Category: Fall 2008 Newswire
Connecticut Congressional Delegation Welcomes Himes, Congratulates Larson
HIMES
Norwalk Hour
Jordan Zappala
Boston University Washington News Service
11/19/08
WASHINGTON – Connecticut’s members of Congress officially welcomed Jim Himes, the 4th District representative-elect, to Washington Wednesday in a small, ornate room in the House wing of the Capitol that was overflowing with good cheer and aggressive hugs.
All seven members of the now all-Democratic delegation spoke at a press conference designed to formally introduce Himes, who will take office in January, and to congratulate 1st District Rep. John Larson on his election as House Democratic Caucus chairman– a post that will be left open in the new Congress when Rahm Emanuel moves to the White House in January.
“I want to congratulate all the House members on their victories this past November, and of course, particularly welcome Jim Himes,” Sen. Christopher Dodd said. “We have a small delegation in this state, and we need to work very closely together…. We try to make a difference every day for the people we represent.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro of the 3rd District,– and new dean of the Connecticut House delegation – echoed Dodd, saying the hallmark of the delegation was the willingness to work together to get things done for Connecticut.
“Jim Himes has truly changed the face of the 4th District, and we could not be prouder,” she said.
Larson called Himes a “tribute to the people in your district who have sent you here” and welcomed him to an already “blessed” talent pool of Connecticut members of Congress.
Himes, in turn, accepted the louder-than-anticipated applause graciously and immediately spoke of the “real honor to be standing with these giants of Congress who have accomplished so much.”
And he paid tribute to the man he beat, Capitol Hill veteran Chris Shays.
“My predecessor, Congressman Shays…we certainly disagreed on a number of critical issues, but he is a man of courage and a man of grace, and I stand here knowing that I have very big shoes to fill,” Himes said to a roomful of applause.
Though certainly the main attraction, Himes was not alone in receiving congratulatory praise.
In his remarks, Dodd described Larson as “one of the most respected and well-liked” members of the House – a sentiment echoed by the other members of the delegation.
Dodd also addressed speculation about this week’s closed-door meeting in which fellow Sen. Joe Lieberman learned of his potential punishment for speaking against the party and campaigning for Sen. John McCain.
“An overwhelming majority of my colleagues from across the political spectrum stood up one after another and expressed their confidence and support in the person they’ve known, worked with and admired,” Dodd said of the meeting.
Lieberman, who joked that Himes shouldered a “special burden” in having him as a constituent, said that the post-election period “hasn’t been an easy” one for him.
“I do want to say a personal ‘thank you’ to [Dodd,]” Lieberman said. “It meant everything to me to have the man who is not just my senior senator, but my dear friend for 40 years, not just standing by my side, but advocating on my behalf. I am so pleased to be continuing as chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.”
With the delegation banding together in support of their once-rogue senator, newcomer Himes did not want to speak out of turn.
“Truthfully, I haven’t given it much thought, I’ve been so busy,” Himes said of Lieberman’s situation. “I’m not even a congressman yet, let alone a senator, and the people who brought me here didn’t do so to worry about Sen. Lieberman.”
Nearing the end of “freshman orientation,” Himes has spent his week on Capitol Hill, along with wife, Mary, attending back-to-back activities – some of which recalled his school days: a freshmen photo, class elections and choosing an office, for example.
“It’s been an enormously exciting week for me,” Himes said Wednesday during a 10-minute break in House leadership meetings at the Library of Congress. “There’s such energy here, and a sense that we need to do bold things quickly.”
Himes also referred to what he saw as a “commitment to being pragmatic” by describing the traditional welcome dinner hosted by the speaker of the House that usually includes only majority party members but that this year included both parties and party leaders.
The freshman congressman said that though he loved the history in Washington, he wouldn’t dream of moving here at this point because it would be too disruptive to his young daughters, Emma, 9, and Linley, 6. Also, he added, it is critical to stay connected to his constituents, who haven’t had the chance to get to know him as well as they knew 11-term veteran Shays.
Rep. Joe Courtney of the 2nd District, who said he and 5th District Rep. Chris Murphy often felt like “Frick and Frack” during their freshman term the past two years, offered some advice to the young congressman from the 4th District.
“Be tough on your scheduler to make sure family doesn’t get lost,” said the father of two. “If you want, you can use my rule. Just say: never on Sunday.”
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A Glance at UMass-Dartmouth Graduates’ Capital Life
UMD
The New Bedford Standard-Times
Guanlei Ren
Boston University Washington News Service
November 19, 2008
WASHINGTON— It is a city for politics. It is also a city for people to chase their dreams. Seventeen young graduates of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, listed as “friends” on a Facebook group for university alumni, are chasing their dreams in the nation’s capital.
