DC Snow Pictures! (Feburary 2010, Washington D.C.)

This post is not timely but now that I am back in Hawaii and I have more time and resources to download all of my pictures from my time in D.C., I would like to post some of the most notable experiences I had while working as a Spring 2010 Congressional Intern. I will try to keep things chronological, so sit back and enjoy the show!
This is a picture from the very beginning of the storm before things got completely out of hand. You can see that there is not more than 3 inches on the ground at this point
Here we have the Capitol in the distance. Once things really picked up we had no access to transportation that would take us out of the dorm so we were confined to our rooms and the school cafeteria. This picture was taken February 3, the week before the full storm hit.


These are a collection of photos documenting our trips to the cafeteria as the storm started to pick up steam.


As you can tell after that fateful day and night of snowfall we were left with heaps of snow everywhere. So much snow that I know I missed a full week of work as a consequence of both the closure of the Federal government and the closure of the Washington Metro. That about concludes my wrap up of the apocalyptic D.C. snow storm of February 2010. I'll leave all of you with a few last pictures.

DC highlights

So I’ve failed at updating this blog on a regular basis, but I hope this post can make up for some of my delinquency. 

With my whirlwind time in DC about to expire, it is an appropriate time to reflect on the semester, the city, and the many experiences I’ve enjoyed. 

My top five DC experiences:

5.  Running into the First Dog, Bo Obama, during a tour of the White House garden.  It would be great to say I got to pet him, or that “run into” means more than ‘walked in the general vicinity of’, but that would be a lie. 

A few weekends ago I went on the White House Garden Tour (thanks to free tickets from my office).  The accessible garden grounds consists picturesque trees and framed photos of various past Presidents planting them (or at least, grinning in a well pressed suit and shoveling a pile of dirt).  The highlight of the grounds for me was the First Lady’s vegetable garden, made famous by her recently launched Let’s Move campaign, an initiative with the very ambitious goal of ending childhood obesity in one generation.  A close second: the official White House basketball hoop!

4.  Witnessing the freedom of assembly at its finest in the days leading up to the healthcare vote.  As I walked home from work at dusk that Sunday a few hours before the bill was passed, I felt a rush of exhilaration driven by the beat of hundreds of protestors chanting in unison.  While I’ve always been one to say that I can never imagine myself choosing politics as a lifelong career, in that moment I felt the pull—the tickling of an addiction in gestation, one that can only be fed by daily Roll Calls, Politicos, and CQ Todays, and only satisfied by constantly chasing that rare high of living on the brink of history. 

The Hill can do that to you.

3.  Watching the House pass HR3590 (…on C-SPAN).  Thank God for the Congress application on the iPhone, or Christy and I would have been on the metro attempting to make it to the Capitol while the final vote was taking place.  Luckily we made it to a computer in time to watch the votes on C-SPAN for both HR3590 and HR4872, including the moving ovations for Congressmen Bart Stupak and John Dingell.  On a related note: after working on the Hill, you will gain a newfound appreciation for the greatness that is C-SPAN.

2.  Meeting, and receiving an impromptu comedy show from, Congressman Mike Honda.  Mike Honda is the man, so I won’t say anything more about that.

1.  Watching the Congresswoman read my floor speech on H.Con.Res.243.  Granted, this resolution won’t be subverting hegemonic regimes or ending cycles of dependence anytime soon (it actually just reserves Emancipation Hall in the Capitol Visitors’ Center for the King Kamehameha Day celebration in June), but as Samuel L. Jackson said about Snakes on a Plane - I spent time on it, yo!

Under the guidance of the Deputy Legislative Director, I followed the resolution from beginning to end, including writing the floor speech that the Congresswoman read in support of the resolution.  While I couldn’t staff on the Congresswoman on the Floor (red intern badges are not allowed due to esoteric House rules), I did get to watch from the Gallery, which was still a great experience.  
(For the record: the resolution passed the House and Senate, and the Hall is reserved.  Mission: Accomplished).

Of course, like any intern, I had a few hilltern moments, such as when I almost blew up the office coffee machine, and when I almost accidentally jumped on the “Senator’s Only” elevator with Senator Mitch McConnell.  But for the most part I maintained respectability, retained possession of my prized red badge, and avoided disaster.

