6.27.2008

Last Day

As it's my last day and I may never have another chance to post on the beloved intern blog, I thought I'd write one last hurrah! And what could be better than directing everyone's attention to this hilariously fitting honor to be bestowed on everyone's favorite president-- good ol' W. The story of those feisty little San Francisco-ans quickly rose to the nation's attention when it appeared on Salon.com . Now it's even made it to the heavyweights.

This administration's last day could not come soon enough and I often find myself daydreaming about the absolute joy I'll experience seeing Bush go, which is hardly a partisan statement since apparently 77% of Americans agree with me. So today, on my own last day, let's all raise our glasses and celebrate, only 207 days left before it's Bush's time to go.

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6.25.2008

Rumsfeld and the Commute


Let me paint a little picture of my morning commute for you: I'm late, listening to the soundtrack from "South Pacific" on my headphones, and speed walking down Connecticut Avenue to the Dupont Circle Metro. I'm not hyper alert to my surroundings, but am instead focused on whether I can catch the right traffic lights to optimize my commute time. It's hard to break that focus.

But broken it was today by one Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense. Was he in a car? No. Was he surrounded by a lot of people? No, only one tan-suited man. Was I about to brush past him and his friend just as another person coming up the hill said "Good morning Mr. Rumsfeld"? Yes.

Then I turned to look, and indeed it was Donald Rumsfeld. I wasn't starstuck. He's not Madeline Albright for heavens sake, or even Hilary Clinton (not endorsing or apologizing for her, but I'm just saying...she has her moments of greatness, and I still haven't seen her... maybe now that she'll be back in town). No, The incident wasn't exciting exactly, it was just... strange.

I've lived in D.C for almost a year now (it will be exactly a year on the 29th of June), and I've gotten used to government celebrity sightings. Dick Cheney, his Secret Service detail, and his 28 car entourage regularly cross my path on the way home from work, George Bush seems to think the Hilton by my house is the greatest place to have breakfast meetings, and walking past members of Congress is not all that surprising in the hallways of Senate and House office buildings (although it still does get me a little excited!). But this was the most affecting sighting yet. It's strange almost not recognizing someone who is so present in history, and especially someone who is vilified like Rumsfeld is. Perhaps my reaction was magnified because I'm currently reading a book about the horrible mess in Iraq.

In any case, if you are in D.C. watch out: Donald Rumsfeld is walking the streets without a security detail, and you might just run over him on the way to metro.

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6.23.2008

Theatre of the Washington Absurd

I was groggy-eyed and sipping my coffee yesterday morning when I opened by Washington Post, only to be confronted by this image in the Outlook section:


Coffee spewed from my mouth and I ran to forcibly wake up my roomie and have him confirm I wasn't crazy. The photo was above a serious article about life, murder, and policing in Putin's Russia. Was the Outlook editor on vacation and the stringers decided to play a joke? In the Post's defense, however, when I went looking for this photo on the internet (oddly, it is not included with the web version of the article) I found that there were many photos from the same fishing trip and this was the least salacious. Kudos, I guess? Can you imagine if George Bush went traipsing about his ranch sans shirt and then released the photos? Sometimes I am glad to be an American.

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6.20.2008

For the Record

For anyone who might doubt that sexism still plays a role in who represents this country:



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6.17.2008

What was that country like before the U.S. started bombing?


A couple of months ago Christine asked us to share books with her for a "summer reading list.". She said that the books should have something to do with social justice or our work at FCNL. Because I didn't think that the general public would be interested in a study I just read about the effectiveness of email subject lines, I instead racked my brain for what vaguely social justice related books I had read lately. I ended up having to define "lately" in broad terms, because the books that I enjoyed in the past couple of months ranged from a history of American consumer imperialism to a discussion of memory in Germany.

In identifying my books I stumbled upon a forgotten author who I enjoyed in high school. I was amazed how much more relevant Elizabeth Warnock Ferna's books on the Middle East seemed to me now. Fernea, now a retired professor of English and Middle East studies at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote about the years she spent living Iraq, Morocco, and Egypt while her husband conducted anthropological research.

Fernea wrote three books of this sort, each telling of her stay in a different country. The later two, A View of the Nile and A Street in Marrakech, are both very good. But the one I suggested to Christine was Fernea's first, and is set in 1957 Iraq. Guests of the Sheik takes place in a small tribal town in southern Iraq called El Nahra. As you may have surmised from the title, Fernea and her husband Bob stay in the village as guests of the Sheik, Hamid. They live in a small mud house and live according to the traditions of El Nahra, Fernea donning the abayah and observing the strict purdah that her neighbors do.

