Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Don't make any sudden moves

"Don't look at me! Bow down!"

From Unknown News:
The nation's 55th presidential inauguration, the first to be held since 9/11, will take place this month under perhaps the heaviest security of any in U.S. history...

...Thousands of performers - marching bands, color guards, pompon dancers, hand bell-ringers, drill teams on horseback and Civil War re-enactors - will be bused early in the morning to the Pentagon parking lot across the Potomac in Virginia. While performers disembark and go through metal detectors, bomb- sniffing dogs will search the buses.

Then everybody will get back on the buses for a trip to the National Mall, where they will spend most of the day in heavily guarded warming tents. Participants have been warned that they will not be allowed to leave the tents except to go to portable toilets accompanied by a security escort.

Other instructions given performers include a warning not to look directly at Bush while passing the presidential reviewing stand, not to look to either side and not to make any sudden movements.

(Emphasis mine)

I don't think I'd be marching in that parade. To be herded around and held in a tent like so much cattle for most of the day, then ordered not to look directly at the reason for the parade while you pass by doesn't sound like a privilege to me...

I hate parades anyway.