Springtime in DC

Aaahhh, it's spring time in our nation's Capitol. The cherry blossoms are in full bloom, heavy coats have been shed, and the sun is shining beautifully. Spring time also brings the throngs of church groups and school field trips.

Given my work location, you can see the MASSES of tweens and chaperones working their way from the hotels to the tour buses waiting in long lines in front of the mall. Distinct luck of working next to a central meeting location. They take their buses across the Potomac to DC to take in their living Civics lessons. Most of them just seem to stand around wholly disinterested in the wonder and living history around them though, with the exception of taking photos, experimenting with camera perspectives so as to produce the biggest "gag" factor. Wonder how many millions have taken pictures of their friends or themselves licking or squashing the Washington Monument?

At lunch time they make their way back to the mall, where they convene RIGHT in front of the entry ways. They stop in the middle of walk ways and have their insipid little conversations while they peruse the store windows for things their travel budgets don't allow. The working lunch crowd, who is trying to make the most of their half hour lunch break, must compete with the glaze-eyed teens in order to get their food. I just want to tell them, look, the McDonald's/Taco Bell/Sbarro/Popeyes/Panda Express/Hagen Daas menus are the EXACT SAME as where you came from! Make a decision or move OUT of the way!

I can't help but stop and shake my head at how much more enthusiastic the kids are at the prospect of buying "FBI" or "You Don't See Me" shirts than they are at the National Archives or the National Gallery of Art. I just keep hoping that some day soon down the road they reflect and appreciate this experience and become aware of all the things that happen here that have and will shape and affect their lives profoundly.

But in the meantime, GET OUT of my way! I've only got 5 more minutes to get back to work!

My little thought on the "racism" issue at Tea Parties

I attended the July 4th Tea Party, the 9/12 Tea Party, and now the 3/20 Tea Party. I walked up, down and all around. I snapped pictures. I met old friends. I met new friends. But one thing I did not encounter was RACISM. I won't say I got a few looks of astonishment, which is totally understandable, but those bewildered looks went as quickly as they came and became welcoming. I witnessed absolutely NO violence. No spitting, no harassment, no vandalism or willful destruction of property. When we left, we left peacefully and the grounds were CLEAN. Cleaner than they were after Obama's inauguration, which took a week if not more to clean up. We are respectful, we are peaceful, and we seek to leave things in the same condition not better than we received it. We are protesting but we do not feel the need to be destructive and violent about it.

As far as the Congressional Black Caucus' assertions of racism go. I think it's a total crock and I firmly believe they were attempting to bait the Tea Partiers. I know this because members of the House and staff usually take the underground tunnels to get back and forth. This group intentionally walked above ground in the midst of the protest in hopes that something would happen. It is malicious and cowardly. When they found nothing actually happened that they could use they chose to fabricate something, which serves to show how low in caliber they are.

I will end by saying that something happened during the 9/12 protest that I will never forget. As I was walking deep into the crowd on the lawn, I spotted a black woman sitting. She was somewhere between 55 and 65. When I met her eye she gave me a warm smile and mouthed the words "thank you". I smiled back and walked on.

Don't Quit Your Day Job!

"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance."

All my life I was told by my mother to pursue my dreams but not to quit my day job in the meantime. Now, that being said, I was personally and unbelievably sickened by comments made by Nancy Pelosi implying that anyone who wanted to pursue a career in the arts should be able to do so without worrying about how to support themselves. Come again? Please enlighten me as to how that works? Whatever happened to working hard and paying your own way? Since when did it become permissible to basically just check out of the race and have someone else run it for you while you sat on the sidelines sipping the Gatorade?

I think her comments were indicative of the very affliction we suffer in society today. Absolutely NO personal accountability for anything. Believe me, I would LOVE to be able to settle down and write a book or pursue a drama career, but you know what? I have a son to support. That brings to mind another thing, while these free spirits are out pursuing their dreams and happen to get pregnant or get someone pregnant, are we expected to support that as well? Oh, well of course we are! That is, if you’re willing to even have the baby in the first place! I guess it goes without saying as well that we will be funding the abortion too, if that’s what they decide. And anyway, what kind of family life will it be if there is no structure for the child(ren), what with their parents (if both are even there) flitting here and there pursuing flights of fancy?

Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way averse to anyone pursuing their dreams, but what I do take particular issue with is the fact that the person will not be required to put in the hard work and sacrifice it takes in order to become that success. When you have everything given to you without earning it, the appreciation is diminished. The victory is not as sweet, and you will forever be beholden to someone. You can never hold your head high and say that you had to scrape and struggle for what you have and that NO ONE can take that away from you. There is a particular sweetness in the thought that everything you’ve obtained and achieved was because you did it all on your own.

So I ask again, Nancy Pelosi, I must ask, WHERE do you get off saying that people like ME should foot the bill for people who don’t even have the inclination to carry their own weight? Not everyone is like your daughter, who can chase people down and harass them on film and call it documentary journalism, yet be padded by your millions (billions even), should they fail. I think you need to come out of whatever delusional haze you find yourself in and accept REAL life as it really is.