The Great American Ripoff

The one hundredth anniversary of American independence in 1876 had the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where Alexander Graham Bell debuted the telephone. The one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of American independence in 1926 had the Sesquicentennial Exposition, also in Philadelphia, where alcohol was not allowed. (Prohibition.) For the two hundredth anniversary of American independence in 1976 - the Bicentennial - there was nothing of the sort. A world's fair in Philadelphia or anywhere else in the United States was logistically and financially impossible because, well, the federal government pretty had much spent the money needed for a fair in Vietnam in the previous decade, community opposition in both Philadelphia and Boston to a fair made it beyond difficult to hold in either city, ,and the economic instability and oil shortages of the early 1970s turned public opinion against it.  (And yet, Expo '74 in Spokane, Washington, with environmental preservation as a theme, managed to get off the ground.  Go figure.)

As someone who has never been to a world's fair - there hasn't been one in the United States since 1984 - I was hoping, really hoping, that there would be a fair for the semiquincentennial of American independence this year.

I forgot that old adage - be careful what you wish for.

Trump's Great American State Fair is a "celebration" of the 250th anniversary of the United States, a gaudy carnival on the National Mall that is either a parody of a real world's fair or an exaggeration of the utter banality of state fairs.  Or a combination of both.  The fair opened with a Trump rally that replaced the big concert that every performer not named Robert by his mother, Van Winkle by his father, and Vanilla Ice by himself bowed out of, and the official kickoff featured patriotic music from a military band, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy delivered opening remarks saying that their music was better than anything the "libtards" who backed out could have provided, while his Down's Syndrome-affected daughter stood by his side.  Duffy has refused to apologize for using the word, though he probably forgot himself when he used it in the company of his daughter.  He probably uses the word "libtard" regularly when dealing with mass transit advocates and bullet-train supporters at the Transportation Department building.

As for the fair itself . . . well, as far as I can make out, it has hamburgers, ice cream and lemonade available, but the ice cream might a bit runny because of power issues involving the freezers.  There's a 110-foot Ferris wheel that looks cool, when it works - that broke down as a result of a power issue.

And on top of all that, Robert Van Winkle is scheduled to perform tonight.

Feeling patriotic yet?

It gets better - or worse.  The fair also includes a 250-foot (get it?) replica of the arch Trump plans to build at the end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge on the Virginia side, as seen above (a winged Statue of Liberty?  Well, if I were Lady Liberty, I'd want wings to fly back to France), as well as a rodeo.

With a clown.

The states have their own pavilions - which are about as big as phone booths, to be honest - displaying.  Displaying what?  Mostly displaying around.  Seriously, they have displays of what makes them so unique, an important theme considering how shopping malls, Wal-Marts, Home Depots, office parks, cookie-cutter housing developments, and  McDonald's eateries have sucked out the regional distinctions of this country and made every place in America look like no place in particular.  However, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts,  Connecticut, North Carolina and Illinois have refused to take part (why, New Jersey, why did you not join them?), but Trump is celebrating the land of Lincoln by having a Lincoln hologram on display.  (What is this, Disney World Lite?)  Too bad Illinois isn't taking part, a presentation on the man who made modern America - McDonald's founder Ray Kroc - would have been enlightening.

Including the McDonald's mascot - a clown.

It's a national fair, with state pavilions, not a world's fair with national pavilions, and it's just as well, too, because no self-respecting foreign country would want to be represented at this Trump psycho circus.  Which works out fine, since the United States hasn't taken part in a world's fair elsewhere in a meaningful way for decades. 

At that, I should end my comments about a fair I have no intention of going to - in fact, I will deliberately be in London this time next week, on Independence Day (oh, the irony!) - and thus cannot opine on from personal experience.  I was out of the country last July 4, spending a weekend in Montreal, where there's a permanent and much nicer Ferris wheel (and ninety feet taller!), and I plan to be out of the country for every July 4 to come until the end of time, which could be sooner than one might think.  But I can say this.  It's my personal experience that any patriotic celebration where the admission is free, especially one involving Trump, is way overpriced.

