After letting this blog languish for a year, I'm resurrecting it to act as my official "Letter from the Capitol." Wow! How exciting to even write that.
As most of you know, I'm at the beginning of a Science and Technology Policy Fellowship sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). You can learn more about it here: http://fellowships.aaas.org
This fellowship program takes people with advanced degrees in science and engineering and puts us to work for the federal government for a year. Some of us work in the Congressional Branch, as staffers on Capitol Hill. The rest of us work in the Executive Branch across a dozen different agencies. I'll be working in the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, a part of the State Department. This office administers PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. I'll write more about my job and PEPFAR in a later posting, once I've actually started.
This week marked the beginning of the AAAS orientation for all fellows. This is eight days of lectures and workshops designed to give us some minimal background on how the federal government functions, its history, and how its cultures contrast with the ones we've all come from. This is also our only chance to spend significant time together as a group of fellows. Once orientation ends, we'll all split up and head to our various agencies (or to the Hill to placed for the Congressional Fellows).
It's been a fascinating week, if a bit exhausting. We started Wednesday. The highlight was a talk by Mark Talisman, a "Public Affairs Consultant to emerging democracies and other interests." This remarkable renaissance man is more like a walking encyclopedia of American history, congressional lore and DC knowledge. He lectured us eloquently on the history of the writing of the American constitution, contrasting it with his experience helping countries write their own constitutions. He talked about George Washington's strained relationship with his wife and the methane vapors that gave Foggy Bottom its name. He became the first of what I suspect will be many to talk to us about the changing nature of presidential power, and the carefully built-in tensions between the congress and the administration. Lastly, he invited us to a specially arranged visit to the Holocaust Museum (he sits on the board and was one of the founders).
Thursday we spent at Cannon House, a Congressional office building that houses, among other things, the staff to the Republican Finance Committee. We spent the day learning about congress and how bills become law. Only our last speaker pointed out that we were sitting in the room where most of the hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee were held. Well, there's your feel-good history and then there's the rest.
Yesterday, we had an excellent session with Kei Kozumi, a former AAAS Fellow and employee, who now works in the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy. He walked us through the budgeting process before we all pretended to be the House appropriations committee for Commerce, Justice and Science charged with producing a budget for the 2010 fiscal year. The whole process reminded me of taking statistics my first year of graduate school. Everyone warns you how boring and awful it will be, but encountering it when you know you are going to need it really focuses the mind. We rounded out the day with a brief talk by Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a professor from U Penn, who talked about the role of the President and how that has changed. She was quite funny, especially in how she managed a variety of arcane questions from us fellows. You can take the scientist out of the lab, but you can't take the nerd out of the scientist.
Well that seems like quite enough about orientation for now. I'll wrap up by saying that I'm well and happy, but missing my friends, family and colleagues in Madison plenty. Take care and stay in touch!
P.S. New pictures added to my flickr stream.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Darn!
It's one of those tasks that I only remember when I can't possibly do something about it. I'll be driving, or showering, or squirting chemicals into tiny tubes and I'll think "I gotta learn how to darn." How many lovely but holey pairs of socks have I thrown away after finally acknowledging that hanging around in my sock bag was not magically mending them. Sigh.
But today, I was poking around on my favorite knitting site, www.knitty.com, and I found these very clear instructions on how to darn. Woo hoo! Of course, now I actually have to DO the darning, but it seems like something satisfying to do in front of the TV or on the bus.
Anybody else out there darn?
But today, I was poking around on my favorite knitting site, www.knitty.com, and I found these very clear instructions on how to darn. Woo hoo! Of course, now I actually have to DO the darning, but it seems like something satisfying to do in front of the TV or on the bus.
Anybody else out there darn?
