Ethics Committee

hum, admonished...
This reminded me of the presentation by Ted Van Der Meid about the house ethics committee, a few weeks ago.

Glenn fellows with Dr. Gee

Glenn fellows with the Senator and Mrs. Glenn

Jesse Owens and Statuary Hall

Ohio State leads effort on behalf of alumnus Jesse Owens

Ohio State is leading an initiative to have a statue of legendary track star Jesse Owens represent the state of Ohio in the U. S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall. The university on Friday (11/6) presented its case to members of the National Statuary Collection Study Committee. Jesse Owens was not only a stellar athlete, but a true diplomat for humanity, said Rusty Wilson, an Ohio State alumnus, staff member and author of the book, The Ohio State University at the Olympics. Wilson was one of several university and community representatives who spoke to the committee on the appropriateness of Owens’ selection.

for more information

Any opinions about this?

Laura

Another Great Weekend in DC!

This weekend was, yet again, awesome. Yesterday a couple of us went to the Waterfront and had an outdoor lunch overlooking the river. The weather this weekend was unusually warm for this time of year and we saw a couple of sailors who were taking advantage of it. Right below the deck was the former presidential yacht, which apparently was sold under the Carter administration. It sort of looked like a Mississippi river boat:

Following lunch we had some downtime at 225 and were keeping our eyes on the healthcare reform debate that was going on in the House of Reps. C-Span reported that the final vote would occur sometime around midnight, and a couple of us decided to head over to see if we could get into the gallery. Sure enough, we did! We got there around 9:30 and saw 3 or 4 amendments debated and voted on. At around 10:30, the vote for the passage of the entire HB 3962 began. The 15-minute vote began, and the tallies started adding up in the "yea" column. Around the 10th minute of the vote, we noticed Majority Leader Steny Hoyer anxiously searching for someone. We then saw him quickly make his way over to a representative and say something to him as he put his hand on the representative's back. The representative immediately went to cast his vote, and we saw an additional vote appear in the "yea" column on the board. I'm not sure whether the representative was on the fence about the vote or was just dragging out his vote, but it was nonetheless really cool to see.

When the number of "yeas" finally got to the 218, the democratic caucus erupted in cheers. At this point, there were probably another 3 minutes left. 2 more votes appeared in the "yea" column shortly thereafter, and as 10 seconds remained on the clock, the democrats started doing a countdown. There was so much excitement in the room when it passed!

It didn't escape us that this was a monumental moment in our history. We walked back to 225 with a real sense of amazement at what we just saw. Though there are still three more big steps in the process of passing healthcare reform, we got to witness firsthand the first big step.

-Liz

<3 Bearhug

       Tonight Chelsea and I got to walk Bear-hug! Mrs. Louis told us last week that we could come over to take Bear-hug on a walk whenever we would like, and tonight seemed like the perfect night. Despite her size, she was actually not hard to walk. I tried to get her to jump into the fountains on the east side of the capitol, but I think she knew better.

   Also, an intern at work told me about a bookstore, Politics and Prose, that has a pretty regular speaker series with authors of new books.  So I checked out the website and got tickets to see Al Gore speak on Thursday and tickets for David Plouffe-Obama's 2008 campaign manager- to speak later this month. Anyone interested in joining Chelsea and I at those events? After the event Thursday we are going to get some long-overdue sushi. This weekend we are going to the Spy Museum, the waterfront, and Embassy Row. I hope the weather holds out for us. 

I am having soooooooooooooo much fun in DC! And yes, all of the o's are necessary. 

-Liz

New York

Two weeks ago I had the privilege of attending the Human Rights First Annual Award dinner at Chelsea Piers in New York City. I never dreamed that one of the opportunities placed in front of me this quarter in D.C. would include a paid trip to the city that never sleeps! The annual dinner honored two distinguished human rights defenders; one from Columbia, Principe Gabriel Gonzalez and the other from Sandra Carvolho from Brazil. The two honorees were accompanied by founding executive director of HRF and newly appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Michael Posner, who was interviewed by the former NBS anchor Tom Brokaw. The evening consisted of speeches by all the honorees, an interview of Michael Posner, a moving and emotional video of Principe Gabriel Gonzalez' fight against the suppressive government of Columbia, a fancy dinner (so fancy I couldn't tell you what I ate), and dancing to a live Brazilian Jazz band!

One of the responsibilities delegated to me was looking out for the arrival of Tom Brokaw. Upon Tom Brokaw's arrival I was to turn the opposite direction, completely ignoring his presence, and run to find the coordinator of the awards dinner to warn her of his arrival. While the directions seemed quite illogical I faithfully stood at the entrance 15 minutes past the start of dinner, at which I decided the grumbling in my stomach could no longer be ignored and abandoned my post for dinner. Thankfully, Brokaw appeared before the attendees 20 minutes later to kick off the dinner. -Jessica

Real Life American Hero

John Glenn! It's all very exciting.
Tomorrow we're meeting someone who is literally a household name. John Glenn is world famous. His name is as big as most of our Presidents.
It's very hard to keep that in perspective.

Also, time seems to be slipping faster and faster. Only 14 more actual work days before that aspect of the program is over. I'm pretty convinced there's some sort of time travel bubble around the District that changes the rate of time's flow here.

Josh