Just Junk All Across the Horizon

Trump came back to Washington, D.C. last year and, once ensconced in the White House a second time, decided to remake the egalitarian architectural composition of Washington in his image.  First came the East Wing demolition for the ballroom.  Then came his appendage of his name on the Kennedy Center (the Third Reich architecture of which I already explained), though his name had to come off and he put tarps over where his name used to be.  Now, the algae in the reflecting pool.

Trump had the reflecting pool's floor painted the same shade of blue that's in the American flag because he through it would be - no doubt - "beautiful."  I'm sure it is.  Too bad you can't see it with all the algae.  Scientists explained that a dark color in the pool not only eliminates reflections but allows the sun to heat the water more thoroughly and create the conditions for algae to grow and bloom.  Scientists could have told Trump that would happen if he had the floor painted dark blue, but we all know Trump hates science.

Trump then arranged for the National Park Service add hydrogen peroxide to the water, which didn't do much to kill the algae but did break up the paint on the pool floor and brought it up in chunks of various sizes.  But I think the Trump brothers have a solution for that.

This is just a parody, but don't be surprised if it becomes something real.

But while it's an abomination to see what Trump is doing to Washington, one thing I cannot tolerate is how white bourgeois liberals complain about the desecration of the national capital's landscape but is totally unmoved by the desecration of the nation's landscape.  They have a lot of damn gall to complain about how Trump is making Washington D.C. ugly when they drive to the local big-box chain store, pass strip shopping centers, large, loud illuminated signs and cartoonish fast-food eateries, and probably pass through - or live in - a subdivision of bland houses and sidewalks that lead nowhere (assuming they have sidewalks) . . . and don't think twice of how ugly and degrading this all is.  They don't like what Trump is doing to Washington, D.C. yet they don't mind an America that has become one big Breezewood, Pennsylvania. 

You know, as problematic as "The Star-Spangled Banner" is, maybe "America the Beautiful" shouldn't be our national anthem.

Washington As the New St. Petersburg

Not St Petersburg, Florida. St. Petersburg, Russia.  Because like the Russian city, Washington was built on a fetid swamp with the sole intention of being a national capital.  But like its Russian antecedent, Washington, D.C. is fated to be a national capital no more.

I say this in part because I beleive that the United States is destined to split into separate countries, and as a secessionist, I am rooting for this outcome.  It is unlikely to be a capital city for whatever post-Union country assumes possession of it, because Trump has already rendered it tarnished beyond recognition.  Not only is he still trying to turn the White House into a Middle Atlantic Mar-a-Lago, with the ballroom and all that, he has had the floor of the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial a painted deep indigo blue, which absorbs daytime heart and causes algae to bloom.  When Trump had hydrogen peroxide poured into the water to fight the algae blooms, the paint came off, leaving a gunky blue and green mess.

And the triumphal arch for the western end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge is yet to come.

Washington should obviously lose its status as a national capital, given all of this.  Even if a future Democratic President theoretically tried to undo the damage - damage that possibly includes the UFC giant claw remaining in place on the White House South Lawn - the memory of the desecration would still linger.  And a Middle Atlantic republic that forms out of the states from the 36°30′ north line between Virginia and North Carolina to the farthest reaches of upstate new York will likely declare New York City to be its capital to take advantage of its large population and metropolitan area as well as its central location in the seven states that form the Middle Atlantic region. 

Therefore, Washington will likely become what St. Petersburg is today - a politically irrelevant and unimportant town with beautiful old government buildings that have long since outlived their purposes and have been repurposed for other uses.  I have addressed this topic in earlier posts; this post updates those ideas in light of Trump's recent attempts to beautify a city that didn't need much beautification in the first place.  

The various memorials and monuments will take on new meanings.  Presidential memorials honoring Presidents from different regions of the former United States will have their fates decided on a case-by-case basis.  The Jefferson Memorial, given Thomas Jefferson's inappropriate (to say the least) relationship with a female slave, will likely have its statue of Jefferson and its Jefferson quotes removed, becoming a mere granite gazebo.  The Lincoln Memorial might be enclosed possibly expanded to become a sculpture museum like the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia. 

