Inauguration Day

Although we generally stay away from national politics, given the historic nature of today's inauguration, we're going to take a break from the our ongoing exploration (sigmoidoscopy?) into the minutiae of our humble town to catch some of the goings on in Washington, DC.

If you're not watching today's events on a big screen somewhere, you can listen to live coverage from 3am to 8pm on 89.9FM KCRW's website and get a bit of a local angle to things. NPR will cover the inauguration ceremonies, the oath of office, and the new president's speech between 7am and 11am.

If you're taking the day off, you can always check out WineStyles' Inauguration Tasting Ball between 11am and 8pm. They promise "tastings of wines, light appetizers and specials on wines by the glass ($4.40) and bottles!!!" - that's three, count 'em, three exclamation points! WineStyles is located at 201 N. Indian Hill Blvd. in the Claremont Village Expansion.

Finally, we didn't realize it, but apparently we've elected a president of Irish descent. We were listening to American Public Media's show "Marketplace" yesterday, and, during a story about the views of some Europeans about the President-elect, we caught a bit of a song by an Irish band called The Corrigan Brothers (née Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys).

The song's called "There's No One as Irish as Barack [pronounced "BEAR-ack," with a rolled R. -ed.] O'Bama":

O'Leary, O'Reilly, O'Hare and O'Hara
There's no one as Irish as Barack O'Bama
From the old Blarney Stone to the green Hill of Tara
There's no one as Irish as Barack O'Bama