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Energy Talk - Let's Get Real
OK folks, I've had just about all I can take of the so-called energy debate. I understand that high gas prices are causing real hardship around the country and the poorest people, as usual, are the hardest hit. And this situation surely is not their fault. But let's get real: we have known for as long as I've been alive that the supply of fossil fuels available to us is finite, unless we somehow want to put ourselves in suspended animation for the billion or so years it would take for the earth to turn more organic matter into crude oil.
Our current problems are not really a function of increased demand from the Chinese, or liberals blocking oil drilling, or speculators in the oil market. Our current problems stem from an absolute refusal of our political leadership to form and enact any kind of real plan for shifting the nation from an infrastructure that relies on oil to one that relies on renewable energy. Jimmy Carter tried, Ronald Reagan put a stop to it and no one's had the balls to do it since. That's the reality. No amount of hand-wringing will change the fact that we now have dramatically less time in which to make this transition and that more people are suffering and more will suffer because of it.
So let's stop pretending that any of the short-term measures proposed - gas tax relief, drilling in Alaska, punishing speculators, or even corn-based ethanol (which consumes as much energy as it produces) - are going to solve this problem.
And by the way, if you own an SUV or another gas-guzzling vehicle, you are screwed. Sorry to say "I told you so" but I did (to numerous friends and family members). I advise you to graciously accept the loss you will inevitably take when you trade that sucker in for the smaller Japanese car you know you should have purchased in the first place. And no, my friends, 27 mpg is NOT fuel-efficient. It's a joke. If you are driving a car that gets less than 33 mpg on the highway, you've been had. (By the way, my 1994 - that's not a typo - Honda Accord gets 33 mpg on the highway, so no excuses).
So what do we do now? Well, first of all we realize that Exxon Mobile and the other members of the big oil cabal are not our friends. They will not tell us the truth and they do not have our best interests at heart. They are happily enjoying the biggest profits they have ever earned, alongside huge tax breaks courtesy of their friends in Washington, D.C. So when they say that the technology just does not exist to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, you ask yourself "Well, have we really tried? And should we believe people who stand to make billions if we continue to do things their way?"
Then you take a deep breath and look around and realize that our oil-based infrastructure - interstates, country roads, etc. - was paid for by us: the taxpayer. Big oil, the trucking industry, Detroit did not pay for us to have a car and truck-based economy, we did. They just profit from it. So if we are going to switch to an energy-efficient economy and free ourselves from our "addiction to big oil" we are going to pay for it. Oh I hear all the republicans crying out! Taxes! Taxes! Well, if we spent one month's worth of Iraq spending on re-building our national energy infrastructure, we'd be well on our way and we managed to come up with that money, didn't we? And think of what we could save if we stopped subsidizing big oil.
We need a massive, WPA-style effort to build windmills, install solar panels and rapidly improve the technology for making ethanol from crops that don't require fertilizer, like grass. We need huge programs to help people make homes and businesses more fuel efficient. And guess what? These programs will put people to work, pump money into our flagging economy, address global warming, and (possibly) bring some of our precious nation back from the brink of destruction by pollution and over-development. So if they cost us in taxes and increase our already staggering debt, at least they are an investment that will pay real dividends back to us, the people (unlike the investments we've been making into Corporate America and Big Oil, which, as far as I can tell, have been returning jack).
Will it be easy? Of course not. Few things worth doing are easy. Will it be painful? Sometimes, and more for some people than others. But it will also be exciting, rewarding and fun. All of us feel the anxiety that comes from knowing we are living a lifestyle that cannot last. We get in our cars and drive to the mall, and part of us wonders "How much longer can this go on? What happens after it's all over?" Let's stop wondering and worrying. Let's stop waiting for a scientist to discover a solution. We already have the solution. Let's take the Nike pill and "Just Do It."
Our current problems are not really a function of increased demand from the Chinese, or liberals blocking oil drilling, or speculators in the oil market. Our current problems stem from an absolute refusal of our political leadership to form and enact any kind of real plan for shifting the nation from an infrastructure that relies on oil to one that relies on renewable energy. Jimmy Carter tried, Ronald Reagan put a stop to it and no one's had the balls to do it since. That's the reality. No amount of hand-wringing will change the fact that we now have dramatically less time in which to make this transition and that more people are suffering and more will suffer because of it.