The Capitol itself could become a grand new art museum, much in the way that Louvre in Paris was converted into an art museum after having been a royal palace.  It seems that the current Capitol building is actually too small for the number of House of Representatives members need to represent everyone in America adequately.  Therefore, as a government building, the Capitol is already antiquated.  And it would be too big for a successor state to the U.S. What is now called the National Gallery of Art would appreciate all the extra space.

The Supreme Court - the scene of many recent crimes against the common good - has a building that's actually much larger than it appears at the front.  Given that the Kennedy Center is an ugly piece of modernist Third Reich-inspired crap, the best solution would be to turn the Supreme Court building into a performing arts complex.  Given the current composition of the Court and its cavalier overturning of precedent, there are enough drama queens performing there already anyway. 

And the White House?  Uh, yeah, given how Trump has desecrated the executive mansion, the whole damn thing ought to be razed and have an apartment complex built on it.  

But the earth will have to be salted, given Trump's chronic inability to changed his Depends.

I had originally proposed expanding Lafayette Park on the site of the White House, but you can't plant flowers in salted earth. 

The Library of Congress?  It'll just be a library like any other, only it will have every book over written.  We can rename it the Robert Klein Library, after the stand-up comedian who parodied late-night television ads with his stand-up skit "Every Record Ever Recorded" (and the Library of Congress has every record ever recorded, too!)

Plus if you act now, you get an ice crusher.

("My name is Conrad Jarvis, and I’ve been dead for six years, but this idea is so brilliant, I had to come back to tell you about it.")

Almost any other remaining government building can be turned into a hotel.

And Washington's name?  Well, George Washington was the Father of Our Country, but without a country for Washington to be the father of, we can simply name it what it was when it was a little Maryland village absorbed into the District of Columbia - Georgetown.

And yes, it should be returned to Maryland.  What's it going to be a federal district of? 

Over time, Georgetown Maryland, the city formerly known as Washington, D.C., will become a splendid tourist attraction for its grand buildings and boulevards, the city being reimagined in its new role as a center of culture and historic preservation and, like St, Petersburg, it can still function as a naval hub thanks to its Navy yard.  It may even become more important as its own city than as a national capital entombed in a federal district where the locals have no representation in the national government.  But its role as a center of global power is pretty much gone, and it will in that respect be a shadow of its former self.

As for what to do with the Pentagon . . . I'd rather not let myself think about it. 

Protest? What Protest?

I was going to write about the aftermath of the protest yesterday in support of the insurrectionists who took part in the January 6 attack on the Capitol . . . 

. . . but I think I'd show you a picture instead.

One picture is worth a thousand words.

You sure can see a lot of grass.  Wow, plenty of room for social distancing here! 😄

Right, now about about that infrastructure package? 

One caveat, though: Just because the rally failed doesn't mean the assault on American democracy won't.  The threat is still out there.

Halloween D.C. Comics

On this Halloween, I'd like to use the comic-book personas of a few well-known politicians to explain why these United States are in the fix they're in.

A guy from Maryland with a solid record of accomplishment as that state's governor sought the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, and he hoped to make real difference in D.C., but Democrats found him to be too much of a mild-mannered  milquetoast.  So they rejected Clark Kent.

Democrats wanted a real superhero, someone with star power.  So they turned to . . . Wonder Woman!

Unfortunately, she was the one Democrat that the bad guys in the Republican Party could overpower, and she lost to the greatest villain imaginable . . .

. . . the Joker.

Where's the confounded Bat Signal? >:-( 

Suppose They Gave a Rally and Nobody Cared?

The coverage of yesterday's One Nation Working Together rally was rather cynical, and this isn't counting the obviously vicious coverage from conservative news outlets. Connie Hair of Human Events mocked the organizers' claims of how many people were there. But get this: more legitimate, staid news sources such as the New York Times expressed skepticism of the rally's effectiveness, insisting that it brought fewer people to the National Mall in Washington than Glenn Beck's rally in August. And some editorials wondered aloud if this would really help the Democrats get their act together in time for the November elections. My mother suggested that they should have brought in some celebrity speakers to draw crowds, but given how President Obama has fallen short of expectations of some of his most famous backers, maybe it makes sense that one of the bigger names at the rally was Native American comedian Charlie Hill, whom I just heard of yesterday.

