Day 3 of our American vacation and we had a busy day of sightseeing, with the emphasis on the Museum of Natural History and Central Park, but more on that in a moment.
My cousin, who is more moderate than I am politically, gets the New York Times delivered daily so, whereas I would not normally even click through to get their take on anything, since I still remember their role in the Gulf War with great bitterness, today I read all about John Ossoff’s loss there. I got through the first page and was thinking “Well, they didn’t even hint at the real reason for his loss on the front page, how very disingenuous of them” and then turned to page 16 and read the rest of it and they never got to it at all, in fact, they seemed to think the whole reason he lost was because he was just too darned liberal. Democrats, and the New York Times, just don’t get it. Republicans are not going to vote for a Democrat, because they vote for Republicans, so there’s no sense trying to appeal to them or appease them, which is what John Ossoff did, what with pledging not to raise taxes on the rich and refusing to support medicare-for-all. What they need to do, in order to ever win any elections at all, is to get liberals to vote for them, and that means having some liberal (or I guess we have to say progressive now) policies, and John Ossoff didn’t have them. So, he lost.
Anyway, we started off with a walk across the George Washington bridge into the city and took the subway down to the museum, which has a big plaque right there in the lobby with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt which says “A great democracy must be progressive or it will remain neither great nor a democracy.” We saw a lot of dinosaur bones, some American Indian stuff, and then went to the science section for a concert which was based on the sound of pulsars, which I thought would be fascinating. But first, there was a lecture about pulsars, which was the opposite of fascinating, and seemed to take about an hour, then a lady came on to speak and introduced the music, and then they had a taped voice droning on, which we thought would be a very short intro to the music but which went on and on, and was basically a repeat of the lecture but in a low, sonorous, sleep inducing voice like you’d hear at a poetry reading, and then came the music which was interesting, but showed no sign of ever ending and so, when we saw one of the musicians turn their page and saw two pages chock full of more notes, we slid out.
Got lunch from the food carts out front, I had a Philly cheese steak since we’d decided not to go to Philadelphia, and then we headed over to the park. Rented rowboats on the lake, and that was a lot of fun, it was like bump cars but with boats, almost, but everybody was cool about it, then heard an opera singer under a stone arch which definitely added something, that’s why she chose that spot, I’m sure. Lincoln Center, Columbus Circle, a bit of shopping (Sim card, we are now truly in America), Pizza, New York, greasy pepperoni pizza, which was totally rejuvenating, a walk around Broadway, Times Square, then Rockefeller Center, and then the Subway back up to the bridge, the bus to the car, and here we are and done, quite done, done in in fact, for another day.
It’s great. The kids are seeing so much and they are such good travelers. I am content.
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