Visiting the Capitol Rotunda

Today, Eli and I went to the Capitol Rotunda to see Gerald Ford's coffin lying in state. It was my idea for us to view it. Last night, when we discussed it, Eli was puzzled by my wanting to do this, and I explained to him that I have long been fascinated by history and politics. I wanted to witness this political-historic ritual. Eli protested that Ford was a mediocrity and that few people could remember anything he did other than pardon Nixon. I insisted on going nonetheless. We chatted about the things he was perhaps, according to Timothy Noah in Slate, undercredited for. Putting together a remarkably capable administration, bringing the inflation rate to under 5 percent.

So, this morning we walked to the Capitol. We went wended our way south and east on DC"s grid, passing gentrifying areas and down-at-the-heels areas. Eli expressed a desire to stop in at a Starbucks and get in out of the cold, but there was nary a Starbucks to be had. The walk was instructive. We saw churches, of both the rundown and stately, proud variety, empty bottles of Crown Royal, young people jogging, a man sitting on the sidewalk, doubled over, apparently sick and inebriated, out in the cold.

As we approached the Capitol, Eli said, "Look, there are throngs of people come to see Gerald Ford."

"You're teasing me," I observed.

When the line did come into sight, we were surprised at how long it was, but we learned that the wait was only an hour long, a dramatic contrast with the six or more hours people stood in line to view Reagan's body.

Eli and I watched the other visitors (it seems over the top to call us mourners) and wondered what had brought them there. A love for Ford or the feeling that witnessing this was part of being American? Toddlers patiently holding their parents hands, older people, teens who were born well after the Ford administration, a surprising number of Masons clad in chains and colorful smocks. ("If I'm going to join a secret society, it won't be one with bibs," Eli remarked.)

As we waited to the line to move, I offered, weakly , that Ford led at a more bipartisan time than the country has experienced since. I wondered whether moderate, bipartisan politicians are fated to be remembered as mediocrities because the vocal, extreme ideologists will not sing their praises. As we live in a time when moderation is scarce and two Americans seem to be starting at each other from accross a wide gap, being a moderate--a force for holding the country together--seems to me a valient thing. Perhaps all the more heroic because these moderates are destined to be underappreciated in what they do for us. I think it was John Adams, having refused to cater to the popular desire to go to war with the British, who said, "Let is say on my grave. 'He saved the Union.'"

After about an hour, we had passed through security. We turned a corner from the security tent and found our selves on a landing on the Capitol steps, with a view of downtown spread before us. We turned towards the building and marveled at the intricate details carved into the marble stone. We turned a corner and came up the steps into the Capitol Rotunda.

Seeing the president lying in state turned out not to be a reflective experience. It was more of a martial experience. The capitol police whispered, as we slowed to look at the flad-draped coffin, "Keep the line moving!" About five soldiers in uniform stood perfectly still around the coffin. We looked at them more than at the coffin, wondering how anyone keeps so still for so long with so many eyes on them. What might they be thinking? We glimpsed the famous statues out of the corner of our eyes as we were walked out of the Rotunda.

washington times flub

On Shabbat, Eli and I walked to the White House and back. We had no clue what the big news of the day was until we passed a Washington Post machine and saw the headline "Saddam Hussein put to death."

Later, we passed a Washington Times vending machine and saw that, not surprisingly, their headline had an editorial slant.
"Saddam Pays at End of Rope." A few inches below that they had unintentionally put an incongruous headline: "Six Days of Mourning Begin." For Gerald Ford, of course.

Joggers for breakfast, anyone?

Simply unbelievable.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/22/AR2006122200317.html?referrer=emailarticlepg

great article on religious diversity

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/14/AR2006121401943.html

The students in the article are amazingly diverse and the reporter got great details out of them about their own experiences.

trials and tribulations of the absent minded

Today, I organized my study location around the 1030 am due date for a book I got off reserve last night. I packed my backpack with the things I would need to continue working on my paper and headed out to the library. Upon arriving there, I discovered that I had forgotten the book at home. But once in the library, ready to work, what's the point of wasting time to go home only to return again? (It's 20 minutes each way.) The opportunity cost of staying here to study is $1/hour, since that's what I'm being charged in late fees.

