Another Article Published

I’m back home in the delightfully mild Californian winter, and my last article was just published in the Bakersfield Californian and Contra Costa Times — with hopefully more to come.

The article is about the “Mobile Resolution.” Mobile is actually an acronym made by freshman representative Eric Swalwell from the East Bay. He’s only 32 — the youngest from the California Delegation, and hoping to incorporate communications tech into congress.

You can read it here (in my hometown paper): http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_24724543/congress-remote-voting-sought-ease-coast-coast-commute?source=rss

Article Published

Over Thanksgiving weekend, a few different papers including the LA Daily News, Long Beach Press Telegram, Stockton Record, and the Chico Enterprise Record published my most recent article. I’m pretty excited, it took a while to research and write.

The article compares DC’s recently legalized medical marijuana program to California’s. You can read it here: http://www.presstelegram.com/health/20131129/washington-dc-and-california-have-differences-when-it-comes-to-medical-marijuana

I included this link to the article in the Long Beach Press Telegram because it sparked an 8 comment debate. Who comments on online news? I’m not sure, but I definitely admire the passion that some of these internet-crusaders use to type into their computer keys.

5 Things in New York City

New York City is nuts, in that whimsical, slightly-crazy-uncle-after-too-much-eggnog kind of way.

Click here for music to read to (Killa Kela – Everyday//Lifelike Remix)

Click here for a different song to read to (NY is Killing Me – Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie XX)

Legendary writer and journalist Tom Wolfe once wrote that, “One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.” I unwillingly agree.

Here are 5 things about my weekend in the capital of the world, New York City.

1. Dollar Slice Pizza – Yes, it’s a dollar. Yes, it’s open until at least 4am. Yes, it’s true that if you only eat dollar slice pizza and beer for an entire weekend you won’t feel so hot come Monday morning.

2. Skyscrapers – They’re huge. The top of the Empire State Building was lit up in red and blue in tribute to the Tsunami victims in the Philippines. The New World Trade Center was really impressive and nearly complete. Shout out to the Bank of America Tower as well.

3. Times Square – Walking through one of the busiest city-centers in the world felt like dunking my head in a room full of 11 year old boys with ADD each with two cans of Red Bull and a clenched hand of bouncy balls.

Giant TV’s. Advertisements. Broadway. Live music. Street performers. Beggars. Tourists. More massive TV screens. More advertisements. I have never before been so simultaneously awe-inspired and overwhelmed.

“A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times: It is a beautiful catastrophe.” Le Corbusier

4. People – Shitloads of ’em. A lot of them tried to sell me a lot of stuff that i didn’t want. A lot of them were surprisingly nice. A lot of them seemed like they were busy and exhausted and didn’t have time for me.

“My favorite thing about New York is the people, because I think they’re misunderstood. I don’t think people realize how kind New York people are.” Bill Murray

5. The Met – Because where else can you see everything from Henry the eighth’s belly-conforming armor to works by Picasso and Washington crossing the Delaware River?

“But if I had to choose a single destination where I’d be held captive for the rest of my time in New York, I’d choose the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Tim Gunn

New York is American as it gets — both the good and the bad. It’s the capital of the world, the most internationally diverse city in the US, a frenzied mess of organized chaos. New York City, at the same time, is a gorgeous display of America’s success as an international melting pot.

The city really doesn’t sleep and it definitely doesn’t cuddle either. But that was one of refreshing things about the city — no facade, no fake veneer of store-bought comfort. Instead it’s comforting in the way the city is so painfully honest and gritty.

“Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud. No other city is so spitefully incoherent.” James Baldwin

If DC is the brain and sometimes feeble mind of the US, NYC is the beating heart and callused hands. New Jersey is still the armpit. Don’t ask me about Florida or Texas.

“This Town” Author Mark Liebovich Visits UCDC

This Town: Two parties, a funeral, plus plenty of valet parking in America’s gilded capital is an insider-journalist’s feather-ruffling look behind the political curtains and into the questionable dressing room of Washington DC politics.

Written by New York Times Magazine political journalist, Mark Liebovich, the story follows the various politicians, media players, lobbyists and eccentric characters that make the city run like a bike with flat tires. Liebovich recalls anecdotes from his experience over the last few years in his prestigious position — ranging from visiting John McCain’s Arizona home to watching Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “kiss ass” after Obama’s 2008 presidential victory. Controversial portrayals in this book made quite a few people upset, and as a journalist, this made Liebovich pretty happy.

The Town tells a story that’s interesting, entertaining, and sometimes alarming. Reading about the lengths that some politicians and elected officials will go to ‘politic’ or get themselves on TV, is gag-inducing. Yet they’re still considered public servants, of course. Liebovich admitted that he originally wanted to title the book “Suck up City.” It’s no surprise why that title fits.

Liebovich visited one of the UCDC media & politics seminars, and answered our questions like William Shatner at a Star Trek convention.

Liebovich has one of the most coveted positions in American journalism — a job with the New York Times. With a publication like The Times, you sit in a position where people actually call you for stories. That’s huge.