So let's stop pretending that any of the short-term measures proposed - gas tax relief, drilling in Alaska, punishing speculators, or even corn-based ethanol (which consumes as much energy as it produces) - are going to solve this problem.
And by the way, if you own an SUV or another gas-guzzling vehicle, you are screwed. Sorry to say "I told you so" but I did (to numerous friends and family members). I advise you to graciously accept the loss you will inevitably take when you trade that sucker in for the smaller Japanese car you know you should have purchased in the first place. And no, my friends, 27 mpg is NOT fuel-efficient. It's a joke. If you are driving a car that gets less than 33 mpg on the highway, you've been had. (By the way, my 1994 - that's not a typo - Honda Accord gets 33 mpg on the highway, so no excuses).
So what do we do now? Well, first of all we realize that Exxon Mobile and the other members of the big oil cabal are not our friends. They will not tell us the truth and they do not have our best interests at heart. They are happily enjoying the biggest profits they have ever earned, alongside huge tax breaks courtesy of their friends in Washington, D.C. So when they say that the technology just does not exist to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, you ask yourself "Well, have we really tried? And should we believe people who stand to make billions if we continue to do things their way?"
Then you take a deep breath and look around and realize that our oil-based infrastructure - interstates, country roads, etc. - was paid for by us: the taxpayer. Big oil, the trucking industry, Detroit did not pay for us to have a car and truck-based economy, we did. They just profit from it. So if we are going to switch to an energy-efficient economy and free ourselves from our "addiction to big oil" we are going to pay for it. Oh I hear all the republicans crying out! Taxes! Taxes! Well, if we spent one month's worth of Iraq spending on re-building our national energy infrastructure, we'd be well on our way and we managed to come up with that money, didn't we? And think of what we could save if we stopped subsidizing big oil.
We need a massive, WPA-style effort to build windmills, install solar panels and rapidly improve the technology for making ethanol from crops that don't require fertilizer, like grass. We need huge programs to help people make homes and businesses more fuel efficient. And guess what? These programs will put people to work, pump money into our flagging economy, address global warming, and (possibly) bring some of our precious nation back from the brink of destruction by pollution and over-development. So if they cost us in taxes and increase our already staggering debt, at least they are an investment that will pay real dividends back to us, the people (unlike the investments we've been making into Corporate America and Big Oil, which, as far as I can tell, have been returning jack).
Will it be easy? Of course not. Few things worth doing are easy. Will it be painful? Sometimes, and more for some people than others. But it will also be exciting, rewarding and fun. All of us feel the anxiety that comes from knowing we are living a lifestyle that cannot last. We get in our cars and drive to the mall, and part of us wonders "How much longer can this go on? What happens after it's all over?" Let's stop wondering and worrying. Let's stop waiting for a scientist to discover a solution. We already have the solution. Let's take the Nike pill and "Just Do It."
Monday, August 18, 2008
Imam Bayildi and Long Beans - The Sequel
Yesterday, I blogged about my experiment with Imam Bayilidi. I decided to add a novel ingredient - asian long beans - and promised to report.
Well, it was good last night and really good today, especially when I cooked an egg in it in the microwave. The long beans are a lovely addition - they're chewy enough to hold onto their texture through the braising, taking on the flavors of the dish nicely, and develop a deep green color that really complements the eggplant and tomatoes. Couple of things I would do differently the next time:
~ use smaller eggplant, or cut a big one up into smaller pieces. The parts of the huge one I used that didn't get direct contact with the sauce were a bit bland.
