So I didn't see as much action in DC as I might have liked, although there was in fact action-- Presidain't's car stopped and then sped through a roiling protest zone on the parade route, people stripping in the freezing rain to use their bare young chests as the signs they could otherwise not bring into the bleachers, black and red flags and one upside-down American one raised on military poles, arrests, and a Black Bloc-er's head bashed in by the pigs. Tens of thousands of people shouting Shame, shame, shame. And of course, you saw it right here and not much of anyplace else, because the mainstream media are colluding with the Bush administration to "heal the wounds" that are invariably incurred by oligarchic rule.

I do not say that flippantly. Today I'm frightened. Bush's first act in office is to overturn Clinton's ruling on provision of American funds to other countries for abortion. I didn't think he'd do anything like that. I didn't think he'd dare presume he had the mandate to. This bodes ill for us all.

I had a nice time in DC, until late in the evening when, making the long ascension of the Dupont Circle subway escalator into falling snow, it hit me the man really was president, and nothing we had done had stopped him, or changed the minds of the thousands of silent sheepish inauguration-goers among whom I had wandered that morning. The protests had been totally segregated from the great mass of Republicans there to cheer on the man who had stolen democracy from their front porches at high noon. Probably this separation was good: I came across two burly white guys from Maryland who were yelling at the top of their lungs for all protesters to put away their signs. At first I thought they were rampaging Republicans themselves, but it turned out they'd been beaten by Republicans who had taken away their signs. I got them on tape, so I'm not going to say any more about that incident here-- once I get my short edited I'll post it on the soon-to-be-developed All Mirth No Matter Productions site.

Regardless, I'm pissed at what I perceive to be poor organization of this event on our side, and everyone's willingness to submit to the divide-and-conquer dictates of the government officials who doled out the three "official protest zones." I had such high hopes that this would a moment of consciousness-raising for so many people who had been asleep, and nothing seems to have happened. We are fighting overwhelmingly strong forces.

I did meet one kid who'd traveled all the way from Arizona, alone, to get to the protests. He had been a campaigner for Gore. He was standing in one of the convergence spaces apart from everyone else, so I dragged him to an embarassing last-gasp event at one of the inaugural balls-- Billionaires for Bush protesters huddled like miserable dogs in the snow, singing to real rich people in precious brocade dresses who jeered back-- and then to a bar where he nursed a Heineken and watched IMC documentaries from Prague and DC last year. He deluged me with questions. He was apparently impressed. "The more I see things like this, the more liberal I become," he said. I told him he wanted to say progressive, not liberal, but I was relieved anyway. Every now and again I think the IMC is preaching to the choir, and then I meet someone who has been taken the last mile of persuasion by our coverage. (The Breaking The Bank and This Is What Democracy Looks Like videos are truly wonderful, and I'd recommend them for anyone, especially teachers. They do a good job of mixing progressive talking heads like Vandana Shiva and Robert Weissman with footage from the streets, and making a moving picture out of it.)

Anyway, DC: dancing salsa to techno in a gay bar with Lauren Saturday night... anarchist soccer in the snow Sunday... verbal tangoes with as many women in fur coats at the inauguration who would speak to me, and despite my failure on that front, enough good footage shot to make me fall in love with the new DV camera... sleeping in my hat to stay warm... riding down with Patty and a young blue-eyed pup who, being a Californian new to the East Coast, found toll booths an outrageous infringement on driving... all in all, a good time.

Back on the homefront: Took advantage of the chaos of the afterschool program to escape from my usual wards, who despite the presence of two teachers were not going to be allowed to do cooking. I went and invented a lesson on HTML for a friend of mine's computer class. It went pretty well. I tried out my metaphor of html-as-Russian-nesting-doll, which kind of confused them, but some of them did OK with it... I think guerrilla teaching will be the order of bizness for me for the next month. You really can't do anything with the public school system unless you fly straight in its face.

I've made a link to Marquise McGraw's homepage in my left-column; everyone visit this brilliant young man whom I work with in afterschool. If anyone should have a blog, it's Marquise. He's a co-teacher with me in my writing workshop in afterschool, and even though he of course doesn't have to do any writing he has been producing thoughtful stuff which shows more technical skill than most Poly students. I think he says he wants to go to Cornell. If they don't accept him, there really is no justice in the world.