Mr. Scott goes to Washington - Act Two, Scene Six: "Minister Goodale, I presume?"

Here (only a few days later than promised) is my next update. Brace yourselves - she's huge.

Friday I spent all day at a tax policy conference at the Brookings Institution. That's right, from 8.30 in the morning until 5.15 at night I was listening to people talk about reforming the American tax system! And, bonus, they even had a speaker during lunch, so we didn't have to miss out while we were eating!

I'm pretty sure it was the longest day I will ever have in my entire life.

Of course, it wasn't all bad. I did learn some interesting stuff about the American income tax system that I didn't know, and gained some valuable (although probably impractical) knowledge about consumption and flat tax regimes. Also, the lunch was fairly good, and included an array of gigantic soft cookies. There's always a silver lining. And Friday night turned out to be the greatest night I've had so far...

Now, the Secretary-General of the OECD is retiring, and on Friday night the embassy held a reception in his honour. Thankfully our supervisor managed to swing invites for the interns in our section, so we had the amazing opportunity to go and rub elbows with some of the movers and shakers in attendance. One of the secretaries from our section recruited a few of us to help escort the dignitaries up to the reception area on the 6th floor and back down again, so that nobody was walking around the embassy unattended. That gave me an opportunity to chat, briefly, with a number of dignitaries and bureaucrats who had come.

Specifically, I got to meet Ralph Goodale (Canadian Minister of Finance), the Ambassador from New Zealand, the Deputy Director of CIDA, and the retiring Secretary-General himself. I also saw David Dodge (Governor of the Bank of Canada), although he left before I had a chance to say hello, and the British Ambassador - who arrived in a chauffered Rolls Royce. Obviously, I was quite impressed.

On Saturday there was a gigantic anti-war protest scheduled to take place all over the city, including a march all around from the Washington Monument past the White House and down to the Capitol. I agreed to go, if only to see first-hand what such a massive demonstration (likely 100,000 plus) would look like. My plan, of course, was to act strictly as an observer, lest my presence be construed as support for the various protest groups present.

Anyway, long story short, we ended up marching with the protest up to the White House, which was a truly amazing experience. Granted, I don't think I've ever been more uncomfortable in my life (there was a period where we were stuck between a horde of Communists on one side, and a bunch of people waving the Palestinian flag on the other - talk about a rock and a hard place for me...) but I'm so glad I went.

I also got into the spirit of things a bit: at one point there were some older women singing "If I had a Hammer," and I couldn't help but join in. There were more than a few times though, when I just wanted to tell the protesters to wake up and smell the real world, or to go get jobs, or something. Especially the stereotypically creepy unibrowed Bolshevik who tried to sell me his workers' propaganda newsletter.

People were chanting some absurd things, and were carrying signs that were completely ridiculous, and I can't help but feel that if I had access to a megaphone I could have blown all of their minds. Of course, if I had made my comments to anyone other than my friends I probably would have been physically trampled by the moral majority, heh. As it was, I think I may have irrevocably alienated Marie, who, as I may have mentioned before, is a lovable hippie from the plains.

Anyway, there were a lot of awesome signs, photos of which I tried to attach below without success. I'm thinking about setting up an online photo album to showcase the photographic evidence of all these adventures.

Carrying on, my dear friend Tekla drove down from Kingston with a small cadre of anarchists to join in the protests. These anarchists were so intense that they attended a fringe protest rather than attending the mainstream one. Luckily Tekla chose to strike out on her own, so she and I met up after the protest and spent the evening together. I showed her Kramerbooks, the amazing bookstore I keep ranting about, then we went for dinner. After dinner we went to see Just Like Heaven, entirely at her insistence. Tekla was eager to be mentioned in the blog, so eager in fact that she urged me to write this entry quicky in what was an embarrassingly abrupt Anonymous comment on Scene 5. Hopefully this paragraph will placate her.

On Sunday I had planned on going to the Holocaust Museum, but ended up doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. Well, I did some homework, had a nap, and then watched Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy. It was glorious - a perfect Sunday.

Monday morning we went on a tour of the OAS, which has one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen. And having wandered around Washington for a few weeks, that's saying something. I won't bore you with all the lavish details, but inside was a tropical rainforest courtyard complete with a rare pink marble fountain and an exotic fig/rubber tree hybrid presented by President Taft as a symbol of peace in 1910. Elliot - It's amazing how much of Taft's legacy is out there to be discovered. Of course, it's nice to know that he's remembered for something other than his enduring Presidential taco-eating record...

While at the OAS we listened to a speaker who outlined the work of the OAS, and gave us some information about the negotiations surrounding the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). It was pretty interesting stuff. We had a couple of hours to kill before our afternoon speaker, so Claire and Kristina and I went for lunch, where we met up with our friend Patrick and his friend Blake. The five of us wandered around for a little bit, and actually made it back over to the White House where there were still quite a few protesters hanging around. I reiterated my belief that they should get jobs, especially since it was 2.00 on a Monday afternoon, before we headed off to the Department of the Interior.

There, we heard a speech by the British Ambassador to the US (the same guy who had been at the embassy on Friday night). While the majority of people seemed unimpressed, I really enjoyed his speech, talking about British foreign policy direction and their plans. I also took a good deal of pleasure in the fact that he took the time to speak favourably about Margaret Thatcher's legacy despite being a Labour appointee. Then Friday night we had class, as always. Again, we were let out early and I made it home to watch Prison Break.

The rest of the week I'll cover briefly, since it was mostly routine work, interspersed with moments of pure hilarity, including a disproportionate amount of laughter involving the Golden Girls... long story.

Tuesday was a standard day at the Embassy. I spent the morning finishing up my report I'd started the previous Thursday on my metro transit safety hearing. In the afternoon I began my report on Friday's tax policy forum for our Finance counsellor.

Yesterday I continued my report on the tax policy forum, before attending a Congressional Human Rights Caucus briefing on corporate social responsibility around the world, and how the government should act to promote it which took most of the afternoon.

Today I finished my report on the tax-policy conference (I know it seemed to take a long time, but you try condensing 8 hours of talking from 15 speakers into a concise, readable report), and then wrote my report on the Human Rights briefing. Oh, we also had the opportunity to attend a fancy lunch being put on for some investment conference that the embassy was sponsoring, since they had ordered too many meals. The food was pretty good (steak & salmon - Uncle David, I ate the salmon. You must be proud. Of course, it was covered in a delicious cream sauce and didn't taste like fish...) We had a really interesting speaker who gave an amazingly (and unabashedly) pro-Canadian speech, which I really enjoyed. We also got free copies of his book about Canadian business acumen on the way out, which was an added bonus.

And just like that we're up to date! I'm going to take this last two minutes of your time offer "props" (wow, I'm so white) to Mrs. Marchant for integrating so well into the excellent West Wing cast photo she sent to Claire, which is now prominently displayed in the embassy.