Some (or maybe just my classmates in senior seminar after we read Orientalism) may argue that it would be better to read a book by an Iraqi woman to learn about Iraqi women. Fernea's description of life in a mid-century Iraqi village could be full of omissions and misperceptions. I think, however, that it's helpful in overcoming the (forgive me) "otherness" of people in Iraq by discovering the society along with a fellow outsider. It helps that Fernea and her husband try their very hardest to be respectful and unobtrusive of the hosts and their lifestyle. Besides teaching you indelibly the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, this book also paints a picture of an Iraq before Sadaam Hussein and before the 2003 U.S. invasion. It also opens up a discussion of how to approach and learn about other cultures without imposing your own values on them.

So go out and get it! You won't be sorry.

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6.16.2008

Yummy Food from Far Away Lands

Here at FCNL we think a fair bit about multiculturalism. I, personally, am a big fan of it. On this sleepy Monday morning I present you with two reviews (well, to be honest, raves) of restaurants that would not be around without Northwest DC’s large East African population.

El Khartoum, 1782 Florida Ave NW, Washington DC

I’ve never been to the Sudan, so I don’t know how authentic the food served here is, but I do know that it is delicious. The restaurant seems to be popular with the Sudanese crowd, since I am always the only person in there speaking English, and luckily my boyfriend took a summer course on Sudanese Arabic (when are you going to use that, love?), and so can confirm that the proprietor and patrons are at least familiar with the El Khartoum region. Besides a language lesson, you can order grilled lamb, falafel, or hibiscus juice. And shwarmas, which I’ve never tasted, and I'm not familiar with, but which sound like something I need to try. In any case, the food is succulent, cheap, and served in large portions.


Café Collage, 1346 T St., NW, Washington DC

I like coffee, I like art, I like couches, and I like the 14th Street corridor in DC. It feels like a place people actually live, which is refreshing compared to the sometimes-tourist (or at least non-District-of-Columbia-er)-saturated 18th Street corridor near my house. Luckily I recently discovered that I can indulge in all of those pleasures at one coffeehouse just off 14th Street on T St NW. It is run by two (I think) Ethiopian gentlemen, and they serve Ethiopian coffee and (even better!) Ghanaian hot chocolate (among other menu items). The coffee shop can be found in an old row house, and both the first floor and the English basement are filled with comfy couches to sit on and art to look at. On a recent Saturday evening I passed an enjoyable two hours there reading the summer fiction issue of the New Yorker (The story by Haruki Murakami about becoming a runner? Perfect piece at the perfect time). I can’t wait for the weather to get colder so I can really enjoy the hot chocolate and coffee with all my heart (though I did try my hardest in 100 degree heat).

What are you going to eat for dinner tonight? Where are you going to study for those GREs? Looks like I’ve solved both problems for you. Bing, Bang, Boom.

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6.12.2008

I got to talk to a real live Iranian in Tehran! (And other colorful details to get you to pick up the phone and call Congress)


Thanks to this fabulous event sponsored by Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran, which FCNL is a part of, and Enough Fear, I got to make my first phone call to Tehran.

I talked to a young petrochemical engineering student who I will call Mohammed (literally the most common name in the entire world...and number 2 in the UK...how interesting is that?). We had a gracious translator be the intermediary between our Farsi/English dialogue. Mohammad was very kind. He told me that he was a pacifist, wanted me to spread the word to uninformed Americans (my label not his) that the Iranian government is not representative of the Iranian people, and that it never will be if there is any sort of military or cover intervention by the US.

It always scares me to hear foreigners tell me things like this....for three reasons

1) They often speak with the sort of urgency in their voice making it seem that they are telling me because they believe that whether or not my government bombs their country is something I have control over

2) The very idea that that might (on a comparative level to the power that most of the world would ever have access to) be true.

3) Because it makes me remember this unforgettable quote from an Iraqi just weeks before the 2003 invasion:

"It's funny," she [Janon Kadhim] says of the cultural disconnect. "Why should we be sitting here trying to convince you that we are OK? Why should I have to make you feel like we are people worth living?"

What do you do with that?

What do you do with a world where certain people based on where they are born try to convince other people that they are worth living? What do you do when you have--without any doubt--the upper hand? When you never would even consider having to defend your existence to another country?

