A pair of homeless men sleep beneath some stars and stripes on Pennsylvania Avenue half a block from the White House and behind some of the many bleachers set up for ticket-holders (mostly VIPs) to view the inaugural parade. I took this picture last Sunday when L. and I were downtown to observe the ways in which the 2005 Inaugural Committee has prepared to make sure all dissent is invisible or silent at this inauguration. I took many pictures of what we saw, which you can see here. I also added some pictures I took yesterday—the pictures at the end with the snow. Pennsylvania Avenue, a main street in our nation's capital, has basically been privatized for the day, given to the inaugural committee to do with as it pleases, with security being enforced by the secret service and many of its 22 fellow police agencies in the city. These people have the authority to exclude anyone at will, but they probably won't need to do much overt exclusion because they've set up their checkpoints to create bottlenecks at the entrances protesters are likely to use—long lines will probably mean many of the “unwanted” will simply never make it anywhere near any of the inaugural festivities. There are also rumors that the parade will deviate from its traditional route so as to avoid driving by the one block where demonstrators actually were given a permit to demonstrate. Today, Americans enjoy the right to free expression, just so long as any dissent stays far from the eyes and ears of the president and his supporters. God bless America.