🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <18002@oasys.dt.navy.mil>, bense@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Ronald Bense) writes...
>Hold it....I see a definite problem with your math here. I saw the rally
>on TV, and 20 per 100 sq. ft. (about the size of a medium bedroom in
>a house in the D.C. area) would still not account for the shoulder to
>shoulder jamm packed view I saw.
> 
>Not only that, but how did the densest areas have less than the standing
>areas?
> 
>Leave the counting to those who supposedly have some expertise in this
>area. I'd go with the 500,000 (which I think was probably a little low)
>before I'd even think of listening to your number.



I meant the densest areas where people were =seated=. I should
have been clearer on that point. The areas where people were
standing had about twice that density. This was on the Mall.
Again, if there were more people at the Ellipse, then they went
elsewhere than to the Mall. 

The appearance on TV of mobs of people densely packed is
an illusion created by telephoto lenses.

I point out again that in remarks to me, Capt. Hugh Irwin of the
Park Police aggreed with me that they overestimate. He told me
in 1990 that they give the "benefit of the doubt" to the march
leaders. This meant that for an April 1990 march, for example,
that where they estimated the crowd at somewhere between 99,000
and 198,000, they "rounded it up" to 200,000 and gave that as
the official count. Obviously, that is a possible inflation by a
factor of two. 

As for Metro ridership counts, folks looking to point to that
as justifying enormous attendance estimates should be reminded
that Metro was quoted this time as saying that the excess 
ridership about equaled that tallied for the 1989 demonstration.

As for "leaving the counting" to the "experts," that's just
the acceptance of authority that we try to question on
Usenet, don't we? But then, I don't work for the military...