The always-fatuous Westboro Baptist Church members are present in Washington, D.C. for President Obama's inauguration today, but barely. As noted by Salon's Alex Seitz-Wald, the undiscerning protesters are "thoroughly penned in," and there are only a few of them. The Washington Post counted eight people total, while their signage count is closer to a dozen, including a character-saving 2013 twist on the old standby: "God H8S FAGS." ||||| "Four years ago today I began tweeting," Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill wrote this morning. "One of my first tweets was a comment on Scalia's weird hat." Indeed, it was: 
 
 Scalia in a really weird hat. — Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) January 20, 2009 
 
 "Will he wear it again?" McCaskill wondered. "Stay tuned." We did. And she saw it. And took a creepshot: ||||| Forget Michelle Obama's fashion. Mid-inauguration, everyone from Twitter to Washington is trying to figure out the deal with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's hat. See: 
 
 So what is he wearing? Well, according to Twitter it could be one of the following: 
 
 An Olympic beret: 
 
 Is Scalia wearing one of those ROOTS berets from the 2002 Winter Olympics? — Ben (@benzumsteg) January 21, 2013 
 
 A Piero della Francesca reference: 
 
 Inspiration for Antonin Scalia hat: bit.ly/ULEkVn — Ali Weinberg (@AliNBCNews) January 21, 2013 
 
 Why is Antonin Scalia wearing a renaissance era painter's hat?#StealingArethasThunder — Ryan Haaker (@RyanHaaker) January 21, 2013 
 
 A medieval monk costume: 
 
 Scalia in that hat: the mad medieval monk, fresh from illuminating a biblical manuscript and torturing heretics. — Tom Junod (@TomJunod) January 21, 2013 
 
 The hat of a Vatican Palace guard: 
 
 Antonin Scalia looks so cute in that Vatican Palace Guard's hat. — kara vallow (@teenagesleuth) January 21, 2013 
 
 But let's not forget, Scalia rocked some weird head gear four years ago, something Senator Claire McCaskill reminded us of earlier this morning: 
 
 Four years ago today I began tweeting. One of my first tweets was a comment on Scalia's weird hat.Will he wear it again? Stay tuned. — Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) January 21, 2013 
 
 And Russell Goldman of ABC News explained: 
 
 If you're looking for truly weird, once-every-four-years head gear, look no further than the justices of the Supreme Court. Some of the justices, such as Antonin Scalia did in 2009, don silk or wool skullcaps with peaked corners. The justices are generally seen together in public outside of the court and in their robes only once a year at the State of the Union address or the inauguration. 
 
 To us, though, it looks like Scalia may have gotten a new hat. Here's his look from four years ago: 
 
 Update: Here's some more information on Supreme Court Justice's skullcaps via Jeffrey Toobin. University of Richmond School of Law professor Kevin Walsh explains: 
 
 The hat is a custom-made replica of the hat depicted in Holbein’s famous portrait of St. Thomas More. It was a gift from the St. Thomas More Society of Richmond, Virginia. We presented it to him in November 2010 as a memento of his participation in our 27th annual Red Mass and dinner. 
 
 Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at ezuckerman at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire. 
 
 Esther Zuckerman ||||| At first, Geysa Blanco thought her son was kidding. 
 
 "He said, ‘Mom, I have news for you,’ " Blanco said, recalling the telephone call from her son a few weeks ago. 
 
 "Between English and Spanish, he told me that they had chosen him to write and read a poem at the presidential inauguration,” she said. 
 
 But Richard Blanco, a child of exiles who was raised in Miami and graduated from Florida International University, was serious. 
 
 The Barack Obama inaugural committee chose the 44-year-old Cuban-American civil engineer and author to recite an original poem at Monday’s inauguration. 
 
 Richard Blanco has also been speechless. “It took me 10 minutes to remember what the word for inauguration is in Spanish," he said in a telephone interview Sunday from Washington, D.C., less than 24 hours before taking center stage. 
 
 Blanco, who now lives in Maine, will become the first Hispanic inaugural poet and the first openly gay one. He is also only the fifth and youngest poet in the exclusive club of poets. 
 
 The first was Robert Frost, who in 1961 wrote a poem for the inauguration of John F. Kennedy. 
 
 Then in 1993, Bill Clinton chose the African-American writer Maya Angelou. Miller Williams was chosen for Clinton’s second inauguration, and Elizabeth Alexander wrote the poem for Obama’s first ceremony. 
 
 In a statement, Obama said Blanco’s work represents "the great strength and diversity of the American people." 
 
 This diversity and strength could be reflected in the story of the poet’s Cuban exile mother. 
 
 "She is a very brave woman and has worked hard all her life for my brother and me," Blanco said. 
 
 During an interview at her Westchester home, Geysa Blanco, 75, said that it still seems surreal that a woman who grew up in a sugar refinery in Cienfuegos will stand in front of the National Capitol, watching her son recite a poem for the nation and the president of the United States. 
 
 “My son said reporters might want to interview me and I said, ‘Me? What for?’ ” Geysa Blanco said. Indeed, local reporters and TV cameras have come knocking and the proud mother has given several interviews. 
 
 Geysa Blanco has also become a celebrity among her neighbors, friends and customers at Regions Bank on Bird Road, where she has worked for more than 30 years. 
 
 The roots of Richard Blanco’s writing began in 1968 when his parents fled the Communist island and went into exile in Spain. At the time, Geysa Blanco, a teacher, was pregnant and she and her late husband Carlos, already had an older son, also named Carlos. 
 
 "We decided to leave Cuba because the government was becoming more and more difficult to live under," she said. "But it was very painful for me because I left my mother and brothers behind and came here virtually alone and with nothing." 
 
