It was a truly busy week, and the networking and meetings were endless. So many of us were in DC this week - all the big dogs in Hollywood were there for the Jack Valenti funeral, also the Queen of England and her massive entourage arrived to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the folks with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and of course, me, your humble narrator.
I noticed that as the President used his mighty veto pen this week on ending the war in Iraq, the entire GOP-For-President Gang all fled to the other coast, gathering at the President Reagan library for a debate. It was kind of sad to see them reaching deep into the past to find some relevance to 2007. Does not bode well.
I noticed numerous Obama For President bumper stickers and only one other name was visible on any bumper -- someone was driving about with a Fred Thompson for President sticker.
And someone in DC needs to be fired for putting this motto on DC license plates: Taxation Without Representation. Leaving out the word "No" before "Taxation" is just anti-American. Or is the word's absence just an indication of the times we live in?
My digital camera crapped out the first day, so all pictures presented over the next few days as I recount my adventures will be verbally created. For instance, I was really hoping I could show you what I found when I went to the Jefferson Memorial one day around sunset. The site was utterly empty and there were tears streaming down the cheeks of the bronze face of Jefferson."Why are you crying, Tom?" I asked, standing on a floor made of Tennessee pink marble.
His bronze arm slowly rose and he pointed to words on the frieze circling the dome of the memorial, which read "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every tyranny over the mind of man."
Then a low voice from the frozen form of our third president said "I fear the tyrants have defeated my country."
"No," said I. "Not all minds have been overtaken by the tyrants. I will tell others what you have said so well in defense of our Freedom and our nation."
"You? Your camera doesn't even work, you chucklehead, no one will believe a word you say."
"Wellllllllll, yeah there is that. But I can Google a picture for my blog. And if America can just recall some of your words, that is the place to start."
"Google a picture? Great, another witless entry on the internet. Thanks for nothing. Just go, please. I want to sleep before they convert this space to another Starbucks."
I suppose Tom has seen too much of his efforts falling by the wayside of late.
And I did Google him, anyway --
"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.