Only a Minnesotan…

The Great Blizzard of 2009, aka, tsnownami 2009.

In NW DC, not far from Bethesda, we got about two feet of snow, lesser amounts as you moved toward the National Mall and National Airport which received 16-17 inches. Farther out in Maryland there were reports of 28 and 30 inches. A good time was had by most, though not the subconsciously suicidal who went for a drive—so many went out, only five succeeded: another sign of the grace of the Lord.

My fellow Fellows, most of whom live closer to the Capitol Hill than me, gathered into a couple of groups for snow angeling, creating a snobama, or skiing down Capitol Hill. Other than a trek walking down the middle of Connecticut Av to the local bookstore (Politics & Prose) to pick up a book (on politics, of course), I stayed in and enjoyed the quiet and read all the things I missed during the final ten days of the 2009 report-writing season—putting the H1N1 virus to bed until January.


This morning dawned brilliant, cloudless, and 28 degrees. I thought I had taken my time to check out the news sites, eat breakfast, etc., but when I got out to look for my car I saw that no one had done any shoveling, nine o’clock. Now 3 hours later they are out there, but no noise—just like the old days before snow blowers. I can’t recall so much snow with such quiet the next day; it makes me think of the ‘60s. I found the car under two feet of snow, except the hood was under 4 feet of snow. It was impossibly light snow for the 30 degrees maintained all day, and it was a fast shovel. An hour or so later I got a knock on my door, a woman, neighbor she claimed, who said, “Only a Minnesotan would have the car and driveway completely shoveled out so quickly. Could I borrow your shovel?”

When I figure out how to insert some photos I incorporate a few.

Ghost of Christmas Past

You know it's a lie, but it still gets to you.

The blatant spewing of lies from the Great Right-Wing Conspiracy (yes, Hillary nailed it correctly from the start) brings back the deep depression they brought upon the nation at Christmas 1998 when they rammed impeachment through the House during the Christmas season. I recall nothing else from that Christmas except that which has some link to the impeachment hearings on NPR, picking up cookies from the Grand Bakery (now no longer with us) and listening to the hate fulminating from Henry Hyde (now no longer with us); circling the parking lot at Southdale (still with us) and listening to any number of hypocritical GOPs self-righteously fomenting from the floor who, we later learned, went back to there apartments with their mistress, their congressional page, their interns, or their high-priced bed-warmer.

So today Mitch and his nattering nabobs of negativism just sit back and object to everything. Maybe I shouldn't assume they have a conscience or a memory or an ounce of human decency--it's the only way they could continue in their role. And what do the voters in their states think? Can the unemployed coal miners in Kentucky really support Mitch McConnell, or could any of the 10.7% unemployed fellow Kentuckians support him? And then we have the seemingly good Senators from Maine--how can they align themselves so? How can they not at least go Independent? It does remind me of the old saying I grew up hearing, "The last good Republican was Lincoln."

Check out this posting on Media Matters (subscribe if you want to see some balance--you're not going to get it from NPR, they are only slight less nattering and nabobing that Faux TV and all the cable cacophony). Remember all the screaming about the Franken-Lieberman encounter. Read this piece. Check out the video (the first link in the text).
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200912180032

Merry Christmas!

Finally!

DC Weather

I have been fighting a losing battle with the local temperature and humidity since I arrived here in August-- over-heated for four months now. Two months ago the locals started wearing coats over their business attire, then scarfs and hats, and recently parkas (what will January bring?).

Today was the big breakthrough for me--no sweat walking outside, not to the next building, not to the Metro stop. No sweat! I did not feel cold; just no sweat. So I can put a datum in my personal lab notebook: 33 deg F, slight breeze, brilliant sunshine, wearing just "proper business attire yields no sweat."

It looks like my fellow prairie dogs in the cube farm will have to wait until January to see if I have a jacket. So now the office is the only place I still sweat. I don't have a thermometer here (I do miss the lab for all sorts of paraphanelia useful in non-lab applications, such as thermometers, balances, vacuum lines, ice, even cold-boxes to winterize your hosta), but it must be 80 degrees. Mind you, I have no gripe with the internal temp in the warm months, it's usually very pleasant, maybe in the high 60s/low 70s, and the rest of the inmates wear sweaters and scarves.