~ more salt (though salting the finished product also works well)
Many more variations are possible (some herbs, some pepper), but here's a basic recipe based on what I did:
1 - 2 lbs of eggplant
4 roma tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 - 2 yellow onions, chopped
bunch of olive oil (just have the bottle handy)
4-5 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped.
kosher or coarse sea salt
1 bunch of long beans (regular green beans would probably work, too), tipped, tailed and cut into 2-3 inch lengths
black pepper
1. peel strips longways off the eggplant to create a nice striped pattern.
2. If you're working with medium or small eggplants, cut them in half, lengthwise and then cut a slit down the middle to make a pocket. Sprinkle the whole thing, including the pocket, with salt and set on a paper towel for 30 mins. If you have one big eggplant, you could either cut it in quarters, or slice it. Either way, sprinkle with salt and let rest, as above.
3. While the eggplant are exuding bitterness and water, make the sauce. Start by sautéing the onions in some olive oil. When they have softened just a bit, add the garlic and then the tomatoes. Salt and pepper this to taste and let it cook for about 10 mins or so, just to get the whole thing blended. Set aside.
4. When yer eggplants are done, rinse them well to get rid of the extra salt. Dry them off and then brown them cut side down in olive oil, in a big, deep sauté pan. When they're nice and brown, flip them over.
5. Now, tuck the beans around the eggplant, and add the sauce. If you have pockets in the eggplant, stuff some sauce in there, and pour what's left over the whole shebang. Add about a quarter cup of water.
6. Cover the pan, and let the stuff cook over medium heat for 30-50 minutes, until the eggplant are very soft. Check occasionally to make sure there's enough liquid in the pan.
7. You can serve this right away (code for "you can eat this right out of the pot with a spoon"), but it's yummier if you let it cool and eat the next day - it's good room temp or heated up.
One note - don't be stingy with the olive oil. If you're worried about too much fat, make a different dish. Part of Imam Bayildi's unique deliciousness comes from luxurious amounts of olive oil, and it just won't taste really good without it.
Well, it was good last night and really good today, especially when I cooked an egg in it in the microwave. The long beans are a lovely addition - they're chewy enough to hold onto their texture through the braising, taking on the flavors of the dish nicely, and develop a deep green color that really complements the eggplant and tomatoes. Couple of things I would do differently the next time:
~ use smaller eggplant, or cut a big one up into smaller pieces. The parts of the huge one I used that didn't get direct contact with the sauce were a bit bland.
~ more salt (though salting the finished product also works well)
Many more variations are possible (some herbs, some pepper), but here's a basic recipe based on what I did:
1 - 2 lbs of eggplant
4 roma tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 - 2 yellow onions, chopped
bunch of olive oil (just have the bottle handy)
4-5 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped.
kosher or coarse sea salt
1 bunch of long beans (regular green beans would probably work, too), tipped, tailed and cut into 2-3 inch lengths
black pepper
1. peel strips longways off the eggplant to create a nice striped pattern.
2. If you're working with medium or small eggplants, cut them in half, lengthwise and then cut a slit down the middle to make a pocket. Sprinkle the whole thing, including the pocket, with salt and set on a paper towel for 30 mins. If you have one big eggplant, you could either cut it in quarters, or slice it. Either way, sprinkle with salt and let rest, as above.
3. While the eggplant are exuding bitterness and water, make the sauce. Start by sautéing the onions in some olive oil. When they have softened just a bit, add the garlic and then the tomatoes. Salt and pepper this to taste and let it cook for about 10 mins or so, just to get the whole thing blended. Set aside.
4. When yer eggplants are done, rinse them well to get rid of the extra salt. Dry them off and then brown them cut side down in olive oil, in a big, deep sauté pan. When they're nice and brown, flip them over.
5. Now, tuck the beans around the eggplant, and add the sauce. If you have pockets in the eggplant, stuff some sauce in there, and pour what's left over the whole shebang. Add about a quarter cup of water.
6. Cover the pan, and let the stuff cook over medium heat for 30-50 minutes, until the eggplant are very soft. Check occasionally to make sure there's enough liquid in the pan.
