On The West Wing and dysfunctional US politics

Every time I use the Elliptical Machine I watch the Television. Rather than try to keep my mind occupied during commercials I put on DVDs, often old T.V. shows. Not for the first time, I have been working my way through NBCs award winning, The West Wing. The other night, I saw In Excelsis Deo, an episode from the middle of the first season.

Now I am going to make a confession, which will probably surprise next to nobody. I am a sentimental sap. Show me the scene from The Shawshank Redemption where Morgan Freeman walks towards Tim Robbins on the beach at the end of the movie and I get good and moved. Well show me the scene in In Excelsis Deo where "Toby Ziegler" and "Delores Landingham" are at the homeless Korean war Vet's funeral and I'm reduced to tears.


Although I'm not so sure if its the fact that Aaron Sorkin has a way with his writing, or the music. Rather I am inclined to think its something else entirely.


For most people who read this, it is not overly difficult to go take a trip to the District of Columbia. Its a very worthwhile adventure, besides the astoundingly good, free, museums, the District has some spectacular architecture amid some absolute squalor. But the reason I bring up DC is not the museums, although seeing Apollo 11 in the flesh is something to behold, or the DaVinci (eat your heart out Ottawa, the Americans really know fine art). Rather the reason I bring up DC is the memorials.


Take a trip to DC in the late Autumn when it is cold and rainy, and then go for a walk from the Capitol along The Mall to the Lincoln memorial. Stop enroute at the Civil War Memorial near the Capitol, the World War II memorial the reflecting pool. Read the Gettysburg Address (it was too dark and I should have brought my glasses, so maybe print a hard copy and bring it with) on the wall of the Lincoln memorial, then walk over to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and get really depressed. Remember that on that wall is the names of some 50 thousand boys who died, and for what? So that America could well be worse off than if the war had never happened. (It does not include the names of the 2 million or so Vietnamese people who died for pretty much the same lack of reason.) Touch a few of the names, embedded in that black stone, and remember, that the name your finger is following was someones husband or boyfriend, a son or maybe even a father and he's dead. Did he want to be there? Probably not. Did he want to serve? Probably no on that count too, after all during Vietnam America had the draft. The boys who went to fight no more wanted to be there than Rush 'medical deferment' Limbaugh.


When you are done at what really is a Wall of Shame go walk over to the Korean War memorial and if you still aren't moved, then all I can suggest is mental help might do some good. While I was in DC in December of 2006 at the Vietnam memorial all I could think to myself is, in twenty years they're gonna have to build another wall like this for the Iraq war. It all seemed so hopeless and futile.


Well when you are done at The Mall, go walk back to The White House and keep going through Lafayette Park at the intersection of Eye/I Street (yes it actually has two different spellings depending on which block you are on) and 17'th Street North West you have the choice of facing the US Department of Veterans Affairs, or across the intersection (kitty corner) is McPherson Square. Every time I walked by that block the number of homeless people in the square and at the VA was staggering! You want another reason to cry, think about those homeless people, and why they are almost certainly congregating at the VA. They fought for their country, they gave what Lincoln called the last full measure of devotion and this is how they are treated.


I should be frothing at the mouth angry that a society would treat its citizens this way. But I can not its just too emotionally tiring. So many boys, that is what they were, too poor, or just unlucky to get 4-F, skip the country, go to school, so they ended up getting completely messed up in South East Asia. You want a good reason to cry, think about those homeless people and then go read the text of the Gettysburg address.