Taking Advantage of DC

Recently in a five day period (including the weekend) I attended talks at the Wilson Center and the American Foreign Service Association and visited the National Gallery of Art and Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I have finally begun taking advantage of the city. Yes Mom and Dad, I did my schoolwork too.

First the talks. I didn't know what to expect when I showed up at the Wilson Center. The topic for the panel was - Arab Spring or Arab Autumn: Women's Political Participation in the Arab Uprisings and Beyond. I didn't know how many people were going to be at the talk was going to be, if I was going to have to say anything, who was going to be there, etc. All I knew is that the general topic sounded interesting and I may be able to make some new connections. When I showed up I went through the usual rigmarole of entering a federal building - send my bag through the x-ray, walk through the metal detector, and show the security guard what shoes I'm wearing since they probably set-off the metal detector. I then followed the crowd upstairs and took a seat in the auditorium. At this point I could tell that I wasn't going to have to talk unless I really wanted to - there was at least 50 people.

photo courtesy of Wilson Center

The discussion lasted about an hour and a half and was fascinating. At least I thought it was. There were three women who sat up front and talked about what their various organizations had done and were doing to work with women in the Middle East. They also debated on how active women currently are in the countries - which surprisingly varied. It mostly varied due to the differing definitions of political action. Some argued that any activity in the political, economic or domestic sectors qualified while others focused specifically on activity in parliament or government. There was also some discussion on what can be done or will be most effective to continue moving the countries toward gender equality. Again I was surprised at the varying opinions within the group. I guess I expected it to be a more uniform consensus that there needs to be a bigger push to get women into the parliamentary system. Thinking back on it though I guess it's good there is not consensus, this way it is more likely that the cultural values of the nations will be taken into consideration instead of pushing the western ideals (with good intentions obviously).

Then the talk at the American Foreign Service Association. I found out about this lunch through the Trojan network. USC is looking like a better and better school for me to have done my undergrad school work. They brought Joie Chen to AFSA to talk about Al-Jazeera America. Again I really didn't know what to expect when I arrived at AFSA and I knew even less about Al-Jazeera America as a television station. Sure, I had looked at it online but beyond being a news station that does more long form reporting I wasn't sure what made it so unique.

Ms. Chen was very engaging and obviously excited about the station. Al-Jazeera America is technically a part of the greater Al-Jazeera enterprise around the world, but there is apparently a very strong firewall between Al-Jazeera in Qatar and Al-Jazeera America. I'm sure there is some communication among the higher ups, but Ms. Chen has been allowed to produce programming that goes against the corporate greed practice of short and quick blurbs on whatever the station thinks will get the most viewers. In fact, she said they have a "No Bieber" zone policy. Definitely something I can support. She anchors their flagship show America Tonight that presents four to six stories in a given night (instead of the ten presented during a 30 minutes standard news show). Personally I like this idea since it gives more in depth coverage instead of attempting to make a rush judgment on an idea in 90 seconds. I'll get my short form coverage from the entertainment of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

This is long enough for now. I'll put down my thoughts on the museums later.