Showing posts with label Washington DC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Washington DC. Show all posts

28 April 2009

Washington National Airport 1941


"Skycaps" at the entrance to the administration building. Municipal airport, Washington, D.C.. Delano, Jack, photographer. 1941 July. LC-USF34- 045049-D Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540 hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8c06392 **This series appears to be misidentified as Washington Municipal Airport. Looking at the series, it's clearly National Airport.

21 April 2009

Trinity Episcopal Church


Trinity Episcopal church was located at 3rd, Indiana, and C Streets, NW. Designed by James Renwick, the church, built in 1849, was torn down in 1936.

How the corrupt in Congress pad their nests

*PAPER: Senator's husband cashes in on crisis;Feinstein sought $25B for agency...
*TARP INSPECTOR GENERAL WARNS OF 'CATASTROPHIC FRAUD' POTENTIAL...

The nation has heard about Diane Feinstein and her husband, Pelosi and her husband and Harry Reid and his entire family, but they are only the ugly tip of the iceberg. The iceberg gets uglier and much bigger under the surface.

There are stories on Jenkins Hill, it can't be Capitol Hill until cleansed, of members of Congress, administration officials and bureaucrats that have side businesses selling their power to alter, add, delete and influence legislation, appointments and existing law.

They are the unseen and unknown lobbyists with the ultimate inside track as they seek the help of unaware fellow members in quid pro quo legislative support.

Here is a quick sampling:

Congress: The Harman bombshell
A quid pro quo on card check bill?
Computer Spies Infiltrate the Pentagon
Is the House Swamp Drained Yet?

A young man in Akron, Ohio was a numbers runner in the 1920's and was often beaten because the unions didn't like competition. He turned against the unions because, as he said, "at least I'm honest about my crime" and got a job as a security man in Youngstown at a steel plant. In the 1930's he was savagely beaten again by strikers during the "Little Steel" strike. The doctor trying to sew him up made a comment about stupid "Micks" and the man spoke up, "Son, shut up and do your work." The doctor was the first in his family to attend college and the man gave everything he had to make that possible. They were my father and grandfather.

Why is this relevant? They both believed that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don't know that either read Lord Acton, but they knew the truth whatever their attained level of education.

Just as unions, at their beginning, were necessary in business, government can be a good in its necessity. At its height of power unions had become corrupt. In government it is an ongoing battle, especially as the size of government grows beyond all rational thinking and engorges itself with ever more power.

In 1792 Alexander Hamilton couldn't stop government officials from profiting from insider information concerning the purchase of government debt and Hamilton was speaking of political and bureaucratic corruption when he stated, "Corruption is the enemy of good government." Hamilton's nemesis, Thomas Jefferson, is attributed with saying, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Our vigilance is what allows us to see through the smoke of lies into the dark corners and closed doors of power.

As then, now politicians seek to divert attention away from their corruption. Unlike then, the media, knowing full well the tales of corruption, now look the other way. The sense of decency and honor in the halls of Congress and the bureaucracy has turned to cynicism.

The ultimate cynicism is a Pelosi playing the part of the centuries old Br'er Rabbit stating, as she feeds the swamp, that she will drain, or clean, the GOP swamp, knowing she and her compatriots are right at home in their well self-feathered nest right smack dab in the middle of our governmental swamp of profligate spending.

Pull the plug.

20 April 2009

AU to Barney - We don't love you

Barney Frank shouldn't be addressing "public affairs" at any time.

AU students protest Barney speech
About 130 American University students have signed an online petition of sorts asking the school's administration to withdraw an invitation to Barney Frank, who is slated to deliver a commencement address at AU's School of Public Affairs in a few weeks.

The students blame the fiery House Financial Services chairman for the financial meltdown, singling out his longtime support of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as contributing to the severity of the crisis and magnitude of bailouts.

"Many of us are having trouble finding a job and are finding our ability to get into grad schools hindered by the economy, so it's seems inappropriate for Rep. Frank to deliver the commencement," says Sarah DeStefano, a senior from upstate New York who describes herself as a moderate Repubican.

"I would never expect American, which is a left-leaning school, to invite a Repubplican to the commencement, but this speaker of all speakers seems wrong," she added.

Many of the signees are members of the campus Young Republicans chapter but a handful are Dems or independents -- and one of the protesters is the vice-president of the campus Democrats, she said.

DeStefano has set up a Facebook "AU Students & Alumni Against Barney Frank @ SPA Commencement '09" page that has 128 signees.

On it, she claims Frank "helped lead us and the world into a global economic meltdown," and describes the Massachusetts Democrat as "excessively partisan and notoriously divisive during times when compromise and bipartisanship is needed the most."

Frank didn't immediately respond.

10 April 2009

Glen Echo


The Park Carousel, the last operating park ride, a 1921 Dentzel three-row menagerie carousel with 38 horses, 2 chariots, 4 rabbits, 4 ostriches, a lion, a tiger, a giraffe, and a prancing deer.
Glen Echo is a community near Washington, DC and the park, which started as a Chautauqua in 1891, was a popular retreat for 'Tonians until 1968.

Original Munster house?


Washington, D.C., circa 1918. "Old house, Md. Ave. N.E. Built by Thomas Taylor in 1876."

(Actually, it is Massachusetts Ave)

01 April 2009

Flags of the District of Columbia






1917














1938










2002 - This flag is actually the oldest design in that it is modeled after General George Washington's standard.

The Coat of Arms of George Washington is described as 'Argent, two bars beneath three mullets gules' and is pictured to the right so that its influence on the design of the American flag may be assessed. These arms appear on the flag of the District of Columbia
Argent - The heraldic term for silver, sometimes shown as white
Mullet - A star, usually five pointed whose rays are straight
Gules - The heraldic term for red