jueves, 27 de junio de 2013

The Mall



Museums and Galleries
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery 9
Arts and Industries Building 4
Freer Gallery of Art 10
Hirshhorn Museum 3
National Air and Space Museum 2
National Gallery of Art 1
National Museum of African Art 5
National Museum of American History 11
National Museum of the American Indian 6
National Museum of Natural History 7
Smithsonian Castle 8
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 13

Monuments and Memorials
Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial 20
Jefferson Memorial 15
Korean War Veterans Memorial 19
Lincoln Memorial 21
Vietnam Veterans Memorial 18
Washington Monument 12
World War II Memorial 17

Parks and Gardens
Tidal Basin 16

Official Buildings
Bureau of Engraving and Printing 14

White House



Galleries
Corcoran Gallery of Art 7
Renwick Gallery 5

Squares
Lafayette Square 3
Washington Circle 17

Historic Buildings
Daughters of the American Revolution 9
Eisenhower Old Executive Office Building 6
George Washington University 15
Hay-Adams Hotel 4
Octagon 8
Watergate Complex 18

Official Buildings
Department of the Interior 11
Federal Reserve Building 12
National Academy of Sciences 13
Organization of the American States 10
State Department 14
Treasury Building 2
The White House 1

Performing Arts Center
Kennedy Center 19

Church
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church 16

Old Downtown



Museums and Galleries
Carnegie Library Building 14
International Spy Museum 19
National Building Museum 22
Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery 18
National Museum of Women in the Arts 13

Statues and Fountains
Benjamin Franklin Statue 8
Mellon Fountain 1

Aquarium
National Aquarium 0

Historic and Official Buildings
FBI Building 5
Ford’s Theatre 15
Martin Luther King Memorial Library 16
MCI Center 20
National Archives 2
National Theater 12
Old Post Office 7
Ronald Reagan Building 6
Willard Hotel 11

Districts, Streets, and Squares
Chinatown 17
Freedom Plaza 9
Pennsylvania Avenue 4

Memorials
National Law Enforcement Officers’ Memorial 21
US Navy Memorial 3

Georgetown




Historic Buildings
Dumbarton Oaks 13
Georgetown University 9
Old Stone House 5
Tudor Place 10
Washington Post Office 7

Streets, Canals, and Harbors
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal 4
M Street 6
N Street 8
Washington Harbor 1
Wisconsin Avenue 2

Churches and Cemeteries
Grace Church 3
Mt. Zion Church 11
Oak Hill Cemetery 12

Capitol Hill




Historic Buildings
Folger Shakespeare Library 2
Library of Congress 1
Sewall-Belmont House 4
Union Station 13
US Capitol pp 5
US Supreme Court 3

Museums and Galleries
National Postal Museum 14

Market
Eastern Market 12

Monuments and Memorials
National Japanese American Memorial 7
Robert A. Taft Memorial 6
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial 8

Parks and Gardens
Bartholdi Park and Fountain 10
US Botanic Garden 9

Church
Ebenezer United Methodist Church 6

miércoles, 26 de junio de 2013

Fairness


I have always been of the opinion that fair or good are most probably concepts indifferent to the universe. I am also starting to think they are indifferent to most human affairs.

The discussion started with Tom and goes back some time. I feel I have the same opponent with different faces whenever I talk with social democrats. He said that the income of managers and CEOs had increased in the last decades outrageously whereas the salaries had been growing in single digits. His conclusion was that there was no limit for the top men’s wealth and they would end up destroying the whole system with their greed.

It reminded me of Greg’s opinion. Plainly explained he said that the huge amounts that wealthy people earned were simply unfair as long as other people were in need. It also harked back to my eldest brother who sustained that the debt could be payed off just by fighting fraud.

I saw the left especially strong when the topic came to the rich. Many things could be argued about, but riches was a sin they were not ready to tolerate.

I found Tom’s opinion arguable. Thinking that the Western world was going into decline just because it would not be able to pay its big fish was an extrapolation of what was going on with the public sector. Civil servants were untouchable, managers were not.

From an economic point of view a company should invest its profits as well as it could, whether it was research, technology, or managers, or whichever other asset. Tom wanted to set limits to the biggest wages. Probably Greg would have applauded, why should one person in the same company earn more than, say, one hundred times the lowest salary?

The answer looked simple to me. Why should not the company set the same limit to technology? We might as well limit the amount that a company spends in computers. But it is not going to help.

Sad as it may look, companies need the best people for certain tasks and being sparing in that area can make the company in the long term lose a lot more than it would save. And however unfair it may seem, changing the company’s top staff for an inefficient one will not improve the numbers on the spread sheets.

domingo, 2 de junio de 2013

Tertulia o charla de taberna

Chesterton fue católico, Chesterton creyó en la Edad Media de los prerrafaelistas (Of London, small and white, and clean), Chesterton pensó, como Whitman, que el mero hecho de ser es tan prodigioso que ninguna desventura debe eximirnos de una suerte de cómica gratitud. Tales creencias pueden ser justas, pero el interés que promueven es limitado; suponer que agotan a Chesterton es olvidar que un credo es el último término de una serie de procesos mentales y emocionales y que un hombre es toda la serie. En este país, los católicos exaltan a Chesterton, los librepensadores lo niegan. Como todo escritor que profesa un credo, Chesterton es juzgado por él, es reprobado o aclamado por él. Su caso es parecido al de Kipling, a quien siempre lo juzgan en función del Imperio Británico.
Borges. “Otras Inquisiciones” 1952.

Triste destino el de Borges, verse condenado a la misma pena que no quiso para los demás. Creo que ningún autor en lengua castellana se merecía un premio Nobel como Borges. También sé que tenía escasas posibilidades de recibirlo por su posicionamiento político. La academia sueca le juzgó por su credo, no por toda la serie de procesos mentales y emocionales que era él, una de las grandes individualidades de la literatura del siglo XX.

En la última tertulia de El Farolillo Rojo anoté que no me parecía “una charla de taberna”. Pero no encontré una explicación para diferenciar la charla de taberna de algo especial como una tertulia. Borges me da las palabras. La tertulia es el lugar donde queremos saber que camino ha recorrido el otro, no su punto de llegada. Queremos saber las vivencias, no la bandera. Sabemos que en cada uno de los que se sienta a compartir hay un pasado, un mundo de lecturas, de emoción, de tensión. Queremos oírle, no juzgarle, queremos conocer, no etiquetar.

Dice el proverbio indio que no se debe juzgar a un hombre sin haber caminado diez millas con sus mocasines. Dice Antonio Costa, en su último artículo, que no vale un resumen de dos líneas de Ana Karenina para lo que llevó una vida entera escribir, dice, citando a Jasmina Tesanovic, que la política es idiota porque simplifica y polariza. Dicen los buenos profesores de ciencias que no les interesa el número, o la solución, al final del problema, que quieren conocer los procesos mentales que han llevado a ese guarismo.

Una vez oí decir a un profesor de un taller de literatura después de una clase, tomando unas cervezas: “yo jamás aceptaría un amigo que tuviera esa posición ideológica.” Quizá pensó, igual que Sartre, que la literatura no es inocente, que es un arma en manos de una clase social, y que solo puede existir desde un compromiso, desde una determinada conclusión, desde un juicio, desde un resultado del problema, desde una bandera. Yo solo sé que por un momento, oyendo a aquel profesor de un taller de relato carísimo, pensé que no estaba dentro de una tertulia. Sentí que estaba en una taberna.