inous wars abroad (e.g. the war on Iran) and at home (e.g. the wars on immigrants and drugs), rising inflation, election-rigging attempts from both sides of the major party "aisle," an apparent rising trend of "teen takeover" riots, and a host of other problems, the recent algae bloom fiasco at Washington, DC's Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool seems to rank rather low on the list of things Americans might want to obsess over.
I am, however, a slave to the news cycle, and for some reason that's one of late June's dominant stories. So hey, let's talk about it.
The bare basics:
US president Donald Trump touted a "makeover" for the Reflecting Pool, including a new "American Flag Blue" liner, then handed the job off to a crony contractor who, for $14 million, managed to completely screw it up. Almost immediately, the pool took on the hue, and odor, of a sewage lagoon.
Naturally, Trump wasn't going to blame himself for the dumb idea, or his pet contractor for the poor execution, or himself again for parading his motorcade across the pool after the liner was installed -- almost certainly holing/tearing it in spots -- so he manufactured imaginary vandals and started having people arrested (including former Olympic canoeist David Hearn, for the "crime" of touching a floating piece of the torn liner).
Apart from the arrests, it all really feels like a mildly funny "dog bites man" story: The usual government incompetence, the usual minor corruption, the usual results.
But this time, it captured the public imagination. The people want answers, and the people want solutions. Therefore, I, a servant of the people, have offered the explanation above and will offer a solution below.
My solution has three parts.
Part one: Drain the pool.
Part two: Zone the pool "commercial."
Part three: Auction the pool off to a new, private sector, owner.
I mean, it's prime commercial real estate, right? Smack in the middle of a busy tourist area, lots of people walking around all day long with money in their pockets.
And have you ever noticed what that tourist area's called? "The National Mall." But good luck finding a Nordstrom or Bath & Body Works there. It's mostly just museums and statues of, or for, dead people.
It's not like that particular reflecting pool is unique or necessary. There are two others -- the Smithsonian Pollinator Garden's Reflecting pool and the Capitol Reflecting Pool. And if that's not enough water, there's also the Constitution Gardens Pond and the Tidal Basin. Not to mention, you know, the Potomac River.
Drained, filled in, and built on, the Reflecting Pool would be a LITTLE small as shopping malls go -- 339,000 square feet -- but anchored by, say, a Walmart Supercenter (about 180,000 square feet) and filled out with a few specialty shops and a spacious food court, it would be far more useful, and a far better expression of "national pride," than the current stinking, algae-filled pretext for presidential graft, political pageantry/stuntery, and vengeful arrest tantrums.
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