This is President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s UH-13J. Not quite as impressive as Marine One, but it was groundbreaking as it became the first helicopter to to be used by a President when Eisenhower took off from the White House lawn in July 1957. The helicopter is currently on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

As students at The George Washington University in downtown Washington, D.C., my classmates and I had the atypical college experience; we didn’t have a football team or expansive lawn on which to play frisbee, and most of the dorms consisted of former hotels and apartment buildings that the university acquired to house the burgeoning student population. During my freshman year I lived at the Hall on Virginia Avenue (HOVA), which was a former Howard Johnson’s hotel. My dorm was situated directly across the street from the infamous Watergate complex, site of the burglaries that eventually led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon. My room, 419, was the original site of the burglars’ “lookout room” from which Alfred Baldwin and James McCord monitored the DNC office. The photo above shows the view from my room.

This is for all the illiterate idiots (hello, Glenn Beck) who invoke the names Stalin, Hitler, Kim, and Mao when discussing Obama. Pick up a goddamn history book for once and realize what you are actually saying. From “A Trip to Chon Tash”:

The crimes of the old regime were on exhibition to those swearing an oath to uphold the new order. In the museum at the site the possessions of many of the victims were displayed with some biographical details. Documents from the archives of the NKVD/KGB showed the trappings of legal formalism that accompanied the brutal deeds, every murder judicially authorized with a sentence stamped and sealed. The execution of the sentence was scrupulously documented. And on one wall was a simple display that spoke powerfully: a portrait of Stalin, and below it a skull, resting on stones taken from the pit.

In America today, the name and image of Stalin are invoked heavily by fringe critics of Barack Obama. The critics disagree with his policies on health care and see in it the basis for increasing power of the state. The role the state will play in the healthcare system is a legitimate political issue on which well-informed citizens can have different views. But the comparison to Stalin makes clear that these critics really have no inkling of who Joseph Stalin was, what he did, and why his name lives in special infamy at hallowed spots like the pit at Chon Tash. This frivolous use of his name and image cheapens our nation’s political dialogue, and it is also a mark of disrespect to his victims. And it points to the fundamental crisis of which Aitmatov wrote so powerfully: the failure to know the past, to be informed by it, and to distill guidance from it. The age of the mankurt, alas, has not passed.

A few photos from Inauguration weekend (yes, I realize this was over a month ago). Most of these photos are actually from Annie and Cheryl.

My mom and I with the Patino side of the family from LA. They were in town because Tom was doing some shots for Leno’s Tonight Show.

We took a tour of Lincoln’s summer cottage in NW DC.

Checking out Lincoln’s top hat at the newly renovated Smithsonian American History Museum.

Waiting to pick up our tickets from Mary Bono’s office.

Yeah, these were pretty much everywhere.

The Obama store…INSANE.

I LOVE YOU ANDERSON COOPER!

Annie and I

Cheryl, Annie, my mom, myself, and Katherine in front of the Capitol a few days before the Inauguration. All of the tourists were so happy they would say “Happy Inauguration!” to each other. It was a giant love fest.

Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House

Obama’s viewing stand

The morning of the Inauguration, a little after 5am. We stepped out of the Courthouse and there were already thousands of people pouring out of the Judiciary Square metro station chanting “O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!”.

It was really, really cold that morning.

Waiting at the blue gate.

Did I mention it was really, really cold? Thank god for those instant hand warmers. I stuck them in my boots, back pockets, hat, and uh, basically anywhere I could.

Annie, our professional photographer. She was using a metal barricade to boost herself up and the dude in front of her was nice enough to allow her to use his head as a tripod for her camera.

Obama, as seen through her zoom lens.

I-395 was shutdown to traffic so that pedestrians could use it to get to the other side of the National Mall.

Goodbye, Bush!

Via Paul Krugman:

…the rhetorical response of conservatives to the stimulus plan — which will, it’s worth bearing in mind, cost substantially less than either the Bush administration’s $2 trillion in tax cuts or the $1 trillion and counting spent in Iraq — has bordered on the deranged.

It’s “generational theft,” said Senator John McCain, just a few days after voting for tax cuts that would, over the next decade, have cost about four times as much.

It’s “destroying my daughters’ future. It is like sitting there watching my house ransacked by a gang of thugs,” said Arnold Kling of the Cato Institute.

Yeah, I love hearing the Republicans bitch about “generational theft” (I guess that would be stealing from my generation, and about 15 generations thereafter) when the Iraq War will end up costing some three trillion fucking dollars. I thought the Iraqi oil revenue was supposed to pay for that, huh? Oh, I guess not.

Hilarious. Thanks to Ryan for sending me this button. Aspiring Daniel Plainviews can order them from democraticstuff.com.

That’s DC’s official headcount for Obama’s Inauguration.

Via the Desert Sun:

Supporters of the voter-approved gay marriage ban are suing the secretary of state’s office and various state and local offices across California in federal court, alleging that the state’s campaign disclosure law violates their rights to privacy.

The suit contends that many on either side of the gay marriage debate have received significant “harassment and threats” as a result of the state’s Political Reform Act, which requires political donors who contributed $100 or more to a political campaign to give their names and addresses.

That personal information is then included in public documents filed with the California Secretary of State’s Office.

WAAAAA! Welcome to politics, newbs. I’m guessing that for many of the Yes on Prop 8 donors, this was their first time making a contribution to a political campaign and they were unaware that their donations would be public record. So now they are upset that people are boycotting their businesses. Sorry, but I’ve got no sympathy for them losing business because of this.

If you want to find out which of your neighbors donated to Yes on Prop 8, check out this Google map (thanks, Ryan). There are actually a few people I know on there who donated. Lame.