Semiquincentennial celebration

Last weekend¹, the United States of America celebrated the 250th anniversary of its founding.

Despite 250 years of excellence, this celebration was really a clown fest compared to the 200th in 1976 or even the 1876 World's Fair. Visit the National Archives to get a better understanding of the massive difference. At least, we can hope that one day, the Qatari Air Force One (Boeing VC-25B Bridge) will be in their exhibit to memorialize the 250th.

Smoke supernova shell salvo of shock and awe

Here's how my day went:

At ten in the morning, I arise from the comfy hotel bed. I wake up to my maladjusted West Coast jetlag. I was staying at the Melrose Georgetown, which is in the Northwest quadrant of DC. Apparently it's a fancy 4-star hotel, which we figured when we entered the lobby yesterday evening, but had no idea when booking online - it was simply well-located (near a metro station), inexpensive, and had good reviews. My advice for you is to plan your trips early, and you will be pleasantly surprised (or if I'd done cursory research after booking, happy and sated for my upcoming vacation).

At eleven, I walked to the nearby Bread and Chocolate cafe with my family, which was a brief but sweltering trek as the sun climbed and warmed the muggy DC lowlands. I strongly suggest against visiting this restaurant - I'm not normally one to complain, but under a logistical lens it was run like a mess, short-staffed (fair, given the date), mediocre beyond its price range, and far from the nearest metro stop. They had two busser-waiters available, and someone staffing the minor bakery segment of the store who should've been helping them with at least the bussing part. When we sat down, the waiter who self-selected to carry the onus of waiting our table immediately² asked if we were ready to order. As we'd never been before, I politely asked him for another three minutes. He proceeded to spend the next ten minutes ignoring us (not seemingly explicit for at least the first five) before returning, and we finally got our orders in. I forgot what everyone else had but I ordered a chicken gyro. Bread and Chocolate is one of those European LARP³ restaurants where the beer segment of the drinks menu says "European Beers" and they sell both a falafel plate and gyros but don't actively say if they're Greek or Turkish or Syrian or whatever other flavour of Mediterranean that makes customers more willing to pay for the premium these days. So anyway we wait over 20 minutes (!) for my chicken gyro to finally come out... only for it to be a lamb one (the other menu option was lamb). I am allergic to mutton. So I ask and the explanation given is that the waiter correctly noted a chicken gyro but the kitchen made it wrong. He offers to take it back to the kitchen. I have the heart to tell him that because service was already so slow I'd rather just keep it, ask him to write it off our receipt, and give it to someone else so we can finish faster and get out of here and take our patronage somewhere more welcoming, but in the interest of not causing him embarrassment and the fact that my family wanted to lounge a little while longer, I relent and say alright, sure. It goes off, back to the kitchen, either to an employee's belly or the trash bin. Oh I hope not the latter. It was a perfectly fine, albeit slightly barren gyro for the $20 it cost, from the looks I'd gandered at it while it was patiently waiting to return to the kitchen, to be remade. During this time we anxiously wonder amongst ourselves, where is our silverware? Our waiter seemed to forget to give it to us when we sat, and made no effort to bring napkins, a very necessary tool for our noses who have succumbed to the aircon set at 68 degrees against the scorching, blistering triple digit temperatures outside. I need to sneeze. It takes us five minutes to catch him again to ask for napkins, another few for their delivery. He once again does not bring silverware wrapped in the napkins that are placed on the other tables. We nudge him for it and he finally does, but in a rush brings two napkins but four sets between the two, with three in one group. My mother does not notice and asks for two more, to bring the total to four. He does not appropriately respond by opening the napkin, one of those cases where showing is better than telling, and brings two more forks. We now have six forks. The chicken gyro takes at least another 15 minutes to return, meaning we'd already spent an hour at this joke of a cafe, where another group of diners, a party of 2, had entered, ordered, and left already, but it seems it was much faster for them because they ordered the banal dish of scrambled eggs. Oh well. Once the gyro is back, I chow down on it after checking once more that it was in fact chicken, devouring it in a few short bites, and we are ready for the cheque. The cheque does not come because the restaurant is understaffed and it takes forever to get our waiter's attention, who, mind you, is working along a co-worker who doesn't split the distances between them and their bussing station well so they end up taking meandering paths to clean a table at the edge of the restaurant and manage to avoid our gaze. The cheque finally comes. I suggest to my family that we exercise a Mr. Pink strategy. We leave the restaurant, bidding the staff adieu. The staff member who operates the bakery waves goodbye, yes ma'am, maybe instead of standing there you should've been helping your coworkers instead of manning the bakery which exactly one person bought a baked good from during our 1.5 hour stay at the restaurant. Adieu to you as well.

