As a resident of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area since 1986, I have had the privilege of seeing some pretty cool events, with the requisite rich and famous. Not to mention powerful.
I have always considered it a perk of living here to see famous people and national events. And, although many of these events were closed, there were usually some arrangements made to allow the public to get a glimpse of the events, if not fully participate in them.
Not so for last weekend’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. With more than 40 national leaders and 44 foreign embassies involved, it was the most complex-not to mention largest-gathering of foreign leaders ever in Washington.
You would think some sort of public event would be warranted, but apparently not. The official word, as I write this, is that everyone should stay home.
With this many high mucky-mucks (formal titles notwithstanding) in town, security will be very intense. With emphasis on very.
If you don’t have clearance forget about it-you won’t get near the event (There are no fewer than 17 public-safety agencies working to make sure you won’t.) Streets will be closed to cars, bikes and even pedestrians; an entire Metro stop will be bypassed for four days; schools are out; some federal government workers-including the entire Federal Communications Commission-have the day off, and some of the Smithsonian Museums will close.
Two of the beneficiaries of the NATO summit are Nextel Communications Inc. and Motorola Inc.
These two companies are supplying the mobile telecommunications for the grand event. Motorola will provide 1,400 handsets (the type that work on Nextel’s system) to both organizers and attendees. The handsets function as cell phones, pagers and two-way radios.
With this many people wanting to talk (inevitably at the same time), the Washington Post reported Nextel employees were forced to crawl in the rafters of the old U.S. Customs building with cable tied to their pants to lay cable to connect wireless receivers to Nextel’s switching centers via the Bell Atlantic system.
The Washington Post also reported “workers [are taking] pains to blend the antennas into their surroundings, in some cases painting the wires the same color as the buildings.”
I am glad someone is benefiting from all of this ruckus because it doesn’t seem like the residents or workers of D.C. are getting much out of it.