And the best news: I get upgraded to a Green badge this summer!

Program Ending Round Up!

Hello All,


It just so happens that as the program comes to an end I've finally uploaded a bunch of pictures from my time here. I'll try to upload them and take more pictures now that I've got it all figured out, so that most aspects of my day to day duties and experiences are properly cataloged here for everyone to enjoy.




First of all we have the Statue of King Kamehameha, prominently displayed in the main foyer in the Capitol Visitor Center (CVC). This Center was built onto the front? of the Capitol and serves as the main interface for guests who come to the Capitol building. The Center offers guided tours as well as videos and a historical gallery for visitors. Within the Capitol every state has two statues of prominent figures displayed within it. The State of Hawai'i has King Kamehameha as you can see here and another statue of Reverend Joseph Damien De Veuster otherwise known as Father Damien.




This fourth photo is from the inside of the CVC, as you can see because this structure is built onto the front of the main Capitol building its glass roof sometimes offers unusually close views of the main rotunda of the Capitol. It may not be easy to visualize but because all of the Senate buildings are found on one side of the Capitol and all the House office buildings are on the other, one would have to travel the long axis of the Capitol to get from one side to the other. Until the CVC was built! Now it is possible to speedily pass through the CVC along it's long axis.

That is all for now, I shall try to upload more photos from other events later this week!

Earth Day on the Hill: Food Security and Defense Policy

Political posturing seems to be a legislative strategy of choice on the Hill recently, as illustrated by Senator Lindsey Graham’s decision to walk away from climate change legislation until Senate Democrats agree to take immigration reform off the table. An unveiling of the Kerry-Lieberman-Graham climate change bill was planned for this Monday, but was postponed over the weekend after an announcement of Graham’s pull-out. Coincidently, his move to leverage climate change against the contentious issue of immigration reform during an election year came after a week of environmental promotion on the Hill, culminating in Earth Day festivities last Thursday and a climate rally on the National Mall on Sunday. My environmental experiences last week included attending a Senate hearing on food security and a staff lecture by retired Air Force General Charles Wald.

Global Food Security Policy


On Earth Day, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing titled “Promoting Global Food Security: Next Steps for Congress and the Administration.” Throughout the hearing, Senator Lugar emphasized the precedents set by the Lugar-Casey bill , a bipartisan measure also titled the “Global Food Security Act” that was introduced in the Senate last year. The act is intended to reauthorize the system of foreign food assistance and support strategies that promote food security in developing nations (particularly rural areas).

The witnesses for the panel included Jacob Lew, the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources from the Department of State, and Rajiv Shah, the current Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Lew assured that through the State Department’s Global Food Security initiative, the U.S. would invest in areas where it has a competitive advantage in order to best increase agricultural production, and thus, increase incomes. He emphasized that poverty and food insecurity creates a climate of political instability, which in turn threatens our own national security.

Shaw outlined a broader strategy for USAID’s efforts in food security, and emphasized that his agency’s broader strategy would include the promotion of country-led agricultural plants, core productivity improvements, sustainable production systems, market-led efforts to develop food systems, the inclusion of women in the agricultural process, and increased accountability of foreign governments in implementing the new policies. Many of the policies that were discussed in the hearing addressed core issues of food production in developing nations, and promised to implement systems of assistance that would be more sustainable on a national and local level.

However, one concerning facet of these food security initiatives was how the witnesses did not mention negative ramifications of the “Green Revolution” in places like India in the 1960s. In his opening statements, Shaw stated,

“It was a predecessor of mine, USAID Administrator William Gaud, who coined the term Green Revolution. That this term is known around the world is a testament to what U.S. leadership can mean… The global agricultural system is more interconnected today than it was during the first Green Revolution. What happened in global food markets in 2007-2008 showed just how vulnerable the poor are in the face of price shocks.”

Lew specifically noted that the Green Revolution (which was initiated by primarily U.S. organizations over forty years ago) increased agricultural production and incomes in the participating developing nations. While on the surface these claims are valid, the Green Revolution has been criticized for creating an unsustainable and unequal food system that is heavily dependent on pesticide use, fertilizers, technology transfers, and undiversified grain seed (usually from wealthier nations).

