Smithy Maky Mistaky

My parents, while visiting me and my wife in Arlington for Thanksgiving, wanted to see the renovations of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian. Being native Washingtonians who now live elsewhere, they were quite interested to see its transformation from “America’s Attic” to “America’s Version of a Real-life 3rd Grade Textbook.” Of course, we headed straight to the third floor to view the Entertainment, Presidential and Military History sections because who wants to see Julia Child’s goddamn kitchen?

Though I wasn’t looking hard for mistakes, I found at least two that were so unbelievably glaring, I had to point them out.

The first had to do with Presidential History. Discussing the accomplishments of various presidents, someone at the Smithsonian loved Reagan so much, and since they couldn’t fellate a corpse without breaking several laws, they decided to give him the next best thing: attribute one of the biggest accomplishments in spacecraft history to his presidency.

Don't mess with a Trek fan on Space Travel history. I didn't spend all of high school not getting laid for nothing.

Unfortunately for the Smithsonian, the Enterprise was launched in 1977. Though it never flew in space, it was the beginning of the ability to reuse spacecraft, and another step closer to a manned mission outside of Earth’s orbit. Though that mission to Mars hasn’t happened yet (Hopefully, it will occur Ice Cube-free.), it’s a proud moment in our country’s history nonetheless. The only problem is that it happened during the presidency of an ineffectual and unpopular president.

We still haven't gotten over how much you suck, no matter how bankrupt Dubya made us.

The other mistake might not be ideological. Or maybe it can. You see, we as Americans love to claim defense on a lot of things. We were only “defending ourselves” when we preemptively invaded Iraq. When World War II was over and the Cold War began, instead of a Secretary of War, we had a Secretary of Defense. It makes us feel better about ourselves. In fact, last night the Secretary of Defense came over to my apartment to check for monsters under the bed. I love that guy.

He added, "You did the right thing. Those monsters are a threat to national security!"

The 2nd mistake came in the form of a statement indicating that the Empire of Britain declared war on the American Colonies at the outset of hostilities, in this case, the Battles of Lexington & Concord.

Declaring war against a nation you don't even recognize? Even the U.S. didn't do that - and we declare war a lot.

As far as I know (and I’ve checked sources other than Wikipedia), the British never actually declared war on the American Colonies. Formally declaring war means they’d have to recognize us as a sovereign nation a year prior to even the Declaration being signed. According to all my sources (okay, I lied, it was Wikipedia), the Brits viewed the Revolution as an uprising against the Crown.

I wasn’t actually looking for mistakes so I didn’t actually find any more that day. I’m considering going back at some point as my wife works Saturdays and usually my day consists of watching clips of dogs singing on YouTube. If enough interest forms, I think I will arm myself with a crappy digital camera and make use of the free museums. I only wonder, as a native Washingtonian, I don’t go to many museums that one has to pay for. I could say that I get what I pay for except that tax dollars go to these places. While I’m sure some Reagan fanatics (and believe me, they’re crazier than Twilight fans) would appreciate the bias of the first mistake, I wonder if there’s someone out there within the Smithsonian who actually gives a crap that they’re making mistakes about historical fact.

As far as oversight goes, there ain’t a whole lot of it. The worst part is, it’s happened before. In 2008, The Smithsonian was proven to be dumber than a 5th grader. Bravo, Smithsonian. Not only did you completely dumb down the experience of the museum for infotainment purposes, but you also  proved that all those fancy degrees in history and museum science that somehow prevents me from getting a job there really count for something.

I Look Forward to the Lengthy Process of Gun Ownership

I think it’s high time I learn to fire a handgun. I don’t know if I want to own a gun at any point, but I still feel, as a useful skill, knowing how to fire a gun is important. I tend to watch a lot of movies & TV shows that depict average people needing to utilize firearms on more than one occasion. You never know when that zombie apocalypse might start or if you’ll have to go trotting through an island jungle to rescue your fellow crash survivors from “The Others.”

You're doing it wrong, Karl.

In reality, we live in uncertain times. There are those of us that live in high-risk areas for large catastrophes whether it be terrorist attack or natural disaster. I hope the day never comes where our Nation’s capital city gets attacked and it turns out to be an incident far worse than driving a plane into a section of the Pentagon. If a full-level, area-wide emergency occurs, people tend to panic, become irrational, and dangerous. There is also a tendency, as we saw during the Katrina disaster, that even law enforcement officials can become nothing more than bullying gatekeepers. I’m not advocating firing at police, but we have a tendency to rely on the cohesion of infrastructure and we need to have realistic expectations of such in a crisis.

Welcome Readers

Welcome to Contrary Sense.

I’m not particularly interested in being a focused blog, though I know that would garner me more readership in the process. There’s already too many local blogs about DC or Arlington. There’s too many focused on politics, music or even monkey poo.

MonkeyPoo would make an excellent band name.

Should give up hockey and become a rock star.

One thing that will always be the focus is sense, humor and the occasional hate-filled rant against the dregs of society, focusing mostly on parents who take their children to R-rated movies, people who use the word “per se,” circus clowns in law school, French maids moonlighting as extras on Entourage and hamburgers cooked too well done.

I take that back: humor will definitely not be a part of this blog if that last paragraph is any indicator.