The price of freedom

Yorktown, Virginia is famous as the site where General Cornwallis surrendered to General George Washington in the American Revolutionary War on October 19th, 1781. The British defeat here is what effectively ended the war. The video is of a demo canon firing done by the Yorktown Historical Society museum.

The lost symbol

Here’s a mid week update; it’s about time, I guess. Right now, perched in a middle seat somewhere above the Atlantic, I can finally start penning this post after a week of insane workload. Hopefully, I’ll be able to come up with at least two updates per week for the next month.

I had written about the Virginia part of the Thanksgiving road trip in my last post. After this trip I learnt one thing; and, you have to give this to the US - they have preserved their relatively short history very well. What’s more; go to any historical town and one can find many symbolisms around, some intended and others not. This makes these places a haven for conspiracy theorists and Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” has renewed the appeal of these conspiracies. This post I’ll be talking about an unintended symbolism; no harm in adding one more conspiracy theory to the mix.

Being the center of the free world, as some politicians and journalists like to call it, it is not surprising that Washington DC is awash with Freemason symbolism.

What I like about the city’s design is how the Washington monument is at the center with the entrances to the Lincoln memorial, Jefferson memorial, the White House and the Capitol building all facing the Washington monument. At the same time, the statues of Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Franklin D. Roosevelt all face the Washington monument.

However, there is one memorial that stands out in being different - the Martin Luther King memorial. Here’s a photo.

Martin Luther King does not face the Washington monument. In fact, it looks like  he is standing hand folded scoffing at the Washington monument. Take what you will from that. To be honest, it was hardly intended but when you add one more fact into the mix, things get a little interesting. The memorial was designed and sculpted by Chinese architect Lei Yixin, and according to the incomparable Sandeep ‘Morgan’ Ram Mohan, MLK may be facing a Mao statue in China.

Cheers, and please, I am hardly serious in this post.

Conquering America's First President

3rd September 2011

The forecast was for rain. With Mount Washington known for its erratic weather and super-strong winds, this is one piece of information never to be taken lightly. Yet, five hours into the drive from Troy, the night gradually turning into day, we were greeted by beautiful views with just intermittent spots of rain clouds. There was some occasional meek lightning trying to scare us, but more or less we were increasingly feeling confident that the weather wasn’t going to deteriorate on us so much that we would have to call-off the hike.

There were ten of us in three cars. Roughly half past six, as soon as we turned into the parking lot at Pinkham Notch visitors center it started to pour. It was coming down strong. Distant rumbles could be heard as well. It was a rancid welcome, no doubt. We were at roughly 2000 feet elevation. If it was bad down here then the summit (6288 feet) could be deadly, the ascent tricky and dangerous. We had a decision to make.