A torment of a winter freeze in which the District was constantly blanketed with feet of snow and gridlock from the South has been extinguished quickly with a Spring that sprang into summer with out pausing in March. It is 70 degrees in the midst of Cherry Blossom Season: tourists have descended on the Washington Obolisk like locusts in a pink-accented white marble Egypt.
Walking around the Mall today, I couldn't help but to think of Japan. Eight years ago (a few weeks longer I recall, as the trees there blossom earlier with a subtropic hormone), I joined my friends under the cherry blossom trees in the "Hanamai Festival" to feast on fish, tofu and salads in a diligently manicured park Tokushima. I once lived just down the street from that park. Now I live just up the street from the White House.
On the Mall, I spied more than a few nihonjin who peace-signed-smiling, posed for pictures on blankets with the Capitol as a backdrop. I imagined that might almost feel at home, even without the large cans of Kirin beer, octopus filled dough balls, or squid-on-a-stick.
A spectacle temporarily captured my attention: The University of Maryland's Japanese American Student Association would be performing a "traditional Japanese dance!" soon on a stage near the Washington Monument. Arms crossed, I paused in anticipation for an off-chance that I would instantly transported back to an enchanted Land of Longing. Out pranced, tripping, the dishevled troupe of Japanese, American, Japanese-Americans and some self-identifying but who were likely none of the former. They had flags. They wore something that resembled Japanese mental patient clothing. One of them had a Chinese Halloween mask. They ran around to pop music with their hands in the air laughing. That dance was not traditional, that's for sure. I shooked my head, and walked on.
Fancying myself some sort of amatuer writer, please indulge my requirement to fashion a sort of over-used parallel on the weather. Truly though, the cicumstances are irresistable. Here we are in 2010 after a freak freezing Winter met by a unseasonably warm thaw: the Dems are no longer caught in the Doldrums, the stale Winter air has broken, the curse is lifted and things are finally get done in Congress again. In addition to the historic health care triumph, we might actually get a financial reform bill through as well. Maybe the President has his mojo back? If so, let us all stand up and applaude, because no one who calls himself a patriot should ever wish the President to fail.
The weather is nicer and the sun is shining, but the political climate has yet to improve. I long for the return of a nature-loving science, philosphy and reason to return to the American countryside. Looking toward the pink-ringed Tide Pool, I asked myslef; "Where is our next Thomas Jefferson?"
Because our Union has always thrived in a plurality of dissent, we will always need the two sides: the skeptics and advocates of strong central government. But in the meantime, in the warmth of Spring, I'll patiently await the return of a worthy rival: some sunny, progressive, intellectual conservative who embraces inner-dissent. The passing passions of the majority or the special interests of the minority have no right to monopoly of discourse. And neither party should propel itself with pessimism and anger; attributes which seem to me an anathema to American progress.
Albert Einstein wrote that "What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right." He also commented once that questions of physics were not as difficult when compared to questions of solving the complicated problems of governance. Remember, you angry mobs and middle America alike, with your finger-pointing 20% Congressional and 48% Presidential approval rates (the same as this time during Reagan's presidency), that according to Einstein himself our leaders are dealing with more complicated than astro physics or travel at the Speed of Light. And remember my fellow Americans, that nobody in Washington is nearly as smart as Albert Einstein.
