I Like Ike

Carolyn and I spent much of yesterday in the U.S. Capitol, home of the Senate and House of Representatives. I hadn't been there since childhood and it was her first visit.

Lots of good pix but I'm having trouble with my laptop. The trackpad isn't working right and I can't crop or drag so just one for today. More when we get home.

Each state gets two statues in the Capitol. This is the best-known of the pair from Kansas. Carolyn's home. Dwight Eisenhower, of course, was Supreme Allied Commander during World War II and president of the U.S. from 1953 to 1961. Our guide told us the statue was based on a photograph from the war years. The general was explaining to an enlisted man how he liked to tie a fishing fly.

J. Edgar Hoover

We got into Washington Tuesday night. My meeting didn't start until late yesterday afternoon. Mrs. C and I spent several hours Tuesday at the Newseum, which is about just what it says. One of the current exhibits was about the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which meant it was about J. Edgar Hoover, who for decades was its notorious chief.

Although Hoover was a tenacious adversary of crime, he had a dark side that was eventually revealed. He became a paranoid crusader against any hint of Communist activity. Some say he persecuted gay men in public life, although controversy remains today about whether he himself was gay.

The last photo from this exhibit is a recreation of the Montana shack of someone well known to Americans, Ted Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomer. Click the link if you would like to know the significance to us.

STL DPB On The Road: At The Lincoln Memorial In Washington DC

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After my plane got in Monday afternoon, I went to the Lincoln Memorial. I don't think I've been there in 20 years. Even cynical old me found it quite moving. It is, without doubt, a temple, devoted to one enormous god, the man who was instrumental in keeping our nation from cracking in half. Abraham sits in his great stone chair year after year, gazing down the Mall at the Washington Monument and the Capitol. How do you read his expression - quiet, intense observation? Or is there just a touch of anger in those eyes?

TOMORROW: Thursday Arch Series or a real live United States Senator? Tell me your preference.

STL DPB On The Road: Blogger Meeting in Washington, D.C.

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I'm in Washington for the Arthritis Foundation meeting. Last night, Janet of D.C. Confidential, the Washington daily photo blog, met for dinner at a Spanish restaurant. Another friend of mine, a local photographer, joined us and took this picture of the meet-up. We always have flamenco dancers and roses growing out of out heads.

There was a good deal of snow here Sunday night and Monday morning. I spent some time out in the cold yesterday afternoon, shooting on the National Mall. More soon.

TOMORROW: Lincoln Memorial

At The National Gallery

When I'm in Washington, I always pay a visit to the National Gallery of Art. There are two buildings. The older, neoclassical West Building has works through roughly the end on the 19th Century. The East Building has the modern stuff. A tunnel that connects them contains a waterfall and window shown at the bottom. The top and middle images show a work by Dan Flavin, an artist whose medium was neon tubes.

The East Building makes my eyes and brain work hard. After crossing the tunnel, I looked at some 16th and 17th Century Dutch painting in the East Building. Hardly lightweight art but much more soothing.

There are other pictures I took at the National Gallery on Flickr here.

TOMORROW: Back to The Lou.

Washington: Seat of Power

Greetings from Washington, D.C. Across from the White House in Lafayette Park a group of people has maintained a daily peace vigil since 1981. This man told me that it was started by a couple now in their 60s. Volunteers take shifts. I asked him about his views. He said something about nuclear waste dumps in Africa and Iraq causing a nuclear winter and that Baghdad is the point on the planet closest to the sun at the perigee of Earth's orbit and that this has something to do with why it snows in Baghdad now, which it hasn't done for millennia. The clarity of thinking across the street is of the same order.

He sits and stares at the White House all day. Not many people talk to him. I'll talk to anybody; you hear the most interesting stories that way. The Prez must be out of town. Between the protester and the house of power, a district of Columbia motorcycle cop gets a political update from the newspaper.

TOMORROW: Metro