TL;DR: Don't go to Bread and Chocolate in Washington DC.

It is half past noon. My family and I make the short journey to the Foggy Bottom GWU station, reminded of the 110 degree forecast for today. The 70%+ humidity mocks tourists and residents of DC alike. We make it to a very crowded platform, brimming with patriots here to enjoy the event of a century. We get off at the Smithsonian stop. One end is barricaded, blocked with thin strips of cloth and enforced by National Guardsmen bristling with American-made excellence - M4 carbines, cute pistols, most foregoing their helmets (a smart choice in this heat), standing fidgeting about, their hands abreast, resting on the pockets of their body armour vests. We exit the southern entrance and make our way upstairs. On the surface, we run into hastily-placed concrete barricades mucking about the sidewalk, restricting the true passageway to barely wider than a 2-person sidewalk. I think to myself this is a potential safety concern, as in the case of an emergency, chokepoints like these only lead to a stampede. Snow ploughs⁴ lazily strung perpendicular to the road act as road blocks. A few humvees dot the landscape, stuffed full of soldiers vying for the reprieve of air conditioning against the abominable heat. We cross paths with a silly modified small truck with a giant fan and water nozzles spewing a wetzone for passerby. A few men bask under it shirtless, appreciating the cooling effect of evaporation, another few enjoy getting soaked and stand facing the cone of air bursting from the fan. I remark that there is only one such truck on this road. One would hope there are more. We also meander past a rickshaw-ambulance, a tiny truck like those of New York Amazon delivery drivers but slightly more modern to have a proper engine rather than an e-bike base. We enter the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art.

At one, I pass through a few exhibits that had the disservice of being skipped by my cursory tour the day before. I greet a giant copper Buddha and appreciate a few oddities from the Orient. By the way, the Asian Art Museum offers excellent bag storage facilities, comparable or better than the Blacksonian⁵ down the street. I keep wondering, wouldn't the roadblocks outside look much better with M1 Abrams sitting about rather than those disgusting Peterbilt ploughs? Even without a North Korean parade to match, a few antique tanks like an M4 Sherman would no doubt please history buffs and give our rusty equipment some use before it inevitably gets sent to Ukraine or Israel as part of our next aid package. I pass through an art gallery depicting waterfalls before we decide to head to the National Mall.

At half past one, it is unbearably hot. We make our way over to the entrance of the Great American State Fair, to find a line that extends past view. As honourable, noble citizens, we make our way to the rear. A Smithsonian employee hands out cases chock full of single-use plastic water bottles, the standard 330mL variety, and blue paper paddle fans. I find it curious that there are no government-installed cooling fans of any sort. There are no services of any sort actually. This is disappointing. It is the 250th anniversary of our grand country. If anything, the opposite should be true - America should spare no expense pleasing the individuals here. I also notice that the racial composition is somewhere near 95% white. This implies there are few international tourists here, pointing to decay, rot, where foreigners are not welcomed to visit America with the same energy. Potentially this was caused by the idiotic decisions made around denying visas at the border or points of ingress. At least the Smithsonian still acts as an upstanding institution, one of many to continue providing exceptional service in the national interest as a public-facing entity. I digress. My family rotates standing in line with a few of us entering the Asian Art Museum to cool off. Like a rotisserie chicken or a kebab but in reverse. A perk of travelling in a group. We occasionally glance up to watch a few sporadic flyovers, including but not limited to a fleet of Apache helicopters and the new presidential jet. The flyovers are boring because they didn't do enough and should've done more passes and should've pulled out all the stops bringing airmen in to perform and finesse and showcase the might of the great American empire...

