NEW YORK part 1

Two weeks ago, several of my friends from Washington Seminar and I took a trip to new york.  Our friend Becca is from Scarsdale, so she offered to let people stay there.  In the end i think there were fifteen of us that ended up staying there, and they had beds, airmattresses, and couches for everyone.  It was a really fun trip.  We took the bus on thursday night and arrived in New York around midnight.  We basically just tried to find our way to beccas house, and ended up getting in a little after 2am.

Some of us took our time the next morning, because we knew if we tried to wake up early we would be dead tired by lunch time, and the the whole day would be ruined.  So we slept in late, which was very nice.  There was a group that went on a seven o clock ferry to staten island and the statue of liberty, and I think those people had a very rough day after that.  

So we woke up late and immediately began looking for broadway tickets.  We started at mary poppins because we knew that were pretty reliable for supplying student tickets.  We ended up being able to get tickets for 31 dollars each (regular is like over $100) for ten of us to go.  After that we went to lunch at bubba gumps which was delicious.  Our waiter gave us some forrest gump trivia, which was fun because forrest gump is one of my favorite movies, and I knew it pretty well.  Far better than he did, in fact. I had the new orleans gumbo AND the shrimp/lobster bisque, which was DEEEElicious. 

After that we walked around times square, went to rockefeller center and 30 rock, the NBC store, and a few other places around there. 

before this trip, I discovered something incredible.  Restaurant.com is a website where you can look up information about restaurants, and buy coupons for them.  One day they had a seventy percent off sale on coupons, so I bought a few.  3 dollars for a 25/off coupon.  I was very proud of myself for that, and they came in handy in new york.  We went to a cool little restaurant in the crowne plaza on time square and had pre-show drinks and appetizers.  There were about ten of us, so there was a lot of food, and it turned out to be like 5 dollars a person.  Thanks restaurant.com.

Mary Poppins was a great show.  I didn't love the movie very much growing up because a lot of it seemed kind of strange. (laughing on the cieiling? weird animated animals? the people on the roof that thought they were on a ship or something?) the show was great though.  It was fun, the music was great, the cast was great, and there were a few really cool things.  mary flew like three different times holding on to her umbrella, once over the entire audience.  Burt tap danced on the ceiling, which was crazy, there were magical things throughout the show.  I definitely understood the story and the message much better than I ever had before.  It was great, everyone seemed to enjoy it, and it was a great ending to the day.  We ended up getting home a little bit before twelve and tried to get to bed early.

dad to day biz as a DOJ intern

I was asked to go to and report on two hearing in the house of representatives.  They were both meetings of the Judiciary committee, in the subcommittee on crime, terrorism, and homeland security.  The first was about "overcriminalization." Witnesses came in and testified about how they were prosecuted for laws that they didn't even know about, unfairly.  One man had been accused of riding a snow-mobile in a wilderness area, which is punishable by six months or a huge fine. The issue was that the wildnerness area was not defined, the park services just enforced it where they thought it might be.  Another issue was that the mans breach of park regulations was charged as a federal crime, because the legislature had given them power to make their rules with the enforcement of the federal government behind them. The next witness had just finished a six year prison term for "illegal lobster smuggling." Lobsters that he was importing from Honduras were not regulation size, thus non-exportable.  He was on the import and distribute end of the business, so he had nothing to do with the lobsters, in fact he never even saw them before they were siezed and used as evidence against him.  The most interesting thing about this case is that the "regulation size" or whatever regulation the witness didn't follow, was not even american law, it was honduran law.  But there is a rule on import/exports that the United States will enforce another countries law regarding their product.  The honduran attorney general had written a letter to our government saying that the honduran law the man was being charged with breaking was unenforcable, and invalid, in hopes of setting the witness free.  But the US government continued prosecution and the man was found guilty and given 97 months in prison for it.  Other examples of overcriminalization include a man who was sentenced to two years for not putting a "ground shipping" sticker on a package. The moral is that there are over 5 thousand ways to commit a federal crime, and the greatest criminal experts in the country don't even know all of them.  If they don't know them, how are citizens expected to know them?  The consensus of the witnesses was that there needs to be specific "mens rea" or intent requirements for federal crimes, and ALSO that the united states should not enforce rules and laws of agencies or other countries.  Federal crimes and the legal code should be decided by congress, because that's what they were elected to do.

 

-national forum against youth violence/isiah thomas/etc..