In the end, a system of food aid that replicates the conditions of the “Green Revolution” may ultimately create more food-insecure nations than before. Often, developing nations are forced to accept genetically modified seed donated from corporations in wealthier nations. While the seed may be engineered to provide crops with more nutrients or that can withstand harsh environments, the seed is often privately patented and designed to grow under unsustainable “monoculture” agricultural conditions. First, this transfer creates a system of dependency on technology from wealthier nations, and usually does not encourage local agricultural production technologies. Also, in the past, food security has been threatened when undiversified seed is used, because a single “superbug” or disease that infiltrates one plant can destroy a whole crop of genetically undiversified crops. Also, food programs often emphasize the production of only a few kinds of grain crops in a single area, as opposed to diversified agricultural operations that can sustain local populations. This can also threaten food security, as it results in a lack of access to different kinds of food, and can promote malnutrition in rural populations without access to diversified food sources.

National Security Policy: Energy and Climate Change

The next day I attended a lecture by General Wald, who was formerly the Deputy Commander for USEUCOM (U.S. European Command, in Stuttgart, Germany). His lecture addressed the intersection of climate change and national security in the context of defense policy. While his lecture started out with standard arguments for clean energy, one segment that struck me as interesting was when General Wald emphasized that staff should “rebrand” clean energy to suit different members’ agendas. In specific, he encouraged branding the use and implementation of clean energy as an issue of “national security” that could be approached from several different ways. Whether it is to reduce dependence on foreign oil (which can finance countries and institutions that in turn fund extremist organizations), create an infrastructure for national energy security and self-sufficiency, or to support cleaner technologies to reduce the threat of climate change; he emphasized the need to structure member’s agendas strategically to promote clean energy systems in Congress. He also mentioned an initiative called “Operation Free,” where a group of veterans implement these rebranding strategies by touring the country and encouraging “clean, domestic energy production” to protect America from the security threats of climate change and energy dependence.

Unfortunately, all of these reasons to support clean energy are still supported by the rhetoric of a “threat,” as opposed to encouraging a respect for the global commons. Despite the hawkish branding, this strategy in the end may help justify the means. Along with economic incentive in the right places, this kind of rhetoric may encourage defense agencies to continue to reconfigure their energy consumption, and with symbolic clout- the U.S. military is alone the single largest consumer of energy in the world. While this only constitutes 1% of domestic energy use , it is equivalent to the total energy consumption of the country of Nigeria, which has roughly one-half the population of the United States.

The dangerous side of branding:

In the end, the celebration of “Climate Week” stimulated interesting conversation from my position on the Hill. While much of the dialogue still falls within the framework of traditional policymaking, at least these concerns are on the agenda and are slowly being seen as issues that simultaneously affect our country and the world.

notes on a child nutrition hearing

In “Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process,” Walter Oleszek states that, “Hearings are perhaps the most orchestrated phase of policymaking” (96).  Congressional hearings are part of a larger political strategy to shape public opinion by shining light on an issue, grilling an official, or showcasing selected viewpoints.  While hearings are conducted to look somewhat spontaneous (witnesses do appear before a panel of Congress members in real time), testimonies are prepared, submitted, circulated, and sometimes even practiced in mock sessions long before the C-SPAN cameras turn on.  Often, the soft or piercing questions by Members come from scripts prepared beforehand.  Hearings are thus not-too-distant cousins of plays—albeit, pretty boring ones.

Last week I attended a hearing on child nutrition programs held by the House Committee on Education and Labor.  I wasn’t early for the hearing, which meant I didn’t score a seat and had to settle for the televised showing in an overflow room.  Unfortunately the volume on the television was broken, and the crowded room strained to hear the testimony.  Fortunately for me, hearings are pre-planned, and I had read the witnesses’ submitted testimony at a coffee shop over the weekend. 

One exchange between by Rep. Kline, ranking Republican on the Committee, and Dora Rivas, the representative from the School Nutrition Association, during the question and answer portion of the hearing was a particularly theatrical moment:

[Regarding Rivas’s recommendation to revise the ‘time and place’ rule so that the Sec. of Agriculture can regulate all food on campus]

Rep. Kline: “So you want to regulate the bake sale?”

