As I write this, I am sitting in the green grass across from the
United Unions building on New York Avenue in Washington DC. I am
only a block from the White House. There are currently two layers of
security around the white house from what I can see. There is an
outer layer has secret service and other police officers to turn back
people and cars, and an inner on complete with road blocks.

Since air traffic has been stopped, it has been quieter than usual.
The endless string of planes flying into national airport has
disappeared. Occasionally, you can hear a rumbling overhead,
probably fighter jets circling the city.

Traffic in DC is at a stand still. Quite a few federal workers have
given up on driving home. You can see them mingling with the
homeless people and listening to transistor radios in the parks that
sprinkle the area from the Watergate Complex to the White House.
Some people look scared, but most look pretty calm, like this happens
every lunch hour.

There are lots of people standing around, people talking, people
smoking cigarettes. This is something you never see in DC, a place
where people never seem to get where they're going fast enough. But
with the bridges to Virginia blocked and the Metro skipping some
stops, we all suddenly have time to stand around and listen.

The secret service seems to be eyeing me nervously, they've moved the
security perimeter beyond where I'm sitting, so I think I'll go home
and post this.