Yay for Health Care!!!

Hey Everybody! Democracy's kicked in!

So big weekend here in D.C.

Like it or not reformed health care is here. Meh, with my internship keeping me focused on Afghanistan. I really don't care. But I do understand the historical implications of this event and it's been interesting none the less.

Take this last Saturday for example. So, friend and I decide to go walking to Capitol Hill. We wanted to take a look at the TEA protesters and do some reading/work outside. Well on our way there, we got stopped by a bigger, more impressive protest at Dupont Circle. The anti-war protest was hoppin! The anti-Bush, Cheney, Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq, even Haiti protesters were out and about. Many of the signs we saw attacked the cost of our deployments overseas, more so than the casualties taken. Lots of antisemitism (and I hate using that cliched word, but it applies here), anti-government, and anti-war. Though I obviously don't stand for anything they stand for - although I liked "Drop Tuition, Not Bombs!" - it was really cool to see a protest and democracy in action. Reports put this turn-out relatively low at 2,500 people. When we got to the White House we saw some remnants of protesting going on there as well.

We got to Capitol Hill to see protesters yell "Kill the Bill," but it wasn't as impressive. I think we got there late. Still interesting nonetheless. Yesterday, there was also an immigration protest yesterday as well. I didn't see that one, but I guess it was protest weekend in Washington D.C. Sunday night I did see the new Matt Damon "Green Zone." I liked it too. Though at first I thought it was going to be overly political and annoying (Matt Damon's character wouldn't shut up about the "intel" being bad), it turned out to be a nice political thriller. There were the basic messages of the critical mistakes preceding the invasion, chiefly the bad intelligence that led us to war. That was to be expected and since it's really fact to begin with it didn't bother me. The "Bourne-esqueness" of the movie overshadowed the politics in it and I'll actually probably buy it when it comes out. Go see it for a good action thriller and nothing more. You'll like it that way.

Probably my toughest week at work this week.I’m still doing a lot of significant, substantive work, but since my boss was leaving for France on Friday, I was under the gun the whole week to get both the supplement and the NATO Threat Assessment as finished as possible. I also had to help look up information on all my boss’ meetings in France as well as metro information. With him being gone for a week he wanted to have all the writing done in both reports so for this week we interns only have to do proofreading. What made this tougher was the type of statistics I had to look up and compile for the Threat Assessment. They were economic import/export numbers between NATO members and Central/South Asian countries. There was a lot of adding/subtracting and number crunching to get the most accurate numbers in my boss’ hands. It was just stressful. I did get to drive around again which was kinda stressful, but only because I had to pick someone up, a former German military officer, but he didn't show. I also drove my boss to the Treasury and one of his aids to Capitol Hill. Driving around the city isn't hard at all; I like it. And I also like knowing how to get to places and discovering where everything is.

This week looks to be more quiet since my boss is gone. He said I could come in late and leave early if I'm struggling for things to do. That's about all I know. I'll try to get pictures of some of the rallies up here sometime. Thanks for reading!