Just One Sentence

The Return

I apologize to my reader who is disappointed (perhaps) that I have not blogged in a long time, since about the time I actually reported to my job after a long and useful orientation period. These last six weeks have been filled with meetings, position papers, speech writing, testimony vetting, and diversions from all that to attend briefings on many other political affairs from international policy (such as how did Europe get the structure it has now as a result of the breakup of the Soviet Union and their sphere of influence in Eastern Europe) to ocean acidification to a riveting presentation on the microclimate changes, derived from global changes, that can be modeled now with powerful new computer programs). Though as busy as before, I must take the time to relate one sentence I heard in a meeting yesterday.

I was able to attend a meeting of top health officials from the US and UK. The meeting was less than 30 min (no meeting with an Asst Secretary lasts long—they shuttle from one to another all day), and each official discussed how their respective governments and departments work with respect to public health. The American briefly explained the portfolio of that office, and then the UK minister gave the corresponding UK overview.

When the UK minister dealt with their policy on immunization and vaccines, he said matter-of-factly and with no nuance of any sort, “In Britain, vaccine production is under my office as Britain believes that the public health should not be subject to the making of a profit.”

Wow. Just two blocks away the Congress, and the entire nation, is arguing the minutest details of a 2000-page bill, and this minister sums up their approach in one simple sentence.

They settled this question more than 60 years ago in the UK--no one should profit from public health; while we argue whether an insurance company should be allowed to make obscene profits (as if it were an investment bank) or merely outrageous profits.

Politics Then and Now

The quote below was taken from today’s (22 Sep 2009) The Writer’s Almanac, by Garrison Keillor.

"It was on this day in 1961 that Congress passed the Peace Corps Act.

"Kennedy first spoke about the idea of a Peace Corps in his final weeks of campaigning for the presidency. At 2 a.m. on October 14, 1960, after a long day of campaigning, the young senator stood on the steps in front of the student union at the University of Michigan. The journalists had gone home, thinking that nothing more would happen that day, but 10,000 students remained, hoping to see and hear Kennedy. He gave a short speech, in which he said:

"I think in many ways it is the most important campaign since 1933, mostly because of the problems which press upon the United States, and the opportunities which will be presented to us in the 1960s. The opportunity must be seized, through the judgment of the President, and the vigor of the executive, and the cooperation of the Congress. Through these I think we can make the greatest possible difference.

"How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete."

"Within two months of taking office, Kennedy signed an executive order establishing the Peace Corps. Then, on this day, Congress authorized the executive order that Kennedy had signed, creating an agency whose purpose was "to promote world peace and friendship" by making available to interested countries American men and women "qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower."

Since the start of Peace Corps, 195,000 volunteers and trainees have served in 139 countries. Currently, there are more than 7,800 volunteers (60 percent of whom are female) serving abroad in 76 countries."

How different times were then when we barely elected a young, inspiring President, and in eight months the Congress easily approved a means to “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” What a difference fifty years makes. How far we have devolved.

W Returns to Washington.

Sad, but true.

The Hotel Washington, just across the street from the Treasury Dept, thus only one short block from the White House, has been chomping on the bit to get their name change underway. However, they clearly could not do it until the previous administration was history. They did as soon as the mourning period was over, probably a few minutes after noon on January 21st.

The last day of AAAS Policy Fellow orientation started last Monday, 14 Sep, on the top floor of the W Hotel. The view of the National Mall and Federal Triangle from the rooftop terrace was similar to the Google satellite maps, but with higher resolution. We could see parts of the South Lawn of the White House, its South face, and the roof. A clear view of the roof showed it was guarded by several sharpshooters. [When someone started to call them snipers, we had an extended discussion with the outcome that we defined snipers as bad-guys and sharpshooters as good guys.]

Knowing the President was going to Wall Street that morning to lecture the Neo-Robber Barons, one of us looked up the Presidential calendar on the WH web site, which indicated that he was leaving at 9:55. When the time came, we quietly went out to the terrace, and waited, and waited, and waited, until the AAAS staff finally shooed us back in. The Marine helicopters landed on time, but they were more than a half hour late in leaving, so only the staff had the opportunity to see the choppers take off. Alas.