The office of justice programs convened a national forum on youth violence last week.  Representatives came from Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Memphis, San Jose, and Salinas. Salinas may sound random but they actually have a pretty big gang problem apparently.  So these six cities are working towards larger programs for youth violence prevention, and the department of justice has been working alongside them to help them implement programs and figure out what generally needs to be done to stop this.  Along with the delegation from Chicago, Isiah Thomas (basketball legend) came and participated. They are using him as an influential public figure both to influence kids and families, and to influence the community to get involved with the issue. I think it's a great idea.  Apparently  they are also working on getting several players from the Chicago bulls to participate as well. 

 

So the groups all did presentations on the current conditions in their cities.  Detroit and chicago have major problems with gangs and violence, and I don't think I care to spend a great deal of time in the urban areas in either of those cities.  Boston was not quite as bad, and neither was Memphis, although they do have their problems.  The biggest surprise was San Jose. Apparently it's like the fourth safest city with more than 500,000 people.  It's also supposed to be the tenth largest city in the united states.  I guess I never realized how safe it was because I have driven through a few areas there that didn't seem very safe at all.  But maybe looks are deceiving? So after the groups introduced themselves and the programs they were doing, there were workshops and guest speakers and panels about several different topics, but the main idea was "prevention, intervention, enforcement."

 

The forum was really eye-opening to the issues that are really out there.  The idea of high school age kids killing eachother is a pretty terrible thing.  In fact just a few weeks ago there was a huge drive-by shooting over on U-street and like four teenagers got killed. Its a terrible thing, and something that needs to be fixed somehow.  There shouldn't be places people just "can't go" because they are too dangerous, but i think just about every big city in the world has them. This is America though, and that doesn't really seem right to me.  Maybe there will always be ghettos, and there will always be violent and dangerous people in them... but if anything can be done to keep kids out of it, then maybe eventually there won't be anyone occupying it at all.

 

The last few weeks have been crazy, I can't believe I went this long without writing anything here in the old blog.  lets hope I don't forget anything that happened. I think the last time I wrote was medal of valor and that was a LONG time ago.  since then there have been several awesome things. 

 

One night we went with a bunch of friends to a nationals game.  It was great because we decided to just go and see if we could find tickets, and we got lucky and found tickets for five dollars each. They were cheap seats, high in the upper deck, but the nationals are so bad that they never get that big of a crowd anyways, so we were able to sit in like the tenth row.  It was a fun game, and after there were fireworks.  They were pretty weak compared to Giants fireworks, or even A's fireworks.  But it was still fun and fireworks are fireworks.

 

One night for family home evening we played ultimate frisbee on the lawn in front of the capital.  It was really fun, and definitely a cool thing to be able to say we've done.  Between the capital and the washington monument, surrounded by the smithsonian museums, we played frisbee. How many people can say that? I will find the pictures from it.

Medal of Valor Ceremony from last week

This was meant to be posted last week.  somehow it didn't.  so here it is.

Today was completely incredible.  and completely crazy.  The public serviceman medal of valor ceremony is put on every year by the office of justice programs in the department of justice, and my office does most of it.  So at ten this morning, 12 medal recipients and their families came in to our office and the festivities began.  first the assistant attorney general laurie robinson gave a speech, and then we took them on a tour of the capitol.  it was amazing spending time with these men and their families.  they were flown in from all over the country and had amazing stories. 

medal of valor recipients with assistant attorney general robinson, attorney general holder, and Vice President Biden

One of my favorite people I met was a firefighter from Boston (with a thick boston accent) who came with his parents, his mother in law, his wife and three sons.  While putting out a huge fire in a buildingran into flames to save other firefighters, and there was a backdraft and the roof caved in and he got second degree burns all over, but managed to make it out with his fellow firefighters.  There was a police officer from texas that was involved in a huge shootout, got shot in the face, and still managed to drag a wounded officer out of the fire, take her to the EMTs that were a safe distance away, then guide the swat team in to the fray.  Then there was a pair from Oklahoma who rescued hurricane victims.  One flew a helicopter so that it's base was under water, and the other hung on to it and went into the water after people.  There were several other amazing stories, and I was blown away by them.  I proof-read all of their biographies and their accounts of their experiences, so I knew all about them before they came.  It was really great to spend the day with all of them, getting to know their families and hearing their stories.  They were amazing people, and their families are so great.  I can't imagine how hard it is for them to let their husbands and fathers go to work doing such dangerous things everyday, and the recognition is long overdue. These men really are the salt of the earth, doing the hardest and most dangerous jobs for the smallest paychecks.  That amazes me, because I don't think I could do it. 

