Seeing it all
Washington has been a surprise. The weather has been roasting hot for the most part and the city is full of stuff to do. The Smithsonian has something like 15 museums that are all free to enter. The most popular museum in America is here - the Air and Space museum. Unfortunately because it is in the nations capital and it is free makes it a magnet for every school in the country. Most of the exhibits are replicas as this prevents them from getting trashed by the thousands of bored students who have been forced to go by their teachers. The trend towards dumbing down every exhibit and making it ‘interactive’ has meant that even though the Smithsonian should give each visitor a sense of awe, instead it gives you a headache and a desire to see something other than ‘Replica: original held by Smithsonian’ on every exhibit.
The Apollo space exhibition was closed as well as the museum of American History so we never got to see the original Star Spangled Banner or the original Kermit the frog. The WoH was devastated.
The best museum in Washington D.C. though was the Newseum. A very new building taking up the last available space on Pennsylvania Avenue. The exhibitions are initially a tribute to the news industry but the cumulative effect is akin to visiting a museum of humanity. Great moments in civilisation like the Berlin Wall falling are commemorated here with the largest chunk of wall outside of Germany. Sad moments are covered - the mast from the North Tower is on display with a series of moving films and images from 9/11. Hankys are on hand throughout the exhibition which brings home the full horror of what happened. I also enjoyed their exhibition of every Pullitzer prize winning photo. remarkable stuff. The best thing about this museum was that because it wasn’t free it was filled with people who were INTERESTED in the stuff. Very few screaming kids (I said few, not none) and the exhibits were treated with the dignity they deserved.
One hilarious point though was the History of News exhibition sponsored by News Corporation which owns Fox News. I watched in awe, a documentary on Bias in the media and how it denigrates all journalists when the media is too liberal. Yes. A documentary by Fox News on Bias was filled with right-wing bias like you would not believe. Classic.
Tags: Newseum, Fox News bias, History of News, Kermit, Washington D.C.
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