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Washington DC: Difference between revisions
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== '''Why Is It Called The District?''' ==
Washington is also not part of any US State. It's a special federal district. As a tragically ironic consequence of this, citizens who live in Washington have less representation in the federal government than other citizens. Up until 1961, residents could not vote for the President of the United States. Representation in the legislature is limited to one delegate in US House of Representatives, who is [[Morton's Fork|not allowed to vote]]. In fact, given that the US Congress has final say over all matters passed by the municipal government, DC's situation is similar to that of colonial America's relationship to Great Britain. Thus, the license plate slogan [http://autodogmatic.com/index.php/2006/05/25/dcplates?blog=2 "Taxation without Representation"]. The exact technical term is [
Why does such an ironic situation exist? It was written into the US Constitution. The Founding Fathers feared if the capital district was a part of any state or was considered a state itself, the federal government would treat that state favorably. The framers never thought that Washington would become an actual city with an indigenous population. But they overestimated the size of land needed to host a body of government, and that extra land naturally ended up being filled with people who worked in the District.
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DC has an extensive system of trains known as Metrorail. Basically, everyone uses the Metro, except Washington Post writers and the politicians on the Metro Board. You can even use it to go far out to suburban shopping destinations and plans are afoot to extend it 25 miles to Dulles Airport. (As of the spring of 2011, construction on the new line is well underway, which is causing additional disruption to traffic on the Beltway and several major roads leading to Dulles.) It [[Weaksauce Weakness|does not go to Georgetown]].
The myth is that DC law prohibits the construction of any building taller than the Washington Monument (or Capitol building). This is only partially true. There ''is'' a law governing building height: [
Washington D.C. has been described as two cities in one. The first part consists of the famous buildings, government offices, museums, office buildings, and select housing areas, mainly populated by predominantly upper class, predominantly liberal (except for conservative industry lobbyists) white people who run the government (or up-and-coming yuppie policy wonks who imagine themselves doing so and mostly leave disappointed when they end up working for said lobbyists). Most go home to Virginia and Maryland at night. The ones who stay gravitate like magnets to the gentrified, [[Gay Paree|Parisian-style]] neighborhoods in the Northwest quadrant of the city.
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* [[Big Labyrinthine Building|The National Gallery Of Art]]: has all the Old Masters in the US that aren't in some other museum like [[New York City|the Met]]. Contrary to popular belief, it is NOT part of the Smithsonian Institution, and is in fact it's own deal (for the Smithsonian's art galleries, see above). So huge, it has an underground complex with an [[Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt|airport-style moving sidewalk]]. Be sure and touch the [[Alien Geometries|world's sharpest corner]] on a building: the Modern Wing designed by I.M. Pei is shaped like a [[Bizarrchitecture|maze of isosceles triangles]].
* The Holocaust Memorial Museum.
* [[The Library of Babel|The Library of Congress]]: The world's largest library. Required by law to have a copy of every book ever published in the US. Most are accessible only to researchers<ref>If you're willing to pay for a researcher to transcribe something, they will. If it's already been transcribed, you can get a copy for a nominal fee.</ref> , but visitors are allowed to explore the gigantic main building which looks like a 19th-century Opera house. If you live in the area, you can go down and apply for a researcher's card; the process is a bit more involved than applying for your local library card, though, as applicants are taken through a computerized quiz which is focused on ascertaining the fields of knowledge of particular interest to you. Unless you're a Member of Congress or a Congressional staff member, you can't actually check out books; you must request them at the various desks in the "reading rooms". There are a number of these rooms, several of which (e.g., in the Jefferson and Adams Buildings) are quite large, and most of which are devoted to specific topic areas (for example, the Madison Building is where you'd go to do research in law or the performing arts). Researchers are allowed to use laptops and portable scanners, but thanks mainly to former national security advisor [
* The US Botanic Garden: A quiet respite from the city, and Washington's oldest museum, a Victorian-era greenhouse. Recently modernized, it now contains an [[Hungry Jungle|indoor jungle]] for those seeking a respite from the festering hot air of summer in DC. Also has one of those [[Man-Eating Plant|giant corpse-flowers]].
* Union Station: It's big. [[Train Station Goodbye|It's a train station]]. It's also a shopping mall. It's where you go to catch the train to [[New York City|That Other City]]. Think Grand Central Station and you get the idea.
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