Some of our lesser known national institutions:
The National Electric Fish Roaster.
Yje National Juicer/Blender.
The National Enquirer asks the questions Americans want to know.
The National Treasure of Cookery.
The National 4-Ring Binder
Sure, but what if you laid it diagonally?
There are basically two. The National Cathedral and the Basilica of the National Shrine.
The interior of the Basilica is 399 ft. long and seats a little more than 6,000.
National velvet.
I realize that you’re joking, but just in case, here is the floor plan of the National Cathedral. To even try putting the Washington Monument in there diagonally, you’d have to remove most of the pillars holding the cathedral’s roof up (they’re the diamond shapes in the nave and transcepts in the architectural plan). Even then, it’s just too narrow (especially at the east end) for the diagonal to work.
If you’d like to see the inside, watch the season finale of (IIRC) the third season of The West Wing, where there’s a funeral held there, and later a really great scene where President Bartlett yells at God while alone in the Cathedral.
Yeah, he was *smokin’ * in there too!
I do so adore you people.
A Darth Vader grotesque; a gargoyle must act as a waterspout. Precision in language, please!
Actually, the “official” designation is “The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul,” but the sign out side and the stuff in the gift shop all say “Washington National Cathedral.” Interestingly, although it is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church, it recieves no funding from the denomination. Also, although Episcopal worship serivices (open to all) are held daily there, and several times on Sunday, you cannot hold your local church membership at the Cathedral. There is a “regular” parish church called St. Alban’s right next to (or possibly on–there seems to be some confusion regarding this) the Cathedral grounds.
It is indeed a magnificant building, well worth a visit (or several). It is beautifully designed, although I, personally, can’t stand the large central tympanum over the main entrance. It contains a well-done bas-relief sculpture that is supposed to represent the creation of humans from the watery chaos, but looks to me like a bunch of porn stars drowning in a hot tub. (OK, the hot-tub part was a joke. But I refuse to believe that in God’s original creation all women had obvious silicone breast implants!)
To get to the OP’s issue, the designation is certainly self-applied, but the Cathedral does have a tendancy towards a sort of church-state synchretism that seems a little oogy to me. They seem to like inviting Presidents and other public figures to preach, and nationalist symbols, while far from dominating, are certainly present. (Though it could easily be argued that these things–a statue of Lincoln, a war-memorial chapel, etc.–are more in the context of a sort of universalism/humanism than true patriotism. There are many, many representations of secular and incidentally Christian “saints”. [Not to mention Vader!]) If I’m not mistaken President Bush announced the current “War on Terror” from the pulpit of the National Cathedral.