Washington, DC
Monday, July 2nd

There are two more weeks left in the program. Where has the time gone? Today was a busy day. In the morning we headed down to the CATO Institute. CATO is a libertarian think tank that is headquartered in Washington, DC. The really short explanation of libertarianism if you do want to check the link is limited government, individual liberty, and free market. On some issues they are right of Republicans and on others they are left of Democrats. We met with Brink Lindsey, who is vice president of research for the CATO. He recently penned a new book that sounds pretty interesting called, The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America's Politics and Culture. The book delves into how the United States unprecedented prosperity of the latter half of this past century drastically changed American politics and culture.

Brink Lindsey of the CATO Institute

Mr. Lindsey spoke the group about what think tanks are and their role in the government and politics. He described a think tank as a cross between a university with no students and a lobbying firm with no clients. Lindsey spoke about other thinks tanks such; the Brookings Institute and the Center for American Progress. As a side note the students heard from Dan Restrepo, the Director of The Americas Project at the Center for American Progress later that evening. The School of Public Service tries to as hard as it can to balance the philosophical and political views of the speakers and outings in effort to try to balance out the curriculum. Both speakers were informative and the students continued to ask lots of questions, and good ones at that.

Dan Restepo of the Center for American Progress

After lunch the students heard from Dr. Anthony Fauci MD, of the National Institute of Health. The NIH is one of the world's foremost medical research centers, and the Federal focal point for medical research in the United States. The NIH, comprising 27 separate Institutes and Centers, is one of eight health agencies of the Public Health Service which, in turn, is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Simply described, the goal of NIH research is to acquire new knowledge to help prevent, detect, diagnose, and treat disease and disability, from the rarest genetic disorder to the common cold. Fauci is the Director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases. The NIAID is a large component of the NIH. Dr. Fauci was on the forefront of identifying, categorizing, and on fact naming the HIV virus AIDS. He has an interesting background. Dr. Fauci has the rare combination of a doctor, scientist, and someone who can communicate with a wide variety of people with varying degrees of topic knowledge. This is the third year I have heard his presentation and I am never disappointed.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of NIAID

After a short free time SPS hosted the Washington in Ireland Program. The program is a half year program of personal and professional development that brings talented Catholic and Protestant university students from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to DC for summer internships and leadership training. I highly suggest you visit the link to the website I provided. Pay particular attention to the journal entries they are fantastic. Back to the point. We hosted this group for diner at Albans. They were lively, intelligent, and excellent conversationalists, but then again I’ve never really met anyone for Ireland, North or South who wasn’t. After diner we engaged in three rounds of old fashioned debate. We mixed up the SPS students and WIP students into twp teams of two. Three of these groups were organized and they debated topics such as capital punishment, safety vs. liberty, and whether Paris Hilton should be jailed. The last was for pure fun but actually quite lively. The teams had only 10 minutes to prep so the debates favored style and logic over factual information. The debates were raucous to say the least. Everyone had a great time.

SPS and Washington in Ireland breaking bread

The debate of Capital Punishment

Kevin, of Trintiy College in Dublin, channeling Michael Collins

After the debates I joined the SPS faculty contact with the WIP program, the WIP director, and some of the WIP students for a sip of…... Ireland’s signature export. The eclectic crew ranging in age from 58 to 21 went to a local pub, unknown to me till now, called Nanny O’Brien’s. We had excellent conversation. An Irish Seisiun was firing up in the back of the pub. Suffice to say, Good Craic, (Gaelic for Fun).

Irish Seisiun at Nanny O'Briens

Orla dazzles the crowd with traditional Irish Dance