****
This is the general gist of our convo:

me: "What do Iranians think of when they think of the US?"

M: "Freedom and democracy at home. But in the Middle East--War. What do most Americans think of when they think of Iranians?"

me:"Black chadors for women, a deeply religious society, Persian rugs, pistachios, Ahmadinejad and Holocaust denial, nuclear weapons, absolutely gorgeous mosques, prisons and oppression, exotic gorgeous mysterious, dark country"

M: (laughs) "Thank you. Now I understand."
****

Yes Mohammed---I think I do too. I understand that romanticism and hostility go together--they are the guardians of making sure there is always an "other". That the world would be a better place if we just associated each other with pots and pans, foreheads with wrinkles, babies with dimples, with tree trunks and worn hands, with falling in love and getting your heart broken...and other gloriously normal things that we all have in common.

One more reason why people should not leave it only to their leaders to pick up ringing red telephones (whether its 3 AM or not)

****
As for the picture---LOOK!-- FCNL lobbyist Jim Fine is in the background! In the foreground that would be former Congressman Bob Barr and Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey. (And yes, Bob Barr is the Libertarian presidential candidate...and no, obviously FCNL does not in any way endorse him or any other candidate--though we do like his tie!).

If it isn't evident already, having Reps Lee and Woolsey together with Bob Barr shows that there is wide support across the political spectrum that we need diplomacy without preconditions (vs. an attack in any way, shape, or form). In fact, a recent poll revealed that only 7% of the American people want to take military action against Iran! (For comparison, consider that 34% of Americans believe in UFOs--one fifth of the number of Americans who believe in UFO's want to take military action against Iran. Unlike UFO belief, I would suspect that bombing Iran is supported by a certain population overly represented in Washington DC. From certain think tanks that shall remain unnamed--but happened to have provided the greatest push for war with a certain neighboring country to Iran in 2003. That is just for comparison. I am not suggesting any correlation between the Americans who believe in UFOs and those that want to attack Iran...although perhaps that should be looked into. I do, however, think that perhaps I should be more culturally sensitive when speaking of UFOs)

Thanks to all of you who did make a phone call--either by coming out and calling Iran or by calling your rep--more than 5,000 phone calls have been made this week to Congress supporting direct diplomacy, without preconditions, with Iran.

For those of you who didn't, feel guilty!! And then wash away that guilt by checking out our talking points and taking 5 min of your time to make a very important call:

And make the phone call: 1-800-788-9372




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Is this computer rotting my brain?

I have noticed something since I left college. I used to spend my days quietly, in the back of the library or in my dorm room with a book contemplating history methodology, a play by Sartre, or writing a paper on European integration as realized through film. All useful skills, but I find that I now pass the hours lashed to my computer, flitting between Dreamweaver, putting a vote in our congress tracking system, posting on the blog, and skimming the New York Times, my email, and the handful of blogs I follow besides ours.

What is the effect of this shift in my behavior? According to an article in this month's Atlantic, my change in behavior is not only altering the way I acquire knowledge, but also the manner in which I think about it. That's right. My brain is transforming to adapt to hyperlinks and multiple windows. And I don't know how I feel about it. Nicholas Carr does a beautiful job of describing this change, as well as its benefits and drawbacks, so I won't reiterate his argument here. Just go read it yourself. As a parting nugget, though, give an old-fashioned internet skim to this passage, which elucidates what we lose in the act of skimming:

"Perhaps those who dismiss critics of the Internet as Luddites or nostalgists will be proved correct, and from our hyperactive, data-stoked minds will spring a golden age of intellectual discovery and universal wisdom. Then again, the Net isn't the alphabet, and although it may replace the printing press, it produces something altogether different. The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author's words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking."

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6.11.2008

What I Did with My Sweltering Weekend

Over the weekend and into this week we in the District (and all around the Northeast I'm told), had the pleasure of enduring 4 days of sweat-popping, mind-numbing, oppressive heat. What did I decide to do to commemorate the first day of this meteorological gift? Get into my stuffiest business clothes and attend a conference on demographics and climate change of course!

The planners of the conference (chief among them Brian Massey, brother of one of my predecessors in the communications internship - FCNL connections abound!) were prescient in their choice of topic-the moment couldn't haven't been better to discuss both climate change and demographic issues. The Lieberman-Warner climate change bill had been blocked the morning before, and the heat had me wanting to melt away and die, thus reducing the population of the Potomac region by one. (Ok- that last connection was a stretch.)