President Biden with Department of Justice Interns

 

There was one family that I got to spend more time with than the others, and it was the firefighter from Boston that I mentioned above.  His father was also a firefighter, and a great one, and he was the reason his son had chosen that path.  The father and mother are now in their mid-eighties, and trooped around DC all day with us.  The reason I got to spend more time with them was that they both have bad knees and I would always take them to find elevators instead of climbing all the crazy stair-cases in the elevators.  Then at the end of the tour the buses were far away because they can only pull so close to the capitol.  So I rode with them in the cab and pointed out different things along the way.  They had never been to DC before, so this trip was a once in a lifetime opportunity for them.  The son (who was recieving the award) and his wife kept apologizing for all the extra things we had to do to take care of their parents, but I was just glad that they got to come.  That kind of opportunity at that age is probably rare, and to get to see their son recieve that award was probably one of the greatest experiences of their lives.  And I got to be there for it. 

 

 

In the evening we went to the Medal of Valor Ceremony at the White House.  The Attorney General and Vice President both gave great speeches, and they were very heartfelt.  President Biden spoke candidly of the car accident that killed his wife and daughter, and would have killed his sons too if it weren't for firefighters who got them out of the car using the jaws of life. He is a great speaker, and it really set the tone for the rest of the ceremony.  After it was all over, and everyone had recieved their medals and plaques, he announced that he wanted to meet the families of all the recipients, and he was really friendly and even used peoples cell phones to make calls to the recipients family members that couldn't come. After all of that we got to meet him, and talk to him for a few minutes.  he was really friendly, and asked all of us about ourselves, where we're from and he even thanked us for our work.  We got a picture with him that i will have to put up on here later.

Attorney General Holder

After the ceremony and the reception (which had delicious food, btw) I hurried off to Arlington to get to Chess, which is playing at a cool little theater about ten minutes from the Pentagon City metro station.  I had found out it was playing the night before and really wanted to go, but the tickets online were seventy dollars.  Luckily kristy got involved and found that if you go an hour before and buy them, they are only thirty.  So we got to sit in the fourth row for less than half of what almost everyone else paid.  The play was great.  The music was incredible, the stage and sets were crazy and lit up all over the place, most of it felt like a Billy Idol meets Madonna music video.  But it was great, and I am glad I got to make it.  It was a great way to cap a fantastic day, probably the best I have had in DC yet.
 

gettysburg and fun things

The last few weeks have been awesome.  Over the weekend we had the chance to go to Gettysburg and walk around the battlefields and see some of the sights.  I jokingly said “I am at Gettysburg, famous for the uplifting scene in Remember the Titans, starring Denzel Washington.” But obviously I understand that it is famous for much more than that.  It was amazing walking around the battlefields, to places where real cannons had been show and real soldiers had stood and fallen.  It’s a really pretty place now, with monuments and statues marking every part of it.  We were shown the sights where the confederates won on the first day, and then where the Union turned the tide.  It was interesting to me that the greatest victories came to the side that was fighting from higher ground.  That seems so simple, but every so often a battle has to be fought uphill.  In Saving Private Ryan, the storming of Normandy in WWII was uphill, which is the reason behind the tremendous casualties the allied forces suffered.  In Glory, also starring Denzel, the battle of Fort Wagner is fought uphill, and turns out to be catastrophic to Matthew Broderick and his men.  So the lesson is that uphill battles rarely go well.

some friends at gettysburg

This picture is based on the Mormon and moroni overlooking the battlefield painting in the book of mormon

Reenacting my favorite scene from the Lion King, with Scott playing the role of simba.  it's necessary to do when you find a rock that looks like pride rock.

In the afternoon we went to Harpers Ferry, which was also a cool place.  It is famous for John Browns uprising, in which he and about twelve other men took over the armory and attempted to start an uprising that he hoped would spread to all the slaves in the south.  Unfortunately Robert E Lee and about a hundred marines came and put an end to the conflict, and Brown was hanged for treason.  Before any of that though, it had been a place that Thomas Jefferson called “one of the most stupendous scenes in nature.” Up high on the mountain side (or the hillside I guess...) there is an Old Catholic church, and a path that runs behind it leads to a cemetery that is about four hundred years old, and a rock called “Jefferson’s rock” which is where he stood with his daughter when he declared how beautiful the place was.  I took a picture from the exact place he stood on October 25, 1783.  The Appalachian Trail runs through that town as well. There are 307 people that actually live there in the town, which I would think would be scary, because it looks haunted, especially the church and the old graveyard. 

the view from jefferson rock.  "one of the most stupendous scenes in nature."

just some fellas

standing atop jefferson rock.

I am excited for the upcoming week because for one thing, I get to go to my first congressional hearing.  The hearing I am attending is about the second chance act, an act that deals with prisoners re-entering society at the end of their prison terms.  This particular act deals with criminal records being expunged for certain non-violent crimes.  This reminds me a little bit of Jean Val Jean in Les Mis, and how he can never get a job or successfully reenter society because the record that follows him.  When he ditches his old identity and starts anew he creates a great life for himself and is an important figure in the community.  I can see why this issue would be controversial, but I can see the value in it.  And anything that can be done to turn criminals and ex-convicts into better people instead of repeat-offenders is definitely something worth consideration.  I am excited to hear the testimonies of real experts as well as the arguments of members of the house. 

it's been a while.

