Wednesday, January 21, 2009

What Would 2/3rds of Oklahoma look like on the National Mall

Well let's see what two million people watching Obama looked like.
So click on the picture below to get the larger version.
The Capitol building is on the far right.
The Washington Monument is on the far left.
The Mall, that open space in between the two runs 1.2 miles from the West steps were the President was to the Washington Monument.
The Mall between the buildings in the middle is 300 feet or as wide as a football field is long.
Now actually the people watching the giant screens and waiting along Pennsylvania Avenue extended twice as long as this satellite shot. They technically were not "attending" the Inaugural and are not counted in the 2million by the U.S. Park service.
Not to mention the 240,000 people with tickets turned away who were supposed to be let into the area near the Capitol.



So it is like near absolute zero degrees with the wind adding a wind chill factor (how cold would the seats of those porta potties be)and yet they came, and they stayed, just to see this turn of history. If that doesn't impress the most cynical of the naysayers then damned they truly are.
Thanks to Carol for alerting me to this picture.

3 comments:

Trixie said...

They really do look like ants, don't they?

Carol said...

I thought you'd like it! Very antlike!

drlobojo said...

I'm watching Sarah Palin strut her stuff on TV right now. It occurred to me that there are three and one third times as many people in the satilite photo as live in her State of Alaska. If you gathered all Alaskans onto the Mall they would just barely equal one of those bacteria blobs on the picture.