So, training Holiday today. Yay for that. But I'm sitting at home watching the Faux News Channel and cannot help but think.

What a bunch of pretentious assholes.

Seriously; "The peaceful transfer of power that happens nowhere else but in America" Holy shit, if I didn't hate CNN (and especially Wolf Blitzer) so much I'd watch a different channel But this shit is on mute until Obama comes out.

PBS/NPR is probably covering it better if you can stand the turtlenecks.

One of the local channels has it on in HD no less, yay for not being FNC

I'm stuck at work today, so won't be catching any of today's coverage (live at least), but I did find a link to a transcript of the Right Reverend Gene Robinson's (yes, *that* bishop :) ) opening invocation from last night, which HBO cut off (although they did show Bono and all the other celebrity spoogestravaganza last night), which went as follows:

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please
join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God's blessing upon our nation
and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist
on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are
beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily
from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against
refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic "answers" we've
preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about
ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise
to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us
will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new
president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must
always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a
genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an
understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every
religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in
the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the
office of President of the United States.



Pollyanna, to be sure, but it's a shame that his invocation was overshadowed by all the hoopla surrounding evangelical Rick Warren (delivering the opening invocation this morning). I'm extremely rushed today but look forward to checking here for you guys' impressions and only hope the ceremony coverage itself will be less nauseating than what I saw yesterday.

Regards,
Nydia

'"The peaceful transfer of power that happens nowhere else but in America"'

- Rofl, well I'm glad you recognised that anyway :P

Yeah well we know how much ruckus you Commonwealthers cause with your changes in Parliament can't have any of that here...

Highlight for me so far has been the music provided as I type, with the fantastic ensemble assembled for this event. I always enjoy Yoyo Ma, but Perlman and the others made it a truly memorable piece of music.


The crowded streets and mall do inspire awe.

Heh, he flubbed the oath.

I watched it switching between Fox and CNN, just to contrast. I liked CNN's infographics much better.

That was one amazing speech from Obama. We (I was required to) had it set up here in two conference rooms. The glowing comments from the staunch republicans watching it made me feel even more inspired by the speech.

Really? I was watching it alone, so there was no social proof driving me to like it, and I really thought it was meh.

"Shit's bad, and we're going to have to suck it up."

No way. Thank Allah that Obama figured that one out for me!

No way. Thank Allah that Obama figured that one out for me!


As opposed to "The fundamentals of the economy are sound...or...I hadn't heard there is a recession...shall I go on.

If we're just hoping he'll be better than McCain or Bush, we've already lost.

Wasn't there someone on here that said Bush was going to declair Martial Law and keep him and Dick Cheney in power? Guess that's not happening....

Hehe, it seems we are being treated to the "sour grapes" analysis before we even see anything done by this new administration.

Congratulations to the Obama team. I do not envy him the task laid out before him. While I so not trust him I hope he succeeds.

I thought the chanting of the hey,hey goodbye song when Bush took to the platform was a pretty classless act. while I was NEVER EVER a Bush supporter he deserved the full dignity afforded the office in his last hour.

Congratulations to the Obama team. I do not envy him the task laid out before him. While I so not trust him I hope he succeeds.

your best post ever.

Wasn't there someone on here that said Bush was going to declair Martial Law and keep him and Dick Cheney in power? Guess that's not happening....

aww, you must be so depressed.

'"The peaceful transfer of power that happens nowhere else but in America"'

- Rofl, well I'm glad you recognised that anyway :P

im not sure you knew this, but in sweden we have a nice civil war every 4 years instead. peacefully transferring power? pfft, sounds like something only women and children would do!

Something must be wrong, I 100% agree with an Os post....of course, I'm finding hard to trust ANY politician at this point. I just distrusted Obama less than the other choice.

Fucking typical. Kennedy throws himself on the floor in convulsions. What a drama queen. Trying to steal the thunder from vonderful Premier Obama's big day. I can't help but wonder if Mary JO is giggling somewhere.

Fucking typical. Kennedy throws himself on the floor in convulsions. What a drama queen. Trying to steal the thunder from vonderful Premier Obama's big day. I can't help but wonder if Mary JO is giggling somewhere.

>sigh<

At least we'll always have post #15

I thought the chanting of the hey,hey goodbye song when Bush took to the platform was a pretty classless act. while I was NEVER EVER a Bush supporter he deserved the full dignity afforded the office in his last hour.