Rivas: “We want to expand the time and place rule, so that nutrition rules are consistent for all food on campus.”  

(okay, I can’t find direct audio so that was paraphrased)

Kline was presumably trolling for a soundbite (the socialist Dems want to take away your banana bread!), a trap that Rivas purposefully evaded (though Rep. Kline would not be defeated; he concluded his questioning by stating, “So basically what I hear is that you want to regulate the bake sale”).

A few Members later, the topic of bake sales and banana bread came up again in Rep. Fudge’s questioning; only this time the foods were given a more impersonal, slightly menacing name: “competitive foods” – foods that battle with healthy foods in the struggle for children’s attention and taste buds.  Congresswoman Fudge’s questions were short and to the point.

Rep. Fudge: Do you want to regulate competitive foods?

Rivas: Yes.

Rep. Fudge then turned her attention to Lucy Gettmen of the National School Board Association, the minority’s witness.  Fudge attacked the underlying logic of Gettman’s testimony—that local decision makers are the best people to regulate school foods—by citing statistics that strongly suggest that local school boards are doing a miserable job in reducing junk food in schools.  Gettman offered a jumbled, confused, and inadequate response (Point – Fudge!).  Overall, the Q&A would have been scored a resounding victory for Rep. Fudge, except for the Pepsi can that was sitting on her desk – a shining silver symbol of contradiction anchoring the bottom-right corner of the camera frame. 

There was political jockeying, with Members drawing lines in the proverbial sandbox, and positioning themselves strategically; there were bland questions and passionate testimony; and of course, there were calls for more funding by practically every witness.  Hearings like this are supposed to cover the major issues of a topic, and in doing so they map out the boundaries of a particular political discourse.

What wasn’t discussed was perhaps just as strategic as what was.  There was no discussion about HFCS.  There was no discussion about the repercussions of an absent food culture.  There was no discussion about working with the Committee on Agriculture to tackle the thorny issue of agricultural subsidies and the practice of dumping unhealthy surplus calories into the USDA’s school commodity program.  There was no discussion about dismantling the powerful agroindustry monopolies that are the [genetically engineered?] seeds of America’s growing child nutrition problems.  The radius of dissent was instead reduced to relatively minute disputes – finding more funding, reducing paperwork, maybe adding a few more veggies and some non-dairy milk options – a conversation confined to issues of little threat to the agroindustrial status quo.

the Newseum

So DC has a new museum – the Newseum, an enterprise that is a physical feed of all the world’s news and a shrine to corporate media.  Located in a seven-story building that doubles as a glass box, the Newseum’s physical structure depicts the value that lies at the core of news: transparency – the unobstructed flow of information.  The Newseum also gives out discount coupons, which is why Christy and I went last Sunday.

Since the Newseum is a museum, it is a dignified form of propaganda, and the exhibits aggrandize news by highlighting the patriotic foundations of the First Amendment.  Visitors are encouraged to start their visit by watching the introductory film “What Is News?”, a video that frames the museum experience.  News, according to the film, is a variety of large, abstract, and oppositional nouns: news is war, peace, love, hate, liberty, and FREEDOM (the film ends with the word “freedom” sung opera-like to the tune of patriotic trumpets).  The take-home message from the film, and from the museum as a whole, is that truth has power, and as the conveyor of truth, news has the power to shape the course of history. 

Having stated its thesis to the tune of heavenly trumpets, the museum went to work with examples to support its argument.  Immediately upon exiting the theater, visitors encounter a section of the Berlin Wall and a three-story East German control tower, all part of an exhibit that explains how a free press helped liberate Eastern Europe from the oppressive yoke of communism.  The next major exhibit is the gallery of Pulitzer-Prize winning photographs, a dark space punctuated by striking images and small captions that contextualize the photos.