The problem, of course, is that this rally expressed and voiced the concerns of the unemployed, the indigent, and the poor - just the sort of people, my mother pointed out, who cannot travel to the nation's capital to attend a rally. Fortunately - alas, really - the nation's capital itself has plenty of people in those categories, so I'm sure many of them must have attended. But the unemployed autoworkers in Detroit and the Louisiana shrimpers affected by BP's greed were less able to speak out for their livelihoods. So it was no surprise that local events were staged across the country. MoveOn.org staged several parties across the nation to get people to call voters to support and volunteer for state and local candidates.

I attended one such party, of course, scared by Richard Blumenthal's narrow lead in the Connecticut U.S. Senate race into participating. As fate would have it, this particular event was given the task of drumming up support for North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, who's running for the Senate against incumbent Republican Richard Burr. This is the same race I lambasted Chuck Todd over when he opined that it was a race Burr was guaranteed to win before Marshall was even nominated, and she was competitive for awhile, but even the most optimistic liberal would have to concede that Burr is so comfortably ahead that campaigning for Marshall must seem like a fool's errand by now. Fine. Burr hasn't won yet, and I was happy and proud to play a part, no matter how small, to stop him.

Even if Chuck Todd - or anyone else - doesn't care. :-O

One Nation Working Together

Several progressive groups are descending upon Washington tomorrow for the One Nation Working Together rally at the Lincoln Memorial to demonstrate for better jobs, livable wages, and a tax system that doesn't penalize the bottom 98 percent of the American population. They hope to advance the cause of racial and gender equality and the cause of the rights of working people. And naturally, right-wing pundits, if they mention it at all, are trying to dismiss the planned rally as a joke. Glenn Beck has written it off as a collection of un-American organizations who, in different times, would be on an FBI watch list. At least Beck has acknowledged the rally; many news organizations haven't even paid attention to it. But the organizations and individuals taking part are going to make sure that they're heard.

And not just tomorrow on the Washington Mall. After tomorrow, the One Nation movement plans to keep working to organize liberal voters, encourage them to come out in November, and thwart the advance of the tea Party movement to bring about the real change that many of us could believe in when we voted in 2008. Some polls in various campaigns - Senate races in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and California, among others, as well as the California governor's race - show some tightening and gives Democratic candidates hope. Rallies come and go, but One Nation hopes to be a movement - beyond the 2010 midterm elections. Can it succeed? Let's see. :-)

For more information on the One Nation Working Together movement, go here.

Snow Big Deal

The snowstorm that passed through the American East turned out to be a raspberry for the greater New York area, which includes northern New Jersey, where what little snow that fell wasn't even enough to be considered a dusting. But it was very different in central and southern New Jersey, and especially Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and much of Virginia and West Virginia. In some parts of New Jersey the snow measured anywhere between 18 and 24 inches, and it got up to 30 inches in the nation's capital. Snowfall totals for Washington were the most for a single storm in ninety years.

Maybe the politicians will take advantage of being snowed in together and accomplish something.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned DJ Pete Fornatale had his annual midwinter show on New York's WFUV-FM. As always, he devoted his air time to songs about or mentioning winter with, of course, special emphasis on winter songs - "Sleigh Ride," Jingle Bells," "Winter Wonderland" - that are associated exclusively with Christmas and are no longer played on the radio after the holiday season but have nothing to do with Christmas. He set out to play six different versions of "Winter Wonderland" to drive the point home.

Five were played. See, Fornatale was not on the air live; he taped his show, or at least his studio banter, in advance. Someone at the station must have screwed up, because when Dion's version of "Winter Wonderland" was supposed to be played, the station aired Dion's cover of "White Christmas" instead.

Oops.

Anyway, residents of northern New Jersey and New York City will get to walk in a winter wonderland soon enough. Another winter storm is predicted for Wednesday, and this one should hit our area, though maybe not as severely as the previous storm hit the rest of the mid-Atlantic region. We'll see. We in the greater New York area have been lucky this winter; this will only be the second big storm of the season. But I still can't wait for spring.