washington post Feb 28

BREAKING NEWS:  Canadian Blocks becoming political in Washington! 

not the Blocks!

On Sunday February 17, after a wonderful morning with  the worshiping community of  Church of The Saviour, Dan and I decided to head downtown to join the tens of thousands walking around the White House in protest against global warming.  The proposed Keystone Pipeline from our Alberta tar sands was high on the agenda.  It just happened a CBS reporter put a mike in our faces and to our great surprise Erica appeared on Canadian national TV that evening!  Did you catch it??

Chinese Artist and Dissident showing at Hirshhorn Gallery

Weiwei photos of building of Olympic Stadium, 2008

Ai Weiwei, one of China's most prominent artists, had his first N.A. showing in Washington in Feb,

at the Hirshhorn Gallery of Contemporary Art. But he was unable to be there. Weiwei has spent time in detention for his provocative art and social activism, and is currently not allowed to leave China. He says: "It is essential for contemporary artists to question established assumptions and challenge beliefs."  Weiwei helped design the Olympic Stadium in Beijing, 2008.  

With us at the gallery are Susie and Dave Haldeman, friends from our Kentucky MCC days who live in upstate New York, and came to Washington to spend a couple of days with us.

Tiananmen Square

"For artists and individuals, you don't have to march on Tiananmen, but you have to be clear-minded...to find your own means of expression." Weiwei

The Blocks also view the portraits of Presidents!

The National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum is another fine place to spend hours of time.  

One of the special exhibits is called "Bound for Freedom's Light: African Americans and the Civil War".  

We find this history both interesting historically and  disturbing socially. The population of DC today is 70% Black. Every day we travel as the minority on the city buses.

Many of the museums demand time to comprehend and integrate and I think we'll return to this one.  And to an amazing museum called Newseum: "the world's most interactive museum".

Dan reading today's headlines from around the country at
Newseum

Graffiti on Berlin Wall

Here we saw a section of the Berlin Wall and a

chunk of the Twin Towers.  We saw five decades of Pullitzer Prize winning photojournaling from around the world and we saw a wall of photos of journalists who had died while doing their work.  We read about the history of book-making and news reporting and saw ancient texts and the first newsbooks.  We visited the First Amendment Gallery guaranteeing the five fundamental freedoms in America.                                                                 

                                                                                          

Newspaper headlines from around the world following 9/11

Pursuit of civil war history takes the Blocks to Mt. Vernon

The historic site of Mt Vernon, 16 miles south of DC, in Virginia, is the location of George Washington's expansive plantation and mansion.  Here George and Martha lived for 40 years (1759-99), running his five farms quite progressively (over 2300 acres) with the help of over 300 slaves...until he was called to be the first president of the Union... and then again, until he died.  My first remark, when we saw the slave quarters was: "this is like Auschwitz" ...remembering the bunk beds stacked against the walls in the prison camp in Poland.  I would like to think the slaves were better treated than the prisoners in concentration camps, but the contrast between slave and free is stark nonetheless.  By the time he died, Washington had included in his will that all his slaves were to be given their freedom.

slave quarters

George and Martha Washington's burial site

Mt Vernon mansion

Washington is a city of remembering...

Smithsonian Gothic castle built in 1855 of red sandstone

DC finally had a warm, calm day and the Blocks headed to the Mall, the two and a half mile green space between Capital Hill and the Lincoln Memorial, for our day of remembering.  First stop, though, was the stately Smithsonian Castle, now the administration centre for all the Smithsonian Museums. From there we were in for a long walk.

After passing the Washington Monument we headed west toward the series of monuments that mark great presidents and commemorate past wars.  The memorials are spread out, each with their own space, but visually connected to give an awe-inspiring vision of grandeur and significance.

Tidal basin with cherry trees

Several monuments are off the greenway... and we enjoyed a  delightful walk around the Potomac River Tidal Basin to reach the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, modeled after the Pantheon in Rome. Jefferson himself was a renowned architect. The walkway is graced with hundreds of Japanese cherry trees donated generously to Washington by the Japanese government beginning in 1909. The trees are bearing buds and we are being assured that they will be blooming by mid-March!  Cherry blossom time is a favorite time to visit Washington.
                        

Thomas Jefferson Memorial 

Canada's gift to Washington!

                          

Beyond the Jefferson Memorial lies the 71/2 acre outdoor memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, honoured for bringing the United States through the great depression and most of WWII.  The story of his four-term presidency is told in four galleries, with many profound quotes.  

The newest memorial (2011) stands within sight  of the FDR site and honours the first non-president, Martin Luther King.  Called "Stride Toward Freedom", the 30 foot monolith of pink granite from China represents the movement described as the Stone of Hope thrust from the Mountain of Despair.  We watched a group of black nursery school children lean against King!  

Stone of Hope

From there we returned to the Mall where four memorials are spaced around the Reflecting Pool.  

The National WWII Memorial, completed 2004, features 56 pillars representing the states and territories and 4,000 stars to represent the 400,000 Americans who died between 1941-1945.

The Korean War Veterans Memorial has 19 haunting larger- than- life images of soldiers slogging through a field. 


And the Vietnam Veterans Memorial...a moving representation that honours the 58,000 dead or disappeared and is designed to reflect, in its black granite V, the deep rift the war created among Americans. 

And finally we arrived at the Lincoln Memorial...a marble Greek "temple" with a 20 foot high Lincoln seated inside... surrounded by his immortal words, built around his conviction..."All men are created equal".

Reflecting Pool

from the Lincoln Memorial

                                                                             

Well, to round off a long day Dan and I hopped a subway train and sped under the Potomacc R. to the Arlington Cemetery. Six hundred and twelve acres of grave site with over 260,000 graves 
dating from the Civil War to the present graves of soldiers killed in Afghanistan.















Our final stop was at the Pentagon where a memorial has been created to honour the 286 Pentagon staff who died when the third aircraft crashed into the Pentagon on that fateful day, Sept 11, 2001. Each name is engraved on an individual wing-like structure with living water flowing alongside.

Needless to say, we were profoundly impacted by all we saw.


To close off this edition of washington post... let me give you a couple of very hopeful images...especially to be appreciated by our Manitoba family and friends!

CHEERS! SPRING IS ON ITS WAY!