www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24357415#FBM292885
Found this today some of it is funny some not so much I am not going into this on the weekend but keep on watching and praying for the USA and the impact on the world.
A closed sign on national
parks and monuments across the US is the most visible consequence of a
budget wrangle that has caused large parts of the government to shut
down. But what about the more surprising consequences?
1. One person maintaining the Canada border
It's a 5,525-mile (8,891km) border, with 8,000 obelisk
monuments dotted along it. These are cast-iron and stand five feet high,
on a three-foot concrete base. Cleaning and maintenance is usually in
the hands of eight field officers but seven of them have been told to
stay at home.
That leaves acting commissioner Kyle Hipsley on his own.
Speaking from a field office in Montana, he said everything was under
control.
The other main job of his team, the clearing of trees on the
border, can still carry on because it's in the hands of two five-man
teams of contractors. But only until the money runs out.
2. Cemeteries in Europe are closed
Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris is one of dozens to be closed
Some 125,000 US soldiers, mostly killed in the two World Wars,
are buried in 24 graveyards around the world, 20 of them in Europe. They
are all closed, according to
a statement on the website of the American Battle Monuments Commission.
"I think the way the shutdown has included our overseas
veterans' cemeteries is a great shame," says Perry Jefferies of the
TexVet organisation in Texas, who served in the first Gulf War.
"These are places of honour and many who travel to them will
only have one chance in their lifetime to pay respect to a fallen
comrade, family member, or buddy."
3. Sanctions respite for Iran
The under-secretary of state for political affairs, Wendy
Sherman, says the ability to enforce sanctions on Iran has been
significantly hampered.
"Note, our ability to do that, to enforce sanctions, to stop
sanction evaders, is being hampered significantly by the shutdown," she
told the Senate foreign relations committee on Thursday.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Treasury team
responsible for overseeing the sanctions, was "utterly depleted", she
said.
4. A meat rush in Kentucky
A strange sight greeted shoppers in a store on the military
base Fort Campbell on Monday. Aware that the shutdown could close the
shop for days, shoppers were stacking their trolleys high with meat.
"I'm doing my weekly shop with my two boys and I see these
women with their carts stacked high with six, seven, eight or nine
packages of ground meat and eight big packages of chicken breasts," says
Amy Bushatz, wife of Captain Luke Bushatz
"I was thinking, 'What's going on?' but then I remembered the shutdown... So there was a meat rush."
There's a Walmart a mile outside the base, says Amy,
a military spouse blogger, but it's generally more expensive, especially for meat.
5. That race you've trained a year for... it's off
The Grindstone 100 running race, in which 200 elite athletes
run for 100 miles along the southern Appalachian mountains of West
Virginia, has been suspended because it was due to go through a national
park.
Continue reading the main story
Also called off
- Ku Klux Klan rally in Gettysburg
- Weddings on the National Mall in Washington DC
- Any boating on Georgetown Waterfront in Washington DC
- Haircuts in Congress buildings
That's a year's training for
nothing, says race director and creator Clark Zealand. Even if the race
is rescheduled, there are plenty of entrants who won't be able to make
it.
"It's very disappointing. This is the sixth year of the race
and it's been building each year, with people from 30 states including
Hawaii, and Canada," he says.
The race starts at Camp Shenandoah, Virginia, and has 23,000 feet of climbs. It's never been run in less than 17 hours.
This isn't normal distance running, says Zealand. Competitors
must train the gut to digest food on the go, and then there's the
mental battle. "You can go through the highs and lows of life during a
100-mile race."
6. More James Bond buffs
Smithsonian museums in Washington DC are closed, so visitors
to the capital - and civil servants with time on their hands - are
visiting private museums and galleries instead.
The International Spy Museum in Washington DC has seen a 30%
increase in visitors, says its PR manager, Jason Werden. "There's been a
benefit - we've certainly seen an uptake in visitors." Its current
highlight, he said, is its exhibition on 50 years of James Bond
villains.
Other institutions that have enjoyed a spike in visitors
include the Newseum, the Phillips Collection, the National Geographic
Museum and the National Building Museum.
7. Free food for civil servants
A Government Shutdown Sandwich
Cafes and restaurants are offering discounts and freebies to
any of the 800,000 federal workers who are no longer at their desks.
At Sugarfire Smoke House in St Louis, the so-called
Government Shutdown Sandwich - beef brisket, smoked turkey, pulled pork,
lettuce, tomato, onion and pickle - has been snapped up by employees
unexpectedly kicking their heels this week. And it's free, no identity
card required.
"We have a lot of government employees in St Louis," says restaurant owner Mike Johnson.
"I'm upset they're out of work just because these guys can't
get along. We gave away 50 yesterday and 100 today. I'd give away 1,000
and I wouldn't care. If I lose a bit of money, so be it. I opened a year
ago and it's been a good year."
There are dozens of similar deals - especially for sandwiches
and baguettes - to be found in the cafes and restaurants of Washington
DC and over the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia.
8. Satirical T-shirts
T-shirts lampooning Washington's dysfunction have been
selling well. Raygun, a business based in Des Moines, Iowa, didn't waste
any time in launching a shirt with the slogan "The shutdown 2013 - no
productivity, no mercy". About 200 were sold on Tuesday and 150 on
Wednesday.
"Depending on how long this goes, we'll be able to roll out
an 'I survived the shutdown' with some barrel fires and 'The Road'-esque
desolation," says founder Mike Draper.
Other companies also got in on the action. "Furloughed, non-essential employee. Don't ask me, it's my day off" said one T-shirt.
9. Cancer drug trials on hold
The National Institutes of Health will turn away roughly 200
patients each week from its clinical research centre in Maryland,
including children with cancer, one of
its directors has said.
Trials at the centre are usually for people who have tried
other treatments without success. While existing treatments will
continue, it will not take on new patients until Congress agrees a
budget and government reopens.
Other trials have also been affected. In Massachusetts,
father-of-three Leo Finn, who has a rare bile duct cancer, was told a
clinical trial he was due to start next week had been put on hold.
The reason, he was told, was that the trial was unable to be
correctly registered during the shutdown - but late on Thursday he was
relieved to hear that the Food and Drug Administration had found a
solution.
10. British people now know what 'furlough' means
It's a word that is rarely heard in the UK but it's been
inescapable in the media coverage of the latest political crisis to grip
Washington.
While very familiar to Americans, its mention will have had the British reaching for dictionaries.
"To grant (a person) a furlough; to give leave of absence
to," is what they will find when they open them - at least, if it's the
Oxford English Dictionary.
It could yet infiltrate British conversations, although it might require a US-style shutdown at Westminster to do it.
