Six minutes and 20 seconds...

Yesterday's million person march in DC, and elsewhere, was to stop the violence inherent in guns around schoolchildren.  The District is a beautiful place, especially in the spring, and that was evident yesterday as signs of life were everywhere springing forth after the long winter's solstice underground, even as millions of footsteps trod nearby.

The District was as usual well prepared to handle practically any exigency, in a mostly friendly, professional but thorough manner.  Its hardware was mostly kept off the beaten track but nearby, providing a rigid steel underpinning to its seemingly accommodating exterior.

The children marched and spoke, hope in their hearts, expecting change.  Oldsters marched too, some ruefully commenting that their journey, which started with working for McGovern who opposed the crooked Nixon and ran against the amoral war, has come to this, a Trump presidency running the country like a family business while trying to forcibly implement outmoded ideas from the silent-majority seventies.

Normalcy returns.  But hope springs eternal.

Happy New Year's

Happy New Year!  Let's make this year Great!

I changed my profile picture for 2018 to this snapshot from a year ago.  I was in DC at the time enroute to a protest march against the faux president.

In 2018 I hope to travel, at least around North America.  And read more.

I hope my children are well.  And that peace reigns over the world.

Summer's Gone

Well, summer's done now and my injuries are getting better to the point where I can start thinking about when, or if, I'll get back to running.  Meanwhile, it was a summer that seemed to pass me by with plenty of business that I was engrossed in but no trips, except to visit a vineyard out by Leesburg with a friend.  (A Rose.)

I did manage to visit some museums in the District which I hadn't been inside of in years.  I had some lunches, and walks, or both, with friends.  (My running buddy friend from my former workplace.)

I did my annual Billy Goat Trail hike with a friend, and saw some movies, the best of which was Dunkirk, a noisy but emotion-laden film which underscored the cost, horror and travail of war.  I clomped around in a boot trying to heal my achilles strain, and saw a couple of ballgames, one at which I saw an old law school classmate unexpectedly.  (The Museum of Natural History.)

Now that I'm looking ahead to fall, when my sore back gets better maybe I'll take my long-promised car trip or sign up for more volunteering in the Virginia governor's race or read more than a book every other month.  Or maybe I'll do nothing at all except go to DC occasionally.  (The cool atmosphere inside the National Gardens.)

Street Fighting Man

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.  Martin Luther King, Jr.  The new president hit the ground running, formulating policy by tweets, breaking protocol dangerously like accepting a phone call from the leader of Taiwan thus vitiating the longstanding One China policy, issuing a meaningless yet all-encompassing executive order on the ACA which is subject to great swings of individual interpretation, and generally acting like a banana republic dictator by trying to rule by edict.  (Off to the Women's March.)

A very dangerous man, exposing the country to international conflict by threatening China over their artificial islands far from our shores, and internal conflagration by, for instance, his Muslim ban.  In this nation of immigrants, supposedly neutral with its separation of church and state, he would do well to know that we are governed by the rule of law, not by daily decree from a tin pot tyrant.  (They couldn't believe the garbage they were hearing about American Carnage.)

But the opposition has formed, and swiftly.  A half-million person march in DC emphasizing our traditional basic values within twenty-four hours of his ascension, and a swelling protest against his selective immigrant ban at international airports and at the White House the very next weekend.  (Off to the White House Protest.)

Having lived through the civil rights demonstrations and anti-war protests of the sixties, I am impressed with the speed at which the meaningful roar of the people has coalesced.  The Women's March on Washington was like the leadoff hitter in a baseball game hitting a home run, followed by the next batter up dumping a single into right field.  Game on, Mr. President.  (Not on my watch.)

Life in general or problems in particular

It struck me recently that I haven't been out of DC yet this year.  I planned a trip to visit the Gettysburg battlefield, but that never came to fruition.

But there are a ton of great places to visit in the DC area, especially if you're a runner.  Like the peaceful Japanese American Memorial Park.

Or either FDR Memorial, or the numerous war memorials.  Or the brooding MLK, Jr. statue.

I'm going to do five more miles on the Mall in a few hours with a running buddy.  The miles will roll by abetted by some easy conversation about life in general or perhaps some problem in particular or recent political upheavals; I can hardly wait.