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Slow Saturday
When Congress leaves town in August, many local residents of the District of Columbia clear out too. But for those who stay, for just a few weeks, we get our city and neighborhoods back.
There is still news to chew on and an occupation to fight and other boneheaded moves to prevent, but for today, take a walk with Richard and me through Capitol Hill, sans the Feds.
This morning was glorious: the first coolish day in a week, allowing for full inhalation. We took time to read the New York Times and the headlines of the Post before heading out for a stroll.
Capitol Hill rowhouses
People actually live in those houses; Senators and police officers, teachers and retired military, bureaucrats and young staffers. As we walked today, we saw quite a few houses being rehabbed: gutted and rewired and redesigned. The housing market here is still OK because war always provides for a bump, or at least a buffer, due to all those contractors who want to be in the 'hood so they can discuss their needs with Congress...
We noted the couple redoing their garden with beautiful purple flowers and the guy working on making the lower part of his house into what is called an "English basement" (aka "income").
We passed a friend's house and she was out, watering her garden. We talked about the kids, the water bills, and the weather.
As we neared Eastern Market, we heard music. A close harmony singing group was there, comprised of Cap Hill neighbors. They were letting it rip with their 3-5 year old kids sitting cross-legged in front of them, looking up attentively. Dogs barked along, and everyone was smiling.
Eastern Market itself is closed, due to the fire that happened there a few months ago:
but today the area looked as crowded as it ever was. The new temporary facility is almost finished; just awaiting the refrigeration equipment. We walked among the outdoor vendors, sampling hummous, bean dip, sliced peaches and tomatoes, candied pecans and almonds, and by the time we got to the crepe booth, we felt replete, so we headed off for iced coffees instead.
We ran into old friends and talked about the progress on both the temporary facility and the old market. Everyone feels a little proprietary about the Market. It is OUR market and we have to check on progress regularly.
Next we checked out the newly reopened library, which is like the old library, only lighter, brighter, cleaner, and containing computers and actual books. There were a lot of older folks and kids inside, and we noted that it is once again, a real community center.
We walked back through the market area, saying hello to the vendors we know, and picked up a basket of locally grown blackberries, which we ate immediately. They were gone before we had completed two blocks.
I share this vignette with you all because the sense of having lost a certain amount of civic life has been palpable here, ever since Jan. 2001, and certainly after September 11, 2001. The fire at the Market was just another in a long line of losses, including the closing of the local library for long-overdue repairs, but the biggest loss of all has been the sense that Capitol Hill belongs to the people and the community, if not the entire country.
Today was, for us, a glimpse of hope that the community is still here, underneath and despite all the criminal behavior and bullying that goes on the other eleven months of the year. Today it felt like *we the people* were back, singing and laughing and caring for the community and each other, and capable of keeping on keeping on.
At least, until September.
THE JOYRIDE THAT WAS THE AMERICAN EMPIRE
A review of Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future From Four Impending Catastrophes, By Michael J. Panzner
Carolyn Baker
A few days ago a friend called me just after hearing Michael Panzner on the Thom Hartmann show on Air America. My friend wanted me to read Panzer's book, Financial Armageddon and see what I thought. Apparently, Panzer's radio interview remarks were filled with passion and a sense of urgency, and upon reading the book, I experienced the same intensity in the author's writing which pleasantly surprised me. Here was a financial guru with 25 years' experience in the stock, bond, and currency markets and a faculty member of the New York Institute of Finance, who unlike Ben Bernanke and the silver-lining pundits of the financial pages, was not telling us that everything is going to be fine or that things will "bounce back in 2010"...
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m35255&hd=&size=1&l=e
Karen,
Thanks for a snapshot of life coming sort of back to normal, for now, in Capitol Hill. Makes me want to go back to take in the atmosphere, while it's still sane.
NMP,
Happy birthday!
NMP and Rossiann (from last thread)
The only reason my father even went to NOLA was because he lived in Texas at that time - a relatively short drive, as opposed to a long flight that it is now.
I sometimes tell him to go back to San Antonio, because he misses living there so much - lower vehicle licensing fees (and the sticker on the windshield instead of the license plate, as in CA, where it gets stolen a lot), chances to sight "great" Latino buddies of W like Alberto Gonzales doing their daily businesses, laws that heavily favor landlords over tenants, and so forth.
And speaking of the most racist people in the world, Southern California's Koreatowns come very close. After all, these bastards came from the most monoethnic society in the world (one that couldn't even tolerate a Chinatown), and where that monoethnicity is considered not only a virtue, but the key defining feature of the nation.