At half past two, as we approach the entrance, I understand why the line hath taken so long. The line of bathrooms is aside the entryway, so many enterprising individuals and families pretend to be at the bathroom area, then queue and force their way into the proper line, entering the inner area with ease. I think this could have easily been solved by a few cordons and barriers, or the multitude of National Guardsmen trying just a wee bit to tell people off for cutting in line. A proper fix would've involved dedicated entry points further from the source, enabling people to queue properly, and a covered line with tents would've made the experience ten times better. The list of prohibited items should be posted at the entryway, not all the way at the security check, and the security needs to do a better job telling people they have to lose their umbrellas and whatever other prohibited items then let them argue and harangue the staff for minutes before being meekly let in. A perimeter road surrounds the area, but it is not sufficiently wide enough for service vehicles to easily traverse nor do the staff do a good job restricting flow to allow cop cars to pass through. We enter the inner line queuing area and spend another thirty minutes waiting. Eventually, my family and I are let in to the Great American State Fair.

At three, I step onto the grass of the National Mall. I first turn left and wander over to the Main Stage, which despite being named that had no more than 50 people standing around it. For one, it's too hot, but secondly there wasn't anything interesting going on over there. No headline performers. Crass, dry country music. A General Electric Aerospace exhibition catches my eye. They are showcasing their GE9X engine, the largest commercial aircraft engine today. Next to the engine, which sits in a plastic-clad structure, are three giant "windows" where a video is played on repeat and endless drivel about the magnificence of those engines is relayed to the public, spewing into the environment. Nobody is listening. I change course and begin making my way to the other end of the Great American State Fair. I pass by a booth on the "future of technology", with a Joby air taxi, Waymo ground taxi, and one of those little kickable food delivery bots often spotted in LA. There are three tubes measuring what people are most excited for. I attempt to vote but they are out of voting balls. The vote is 3-2-1 as a ratio in that order. A few abandoned booths for a company which sells insurance lay near the other booth. I pass through the "America Innovates" pavilion, which is falling apart, an eyesore and disgrace to our country. Nothing of interest resides inside. There are some rednecks peddling local art. Some of it is obviously AI generated slop. Everything is slop. I enter a Food Pavilion to be met with a massive line. I figure ice cream is a two hour wait away. I leave. I continue down to the eastern end of the National Mall.

As I continue walking, I enter the "American Canvas" pavilion. This building is shared with the "Faith and Family" exhi- WHAT HAPPENED TO SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE???
...
Inside the "Faith and Family" pavilion are what one might expect. There is also the unexpected presence of a well known online gambling website (or as they call themselves, a "prediction market") and evangelicals preaching to those who already believe the word of God and those with their hearts closed. I would be surprised if they converted even one person. Beside this building is a Chime (fintech startup) sponsored booth offering phone recharger batteries to get people to learn about the Trump Accounts for children born during 2025 to 2028. The booth has extremely misleading numbers about the assumed compounding rate of the $1000 seed money, suggesting it could be worth well over $5 million in forty years' time. I walk by a collection of sad, droopy state booths, some of which it seems are more equal than others - Rhode Island and Kentucky were relegated to share a booth, while certain other states got 2 booths; some with better/stronger air conditioning and some without; some weren't even hosted by the actual state (including Illinois, Massachusetts, and North Carolina⁶). Vermont had like two chairs and that was it. Florida had a long line outside theirs because they were giving gator and manatee plushies. Probably the most interesting one was West Virginia which had a racing sim with an audio component, and some percentage of the score was based on how well you sung "Take Me Home Country Roads" while doing a 2-minute course. Past that, I walked into the "Made in America" pavilion to be greeted with even more AI generated artwork and crafts worse than those you'd find at Ladies' Market in Hong Kong, and quickly left. To the side there was a very unique area, the 24-hour David's Tent that boasted nonstop public worship. By the time I went, they took down the Israeli flag that hung inside. This was unsurprisingly one of the most energetic areas in the Great American State Fair, with nearly a hundred people jumping along, as if there was a rave going on past midnight rather than in the blistering mid-afternoon heat. They also had an immersion baptismal pool... I wonder how many times it was used this week?

