Better Weather

It was gorgeous in Washington this weekend. It may not have been an especially long winter, but it was intense. Yesterday, I took a look at my boots for the first time since the snow stopped falling. They were brand new in January, and yet they already know what it is to be weathered, creases already in the leather, watermarked for life by the blizzard of 2010. It's raining again today, but the weekend, at least, was gorgeous.

So I took a walk on Saturday because it was perfect out. Perfect to soak up the sun, enjoy the greenery, see the monuments. And perfect to party. Tea party.

It was just funny at first. I'm not sure I'd ever met a real life teabagger before, and it was ticklish to see that they all seemed to live up to the caricature. Outlandish homemade signs. A woman lying on the ground yelling, "Pelosi, go home back to your Soviet Union." Harmless, really, and not too different from the people in Dupont Circle who were throwing their shoes at a giant blow-up doll of George Bush the day before the Inauguration.

But then I walked around to the other side of the Capitol, where several hundred, maybe even a thousand, teabaggers were lining up around the steps of the House. They were trying to form a human wall, they said, around the congresspeople inside, either to confront them when they tried to enter the House or to be close enough that their loud yelling--and there was a lot of yelling and it was very loud--would disrupt proceedings inside the building.

My immediate reaction was one of betrayal. That I was somehow helping their cause by simply being there, adding to the headcount, sitting on the other team's bench. I smiled to hide a smirk. I tried hard not to laugh at the misspelled signs. But then I realized it wasn't so funny.

The louder the yelling got, and the more sing-songy the chants, the more I felt the conspicuous absence of other people of color, and the conspicuous presence of me, not exactly looking like I fit in. I tried to weave in and out looking for good photos, but wherever I went, I was surrounded by a very large group of angry white people yelling whatever they were being told to yell. I think sometimes people call this a mob.

I know I wasn't remotely close to being in any kind of real danger. There were Capitol Police everywhere. And even if it plays to the stereotype, I can always whip out my "I'm not American" card and duck and cover. But it wasn't the idea of being the only minority in the crowd that got to me. It was the idea that, in another age, not really all that long ago, these were the kind of people that gathered in large groups and yelled something awfully similar to "Kill the bill!" And when you overhear them talking about the "illegals" that were also protesting this past weekend for immigration reform, and you see the less than subtle voodoo effigy, it's hard not to think that even today, if there were enough of them in a crowd, if they were angry enough and yelling loud enough, someone could get hurt much more than enough.

Maybe that's taking it too far because I'm not exactly predisposed to giving teabaggers the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that's because they don't deserve it. Or maybe they're just envious, because they saw the kind of crowds and the enthusiasm of the Obama campaign--however cheesy and bandwagony--and want something like that for themselves. So there they were, yelling. "Kill the bill!" "Vote no!"

I went back to the Capitol last night because after all that, I basically wanted to see them shut the hell up. A lot of people seemed to have the same idea--because, you know, liberals respect the process--so I had to wait in line for almost two hours to get into the House galleries. They were shuffling groups in for 15 minutes at a time, and someone must have been looking out for me, because I got shuffled in for the exact 15 minutes of the vote on the Senate bill.

The House chamber is a whole lot smaller and more intimate than it looks during the State of the Union, and when all the Representatives are on the floor yelling their yeas and nays in unison it has the feel of those old basketball gyms that literally rock when the crowd gets going. Much cooler than C-SPAN. When the yeas hit 216, and as they counted down to the end of the vote, the Democrats did their best impersonation of all of us naive young multiethnic immigrant pothead hippies on the campaign trail that the teabaggers hate so much.

"Yes we can," they chanted. Beats "Vote no" every time.

It was gorgeous in Washington this weekend.

HRC

(Alex Wong/Getty)

I didn't get in.  When they closed the doors there was one guy in front of me and that's it.  Echoes of a South Carolina night two (!) years ago, when we were the next batch of people they were going to let in to the Obama victory speech and they shut the gates.  This time, Capitol Policeman said everyone was there just to see her, really, so it was unlikely anyone who got in was going to leave.  But I had gotten up at seven-thirty for this, and someone was depending on me to watch this hearing, and I mean, it was Hillary.  The line before she arrived was so long that I didn't really see her when she walked in, but her voice traveled down the hall when she greeted whoever welcomed her at the door.

"Hey, how are you?"

Just like it sounded (on TV) on the campaign trail.

So I waited.  The intern in front of me did, too.  And 45 minutes later, Capitol Policeman points to us and says, "Two."  He waved us in the direction of an aide or page or whatever you call the congressional staff who mind the doors of committee hearing rooms, and she told us one seat was in the back, the other in the front.  Maybe the intern in front of me was shy, maybe he just understood House decorum better than me, but he walked to the back so I had no choice.  Front.  Very front.  Ten feet from Hillary front.

I sat down next to a State Department staffer who for the first few minutes kept glancing over at me.  I thought he was wondering what some random Asian kid in a sweater was doing sitting in Hillaryland.  After the hearing, he recognized me by the vending machines in the Rayburn cafeteria and told me he was glancing over at me because the Secret Service agent next to him had been glancing over at me.  Apparently it looks suspicious when you sit down ten feet from the Secretary of State with your hand hidden inside a thick winter coat you folded over your arm as you sat down.  Oops.

For the next two hours, and then two more hours at a smaller hearing in the afternoon, I watched Hillary demolish the field.  At first I thought the Democrats who fawned over her in their opening statements were probably just old superdelegates of hers, but when even the Republicans couldn't seem to help but praise her, it was clear she was smarter than all of them and they knew it.