Then again, some critics say that journalists with that type of influence, who write books like “This Town,” are in fact hypocrites when they attempt to critique the political-media system that they are a pillar of.

Regardless, the book is a great read, and being able to interact with an author and journalist of that caliber in a class room of 20 students was an experience journalism interns don’t usually find on Thursday nights, sitting a few feet away from their dorm room. in addition to Thursday night happy hour deals, it’s one of the highlights of the UCDC experience.

Here is a NYT book review of This Town: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/books/review/this-town-by-mark-leibovich.html?_r=0

Here is Mark Liebovich on The Daily Show: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-july-29-2013/mark-leibovich

Update & New York Bound

Tomorrow morning, I’ll board the Deluxe Bus and head to New York for the weekend. I’m pretty excited to say the least.

I’ve been working on two articles for the California News Service– one about a proposed “mobile congress” & possible solutions to shortcut the exhausting, 9 hour commute that Californian representatives endure nearly every weekend. Representatives and their communications directors haven’t been responding lately so it makes my job kind of challenging. That being said, I’ve been able to meet, interview, and speak with quite a few representatives — so that’s been fun.

On top of that article, I’m writing another story about medical marijuana in Washington D.C.. DC’s medical marijuana program sits in the shadows of the capitol, reflecting the Obama administration’s ambiguous attitudes toward drug laws in addition to the discrepancies inherent between federal and state laws. I’ll compare California’s ‘relaxed’ ouch-I-stubbed-my-toe-give-me-a-doobie medical marijuana laws with DC’s incredibly rigid, stuffy, must-be-dying medical marijuana counterpart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMtN7VwHlps

The Pentagon was Underwhelming

Last week, UCDC went on a group trip to the Pentagon. I hate to say it — but It was kind of underwhelming compared to the other day trips and museums available in DC.

I was expecting to catch a glimpse of a spaceship, a transformer, or maybe a casual Jason Bourne encounter, but I expected too much. After all, to gain security clearance for this tour we had to submit  our social security, driver’s license and passport numbers to the Pentagon all the way back in September. I felt like my expectations were reasonable.

Our tour guide, a 19 year old Marine from Georgia, made several awkward, I-just-rehearsed-these-in-front-of-the-mirror jokes. Imagine Kenneth from 30 Rock but in a US Marine uniform.

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In between his nervous banter he pointed out several highlights, which included a 300 yard hallway and a Pentagon-exclusive Best Buy.

The Pentagon, like most military bases, has a full-functioning food court and a mall for the thousands of employees that work there. The tour guide told us that the mall was for convenience, but I don’t understand the necessity of having XBOX 360’s conveniently located one 300 yard hallway away from your office. Then again, I do not work for the Pentagon, and I clearly do not understand the high-level decision making process of our country’s defense department.

Some notable points of the trip were the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes, where the Medal of Honor and other high-level military recognitions and ceremonies take place, and a hot dog stand in the interior court yard that Soviet spies once believed was an entrance to a secret underground Cold War meeting place. However, Soviets still debate the function of Costco food courts and their $1.50 hot dog deal.

But on a more somber note, the 9/11 memorials, both inside and outside the Pentagon, proved to be the most memorable parts of the visit. Dozens of innocent people died — both in the plane that crashed and those in the building where the plane crashed — and the Pentagon’s memorials do a nice job of capturing the magnitude of the September 11th Pentagon tradgedy.

Kidnappings, Interviews, and a Midway Update

Last night I went to see Delorean  — an alternative dance-rock band from Barcelona that sounds like summertime.

Apparently they were recently kidnapped in Mexico, so they canceled several upcoming shows with their DC appearance being one of them. Don’t worry mom, I got my $15 completely refunded.

A few hours before that, I had a phone interview with a Congressman from southern California. He generously answered my questions with a New York accent in between bites of cupcake.

The day before that, I had an interview with another Congressman from central California in his office — a rare opportunity for an intern. He yawned and told me the commute between DC and California wasn’t terrible. The dark circles under his eyes told me otherwise.

Both of these interviews were part of a bigger story I’m working on about California’s 14 freshmen representatives. 14 reps is more than the entire delegation of most states in the US – and Nancy Pelosi considers these new guys to be “fresh eyes” in the firestorm of DC.  Many of them come from multiple terms in CA state government, but I’m exploring the transition of moving from an 80 member state legislature to a 435 member federal legislature. Big fish in a much bigger pond.

This week is the halfway point. I started applying for jobs in both DC and NY, the leaves are starting to change color, and I’m looking forward to visiting the Smithsonian Museums now that the shut down is finally over.

Here’s a link to a weird music video for an up and coming producer named “Chrome Sparks.” I like the song — it sounds like a sad robot and a synthesizer from the 80’s got sent into space and recorded their trip in the key of A minor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIFlhzdILMc

Not so Sunny in Philadelphia

 When I think of Philadelphia, I think of four things: Philly Cheese Steaks, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, something about the birthplace of our country, and West Philadelphia’s pride and joy, Will Smith. 