Hopefully, I'll finish my paper by this afternoon and have time to make the 40 minute trek to SAIS and back again so I can drop off the late book.

my milton friedman streak

"Capitalism isn't heartless enough for you."
--Eli

two finals down . . .

One more and two papers left to go.

one exam down . . .

two more and two papers to go!

muzak

One of my neigbors is blasting Christmas music as I am prepping for finals. I feel sort of like I'm studying in a mall.

you know you're a grad student when . . .

You get a letter from your bank telling you that you have a negative balance in your savings account.

final class session of the semester

I had my final class of the semester today. International Monetary Theory with Arroyo. When he finished lecturing the course material, we burst into applause. He said that he appreciated it. He also deserved it for making the material beautifully clear.

There's a real professor.

technology can be a wonderful thing

I just discovered that a Russian company has one mobile phone plan just for the deaf and hard of hearing. It charges 40 kopecks per text message (which is 1.3 cents) for the first one thousand text messages that the person makes in a month, with no subscriber fee. Not surprisingly, it charges a LOT for actual calls (25 cents per minute local) maybe so that non-deaf people don't get the service just to send cheap text messages?

http://www.msk.beeline.ru/tarifs/tarif.wbp?tarif_id=32b5394c-4586-436b-8a85-adf4340c9404

Mary Chaney

Me: Hey, the Post says that Mary Chaney is pregnant.

Eli: I'm not responsible I promise. No trust in this relationship at all.

meditating . . ?

Eli teased me this evening about giving up my studying for the night at about 1130 PM, jokingly calling me lazy. I asked him which of us had spent a few hours watching TV, and he replied, "I wasn't watching TV, I was meditating." A fine alibi. Points for creativity.

berezovskiy: tanned, rest, and ready?

This past week in my Russian class we watched an RTVI clip of Berezovskiy filmed a few weeks ago in which he discussed Politkovskaya's murder. He looked tanned, rested, and ready, as they used to say of Nixon. (I supposed it's not hard for a billionaire to maintain a villa get-away where he can keep his tan in order.) Not that he could ever be president of Russia, but I couldn't help but think of that phrase that those who wanted to put Nixon back in office used to describe him when he was already, like BAB, a the object of his home country's immense distrust.

Exchange Rate Ecclesiasticism

"Ask yourself, 'What Would George Soros Do?'" ~ My econ prof (unintentionally, I think), while explaining arbitrage.

eli's wit

"You are a failure as a mammal" ~Eli, last night, when I got out of bed to put socks on because my feet were cold.

thoughts on Borat

I was watching video photage of Sasha Baron-Cohen (aka Borat) crashing a much awaited statue unveiling at the Kazakhstani Embassy (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092900006.html), and I realized why the DC press and the public love Borat so much.

Borat cuts through the superficial sameness of official international affairs. Foreign leaders and diplomats mouth whatever the West wants to hear, and we always wonder," What do they really think?" Official foreign afffairs seems to be about foreign dignitaries saying that they're just like the Americans, that they value the same things, and any real difference is whitewashed. And you wonder what it's really like in their home countries, what dirty secrets the regime doesn't want us to know, and how their values differ from ours.

Borat tells us, unashamedly, about his "Kazakhstani" values, about his pride in the Tishnik massacre, about his multiple wives, about his sister (the best prostitute in all Kazakhstan), about evading gypsies and "the Jew with the claw." On the one hand, you could say that he fulfills our American expectation that we're culturally superior. But I think that there's something more to it than that. I think that we want exoticism and difference. We suspect that there are people out there who take pride in their slayings and have sisters who work as prostitutes, and we wonder what they're like, but they're not the face of foreign affairs that we see. We wonder about people whose differences are less titallating that murder and sex work. We wonder about the guy with a cow living in his house. In a world that's shrinking, where you can find a Taco Bell in Thailand, Borat provides that amazing and amusing difference, naively and without shame.

eli and I at his sister and brother-in-law's wedding

I'm putting this picture up so that I can use it as my personal photo for my blog. It's from Sara and Alan's wedding in May, which was unbelievably sweet.