Besides a war protest that shut down Independence Avenue (the road in-between the Capitol and the House Office Building) with about 20 people staging a sit-in in the middle of the street, today was normal, but a lot more work. I am down one intern, but I was able to get through the day, even squeeking in the much-needed (and inexpensive) haircut.
We held a hearing on crop insurance and have our final hearing tomorrow before we begin our work on the Farm Bill (hopefully next week).
My entries are probably going to be short for this final week as I finish up my research paper about Horse Slaughter (H.R. 503) and a few other papers I should get done by Friday. Saturday we have a double-header for Minnesota Alumni Softball, then Sunday-Tuesday I'm packing up and heading home, with a little sight-seeing mixed in.
5/14/07
5/11/07
Party Time
The morning was going slowly. We figured since it was the other intern's last day, we would be taking it pretty easy, and generally we were. At noon we had our farewell party for the two of us, and it was great to have everyone together, because the stress level in the office is pretty high. In fact, the rest of the staff is working tomorrow morning.
Anyway, I took my best friend to see the floor of the house, and she was pretty impressed. After that it was about 4:00. We then had to move a lot of furniture. So much so that Gabe's last day ended up being a last day plus 30 minutes. It was still a memorable day.
Next week we have two hearings planned. I thought it was rough with only two interns, well it looks like I will find out what flying solo is all about on Monday and Tuesday. One week left, and I'm playing tour guide this weekend.
Anyway, I took my best friend to see the floor of the house, and she was pretty impressed. After that it was about 4:00. We then had to move a lot of furniture. So much so that Gabe's last day ended up being a last day plus 30 minutes. It was still a memorable day.
Next week we have two hearings planned. I thought it was rough with only two interns, well it looks like I will find out what flying solo is all about on Monday and Tuesday. One week left, and I'm playing tour guide this weekend.
5/10/07
Visitors
Today I had a lot of good fortune, two women that I was glad to see came to our committee room. We also had two hearings.
The first girl that arrived was my best friend that I actually hadn't seen for about 6 months. She will be spending the weekend hanging out with me.
The second visitor was Drew Berrymore, on behalf of the UN. She had a 4:00 with the chairman, and talked to me before she went in. She asked me what I had learned and how long I was staying, while I was being taped by one of her two video crews.
Anyways, it's past my bedtime because I played softball and showed my guest the monuments.
The first girl that arrived was my best friend that I actually hadn't seen for about 6 months. She will be spending the weekend hanging out with me.
The second visitor was Drew Berrymore, on behalf of the UN. She had a 4:00 with the chairman, and talked to me before she went in. She asked me what I had learned and how long I was staying, while I was being taped by one of her two video crews.
Anyways, it's past my bedtime because I played softball and showed my guest the monuments.
5/9/07
CSPAN and the Pool, 2nd round
We had our hearing on the findings of melamine in animal feed. It was a very packed hearing and we had coverage from CSPAN as well as the networks. CSPAN will air it sometime this weekend.
This afternoon I worked on a variety of projects for our upcoming hearings. Tomorrow we have double duty, and we start at 8 am. Today was the minority intern's last day, and Friday is our other intern's last day. I have simply 7 days left, weird.
I'm being quick so I can work on homework and wake up on time.
This afternoon I worked on a variety of projects for our upcoming hearings. Tomorrow we have double duty, and we start at 8 am. Today was the minority intern's last day, and Friday is our other intern's last day. I have simply 7 days left, weird.
I'm being quick so I can work on homework and wake up on time.
5/8/07
Animal Welfare Hearing
We had our hearing about the welfare of animals in agriculture today, and it went as most expected it to. You can read reports about it from the Cattle Network here and the Brownfield Network here. There were also press releases from organizations like the Center for Consumer Freedom.
We had a line started at 9 am, when I arrived, and it grew by our 10:30 start. Not included in that line were also 12 witness, each with a guest, making our "public" section of our large committee room shrink from 36 to about 10 (when it is usually 20-25). We also allow 10 people to stand in the back corner, and then we had an overflow room that seats another 50, which was about 3/4 full. I watched the door for the first 2 panels and could tell the tension in everyone's face as they walked in and out of the hearing room. I was able to sit in our overflow room for the third panel, and I can say things got a little dicey.
This afternoon after cleaning up the hearing I took a few projects here and there, but spent most of my time researching to see if we had any press coverage of our committee hearing (such as with the honey bee hearing, when it was everywhere immediately after the hearing was over). But no such luck, as former House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Stenholm (who was a witness today) said, "What we've got to do is find a way is get that story out to where more of the non-agricultural press begin to pick up on what we're really doing in agriculture, not what some people say we are." It should be noted that the only two reports I found were the two stories linked above.
In my view animal agriculture is just starting to realize they need to put money into education about animal welfare specifically. The difference is, animal agriculture organizations are also spending money on trade, disease control, research, and a plethora of other issues to keep food safe, low cost, and efficient. On the other hand, animal rights organizations focus solely on animal rights.
Growing up on a farm I didn't see any need to have training on animal welfare; being nice to animals just comes with the territory. Starving a cow because it didn't win an award or produce enough milk just doesn't make sense; it makes your goals more improbable. The same with putting pigs in gestation crates (which of course just sounds like a bad name, and is a good reason the people of Arizona were swayed to outlaw the one hog farm there from using them. I learned in 10th grade English that Americans love alliterations. Why not call them pregnancy pens, or birthing booths?), it surely is not to make the pigs uncomfortable during one of the most stressful times of their life, it is to save the lives of piglets (as noted today, the number of piglets per litter has increased from about 7 to 10 since the inception of the technology).
*Those are purely my opinions and a review of my experiences growing up on a farm. They in no way express or reflect the opinions of the Committee.
We had a line started at 9 am, when I arrived, and it grew by our 10:30 start. Not included in that line were also 12 witness, each with a guest, making our "public" section of our large committee room shrink from 36 to about 10 (when it is usually 20-25). We also allow 10 people to stand in the back corner, and then we had an overflow room that seats another 50, which was about 3/4 full. I watched the door for the first 2 panels and could tell the tension in everyone's face as they walked in and out of the hearing room. I was able to sit in our overflow room for the third panel, and I can say things got a little dicey.
This afternoon after cleaning up the hearing I took a few projects here and there, but spent most of my time researching to see if we had any press coverage of our committee hearing (such as with the honey bee hearing, when it was everywhere immediately after the hearing was over). But no such luck, as former House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Stenholm (who was a witness today) said, "What we've got to do is find a way is get that story out to where more of the non-agricultural press begin to pick up on what we're really doing in agriculture, not what some people say we are." It should be noted that the only two reports I found were the two stories linked above.
In my view animal agriculture is just starting to realize they need to put money into education about animal welfare specifically. The difference is, animal agriculture organizations are also spending money on trade, disease control, research, and a plethora of other issues to keep food safe, low cost, and efficient. On the other hand, animal rights organizations focus solely on animal rights.
Growing up on a farm I didn't see any need to have training on animal welfare; being nice to animals just comes with the territory. Starving a cow because it didn't win an award or produce enough milk just doesn't make sense; it makes your goals more improbable. The same with putting pigs in gestation crates (which of course just sounds like a bad name, and is a good reason the people of Arizona were swayed to outlaw the one hog farm there from using them. I learned in 10th grade English that Americans love alliterations. Why not call them pregnancy pens, or birthing booths?), it surely is not to make the pigs uncomfortable during one of the most stressful times of their life, it is to save the lives of piglets (as noted today, the number of piglets per litter has increased from about 7 to 10 since the inception of the technology).
*Those are purely my opinions and a review of my experiences growing up on a farm. They in no way express or reflect the opinions of the Committee.
5/7/07
9 Work Days and Counting...
The morning went by as I was half sleeping from our tiring trip to New York City. Feel free to see my pictures in my albums by clicking here for album 1, here for album 2, and here for album 3.
This afternoon I started doing some background research for our hearing on Thursday, which, as I have been reminded 50 times, is my brothers birthday. In my research I summarized the 4 components of USDA research, ARS, ERS, NASS, and CSREES. These are my favorite kinds of projects, learning more about the tools I use or have heard about. I'm going to bed early because I spent a long time arranging my Facebook albums (click on the links in the first paragraph) and mostly because I'm really tired.
Tomorrow is THE Livestock, Dairy and Poultry hearing I've been looking forward to. Feel free to tune in online, it should get pretty interesting. If you don't, I'll try to fill you in tomorrow.
This afternoon I started doing some background research for our hearing on Thursday, which, as I have been reminded 50 times, is my brothers birthday. In my research I summarized the 4 components of USDA research, ARS, ERS, NASS, and CSREES. These are my favorite kinds of projects, learning more about the tools I use or have heard about. I'm going to bed early because I spent a long time arranging my Facebook albums (click on the links in the first paragraph) and mostly because I'm really tired.
Tomorrow is THE Livestock, Dairy and Poultry hearing I've been looking forward to. Feel free to tune in online, it should get pretty interesting. If you don't, I'll try to fill you in tomorrow.
5/4/07
Grand Finale
It was a slow day, but we finally released the hearing that I have been doing a little work with, one on Animal Welfare. It's pretty controversial, but I think almost everyone will be happy after the hearing is over. I have paged through the testimony, and it was what I would expect. This could be quite the hearing, we'll see.
