Sunday, November 19, 2006

More on the conference Today was a day of activism workshops -- including the panel I was on with David Guard and Doug McVay. Our panel was a blast -- great fun and a huge turnout of really bright students with tons of good stuff to contribute. We could have gone for another hour easily. After the session, I was talking to a couple of the students out in the atrium and we got into this great discussion (they were really interested in learning), and there was this guy who joined in who seemed to really be on top of things. Every subject we touched on, he had tons of useful information. By this point, I'm really getting a kick about this, but I'm also getting curious -- I've been meeting all these drug policy professionals, could this be another one I didn't know? (there was no name tag) Well, it turns out it was one of the Drug WarRant crew who took time out of his life to come to the Georgetown Law Center, find me, and say hello. That made my day. Thanks! 10:54:07 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

A moment of peace I'm only here for a couple of days and the conference is packed with such wonderful events, that I hadn't really dealt in any coherent way with the fact that I'm in our nation's capital (and I haven't visited for about 15 years. Quite frankly, I wasn't very happy about being here. I've had a pretty sour view of politics and our nation's "leaders." And my first night here, I ate at a restaurant filled with pissant preppy political popinjays. I sat there quietly and listened to them talk -- and to them, Washington was simply a big game of Monopoly, and the country was just a bunch of colored squares. I can't imagine that they even care about drug war victims, or what mandatory minimums do to a community. But late tonight I put my cynicism aside and took a little walk. From the hotel, I walked to the Capitol and then through the Mall to the Washington Monument. Past the fountains and the reflecting pool and up the stairs to Abe Lincoln's Memorial. I had to block the added security measures and construction from my mind, but very soon I started to feel the beauty and power. There was a presence. And I realized that the idiot politicians in office are ephemeral. They don't have the power to destroy such historical power and significance. And there was hope. 1:22:02 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []