Washington D.C. after 911

I've just returned from a week in Washington D.C. where I went as a tourist for the third time in my life. I apologise to readers that have been looking for new posts during the past week, but my hotel did not have a public computer facility. So for the past week, I forgot what a computer felt like. Don't worry, I'm back and will be looking forward to offering more opinions on the issues of the day.

Last week's poll seemed to mirror the perceptions of the Congress and the public at large. The question; Do you support the appointment of Sonya Sotomayor to the Supreme Court had a 100% positive response, although 16% of respondents said "yes with reservations" The remaining 84% of respondents had no reservations.

I just want to say a few words about visiting the Nation's capitol as a tourist following the attacks on 911. While I've traveled to D.C. over 50 times in my life, I've only been the tourist on 3 occasions. I went when I was around 12 years of age with my parents, and then I took my son there along with my wife during the early part of the Clinton administration. Last week's visit saw many changes from the Clinton years.

Today, you need permission from someone in Congress to visit certain facilities such as the White House and Congress. Some 17 years ago, we toured the White house without a problem. Today, the selection process is kept secret as it probably should be. We applied 2 months before our visit and did not gain entry this time.

Every museum entry has tight security and the feeling of freedom that Americans enjoyed some 10 years ago seems to be somewhere in the distant past. I don't suppose that things will reverse themselves anytime soon. The most striking site was a guard standing outside of the Capitol with a long gun (probably and automatic weapon). It reminded me of my travel to Mexico many years ago on a business trip to Vera Cruz. Mexican Army guards seemed to be in a lot of places with their long weapons in hand. Somehow, we in America never thought this would be necessary.

Another familiar site was the presence of bomb sniffing dogs making their rounds through the park areas surrounding the Capitol and other key facilities. And of course, there are now barriers everywhere.

A lot has changed since 911. Most of this change is absolutely necessary. Spending an entire day in the U.S. Holocaust Museum 6 days after the attack there was a sobering experience. There was another striking fact however; tourism is alive and well in Washington D.C. The election of Barack Obama has been a real boon to the economy of this city. Threats aside, everyone still wanted to be there and enjoy what this Nation has given us. It was a great week.

I'm awfully glad that I had the opportunity to visit the city in a more innocent time. One thing that has not changed in the years I've been traveling to the city, the homeless are still everywhere, and that is a sad commentary on our society.

Check out the new slide show.

tomtoak

Addition of Favorite Progressive Sites

Today I did some more site maintenance and added a feature that progressive people will enjoy. In the left column you will find direct links to some of my favorite sites.

The Huffington Post is a must for daily news if you want to get the truth on a range of political issues and breaking news stories. You should definitely check out this site if you have never been to it before.

Countdown With Keith Olbermann is next and is probably my favorite news show. It's on nightly on MSNBC at 8:00PM and is a great counterbalance to the news shows on Fox. This site is a series of video links to his stories.

The Whitehouse.gov site is President Obama's new web site and is just full of information directly from the horse's mouth, not Rush Limbaugh, the horse's ass.

A new site that I just found is RIFuture.org that is a very well done blog of progressive Rhode Island politics. Heck, if I knew this was here, I may not be blogging myself. Only kidding, I still intend to blog on. It does have an interesting feature that I could point people to; click on the picture of Donald Carcieri with the word "fail" across it. This will lead you to a site that is trying to enroll people in a recall effort of the Governor.

The final addition is a link that will take you directly to the U.S. Constitution. This will come in extra handy when your conservative friends misquote our founding documents. Rush Limbaugh, are you listening?

Enjoy the links, but please return to Governing Against The Tide.

Blog On

Changes to "Governing Against The Tide"

Learning to blog is actually a lot of fun. While there is a lot to talk about today with President Obama's speech last night, I focused my energies on making improvements to this site. Besides the weekly poll that I will be conducting, today's additions include the following:

• Quotation of the Day (Left column): A random quotation that will change each day with a link to the famous person.
• This Day in History (Left column): A daily selection of events that occurred on the current day.
• News Map (Bottom of page): This is a great feature that allows you to click anywhere in the world and connect to the daily newspaper from the closest major city.
• Watch TV Shows Directly (Bottom of page): Just click on the available link and you are there.
• Cheeky Quote (Left column): a collection of quotations that change every half hour.
  

These are enough changes for today. I'll continue to research improvements. Obama was great last night in his first speech before the full Congress.

Blog On