"We hold these truths to be self evident..." The Jefferson Monument

This past weekend my family was in town my dad dragged us in the freezing cold to see the Jefferson monument, which he always proclaims is his favorite. I have not been to the monument in many years and wanted to go, just not when it was below 30! As cold as I was the monument looked even more beautiful than I had remembered since I had been there as a kid. The statue of Thomas Jefferson was just as imposing as it was when I was in eighth grade.

The monument has four panels of excerpts of Jefferson's writing. The most recognizable is from the Declaration of Independence, which he wrote at the young age of 33, "We hold these truths to be self-evident..."

Another panel highlights how involved Jefferson was in the creation of the separation of Church and State in our government. His idea of a secular society was very novel at the time. This panel, a picture of which is attached, is compiled from many letters and writings of Jefferson's.

I noticed quite a few signs of construction surrounding the monument. The monument is actually sinking into the ground and efforts are currently being made to prevent this. Washington, D.C. was built on a swamp and this is apparent in the structural and engineering problems that have been going on with the monument since the early 1940's, only years after it was built. Here is a Washington Post article from 2007 which outlines the problem in more depth.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/15/AR2007061502436.html

-Clare

Hearing Brief

Last week on Feb 4th I was able to attend a breifing about Haiti and what the U.S. should be doing about this situation. It was very intersting to hear what has been happening lately concerning those who were not injured during the quake but have lost almost everthing. I learned that over 1 million people have been displaced and that 55,000 Haitians have approved family relations in the U.S. but are not being allowed to enter the states to live with those family members. Many who have been working on gaining U.S. citizenship before the earthquake, have been given a Temporarty Protection Status (TPS), however, this has not been extended to their families. Others who have been waiting to be able to migrate their families here for a months and years, now have to even longer because the U.S. has stopped all migration of Haitians to the U.S. At the briefing, there were many policies discussed that the U.S. should impliment that would not require legislative action. A few of these being extending humanitarian parole to legal temporary visa holders and releasing Haitians with a TPS from detention. There has also been talk about using GTMO as a place to hold Haitians until an answer can be established. By doing this, the U.S. needs to create a lottery system similar to the '95 lottery for Cubans. This would limit the amount of unsafe Haitian attemps to cross the U.S. borders. The main purpose of this hearing was to draw more focus on those who have survived the earthquake and familes that have been displaced. Those who spoke highighted preventing the seperation of children from their families and preventing child traffiking.
About the logistics of the hearing, everyone who entered the room was given a packet of information with bios of each presenter, talking points, vocabualary, and recent articles relating to this issue. The packet was very beneficial thoughout the entire hearing when it came to understanding acroynms and what the laws that are currents in place state. I also noticed a girl sitting in the front row before the panel holding papers with big numbers written on them; 10, 5, and 3. I realized she was holding them up so that the speaker knew how much time they had left to talk before the next speaker would give their presentation. The whole hearing was fun flawlessly and almost perfectly to the time that they said it would. It was very interesting to sit in on this briefing and I look forward to following these events more closely in the news.
-Joanna

Holocaust Museum

This weekend I was able to make it out to a couple of museums. The one I was most excited to check out was the Holocaust museum. This museum has powerful displays that depict the horror and tragedies that so many Jewish and Polish people faced during the reign of Nazi Germany. It was eerie to see the large display of shoes worn by Jews as they traveled to the concentration camps. They also had a large display of personal items such as hair brushes, toothbrushes, and scissors. Many of these objects were brought to the camps because the Jews thought they would be working and that these items would be essential to their everyday hygenie.

While many aspects of the museum were moving, I found the overall exhibit to be overwhelming because of the sheer amount of content. It would take the average person months to read all of the information posted. Much of the exhibit is dedicated to the general history of the world wars and the uprising of the Nazi party. While it is necessary for this information to be provided to understand the overall struggle, I felt that it took away from the main objective of the museum. Despite this, it is definitely a must see museum in the D.C. area.

SM

Taking advantage of our set of wheels, Jeff, Lilly and I headed to the Lincoln Memorial to celebrate freedom and DC's inability to clear the streets.

My most interesting fact (for brevity's sake): The murals on either side of the monument - above both the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln's Second Inaugural - are meant to be muted in color so as not to overshadow the messages of aforementioned speeches.

DC graciously cleared two paths up to the inner sanctum of the monument. To ensure all visitors knew exactly where these paths were, signs were erected to remind us that stairs covered with snow are not safe. We've all seen pictures of the monument. Have you seen pictures of the city covered in the remnants of the snowstorm of the century? I thought not. Speaking of which... http://dcist.com/2010/02/snowmaggedon_10_in_time_lapse.php
LJH

This post is one I have, along with many others, saved up for awhile after a weekend of museum touring. This is of course, one of the first planes flown by the Wright Brothers displayed at the National Air and Space Museum. Because there are more pictures of Friendship 7 on this blog than NASA has, I decided to post this. Ohio is after all "the birthplace of aviation." This particular Smithsonian museum is one of the most popular, especially with kids. I found this display along with others chronicling fighter planes used in the two world wars to be the best.

