Today I'm czar and there are no conference calls or anything for me to take. One of our jobs is just to write about what everyone is covering throughout the day and post it on the website, so I did that, then took the opportunity of a slow day to update my journal.
Today at Talk Radio News Service
Wednesday 4/23/08
This morning, I went to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on "The Continuing Crisis in Darfur." There was a really long line of people waiting to get in, which is unusual because the public generally doesn't find hearings interesting, but a lot of people really care about this. The hearing was very interesting even though it lasted for 3 1/2 hours (I was there from 9:00-1:00, including setup, etc), and very educational. I obviously knew that there was a crisis in Darfur and that genocide was occurring, but I didn't know much about the details and this definitely enlightened me a lot. That's what I love about this job, and writing in general. I get to learn so much about so many different things, and witness a lot of really smart people talk about them. It rarely gets boring because I'm in about 5 different places a day, and running around a lot. Anyways, the Darfur hearing talked a lot about how the situation isn't getting any better, and in fact there are 90,000 more displaced people than there were at the time of the Committee's April hearing last year. What's going on is a "slow-motion genocide" with added terrorism by the Jingaweit and several rogue militia groups, and most of the world is not willing to help, or at least not enough to make a real difference. People providing humanitarian aid to people in Darfur have requested 24 helicopters, and so far have not received any. While the US is the loudest critic of other countries' inaction, it has yet to donate any helicopters either. It also hasn't contributed many troops either, as Sen. John Kerry pointed out, because the vast majority of our resources are in Iraq.
Senate sees little progress in Darfur
Darfur needs more helicopters (audio)
Biden: When a nation engages in genocide, it forfeits its sovereignty (audio)
Kerry says US neglects Darfur because of "waste" in Iraq (audio)
My roommates and I decided that Wednesday night would be our "going out" night, and every week we're going to try another restaurant so we can still feel like we get to do something fun at night even though we're not 21. This weekend, we went to an Italian place called Bertucci's that was delicious. There are few of them around here, but I don't know how big the chain is. We got lobster ravioli, baked chicken tortellini, and a "create your own calzone." Then we were going to go to 31 cent night at Baskin Robbins, but walked all the way there and found that not only was it closed, but it's next week. So we just went and got ice cream at another place called "Sweet Licks" (kind of bizarre) instead. It was pretty fun and is a good way to break the monotony of work/school/sleep.
Tuesday 4/22/08
Today I went to an event in the Dirksen Senate building of the Capitol for a briefing with the US Geological Survey on how science can be used to anticipate and address climate change in coastal regions. I was originally supposed to go to something that had to do with defense, but my coworker wanted to switch with me and I decided that I like the environment better than war anyway. This was actually pretty interesting, and kind of sad. They were basically talking about how rising sea levels and eroding coastlines are going to make beaches disappear and coastal areas unlivable. Side note: everyone who is anyone in Washington has a BlackBerry (I don't), and people are always playing on them during Congressional hearings, so for entertainment I sometimes like to watch them and see what they're doing on them (creepy I know, but I have to stay awake somehow). I've seen some pretty interesting stuff. But anyways, the guy sitting next to me was writing an email to his wife or something that said "We need to take that stroll on the beach... before it's not there anymore" and I thought it was really sad. I hope we figure out a solution to the climate problem before it's too late... and I hope it's not too late already.
USGS discusses impact of climate change on coastal areas
Unfortunately, there was a microphone at the hearing that I was able to hook up my audio to, but no one was speaking in it so I didn't get any usable sound from the event.
Tuesday night, I had my elective course where I turned in my paper, then we watched the Pennsylvania primary results. Clinton won, by almost a 10% margin, which was pretty essential to her continuing the race. Everyone knew she was going to win, but if it wasn't by a large enough percentage she probably would have faced a lot of pressure to back down. This contest pretty much just extended the race for another indefinite period, because she is still behind but not far enough behind to disqualify her for the nomination. I think this process is really hurting the party, especially since they are attacking each other so vigorously. Once one of them becomes the official nominee, I think there will be so many voters who are disenchanted with that candidate because of the mudslinging done by the other one that it could threaten the Democratic party's chance at the presidency--regardless of who is running. They should be focusing more on emphasizing that while they each think they're the most qualified, the other would be a great candidate as well. For example, if Hillary keeps bashing Obama as "elitist" or unpatriotic or whatever it is these days, and he ends up the nominee, is she supposed to just retract all those statements and support him? That would leave a lot of voters turned against him who might either vote Republican or stay at home. Same goes for him-- if he keeps saying Hillary is untrustworthy, etc, and she ends up the nominee, a lot of his supporters might back down from the party. If they both want a Democrat in the White House, they don't necessarily need to wrap up the race for the nominee but they definitely need to lay off the personal attacks that make the other candidate seem unelectable next to McCain. Also, I've been seeing a lot more in the news about how race is probably playing a bigger role in the election than people realize. Apparently 19% of people polled in PA said they don't think the nation is ready for a black president, or 16% according to another article, and 43% of those said they would stay home or vote or switch political parties if Obama were to be nominated. However, I think people also need to take into account the fact that some people might be uncomfortable voting for a woman. I haven't seen a lot of information about that.
Monday 4/21/08
It was raining all day and I went to an event at the Brookings Institute for a presentation on the housing crisis with guest speakers who are economists for the International Monetary Fund. It was really technical with a lot of economic charts and equations that I didn't really understand. Usually once a correspondent has covered enough events on a certain issue (like housing, airlines, gas prices, etc.) they sort of automatically get chosen to cover all other events on that topic because they are more familiar and more likely to know the history, thus understand what's going on and do a better write up. So even though I don't really like the housing issue because I don't understand it and it's pretty technical and boring, I keep getting sent to those events so I'm kind of becoming "that" person.
IMF economists address the housing crisis
IMF economist predicts "minor contraction," then "slow recovery" for U.S. (audio)
I had a paper due for my Campaigns and Elections course on Tuesday, so Monday night I just stayed home and worked on that.
Sunday 4/20/08
Aly and I were really excited about the Earth Day concert that was supposed to happen at the National Mall today and last for 7 hours with tons of bands and speakers (Dave Chappelle included), and we had been looking forward to it all week. It was beautiful warm weather on Saturday, so we hoped it would be the same on Sunday. Unfortunately, as soon as we were about 3/4 of the way to the Mall, it started pouring and an electric storm with really intense thunder and lightning followed soon after. As soon as we finally made it to the tents where the bands were set up, police cars started driving through the area and ordering everyone off the premises. Even though we had umbrellas, we got more wet than I have ever been in the rain, umbrella or no umbrella.... it looked like someone just threw us in a pool. We walked back instead of taking the metro or a cab because we were already so soaked it didn't really make a difference, and it was pretty sad. The one really fun pre-approved underage activity ended with a flash flood...
Great writes, Jen. thanks for the updates!
xo