At four, the flybys continue until morale improves. An F-22 Raptor does multiple low passes. The shockwaves terrify the infants who were so unlucky to be brought along by their parents. I walk past the puny 110-foot Ferris wheel⁷ (they couldn't even get one 250 feet tall??) and under the "United States Triumphal Arch", which seems to be correctly named given that it is in the United States and it is an Arch but what is it Triumphing over? It's a sad little plastic structure with fake facades printed on like all the other buildings on the mall and weak and representative of how we are failing as a country. This should've been a grand, everlasting, pristine marble arch to show the might of the empire and the unyielding resolve we have as a country, one which towers illegally over the 130 foot height limit imposed by the Federal Height of Buildings Act of 1910⁸, one to celebrate a great anniversary, not one with glue oozing out between its cracks and falling apart. Alas, what could have been. Next to the arch lie two sandbag-surrounded exhausts for the subway below, where families sit enjoying the cool breeze rising from below. As I continue my journey, I meander past two misaligned bleachers for the rodeo attraction, which has no animals because of the heat. I arrive at my final destination: the empty platform "Freedom Stage" gating the way to the FIFA Fan Zone that lies between it and the Capitol Building. Suddenly, an entrant is announced. Less than ten people clapping welcome Reid Wilson, a singer from Season 19 of America's Got Talent who was eliminated in the semifinals. I have no idea who Reid Wilson is. I leave. I elect not to enter the FIFA Fan Zone, as I do not support an authoritarian regime that selectively enforces rules using newfangled technologies and data analytics to push their desired candidates, denounces effort in favour of nepotism and fame, and has marred the name and taken away all the sportsmanship and rigour out of a fun pastime. Oh, just to be clear, I meant FIFA! Not the United States. Haha. I leave and make my way back to the Washington Monument.

At half past four, I return to my family and we pace to the spot which an email and the official Freedom 250 website tells us to queue for the line to enter the "Salute to America" zone where the best viewing spot for the fireworks are. Supposedly, the line will begin at 5 in the evening and cut off at 6 sharp. We get to the west end of the National Mall, only to be greeted by Secret Service members who say that unfortunately, that exit is closed, and there is a possibility that the show will be cancelled because of the expected 40-knot winds (~50mph). I know this is a lie. Our grand sitting president would do not such thing, especially not this year for the grand ol' US of A. The show must go on. Nevertheless, we are told to make our way out of the Great American State Fair to line up at 14th Street. We oblige, and discover that that entrance is only permitted for VIPs: press, MAGA familymembers, and significant stakers of the blockchain-based TRUMP coin who flout their little placard badges hung around their necks like the serpent hung around the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Eden as depicted in Michelangelo's 1511 ceiling fresco of the Brazen Serpent in the Sistine Chapel. We slowly retreat to 12th Street, where the new entrance is, despite all the signage and prior communication saying otherwise, and enter a massively wide line. The line is much too wide to prevent random people from jumping the barricades and entering, and much too wide to allow laminar flow. It is, however, wide enough that we can avoid the puke puddle of a woman who had too much to drink and decided to let everyone know in the centre of the column. We stand here and move at a literal snail's pace for over an hour and a half, where people are pushing and shoving and complaining and weeping and moaning and gnashing their teeth between the fiery brimstone that is the National Guard surrounding the iron-wrought crowd control barricades on Constitution Avenue. I am reminded of WW2 photographs of prisoners in concentration camps. A little ambulance not unlike that which I observed in the morning attempts to cross the mass of impatient would-be participants in tonight's fireworks show. It takes the soldiers over 10 minutes to part the sea, a disappointing and dismal performance. I am extremely worried at the implication that there are few safety or health concerns being taken into account here. Another woman collapses from the heat.

It is now six o'clock. We make our way past the Blacksonian, where soldiers armed with sniper rifles walk around the rooftop perimeter and exchange spots underneath a hastily erected white operations tent, in a mass and river of people, to arrive at the main security check. I am beyond irate that we must pass through a security check a second time, as if this was correctly organized and one could enter via the National Mall, much time and sweat and tears would be saved. Temporary workers wearing TSA badges man the stations. It seems the federal government wasn't even able to train the loitering and incompetent National Guardsmen to do bag checks. Piles of plastic water bottles litter the entryway. A steel structure draped with cloth announces our entry to Salute to America. I do not salute, and neither do the thousands of people entering in the next few minutes.

