alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

October 2, 2007

Rushland

by AltHippo @ 10:58 pm. Filed under Life in D.C.

I want to tell you about Meadowbrook Park. This is the beautiful, bucolic park where I go skateboarding after work. One of the reasons I go there is to forget about the musings of our various pundits, who calculate their vociferous gesticulations to force us to experience the horror of actually being Winston Smith.

Okay, I’ve been quiet of late. But one of the reasons that it’s hard to say anything right now is things like this:

Whereas every American, to include service men and women and broadcasters, is entitled to free speech and the free exchange of ideas; Whereas daily radio broadcasts reaching tens of millions of civilians and soldiers both in America and abroad by way of the Armed Forces Radio Network are conducted five days a week by Rush Hudson Limbaugh III;

Whereas Mr. Limbaugh has consistently used his broadcast time to praise American troops and support them during their ongoing efforts to secure peace in a troubled world;

Whereas Mr. Limbaugh has met with troops in Afghanistan; raised and donated millions of dollars to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, which provides college scholarships to the children of Marines and veterans of other branches killed in action; features an “Adopt a Soldier” program which provides them with free subscription access to his online program features; and Whereas Mr. Limbaugh’s commitment to American troops serving both here and abroad remains as strong as ever…

This is our government, attempting to use whatever credibility it has left, to praise free speech in support of the Republican Party as embodied by Rush Limbaugh, while simultaneously repudiating free speech by MoveOn.org.

It makes me mad I tells ya. By the time I get home, the idea of looking at the news makes me sick to my stomach. When the world gives you madness, you make madnessaide. Or, as I prefer to call it: skateboarding.

This brings me to Meadowbrook Park. I’ve never heard it brought up in blogging conversations before. That may be because it’s just enough off the main path that the blogosphere doesn’t know it exists. It’s barely into Maryland, but to get to it, you either need to go down East-West Highway, or through the backstreets of NW.

Meadowbrook Park is huge. On the side close to East-West Highway there’s horseback riding. Going south, there’s a baseball field for little league and a soccer field. Below that there’s another field that could be used for soccer, but in the evenings people bring their dogs, let them off the leash, and they have a good doggie romp.

There’s a bike path that forms a half-figure-eight around the upper field, and then a long lazy downhill loop past the lower field. Then there’s final run along Beach Drive. The path passes over somnolent wooden bridges caressing the tributaries of Rock Creek.

As I crossed over one wooden bridge in an isolated part of the path tonight I heard an animal sound, of an unknown origin that made my skin crawl. Having seen a few too many Japanese horror movies recently, I hightailed it back across the bridge to the safety of the lower field.

As I pulled my car out of the parking lot, 5 deer ran along one side then right in front of me. Since I leave the top down on my car, I’ve always been worried that one day the deer will jump in, and then what to I do? Are deer, like dogs, just itching for a car ride?

My sense of place is probably more there than here right now. It’s a better place than Rushland.

Bookmark on del.icio.us

Leave a Reply

*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture.
Anti-Spam Image

« Blog Forecast: Light With Occasional Periods of Dread
NY Observer on the Skateboarding Zeitgeist »

[powered by WordPress.]

hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.

contact

TBA 2008

The Alternative Hypothesis

the elephants of anwr

issues and insight

capitolists

alt media

sounds

critical resources

flora and fauna

law & order

events

cinema

literati

propaganda

use with extreme caution

internal links:

categories:

search blog:

archives:

October 2007
M T W T F S S
« Sep   Nov »
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  

other:

95. Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

comments

Recent Comments

HippoWire

  • Recent Trackbacks:

    • 27 queries. 0.484 seconds