In all seriousness though, the conference made it worth getting into uncomfortable clothes on a Saturday morning and tromping down to a conference center in Foggy Bottom. I only stayed for the morning (GRE studying called), but the first two speakers were interesting, and brought a fresh perspective to the politics of climate change and the role that demography plays in it.

The first, a lobbyist for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), gave a fascinating play-by-play of that week in climate legislation (aka- the busiest week ever in climate change legislation). Her stories of hours spent listening to the bill read, senatorial shenanigans and ultimate defeat, which she presented with a surprising amount of optimism, made me think two things: 1) The situation is not so dire as I thought, maybe we are making some progress on seeing Congress move on this issue and, 2) alternately, maybe this lady has been working on the Hill too long.

The second speaker, who is a vice-president at the Worldwatch Institute presented a sharp contrast to the pragmatism that preceded him. Ostensibly he was promoting his book, More, but really he was thinking through was should be done about climate change and scarcity of resources, and how we can use sensible approaches to population to deal with these threats. I thought his ultimate message, that we should simply let women decide how many kids they want to have, no government interfering one way or the other, made a lot of sense. (I pretty much always think I know best, so why not in this instance?)

The most dynamic aspect of the part of the conference I attended was the fundamental divide between the lobbyist and the think-tanker on how to provide incentives for cutting down on greenhouse gases. The former asserted that cap and trade is effective, and the only way to get legislation through Congress. The latter thought that carbon tax (or dividends) would be better. The debate sizzled, and confused people in the audience about what to think (which expert to believe??) It certainly brought up important questions, and demonstrated that though there is an urgent need to remedy climate change, there are still not clear cut solutions.

What lessons that can be drawn from my morning? Always go to conferences if you can, even if it is 110 degrees (no exaggeration) outside, and debates are fun and productive, provided you know when to end the debate and take real steps toward change (Think tanks: you are on notice).

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6.06.2008

JUNE 10th-- COME TO THE HILL AND TALK TO AN IRANIAN!!

JUNE 10th: CALL 1-800-788-9372 to SUPPORT DIPLOMACY WITH IRAN!

And if you are in DC--you are one lucky dog cuz you have the opportunity to come to Cannon House Building, West Terrace, and call a real live Iranian in Tehran. Give them some reason to believe that not all Americans want to "obliterate" them. Free call to Iran--translation provided! Come see members of Congress and other Important People stress the need for diplomacy with Iran.

Americans to Talk Directly to Iranians:

Call for Diplomacy not War with Iran

As rhetoric continues to escalate and tensions mount between the U.S. and Iran, the Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran will hold an event on Capitol Hill to underscore the need for new, responsible and effective U.S. policies and leadership to reduce the likelihood of a conflict that would have disastrous consequences.


The Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran (CNAPI) is organizing an innovative “Time to Talk with Iran” event and press conference on Capitol Hill. With the U.S. Capitol as a backdrop, Members of Congress, celebrities, former officials, and other citizens will use a row of 60’s-era red “hotline” telephones to talk directly to ordinary Iranian citizens. Concurrently on June 10, the Campaign is organizing a nationwide Call-in to Congress for Diplomacy with Iran so those outside of DC can participate and make their voice heard


The event on Capitol Hill will be held Tuesday, June 10, 2008, from 10:00 am–1:00 pm EDT.


Terrace on the West Side of Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC.


If you live in or near DC, come participate in the Capitol Hill event and have a conversation with an Iranian citizen.

If you live outside of DC, call your Representative and Senators and tell them you want dialogue, not war, with Iran. Click here to download the National Call-in Day action alert. For organizations, please consider sending the action alert below to your members and advertising on your website.

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Goodbye Joelle and Sharon!

Quick note, to bid farewell to Joelle and Sharon, who are leaving us early. (Not familiar with Sharon? She refused to post on the blog, but she was an important and undeniable force among the interns and in FCNL this year).

You will be missed!!

The rest of us will still be here (some for just a matter of weeks, some for all next year) and the new class of interns are coming in a matter of months... it will be exciting see what they write!

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6.03.2008

The Food Crisis Next Door











The international food crisis: it’s showing up daily in the news, bringing additional conflict to war-torn Afghanistan, famine to Somalia, and the hungry faces of children to Cambodia. It seems incomprehensible (if predictable), too huge a problem to grasp, let alone solve. Even the rich are getting fatter from the stress of it all, says this infuriating article in the NYTimes.