Rant

I miss my garden.

I wonder how it is doing. I was startled the other day when I looked down at my fingernails and saw them perfectly clean for the first time in years. I’ve hung around all those gardens near the National Mall for the last three weeks but have not gotten my hands dirty, literally. Yet, I am admonished every time I go to the Men’s Room, every time I read a directive from the White House, Dept of Health & Human Services, the CDC, the Surgeon General, and who knows who else, maybe the CIA and FBI, to wash my hands, wash them now. On one mirror, I was advised to wash them for 45 sec, on another 20 sec. I’ve been told to use the paper towel to turn off the faucet and to use it to open the door as I leave. It seems the fear-mongering of the previous administration that the enemy is out there somewhere has been replaced by fear-mongering that the enemy is here already, on our hands, and maybe we need to develop technologies that replace the hand entirely. And how do we protect ourselves from the open mouthed hackers on the Metro and in buses? Or, in this age of cube farms, from the effluvia from the other side of the padded wall.

I needed to get that out.

Odds & Ends

Another week in DC, actually starting work, and the pace accelerates.

Some have questioned whether I actually have a job here. Though I do not write much about it, I do, indeed, have a policy job here. Much of what I have been doing and learning is confidential, and this is not a blog to reveal those inner dealings of the gummint. When I have something that is both non-confidential and important I will bring it up. For instance, each week the US has 150+deaths from H1N1 (mostly children), and thousands of admissions to hospitals. Given all the hype over the flu, the vaccinations, the burden on the medical infrastructure, I am surprised that some fear monger hasn’t started shouting that number from a podium, talk show, or blog…Michele Bachmann, where are you on this.

The ‘hood. I moved into my apartment this weekend, a small place in the back of a townhouse in a quiet neighborhood off Connecticut Av. In NW DC. The good news—I walked the neighborhood, several miles down Connecticut and back, scouting out restaurants, stores, laundries, etc. that I will need on a regular basis in the coming year. The highlight of the day was a stop at Politics & Prose, an independent bookstore (http://www.politics-prose.com/). I arrived toward the end of the reading give by Tim Page, retired music critic at the Washington Post. This is an autobiography describing his discovery, at age 45, that he had been living with Aspergers disease all his life. The bad news—grocery shopping! Ugh! I waited until 9 p.m. to reduce the competition. I don’t remember ever making so many decisions in 90 minutes; however, as with eating a toad first thing every morning, the worst part of the day is over.

Returning from the grocery store, driving down Connecticut Av in Maryland, I was struck by how law-abiding, the locals were, clinging to 30 mph one and all. Then I noticed bright flashes of light and the sign, “Speed Limit Photo Enforced”. As soon as we crossed into DC it looked like the start of the Indy 500. I was left in their dust.

Lunch & Lobbying. It looks like one might eat free lunch on The Hill five days a week, at least when Congress is in session. I took advantage twice. One session was “The New Energy Economy” which dealt primarily with efficiency and demonstrated that increased efficiency is the low-hanging fruit that can reduce our generation needs by 30-50%. One of the striking graphs showed how refrigerator energy consumption was been reduced by 80% by the imposition of standards. Unfortunately, only refrigerators have energy standards, not TVs, microwaves, dishwashers, etc.

The other free lunch dealt with the advances in climate forecasting. In the past three years, computational advances have allowed higher resolution in forecasting, down to 3 km resolution. The panelists gave specific examples of forecasting April snow depth for the Rocky Mountains. Not only is this useful for the ski industry, but allows water-drought predictions for the following year. I also picked up a new work, hind-casting, which is using historic data to test a forecasting model. In other contexts, this has been called the training data set or test set. Hind-casting, so Inside the Beltway.