Great snapshot view of the DC community, Karen. The photos are good too. I was in DC - as a 2 day tourist with my sister and her husband, way back in 1972 or 1973. I saw none of this. It was a hurried view and we had the political heartland to see, some of which I still remember.
This vignette is beckoning to me to see the other DC. The DC that is the community itself. The DC that can forget about politics and government for a short while. Your market is buzzing with sounds and smells and visuals that only a market can create.
For the most part we are not seeing the individuals. There are important things to concentrate on.
But, "there's the rub" (as Shakespeare wrote)
When we lose our sense of community, we lose the small - and the big - picture. It is our community that is the most valuable thing that we must salvage. Without a healthy, functioning heart, we shrivel and die. But it is that very heart that has been assaulted. And continues to be assaulted. We need to nurture the parts that make up the heart. Once the heart is healthy, the rest will follow, "as night the day".
My friends do *the markets* every weekend. That's their sole income. They continually change their offerings and now it's a mixture of art, craft and music. Right now I'm trying to work out if today is their day to call in here for a cuppa and maybe a game or two of Rummikub.
Thanks Karen, for taking me along with you and Richard on your walk around your community. Thanks too for pointing out that when we take care of each tiny little part, the whole works much better. Enjoy your month of peace.
NMP (from the last thread again),
Thanks for your firm stand on civil unions.
I didn't realize that Giuliani was against civil unions as well. He has a strong pro-gay reputation for a Republican. The Dems need to destroy that reputation.
Of course, for the transfolk, Giuliani has always been a nightmare; he's always worked closely with Third World transphobes (i.e. Jamaican cab drivers) to exterminate them from NYC.
Well, today was fun! Time crept up on me as I ended up on the computer before I'd even hardly started to get dressed or ready. I headed out for Wild Ginger, which is the favorite restaurant of Teresa Kerry. I met up with Elizabeth and before long we were joined by Marjorie G and her husband Alan, and then my son.
So that was the election integrity summit, as Elizabeth and Marjorie know a scary amount about voter fraud and problems and have some ideas about what should be done. It's lonely, heart breaking work and they run into apathy, disbelief, glazed over eyes - you name it.
After a great meal, we headed up to Kerry Park and if you know Marjorie, you know she is a loyal Kerry supporter, so it was a good photo backdrop for her (with Space Needle and city skyline in the background). Then we headed to Gasworks Park, which is another nice vantage point, on Lake Union, made from an old factory.
Marjorie did have some reservations about staying at the "W" Hotel, but at least it's just a coincidental name resemblance.
The we proceeded to Fremont, Center of the Universe, the neighborhood which has threatened to secede not only from the city but the country. The "Waiting for the InterUrban" statue (people waiting for a bus) was decked out in surgical masks. I showed them the real rocket which stands over an old surplus store, the real statue of Lenin that someone brought over after the Soviet Union splintered, and the giant VW-eating Troll that lives under the Aurora Bridge.
Then we headed out to my place to pick up my husband who was off work and I showed Marjorie the John Kerry Room, with the life-size John Kerry figure who is wearing a beret and peace sign and all my other paraphernalia. We went out to explore indie bookstores and indie coffeeshops (NOT Barnes & Noble, NOT Starbucks) in the U District and old Pioneer Square.
We were careful to talk about something other than just politics and they had just been up in Alaska. It was great! Nice day! Had dinner at Trattoria Mitchelli so no cooking for me today!
Starbucks Rejection Tour (click on my name)
Thanks for the pix, Karen. It looks like the architecture in D.C. is interesting. I have always wanted to visit D.C. but haven't yet. I sent my son when he was 12 years old on a school trip to D.C. and he brought me back salt and pepper shakers in designs of must see sights there, plus a miniature cannon.
My boss was there this year in June, at the ALA conference. She did so much she couldn't even talk about all of it - and loved every minute of it. The only thing she didn't like was the price of food in the grocery stores....she said everything was so high they were better off eating in the restaurants.
Glad you got to have a slow Saturday to stop and smell the flowers, eat fresh blackberries, and commune with neighborhood acquaintences.
I had my "celebrate summer" dinner tonight for company - grilled steaks, roasted corn on the cob in their husks, and had watermelon for dessert.
Our summer didn't get here until the first week of July, and already the days are getting shorter again, and the temps have started cooling off a little, with winds that remind a bit of fall.
I figure we still have a few weeks of summer left, and the rest of the year the weather here is barbaric, so I intend to enjoy each and every day that's left.
I believe that misunderstandings and part understandings combined with imagined-inventions have cost millions of lives over the span of humanity's existence on the planet.