I didn't see that, but I only watched from when they were walking out until the minute Obama finished his speech. Then I had to get back to work. Though I agree with you, that's pretty damned classless.

I just read the transcript of the inaugural address, and it looks like it was a fine speech, expanding on his call to service, sermonlike in tone without being dogmatic. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that he included 'non-believers' in his bit on religious diversity, making him, I feel fairly sure, the first to do so. He has a wonderful command of language and regardless of what he accomplishes or doesn't accomplish during his tenure, at least he won't be embarassing to listen to...

Regards,
Nydia

P.S. While you mentioned the Kennedy collapse, CNN also had a shot of Senator Byrd being wheeled out of the luncheon as well, and he is looking *very* frail these days...

I just read the transcript of the inaugural address, and it looks like it was a fine speech, expanding on his call to service, sermonlike in tone without being dogmatic. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that he included 'non-believers' in his bit on religious diversity, making him, I feel fairly sure, the first to do so. He has a wonderful command of language and regardless of what he accomplishes or doesn't accomplish during his tenure, at least he won't be embarassing to listen to...

Regards,
Nydia

P.S. While you mentioned the Kennedy collapse, CNN also had a shot of Senator Byrd being wheeled out of the luncheon as well, and he is looking *very* frail these days...


One thing he might well accomplish during his tenure without needing to exert any undue government influence is to get the youth of this country actually using vocabulary again, and not just the grunts and "ya know" and the so-called "urban" and "gangsta" language that kids seem to think gives them cred and makes them cool.

It's not as if Colin Powell was speaking ebonics all these years.

True, but Colin Powell didn't have the, shall we say, sex appeal among the youth that Obama does, either, and the biggest barrier to encouraging education (or affecting evidence of one's education) among inner city youths (and I've taught at both inner-city schools and colleges) is the fact that it's definitively 'not cool', and those who do attemot to use or display the results of their education are shunned as 'sellouts'.

Obama being, quite clearly, cool, puts him in a whole other league with regard to the prospective *willingness* of urban youth to emulate him.

Regards,
Nydia

I guess my point is that people who look to thugs are probably still going to look to thugs. Obama can't out-thug them or out-whatever Kobe and Mike Vick. Meanwhile, the people actually interested in having good role models have had them for some time now.

Wasn't there someone on here that said Bush was going to declair Martial Law and keep him and Dick Cheney in power? Guess that's not happening....Shhh, that might have been me. I had to fight the urge not to jump up and dance when Bush was officially no longer president.I thought the chanting of the hey,hey goodbye song when Bush took to the platform was a pretty classless act. while I was NEVER EVER a Bush supporter he deserved the full dignity afforded the office in his last hour.I sure wouldn't side with the chanters, but I'm not sure Bush deserved much better. He did a lot to destroy the dignity of the office, and the nation.

We pulled students into a large room to watch the show, and the experience was interesting. They were surprisingly quiet during the ceremony, cheering and clapping occasionally. Definitely more Obama fans than not in our student body. And a couple of Aryan pride boys, shouting and cheering. We decided in advance to let them talk and express themselves, as long as the crowd didn't get out of hand.

The ceremony was exactly as expected, including Obama's speech. Did anyone expect anything different? Now we just have to see if he and his crew can follow through. If nothing else, I like the positive air going into this presidency.

Was I the only one slightly anxious during that whole thing, worried that something was going to happen?

Nope. I was worried it was going to happen in a room full of students as well, and they'd go crazy.

Was I the only one slightly anxious during that whole thing, worried that something was going to happen?

I was very worried about it myself. It would have been easy to do something to create a stampede or worse.

I thought the chanting of the hey,hey goodbye song when Bush took to the platform was a pretty classless act. while I was NEVER EVER a Bush supporter he deserved the full dignity afforded the office in his last hour.

I agree with you. It was very classless; I TiVo'ed MSNBC and b/c of that chanting I missed the annoucement of Michelle Obama. Bush is a tool, but the office of the president deserves respect.

I was the only person at my office who even cared about this day which frustrated me. The network folks have everything that streams throttled to the point of not being to watch/hear anything. So I went out to my car and listened to sirius. Then was able to find a channel on AOL radio on my iphone that I could continue listening to the rest of the day. I was very surprised at the lack of caring in my place of work. Yes, we were busy but still.