A few floors above the Berlin Wall is another piece of tangible history: a mangled news tower from the World Trade Center.  The 9-11 exhibition reminds visitors about the many dangers of the world and the heroism of the news industry in case such worries slipped visitors’ minds sometime between sobbing over the Pulitzer Photos and discovering the fourth floor.  Next to the tower is a two-story wall that lined with the front pages of newspapers devoted to 9-11 from around the world.  The headlines, not the details, catch the eye: “ACT OF EVIL”, “ATTACKED”, “INFAMY”.  The sensationalism of the exhibition climaxes with a video memorial to William Biggart, a photojournalist who died taking photos of the falling North Tower.  Biggart’s camera, equipment, and press ID were later recovered and are set inside a glass display case, which is featured in a larger exhibit of his final pictures.  If the Newseum did not plan for the 9-11 exhibition to be teeming with emotional triggers, the convenient placement of a tissue box near the exhibit’s entrance shows that the Newseum is at least aware that it is.

What is not news

Having taken the effort to define what is news, what is not included in the museum is presumably ‘not news’ by Newseum standards. 

While the museum drives home the point that news is an agent of change, it ignores the element of agency.  Understandably, any acknowledgment or discussion of corporate censorship of news has been censored out of the museum.  Also missing is any reflection on the trend away from objective reporters and towards blatantly partisan commentators, a discussion confined to a few sentences on a tiny panel in the History of Internet, TV, and Radio exhibit.  The absence of this discussion was made all the more glaring by one sentence in the same exhibit, whose sheer irony stopped me in my tracks: “In 2008, the public voted Jon Stewart of The Daily Show as the most trusted news source on TV.”  When a comedian who makes a living by highlighting the idiocy and bias of other news stations is considered the most trusted news reporter on TV, what does that say about news in America?

And then, the gigantic iPhone-like-thing

Enter the Ethics Center, a whizzing hub of interactive technology.  Along one wall visitors can play reporter and record their own news clips.  In one of many little kiosks, the camera-shy can play ethics games on a touch-screen and test their knowledge of the journalistic moral code.  The highlight of the room is a table with an infared surface that makes it like a giant iPhone screen, where visitors can grab little avatars holding ethics questions in manila folders to answer questions about proper journalistic practices.  The whir of technology in the Ethics Center is an experience akin to stepping into CNN’s Situation Room, a new channel that has embraced social media and spiffy IT equipment, ranging from giant touch-sensitive TV screens to Beam-Me-Up-Scotty holographic reporters (I kid you not). 

While Star Trek technology is eye catching and the interactive exhibits tickled the twelve year old in me, the prominent display of advanced technology gave me a feeling of information overload (not dissimilar to when I watch Wolf Blitzer).  The constant and multiple streams of information flowing through multiple technologies in real time can elicit feelings of helplessness (how to manage all this information??), which encourages dependence on news stations to use their super-technologies to decipher what is important from the jumble of noise.  And so we tune in to CNN.  $$$.

Overall, the museum is part news, part sensationalism, and part information overload, which is actually a quite accurate depiction of news.  In the end it was all worthwhile, because the Newseum had the Star-Bulletin (still alive for the moment!) on display.

In Full Swing

As the rain melts away the lingering frost from Snowmageddon, we return to our internships for our first full week in what feels like ages. The House (and Senate) is back in session, and with so many rescheduled hearings and outstanding votes, the Capitol is a flurry of activity.

The first floor of my building was filled with news cameras this morning; their lenses trained on the door of the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing room. Beginning in the afternoon, the subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on the recent Toyota recalls and held as a witness James Lentz, the President and Chief Operating Officer of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. I caught snips of the hearing on C-SPAN throughout the afternoon, where Lentz was cross-examined and brought under near inquisition by members.

Congressman Henry Waxman’s questions regarding the cars’ sticking pedal and sudden unintended acceleration issues were especially interesting. After reading Waxman’s How Congress Really Works, I saw in-action how he prides himself on being a protector of the consumer. In specific, he directed questions in a way to hold Toyota accountable for the incidences and for any negligence that may be involved. Also interesting was Waxman’s sometimes-adversary and sometimes-friend in the committee, Congressman John Dingell’s, marked performance for the hearing. Dingell used a hard-line approach to questioning Lentz: simply, he asked a succession of “yes or no” questions in which he refused to listen to any explanation with which the witness tried to supplement his answer. At one point, Dingell even stopped the witness mid-word and retorted, “I’m just a poor Polish lawyer from Detroit. Will you please answer yes or no so I can understand.”