So we stuffed five guys in my roommate’s Ford Fiesta, put on some Usher, and made the 2.5 hour drive from DC to Philadelphia. On the way up, there was about $20 worth in trolls. I meant tolls. But for the sake of the story, let’s imagine that the road was littered with $20 worth of trolls. 

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It turned out that It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is mainly filmed in L.A. So number one on my list of four was cut, leaving three. 

We began our visit by accidentally driving through Philadelphia, out of our country’s womb, over a bridge, and into New Jersey, the armpit of America. We made a quick detour through Rutgers-area, which wasn’t terrible. Far from Princeton, not far enough from the Jersey Shore.

The American Hall of Independence, where both the American Constitution and Declaration of Independence were conceived, written, and signed, was closed. Then it started to rain. List of three now cut to two.

Then I saw the Liberty Bell. It has a crack in it and the building that houses the bell was also closed. I considered the bell a bonus since it wasn’t even on my list. Two down to one. 

But luckily, we saved the best for last, and the void left by Will Smith’s absence was generously filled with a well-priced Philly Cheese Steak at Philly’s oldest bar, McGillin’s Olde Ale House. Built in 1860, Ben Franklin might not have eaten there, but I’m sure some of his offspring did. And for that, I am happy to have spent six dollars sharing a delicious, cholesterol-filled moment with the descendants of our nation’s founding fathers. 

The Eagles game was on, and I’m sure that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were huge Eagles fans. So that was cool.

Philadelphia, maybe I would’ve enjoyed the tourist fruits of your historical labor more on the organized trip, but I think overall —  I’m glad our capitol moved to D.C.. 

The Newseum – DC’s Glass Case of Emotion

I went to the Newseum. Fo’ Free. Little did I know that my seemingly innocent class field trip would turn into a four hour emotional roller coaster in the theme park of my aspiring career field. 

Every UC Davis – UCDC participant takes two courses during the program. I am taking a foreign policy seminar in addition to a class about media in Washington. This past wednesday, our media class visited DC’s Newseum – a six story shrine dedicated to both the history and future of the news.

We began in the hall of death, deceptively named the “Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery.” While the photos themselves were the epitome of provocative and poignant, they all shared the common themes of death, war, and destruction. The pictures weren’t pictures, but visual stories that could reduce the burliest of bearded lumberjacks to tears and quiet self-introspection.

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Needless to say, I summoned my inner-Ron Swanson and left virtually unaffected because of my unprecedented stoicism and dangerously high levels of masculinity. Kind of.

After leaving poignant-palooza 2013, I checked out the Berlin Wall exhibit. In addition to an actual section of the Berlin Wall, the Newseum had a whole guard tower that you can walk into. Pictures and exhibits can paint pretty engaging historical portraits – but walking into an East-West Berlin guard tower strikes a different chord altogether.

Then you can go see a replica shoe-bomb and the actual cabin where Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber lived. Hooray!

Then we walked up to the third floor, luckily some Colbert Report clips cheered us up right before the 9/11 exhibit.  A mangled section of the 360-foot antenna that used to crown the top of World Trade Center One sits encircled by the morning’s timeline. Behind the antenna, September 11th front pages from all around the world frame the media coverage of the infamous terrorist attack.

Sentimental Sidenote – The Newseum doesn’t just cover news or history, but defining moments in our history. September 11th made a permanent dent in my generation’s history just like JFK’s assassination, the Vietnam War, or Watergate defined previous periods. I remember watching the second plane crash. I remember watching people, left with the option of burning alive or jumping, free-fall down dozens of stories. I remember being ten years old and not knowing how to remember it at all. This exhibit helps construct a way to remember an event so sadly incomprehensible, and while it might hurt to remember, the tragedy of September 11th is now engrained in our shared American history just like Apple Pie and Baseball.

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Moving on, we passed an exhibit under construction that will be dedicated to Will Ferrel’s triumphant cinematic masterpiece, Anchorman.

Upstairs there’s a wall dedicated to journalists like Daniel Pearl who gave their lives to the pursuit of the news.

Nearby, there’s a hall of front pages dating back to the beginnings of print news. With front pages from the Revolutionary War to D-Day to the recent Arab Spring, the exhibit demonstrates the honest truth within the saying “the news is the first page of history.”

Finally, on the last loop-de-loop of the emotional roller coaster, there’s another hall with the day’s front pages from around the world. A few feet away, there’s a view of the Capitol building.

I buried my emotion in a foot-long meatball sub from Subway. Who knew sadness tasted like Marinara sauce and Mozzarella?

Article Published

My co-intern (Brana) and I researched the shut out of the shut down and wrote this article, along with our editor. We spoke to California’s Republican representatives, local party rep’s, political science professors, and a bunch of staffers in an attempt to learn more about congressional GOP constituents and the state of the budget stalemate in the country’s west coast. While enjoying it might be a stretch, we hope you learn something from our article.

You can read it here:

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/countyelections/ci_24298008/states-congressional-gop-contingent-stands-firm-budget-stalemate?source=rss&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter