Son of Timatollah

Dateline: Still Washington, D.C.

Yesterday, we did two of the Smithsonian Museums: The National Air and Space Museum and The National Museum of American History. I'll get the full set of pictures posted on Flickr sometime in the next few days; for now, here's a couple.

Today, we visited the Memorials: The Washington Monument, The World War II Memorial, The Jefferson Memorial, The FDR Memorial, The Korean War Veterans Memorial, The Lincoln Memorial, and The Vietnam War Veterans Memorial. All moving, all reminders of the greatness that America can be, has lost, has found again, and can always have at any time. How that greatness comes from individuals and from collectives. How wrongs can be righted. How rights can be secured.

And, we walked past The White House. Another couple of pictures.

Tonight, we went to see the Al Gore movie, An Inconvenient Truth. As the usher told us while taking our tickets, "The truth is never inconvenient." It was, I thought, a convincing case for the human roots of global warming. It demonstrated pretty clearly that what is occuring now with the rise of greenhouse gasses and accompanying temperatures is completely outside the historical natural cycle, and it told Gore's personal struggle with telling this environmental story, in the context of his political ups and downs. I recommend it strongly.