Only in America [antikvár]

BLACK MAN GIVEN NATION'S WORST JOBThe National Mall is the Circus Maximus of Washington, DC. Instead of chariot races and gladiatorial battles, it plays benign host to rallies, concerts, charitable walks against breast cancer or armies of tourists shuffling dutifully past the war monuments, the shrines to the Founding Fathers and the museums that form the granite and marble core of a city that refers to itself, somewhat self-consciously, as 'the Nation s Capital'. The steps to the grandiose Lincoln Memorial, illuminated at night like a pop-up Parthenon, were glistening with early November drizzle. It was one in the morning and a small crowd had gathered at the foot of the lugubrious Abraham Lincoln, a giant sitting back in his huge throne, in brooding disapproval of the world around him.It was a motley gathering of students, tourists and some interns from Capitol Hill, clutching a bottle of champagne. They were all huddled around a radio as if listening intently to football scores. But the mood was too intimate and reverential for sport. In any case this was the middle of the night. One of the women, an African American, was crying silently as she listened. The make-up on a young white woman's face was smudged with tears or rain. I couldn't tell. WhatXI