But they don’t really know each other. They were invited to join UMass Dartmouth—Washington D.C. Alumni Club on Facebook, a social networking Web site, by friends of friends or by their friend’s friend’s friend.
Some of them were willing to share their stories of life in the capital city, to talk about their dreams and to reflect on whether the real world is what they expected.
Lee Lukoff, a Republican from South Dartmouth, came here for the politics after graduating in May from UMass Dartmouth with a degree in political science. With no Republican members of Congress from Massachusetts, Mr. Lukoff sent out applications to numerous Republicans, both in the Senate and the House, and said he was fortunate to get an internship with Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla.
“I really liked my internship because every day I felt like I was doing something important,” Mr. Lukoff, a graduate of Dartmouth High School, said.
He said he learned how Congress works from the inside and how a congressional office works. He was responsible for writing letters to constituents about issues they were concerned with, compiling newspaper articles and attending committee hearings and policy briefings, where he would take notes and write memos.
“Despite the fact that I was unpaid, few people get the chance to intern for a congressman, and the experience can pave the path to future jobs in politics and in government,” Mr. Lukoff said.
Rep. Feeney lost his seat in the Nov. 4 election, and Mr. Lukoff, like other office staff, is helping pack up the office and moving on to job hunting in other congressional offices, think tanks, interest groups and non-profit organizations.
Amy Morse also was a political science major and graduated from UMass Dartmouth in 2003. In the capital city, unlike Mr. Lukoff who works directly in politics, Ms. Morse works as a communications and policy associate at a non-profit and nonpartisan organization—the Committee for Economic Development.
After graduating from college, Ms. Morse was hired by the John Kerry presidential campaign and worked for a year in her home state of New Hampshire campaigning for the 2004 Democratic nominee. She held signs in the freezing cold, made hundreds of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and made more phone calls than most people make in a lifetime.
Now she said she values Washington as a place for public service more than a place for politics.
“Working in economics is a great perspective on how valuable our human resources are in this country,” she said.
When she was in college she did an internship with Youth Serve in New Bedford, working as a mentor to at-risk youths; in Washington, she volunteers with the public school reform effort.
She dreams of running for office in New Hampshire, Ms. Morse said. “I really enjoy policy and working with people.,”
Nicole Di Fabio, a 2006 graduate from UMass Dartmouth, is semi-involved in politics, she said. “I feel that everything is political to some extent or another.”
Ms. Fabio’s job as a research associate at the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology is her first job after graduation. She said she was very persistent in looking for jobs related to her majors—anthropology and women’s studies. Her dream is to be a professor of anthropology and women’s studies.
“Many people may view these disciplines to be more abstract, and not understand what comes from having a background in these areas,” Ms. Fabio said. “But in reality, these disciplines help you to understand life and other people as deeply as one can without actually being in the person’s shoes.”
In Ms. Fabio’s opinion, Washington is a city that seems to value social science far more than other cities do. So she looked endlessly in the “right places,” she said. “I would have continued to look until I found what I thought was right for me.”
In February 2008, her alma mater’s women’s studies department invited her to speak on a panel with Gloria Steinem, a women’s movement leader in the 1970s and co-founder of Ms. Magazine, in front of more than 200 people. “I think that is one moment in my life that I will always remember and value above all others,” she said.
For Paul Ferrari, an English literature major who also graduated in 2006, his most valuable lessons at college were not directly from classes but from his involvement with the UMass Dartmouth Theater Company, a student-run organization.
In his senior year, he was the president and company manager and learned not only how to work with his peers but how to cope with also a variety of administrative tasks, including negotiating the university’s bureaucratic contracting system.
Originally from Webster, Mass., Mr. Ferrari is currently working as a communications associate at a non-profit national education organization—the Council of Chief State School Officers.
“I am interested in politics, and am thrilled to be living in D.C. during such an exciting time in American history,” Mr. Ferrari said.
But, he said, he will probably end up working in the arts in some capacity. Before coming to Washington he had a year-long internship at a theater in Florida. Though it was a great experience, Mr. Ferrari said, it wasn’t “socially and professionally where I wanted and needed to be.”
In Washington, he said, “there’s always someone willing to engage in a conversation about current events and what’s going on around them. I feel like it was harder to have those conversations in other places.”
The mix of people and the opportunity to talk about current events is one of the attractions of the city, Mr. Ferrari said.
The four UMass Dartmouth graduates say they enjoy meeting friends after work, spending time at the gym and visiting the city’s numerous public and private museums. Mr. Lukoff, who minored in history, said his favorite museum is the National Archives. Ms. Morse, who likes art, favors the Philips Collection and the National Gallery of Art. Ms. Fabio loves the National Museum of Women in the Arts. And Mr. Ferrari is a big fan of the National Gallery of Art as well as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden..
“Work hard and play hard” is a Washington mantra, Ms. Morse said. However, after one year of living in Washington, she has found it is too expensive to “play hard.” Young people working on the Hill and for non-profit organizations don’t make much money, she said.