Diagonal Streets. Many cities have a few diagonal streets that break up the grid so common to Midwestern cities. Chicago has Milwaukee Av; Minneapolis, has Hiawatha. DC has all the state streets. L’Enfant intended these to be more than just decorative. In combination with the regular traffic circles that eventually became the homes of bronze generals and their retinue of pigeons, these streets were designed to help defend the Capitol. He envisioned artillery batteries stationed at each circle defending the city against an attacking army. I don’t know if his vision went as far as to see how all those little triangles of land that were too small to build on could become vest-pocket parks, but I am pleased that so many have become small green spots with trees, grass, benches, and the occasional bronze generals. During my walks from the State Dept to AAAS I came across several Latin-American generals, Simon Bolivar, Bernardo de Galvez, Jose de San Martin, for instance. Perhaps the nearby headquarters of the Organization of American States can explain this concentration of Hispanic generals.

Gardens. Near my office are several gardens that can serve as lunch spots—the US Botanic Gardens Conservatory and the outside gardens and one I just discovered—the Bartholdi Park (http://www.usbg.gov/gardens/barthodli-park.cfm). The centerpiece fountain is being restored, but the rest of the park is open and even features tables with umbrellas.

There is a sunken sculpture garden at the Hirshhorn Gallery (http://hirshhorn.si.edu/) that is a real oasis. When the madding rush hour traffic is honking, breaking, and polluting just a few hundred feet away on Independence Av, all one can hear here is the chirping of birds and riffle of leaves.

Inside the Beltway

Off the Record

The rules for this two-week orientation are that everything the speakers say is “off the record.” In my previous job the speaker would say, “Put down your pens; take no notes on this.” However, not here, so I didn’t. Many rules change when you move inside the beltway. I just can’t wait until I am told that “this is on deep background.”

One of the speakers, not a politico, spoke of having to work with the undead. The speaker is a civil servant who saw much of their work life through the prism of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Another off the record talk detailed how to tunnel through the natural barriers between the departments and agencies. This appears to have many of the attributes of electron tunneling in atomic physics. For one thing, it is a quantum effect, thus generally not obvious to those who live in the so-called real world of Newtonian rules. Also, in the quantum world, Schrödinger and his friends referred to the tunneling effect as an evanescent effect. This is not unlike life inside the Beltway where such events are energized by affinities between individuals; say, one in an executive office and the other on a Congressional staff, and where the quantum effect lasts only as long as the two people remain in place. Inside the Beltway individuals don’t stay in their orbital long, hopping from job to job like neutrons in an atomic reactor.

In general, one can consider an atomic nucleus a metaphor for the space inside the Beltway, rules become quantum, difficult to see clearly, and mostly inferrable only by their effects, not by the initiating interactions themselves. It has occurred to me that one outcome of building the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), that huge atomic accelerator under Switzerland that is still on the blink, is that the world may finally see how such quantum events take place; thus, it’s failure to get going may be sabotage from the bureaucrats of the world. I hope this is Dan Brown's next book.

The Nine to Five Day of Policy Wonk Wannabe

Orientation, What happens during the day.

Each day starts with a continental breakfast, surprisingly healthy. They do this to prevent us from filing for expenses. Smart folks, those AAASers. And, the breakfast gives us another chance to network. With 188 others and only ten days, that is a task—Our cohort is almost twice the size of the Senate.

We meet at various locations. We have met at the AAAS headquarters, the Cannon House Office Building (in Caucus Room, 345, that is often the venue of CSPAN hearings}, various hotels and office buildings, part of a plan to get us acquainted with DC, and at the National Press Club. We spend a lot of time walking around the “business” and federal areas of DC. Most of us know that there is no J Street. Some of us know how to determine what the cross street is when given an address. They do not take us on a tour of DC, which I think is a correctable error (next year), which I will note on the evaluation at the end of the orientation. We have an optional picnic on the afternoon of the second Saturday. We could have an optional bus tour of the National Mall, and other nearby highlights, for a couple of hours that same day.

The topics each day vary, but the theme is one of these-- White House, the Executive Departments, or Congress. The speakers! It’s the speakers that we rave about. Not just good speakers with good information, but bringing a lifetime of experience in Washington. Their presentations are very good, but where they really excel is the Q & A. We had a speaker last Friday who was a late substitute for a member of Congress (they are on recess and back home knowing the next election is only 15 months away). She read her talk, it was OK, not great, packed with information on how the Presidency has evolved over two centuries, but it was in her answers to our questions (which ran on for 45 min) that she really showed what she knew and what we wanted to know.