--Mike

The Correct Answers

I thought that in the wake of the recent climate change posts it would be a good idea to post a preview of my current event article for this upcoming week. On Monday, February 8, Roll Call published a poll conducted by Frank Luntz, "provocateur and Republican pollster" and one of the architects of the Contract With America. The poll asks the simple question: "Which of the following paragraphs about energy costs gives you the most favorable impression?" The paragraph that was most chosen (57%) is this:

"It doesn't matter if there is or isn't climate change. It is still in America's best interests to develop new sources of energy that are clean, reliable, efficient and safe."

Why don't we start from there?

Also, chosen third out of possible paragraphs is this: "Slightly higher energy costs today are worth the investment if they lead to more affordable, more efficient and cleaner energy down the road."


I close with my own question: Who has the larger incentive to lie about climate change, academic scientists? Or companies such as AEP or PEPCO?


--Mike

Climategate?

Lately, I've been hearing a lot about this whole "global warming" thing. Partially from class, partially because of this insane weather. To be honest, I don't really get into it either way.. but I just found an interesting article (see it here).

Basically, it's about Phil Jones, the man behind "climategate." He admits that some of the data was poorly organized and that a lot of it was missing. However, he still stands behind the fact that the world is getting warmer (according to University of Alabama Hunstville, this is the warmest January in 40 years...). Most importantly, he defends the fact that he does not have a political agenda and is doing all of this as a scientist.

The whole issue is so muddled because Al Gore tries to pretend that he understands science and, if global warming is a product of humans, there will definitely be political implications. Plus, there are politicians who do things like pay for commercials with sad polar bears in order to get people's sympathies.

In the end, this has to come down to hard facts. I find it a little ridiculous that it's all still a question. In a country that prides itself so much on freedom of information, it disappoints me that we still don't know FOR SURE if we have an effect on climate. Assuming that we some day have reliable science on the subject, the question of what we'll actually do will remain incredibly political and the policy that we adopt will surely incorporate several factors.. but this kind of reminded me of our discussions in class the other day. This is definitely a situation where the legislation is going to come down to the facts. I'm going to be optimistic and say that once we have the facts straight, we can get some decisions made. Or start to. Or something.

Peace and love-

Lilly

D.C.'s Blizzard of 2010... Part of the Climate Change Debate?

For the past week and a half, all of the Glenn Fellows have dealt with mounds of snow along with the rest of the D.C. metro area. We are lucky to have power and have a small grocery store down the street while many in the area are without power and unable to get out to buy the essentials such as food. We've had a lot fun playing in the snow near the Capitol building and all of us got at least one snow day (some got two!).

During all the winter fun, I noticed in the news that many have taken this storm, which is pretty out of the ordinary for D.C., and made it apart of the debate over climate change. I saw on MSNBC that the show Fox and Friends mentioned that this storm seems to disprove the global warming theory, because more snow and cold temperatures must mean no warming, right? Its not quite that simple.

This was just one storm in the entire weather and climate record. As we learned from one our readings, The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate by Andrew Dessler and Edward Parson, the weather and the climate are not the same. Scientists agree that increased temperatures allow the air to hold more moisture, which would result in more precipitation in the form of either rain or snow, depending on the season. So taken with increased snow in the area, this storm could be further evidence for global warming.

Only in Washington, D.C. could the weather be turned into a political debate!

~Clare

"It's Winter Time in the City" AGAIN

My post from last weekend describing the winter "storm" that dumped ten inches of snow on the D.C. area can now be described as, at best, feeble in comparison to the twenty inches of snow that has fallen over the past twenty four hours as a result of a massive blizzard, bringing the east coast to a standstill. The result of one to two inches per hour snowfall rates, the blizzard has been described by the Washington Post as "snowmageddon" and "snowpocalypse" both good descriptors of how people here act when faced with the news of an imminent threat of snow, in any amount. The picture on the bottom is a view from the front steps of our house on Constitution, the one on the top is looking back at the house from the other side of the street. More posts to come I just had to get these pictures up, can you find the cars in the picture on the top?

--Mike

Keep on the sunny side of life.

Today was thrilling. I stayed home from work sick and felt brain dead all day so got very, very little accomplished. Then, my dad called and I was so dead that I forgot that he talks for hours and hours without any response from me. Well, besides his panic attack at the thought of me being sick (which almost always means I'm dying) and the stellar career advice he gave me (you know it's good when coming from a community college dropout), he also brought up Iran, since I told him I'd been researching it lately. Apparently, Ahmadinejad, their always hilarious president, made some comments about destroying Israel.. again.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because I think he's a fascinating person, in the same was as a car accident, you know? He has a website, http://www.president.ir/en/, where you can see the government's twist on the news. Why should you guys care about this, you ask? Well, I know we're all struggling through this book on corruption in Congress, and I wanted to make sure that things were kept in perspective. No government is perfect and the US is no exception. However, if you compare what we have to a country like Iran, I think you'll feel a lot better about things. Whether Congress is "broken" or not, whether you like Obama or not, our situation is approximately 503458 times better than Iran's.

Seriously, though, check out Ahmadinejad's website sometime. It's a hoot.

Peace and love,

Lilly