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Today on my way home I spied the most excellent gentleman. 40ish, affluent looking, fedora sitting in an idling and very much bright yellow Corvette. Listening, on an inevitably superb sound system, to D’Angelo.

Sticking with tails from the pedestrian part of my commute, I had a nice run in with some skater kids last week. Across the street from the commerce building is a rather large marble expanse where every afternoon a large group of teenage skateboarders gather. To their great credit, the DC police appear to have no problem with this. (Although they also allow bikes on the sidewalks which I DO have a huge problem with). Anyway I pass by these kids every day on my way home, and they give me the requisite glares that as a suit I deserve. I always just nod back. So last Wednesday im walking past and this kid eats it and the board hurtles toward traffic. 3 quick steps and I snagged the board. STANDING OVATION from the little skaters. “Respect.”

Work is still good- beginning to realize that I need to get stuff done as I only have 3 weeks left. So far my least favorite thing about DC is that the subway stations are too dark to read in. Seriously?

captain neo.

I am quite sick of Michael Jackson coverage, but I did have a touching moment. Last Friday, the day after he passed, my office went out together to grab lunch in the courtyard of the Ronald Regan building. There was a band playing, as there seemingly is most Friday afternoons, and a decent crowd had gathered. It was HOT. Sweat through your shirt hot.

The band decided to take a break between sets, so the sound guy put on some Jackson classics. Instant dance party. It was really quite moving- 20 or 30 federal employees of all stripes in their work clothes GETTING DOWN. Robot. Moonwalk. Electric Slide. After a few tracks "I'll be there" came on, and people teared up. Myself included. It was really quite something.

apologies

sorry to stick with links and other people's content, but this is pretty right on my thoughts re: Ricci.

"To me, this is the heart of the issue. The city threw out the test not because they thought it was biased, but because they were afraid to get sued. That's not only their practical justification, but their legal justification. That's weak. For me, the case doesn't have any kind of moral heft unless you establish whether the test is actually biased or not. The state didn't even bother to try to find out. They just screamed OH NOES and invalidated the results. In what way is that useful to anyone? I believe the SCOTUS issued new rules today about when it's approproate to take action because of a fear of lawsuits and when it's not. Perhaps that will be useful.

I know the case is tied in to much larger issues, but the more I read about it, the narrow and esoteric the thing seems. I can't get worked up about it one way or the other because all the decisions have been so narrow and the deep moral/philosophical questions seem quite far from what folks are mulling over on the bench. That said, Ginsburg's dissent is a tour-du-force. Taking it as a policy statement, I could not agree more."

sullivan re: niebuhr and iran

Andrew Sullivan's blog at the Atlantic has been an interesting, though probably a bit too emotionally involved place to follow everything going on Iran. Today though, he posted a bit from his Sunday Times piece about Obama channeling Niehbur. Maybe still overdone (especially that last metaphor), and maybe not totally right on about Reinhold, but thought provoking nonetheless:

What now? That will depend on what transpires in Iran, how the regime responds to the collapse in its legitimacy, how its internal factions jostle and who ends up pulling the biggest strings. One school of thought among the Obamaites is that this episode could have so weakened Khamenei that he may be eager to make a deal with Obama to win back some support from the Mousavi voters. That might help in Afghanistan and Iraq, but not on the nuclear programme — which Mousavi backs as well.

Another, more realistic, school believes that Khamenei will harden his stance against the West even more, because he needs to shore up his base, and will construct a new external enemy to justify further repression. The problem here is that he no longer has Bush to demonise.

Yet another thinks this is a great time to play Syria against Iran and to use the common antipathy to Iran among Sunni Arab regimes and Israel to broker an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. And that, in turn, could undermine the anti-Zionist claptrap that operates as a kind of rhetorical Viagra for the ageing Khamenei cabal. Well, it’s a plan, I suppose. I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

The key to Obama’s approach, I suspect, is his respect for Reinhold Niebuhr, the great theologian and political theorist who appreciated the power of non-violence and community organisation — he was of the Gandhi and Martin Luther King generation. But Niebuhr also understood the necessity of using force and playing hardball in foreign relations in a fallen world. This “Christian realism” has rarely been as relevant as it is today — and it’s deep in Obama.