I prance and folly on the grass surrounding the Washington Monument, which looms above the crowd. Metal crowd control barriers form a weakly-linked perimeter around the base of the tower. Walking past, I see the massive, glowing, gleaming, glistening Salute to America stage where tonight's headline performer will perform. I direct my family over to the single set of supertall bleachers to the right (stage left), and we sit on an empty row. The bleachers were nice but a little thin and wiry to avoid accusations of being rickety and the line of view directly to the centre of the stage was mostly blocked by a press box. Are they stupid? There were two boxes, both at 45 degrees from the centre position, meaning none of the press cameras would get a direct, full-frontal shot of what is happening. These boxes should be at the centre. Instead, the centre was occupied by rows of foldable chairs in an area which required one of those VIP passes to enter. There was also, again, notably no rain cover or weathering protection in any area. I exit the bleachers to seek dinner; we haven't eaten all day. I walk through the Beer Garden tent, which has begun violently shaking due to the wind. The large iron columns inside quiver in fear. I inquire about where food is located and two different employees point me in two separate directions. I depart and enter the eerily empty Merchandise booth, which was nearly the same size but had like two folding tables inside and nobody buying any merch. Thinking food is not in this direction, I turn around and wander for about ten minutes. During this time, the stars of the flyovers began coming; I am regaled by the diamonds and echelon formations of our Blue Angels and a few more other jets I can't quite remember. I turn around once more through the merchandise tent while trying to get a few solid shots of the planes passing by every few minutes when I find the row of food at the back, hidden near a wall. They needed better signage here. As I pass by the concession area, I walk past two nearly-empty tents, in the same manner as the merchandise one, but with eating tables strung about inside. The tents are dark. Near them is an ice cream truck offering free samples. I gratuitously take one and begin to chow. I queue in line for the BBQ tent and tell another family member to come line up at another booth so we can maximize bringing back some. As we are in line, and more planes pass above in the skies, whispers begin passing along the other attendees - it seemed that the Secret Service wanted to shut down the whole operation. Suddenly, a large group passed by and made the announcement; all the tents were to be closed effective immediately. Now that we could no longer get food, I make my way down the line of tents until one is willing to violate the order and sell me something. I manage to get an order of chicken tenders and a "hibachi" (teriyaki) bowl for much too much. We regroup and slowly make our way to the edge of the zone to loiter. Tens of thousands pass by us as they are weakly escorted out by the police. We weather as the rain begins to drizzle, and stay around for about another two hours before we too are slowly forced out, but not without putting up a good fight and going slowly out back the treacherous road we traversed.

Around 8, we find our way back at 12th Street. I manage to seek refuge next to a golf cart, avoiding the pulsating whims of the crowd. After standing around for another, who knows, half an hour, the crowd starts chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!". A slight shift happens as people realize the crowd south of the National Mall, barely visible, changes direction. It seems they are being let back in. Pleased at my efforts to stay, we rejoin the mass of people on the north side clamouring to get in. At fifteen minutes past the hour, a funky entourage with lights blasting attempts to blast through the crowd. They manage to once again part the seas with great effort, and we watch as two blacked-out SUVs and a massive vehicle with spinning lights marked "Secret Service" passes by less than 20 feet in front of me. I am 99% certain that President Trump was riding in this one after cross-checking possible entry points and his time of arrival. The spinny-light vehicle rumbles across a pop-up vehicle barricade, barreling towards the field where the Salute to America stage sits. Masses of people begin trickling through a hole in the crowd control barriers, and we are finally back in the line again. Everyone is wet. A Sky News reporter has boxed themselves in with a quickly-crafted triangle of crowd control barriers, and is monitoring the situation live. As we approach closer to the entry point, we are accidentally led astray - we later find out people were shoving barriers down to get into the ADA-accomodating line, but as we went in we were told we had to fight our way back upstream to requeue in the proper line. I am too mad to complain. After another two and a half hours of thugging about, we watch as the Washington Monument is lit up by massive projectors displaying a combination of images on rotation including the Statue of Liberty, the word "FREEDOM", a very inaccurate American flag, scenes of the Founding Fathers, and a different very inaccurate American flag, and successfully pass through security once more after a resoundingly long wait. The piles of trash have more than tripled in size.