To all the four of them, the difference between campus and professional life has a common point—a relatively fixed schedule.
“I understand now why my parents went to bed so early when I was younger,” Ms. Fabio said. “Working full time really changes the amount of energy I have when the work day ends.”
As to the future, three of them have a specific graduate school plan. Mr. Lukoff is a part-time public policy student at George Mason University. Ms. Morse is applying for a public affairs master’s program at American University. Ms. Fabio is to start her graduate studies in anthropology at George Washington University in January.
As for Mr. Ferrari, he said, “I haven’t made plans to settle down and live here forever.”
What’s the next stop for him? “I will probably move to where grad school brings me next. I am not in a rush to find that out yet.”
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Inauguration Ticket Requests Surpass Supplies
FRANK TICKETS
The New Bedford Standard-Times
Courtney Hime
Boston University Washington News Service
November 19, 2008
WASHINGTON – New Bedford residents hoping to attend President Barack Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20 may already be out of luck.
The offices of Rep. Barney Frank and Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry are reporting that requests for inauguration tickets are surpassing the number of tickets available.
Dorothy Reichard, spokeswoman for Rep. Frank, said the congressman has 198 tickets available for disbursement, but his Newton office has received 400 to 500 ticket requests – some being called in as early as June. Requests for tickets are being compiled at his Newton office and while no plan for disbursing the tickets has been put in place, a first-come, first-served system would be likely, she said.
Ms. Reichard said 198 tickets – 177 standing tickets and 21 seats – are provided for every House member. In total, there are 240,000 tickets available for the inaugural ceremony, with the largest portion of tickets going to the president-elect and vice-president-elect.
The remaining tickets are distributed to members of the new Congress, with each senator receiving a greater number of tickets than each House member, said Carole Florman, spokeswoman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, which organizes all inaugural ceremonies held at the U.S. Capitol.
Brigid O'Rourke, spokeswoman for Sen. Kerry’s office, said senators have received 300 to 400 tickets in the past, but has no guarantee that they can expect the same number this year.
“At this point,” she said “we don’t know exactly how many tickets we will receive.”
Ms. O’Rourke said their request list was numbering in the thousands. Despite the large number of requests, Sen. Kerry’s office is still maintaining a waiting list in case they receive more tickets. Tickets would be distributed on a first-come-first served basis, she said.
A spokesman from Sen. Kennedy’s office said that more than 1,000 requests for tickets have been registered and that no definitive plan for disbursement was in place.
Constituents can call or e-mail their members’ offices to request tickets, free of charge. The offices will receive the tickets in the week before the inauguration, and constituents must pick them up at the Capitol Hill office in person, Florman said.
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Connecticut Delegation Welcomes New Member Into Fold; Welcomes Back Lieberman
WELCOME
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
November 19 2008
WASHINGTON—Connecticut’s congressional delegation is officially blue. The state’s senators and House members warmly welcomed Rep.-elect Jim Himes of the 4th District to Capitol Hill Wednesday. His election victory two weeks ago rendered them a Democrats-only club.
In a press conference colored by hugs and handshakes, schmoozing and self-deprecating quips, the lawmakers presented themselves as a “united team” ready to tackle the state’s economic challenges.
“With a united Democratic congressional delegation,” Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, said, “we now have the ability to help deliver the change American people deserve and need.”
The conference was also a “welcome back” of sorts for Sen. Joe Lieberman, as his colleague Sen. Chris Dodd put it. Lieberman was reelected in 2006 as an independent after losing in the Democratic primary and now identifies himself as an independent Democrat. But he angered Democrats by aggressively campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.
Lieberman thanked Dodd for helping dissuade Senate Democrats from stripping him of his prestigious Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairmanship.
“Look, this last couple of weeks, and the whole post-election period, hasn’t been an easy one,” Lieberman said,. “It meant everything to me to have [Dodd] not just standing by my side but advocating on my behalf.”
Lieberman noted that Himes is joining an exceptionally powerful Connecticut team. Dodd chairs the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and Reps. John Larson, 1st District, and Rose DeLauro, 3rd District, have leadership positions in the House.
Still, there was a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor all around. Lieberman referred to himself as a “lowly junior senator,” and DeLauro, the dean of the Connecticut House delegation as its longest-serving member, deferred to Dodd, saying, “I know where I stand.”
When Larson, mentioned that Dodd and Lieberman were former presidential candidates, Dodd quipped, “Not very successful ones— though combined we may have made it.”
Courtney, who won a second term earlier this month, said after the event that he had some personal advice for the incoming freshman. He urged Himes, a father of two young children, not to forsake his family when he’s in the district.
“Your staff would like to have you going full blast every minute when you’re home,” Courtney said. “But you just want to make sure you got somebody to go home to.”