For the Representatives, it was an easy day's work.  They had a couple prepared questions about one or two countries and didn't have to pay attention to anything any of their colleagues were saying (and they didn't: truly awe inspiring to watch congresspeople thumbing away on their Blackberries with the Secretary of State in attendance).  It was like that gameshow from a couple years ago where a hundred former winners take on one new contestant.

She beat them all.

It was incredible.  Like Wikipedia for world affairs was running in her head.  Iran.  Iraq.  Afghanistan.  Pakistan.  The obvious ones, of course.  But then Armenia and Turkey.  Cyprus.  Russia and China.  Yemen.  Yemen.  Yemen.  Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Western Sahara.  Bosnia and Kosovo.  Israel and Gaza and Israel.  Refugees and internally displaced.  Orphans from Haiti.  A USAID worker detained in Cuba, a new embassy in London.  It was like the only problem in the world she didn't mention was what I was there for, but to be fair, she wasn't asked about it.

These weren't even things she was supposed to be talking about.  She was supposed to be talking about the budget, about the money State is requesting for 2011.  Instead, all these politicians who never get any facetime with her wanted to be able to say they asked Hillary Clinton a sexy question about Iran and nuclear weapons or Yemen and the Christmas Day bomber.  Well at least they don't get to say they stumped her.  Because she destroyed them.

One Republican asked her why there was foreign aid going to China, of all places.  She said it was earmarked for American organizations working in China.  He said something like, "So you're saying Congress forced it upon you."

And she said, "Those are your words, Congressman."

Another Republican asked her why a press report he read suggested State was cutting funds for the Millennium Challenge Corporation.  She said, uh, no we're not, I'm the Chair of the Board of Directors of the MCC and if you read the freaking budget we sent you in advance, you would see we want to increase funding for it by 15 per cent.  Then the guy asks, so the press report wasn't accurate?

And she's like, "Congressman, I don't know why I would ever doubt the accuracy of a press report."

Everyone laughs.  Republican gets nailed.

I was pretty down in the summer of 2007, when the Obamachine had lost its startup excitement and Hillary was up 30 or 40 points.  And I was really up that night in South Carolina two years ago, when she and Bill's crazy, finger-jabbing rants got whooped 55-27.  She could have never matched the magic of election night and the Inauguration, and I don't think she'd be doing any better of a job than he's doing right now.

But in January 2017, there isn't anyone else I want to be taking the Oath of Office but Madame President Hillary Rodham Clinton.  I just hope she ages better than McCain has.

Snomfg

After the snow stopped falling on Saturday afternoon, the weekend felt like a theme park, like those winter wonderland sets they put up in malls in Hong Kong that are so over the top with the fake houses and trees and gazebos that are marshmallowing with whiteness. Only this had poofy white toycars, too. And it was, like, real.

My street.

Monday was nice. Sunny, people happy to have the day off, appreciating what little transportation was available.

Today, I'm not so sure. Not sunny, people kind of like, huh? I'm gonna have the whole week off?

Across from the Indian Embassy. I thought he looked a little cold.

Him not so much.

Yeah ok.

The snow is back. Four inches already tonight. Six to eight more on the way. Snoverkill, for sure. This is getting a little psycho.

Snomageddon

Snow.

There was a cop to the left who yelled at these guys to "stop throwing the fucking snowballs."

More snow.

Lots of snow.

豉油雞飯

Snopocalypse. Nothing to do but stay at home. And try something new.

I am no chef. I am the family dishwasher. But step by step, I am sloshing through the snow-covered path along my quest to be able to cook my 10 favorite dishes of all time.

#4: 豉油雞飯. I am awesome.

Kerala

Women on the beach in Varkala.

The people you meet when you travel alone in India.

On the train into Kerala, my cabinmates were two middle-aged Scotsmen who, not an hour into the trip, pulled out this bottle of Smirnoff as well as a steel water bottle that looked like mine only it poured out Scotch. Then one said to the other, “We’re going to a Communist, Muslim state! Bloody ’ell, can’t get much worse.” But they were clearly enamored with India, and they were joking, and it was kind of hilarious.

Then on the Kerala backwaters, I shared a houseboat with two Aussies who were self-proclaimed Socialist revolutionaries. They debated over popular misconceptions of Lenin and whether he really said all he needed was more power. The guy was reading a history of the Russian revolution. The girl was on her way to Delhi where she was going to stay with members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). They weren’t joking, and it was still kind of hilarious.

Finally finished the book while coming and going on a boat on a river. Awesome.

Another sunset, another moonrise.

After over 5,000 kilometres, spread across 14 train rides, 3 of them overnight, this was my last one. We had arrived at the station not knowing when the next train to Kochi was leaving, so I asked the guy in the ticket window when the next train to Kochi was leaving, and he pointed to the one at the platform that was just starting to move. I looked at the train, and back at the guy in the ticket window, and asked him how much it would cost. Before he could answer, I asked, “Can we just get on now?”

He offered a now-familiar variety of sounds and head movements that seemed to answer in the affirmative, and the train was starting to accelerate, so I ran. I ran to the train, grabbed the door rails and jumped onto the carriage for my last, great Indian train ride.

Always wanted to do that.

Scenes from Kochi.

Keener’s. Heh.

These guys invited me—for a donation, of course—to help with pulling up the fifteenth century Chinese fishing nets. I think I did alright.

Got to get up close, too.

And see dolphins.

The guy on the left was the boss of the operation. And after a few minutes with him, I kept getting the nagging feeling that he reminded me of someone. Couldn’t figure it out. Then I was looking over these photos, and saw this one with the cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and imagined it was a cigar, and replaced the white and blue trim of his shorts with red and black, and cut off his shirt sleeves and added a “23” to its front and back. You know what I’m saying?

Kathakali.

Bugs. Constant from my first day to my last.

And that’s all, folks.