Contemporary Issues

Every year Coe hosts its annual Contemporary Issues Forum. This year the speaker was Jared Diamond, an evolutionary biologist, professor of physiology and geology and Pullitzer-prize wining author of the books Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. His talk chronicled the history of failed societies and he tried making a parallel to past societies who have outspent their resources and our world society doing the same today.
After his lecture there was a question/answer time where he requested that only people under the age of 30 ask questions because it was going to be us who has to deal with this problem. I even managed to get a question in about global governance (my mind never stops thinking of things in terms of political science!)
After the lecture and question/answer there was a reception for students and faculty to meet Prof. Diamond. Not too many students took advantage of this opportunity so myself about about 15 other students had much access to him and hung out and discussed the environment, politics, ecology and biology with a world-class scholar over some light snacks. Not a bad night.

More Inaguration...

So as promised, here are just a few more pictures of my trip to Washington for the inauguration. I have a couple hundred pictures, but these are just some of the highlights.On the day of the inauguration I stayed at a friend's house on Capitol Hill, within walking distance of the Capitol where the inauguration takes place. I woke up at 5:00 a.m., dressed in many layers, and started the 2 mile walk to where I would watch the inauguration. The picture above is when I reached my destination to wait in line for my designated area. It was about 6:00 and already thousands of people were around waiting for the event that started at 2:00.
Once I finally got onto the mall around 8:00, there were already thousands of people there. I got a pretty good spot because I had a ticket, which got me closer, but still not that close. If you are familiar with the Capitol, I managed to stand right behind the steps by the small reflection pool in front of the Capitol. I read the next day that they estimated that there were about 1.8 million people standing on the mall that day.
This was my view... I couldn't really see what was going on, but luckily out of the picture on the left is a jumbotron and I was standing right next the giant PA speakers that were set up all over so I had a good idea of what was going on.
This is me after the ceremony was complete. Some people ventured out onto the frozen reflection pool to get a better look, but I wasn't quite so foolish.
After the ceremony was over, the Iowa delegation of Congressmen held a reception for all us Iowans in town. This is with my representative from Iowa's second district, Rep. Dave Loebsack. Rep. Loebsack is the one who got me the ticket to the inauguration, so I thought I should get a picture with him.

After the reception I fought my way onto the Metro (subway) and headed back to my hotel. I got back in my room around 5:00 (exactly 12 hours after I had woken up). I was exhausted, but we had a new president, of course I went out to celebrate!

Do you believe in miracles?

This weekend I did my "job" of commentating a basketball mens and womens double header. I love going to every home game and feeling like I'm really part of the action. Both teams have struggled some this year, so when they both won Saturday I was really excited. The women won big and the men won on a last second shot. My boss thought the clip was cool, or he just wanted to laugh at me, but regardless, he posted it on youtube. I'm the one yelling when Tatman hits the shot and also the one calling him a hero.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOQm0MD0Rx8