On Sunday we went to the church that's within
spittin' distance of American University. Coincidentally, it's where my wonderful former college roommate, Lee (aka Emily, which must have been where I got the name for my Emily), attends, but, alas, she was at son Wesley's soccer game that morning. Afterward, Em took us on the grand tour of American. We thought of poor Jacqui Kemp, toiling away in Rome on her semester abroad...
Ok, are these the cutest little white chocolate capitals and monuments you've ever seen?
Our big outing for the day was to the somewhat new "
Newseum." It's a museum about news (hence the name). The building itself is really unique. Part of it looks like newspapers stacked up (at least to me) and it has the First Amendment carved out of marble in hard-to-miss giant lettering on the front.
Along the street, there are displays of that day's newspapers from every state. So interesting to see how different they are.
When you first walk in, you see a large portion of the Berlin Wall, along with an entire watch tower. I have a small chunk of the wall, given to me by my mom and dad who had a bigger chunk that my mom actually chiseled off herself, if I'm remembering that correctly. I'm thinking that maybe that might have sounded like an okay thing to do at the time if you were an East German. But it's a little harder to figure out why my mom felt empowered to chip away at it.
They had an exhibit on G-men which I learned meant "Government Men." I never thought to ask...
Below are John Dillinger's straw hat and cigar and glasses and bulletproof vest. Guess which one of those he left behind on July 22, 1934 when he was shot by FBI agents?
Next are items from Russian spy Rudolph Abel - his fake passport, lenses, hollow nickel for transporting microfilm, a hollow screw where he hid codes, and cuff links used to send messages to his superiors. I watched enough "Get Smart" and "Man From U.N.C.L.E." episodes to be completely awe-struck by all this. My mom would have loved this too. She's the one who cornered FBI Director William Webster in his office during the Reagan
Inaugural and wouldn't leave him alone until he told her all he knew about the Kennedy
assassination...
And from another spy, Robert
Hanssen, a palm pilot, Russian/English dictionary, and items used to mark his drops. (See, I've got the lingo down now...)
Here is the gas can used for the Lindbergh kidnapping ransom, along with the listing of the serial numbers of all the bills used for the ransom.
Below is the ransom note from the SLA regarding Patty Hearst.
Here is one of the letters from Ted
Kaczynski, the
Unabomber, along with one of his packages. His entire cabin is inside the museum, about which he is deeply annoyed.
And here is the door used in Watergate.
One of the other amazing parts of the
newseum is the view from the balcony.
I usually don't take pictures of toilet seat cover dispensers, but I especially loved the random bathroom tiles with actual newspaper misquotes.
Rob trying in vain to get Em as excited as he is about his new iPhone apps...
And, finally, we arrive back at the abode, greeted by Josh with his inflatable space shuttle and Becky with Levin the pup. Made us happy to think of Em living with such wonderful and funny friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment