However, with any undesirable or traumatic experience comes an opportunity to learn something.  You can let it get you down or you can rise above it and find something positive, no matter how small.

For the first-years in particular who will be doing their internships next year, here are some things I learned:

• Don’t put anyone on a pedestal. Many people will do great things, but we are all human.  Mistakes will be made by people you respect and admire, and you might question your values and beliefs.  Reevaluate them.  I know I did.
• Shut up and do your work. No matter where you are, there is someone who will know a lot more than you.  “Better to keep your mouth shut and thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”  You’re an intern – probably not an expert.  Just a guess.
• Watch and learn. I don’t know about other places, but it is usually pretty easy to spot an intern in DC.  You can learn more by watching how staff act and perform – keep an eye on them and try to emulate them, rather than by bumbling your way through and following the lead of other interns.  Professionalism pays off, particularly in DC.  The staff there see young, foolish interns there all the time so a little bit of class can get you a looooong way.  Plus, you’ll be representing Pepperdine – you’d better have your act together!
• Never compromise your principles. Never compromise them on any level – keep yourself out of trouble.  Don’t put yourself in a situation where you feel uncomfortable performing a task, or if you know something is against the rules then state your opposition to it.  Washington is home to a particularly virulent strain of Scapegoat Syndrome, and you can avoid catching it by doing the right thing.  It may not always pay off at the time, but it will work out later.  Trust me.

Anyhow, the point is that regardless of whatever little troublesome events may have taken place, I could not be more pleased with how the summer turned out.  It was absolutely the best decision I could have made to go out to DC this summer.  I reconnected with a lot of old friends, made some new ones, lined up some potential jobs, and made out like a bandit this summer (for a variety of reasons).  Sometimes I surprise even myself.  I shouldn’t though, because I am totally awesome.  And humble.

I am having a hard time believing how quickly this summer went by, and an even harder time comprehending how good my summer was.  I firmly believe that you make your own destiny, and if you want things to happen, you make them happen.  Either that or I got someone else’s karma by mistake.  If it’s yours, then no, you can’t have it back.  Sorry.

My internship out here has already paid off, and I have a few potential options after graduation that I am quite excited about.  The experience here gives me a definite hand up on the competition as well.  I have yet to decide if I am staying in California, going back to Nevada, or if I’m returning to D.C. after graduation, but we’ll see what awaits in the near future.

My first year at Pepperdine really prepared me for my internship.  Granted, I had some decent work experience in Congress and a previous Senate internship under my belt, but my coursework and the things I learned in my first year are part of the reason I did so well this summer.  I can’t wait to get back and see what the second year has in store.

Speaking of which, for any of the incoming first-years that may be reading this, I will be returning to campus on the 24th for the first-year orientation and will be discussing some of the student organizations with some of my fellow classmates.  I am a part of the Student Health Advisory Board, so I’ll be talking a bit about that along with my friend Jeff.

In addition to this, we have a new project.  We have a group of first and second-year students that are in the beginning of bringing a chapter of Pi Alpha Alpha, the honorary society for the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (whew!).  I am excited about the opportunities that this presents our school and our student body.  If we get it sorted out, I already have a potential speaker lined up with some other possibilities in the works as well.

Anyhow, I’ll likely be discussing this as well on the 24th, so get pumped.  I am looking forward to meeting the new class, and I hope that you all enjoy SPP as much as I have.  It is not hyperbole to say that this school has totally changed my life – I feel so much more prepared to take on the problems facing our communities, our states, and our world.  I wish there were words to express my love for Pepperdine.  Perhaps I’ll find them someday.

Another rambling blog post down.  More from Vegas, because I should really finish packing.  I leave D.C. knowing a great deal more and being richer for the experience, and thankful for how fortunate I am.

See you in Malibu.

The fact that the “birther” movement has regained steam thanks to some persistent radical right-wingers is incredibly disheartening to me, and hopefully most rational conservatives.  It has really gotten out of control lately, and frankly, I’m mystified as to why this hasn’t died yet.  I would mention the main offending site, but I just don’t feel that it deserves mentioning here.

Now, I’m no Obamapologist (sorry for that) but the man is our President for the next three and a half years, so deal with it.  That’s how the system worked.  We lost the election, and as I’ve said before I think we deserved the outright shellacking delivered to our doorstep last November.  I can’t help but feel that this birther movement is just some pent-up frustration looking for any possible outlet, no matter how ridiculous, and it’s found that outlet by insisting that President Obama can’t be president because he wasn’t born here.

“BUT HE WASN’T BORN IN THE US!!!  BY THE CONSTITUTION, HE CAN’T BE PRESIDENT!!!”, they say in a completely rational voice, always at speaking volume.

Incorrect, my friend. Actually, I would just call you my acquaintance, I’d rather not be too closely associated with you.

“But factcheck.org is a liberal institution which only seeks to propagate the myth that Barack Hussein Obama was born here so he can institute a socialist government influenced by foreign sources…and his middle name is Hussein, for God’s sake.”

I don’t even know what to do with these kinds of comments.  There are people out there, members of the voting public, that believe in this nonsense.  HE WAS BORN HERE.  Get over it.

I’m so disappointed that this is the level that so many so-called conservatives have stooped to.  Yes, I realize that our elected officials are distancing themselves from these people, and that these “birthers” don’t represent the core conservative beliefs, but they are getting a whoooole lot of press.  This terrifies me.

I refuse to be associated with this madness.  I’m no fan of the President’s policies, but all of the evidence that allows him to be President of the United States is rather clear cut.  Some people just love to believe in conspiracies, as we discussed last time.  There are people in this country that do not recognize Barack Obama as President because they believe his birth certificate is a forgery – it’s scary how many people believe this.

There are plenty of other reasons to disagree with President Obama – but let’s focus on the policies, not some hacked-together conspiracy theory that only the fringe is following.

Or, who knows, they might be right.  After all, the moon landing was faked, LBJ killed Kennedy, George H.W. Bush helped establish the New World Order, and George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld organized 9/11.  Oh, and we kept it all a pretty good secret.  You know, the same government that can’t fund a cash-for-clunkers program for more than 4 days.  The same government with more leaks than a pirate ship made out of cheesecloth.

In closing, any shipbuilder that makes a pirate ship out of cheesecloth should find a new profession.

40 years ago we set foot on the Moon after an epic race to the heavens.  It boggles my mind to think about how much we accomplished as people.  Everybody won – it was the peak of a nonviolent progression of technology and science, and though I wasn’t there, I feel like we haven’t achieved something like that since.  I truly hope that we use the same energy and genius to get to Mars.

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Space never ceases to amaze me -  to quote Carl Sagan (apocryphally, I might add – he claims he never uttered the phrase) but there are billions and billions of galaxies, stars, planets, who knows what else.  I love reading about bizarre quantum theories and strings and parallel universes even though I can’t even come close to comprehending them.

The idea that people like Galileo, Copernicus, Einstein, and Hawking could (and can, in Hawking’s case) look so far beyond the immediate world around us, seeking to understand what else is out there, the why’s and how’s of our universe, speaks volumes about the rarity of their minds.  We need to make sure that these rare minds never go unappreciated – we need to encourage the study of maths and sciences, we need to push future generations to pursue careers in these fields.

If things keep up the way they’re going, Earth just isn’t going to do it for the human race.  We’ll need new places to live, new technologies, and new resources.  Maybe it’s because I have an overactive imagination or I read too much into sci-fi, but I firmly believe that someday we’ll be colonizing other planets (if we don’t all kill each other off, that is.  Or bird/swine/horse/people flu gets us. Whichever comes first).  If we’re going to make room for everyone, there had better be other places to do it.

Technological development will also spur changes in our everyday lives – some great things like getting freeze-dried ice cream from the Air & Space Museum (Neapolitan = dry, grainy, yet strangely compelling deliciousness), and some not-so-useful things like Space Pens, which seem like they’re so awesome at first but then you realize you are never in a perfect vacuum often enough to justify paying that much for a ballpoint pen that writes in a perfect vacuum, and it invariably winds up getting lost about two weeks after you bought it.  Yes, I’m still bitter about it.

Anyhow, it seems that I was probably one of the few people that thought the idea of sending manned missions to the Moon or Mars (alliteration is fun) was a good idea.  Sure, we’ve done the Moon before, old news.  I still think it’s a pretty exciting prospect.  I think we as a society take it for granted just how insane of a prospect it is to have people hopping around on the Moon.  I still think there’s a lot to be learned from manned exploration of the Moon.

Mars is an even more intriguing prospect.  We’ve found water ice in a place we never really expected to find it.  The implications this may have for life developing on other planets is pretty amazing.  The rovers we sent to Mars sent back more amazing information than we ever expected to get.  The technological marvels that will be required to propel a spacecraft there, keep the crew alive, land on Mars, and then get everyone back in one piece, are fascinating to me.

I think having a goal of getting to Mars will help us harness the same ingenuity that got us to the Moon in 1969.  Thousands of the smartest men and women in the world working against nearly-incalculable odds to get men to the Moon (and to really stick it to those godless commies – go USA!).  I believe that we still have the spark necessary to get us back on the track of space exploration.

I sincerely hope we have leaders with the vision to get us to Mars in my lifetime.  Just don’t expect me to be on the shuttle, I’m not a huge fan of flying as it is.  Someone else can have the glory of being the first man on Mars.

You’d think it’d be hard to stay positive.  But not me, my friends, not me.  I look forward to the future.

As I said, I was talking to my friend about the situation and I thought he had a great point.

He said, “Listen man, we just need to adopt a different mindset right now.  We need to be like a construction site.”

“How do you mean?”, I inquired.

“Well, look at it this way.  Construction sites always have those boards that say ‘X days since last accident’, right?  The point to take home here is that they recognize that bad things happen, and something bad is going to happen at some point in the future.  It’s part of the job.  But, they take it one day at a time – if we’re at 3 days since the last scandal, we’re just trying to get to 4 days.  Then 5 days.  And life goes on.”

Unfailing optimism in the face of adversity.  If you can’t keep a good sense of humor, then what do you have left?

(Note: We made it 7 days.)

In that spirit, here’s a picture from my desk from today:

Tomorrow, it will be 20.

One day at a time, ladies and gentlemen.  One day at a time.

Too often we forget what the 4th of July – Independence Day – is really about, and why it remains important.  America isn’t America just because we showed those Redcoats who’s boss by brewing the world’s largest pitcher of sun tea in Boston Harbor.  It isn’t just because we changed chips to fries, lifts to elevators, and queues to lines.  It isn’t because we introduced modern dentistry to the world (trust us, England – dental hygiene is totally sweet.  Check it out sometime).  It isn’t just because we invented Lance Armstrong.  It’s because of all of those things.  (BTW, the Tour de France is on right now, go Lance).

In all seriousness, being in DC, on the Mall in particular, makes you remember at least some of the reasons that we’re here.  The Capitol, the Washington Monument, the WWII Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, the White House, the Vietnam Memorial…all of these can be seen from various points on the Mall.  All of them reflect some of the major accomplishments and great achievements, and some reflect the darker chapters of our nation’s history as well, but all are critical in understanding how we got to this point today.

The Founders created something special, a democratic republic the likes of which had never been seen before, and may never be seen again.  They fought on principles of independence, liberty, and equality, the true meanings of which not even they fully understood.  They fought to make progress towards what we have today, and even though it isn’t perfect, it’s certainly better than it was.  Just reading the Constitution and the letters from the Convention give me shivers sometimes – it is absolutely mindblowing just how smart these men were.  I sincerely hope that we have not seen the end of people like the Founders.  They created institutions that still stand as the keystones of our national framework.  James Madison was a central figure in designing an entire nation when he was about my age, and my biggest accomplishment so far is typing some preposterous, rambling 4th of July post on a blog.  Point: Madison, by a hair.

I think the true monuments in DC, the ones that immortalize the work of Founding Fathers, are the Capitol, the Supreme Court, and the White House.  Though their roles have adjusted over the years, and physically they may be in newer or redesigned buildings, the institutions that the Founders designed still stand as testaments to their ingenuity.  It’s pretty surreal to visit DC and think about all that’s gone on in this small little piece of unbearably humid swampland over the past 233 years, and it’s even more surreal to work in a building where a lot of it went down.

Moral of the story: America rules.  Happy birthday.