At eleven, we make our way back to the bleachers. A male opera singer performs stunningly for way longer than one would expect, and triumphantly concludes as the sitting president takes the stage. I would suggest you watch a replay here instead, but his speech is regardless as interesting as a droning 40-minute talk can get. Which is to say, surprisingly interesting. Some takeaways were:

• "We're celebrating freedom's triumph over tyranny. Liberty's conquest over oppression, and the enduring victory of the American spirit. From the July 4th, 1776 to July 4th, 2026. Big dates. That's big dates to big ones."
• "After 250 years, unlike so many others in the world, in this country we have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal justice under the law, although I wasn't treated that well. But we won't get into that."
• "He was the first African American... and he was some... man" (w.r.t. the first African American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor)
• "They couldn't hire anybody. Nobody wanted to do it." (w.r.t. the police)
• "... and now it's overflowing. We have so many setting records and setting records, it's actually hard to get in." (w.r.t. the military)
• "We rebuilt our military and my first term, we use it a little bit in our actually, I should say third term, but I won't do that because I don't want any controversy. But we use it and we've had tremendous success." (???)
• "Communism is a loser, and it will always be... It's like a cancer. You got to cut it out. You got to cut it out fast."
• suddenly pivoting to beleaguer the audience with a plea to pass the Save America Act and require voter ID and prevent mail-in ballots
• presenting no less than five different Medal of Honor recipients across the Great Wars
• presenting no less than five different American flags of antiquity (including the Iwo Jima flag!)
• welcoming the Artemis II crew to the stage
  • followed up with: "Where is Jared⁹? He's so great. He's running NASA. What, what a job he's done."
• "Our stock market is the strongest it's ever been... six times more than ever happened before."
• "Our country is just getting started because the best is yet to come. This is only the dawn of the Golden Age of America."

He wrapped up his speech right at 23:58, just in time for the fireworks¹⁰ I've been waiting all day for to start at 23:59. And they were grand. Cheers to the next 250!

Exiting took forever because there were literally four normal-sized door holes in the chainlink fences that had to let over 100k people through. On our way back, we saw the spinny-light wheeled fortress and its entourage on another barreling run straight to the White House. The Great American Machine thankfully kept a 7-Eleven open 24 hours, and as a final treat, we had some delicious fried chicken at two in the morning.

Minor takeaways on how the day could've been better organized:

1. Lines should have been declared and set weeks prior to the event and start much further from the venue. If you started a single unified line at Columbus Circle and had people walk all the way to the National Mall, you would be able to do much more effective crowd control and offer toilets/concessions along the way, with the side roads free for emergency services to pass through unrestricted and long lines of sight for security purposes.
2. A wider security perimeter should have been established and enforced prior to the event. In the case of safety you would want a ~1 block dead zone such as blocking off the entire Federal Triangle, and properly shuttering the metro stops there and adding crowd security checks (metal detectors) at the entrance of the station where you want people to exit. This doubles as 1. anti-terrorism / bomb threat insurance by separating the effective range of a terrorist from the main region and 2. crowd control so you can measure how many people are passing through an area. Proper signage and communication via digital means up to a few weeks before the event would be extremely helpful here.
3. Speaking of communication, once you concretely decide on points of ingress and egress, do not change them. Additionally, visitors should require reserve spots that can be claimed by booking a ticket online. As mentioned before this has the added benefit of giving an expected visitor count so you can organize an appropriate number of concessions / water stations / sunlight shelter (very needed in 100F+ humid weather) and to distribute security officers appropriately.
4. By establishing a wider security zone, the museums around the National Mall can easily be converted to places of shelter/refuge from both terrorist attacks and inclement weather. This also encourages foreign visitors to peruse the great trinkets of American history in the vicinity.
5. Bag limits and restricted items need to be widely declared, signs posted far in front of all points of entry, with sufficiently large logistical considerations for trash bins for people to toss these items. The bag checks need to be enforced with no leniency to allow quicker security processing and minimize the risk of danger to attendees. Make it clear that if people bring anything restricted they MUST toss it or turn back.
6. Air conditioning zones for heat stroke sufferers. We can do better than the Europeans on this front for sure.
7. More water cannons.
8. I spotted a truck loading a FEMA-marked emergency generator and trying to deliver it into the fairgrounds. This should not ever be happening; rather, all necessary supplies should have been delivered weeks before the celebration and not rushed at the end.
9. idk man stop cutting the budget and have proper celebrities and events so people have a good time

ky