First, I wanted to share how amazing the Capital Bikeshare system is. There are 150 stations all over the city where anyone can pick up a bike, pedal it to where they’re going, and drop it off at another nearby station. It’s affordable ($7 / day + hourly fees, but a days on-and-off heavy use can easily come in under $12 total) and the bikes are uniformly ridable: ugly, heavy cruisers that pedal smoothly and float over bumps and curbs.
Given Seattle’s comparative rolly-polly hilliness, it’s probably unreasonable to hope for the same in our neck of the woods, but it was amazing how it opened up the city to me, allowing me to wander and soar much further afield than I would have been able on foot or car (which would have involved hours of futile attempts to park near to a destination, and, of course, missing everything in between).
Second, the capitol police are just really nice, which felt an odd counterpoint to the fortress-like stance of the city in general, battlements and barricades at every corner. They’re polite in their instruction and generally overlooked everything but major infractions (not that I major infracted, mind you). Even then, all I ever heard was a polite request: “I’m really sorry sir, but bikes have to be walked in here. It’s the rules.” As I felt myself wincing for a scolding here and there, and then…nothing, I realized I had some form of battered person syndrome.
Seattle Police, in my own personal opinion and experience, are dicks. They could learn a lot from the Capitol police, which is remarkable given that there are few cities in the world that are more in the crosshairs of potential real danger than the one I’m writing this from.
Finally, I have been moved to tears by the epic grandeur of this city. Any one of a hundred buildings I’ve passed in a day, one next to the other, would be statewide monument elsewhere. Olympian columns thrusting one and the other and the next towards the sky, undulating coils of buildings, organic and molten, starships five stories high ready to be pulled skyward by ethereal sails. It’s like to stop the heart.
And then past the Capitol Building, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and a hundred epic temples of knowledge in between, past the Martin Luther King Memorial and around a dark path through a wooded park around the tidal basin, the Jefferson Memorial. I swear to you, stepping in just past midnight and seeing that towering figure in the middle of the rotunda, I felt my heart in my throat. Each wall etched with words both prescient and timeless:
I am not an advocate of frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
There’s your framer’s intent! The perspective and clarity, two and a quarter centuries ago. And then, wrapping like a crown around this and three other equally inspiring pronouncements:
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
I walked out better than I walked in.
PS I got to see the White House bee hives!
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Wow – great post! Thanks for sharing.
Great story until you called the Seattle cops “Dicks”. I guess you must of been on the wrong side of the law to see that, because in all my years living here I have never seen or thought cops were dicks.
I really wish my brother still lived in Baltimore–so much to see and do within a 2 hr drive or train ride. I’d take the train down to DC at least once every time I visited. But, bizarrely, all the times I visited I never made it to the Jefferson Memorial.
Next time if you’re there at the right time check out Washington Photo Safari’s Monuments at Night tour.
Agree with Doug. Calling Seattle police “dicks” was unnecessary and jarring in an otherwise thoughtful piece. Some of us have had to rely on police intervention and assistance for one reason or another and found their response professional and humane. Police are regular people in extraordinary positions of power and despite some individuals’ abuse of that power, most work honorably and sometimes heroically to ensure public safety.
The DC monuments at night are fantastic! And “dick” is too nice a word for some of the SPD I’ve encountered. Some are perfectly wonderful people, I’m sure, but many are not.
I am bothered to see this blog used as a forum to call ALL Seattle police ‘dicks’. It’s rude and not in keeping with what a neighborhood blog about events and happenings should be posting. Also – perhaps there are family members or officers that live here and had to read that thoughtless comment.
karen@6: I’d be surprised if many Seattle police officers live in Wallingford. Only 18% of them live in Seattle’s city limits, which is part of the problem.
The point apparently was, DC cops somehow manage to be better. Makes you wonder how that happened – do they pay better? How does the force size compare? Are they more accountable, what role does their union take in disciplinary matters, etc.? Do they get funding, direction, training, or anything from the US govt? (I guess the SPD gets direction from the US govt, inasmuch as the DOJ will occasionally threaten take them to court over illegal force.)
Wallyhood could use a second set of eyes to review editor posts. The same message could have been accomplished by editing out “… are dicks. They could…” Get out that red pencil, wallyhood!
To get back on topic: the bikeshare system is great. We encountered the same system in Paris, where the bikes also have a moped power assist mode that might be appropriate for Seattle. Same clunky, heavy-duty bikes.
@Doug #2: That seemed to have been the opinion of the SPD I’ve interacted with over the years as well: I must be on the wrong side of the law and because of that, it’s fine to push me around like garbage. You see how the SPD used a taser TWICE on pregnant woman after a traffic stop? Yep, she was on the wrong side of the law, so…deserved it?
@Donn: It’s a really good point. I think that part of our city’s frustration with the police is our own fault: they’re underfunded and thus understaffed. All those “small government tax cuts” at work. That’s not all that’s in play, I think there are institutional character / personality issues that persist and are difficult to change, but short point is that as I wrote what I wrote, my mind was on “what’s different here and how can we get that difference”, even if that didn’t make it into my text.