Sorry for the rambling, it’s late.  Here are some pretty pictures.

Patriotic indeed.

DC is pretty scenic at night. Definitely do a monuments tour after dark - it's awesome.

Even more beautiful at night.

Fountain at the Capitol Visitor Center.

Long story short, His (Dis)Honor Sexual-Harassment-and-Assault Samuel Kent was impeached by the Senate basically to get him off his six-figure federal payroll.  Even though he was imprisoned, he did not resign his position on the bench so he could still collect his pay and pension.

Having had enough of these shenanigans, the Senate said “you’re cut off, buddy”, to which Mr. Kent promptly replied “I’m not your buddy, guy”.

It is quite rare that all 100* (see Minnesota)senators are on the floor – much less seated in their desks in an orderly fashion.  It is quite a sight to see…needless to say, the Senate Gallery was absolutely packed, mostly by the interns who had nothing better to do.  The staff section was entirely full, but we managed to get some spots in the public gallery.

The impeachment proceedings themselves were rather short – the charges were delivered by Rep. Sensenbrenner from the “People’s Chamber”, and then the Majority and Minority Leaders, Sen. Harry Reid (from my home state, but don’t blame me) and Sen. Mitch McConnell from Kentucky, respectively.  They appointed members of the Senate to the impeachment committee, and they would’ve handled the proceedings…

However, Kent resigned his post rather than face the impeachment trial, and continues to serve his sentence – finally off the federal payroll.

The circle reference in the title – my dad worked for Harry Claiborne, an attorney and former judge that is a rather tragic case from back home.  My dad worked for him prior to all of the bribery and tax evasion and whatnot, just for the record.  He was the first judge to be removed through impeachment in a half-century, and I managed to witness a rather historic impeachment in the Senate as well.  Pretty neat, if you ask me.

Never a dull day here in DC, that’s for sure.  (Except for the recess…should be pretty quiet)

Off-topic:

Here’s a shot of me hanging out on the balcony at our office, courtsey of Heather.

Working hard, hardly working, or just totally awesome? (Hint: totally awesome)

I think a critical skill in any employment is crisis management (particularly so in politics) – so I am going to see if I can get a few people who’ve had some experience with the issues to maybe do a little workshop on it.  If it sounds interesting that is…

Often, it isn’t so much about the issue itself, but how you respond to it.  Do you define the issue, or do you let the issue define you?

I realize this all sounds very vague right now, but the conditions of my employment make it so.  Sorry!

However, even in my short time in politics, I’ve seen a number of things.  While I haven’t been the press person, COS, or any high level staff, I have been lucky/unfortunate enough to be close to some issues regarding staff quarrels, scandals, and good ol’ fashioned baseless accusations.  Politics is fun, isn’t it?

Anyway, I think it would be interesting to get a group together to maybe do a workshop for first-years and any second-years that would be interesting.  One of the great things about SPP is that the class is so diverse – some people come straight out of college, some have spent some time working and have some experiences that they can share.  I think it would be a good way for us to give back to our school.

So, if anyone is interested in pitching this to the school, or if the administrators are interested, let me know.  In the meantime, I’m going to keep working on this idea.

I’ll have some more substantial posts coming this week – last week was just brutal.  Forgive me!

There are times when all I can think about is how quickly I can get back here and do my best to serve my country, change the world, all that hopeful stuff.  It’s why I’m going to school and getting my MPP, so I would hope it would inspire me.

There are other times when all I can think about is how uncivil, disrespectful, and hateful people in the political world can be.  I’m well aware it’s not just politics where people regress to barbarian status, but I’m sure we all feel sometimes that politics just puts a special shine on it that brings out the worst in people.  I wish I knew why.

Am I going to get my MPP and just want to wash my hands of government or an unforgiving, fickle public?  That seems like a rather pointless (and expensive) conclusion.

Sometimes you just have to take a second and see if you have the stomach for it.

I know I do.  It’s not always easy, that’s for sure, but I’m not here to just give up so easily.  My parents have always taught me to never compromise my principles and to always keep my goals in perspective.  Some day, I hope to be half as wise as they are.

No, I’m not here to give up.  I know my heart is in the right place.  This too shall pass.