Monday, June 26th
Washington, DC

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down. For anyone paying attention to the weather/news Washington, DC experienced a deluge of water in the last few days. It is estimated that we received somewhere around 10 inches of rain in 24 hour period. Needless there is quite a bit of flooding in the city. Many basement apartments, especially in Georgetown, were under water. Many of the roads into the city were flooded and some of them experienced mudslides. Many of the offices and museums were closed in DC today. For example then National Archives closed due to flooding, the documents held therein are fine. Even the IRS closed due to flooding. There was not many a tear shed for that group. Albans did not escape the wrath of the rain. The school lost power, mainly because the basements flooded and the lack of power stopped the pumps from getting rid of the large amounts of water. This also caused a corollary effect of losing AC which is not fatal but problematic none the less. Old buildings contain lots of character but don’t handle the weather very well. I’ve included some pictures from the post of the area’s water problems.

Here is a link to the damage that the rain has caused the region.
Link to Graphic

On the way of actual schedule the day went well. The area of focus shifted to that of Congress today. After a class on the Anatomy of Congress the students focused on an article by Ken Silverstein of Harpers Magazine called, “The Great American Pork Barrel”. He had a very frank conversation with the students. Ken Silverstein did not pull any punches and shared his general contempt for the ethical make up of modern day Congress. Although I knew what pork barrel politics did I did not know the etymology of the term. This is the definition from his article,

“Pork-barreling” as a legislative epithet is a pre-Civil War coinage that referred to the custom of handing out salt pork to slaves, who would crowd around the barrels that held it; and indeed, members of Congress have raided the federal treasury for home-district boondoggles ever since the earliest days of the republic.”

The article is a must read and the students enjoyed his candor. Young people love personalities that rattle cages and thumb their nose at authority. So do I, quite frankly. Silverstein stated that researching for the article was the impetus for starting his weblog, “Washington Babylon”. This blog operated through Harper’s Magazine focuses on watching corruption in DC. It is a new feature of their web site and cynically, I imagine it keeps him quite busy.

After some lunch and free time Charlie Johnson, the retired Congressional Parliamentarian spoke with the kids for about an hour and half. The Parliamentarian is basically the legislative referee for the Congress. I realize that a lecture on Robert’s Rules of Order does not sound interesting it was. It was a polarizing lecture. The kids either loved him or were bored to tears in equal numbers. I don’t know what it says about me, but I enjoyed it. He served for 40 years with seven different Speakers of the House. He has the respect of both sides of the aisle. Here is a link to what Congress said about him when he retires a couple of years ago. What I found most interesting is that he pitches BP (batting practice) for the Cubs during spring training. He is a baseball nut and threw BP for high schools and colleges. I guess that he is lefty and they need the fresh arms. It's a labor of love for Johnson, who doesn't get paid to do it. He stated, "You get ice, Advil, and an 'L' screen.” An L screen is an “L shaped” screen that protects batting-practice pitchers from getting drilled by a ball hit back at them.

I’m stoked because tomorrow I get some time off and we are visiting the White House in evening care of Josh Bolton, White House Chief of Staff and St. Albans Alum.