7. You can serve this right away (code for "you can eat this right out of the pot with a spoon"), but it's yummier if you let it cool and eat the next day - it's good room temp or heated up.
One note - don't be stingy with the olive oil. If you're worried about too much fat, make a different dish. Part of Imam Bayildi's unique deliciousness comes from luxurious amounts of olive oil, and it just won't taste really good without it.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Blueberry muffins?
I love blueberries, and the precious few weeks they're in season are some of the happiest of my year. But you won't find any recipes for blueberry muffins, pancakes, waffle or pie on my blog. For me, heat only hurts a blueberry. Once you cook them, blueberries lose the tart freshness that distinguishes them, taking on a kind of sickly sweetness. So once the season is over, I bid farewell to my fine, blue friends and turn to other fruits.
But before that happens, I'm going to delight in as many blueberries as I can, with a few raspberries on the side. My favorite way to eat berries this summer has been mixed with strained yogurt, walnuts and honey. Mmmm....
But before that happens, I'm going to delight in as many blueberries as I can, with a few raspberries on the side. My favorite way to eat berries this summer has been mixed with strained yogurt, walnuts and honey. Mmmm....
Imam Bayildi and Long Beans
Literally translated as "the Imam faints," this dish features eggplant (a huge favorite vegetable of mine) braised in a fresh tomato sauce. I heard about for the first time the other day, when I was listening to Ivan Watson interview an author on Morning Edition. This guy had written a mystery about Istanbul, in which a eunuch solves crimes and cooks delicious food. The author then makes this dish, Imam Bayildi, for Watson who declared it delicious.
So at the Farmer's Market yesterday, I hunted down a big, sexy eggplant and some heirloom roma tomatoes with this dish in mind. I also couldn't resist a bunch of long beans. I braised some green beans the other night, and wanted to try it again.
As I worked through the Imam Bayildi recipe, I started thinking - since I'm basically braising the eggplant, why not cook the long beans right in the same pan? So after I browned the eggplant and stuffed it with the tomato sauce, I sprinkled the trimmed beans into the pan around the eggplant, and poured the rest of the sauce on top. The jury is still out, since the dish is braising as I write, but it's looking good. If I like the results, I'll post a recipe.
So at the Farmer's Market yesterday, I hunted down a big, sexy eggplant and some heirloom roma tomatoes with this dish in mind. I also couldn't resist a bunch of long beans. I braised some green beans the other night, and wanted to try it again.
As I worked through the Imam Bayildi recipe, I started thinking - since I'm basically braising the eggplant, why not cook the long beans right in the same pan? So after I browned the eggplant and stuffed it with the tomato sauce, I sprinkled the trimmed beans into the pan around the eggplant, and poured the rest of the sauce on top. The jury is still out, since the dish is braising as I write, but it's looking good. If I like the results, I'll post a recipe.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
But since you want to know...
Legend is doing much better. Since all his tests were negative, I decided to test the hypothesis that the peeing is a symptom of pain (dogs drink a lot when they're hurting and even the best-disciplined guy can't hold it forever after 6 cups of water). Legend has old racing injuries and once I started paying attention, I noticed he was moving more slowly and awkwardly.
I put him back on glucosamine and added some fish oil. Plus I'm giving him anti-inflammatory pain killers twice a day (this dog's food dish is a smörgåsbord). He definitely seems more comfortable and no peeing accidents of late (but I hate to even write that). The real test will be when I wean him off the pain killers in mid-September (it takes about 6 weeks for glucosamine to have an effect).
I put him back on glucosamine and added some fish oil. Plus I'm giving him anti-inflammatory pain killers twice a day (this dog's food dish is a smörgåsbord). He definitely seems more comfortable and no peeing accidents of late (but I hate to even write that). The real test will be when I wean him off the pain killers in mid-September (it takes about 6 weeks for glucosamine to have an effect).
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