A strategy of total disengagement from Iran, isolation and war might be morally and rhetorically satisfying, as it was for George W Bush, but it might be less morally responsible to the people of Iran and the peace of the world than an unsavoury attempt to grapple with an evil regime with open eyes. Balancing these two imperatives — of always being open to peace and dialogue while always being girded against appeasement — is what Niebuhr teaches we cannot and must not avoid. It will mean a vulnerability on Obama’s part to being called weak or contradictory; but it may also be the only way to secure a practical peace.

Think of it in game theory, as the British blogger Marbury did last week. Obama is playing “Retaliator”. He starts out as a dove and waits to see the response. If the response is also a dove, he reciprocates and builds trust for mutual benefit. If the response is a sharp-clawed hawk, he becomes a hawk. But the dove’s posture is always there beneath and is established early for maximal advantage. What Obama wants to do now is what he tried to do in Cairo — to lever the people of Iran against their rulers. He won’t take the bait of easy conflict, but neither will he concede without a Khamenei concession. So the pressure builds on the Tehran regime from within and without. And Obama carefully and methodically bides his time.

Bush was playing draughts; Obama is playing chess. And it’s Khamenei’s move.

NIST

I was going to post on Sunday, and the post was going to begin thus:

I write as the USA shocks the world. Nebyu just showed up. “I just came over to taunt Habib. I mean this is so beautiful, a week ago, we are nothing, now we are making an international appearance, a Confederation Cup championship. And we have a black president.” DUNGA!

So much for that.

ANYWAY

Last week we had our first Office of the General Counsel legal intern excursion, to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The 45 minute van ride out to the 300 acre facility in Maryland was a welcome break, and the place itself is pretty fucking awesome. They do a lot of things there, including employing several Nobel Prize physicists and a couple of MacArthur Genius Grant recipients. They support US industry technological development and also do lots of their own science. They also set standards for weights, etc. For example you can buy a $400 dollar can of tuna from NIST, and that you can use to make sure your Tuna weighs the right amount. Amusingly enough NIST is never wrong… they are always right, by statute. Yes, our guide did make the joke. “Too bad that doesn’t work with my wife.” Rim Shot.

We got to go through a few labs, and the people that talked to us could hardly contain their excitement. Enthusiastic geeks with almost no constraints on access to time and equipment that could not stop talking about their research. The best one was the guy who is working on creating a quantum computer. Umh, a QUANTUM computer. We are standing there and he is explaining how they slow down particles using lasers and work towards creating a processor that doesnt work on a binary 0/1 system. And its going on right there in what looks like a microwave with tin-foil on it. In a building that is completely underground so that they can control vibration and temperature more exactly. It was also interesting to see that there are a couple hundred deer on the campus. I had a great conversation about their population control approach, but ill spare you the details. Other highlights included a VERY graphic x-Ray of some sort of prostate cancer treatment and glass door with a very intricate etching that said “TWEEZERS.”

MASTER HOLD.

Weekend was good. Friday night went back to Dukem with Martha and Habib. Stayed til 130 or so we could dance. Dance we did. I would like to say that I am catching on to the shoulder styles of Ethiopian pop dancing. I would like to say it. Maybe I'm a little better.

Saturday I went to a pool party with some kids I met on Tuesday night. It was an awesome day and a pretty sweet event, put on by a group equivalent to Jelly in NYC. Jelly, but also the sort of people who throw parties with crude acronyms like, C U Next Tuesday (deep house, 2 dollar red stripe). Similar crowd to the old McCarren parties, smaller scale, real pool, and DJs instead of bands. Maybe I wouldn't love it always, but its perfect for this summer, and these kids are truly hellbent on showing me that DC can be a good time, so I feel like I am not going to be bored.

home.

hit for the cycle tonight. probably not all that redeeming, except that i just got home, and i am still bleeding through my shorts from the slide into third. god bless america. i promise a full post tomorrow.