BTW, forgot to mention, Pirates of the Caribbean RULED. OK fine fine plot problems whatever. But it was a hell of a ride, and a lot of fun, and that seems appropriate given the subject matter. Also, best creepy skeleton pirates EVER. I'm just sayin'.

I'll be seeing League of Extraordinary Gentlemen shortly. All indications are that it will suck horribly, so I'm trying to keep my expectations low. But I've been holding off on reading the graphic novel until I see the movie :).  3:12:31 PM  (comments [])   

OK, one last stop on today's picture-heavy-vacation-recounting edition of ology dot org.

Part of my cultural sightseeing while in DC was to go to the NOW conference's Presidential Candidates' Forum. When Carrie first suggested it, I thought "sounds interesting, but aren't I supposed to be on vacation?" Then I realized that no trip to DC would be complete without engaging in politics.

The forum was great. Four of the Democratic aspirants attended: Carol Moseley Braun, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, and Al Sharpton. I've been leaning towards Dean, so it was good for me to hear him speak. And it was everything I needed to hear: he spoke straight, he was passionate (in a sort of geeky way) and he addressed some hard questions without flinching. I'm troubled by his death penalty and gun control stances, but those are frankly small potatoes for me in the grand scheme of things. He actually made me care (I even teared up in his opening statement, that's how much of a dork I am) and that's what I need, goddammit. And it didn't hurt that his answers on the issues were all great, and that he could point to successful programs in Vermont that were executed during his tenure. And that Vermont's budget is one of the few that currently work.

Brief impressions on the other candidates:

Carol Moseley Braun: A very easy charisma and charm. But, as Carrie points out, she went spent waaaay too much time justifying her reason for running. And if you have to justify yourself as a woman running for president at the NOW conference, you have some self confidence issues.

Dennis Kucinich: Very passionate, very idealistic. Which I can respect. But he spent too much time promising us all the ponies and puppies we could want, and attacking the Pentagon budget. He's not a politician, he's a demagogue. And demagogues aren't leaders, or effective.

Al Sharpton: The other candidates would answer questions with "My administration will..." or "As President...". Sharpton only did this once. He was fun to listen to, but kind of crazy and clearly not actually serious about actually winning. Carrie summed it up succinctly: he's running for the position of Jesse Jackson, which is to say, the moral voice of the black community.

Here's Dean getting a standing ovation. He was the only one to get an ovation this wholehearted; he clearly won over the crowd.

And this was me just being star-struck and excited to be within picture-taking distance:

And, as mentioned previously, Howard Dean has a weblog. (And you'll note on it that this week the good doctor is actually guestblogging his own self on Lessig's blog, and crossposting to the campaign blog.)  2:41:00 PM  (comments [])   

One of the fascinating exhibits we saw at the Smithsonian was The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden. It sounds super cheese & jingo-tastic, but it was actually really good. Carrie summed up well by saying it was like the hall of relics for the religion of democracy.

However, despite the mostly balanced exhibit, we could help but noticing this visual disparity in the protest section:

Carrie observed that they had plenty of banners equally as large as the big old stop sign back at FMF, since the current setup -- intentionally or not -- has a pretty clear subtext. D'oh!  2:32:28 PM  (comments [])   

Carrie has been in Washington, D.C. all summer, interning at the Feminist Majority Foundation. I miss her terribly, and finally got to see her again this last weekend. I spent Thursday through Monday in our nation's capitol (non-US readers can substitute appropriately), and had a grand old time.

I walked all over the place (including spending Monday morning walking the mall from the Capitol to the Washington Monument), and took well over three hundred pictures (and now finally know how long my camera can go before the batteries poop out: three hours), and have distilled those down to a little over a hundred. But I'm fighting fires now that I'm back home, so I'll start you off with smaller selections until I can get around to the bigger gallery/travelogue.

My first experience of DC was, naturally, of the DC Metro system. It's a very nice metro system, with a very haunting vibe:

Ghost Riders

Orpheus might have benefited from this escalator

When I first saw the ceilings inside the stations, I told Carrie that I would bet her a beeelllion dollars that the metro system was deployed between 1965 and 1975. A few days later, I saw a sign saying that they broke ground in 1969. Booyah!

Professional Groovy

2:11:35 PM  (comments [])