The list of our speakers is astounding—the Historian of the Senate, who has been here since before most of the cohort was born; the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (John Holdren), Henry Aaron, no not THAT one, the economist at the Brookings who is often quoted on All Things Considered. We, geeks that we are, are all envious of our Poli Sci-majoring classmates who are here, in DC, and holding down those policy jobs we yearn for.

More later.

Sunday Tourist

Ted & Ben

I had to set my phobia about crowds on the back burner yesterday as Claire, Sean, and I made two pilgrimages that too many others, tourists and Washingtonians alike, were making. First, we stopped at Arlington National Cemetery. Sean has a permit to drive into the cemetery (as the nearest kin to Mary and Jim Gnam), and that is a perq worth having. As the throngs took advantage of the relatively mild weather (for DC) and walked around the cemetery, I felt like a visiting dignitary riding. We first visited the Gnam grave and left a bouquet of flowers; then the grave of a friend of Sean’s, another bouquet; finally, reduced to mere citizen status, we had to park the car and walk to the Kennedy graves.

As expected, it was crowded, but not nearly as much as I expected. The line to visit the Ted Kennedy grave appeared less than 100 feet long, but we did not join in; rather just watched from a distance, then I walked directly to the grave to leave another bouquet. I expected to see a mound of flowers there, but guessed there were fewer than 30. We also stopped at the graves of Bobby and Jack. The crowds were respectful and silent, and when speaking, were sternly reminded by the guards that silence is called for.

Ben’s Chili Bowl first hit my radar screen when Obama visited it just before the Inauguration. We saw it on that same visit to DC but there were people in a semi-circle 30 feet deep trying to get inside. This time the line did not go outside, still it was long in the crowded diner, and featured lots of direct body to body contact. I was happy to hold down a booth for us while Sean and Claire stood in the order line. Chili dog and chili burgers gave our adipocytes something to cheer for, so we went on a five mile hike that evening to burn the fat off before it got too comfortable. S&C were appalled to see that the fellows deep-frying the French fries were picking up the basket occasionally to drip grease on the fries that were ready to be served. This is a move I have never seen at the Minnesota State Fair, the epicenter for fat in the state. Next time I think I have a simple bowl of chili.

Beginning

The Orientation Day Begins

I’ve been here a week, and each day starts the same—up before 6 am and out the door by 6:30 to ride into DC with Claire. She drops me on 23rd St and Constitution, just before she enters secure State Department grounds. Then, as I walk into the sun, I get to see Washington before he politicos wake up. The civil servants are up, of course, to get their work started before the politicos arrive.

The weather has been near perfect; a bit too warm by my standards, cool to the locals. I saw my first homeless man sleeping on the only “active” heat grate I have come across, though several park benches were occupied by sleeping men covered by newspaper.

Still the tourist, I get a thrill crossing the diagonal streets and look both ways to see what monument dominates the end of the street. I vary my path each day, but always cross Virginia and see the Washington Monument side lit by the rising sun. I often cross Connecticut, Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania Avenues, which show me the White House. L’Enfant drew the plan with the original 13 states all linking some aspect of the National Mall or one of the major monuments. Some of the originals got short-changed when the leaders of the 19th century chose not to fully develop L’Efant’s vision, for example, the area east of the Capitol building.

A couple of days I have claimed a park bench in Patton Park (ca 13th & Pennsylvania). To be sure, Gen. Patton is honored there by a statue of himself without mount, one of the earliest military heroes honored without horse. [That reminds me of the controversy when Minnesota Gov Perpich wanted his wife included in his official portrait. Lola was included after Rudy pointed out that Gov Al Quie was painted with his horse.] In that park (which also has a statue of Gen Casimir Pulaski, on horse) I read the NY Times and watch Washington wake up for an hour or so, then walk on to wherever the new cohort of Science & Technology Policy Fellows meets that day. Besides the AAAS headquarters, we have met in several local hotels and the Cannon House Office Bldg Caucus Room 345. The latter is monumental in size, at least two stories to the ceiling, maybe three.

I will deal with other parts of my day later.