At no other time has that been better displayed, than by President George W Bush and his advisors, cronies and incompetent legal amnesiac. His lack of understanding of the way of life of Islamists is profound. It would have been laughable if it hadn't cost more than half a million lives, mostly civilian.
This may be a sincere effort on the part of Islamists within the structure of the world.
Then again, it could be the biggest gathering of jihadists held at any one time. An Australian was refused entry by the Indonesian government. Probably the Australian Federal Police have recommended that he be barred. The AFP's been trying to find a reason to jail him on the terror laws for a long time now.
Muslims meet for pan-Islamic state talks
August 12, 2007 - 5:29PM
About 80,000 people gathered in the Indonesian capital on Sunday for a conference hosted by a radical international Muslim group, Hizbut Tahrir.
Hizbut Tahrir said the gathering was aimed at strengthening Muslims' commitment to revive the Caliphate, a single Muslim government across the Islamic world, through peaceful means.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Muslims-meet-for-panIslamic-state-talks/2007/08/12/1186857334689.html
TSP, Thanks for the summer menu--and it was Richard's birthday dinner this week as well! Except we didn't have watermelon--we had his daughter Cleo's chocolate pie with coconut crust. We finished it last night, going for every last crumb! If you come here, you really do want to eat at Chez Bell--we know where to get the best ingredients -- Eastern Market!
woz, on the Muslim gathering: Richard and I had a talk about terrorists yesterday. We were speculating on the stupid FISA bill vote and wondering about why on earth it even came up. He said he had read that they did it because they were concerned that some attack might happen while they are away for the August recess and they wanted to be "covered".
I pointed out that the presence of the police and a sense of frenzy in late July said to me that the Congress had been told of "chatter" and that the "terrist" fear levels had been upped.
Charlie Brown and the football, again, we agreed.
We walked in silence for a bit. Then he said, "You know, I think there are about ten terrorists left." He meant trained Al Qaeda operatives. I pointed out the the neocons would respond that that might be true, but because we found 'em and smoked 'em out and took 'em out.
We will never know the truth, probably.
I am not sure there are not more, but I think most of them are getting trained in Pakistan, and we can do nothing about it, except for the fact that we are creating the largest recruiting effort for them. They are getting deployed to Iraq, possibly through Iran, and the only thing that would actually work to fight them would be to win back the hearts and minds of the people in Iraq.
A friend told us a story last week of being in Iraq and hearing stories about US soldiers and intelligence finding and destroying several weapons stashes--winning the surge, as it were. He also told us a story of a U.S soldier/medic who rescued a little girl who had drowned, and who managed to revive her and return her safely to her family.
Now which of these stories do you think had a better impact on winning the peace?
And which story resulted in Iraqis turning in the bad guys and their weapons?
Until we really understand that we cannot keep blowing stuff up, scaring people, wrecking their countries, and taking over their resources and expect to win ANYTHING, we are going to keep blowing ourselves up, scaring each other, wrecking our own country, and squandering our precious resources -- including our children.
We need a sea change. Please seek out your Members of Congress this month while they are nearby and please remind them that if we are to win anything, we need to operate differently.
I hope the Muslim gathering is about helping the West to learn the lessons of true winning. I hope their leaders are wiser than ours are.
Happy Birthday NMP.
Sorry I'm late. My scroller quit scrolling.
At 9 am, the water in my pool was already 92 degrees.
Grrrr.
Terrorists.. commies .. bogeyman
Anyway, the military is starting to rely on Red Bull for energy, according to the Observer.
That's pretty bad.
Christy
That's not a pool - that's a hot tub!
I saw this at The Observer (Guardian Sunday paper) and it's now going out via TruthOut and is a DailyKos recommended diary:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/11/22380/1218
It's about the military relying on Red Bull etc.
Got this from my uncle:
Watched several sessions of KOS convention on C-span hosted by Nancy Pelosi's daughter and the KOS boy was on Tim Russerts Face the Nation today - had never seen him before and was quite impressed......it seems like he could make lots of money on ads etc on his site since he is one force in putting the newspapers out of business
Karen,
Thanks for the peaceful stroll through D.C.
I tell you...I really 'feel' for all of you. I remember my times in D.C. when I just wanted to give the finger to the bungler in chief's motorcade and choppers.
That goes for anyone with a "R" and even many of those "D's."
(Taking a short break from work. So far, I feel like I've run a marathon this morning. 5 more hours left today.)
Picked blueberries & made blueberry crisp and blueberry tarts last week. This week I have zuchinni & squash on my counter and several recipies to try.
good food is good karma