Courtesy of Dena Lurie:

January 20, 2009: It was Inauguration Morning at around 5 am, my boyfriend Nick returned home after working at the “Black Tie and Boots Ball.” I awoke to his entrance and greeted him. He told me that people are already lining into the Metro stations to head down to the Mall. This was going to be a long, hectic day, I thought to myself. Nick crawled into bed and we didn’t get up until around 9 am. We were fortunate enough to be staying with some friends of the family who were living in Arlington. They drove us to a nearby Metro station at around 10 am. The Metro ride certainly took longer than usual on this historic morning. The train stopped in its tracks fairly consistently, as we waited for trains ahead to move a bit further. The Metro was crowded and we were all heading to the exact same place. Eleven o’clock rolls around, we have half an hour to get to our “viewing spot” in front of a Jumbotron. We finally arrived to our exit in DC only to enter a scene of madness. The crowd was overwhelming. While we were on the train, Nick and I had planned our route to our desired Jumbotron, but of course once we got off the train, we diverted from our plan immediately…whisked into a sea of people.

Everyone was walking in the same direction, for the same reason, with the same feeling of joy. It was a very unique moment, one in which will never be repeated. While the crowd was 2 million wide, there was a sense of community. The excitement was in the air and it was certainly a magical moment. Every single person walking the streets of DC that day was in a good mood. Everyone was happy. In fact, you could hear the conversations of the people to your right, speaking of this amazing, memorable moment. And people to your left are having the same conversation. Those thoughts interrupted every block by a loud “Get your Obama merchandise here” or “We have exclusive Obama watches, come this way”, etc. It was as if I was at an Ohio State football game, multiplied by 20! There were people selling Obama merchandise on every single corner. There were large tents housing vendors selling food and “Inaugural hot chocolate” on every block. Not only was the atmosphere festive, but it felt like a large festival. There were buses blockading streets here and streets there. And policemen everywhere, however the rapport with the men on-duty was unusual, being that the circumstances were unusual. They were in just as good of a mood as everyone else.

We, along with hundreds of other people, reached a suitable stopping point in front of one of the twenty or so Jumbotrons. As I looked around at the crowd, I saw people of all ages, from the elderly to infant children. I saw people of all ethnicities, and heard many people speaking foreign languages. There were people climbing trees, and even sitting atop of the port-a-potties that lined the Mall, just to get a better view of the big screens. Standing in the shadows of the Washington Monument, I felt as though I was a part of something big. Emotions overcame me, and I began to cry. I had feelings of relief, happiness, inspiration, and redemption. I thought back to my personal long road to this moment. I supported Obama before he even began his campaign to the Presidency. He inspired me. I donated what I could (which was little) to his campaign, and I had never donated to a politician before. I volunteered for his campaign, and I had never volunteered for a politician before. I trusted his words and motivations, and I had never trusted a politician before! This is not only my personal story, but millions of Americans. He inspired so many people, it’s unfathomable. Obama didn’t win this election, we all did. That is the overwhelming feeling that we all felt out on that Mall, as I’m sure everyone at home watching felt too. This was our moment.

According to the Washington Post there were: 10,000 National Guard on duty, 8,000 on- duty state police and sheriffs, several hundred FBI agents, secret service, and homeland security officials, and an additional 10,000 National Guardsmen on stand-by, and not one arrest.

Both Biden and Obama took their oaths, and then Obama gave his speech. I was on a high, feeling great. Then my boyfriend Nick turned to me and said, “I have something for you.” I looked down and in his hand was a beautiful diamond ring. Millions of people surrounded us, but at that moment we were the only two people in the world. He proposed to me. So now, while January 20, 2009 will forever be the day that America received their first African American President, for me, it will also be the first day of the rest of my life.

inauguration

Thanks Dena!

RTFA: http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/26/news/economy/job_c…

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The final week of January began with a bloodbath for the job market, as over 71,400 more cuts were announced on Monday alone.

At least six companies from manufacturing and service industries announced cost-cutting initiatives that included slashing thousands of jobs.

More than 200,000 job cuts have been announced so far this year, according to company reports. Nearly 2.6 million jobs were lost over 2008, the highest yearly job-loss total since 1945.