I bounced back between Fox and NBC all day. My daughters school and classes did not bother turning it on at all. Think she said the 8th graders watched a few minutes of it but no one else really cared. This county is 99% Republican though. I watched every second cause I'm a politics/news junky.

My daughter watched it at daycare (she's 4).

I thought this was interesting:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/44.president/inauguration/mall.satellite/

It looked 100% packed on TV, but apparently that wasn't the case at all. They were just clustered up in ways that made for good camera shots? Sneaky.

I was too tired from my daily routine to stay up and watch it. Glad it went OK. For 180 million dollar bill that it cost, one can hope it went smooth.

Was I the only one slightly anxious during that whole thing, worried that something was going to happen?

I was worried as well San ;(

I was wondering how long the rioting was going to be if the nation saw a head explode via snipe, thank god nothing happened.

The George Washington quote at the end gave me chills in a good way.

It was packed to the point that they stopped allowing people to enter the National Mall.

All streets heading North and South from the mall were jam packed with people trying to get in. I walked from 15th to 8th on H Street and there were thousands of people on each. It was insane.

San, I was thinking about something happening the entire day, more in line with the suicide bomber type than an assassination event; more of an attempt to disrupt and cause terror than anything else. There were just too many people packed too close together, and casualties would have been enormous in that scenario, including the secondary ones of folks being trampled by those trying to get away.

They were discussing how far out they had to shut down traffic and stop any further folks from getting in, due to the large numbers. As was mentioned, there were a lot of folks with tickets that had no chance of even getting near to getting in due to the size of the crowd.

On the other hand, just think of how crazy security must have been, the stuff you can't see. Suppose aircraft were shoot-on-sight?

I think I heard them mention that the speaking platform was behind a bullet proof shield, although even an attempt would have been riot causing, and lives would have been lost in the stampede.

Pictures and stuff to come tomorrow, I am just getting to a cab now to head home. Watched a woman get trampled in the metro, another supposedly got hit by a car due to overcrowding. Some good stories but they'll have to wait until I'm rested.

'"The peaceful transfer of power that happens nowhere else but in America"'

- Rofl, well I'm glad you recognised that anyway :P

Halo, I've been reading a lot of your posts, and some of them seem filled with contempt towards the US. Before you make any additional judgments about the US, keep in mind that none of your rights in the UK are constitutionally guaranteed, your Prime Minister is not directly elected (meaning the most populous party carries the winner, and as long as that party has more numbers, the Prime Minister can stay PM as long as he desires), you have no reasonable expectation to privacy (and at times illegal if you do not co-operate with the authorities in cases such as encryption), coupled with the fact that your government (or rather HM government, since in her speeches she refers it as "[m]y government") does not have an event wherein every four years the leader of the country is reevaluated, nor does it prevent a constitutional crisis if or when a monarch actually takes advantage of royal power, no power to rebel as the right to arms is not guaranteed (even Bill of Rights Act 1689 has not been equally enforced or applied and can be repealed)--all in all, Great Britain is a country of much history, but come with it much baggage.

I lived in Hong Kong for a year before the handover, but still the average Hong Konger was treated like a second-class citizen when it came to treatment of a Brit. In fact, after the handover, they created a separate class of citizenship for Hong Kongers called British Overseas Subject which provided no right of abode for Hong Kongers in the UK.

On a different note, I don't think I recall seeing anyone queue up in such numbers for a presidential inauguration.

"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities." -Winston Churchill, Honorary US Citizen

Halo, I've been reading a lot of your posts, and some of them seem filled with contempt towards the US. Before you make any additional judgments about the US, keep in mind that none of your rights in the UK are constitutionally guaranteed, your Prime Minister is not directly elected (meaning the most populous party carries the winner, and as long as that party has more numbers, the Prime Minister can stay PM as long as he desires), you have no reasonable expectation to privacy (and at times illegal if you do not co-operate with the authorities in cases such as encryption), coupled with the fact that your government (or rather HM government, since in her speeches she refers it as "[m]y government") does not have an event wherein every four years the leader of the country is reevaluated, nor does it prevent a constitutional crisis if or when a monarch actually takes advantage of royal power, no power to rebel as the right to arms is not guaranteed (even Bill of Rights Act 1689 has not been equally enforced or applied and can be repealed)--all in all, Great Britain is a country of much history, but come with it much baggage.

