Hello again loyal Home News Readers, this is Deany V., your Washington beat
reporter, at the Court of Neptune Fountain in front of the Library of Congress.
The fountain features bronze statues of King Neptune, the tritons and naked
ladies riding horses. Water horses. Not hippopotami though, despite their name
meaning river horse. And Hank didn’t believe me that our animal fun-fact cards
would ever come in useful!
The Library of Congress was probably one of the niftiest things we saw while we were in Washington. Imagine, so much knowledge and learning gathered in one place. Even Ook Ook would be a genius if he stayed there long enough.
Unfortunately, Pop wasn’t able to join us as he has been banned for life for trying to take books from the premises, so he’s going to “clear some things up” with the IRS instead. I can’t really blame him for the mistake though, most libraries let you borrow books. Not that I’ve been to a lot of libraries, in fact, I think this is my first real library. Of course, we had access to whole libraries of books through our learning beds. Except well, the library wasn’t really very big, because Grandpa Jonas filled it with lots of famous scientists and inventors and philosophers and then he let Mr. Col. Gentleman and the Action Man pick books that would educate a young boy adventurer to survive. So there was a lot of James Bond and biographies of General Patton and books about the lifestyles of the ancient Greeks. And nothing that would encourage us to be communists or radicals.
I wanted to get a library card since anyone can do it as long as they’re sixteen and have an i.d., so that I could spend some time reading up on journalism, to hone my craft, but Hank was impatient to get a move on. He’s really excited to see the Air and Space Museum, mostly because he has a plan to steal the Spirit of St. Louis and fly home so that Shallow Gravy doesn’t have to cancel their Fourth of July concert. Dermott and Hank have been making their own “fireworks” for weeks in preparation (More on that in our investigative report “Lab Chemicals, the Rotten Eggs and the Oven: The Dangers of Amateur Pyrotechnics”, pg 3b). Brock told him already that even if he could find a functioning airplane, he’d never get out of Washington’s airspace in it, and he’d spend the rest of our trip explaining his behavior to “that bunch of pansies at the Department of Homeland Security”.
The library itself contains 151,785,778 total items in its collection, not just books of course, they have a whole basement level devoted just to maps. Hank and I really wanted to take a look at them, because I’m sure there are some that are treasure maps and secrets hidden in the library, we could have had a whole National Treasure style adventure. But we weren’t allowed to see the maps. We did see Thomas Jefferson’s library that he sold to the government when the British burned the original Library of Congress collection. Also, the whole place is so extremely decorative that I could have spent hours just wandering around looking at the ceiling, there are murals honoring the senses, the muses, different fields of study, even a small one showing baseball.
One criticism, the staircase is supposed to feature cherubs representing different vocations to show that all walks of life are entitled to the knowledge contained in the library, but I looked all up and down and didn’t see journalist, super scientist or secret agent/bodyguards represented anyway. This is the kind of discrimination that simply can’t be allowed to continue in the heart of our Nation and that it is my duty as a reporter to bring to the attention of the public.
Well, Brock just got a Communicator watch call from Pop, so it looks like we’re going to have to get moving again. Maybe we’ll finally get to meet our Uncle Sam that Brock and Pop talk about so much, from what they’ve said, I think he lives here in Washington. I just hope he isn’t sort of creepy like Uncle J.J.
Watch this space for updates as they roll off the presses.
And Go Team Venture!
The Library of Congress was probably one of the niftiest things we saw while we were in Washington. Imagine, so much knowledge and learning gathered in one place. Even Ook Ook would be a genius if he stayed there long enough.
Unfortunately, Pop wasn’t able to join us as he has been banned for life for trying to take books from the premises, so he’s going to “clear some things up” with the IRS instead. I can’t really blame him for the mistake though, most libraries let you borrow books. Not that I’ve been to a lot of libraries, in fact, I think this is my first real library. Of course, we had access to whole libraries of books through our learning beds. Except well, the library wasn’t really very big, because Grandpa Jonas filled it with lots of famous scientists and inventors and philosophers and then he let Mr. Col. Gentleman and the Action Man pick books that would educate a young boy adventurer to survive. So there was a lot of James Bond and biographies of General Patton and books about the lifestyles of the ancient Greeks. And nothing that would encourage us to be communists or radicals.
I wanted to get a library card since anyone can do it as long as they’re sixteen and have an i.d., so that I could spend some time reading up on journalism, to hone my craft, but Hank was impatient to get a move on. He’s really excited to see the Air and Space Museum, mostly because he has a plan to steal the Spirit of St. Louis and fly home so that Shallow Gravy doesn’t have to cancel their Fourth of July concert. Dermott and Hank have been making their own “fireworks” for weeks in preparation (More on that in our investigative report “Lab Chemicals, the Rotten Eggs and the Oven: The Dangers of Amateur Pyrotechnics”, pg 3b). Brock told him already that even if he could find a functioning airplane, he’d never get out of Washington’s airspace in it, and he’d spend the rest of our trip explaining his behavior to “that bunch of pansies at the Department of Homeland Security”.
The library itself contains 151,785,778 total items in its collection, not just books of course, they have a whole basement level devoted just to maps. Hank and I really wanted to take a look at them, because I’m sure there are some that are treasure maps and secrets hidden in the library, we could have had a whole National Treasure style adventure. But we weren’t allowed to see the maps. We did see Thomas Jefferson’s library that he sold to the government when the British burned the original Library of Congress collection. Also, the whole place is so extremely decorative that I could have spent hours just wandering around looking at the ceiling, there are murals honoring the senses, the muses, different fields of study, even a small one showing baseball.
One criticism, the staircase is supposed to feature cherubs representing different vocations to show that all walks of life are entitled to the knowledge contained in the library, but I looked all up and down and didn’t see journalist, super scientist or secret agent/bodyguards represented anyway. This is the kind of discrimination that simply can’t be allowed to continue in the heart of our Nation and that it is my duty as a reporter to bring to the attention of the public.
Well, Brock just got a Communicator watch call from Pop, so it looks like we’re going to have to get moving again. Maybe we’ll finally get to meet our Uncle Sam that Brock and Pop talk about so much, from what they’ve said, I think he lives here in Washington. I just hope he isn’t sort of creepy like Uncle J.J.
Watch this space for updates as they roll off the presses.
And Go Team Venture!
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