Recap of a whirlwind week!

It was another sunny and warm day today to end the long weekend. We spent the bulk of the day wandering through the National Arboretum. This isn't an especially colorful season there, other than some fall blooming camellias, but we enjoyed wandering through the "dwarf and slow growing conifer" grove, learning about plants that offer alternative energy possibilities in a special "Power Plants" exhibit, and visiting the amazing Bonsai & Penjing Museum collection. It is the largest collection of such tree in North America, and many of the trees date from the 1800's or earlier (one originated in 1625!). It's great to have this large (446 acre) park just two miles from the Capitol building. We'll be back there Tuesday evening for a "Full Moon Hike."

The Story of a Week - Part I

The theme of the first part of the week continued to be Washington DC and its many events and opportunities. First of all, besides providing me with access to resources and a great study space, the Library of Congress offers cultural events. We caught a night of their "Motown in the Fall" film series, a double-bill of profiles: The Supremes and the Four Tops. We also attended a forum at the Center for American Progress, "Education Reform in the 21st Century." The speakers were Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, NYC Mayor Bloomberg, and Kati Haycock, President of the Education Trust. It was pretty cool to be in the audience for this heady dialog; there is a lot of determination and resolve to turn around the nation's most troubled schools and improve the quality of education reaching the least served, but the task also seems Herculean at best. Finally, we went to see a production of "Much Ado About Nothing" (set on the eve of a Caribbean carnival!) at the Folger Shakespeare Library. And that was all in three days!

The Story of a Week - Part II

For Thanksgiving, we were invited up to rural Pennsylvania where a former NWS colleague now teaches high school English. He and his wife live on a horse farm where she teaches riding, boards horse, and retrains retired thoroughbreds for life post-racing. We had a lovely visit, including a day-trip to the Gettysburg National Military Park. After so many years of teaching about the Civil War, it was incredible to tour the actual location of its most famous battle. I was particularly struck, as we toured the expansive battlefield site, by all of the monuments to the fallen soldiers from both sides (Wikipedia says there are more than 1,600 of them!). These range from simple stone markers to massive statues and even small buildings, such as the Pennsylvania State Memorial. I had not expected to see memorials honoring the Confederate side, and I was taken aback by these tributes. (I am not alone; apparently this has been an issue of controversy since the war.) At least initially, I was indignant. After all, "Weren't they the 'bad guys'?" As we continued our tour, I found myself awed by the sacrifice of life and regretting the carnage for all. Perhaps recognizing both sides was, and continues to be, important to sustaining Lincoln's vision for restoring union. This is just another example of how living in such a different setting here on the "other" coast continues to challenge and re-shape my thinking. More on that later...