Day: April 24, 2009

Guest poster Chris has contributed this article about the lastest Tele-Town Meeting hosted by Jackson Miller. Thank you, Guest Poster Chris for keeping us informed.

Delegate Jackson Miller was out and about again last evening with his tele-town meeting. This method of reaching the voters is very effective for Jackson. He is very knowledgeable about most of the topics his audience hurls his way.

Last night’s town meeting lasted a little over an hour. Recipients could listen, or listen and ask a question. Some of the topics last night dealt with loop holes in gun laws, home schooling, boating restrictions on Lake Manassas, stimulus money being turned down, widening route 28, restrictions on nursing homes because of location, home foreclosures, rebates for private schools, state and local election recalls, unemployment benefits and one lady even thanked Delegate Miller for the letter her child got for doing well in school.

If Delegate Miller didn’t know the answer, he promised to get back to the caller. He certainly covered a myriad of topics and had an answer for most of the questions he was asked. We do have a delegate who thinks well on his feet. That is an even better trait since Delegate Miller is also one of Prince William’s finest. A good police officer needs to think fast on his feet also.

While it didn’t come up last night, this weekend is the 42nd birthday bash fundraiser for Delegate Miller. Happy Birthday Jackson.

Dedicated in 1931 with the greatest of fanfare, the World War I Memorial now sits along the Tidal Basin in crumbling ruin, no longer honoring the men who gave their lives, limbs, sanity and youth for their country.  Its condition falls far beyond shabby and seedy.  It is our National Disgrace.  We have dishonored our WWI veterans by allowing this once proud monument to stand in such ill-repair.

When the monument was dedicated in 1931, John Phillip Sousa conducted the dedication and President Herbert Hoover was in attendance.  Time, however, has not been kind to this 78 year old dedication to the national triumph of good over evil. The following video gives us a glimpse:

Yesterday the Department of Interior announced that $7.3 million dollars will go towards the restoration of the World War I Memorial! Not only will this momument undergo a face lift, but many other of our monuments and national treasures will undergo restoration.

According to the Washington Post:

Yesterday, the Department of the Interior announced that the government will spend $7.3 million on its restoration, along with $69.5 million in the Washington region to fix other eyesores, repair the Jefferson Memorial seawall and rehabilitate infrastructure in Rock Creek Park.

More than $30 million will go to fix the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, and several million will go to the Jefferson Memorial, where the seawall has been slowly slipping into the Tidal Basin for years.

The government will also spend $12 million on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, about $3 million on Arlington House, the historic mansion in Arlington Cemetery, and $5 million on Rock Creek Park, the department said.

Outside the immediate area, it will spend $9.4 million on historic overlooks along Skyline Drive, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and $108,000 to preserve headstones at the Antietam Civil War battlefield, near Sharpsburg, Md.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the funding is part of $750 million for the nation’s parks that comes from this year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The money will go to 750 park projects across the country, he said.

The beleaguered Mall has an almost $400 million maintenance backlog, and Congress stripped $200 million in similar rehabilitation funding from stimulus legislation in January.

Now funding is back. The department said it picked worthy repair projects from national parks across the country.

Strange that during more conservative times more hasn’t been done to preserve our national treasures.  There  is something about taking care of what you have, having good stewardship of the earth, and guarding that which makes us uniquely American  that should be a sign of having good National Values. If restoration work is considered ‘tax and spend,’ then go for it! We owe this one to many veterans of another era who were just as American as we are.