Today went quite smoothly, even with the added chaos of morning rush hour. During our morning seminar we listened to three very different sets of speakers after opening comments by Michael Genovese. The opening comments were very insightful and interesting, and dealt with all the issues that face Obama as he takes up the presidency. I think the following quotation sums up Dr. Genovese’s short speech nicely: “How do you clean the Aegean Stables left behind by the Bush administration?” It was also interesting to hear him bring up FDR and relate his presidency to today when I had been thinking of that just yesterday.
Special Agent O’Connor was especially interesting. He seemed very down to earth, even while describing how he had traveled literally all over the world when assigned to the Clintons. The main focus of the speech was how the Secret Service prepares for an event such as a presidential inauguration and also the role of the service in the bigger picture. I was surprised at how closely many different agencies work together for this event and that the Secret service does not take over all or most of the aspects of it because they want to control security. Because he is part of the Secret Service, we can’t talk about all that was said, but it was certainly one of the highlights of the trip thus far.
Unfortunately, Marc Pachter was another story. His lecture dealt with presidential portraits through history, and consisted of an almost all-inclusive play by play of each other the 43 presidents so far. While it was informative in an anecdotal sort of way, the message of the lecture could have been delivered in much less time. Presidents are depicted in different ways depending on who is commissioning or painting the portrait because they would like to present the president in a certain light.
The presentation of Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel was certainly a breath of fresh air on a couple of levels. Cal and Bob are on near-opposite ends of the political spectrum, yet are able to and enjoy talking through issues and discover common ground regarding those issues. This can potentially lead to solutions to problems that liberals and conservatives can both be relatively satisfied with, which is something the government needs to look into more given the trying times our country is going through.
Finally, our site visit today consited of going to the NORML headquarters, which of course stands for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. In other words, the lobby group which wishes to decriminalize and eventually legalize the responsible use of marijuana by adults. They make some very interesting and logical arguments, including the viable medicinal uses of the drug and the commercial uses of the non-psychoactive hemp plant. Not only that, the prison and judiciary system–and therefore the taxpayers–are burdened by the massive amounts of people who are arrested and sent to jail for possession alone. Needless to say, it was a very interesting meeting. One can only wonder what kind of conversations tomorrow will bring that can top that.
