So, Americans, what are you doing on Inauguration Day tomorrow?

[thewayne]

As it happens, the day that we're inaugurating that weird old felon from Florida also falls on the day that we're remembering Martin Luther King Jr., and it's a federal holiday, which means a lot of us have the day off.

What are we doing to commemorate the changing of the guard on this day, or this week?

The weird guy is obsessed with numbers and crowd sizes. He's already losing on this as his ceremony is being moved into the Capitol Rotunda as temperatures in Washington are far too cold for an outdoor swearing. And I've heard that hotel bookings, rather than their normal near 100%, are down to about 50-60%, which amuses me to no end.

But there's another number that matters: TV ratings. And what matters is both what you watch, and what you don't watch.

It's one thing if you don't watch the ceremony. That's fine. BUT... if your TV is showing something else instead all day long, you're skewing the numbers away from the ceremony! Not only are you denying viewership numbers to the ceremony, you're showing that you were home, and watching TV, and chose not to watch it!

For me, my TV is going to alternate between watching the movie The Apprentice, which apparently the weird felon hates, and the Tarantino movie Inglourious Basterds. I don't like the latter, and haven't seen the former, but I feel it's a bit of a statement on my part. My stereo will be turned off, basically I'll set a timer on my watch to change the movie after it's done.

There's no doubt that this is almost entirely a symbolic gesture, but it makes me feel slightly warm and fuzzy. So I'll do it.

We are not a Neilson-ratings household, but streaming reports their own numbers independently. I don't think that really matters much.

Comments

[elayna]

I'm thinking SyFy channel all day.

[thewayne]

nods  That sounds pretty good!  I hope you're feeling better, Elayna.

[acelightning73]

My husband watched the movie in a theater, but I didn't go with him because I didn't want to look that deeply into the mind of a narcissistic rapist and conman. So my husband bought the movie on CD so he could watch it at home, and I'd go into the other room.

The Felon-Elect just said the crowd was too big to fit indoors, and he said something about sharing the day with MLK.

I just finished reading Seanan McGuire's most recent book, in which Titania, one of the Queens of Faerie, has put an illusion over both the Human and Faerie worlds, re-making them the way SHE wants them, and implanting false memories that things have always been this way into everybody. In order to make these effects permanent, she has to perform a ritual in which she sacrifices a few people or Fae to the "Heart of Faerie", a mysterious energy source. It takes three of the most powerful magic users (as powerful as Titania) to break this ritual and stop the illusions and lies by rescuing the people about to be sacrificed. Now, the Capital building is sort of the Heart of America, and the inauguration ritual will seal the Presidency. I tried to figure out how to break the ritual, but my own magick isn't that powerful, and I'm not in Washington. Of course the phumphering and stumbling of the liar could just make the whole thing fail, but I can't count on that. And I'm here at my computer, responding to DreamWidth messages, and not watching TV.

"Replace lies with truth, dispel illusions, and give us the clarity to see the difference."

[thewayne]

It's a sad day that this country would re-elect such a horrible person.  But it is what it is.

[acelightning73]

I voted for the one who wasn't a convicted fraud and sexual molester.I used what magic I know to invoke the Patron Goddesses of America, but they weren't listening.

[richardf8]

They probably said "we can fight magic, but we can't fight stupid."

[acelightning73]

"Lady Liberty, in whose name this nation was founded... Known as Mother of Exiles, Liberty enlightening the world, Goddess of Freedom, and many other names.
Step from your pedestal and lift your torch and enlighten us! Give us back our love of human rights, and welcome those who seek Your blessings.

Lady Columbia - personification of the spirit of America, corn-fed, "All-American", strong, hearty, and full of youthful zeal. Patroness of Progress, give us back the progress we've made in building a just and equitable nation.

Lady Justice - even with your blindfold on, you can see the injustices we're having to deal with. Use your sword and scales to help us restore the balance!

SO MOTE IT FUCKING BE!!

[richardf8]

That's nice but.

Liberty has become perverted into this idea that individual freedom is supreme above all, despite the freedom it deprives of others when thus exercised. We saw it during Covid when freedom became the freedom to spread disease and cause death to others.

Columbia, American wheat grown by American Farmers in American soil for American consumers. Not too sure that's one to rely on. Probably loves the tariffs.

And Justice. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A good strong avatar. But human and flesh passes out of this world and when she did the men ignored her deathbed wish. So now Justice is stripped of her blindfold, forced to see the one who bought this one an RV and provided that one with a little extra income, and how, if this third can return the man who appointed her to power, he might just confer more power onto her. The blindfold is in tatters, and rich men's thumbs are on the scales. We see ourselves in a nation where there is no justice and there is no judge.

