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August 17, 2004
Washington, DC
Chicago to Ann Arbor where I had the opportunity to meet AndrewSW for dinner. We had some fascination discussions mostly on religion and politics. While the content of these discussions was thought provoking, perhaps the most thought provoking was how our opinions differed. I view us both as critical thinkers and find it fascination how two people arrive at different conclusions. Actually, in this case, we both had arrived at many of the same conclusions, but our prescriptions for how to achieve our desired ends and how we got to where we are differed quite a bit. If I had more time. I would write more about our discussion, but its all a race at this point.
We stayed with a friend Mark, a friend of Greg's in Ann Arbor. He fed us some high class beer before bed and even cooked a pancake breakfast in the morning. After breakfast we had another long drive straight to DC. Yesterday we were in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and DC. We were only a hundred feet or so from W. Virginia as well. We are staying at a relatives of Greg who was gracious enough to give us a night tour of some of DC's largest monuments last night. The grandeur of these buildings and that they were built to honor a single person is astounding. It is hard to imagine us building these types of things today. For one, we just would not spend that much money on a memorial and secondly, there do not seem to be the same type of iconoclastic figures today to deserve such a large memorial. I just can't imagine a Ronald Reagan memorial that was 4 stories high and half a city block in size.
Today we will do the tourist thing in DC. We'll stop at the Smithsonian, the Capital, many other memorials, perhaps the Spy Museum; you know, all the touristy things. Its still fascinating though. It gives us some perspective on where we came from and how we got here. America is still so young I was amazed to learn the Lincoln memorial was only built in 1928. I'll have more to say after we're back.
I also have more thoughts on the issue of travel and 'fun' and how it relates to intellectualism and class. This is based on peoples reactions to the notion of our trip and the notion of other recreational activities I value, but alas, there's just not enough time.
Tonight we're off to Baltimore to see Eric, Bryce and Trigga. We'll spend all of tomorrow in Baltimore and even stay one more night. That will be the first time we've spent two nights in the same place. I am looking to sleeping in tomorrow.
Posted by wonko at August 17, 2004 05:59 AM
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Comments
Well, if the republicans could have their way, they would put up a memorial using your money, because they gave themselves a larger tax refund. They tried really hard to get Ronald Reagan on the $10 bill to replace Hamilton. As one republican idiot put it, Halmilton is the only non-president on U.S. currency. Benjamin Franklin must be rolling in his grave.
Posted by: useEvil at August 17, 2004 09:04 AM
On a similar note, I saw something that bothered me today. The new WWII memorial was really nice, but I was disturbed when I saw large text comemorating George W. Bush as the person who commissioned it. We build memorials to remember those the memorial is commemorating, not someone who thought it would be good to memorialize them. Besides, Bush never barely served and does not seem to be in a position to sympathize with those the memorial represents. It was just tacky. The Lincoln memorial doesn't have a plaque dedicated to whatever president commissioned it!
Posted by: wonko at August 17, 2004 07:19 PM
Another similar note, guess which President's name is both on the plaque on the Moon and on Voyager. Nixon!
Posted by: dharmabumette at August 18, 2004 03:36 PM
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