Early morning and the boss gave us all a big project for the day; we were off to Capitol Hill with lots of important documents to work on and stuff to do. It was going to take us a while but we knew we had it down, the problem was….I had cooked at home the night before and I was not looking forward to buying lunch and spending more money. So once we finished the project and attended the Political Leadership Program programming for the day –which consisted of an “in-district lobbying” training by the progressive organization Campus Progress, I was glad to find a little table where I enjoyed my lunch… I had no shame in bringing my lunch to the Monday programming because, let’s face it; the big elephant in the room is solving the following question: How are we going to feed ourselves in Washington without having to spend too much money? Let’s remember; we are not getting paid…so cooking on the weekend for Monday and Tuesday is my way to do it.
Now that I got that off my chest….
As I wrote earlier we, the office interns took a trip to the Hill using the Metro, an early trip. It was during that trip that to my surprise I saw a picture of Alejandro Sanz –a singer from Spain whose career I’ve been following for like 10 years, on the cover of the free and widely circulated daily Washington DC newspaper “Express”. It was not my newspaper, someone had left the wrinkled newspaper beside the seat (we are not supposed to leave anything in the Metro; they have recycle bins made especially for newspapers). Now, I’m a big fan of this guy but even I didn’t think he would end up at the cover of the paper. But apparently the people at “Express” thought otherwise and featured a very nice piece on his new single “Looking for Paradise” which features Alicia Keys, from his new album Paraiso Express.
It was this unexpected but welcomed encounter with Sanz, which made my eyes glaze over another interesting piece located alongside. Well, the key words for me here were Obama, engaging book, presidential campaign, New Yorker magazine, and the quote “offering incisively analytical and exactingly penned commentary”. But what made the sell for me was “…Hendrik will appear at “Politics and Prose” tonight to discuss his work”. Enough said, it was early Monday and by then my only concern was finding time to eat my homemade lunch and we all know how that story ended. I didn’t know this was one of those “C-Span bookstores”, where they tape the author speaking about his or her book and then show it on the weekends. I’m one of those students who chooses to watch C-Span while having my younger brother make fun of me for watching “Book TV” as he mistakenly calls it.
I do have to admit one thing, for a while there I confused Politics and Prose with Busboys and Poets. I know…it’s bad. How did I do that? I guess that my trip to the latter bookstore during my “Taste of DC” class was responsible for the confusion. Busboys and Poets–another place you must visit–is located two blocks from U Street using the Green Metro line and stopping at the U Street station.
Politics and Prose bookstore
Nevertheless, after going over the article again and realizing that Politics and Prose was located by the Van Ness Metro station on the red line, I made it with time to spare. I should have taken the bus from the station but the day had given me enough confusion and I was not about to tempt fate, so I figured I read the street numbers as I walked. Next time I am letting the L1 or L2 buses do the almost 1 mile trip.
It was a pleasure to meet and listen to Mr. Hertzberg, I didn’t know he worked in the Carter administration. And while he spoke and answered questions regarding his book, he also made some interesting points regarding the Carter administration and its Human Rights campaign efforts as well as about President Reagan, Premier Gorbachev and the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event celebrating its 20th anniversary that day.
Hendrik Hetzberg; author, editor of the New Yorker and former Pres. Carter speechwriter
He also had some interesting commentary about how we shouldn’t just “worship” the founding fathers of America but we should try to imitate them and start to look at the system of government the same way the founders would. Making the case that President Obama is up against an “18th century political technology” where the system is really the biggest obstacle to his reforms.
For more information about events at “Politics and Prose” check out their Events Calendar.
A very exciting day that I’m happy to have shared with you all as my blog title says “step by step”.
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