Quaking

Do Quakers have a constitutional right to quiet? That they do is the argument of a group of Friends, as Quaker congregations members call themselves, who charge that plans for a new museum next to their 150-year-old meetinghouse in Alexandria, Virginia threaten their worship. Not just any museum, either; the National Museum of the U.S. Army. The Quakers say that despite their pacifism, they have no problem with old soldiers pondering artifacts of yesterwar, but the museum has much more in mind: “I see tanks running and helicopters flying,” its director told John F. Kelly of The Washington Post. Quaker irony alone makes Kelly’s report worth reading, but The Revealer draws your attention also to his lovely lede, for which he sat on his hands through a long spell of Quaker calm…

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