Also today we were briefed on both Animal Welfare and the USDA Checkoff programs. The Congressional Research Service does a really good job of providing both sides of these things.
After work I was invited to my best meeting ever, a one-on-one with a high-up person at USDA. I am not going to release the name just for privacy reasons (and because I would show up on Google Alerts more than I already do).. but in summary I was able to have a full hour with one of the most knowledgeable people I could possibly have access to. I thought it would be a 15-minute meet and greet, but after 20 minutes of talking, he simply asked, "Well, what else would you like to know?" So during the rest of the time I just tried to dig as deep as I could to get questions that I just always wondered about. I leave for New York at 3:00 am, so I'm just going to stay up. I have simply 2 weeks left, plus a weekend and a Monday for site-seeing. We're actually STILL moving stuff in, which is what our other intern got stuck doing all day. I've had my own days, and I'm honestly scared about the week where I will be the only intern, and we will not be having hearings (as we will be gathering the information from all the previous hearings and begin to formulate our mark-up, or at least thats my perception between what I have been told and what I have seen). Have a good weekend!
Also today we were briefed on both Animal Welfare and the USDA Checkoff programs. The Congressional Research Service does a really good job of providing both sides of these things.
After work I was invited to my best meeting ever, a one-on-one with a high-up person at USDA. I am not going to release the name just for privacy reasons (and because I would show up on Google Alerts more than I already do).. but in summary I was able to have a full hour with one of the most knowledgeable people I could possibly have access to. I thought it would be a 15-minute meet and greet, but after 20 minutes of talking, he simply asked, "Well, what else would you like to know?" So during the rest of the time I just tried to dig as deep as I could to get questions that I just always wondered about. I leave for New York at 3:00 am, so I'm just going to stay up. I have simply 2 weeks left, plus a weekend and a Monday for site-seeing. We're actually STILL moving stuff in, which is what our other intern got stuck doing all day. I've had my own days, and I'm honestly scared about the week where I will be the only intern, and we will not be having hearings (as we will be gathering the information from all the previous hearings and begin to formulate our mark-up, or at least thats my perception between what I have been told and what I have seen). Have a good weekend!
5/3/07
Still doing homework
I missed out on yesterday because my Internet connection was being crappy. Today I have some homework due at tomorrow midnight central time, so I'm going to try and do it tonight because me and a friend are going to New York for the weekend via Amtrak. We plan on seeing the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, Empire State Building, World Trade Center Site, Times Square, Chinatown, and attend a Yankee's game among other things. Please let me know if you have some suggestions of places I NEED to get to in two long days (6 am Saturday to 11 pm Sunday) or things within the places I've listed that I may want to check out (i.e. Times Square).
Since I'm trying to get to work, I'm going to give only a short summary of yesterday and today:
Wednesday
We had a hearing on the USDA's leak of social security numbers on its website, tech people from all over the district showed up. I didn't hear much, but I guess it was a big deal that was in the news. Other than that we started work on our hearings next week.
Today there was not much going on, the Iraq bill is still in conference, which leaves our Ag. disaster aid hanging in the air. I'm not really sure if we're going to be stripped out of the bill and have to find some other means or if the bill can pass, as is, with only the troop pull-out deadline removed. In our office there wasn't much going on besides paper work as we prepared for next week. Actually I did a lot of work in the Congressional Records, which I will talk about more tomorrow if I remember.
Since I'm trying to get to work, I'm going to give only a short summary of yesterday and today:
Wednesday
We had a hearing on the USDA's leak of social security numbers on its website, tech people from all over the district showed up. I didn't hear much, but I guess it was a big deal that was in the news. Other than that we started work on our hearings next week.
Today there was not much going on, the Iraq bill is still in conference, which leaves our Ag. disaster aid hanging in the air. I'm not really sure if we're going to be stripped out of the bill and have to find some other means or if the bill can pass, as is, with only the troop pull-out deadline removed. In our office there wasn't much going on besides paper work as we prepared for next week. Actually I did a lot of work in the Congressional Records, which I will talk about more tomorrow if I remember.
5/1/07
Pie in the Sky
We all worked double duty for our two-hearing day. The crowds were small enough that I could work on other projects, so I did not get to hear much of the information. The hearing on Crop Insurance started at 10:00 am and was over just after noon. We started up again at 1:00 with a hearing about Rural Broadband (or the lack thereof) and the digital divide. One of my projects included helping to formulate this press release, which was released at about 6 pm tonight. The other project was my continual wading through the pool of Farm Bill proposals. This time we eliminated a few, giving me a better idea of what it was going to look like. I was out of the office by 6:30, as I had an award-winning reception to attend.
