Musings

Friday, January 02, 2009

The Carter Presidential Library

Karen, Sean and Ryan visited Atlanta last week, I decided to take them to the Carter Presidential Library. On the way, I mentioned that the Library did not tell the whole truth about the Carter presidency, but did not elaborate. This is the only Presidential Library I have visited and I would like one day to see the Reagen Presidential Library. We learned that presidential libraries started with President Cleveland, so no libraries exist for presidents before him. I have no desire to see other president's libraries though the Clinton library might be interesting just to see (as Rush Limbaugh has stated) if it is a Presidential Library and Massage Parlor. The books and records are not available to the public to peruse, they are separated from the portion that can be toured. Books and records are available to scholars and others by applying for admittance in writing. Even if allowed I would not have any idea of what to look at. The viewing public has much to see as it is, we spent about two hours roaming around the various exhibits. Sean stated his interest was peaked by the grade school and high school report cards of various presidents. He was surprised that some of them had such poor grades. This exhibit also showed many pictures of them on athletic teams. Ford, Reagen and Eisenhower played football, Carter, Nixon and Bush Sr. played baseball. Some of them also played basketball. I saw no reference to his, "there is a malaise in the land speech" or, "I lusted after her in my heart" comment in his Playboy interview. No mention of his serving on voting commissions to insure honest voting. There was much on the fact that he brought Begin and Sadat together to agree to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. At the time it was heralded as the greatest coop that any peace loving president had ever done. It was supposed to bring an end to Middle East violence. We see today how well that did. Before we left, a visit to the bathroom was in order. Carter, the environmentalist, has agreed to the use of urinals of the future, which are waterless. We all saw and used these urinals of the future and I am here to report to you that the future stinks. Upon entering the men's bathroom, there is a severely unpleasant odor of old urine. Just above each urinal was posted the story about how the urinal "works". The three of us were not impressed. I understand the environmentalists have almost perfected a waterless commode. As evidence that our society is going backwards, Africa already has waterless commodes.

7 Comments:

  • Very nice post. I had intended to write about this also, but I guess you beat me to it.

    Yep, the future sure stinks if that's the idea of the new toilet/urinal. I consider myself fairly conscious of environmental concerns, but there are better ways of doing the whole toilet thing. Most toilets and urinals nowadays use much less water anyway.

    By Blogger Sean M., at 10:00 PM  

  • Carter was the worst president of my adult life and he is now the worst ex-president in history in my opinion. I am ashamed to admit that I actually voted for him. I was an avowed democrat up until he took office. He was (and still is) an extreme liberal ideologue and grossly incompetent. Him and his administration finally convinced me that the democrat party no longer represented my principals so I voted for Reagan in 1980 against Carter’s 2nd term. Reagan converted me to conservatism.

    I have been to the Reagan library and the H.W. Bush library but not the Nixon library even though it is only about 20 miles from home. The Reagan library is outstanding except you can sense Nancy’s influence (i.e. lots of Nancy memorabilia and zero mention of Reagan’s first wife Jane Wyman and mother of two of his four natural children (one of whom died an infant)).

    BTW: All the LA County golf courses have waterless urinals. I have never noticed a smell and I always wondered how they do that. When LA built a new courthouse downtown the environmentalists demanded the county install waterless urinals. The plumbers union objected so the county compromised by installing waterless urinals but also installed all the plumbing for conventional urinals. Go figure. Idiots!! This is a good example of why I am against the government making health care decisions that affect me.

    By Blogger John Beauregard, at 6:01 PM  

  • I am intrigued by the waterless urinals that have no smell. Is there a janitorial staff that comes by and does a clean up? If I were running a building with one of those there would be some wiping down with soap and water.

    By Blogger Marcel, at 2:23 PM  

  • The Paris Metro is one BIG waterless urinal.

    By Blogger Tim B., at 7:40 PM  

  • Tim, Does the Paris Metro have bathrooms available for the public? Or, are you refering to the Parisians using any available place they can find.

    There is an underground parking lot in downtown Detroit that has stairways that are used, by who knows, for relieving. They also have elevators that are more commonly used by those offended by obnoxious odors.

    By Blogger Marcel, at 8:46 AM  

  • I meant the latter.
    Apparently there are Detroit-ians that get their manners from Parisians.

    By Blogger Tim B., at 9:12 AM  

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