I lived in Hong Kong for a year before the handover, but still the average Hong Konger was treated like a second-class citizen when it came to treatment of a Brit. In fact, after the handover, they created a separate class of citizenship for Hong Kongers called British Overseas Subject which provided no right of abode for Hong Kongers in the UK.

On a different note, I don't think I recall seeing anyone queue up in such numbers for a presidential inauguration.

yea, this really is a load of rubbish.

aww, you must be so depressed.

Must have been your prediction, then. Personally, I'm hoping Obama can do at least half of what he's promised.

Though it's been 20 hours since he's been President, and we still have war in the Middle East, gas prices are still rising, Osama Bin Laden is still running around loose, the Stock Market is still in the crapper, the national defecit is still growing, and millions of people still don't have health care.

When do impeachment proceedings start?

:p

Given the blizzard of all the Obama commemorative paraphenalia, as well as the collective full-body-orgasm over the Obama inauguration, you knew that *someone* had to come up with a sex toy tie-in:

"You love your candidate - now let him love you back!"

Yes, that's right, the Obama commemorative dildo, otherwise known as the "Head O State":

http://headostate.com/

Given how many conceptions likely occured via Obamazealot celebration, the creepiest thing about this is not the item itself, but perhaps how close ecstacy... and ecstacy might be in this case ;). In any case, it certainly beats the screwing we got over the *last* eight years, and warning, the testimonials made me snort Diet Pepsi out my nose when I opened the page...

Regards,
Nydia

I am very happy with the new whitehouse.gov web site today. Several bullet points about LGBT rights; he's wasting no time.

I would love to hear some of those stories Kelraz and see pictures please do post them for us.

Interesting picture.

Crowds stomped the hell out of the place..

Those are the crowds. It's the same thing as in the CNN link I posted above.

oh.. hmm I guess I could not see it well on this crappy old monitor. Looks like barren dirt with grass patches. Like an after picture.

Ahh ok I see what you are saying now. Yea I miss took the large patches of dark as like grass or something.

Thank you for posting the picture; I could not get the cnn link Sanchek posted to open for some reason. That's crazy and definitely allot of damn people.

Ahh ok I see what you are saying now. Yea I miss took the large patches of dark as like grass or something.

Look at the CNN thing I posted. You can zoom in more on that.

Looks like ants to me!

Neat.

So here are a few pictures of mine. Everything we shot yesterday will be on repeats of Extra today and a new episode tonight if you're interested.

My day started at 5 am, and since I talked my girlfriend into giving me a ride to the metro (all bridges from VA to DC were closed, as were most roads in from MD) I didn't need to park. That being said, it took me from 6 am to 7:30 to make it into DC close enough to the events. My metro station is the 2nd one inbound to the city, and it was PACKED before it left the station leaving half of the people hoping to get on still on the platform. Half way to the city a woman was trampled on the car in front of me, so they made everyone get off the train to get her out before we'd proceed (which makes sense of course!).

Then I got to 400 N. Capitol and started to walk the 3 blocks to the event when we hit our first checkpoint. We were told it didn't open for security screening until 8:00 and there were probably a few thousand people standing there waiting already. They told us that there was a media entrance at 7th and D street - so we started to walk down there since we wanted to set up before the masses started to show up. We get to 7th and D and its just as packed, and now after 8:00 and no one is being screened. By 8:30 they turned us away saying a water main broke. Truth be told, there was no water and we later found out there was a terror threat made and they couldn't secure the buildings lining the checkpoint. If you look at the map Sanchek linked, you can kinda see lines drawn across the roads. Each road intersecting with the mall from behind the Capitol to around the White House to the Washington Monument had massive (~12 feet tall) metal fences with concrete barriers in front of them, as well as metal detectors and body searches and so forth. Basically they constructed a metal fence around the entire mall and parade route.

We finally found our way in, there was a tunnel under the fence at 3rd street with another checkpoint and we got through there and set up at 7th street (if you look on the map, on the right side of the mall there's a bunch of trailers accross the street from the Hirschhorn, the circular building) where they constructed some risers for us to do stand ups. Did some stand ups, circulated through the crowd, watched people cheering and crying.

