting here.

I chose to drive to work because I loathe Metro even on a good day - and it appears that was a good decision because even at 5 am, the reports coming in are that folks are packed in like sardines on the trains!

My drive down Connecticut Avenue was uneventful for the most part, although the traffic volume was probably 10 times the normal load for 4 in the morning. On a day like this, though, you have to be ready for anything, and in fact, I got to within a half-mile of work, and the road suddenly closed. Now, I had been studying maps and websites and the Washington Post for weeks in preparation for today, and there was no mention of this road closing... Fortunately - and for no discernable reason - I was able to divert around through Dupont Circle and get back onto Connecticut Avenue - which kinda defeats the purpose of closing it in the first place!

As I got down to the area near ABC - just at the northern edge of the security "green zone", the energy was palpable... First of all, the sidewalks were full of people - Some were heading towards the Mall, but more of them were in evening clothes - still heading home after a late night of pre-inauguration partying! It was manna from heaven for cab drivers, who were zigzagging across the street to pick up fares, cutting off any traffic that got in their way... Add cop cars firing their sirens and lights every few seconds, and it got to be quite jarring for those of us trying to detour our way to the office before the SH** really hit the fan!

I realize as I write this that I've really written very little of substance on this inauguration day... but it helps to burn off some of the adrenaline that got me out of bed early and down here before the maddening crowds... Let's hope the rest of the day goes smoothly!

Pizza You Can Believe In!

The inauguration week craziness continues! I showed you a few days ago that local supermarkets are working it hard to get folks to party on for the inauguration... Now, local pizza places are working it, too! I received this e-mail from Ledo this morning!

For those of you who are not in the DC area, the inauguration may not be a big honking deal - at least in terms of being a holiday. But around the DC area, more than 400,000 federal workers have the day off, along with most private businesses in downtown DC and virtually every school district in the area. So local businesses are saying "Yes We Can" to every opportunity to make a buck!

Hell, Yes, I Told You So...

Well, lookie here... The DC Government is backing off its earlier projections that 5 million would be attending the inauguration... The city now says the number may be more like 2 million, and organizers admit the original figure was really just a product of exuberance over the election. "It's more of an art than a science," City Administrator Dan Tangherlini told the Washington Post. "The fact is, earlier it was speculation. Now we're beginning to flesh it out and figure out what the physical capacities of the system are." Not exactly a scientific method for public planning, is it?

And there's more:

With a lack of solid information -- the Secret Service and the Presidential Inaugural Committee declined to make their estimates public -- colossal numbers continue to be bandied about. Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz, head of the D.C. National Guard, said at a news conference Thursday that the crowd estimate was 4 million.

His source? "That is the number I have heard on the television," he said.

I told you more than a month ago that the estimates were baloney! Logistically speaking, there is no way they will ever stuff 4 million people on the Mall. Looks like the geniuses have just figured that out!

More Inauguration Bullsh**!

Two items of note on the inauguration today...

First, it looks like organizers (well, everyone but Mayor Adrian Fenty) are now backing away from yesterday's rediculous report that as many as four million people could be on the Mall for the inauguration, and now the top figure seems to be 3 million. As mentioned yesterday, I believe four million is logistically impossible, and I don't think they'll get to three million, either.

Charlie Gibson mentioned on ABC's World News last night that 3 million would exceed:

• Reagan's First Inauguration
• LBJ's record-setting 1.2 million inauguration
• Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech and
• The Million Man March

COMBINED. He also mentioned that the region's 90,000 hotel rooms could accomodate three million people - as long as folks didn't mind sharing 33 people to a room!

It's heartening to see other media call B.S. on this Inauguration crowd story, but there's not a whiff of crowd size revision in this morning's Washington Post.

The Post does redeem itself somewhat by reporting in Marc Fisher's blog that Montgomery County School chief Jerry Weast has called B.S. on an online petition from students and teachers asking for an extra day off to observe the inauguration. Weast says he doubts very many students would actually try to go down to the Mall, and he says, in any case, they'd learn more by watching the ceremony in school where it could be discussed in class - a point I made in this space last week!

OK - I'm calling Bullsh** On The Washington Post!

Earlier this week, the Washington Post's media critic, Howard Kurtz, made the observation that the so-called "Mainstream Media" is falling all over itself to fawn over the Obama administration. I can find no better evidence of that than in Kurtz' own newspaper this morning, where the Post is warning that as many as four million people could fill the Mall and environs for Inauguration Day on January 20th.

I have no doubt whatsoever that President Obama's swearing-in will smash all previous inauguration records, but the premise that it will draw a crowd of that size is logistically impossible - and the Post knows it.

The largest crowd in recent history occured during the Million Man March - pictured above - and that crowd fell well short of a million, despite any political assertions made otherwise. When the US Park Police set the figure at closer to 400,000, march organizers threatened to sue, and Congress ordered Park Police to no longer provide crowd estimates for events.

But let's set aside political motivations, and ask logistical questions instead.

• How will four million people get to the Mall? The busiest day in Metro history carried 850,000 thousand passengers - and most of those were round-trips, so that accounts for about 450,000 people. Can you tell me how Metro is going to increase its passenger load by a factor of 8 or 9?


• They will park buses at RFK Stadium, and some people will walk from there. If they had a thousand buses - an extraordinary number - and they each had 50 people on board, that is still only 50,000 people. A pittance when you're trying to get four million people on the Mall.


• Where will four million people eat and sleep? There are 90,000 hotel rooms in the area. Even with four people to a room, you need to find basement floors for millions of more houseguests to sleep in. And when those four million get to the mall, where will they go to the bathroom? Are there even enough porta-johns in the DC area to accomodate four million people?


• This event is in January - Where will these four million people be when it rains or snows?

Look, I get the excitement that the Obama inauguration will bring, but there's just no way, short of having people camp out for days in ideal weather, that even half that many people are going to be on the Mall or on Pennsylvania Avenue on January 20th. The government is doing its job by preparing as much as it can for huge crowds, but the Washington Post is NOT doing its job by not calling B.S. on those kinds of crowd estimates... So I'm calling B.S. on the Post!

Inaugurate This!

This happens every four years... School systems are falling all over themselves trying to figure out whether to be open on Inauguration Day. The pressure is even higher than normal in Prince George's County because of the historical nature of the event, and one school board member there says there's no point in trying to stay open because no one - staff or students- will show up anyway.

I have conflicted feelings about this. I am all for letting students off IF they will use the day to go down to the Mall and take in the ceremonies. The only problem is there's no way of proving they will do so. In addition, January 20th comes the day after MLK day, which means it would be a four-day weekend. Some families will use that as an excuse to go out of town, and they won't be observing the change of administrations anyway.

Teachers in some counties are pushing for the day off, presumably so they can join the hoards on the Mall as well. I think they should perhaps put their money where their mouths are. Our school systems are struggling to meet their budgets, and are considering furloughs in many places. How about giving everyone the day off, and count it as a furlough? It would save money and allow everyone to celebrate at the same time.

I have been to three inaugurations - and those were back in the days before heavy security measures were in place. If you like freezing your assets off, standing in long security lines and not really being able to see anything, then I think you'll enjoy Inauguration Day. I will happily stay home, thank you.

In any case, whether schools are closed or not, they need to be using the inauguration as a learning experience. If schools are open, they should be shutting down instruction to let kids watch the ceremonies, and they should plan quizzes and other activities around it.

If schools are closed, there oughta be a quiz on Wednesday!