At least for now (until I post my final paper) this will be my last post on here for a while. The inauguration was incredible. It was thirteen of the most miserable hours ever (it was so cold!) with one of the most brilliant half hours of my life. The excitement and hope was tangible. It brought tears to my eyes to see the kind of hope that was there that day. There were people screaming and crying and hugging complete strangers.
I thought the speech was amazing. The part where Obama reached out to other nations to tell them once again that they have a friend in the United States was inspiring. I felt like people around the world could actually believe what he was saying.
The whole experience was exhilarating and exhausting. The crowds were unbelievable and the whole experience over the last month has given me a renewed faith in government. Maybe this social experiment that is the United States can work out after all ;)
Friday, January 23, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Pooped
Hi everyone,
This is going to be short because I am so, so, so, so, so, so tired. We went and waited in the cold for over 10 hours to witness an historic event. The cold was miserable and the crowds were unbelievable but neither tainted the experience of being there this afternoon. I want to weigh in on everything I saw, but when I can actually process the thoughts better. Get ready for a nice long post tomorrow...
Monday, January 19, 2009
1:16 a.m.
I am on my way out the door to wait in the cold for this historic moment. See you all on the other side.
D.C.
So,
So far D.C has been great. It has been a whirl-wind of fabulous experiences. On my first night here, I saw Luke Russert, son of the late Tim Russert, speak. He talked about the influence the Youth had on this past election and how people who had never been involved in politics before came out and volunteered. It was great.
The next morning, very, very early, we went to see Colin Powell speak. He talked about the traits of leadership that all of us should try to use to our advantage. His big three were
-Know who you are
- Know who your followers are
- Know who you enemies are
He also stressed the importance of knowing how to put your followers first and to work to their strengths and your own strengths.
I also saw James Carville and Mary Matalin. They were so funny! James especially talked about the things we need to do to change things. He emphasized that my generation has seen an absurd amount of history and that that alone will change how we make our decisions in the future. His big question was, with all of these changes, will we just watch them, or will we participate in them?
I will post more tomorrow, especially about the talk with Al Gore tomorrow. Right now I am gonna go to bed because my alarm is going off in two hours to head to the inauguration! It is going to be a historic day!
POST MORE LATER
Quick update: I am in D.C. and is great but it is crazy busy! I have to run right now to a debate but hope to post more later tonight. Tomorrow is the big day!
Friday, January 16, 2009
Quick Post
This is gonna be a short one. I spent yesterday and today buried in the library working on House and Senate bills. On Wednesday I had lunch with Representative Win Moses and he gave me some pointers on how to proceed. Representative Pierce finally posted his FITs bill so I have been spending my hours trying to tear it apart and understand it better so that I can give good testimony on it in February when it comes before the utilities committee. Off to D.C. tomorrow!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
State of the State
Let me start by apologizing for my lack of a blog post yesterday. I got back to Greencastle very late for the State of the State address and I fell into bed because I needed to be back in Indy very early this morning in order to start attending committee hearings. There is one on education and one on transportation, both that look interesting.
But, back to the State of the State address for a minute. It was… not what I expected. There was a lot of content about the economy, which I was expecting. I even expected the emphasis on education sine it seems that the marker for a “successful” budget this year will be if education spending can stay the same for FY2009 as it was in FY2008. The tangent about more discipline in schools absolutely threw me. I understand that it is important, at the same time is that really the best reason that Mitch Daniels can come up with for the low test scores in Indiana? Is there really no better explanation for it? For instance, could it be at all that students are tested so many times in Indiana that the teachers curriculums are almost completely dictated by making sure their students know how to test, not necessarily making sure that the student actually understand the content. What about the huge racial and socio-economic disparities between inner-city schools versus suburban and rural schools? Kids are bored because instead of learning about Hemmingway and Newton, they are learning the strategy for how to answer multiple choice questions and how to best right and ISTEP essay, and kids are frustrated because they see and hear constantly about what other students have and their “public” schools that these kids can’t even dream of. Why are their schools with astro-turf on their football fields while other students are still trying to use almost archaic computers in the classroom and are only have four or five AP classes offered at all. The boredom and the injustice wears on kids. While these can cause discipline problems, until these causes are addressed instead of kids just being told to “sit down and hush up”, there is going to be very little change in this area.
I was also somewhat surprised that Governor Daniels was so openly critical of states like Ohio, Illinois and California. If he is really making a run for the presidency in 2012 as it has been rumored, he will need to make friends out of these big swing states, But then again, that may rightly not be a big priority right now, which is just as acceptable. I was surprised to hear it in a State of the State though. It said a lot to me about what Mitch Daniels really thinks of Hoosiers that he put these comparisons in the State of the State. Putting down other states in order to make Hoosiers feel better about a financial crisis that Mitch’s own party got us into makes Hoosiers state wide seem very shallow. It is times like these that Americans should be coming together, not drawing even harsher state lines of separation.
Mitch, it is going to be an interesting year and you have a few months to help pass some of the most progressive environmental legislation that the U.S. has ever seen that will save tax payers huge amounts of money potentially and save the state tons of money. This is your opportunity… will you take it?
But, back to the State of the State address for a minute. It was… not what I expected. There was a lot of content about the economy, which I was expecting. I even expected the emphasis on education sine it seems that the marker for a “successful” budget this year will be if education spending can stay the same for FY2009 as it was in FY2008. The tangent about more discipline in schools absolutely threw me. I understand that it is important, at the same time is that really the best reason that Mitch Daniels can come up with for the low test scores in Indiana? Is there really no better explanation for it? For instance, could it be at all that students are tested so many times in Indiana that the teachers curriculums are almost completely dictated by making sure their students know how to test, not necessarily making sure that the student actually understand the content. What about the huge racial and socio-economic disparities between inner-city schools versus suburban and rural schools? Kids are bored because instead of learning about Hemmingway and Newton, they are learning the strategy for how to answer multiple choice questions and how to best right and ISTEP essay, and kids are frustrated because they see and hear constantly about what other students have and their “public” schools that these kids can’t even dream of. Why are their schools with astro-turf on their football fields while other students are still trying to use almost archaic computers in the classroom and are only have four or five AP classes offered at all. The boredom and the injustice wears on kids. While these can cause discipline problems, until these causes are addressed instead of kids just being told to “sit down and hush up”, there is going to be very little change in this area.
I was also somewhat surprised that Governor Daniels was so openly critical of states like Ohio, Illinois and California. If he is really making a run for the presidency in 2012 as it has been rumored, he will need to make friends out of these big swing states, But then again, that may rightly not be a big priority right now, which is just as acceptable. I was surprised to hear it in a State of the State though. It said a lot to me about what Mitch Daniels really thinks of Hoosiers that he put these comparisons in the State of the State. Putting down other states in order to make Hoosiers feel better about a financial crisis that Mitch’s own party got us into makes Hoosiers state wide seem very shallow. It is times like these that Americans should be coming together, not drawing even harsher state lines of separation.
Mitch, it is going to be an interesting year and you have a few months to help pass some of the most progressive environmental legislation that the U.S. has ever seen that will save tax payers huge amounts of money potentially and save the state tons of money. This is your opportunity… will you take it?
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