After work today I attended Congressman Abercrombie’s farewell party in anticipation of his official resignation on February 28th. Unfortunately, Mr. Abercrombie never did attend, albeit with good reason: he was submitting one of his final votes for the Native Hawaiian Reorganization Act (Akaka Bill) late into the evening. The bill, which contains a recently added amendment by Abercrombie, passed the House 245-164 and will now be moving to the Senate.

Though I still have not had the chance to meet Mr. Abercrombie in person, his farewell party drew several Hill celebrity sightings. First, Senator Inouye made a brief appearance at the beginning of the evening. However, his appearance was trumped when I discovered that the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, had dropped by and was literally standing three feet away! She made a quick exit before we could meet her, but appearance left me feeling a little star-struck. Lastly, Congressman Mike Honda took it upon himself to chat with Mari, myself, and our other friends at the table. He was hilarious- he cracked jokes with us for over half an hour before he left, just on time, to cast his vote for the Akaka Bill.

While Congressman Abercrombie was successful in seeing the Akaka Bill passed in the House before his resignation, the fate of the bill will lie elsewhere. The House has twice passed the original version of the bill- in 2000 and 2007- yet each time it has died in the Senate. It will be interesting to see if Abercrombie’s amendment, which includes language that will give Hawaiians inherent power similar to other federally-recognized Native entities, will provide for a different debate or even a different fate in the Senate.

-Christy

Snow Day #5

Blizzard + not so quality windows = slight snow storm in my dorm room :(

White House Tour

On January 16, Mari, Frank, and I took a tour of the White House, arranged by Mari’s manager at Congresswoman Hirono’s office. Our tour was a unique experience- we arrived at the White House gates at 7:30 in the morning (we didn’t realize the metro starts running at 7 am on weekends, so had to flag down a taxi to get there on time!) and waited in line outside in the cold to enter. Security was even tighter than usual- ever since the State dinner mishap where an unauthorized couple made it in to the invite-only event, they’ve installed extra checkpoints! Not only did we have to submit our personal information a week in advance to have a background check completed, several security stops along the way checked our IDs and ushered us through what seemed like many metal detectors.

As visitors, we were able to tour the ground and first floor- the second and third levels are reserved for the First family and staff. Even though we were in the White House, it was hard to believe we were actually there- red ropes were all that separated us from historic portraits and furniture, and everything was so quiet it felt like a museum. It also felt a good bit smaller than I had expected!

On the first floor we were guided past a hallway lined with pictures of Presidents, First Ladies, and their families in or around the White House. Our first glimpses of the rooms in the White House were the Library (which periodically has been used as a gentlemen’s cigar lounge), the Vermeil Room with portraits of recent First Ladies, and the China Room.

We were led up a flight of stairs to several rooms on the second floor. In the East Room on the second floor, we saw the original portrait of George Washington that was saved by Dolley Madison when the British burned the White House in 1814. Apparently Mrs. Madison originally commissioned some gentlemen in the house to remove the painting in its original frame, but found it too heavy to take out! Instead, the painting was cut out and rolled up. Our tour guide noted that the frame is unusually thick so that it can cover the edges that have been cut away.

We then proceeded to the Green, Blue, and Red Rooms named for their wall and furniture colors. The last room we entered was the State Dining Room where Presidential dinners and luncheons are sometimes held. On the fireplace mantel in this room is an engraving of a quote from a letter by John to Abigail Adams: “I Pray Heaven to Bestow the Best of Blessings on THIS HOUSE and All that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under this Roof.”

At times it was hard to separate the stories that were historically accurate and those that were Presidential myth, but such is the nature of an entertaining tour. Overall it was a great experience!

Snowmageddon

Weather forecasters are predicting 1-2 feet of snow tomorrow, which is 1-2 feet more than the city's infrastructure can handle.  To help the DC citizenry prepare, the ever reliable Washington Post is sending readers to this site.

Cross your fingers the Metro doesn't strand us tomorrow on the wrong side of Union Station!

State of the Union

Last Wednesday the Superbowl of the political world hit DC: State of the Union time! 