I can’t believe I had let two weeks pass without writing anything on here.  They have been pretty eventful so let’s hope I can remember everything that happened.

On Monday (of last week) I started my internship.  The first day was full of administrative stuff, and getting to know everyone in the office.  Since Tuesday though I have been able to get involved and do a lot of different things.  My office has people that work closely with issues like juvenile justice, protecting children, gangs, aspects of law that I am pretty interested in.  On Wednesday I got to go to the national press club where Denzel Washington spoke at a press conference on behalf of the boys and girls club.  They have a new initiative to stop kids from dropping out of school, and the department of justice gave them forty million dollars to fund this program and these new efforts.  Denzel was great, he talked about his own experience at the Boys and Girls club, and the importance of education and helping kids stay in school.  They also announced the Boys and Girls club person of the year, and it was an eighteen year old girl from Arizona who had a rough life but Boys and Girls club helped her find a way out of all of that.  It was a great press conference, and it got me even more excited to do what I am doing here at this internship, and to be a part of this. 

 Over the weekend we went to Karaoke for my great friend Julie Allen's birthday. it was a great time, there were about twenty of us that went together and we filled the main room.  It was a little mexican restaurant/bar that also has spanish music to karaoke to.  I sang "hero" by enrique iglesias, and dedicated it to Julie for her birthday.  i think it turned our alright.  it was a really fun night, and we all got to see wild sides of eachother that we might not have known existed otherwise.

On Saturday I went to Eastern Market for breakfast, which was really fun and delicious. 

Tomorrow is the Public Safety Officer Medal of valor ceremony at the white house, and I have been assigned to do lots of things for it because our department is in charge of it.  I can't wait, it will be a really neat event.  I might get to meet Joe Biden and Atty General eric holder because they are going to be there.  Assistant Attorney General Laurie Robinson will be there too, but I met her on the second day of my internship.  She was walking in the building so I held the door for her and we talked all the way inside and up the elevator.  She is in charge of my entire building, so she is a pretty big deal.  And really nice.  It is really neat working around so many people that are so important to the government and to our country. But i should have lots to write after tomorrows events.  can't wait!

September 11, 2010

The last few days have been packed with cultural experiences.  Friday was one of the last days of Islamic Rammadan, as well as the day before September 11, so we thought it would be as great a time as ever to visit a Mosque and see what it’s like.   There has been a lot of controversy lately about Islam and the Mosque at ground zero, and I personally have never been to a mosque, so I was excited to experience one and see what it was all about. And they are open to visitors.  When we first got there we were a little hesitant, and walking into the Mosque itself felt like we were violating something.  It seemed so holy and reverent, and we looked and dressed differently than anyone else in there.  Eventually we went in and sat in the back of the room.  We watched the prayer service, which was very interesting. The sermon that followed the prayers was about love of God, families, and other people.  About praying and worshiping wherever you may be.

I was impressed with the dedication and solemnity of the services.  It reminded me of the way that members of our church treat the temple or the sacrament.  We go there to have spiritual experiences and to worship.  They do the same, in their own way.  After the sermon and prayers were over, the head of the Mosque invited us to sit down and talk.  We told him we were from BYU, and he already knew quite a bit about our church.  He asked us questions, and told us about how similar Christianity and Islam are.  It was a powerful experience for me.

Inside the Mosque.  I didn't take this picture, it was on google images.

The next day was September 11, so we went to the Pentagon Memorial.  We got there just as a prayer meeting was taking place.  There were prayers offered by leaders of several different churches and faiths, as well as short sermons.  There was a prayer for the armed forces, and for the victims of the terrorist attacks and their families that still suffer today. The rest of the prayers were for America, for the children, for families, and for religious leaders all across the country.  Some of the prayers were loud and evangelical, some were solemn and very reverent. The one thing that they all had in common was that they were all faithful petitions to the same God. 

September eleventh was a terrible day, and no one will ever forget it. But any terrorist should know that America will always rise above any tragedy and any adversity it meets. If there is anything that I learned this weekend, it is that faith can be powerful no matter what church you go to, or what religion you believe in. Obviously there is a straight and narrow path, and not everyone is on it. But there sure are a lot of people doing their best to find it and move in the right direction, which is a powerful thing. Osama and the terrorists were not able to take that away from us, and as long as we have that, we are strong.