One person pointed out when Bush was on stage people started to boo. The best thing I saw was a black woman stood up on a bench and yelled "Show some respect, you may not like the man but he was still our president!", she got yelled at by someone in the crowd though I couldn't hear what they said, and she replied "Obama gave us all a voice today, and I am using mine. We need to come together now, not split ourselves apart." and no one said anything else to her.

When the event ended, the chaos kinda started. They closed every entrance / exit into the mall except for one back at 18th street behind the Lincoln Memorial - but they didn't tell anyone that. News started to come out that a few metro trains full of people weren't allowed to leave their trains because the mall was too full and were stuck in the system for a half hour. Other news was trickling in that people who bought tickets were turned away because the crowds were too big. Other people with tickets simply didn't get through the security checkpoints, they locked the mall down saying they had too many people at a lot of places. The metro stations inside the metal security box were all jammed up naturally, and you probably heard a woman fell on the tracks after the event, she was pushed onto the tracks by people trying to get onto a train - so they shut the metro down. We weren't allowed to bring food or drink into the security area and I had an awful dehydration headache, and was far too tired to lug all of my gear to 18th street, so we went inside the National History museum with a few thousand of my closest friends and I took a nap resting against that giant elephant in the entrance hall. I would have liked to see the parade but they fenced that area off when President Obama went on stage, so you had to pick one or the other - hence the low crowds at the parade route.

At 5:30 or so the parade ended, and the restrictions lifted, and we were able to head to the balls for the Secret Service sweep. Nothing really exciting happened at the ball I went to (Creative Coalition) though kudos to the Ayonae Ro community for posting the link to Ron Howard's commercial for Obama he made. When he came through the red carpet my producer was no where to be found so I yelled out and asked him a question about if he felt his commercial made an impact and told him I liked it a lot, and he really opened up about it. There should be a good bit on Extra, and if you were watching Fox last night he went live on their broadcast a few minutes afterward to talk about the video.

Around midnight we finished working and I went to a small party in Georgetown with my producer. Hill Harper was there, knew our producer pretty well, and recognized me from a BET award show we did on Saturday. We talked a little bit about how he went to Harvard with Obama and are very close friends, and I asked him how life was gonna be like - if they'd still "hang out" or whatever famous people do. His reply was pretty interesting, that he couldn't ever call President Obama anything else than "Mr. President", he's no longer "Barak" to him. Though he said he wouldn't go any easier on him on the basketball court.

I left the party exhausted not 30 minutes later and with some massive blisters everywhere, couldn't find a cab in Georgetown so walked across the bridge to Rosslyn in VA, the metro was still jammed but found a cab and was able to head home. Just fed the tapes to Extra in NY, and I'm going back to bed.

I'm sure I'll look back on it as a great experience, but it was so cold and communication was so limited and disorganized, that right now I just wished I stayed at home and watched the whole thing on TV.

Was that yesterday?













i joke :)

Here's an even better one, since posting inauguration pics has become an e-peen contest. :)

http://geoeyemediaportal.s3.amazonaws.com/gallery/Inauguration_2009.jpg

Better have a big monitor.

That last picture looks a bit like the Siege of Gondor!

My question is for anyone that got anywhere near President Obama.....how hard and deep was the body cavity search? :D

I was 8 inches away, I was wanded by a detector and my bag was searched, the only thing the secret service asked of me was to not take photos of them.

I was 8 inches away, I was wanded by a detector and my bag was searched, the only thing the secret service asked of me was to not take photos of them.

C'mon Rover, you know us men haven't a clue how 8 inches look ;P

C'mon Rover, you know us men haven't a clue how 8 inches look ;P

Speak for yourself! :D

I was 8 inches away, I was wanded by a detector and my bag was searched, the only thing the secret service asked of me was to not take photos of them.



OK, this has just way too many sexual references, even for Rover.

First, the imagined size reference, then the "wand" (phallic) reference, then the "bag" (sac) reference, then taking photos of "them" (balls) reference. Sheesh! Pervert!

My question is for anyone that got anywhere near President Obama.....how hard and deep was the body cavity search? :D

The guy I worked with today was the press pool camera operator on the truck immediately in front of the limo for the parade route. He, along with the 200 other press that were standing on the dais or within 100 yard of the president simply went through a metal detector and had their bags/gear sniffed by a dog.

Rover, were you at one of the balls? Which one?