 After five months in Spain, where she gave birth to Richard, they emigrated to New York. 
 
 As a boy, she said Richard always had an interest in exploring his Cuban roots. 
 
 "I always had questions about Cuba, about the family we left there," he said. On his website he refers to himself as being “made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the U.S.” 
 
 That sense of not belonging and trying to belong seeps through his books of poetry, which often feature his family and their efforts hold on to their traditions. 
 
 When Richard was about 5 and Carlos 11, the family moved to the closest place to Cuba – Miami. His mother went to work in a supermarket and later landed her bank job. 
 
 "We lived three generations in one house, my husband’s parents, my husband and I, and Carlos and Richard," the poet’s mother said. "Sometimes it was hard because grandparents are not accustomed to the modern ways of young people.” 
 
 Today, she laments that those family members are gone. “I wish Richard’s father and grandparents were here to enjoy this day,” she said. 
 
 Richard Blanco did get to visit the homeland his parents yearned for when he was growing up. 
 
 "Everyone thought he wasn’t going to speak Spanish and was going to feel uncomfortable," Geysa Blanco said of her relatives on the island. "But they were surprised because he picked yucca in the fields, jumped in the canals and danced a lot, just like everyone else.” 
 
 That trip as a young man would shape the poet’s future work, his mother said. "I think that’s where he caught the bug to write about his roots," she said. 
 
 A previous version of this article misspelled the name of poet Miller Williams. ||||| Over 2,000 words and not a single mention of her? Snooze City. "Poor sasha will be hearing about that yawn for the rest of her life," says Huff Post editor Peter Goodman. 
 
 Maybe not for the rest of her life, but at least as long as reaction GIFs are a thing. 
 
 [photo via AP, gif via @ditzkoff] ||||| Richard Blanco delivers his inauguration poem "One Day." 
 
 The following poem was delivered by inauguration poet Richard Blanco during ceremonies for President Obama's second inaugural Monday. The text of the poem was provided by the Presidential Inaugural Committee. 
 
 "One Today" 
 
 One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores, 
 
 peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces 
 
 of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth 
 
 across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies. 
 
 One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story 
 
 told by our silent gestures moving behind windows. 
 
 
 
 My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors, 
 
 each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day: 
 
 pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights, 
 
 fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows 
 
 begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper -- bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us, 
 
 on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives -- to teach geometry, or ring up groceries as my mother did 
 
 for twenty years, so I could write this poem. 
 
 
 
 All of us as vital as the one light we move through, 
 
 the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day: 
 
 equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined, 
 
 the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming, 
 
 or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain 
 
 the empty desks of twenty children marked absent 
 
 today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light 
 
 breathing color into stained glass windows, 
 
 life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth 
 
 onto the steps of our museums and park benches 
 
 as mothers watch children slide into the day. 
 
 
 
 One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk 
 
 of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat 
 
 and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills 
 
 in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands 
 
 digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands 
 
 as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane 
 
 so my brother and I could have books and shoes. 
 
 
 
 The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains 
 
 mingled by one wind -- our breath. Breathe. Hear it 
 
 through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs, 
 
 buses launching down avenues, the symphony 
 
 of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways, 
 
 the unexpected song bird on your clothes line. 
 
 
 
 Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling, 
 
 or whispers across cafe tables, Hear: the doors we open 
 
 for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom, 
 
 buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días 
 
 in the language my mother taught me -- in every language 
 
 spoken into one wind carrying our lives 
 
 without prejudice, as these words break from my lips. 
 
 
 
 One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed 
 
 their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked 
 
 their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands: 
 
 weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report 
 
 for the boss on time, stitching another wound 
 
 or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait, 
 
 or the last floor on the Freedom Tower 
 
 jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience. 
 
 
 
 One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes 
 
 tired from work: some days guessing at the weather 
 
 of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love 
 
 that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother 
 
 who knew how to give, or forgiving a father 
 
 who couldn’t give what you wanted. 
 
 
 
 We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight 
 
 of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always -- home, 
 
 always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon 
 
 like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop 
 
 and every window, of one country -- all of us -- 
 
 facing the stars 
 
 hope -- a new constellation 
 
 waiting for us to map it, 
 
 waiting for us to name it -- together 
 
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– Roughly 600,000 people came out to watch President Obama's inauguration this year, which is a far cry from the 1.8 million who came out for his first one, but might nonetheless set a record for a second term inauguration. A look at what all those people saw: A whole lot of celebrities, including Katy Perry, John Mayer, Nick Cannon, Eva Longoria, Cyndi Lauper. James Taylor sang "America the Beautiful," Kelly Clarkson sang "My Country 'Tis of Thee" (the New York Post catches Bill Clinton photobombing her), and Beyoncé sang the national anthem—at one point, reportedly plagued by audio problems, Gawker notes that she ripped her earpiece out on the way to an impeccable performance. A poem by Cuban immigrant Richard Blanco, who is at once the first Hispanic, the first openly gay, and the youngest poet to ever give an inaugural poem, according to the Miami Herald. You can read the poem here. Sasha Obama yawning, a moment that has, sadly for her, already become a gif, Gawker reports. The Westboro Baptist Church making an obligatory protest appearance, and sporting more protest signs (featuring hip slogans such as " GOD H8S FAGS") than people (eight), according to Daily Intel. Antonin Scalia wearing what Claire McCaskill calls a "really weird hat." Various observers on Twitter opined that it made him look like "a renaissance era painter" or a "mad medieval monk." Maybe he was just jealous of all the attention Aretha got last time out?