DC Central Kitchen

Through her community service sorority Epsilon Sigma Alpha, my girlfriend Marissa has been involved with the DC Central Kitchen, a local community organization that combats hunger in Washington by training the homeless and impoverished in the culinary arts. Now in its twentieth year of existence, DCCK has become a community staple and has helped feed the hungry and turn around lives.

Marissa recently put together this wonderful slideshow to offer a glimpse inside the kitchen and into the lives that help bring it to life everyday: http://home.gwu.edu/~mbialeck/DCCKslideshowfinal/publish_to_web/

DRUGS

Now that I have your attention, please join us for third Enosinian Society debate of the 2009 Spring semester on Wednesday, February 25th at 8:00 pm at The Honors Building, 714 21st St, to debate

Resolved: The "War on Drugs" is ineffective.

Proposition: Michael Herman
Opposition: Steven Glinert

In 1971, Richard Nixon declared "War on Drugs" in an attempt to reduce illegal drug trade and curb the supply, use, and demand for illegal psychoactive substances. The War on Drugs, led by the United States and including other countries involved in illegal drug trafficking, is a military, political and education effort that seeks to control substances deemed dangerous and undesirable. Each year the Drug Enforcement Agency seizes millions of pounds of illegal drugs, collaborates with countries to bring down drug producers and smugglers, and protects the US population from the dangerous societal and personal side-effects of illegal drugs. However, many see the War on Drugs not only as an illegal form of prohibition and an usurpation of states' rights to control interstate commerce, but also as a policy that exacerbates the vicious cycle of poverty perpetuating an underclass through harsh anti-drug punishments. Perhaps the War on Drugs is a government policy actively making our country safer, but is it effective? Is the War on Drugs mentality of "good versus evil" and "just say no" too simplistic for such a complex issue? Should certain drugs be decriminalized and charges lessened for drug related offenses? Or would scaling back the War on Drugs open the door to a stronger drug market, easier access to money for non-state actors, and more violent crime? With its $40 billion price tag, the War on Drugs deserves a thorough analysis of whether it truly protects those vulnerable to exploitative qualities of drugs or whether it wastes time and money.

Join us for a heated debate the merits and weaknesses of the War on Drugs.

And while this "policy paper" may come back to bite me sometime in the future (just deal with my unfounded paranoia of supplying my own opposition research), here's a snippet of my remarks from the February 18 debate on nuclear weapons. I debated for the proposition (but would have felt a bit more comfortable on the other side):

"Witness the first serious flaw in the deterrence argument. Deterrence depends on a delicate balance of technological prowess between actors, a balance which, if disrupted, could easily neutralize the second-strike capability of one actor and enhance the first-strike capability of the other. Deterrence depends on a constant symmetry of capabilities, which in turn requires a constant arms race. As we’ve seen, arms races are very costly affairs for which societies bear the burden. States’ resources are being poured into expensive weapons systems and defense projects, crowding out investment in other sectors. And if one actor falls behind the other so as to render their second-strike capability moot, the aggressor could launch a nuclear attack with impunity, safe in the knowledge that it could prevent sustaining a nuclear response. And as the United States enters the new century as the sole world superpower, we stand on the verge of obtaining nuclear primacy, in that we may soon possess the ability to launch a full-scale nuclear attack while destroying the second-strike capability of other nuclear powers. This scenario challenges the logic of deterrence."

"A University Close to the White House Hails the New Chief"

Jeffery Young of the Chronice of Higher Education covered the GW Inaugural Ball in January and interviewed me as well as fellow Colonial Tobin Van Ostern who worked with the Obama campaign as National Deputy Director of SFBO.

Young identified me as a sophomore, not a junior, but other than that the article is well done.

Link here.

"They voted no, but they want the dough".

This reminds me of when I was a kid and my mom would insist on cooking something for dinner that I had no desire to eat. I'd stamp my feet on the ground, demand she cook something else, and refused to compromise. I even boycotted dinner. And then after dinner was served and the whole family ate without me, I started feeling rumbles in my tummy. I always came crawling back for food.

Politico's Glenn Thrush reports:

They voted no, but they want the dough.

We're getting into broken record territory here on Republicans clamoring for stimulus money.

Nine GOP House members from Florida, all stimulus no's, joined nine of their Democratic colleagues, all yesses, in asking the feds to grant a waiver giving them access to, you guessed it, hundreds of millions in state stabilization stimulus cash.

“This critical funding is vital to protecting our schools from budget cuts and teacher layoffs. Because Florida has been hit especially hard by a rise in foreclosures, unemployment, and recent natural disasters, we are experiencing a crippling budget crisis. Now more than ever, we must invest in our state’s future,” said the letter.

"Now more than ever, we must invest in our state's future."

Because it wasn't worth investing in last week. Way to stick to your principles.

A Timeless Classic

Please join The Enosinian Society for our second debate of the 2009 Spring semester on Wednesday, February 18th at 8:00 pm at The Honors Building, 714 21st St, to debate

Resolved: The world should be free of nuclear weapons

Proposition: Eshawn Rawlley
Opposition: Sheng Zhou

Nuclear weapons have been deployed just twice in times of war. Despite this, the development and production of nuclear warheads continued and for much of Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in an arms race for nuclear superiority. Today, eight countries possess nuclear weapons and despite the efforts of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency to reduce the threat of nuclear weaponry, the number of warheads now stands at an estimated 28,000, many of which are unsecured or unaccounted for. While some insist that these weapons of mass destruction are the greatest threat to mankind and must be destroyed, others contend that the very same threat is a vital deterrent to both conventional and nuclear war. Are nuclear weapons too destructive to exist in the hands of man? Or does the total destructive nature of these weapons ensure a peaceful détente?

Yes, I will be stepping down from the Speaker's chair for this debate. I would have loved to make the opposition argument but I deferred to my esteemed opponent. This should be a doozy!

The Party That Picked Sarah Palin...

...had the balls to put this out:



Hat tip to Greg at DCCC.