Okay, so there are no reception awards, but hill dwellers working long hours do know what good food tastes like, and pie is good food. After being ridiculed at Easter by my Uncle, I suggested that I would tone down the comments what I eat. But, tonight's reception has topped them all, a pie reception, with over 15 different kinds of pie, along with food and refreshments. It was put on by a trucking association, maybe because truckers are as American as pie? I'm not sure, but I'm glad they did. One note about these receptions is that you really don't have to be invited to the majority of them. The organizations just like the publicity and awareness, but usually have some sort of tie into their product (i.e. National Cattleman's Beef and Outback Steakhouse teaming up), but I guess truckers truck just about everything. I was not invited, but a good reception can be a packed party in minutes as staffers get on their Blackberries to let their friends know about the good eats.
We have a full committee hearing tomorrow on a subject I am not to familiar with, the release of Social Security numbers and the USDA's information systems. I'm not certain if there was a mistake in the past or if a problem is on the horizon, but that's why hearings are open to the public. I'll find out tomorrow and fill you in.
Speaking of filling in, I had a lot of pie. But don't worry, I didn't eat any real food so I'm not that full.
Okay, so there are no reception awards, but hill dwellers working long hours do know what good food tastes like, and pie is good food. After being ridiculed at Easter by my Uncle, I suggested that I would tone down the comments what I eat. But, tonight's reception has topped them all, a pie reception, with over 15 different kinds of pie, along with food and refreshments. It was put on by a trucking association, maybe because truckers are as American as pie? I'm not sure, but I'm glad they did. One note about these receptions is that you really don't have to be invited to the majority of them. The organizations just like the publicity and awareness, but usually have some sort of tie into their product (i.e. National Cattleman's Beef and Outback Steakhouse teaming up), but I guess truckers truck just about everything. I was not invited, but a good reception can be a packed party in minutes as staffers get on their Blackberries to let their friends know about the good eats.
We have a full committee hearing tomorrow on a subject I am not to familiar with, the release of Social Security numbers and the USDA's information systems. I'm not certain if there was a mistake in the past or if a problem is on the horizon, but that's why hearings are open to the public. I'll find out tomorrow and fill you in.
Speaking of filling in, I had a lot of pie. But don't worry, I didn't eat any real food so I'm not that full.
4/30/07
Top of the World
This week we started with a packed field of four hearings, but this Thursday's was postponed. We now sit with a packed field of three hearings. We have two tomorrow and a full committee hearing on Wednesday. Thursday's hearing was also supposed to be for the full committee. The interns were given the duty of writing the press releases for each of tomorrow's hearings. Although they are close to the same every time as far as what they discuss and how uncontroversial they are, it is nice to have something "official" that can be shown as my own work.
On the hill today there were no votes as Members of Congress attended the funeral of Juanita Millender-McDonald, CA, who died last Sunday. While this is the second death among Members of Congress in my short tenure here, it is interesting that work goes on. Letters are written to the office addressed to Vacancy, instead of the members name, followed by the state and district. The staff there still stays on full-time trying to meet with constituents and work with other Members to get their views heard. But, the office itself does not have a vote on the floor until a successor is appointed.
Because of the limited business on the floor, we were able to swiftly complete our setup for our hearings tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon.
In other news, the Historic Eastern Market building burned this morning, and I doubt it will be back in business before I leave. I was able to eat there a few times, and even take my family once, for the famous buckwheat pancakes for breakfast. It is an open market frequented by Members of Congress, Senators, and of course their staff as a good place for breakfast or fresh goods.
This weekend my girlfriend came to visit, but she was hard to impress as she had been here only a few years ago. We hit the highlights and I got my first view from the top of Washington Monument, a place my grandpa said he had climbed with a friend over a half century ago. The steps are shut down for climbing on the way up, but the elevator is a nice 5 minute ride to the top.
On the hill today there were no votes as Members of Congress attended the funeral of Juanita Millender-McDonald, CA, who died last Sunday. While this is the second death among Members of Congress in my short tenure here, it is interesting that work goes on. Letters are written to the office addressed to Vacancy, instead of the members name, followed by the state and district. The staff there still stays on full-time trying to meet with constituents and work with other Members to get their views heard. But, the office itself does not have a vote on the floor until a successor is appointed.
Because of the limited business on the floor, we were able to swiftly complete our setup for our hearings tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon.
In other news, the Historic Eastern Market building burned this morning, and I doubt it will be back in business before I leave. I was able to eat there a few times, and even take my family once, for the famous buckwheat pancakes for breakfast. It is an open market frequented by Members of Congress, Senators, and of course their staff as a good place for breakfast or fresh goods.
This weekend my girlfriend came to visit, but she was hard to impress as she had been here only a few years ago. We hit the highlights and I got my first view from the top of Washington Monument, a place my grandpa said he had climbed with a friend over a half century ago. The steps are shut down for climbing on the way up, but the elevator is a nice 5 minute ride to the top.
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