Invocation is insufficient when resurrection is what is required.

I envy the hope with which you are filled, but I'm not feeling it myself. I remember well the days in the journal of that propagandist LevelHead we would bring the facts, and note the dangers of the harms veneered in reasonableness - but not reason - that he proposed, to avert this very outcome.

[acelightning73]

Liberty because "Give me your tired your poor" has gotten twisted into "Deport all the immigrants".

Columbia, because she became the spokes-myth for rural electrification and transportation infrastructure.

Justice - oh dear gods, I miss Ruthie so much! Her sensible and intelligent interpretation of the law would have prevented so much tragedy.

I have no hope left. I wrote those invocations in order to try to find some hope. But when I woke up on the morning of Election Day and heard the results, it felt as if someone had punched me in the belly as hard as possible, and for weeks thereafter I suffered from assorted gastroinestinal complaints. And armed rebellion would turn into another Civil War, which is undesirable for all sorts of reasons.

My generation forced a sitting president to resign, ended a war, and changed society by singing protest songs. I can sing pretty loud. Right about now (just before noon) is the time for me to start singing.

[acelightning73]

LIberty originally stood for the right to elect one's government, not just "free to run around harming other people as one pleases".

And Columbia wasn't all about selling American wheat and corn for the highest profit. She brought improved farming methods that allowed farmers to work more efficiently, and things like "rural electrification" (and later "extending telephone service"), and embodied an all-American spirit of Progress (which at that time implied improved technology and new scientific discoveries.) And youthful zeal and energy to accomplish that progress.

Justice (the abstraction) has been known to whore herself out to the highest bidder for millennia. But RBG is among the honored ancestors, so we need to invoke her inspiration.

I've never heard of LevelHead.

[moonhare]

Regardless of what the numbers truly are, he’ll claim it was the BIGGEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY.

*shrugs* we’ll be watching at least some of it, mainly out of curiosity. It’s what happens following the ceremony that should concern everyone. I want to know what happens then, but refuse to see his smug face while he proffers his Sharpie scrawled Executive Orders at the cameras.

[white_aster]

I don't have cable, might watch some stuff on the free streaming services I've got access to. Have a big book I just got from the library, some vidya games that are my comfort foods.... Just...going to get a head start on avoiding the news and also on going into grumpy hermit mode for the next 4 years, I guess.

[thewayne]

Two big thumbs up from this mountain top dweller.

[disneydream06]

I will be watching anything BUT that turd getting sworn in. :o

I always wished I was a Neilson family. lol....
Hugs, Jon

[moxie_man]

I have an antenna. I doubt the can track what I choose to watch if I watch anything today.

[thewayne]

Nah, if you're on broadcast and your equipment is not connected to Nielson gear, it's not being counted.

[gingeriana]

a regular cold working day in Canada here, so irrelevant, otherwise i would surely join the strike :)

the Apprentice movie is pretty good though! i am not familiar with the bio of the felon that closely but i find the film to be very realistic and believable, can surely recommend

[kaishin108]

Oh that's good to know. I will keep the TV on and NOT watch him. It's such a weird thing that this is on MLK day.

[thewayne]

That today is MLK Day is a rather ironic and tragic coincidence.

[acelightning73]

I find it ironic that the narcissist has to share his Big Look-At-Me Day with a dead Negro (who was invested by the FBI, who suspected anyone who supported civil rights of wanting to turn the US into a Communist paradise run completely by black people) And his Great Big I'm A Narcissist, I need constant Admiration in order to live, day, was ruined by it being too cold to allow huge crowds to gather in the street and show how POPULAR the incontinent idiot is.

[thewayne]

Ironic and extraordinarily amusing.  I love it that is grand return has so much going wrong for it.

[kaishin108]

This isn't the dream any sane person was thinking of. :(

[silveradept]

I'm sporking a bad book and watching people play terrible games quickly.

[thewayne]

I'm on my fourth or fifth playing of Inglorious Basterds (watched a few parts here and there), did laundry, made ice cream, played LOTRO performing music for a couple of hours.  So events in DC aside, it's been a pretty good day.

[murakozi]

In regards to numbers, my office window looks out over Dulles airport. The first time Obama was inaugurated, there were so many many many planes parked over there in the 'overflow lots' between the runways. Most of them had markings from other countries.

For Obama's second term, there weren't as many, but there were still a ton of planes over there.

Trumps first time around had fewer than Obama's second.

I didn't even notice any extra planes out there on Friday, nor are there any this morning.

[thewayne]

That's interesting!  Thanks for the info.