The joy of living in the DC area

Let’s see-we’ve got Lyme disease in the country, mosquitos carrying malaria in Loudon and Fairfax counties, West Nile virus in Maryland, Virginia, and DC, and now a random shooter in Montgomery county. Yep, can’t wait to go out tonight and enjoy the great outdoors!

Well, at least you can wander around the Smithsonian instead.

Shhhhh don’t say that too loudly; next thing you know there’ll be an anthrax scare there…

Just don’t go walking down near Rock Creek Park!

Kayaking is out in some places. Turds in the Anacostia.

. . . but not before you run the gauntlet of the metal detectors at the Air & Space Museum.

They have metal detectors there now? Dang. Since when? Been a couple of years since I was there.

They put them in after 9/11. All the Smisthsonians have some form of detection now. The Hirshorn digs through your bags (if you carry them) with wooden sticks. Joy of all living joys.

Must…
not…
say…
it…

(But haven’t there been since, like, nearly forever?)

Turds in the Anacostia we are, sometimes it blows my mind… keep getting stuck here all this time…

On Thursday, half of my delivery work was in Kensington, right through the middle of the various crime scenes. I called and told my boss that if there were no arrests by the time I finished in Bethesda, I was not going north of the Beltway. She said fine, but that I’d have to do it the next day.

All my Kensington customers that I happened to see on Friday concurred that it was smart of me to avoid them. I could only imagine that a bright purple van would be just like a moving bullseye for whatever Rambo-bastard was using people for target practice.

I hear DC is the worst: under former mayor Marion Barry, the standards for police officers were the lowest in the country-which meant that most arrests were thrown out of court(because the proper procedures were not folloed), etc. Also, Barry put all of his friends on the payroll-so you had unqualified teachers, unqualified street repairment, etc.
The DC under barry was a national disgrace.

DC under Marion Barry certainly was a hothouse of political cronyism and favoritism. We’re still paying for that today.

But it’s getting better.

And remember, those museums and such are free, free, free. I can remember being shocked at the zoo in Philly when they charged us for admission. It had honestly not occured to me that such could be.

Dan, yes, there are metal detectors in the museums now. But enforcement varies enormously. I went to the National Acquarium under the Department of commerce a month or so ago and the rent-a-cop took my pocket knife and held it. That same day I breezed into Natural History and the Gallery of Art without a word.

Take heart; at least Frankenfish is supposed to be gone.

Oh and dont forget the joy of fat, scantily clad Asian men singing opera on the Metro… That was a pleasant morning…

Hmph. I never get to see scantily clad Asian men.

Forgive an ignorant Aussie who’s been out of the ‘news loop’ this past week - but what happened regarding the ‘random shooter’?

It reminds me of that young woman who randomly shot passing school students in 1979 in California because “she didn’t like Mondays”.

A 13-year-old boy was shot in Bowie this morning. Link.

Oops – there’s no substantive link between that shooting and the others. Anyway, the sniper is still at large.

The scantily clad Asian man also remains at large… Watch out Orange Line riders!!!