In Awe - guration

I didn't watch much of the inauguration celebrations during the day yesterday, but did catch headlines and stuff about it on the news last night. Wow.

There had been a lot of coverage before yesterday of the expected size of the crowd. There were so many people all over the place. I read somewhere that arrangements were made for 5000 portable toilets. That's a lot of porta-potties! -The jokes about Washington being "full-of-crap" are just too obvious.- But then I saw these satellite images and thought 5000 may not have been enough!?! There are so many people that from these pictures they look like ants. Crazy big crowd!

It was cool to see this sort of celebration. Other than useless toilet trivia and some cool photos, I'll just say I think it's interesting to think that people had such a variety of reasons they were celebrating. For some, it's the civic duty of celebrating a new president. For others, it's the celebration that it's a NEW president (ie: dislike for former President Bush). For some, it's a landmark in the history of American civil rights to have the first ever black (african-american) president (which, technically, is only half correct)*. For others, it was self-centered opportunity to be able to say "I was there." And for others, it was the chance to be a part of a cultural phenomenon like this. And not even just the people who attended the events in Washington DC, but people around the world in other countries who celebrated the USA having a new leader.

*NOTE: In regards to the whole discussion of race that comes up about President Obama, I want to be clear that I think that's an issue that takes a back-seat to any of the political, economic, international relations, and leadership issues that should be the priority. It IS symbolic of some of the great strides that have been made in racial equality in our county, but I think racially equality has been much better than mainstream media portrays much of the time. I did think this Doonesbury comic that ran the day after the election was very funny.

Technorati tags: pres obama, inauguration, porta-potties, doonesbury, racial equality