“It’s all about the consumer, and the consumer’s been hit hard,” said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics. “It’s a vicious circle as weakness begets layoffs, which beget more spending weakness.”

shitty. Apparently the hope & optimism the average American feels towards president Obama’s inauguration has not applied to big business & investors. The article also states that the recession will bottom out in the second quarter of 2009 and then we’ll see a rebound.

Surreal and scary- those are the two words that best describe my experience at Barack Obama’s inauguration. Surreal for the sheer impact and meaning of the thing- the culmination of so long a wait and so much seeming to ride on the man’s shoulders. Scary for the same reasons- the weight of a nation on one man and the knowledge that he could be snuffed out so easily. There- I said it- I thought about the possibility of Obama being assassinated at least 157 times in the 3 days I spent in the capitol. Mostly it just didn’t seem possible that it could happen- that any of it had happened, despite all the moaning of the cynics and pessimists- that we had a reason to be happy after these long 8 years. You heard it during the campaign over and over again, floating on the mouths and faces of people, he made a good speech, but he’s all talk. OK, he won the primary, but he can’t win the election. He’s too smart, he’ll sell out, he’s too black, not black enough. People say they’ll vote for him, but they’re lying. Everything about Obama’s run for office from the beginning had been plagued by a nagging sense that it was all fairy tale, too good to be true, to crazy to believe in. My fear for his safety stemmed from that feeling that there was still this hurdle to go over, one more big splashy chance for it all to evaporate into thin air. At the same time, the knowledge that I was going to watch him get sworn in was ethereal, just out of reach, like something I could reach for and not quite touch. So I carried both of those emotions with me to Washington, DC, to witness whatever was destined to happen.

I got to Washington the day before the Inauguration in a little over 3 hours- a record time considering the bus was late and I barely got a ticket. I had heard all the hysterical news anchors talk about the 4.5 billion buses or whatever number were supposed to come to DC that day, so I was fully prepared to get in 12 hours after my departure time of 8:30 in the morning. I had packed several meals and was in full survival mode- cooped up in my seat with 3 movies. In fact I was so nervous- reliving in smaller part the emotional breakdown/ sickness that characterized my experience on election day- that I ate all my food within two hours on the bus and promptly passed out from exhaustion. Imagine my surprise when we arrived an hour later, half an hour early. As if you needed another reason not to take cable news too seriously. Another moment of surrealism. I almost wondered if I had gotten the dates wrong.

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The New York Times has produced a wonderfully interactive infographic that includes the most commonly used words from each of the US Presidents’ inaugural address. This is a really great way to get a sense of the scope of this country’s history. I came away from this infographic with a better sense of the challenges that faced the nation at different times, and also with a sense of how young this country really is.

The New York Times infographic presents a very intuitive timeline, featuring portraits of the presidents, along with a representation of the text of their inaugural address. The words have been scaled by frequency – more frequently used words appear larger. Words shown in yellow are special, in that they are quite different from the words used by the previous president.

Scroll through this infographic, just paying attention to the yellow words. You can instantly grok the big issue that a certain president is dealing with, and I think that reflects very positively on the value of this infographic. Next, scroll through the timeline, paying attention to the biggest words, and you can get a feeling for how the presidents ideologically approached their term. Great work!

RTFA: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/17/wash…

A look at the language of presidential inaugural addresses. The most-used words in each address appear in the interactive chart below, sized by number of uses. Words highlighted in yellow were used significantly more in this inaugural address than average.

We had a call out through the RTFA facebook group for someone to write a first hand experience of the inauguration.

Jason B. came through for us:

My day started at 5:30 am when a friend of mine who had also driven up from Atlanta called me to see if I was down town yet because there was already “a ton of people” out there. After procrastinating for another 2 hours, my parents, who had drove from Louisville, and I hopped on the Metro in Silver Spring and and headed into the city. Naturally the closer we got, the more crowded the train got, but the energy was amazing. Like everyone was on the same page. That energy seemed to get stronger after we got off the train and started walking with all those people. It looked like the pilgrimage to Mecca. The streets were packed! It was like Mardi Gras times 10…and minus 50 degrees. We made it as far as the Washington Monument and even though I couldn’t feel my toes I was just happy to be there. Bush Sr. came out and everyone booed him. Clinton came out and everyone cheered. Bush Jr. and Cheney came out and everyone booed hysterically. I booed Ray Nagan. When Obama came out everyone lost their minds! It was nuts. You looked out among the crowd and just saw a sea of American flags. That’s the image that I will always remember.

Thanks J!