Streets were shut down, suspicious packages were discovered and disposed of, press teams phoned in orders for takeout food, and staffers got into heated debates about whether they should take shots when the Presidents says “hope” or “jobs”. 

I kid, I kid.

But really.

As the Senators and Members departed to the Floor to ride the seesaw of standing ovations, Frank, Christy, and I joined staffers from Senator Akaka’s office to watch the State of the Union address at a nearby progressive pub equipped with a massive TV. 

The President didn’t release the bomb of cap and trade, but he surprisingly did mention the necessity of comprehensive legislation addressing climate change mitigation, even throwing what might have been a personal jab at James Inhofe.  He did call out the Justices of the Supreme Court sitting twelve feet in front of him, eliciting cheers from the Union Pub crowd and a "That's not true” mumble from Justice Alito.  He talked about jobs, jobs, jobs, announced a freeze on discretionary spending, squeezed in a sentence or two about Afghanistan, and, in what has become the most quoted lines of his address, talked about politics-as-usual, which has remained as-usual as it has ever been one year into his Administration:

To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills.  And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town -- a supermajority -- then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well.  Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership.  We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions. 

The Presidents words on the topic were timely.  Recently a someone called and posed a simple question that I couldn’t answer—the Democrats have a majority, why can’t they pass anything?

In my meager month on the Hill, I have determined that the million dollar term in the political scene post-Massachusetts special election is “budget reconciliation” - a little known process for passing legislation with a simple minority that has been brought to national attention as the potential savior of healthcare reform.  Coming in at a close second: “filibuster.”  Thanks to the latest stumbles in the saga of healthcare reform, both are must-know terms for Hill staffers.

“Filibuster” denotes the most effective weapon in the interparty warfare that plagues Congress.  It is the minority’s means of exercising power and revolting against the majority.  The minority calls it leverage; the majority calls it obstruction; a Dutchman from the 1800s would call it the work of pirates. 

The abuse of the filibuster is the most egregious symptom of a polarized politics that remains in trench warfare one year into the Obama era.  It is a polarization made audible daily by FOX News and MSNBC, and made visible during the SOTU address by the seemingly orchestrated standing ovations on one side of the aisle, and the deadpan stares on the other.  Perhaps the great barometer of President Obama’s term will be whether he can get the entire floor to stand and applaud in unison by the time he leaves office?

However the reception of future SOTU addresses goes, it should by now be unavoidably apparent that stalled politics produce public frustration and disillusionment, never more real and palpable than when constituents write in their stories or call and ask simple questions that are impossible to answer.   

It remains to be seen whether the symbolic goals of the SOTU address—to rally the Democratic base; to cast the filibustering Republicans as the real culprits; to awe the American people with sparkling oratory and remind disillusioned Independents why they voted the President in—were achieved.  Following the brief hypnosis that an Obama speech can bring, attention on the Hill again returned to healthcare, the public option, coal ash, and where are all the jobs again? 

And of course, what blog would be complete without an appearance by Rudy Giuliani...

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

On Monday January the 18th, all three UHManoa "undergraduate fellows" decided to team up with a local non profit community organization called Grassroots Education Project. The group encouraged volunteers to arrive at the school on the holiday to participate in projects sanctioned by the school principal to improve the schools capacity to provide for and educate its young students. Some of the projects that were available and organized for that day were: organizing and properly cataloging the books in the library to ensure that they were marked appropriately for its level of difficulty, cleaning and redecorating the Teacher's Lounge, performing routine maintenance on the some of the classroom furniture and making sure that the resources the school had were appropriately distributed across its classrooms, and finally routine maintenance on the schools Macintosh computers.

Frank was involved in servicing the late model Macintosh computers that the majority of the students use for their education. The computers were often overburdened by simple programing malfunctions that could easily be resolved by the volunteers other computers had more formidable disorders and simply needed to have a master catalog created to centrally record which problems were found which computers.



Christy and Mari spent the morning cleaning and redecorating the Teacher's Lounge, which was in disarray, and later helped a Kindergarten teacher sort through and organize her paperwork.

hello snow!

79 degrees and sunny in Oahu; 7 degrees and snowing in DC!