But there is of course, the other food crisis, the one next door, the one that has been going on for decades. In 2006, 35.5 million people (including 12.6 million children) lived in households in the U.S. considered to be food insecure. It certainly doesn’t take long walking through the streets of D.C. to be horrified at the extreme disparity of food options (and prices) between H St. and K St.

Recently, I visited my family in France for a week—it was wonderful. I walked through the market every day just because I could, enviously eyeing the fresh asparagus and the buckets of red strawberries. I ate well. I felt good. And when I returned I walked around in a daze for weeks, mildly aghast and largely perplexed at what I saw around me. Endless quantities of junk parading as food, an absence of seasonal fruits and vegetables, obesity everywhere, single plates with portions that could feed entire families. It takes a trip out of the country to really put it all into perspective; the U.S. food crisis is, in my mind, among the most disturbing.

As I slowly pulled myself out of my dazed state, I moved to take action. I jumped at an opportunity to participate in a work share this weekend out at a farm in Maryland. Four hours of labor in return for a bucket of fresh fruits and veggies to take home. Danny and I have been volunteering through Greater D.C. Cares (a great organization to volunteer through especially when you're already on a 9-5 schedule) at the Dinner Program for Homeless Women and the D.C. Central Kitchen.

These are amazing organizations. The D.C. Central Kitchen alone provides 4,500 meals a day to people in need within the district; they also happen to get fresh produce from the farm I volunteered at this weekend. It may seem minute, but in the face of looming famines around the world, I take solace in harvesting turnips at a local farm and chopping onions at a local kitchen. It reminds me that the world can be very small, our actions make a difference, and there are always a million ways to help.


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6.02.2008

Write!

A wise man once said, "If you want to be a better writer, compose a letter to the editor every day." An even wiser quaker lobby also said, " If you want to affect change, write letters to the editor on issues that are important to you."

In the communications program, we find that many people are afraid to write letters to the editor, or think that they are too time-consuming or difficult to compose.

Those are myths, and I'm going to debunk them.

This morning, the interns at FCNL were quite a well-published bunch. Within two days, we had a letter to the editor in the New York Times (Mr. Dan Allen), and one in the Washington Post (um, me). How did we do it you ask? With a pinch of thought, a few minutes spent in Word, and a click of the mouse.

I am more intimately familiar with the steps I took to send my LTE to the Post, but given the subject (cluster bombs) and timing (about a week after the cluster bomb talks in Dublin) of Dan's letter, I suspect he planned for when he thought a topic he was interested in would hit the news, and responded to a story about it. (Luckily for Dan, it seems that he had some idea that the Times would also be writing an editorial on cluster bombs. That rascally and omnipotent U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines, they know everything.)

My letter writing scheme was not as crafty. In a matter of months my dear work neighbor and friend Maureen will leave FCNL and I will move into her job, part of which involves trying to motivate people to write letters to the editor. "Well," I mused, "maybe I should try writing a few of these before I tell other people to." So last week I made a pledge that I would write one letter a day. Last Wednesday I started. Instead of finding an article that directly related to my work at FCNL, I decided to begin simply, responding to an Op-Ed that struck me over breakfast that morning. It took about 5 minutes to read the Op-Ed, a metro ride to mull over what I thought of it, and maybe 15 minutes to write and submit to the Post. "There," I thought, "I've started. Tomorrow I will write about something that is relevant to FCNL, and I'll keep writing until they decide to publish it."

So much for my plan. Later that day I received an email from the Washington Post letters department letting me know they were thinking about publishing the letter, and asking me to approve the edits. It appeared on Sunday. Et voila! A letter-to the editor writer was born.

So there you have it. It doesn't take much to be have your voice heard in the press, and can arise in response to an anticipated event, or from an article that jumped out at you as you groggily sipped coffee and skimmed the paper. And the good news is, not only will doing so help raise awareness for an issue you care about, it will also make you a better writer (which for me, former writing tutor that I am, is just as important!).

Get going. Get writing! Write to your local paper (which, really, is what I did), or a national publication, or both. It will only take a few moments, and you can start here.


** Oh, and did I mention that it's surprisingly fun to see something you wrote in print?

Imagine the conversation:

You: What did you do this weekend?
Your friend: Oh you know, hung around the pool, watched 2 seasons of "Murder She Wrote" on Netflix. What did you do?
You: Oh, you know, I got published.

End Scene.

What did I tell you? Wicked cool.**

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