Himes, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker who defeated 11-term representative Chris Shays to capture the state’s 4th district earlier this month, will take office in January.
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Stamford Native Stands Guard on Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Hill
CHARLES
Norwalk Hour
Jordan Zappala
Boston University Washington News Service
November 18, 2008
WASHINGTON – Connecticut native Charles Dunn stands guard for hours on a street corner here – keeping patient watch over the nation’s Capitol building. Daily, and without complaint, he endures extreme temperatures, wailing sirens and confused tourists – all in pursuit of his childhood dream.
Dunn did not grow up wanting to pitch for the Yankees, drive a race car or walk on the moon – he just wanted to protect members of the United States Congress.
Currently a U.S. Capitol Policeman, Dunn gave up the exhilaration of NYPD foot chases in favor of endless security screenings and the chance to join the prestigious Dignitary Protection Detail, a Secret Service-like arm of the Capitol Police responsible for protecting members of Congress. His dream of joining the detail is almost within reach now, and his words show he does not want to jinx it.
“I am honored to have this job,” said 30-year-old Dunn of his current position in the Senate Division of the U.S. Capitol Police. “People want to harm our government, the people who run the country. We’re here to protect them. That’s enough for me – I’m just hoping to do even more.”
According to his El Salvadoran mother, Blanca, who lives in Newtown, such sentiment is typical of the son she calls by his shortened middle name, Tony, to eliminate confusion between her only boy and his father, Charles Anthony Dunn Sr. Always putting family first, Dunn has long been the family’s protector, she said in a warm, melodic accent, and even now he calls home two or three times each day to check on his parents and three sisters.
“I had to encourage him to leave the nest, and I had to learn to let him go,” Mrs. Dunn said of her son, who attended in-state schools for both college and graduate school.
Dunn, who grew up in cities across southern Connecticut – from Stamford to Danbury – knew what he wanted to do early and went after it avidly. He earned his undergraduate degree in political science at Southern Connecticut State University, and started down the path towards a law degree, when the events of 9/11 changed his course.
“Before 9/11, national security was not talked about so much, and certainly not studied,” said the small, clean-shaven man with bright eyes and rich, tanned skin. “Given what I wanted to do, I thought law school was my best bet, but after [9/11] national security programs started to appear.”
So, in 2005, Dunn graduated from the University of New Haven with a Master’s degree in national security, and took his first job outside of Connecticut, in the 44th precinct of the New York Police Department. It was not exactly what his parents had in mind.
“Oh no, we were not too happy about that,” said his father, who works in the quality assurance department of Procter & Gamble in Stamford. “His mother would lie awake at night, and you just feared…you never knew when you would get a call.”
The two-mile section of the Bronx that made up the 44th Precinct, where Dunn was assigned, was home to a vast array of criminal activities that Dunn likened to a “Law and Order” episode. He learned quickly what it meant to stake your life on fellow officers – a camaraderie he had heard his father talk about when describing his Army days.
The elder Dunn, now 61, was stationed in Germany during part of the Vietnam War, and served as a combat medic and surgical technician. After returning home to Connecticut and working for a few years, he enrolled in the Connecticut State Police Academy but, at age 40, ultimately decided he was a little too old to be entering the field. The younger Dunn points to this as part of the reason he decided to pursue law enforcement, to “pick up where my father left off.”
The 44th Precinct also was home to Yankee stadium – the team that, by all accounts, remains one of Dunn’s great passions. His mother said he would sometimes call home when on patrol, asking what had happened on the field to make the fans cheer so loudly they could be heard blocks away. His father said he took a young Dunn to several New York Mets’ games at Shea stadium – something that still upsets his Yankee-fan son so much he doesn’t like to talk about it.
Despite the long, less-than-ideal hours (he worked the night-shift) and obvious danger (he said he felt bullets flying by him on more that one occasion), Dunn’s face lights up when talking about his one year with the NYPD, a year he said really taught him he could make it anywhere.
So, after proving himself on the NYPD, Dunn was accepted to the elite Capitol Police force in early 2007, undergoing weeks of testing, interviews, exams and polygraphs before eventually securing one of 48 spots – beating out more than 9,000 other applicants, he said.
With his new classmates, Dunn was sent to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia for three months of intensive training. According to a fellow officer, those several months of living with and relying on each other tend to reveal one’s true nature.
“[Dunn] was a complete professional,” said Derren Fuentes, an ex-Baltimore Police Department detective who joined the Capitol Police force at the same time as Dunn. “He was the person who’d be there to help, no matter what it was. We had new people taking tests, practical exams and there was never a moment when he wasn’t helpful, giving support.”
Dunn describes the training period as being one of the most exciting times of his life and it may be because during that training he met a local dental office manager named Emily Anderson, to whom he proposed a year later.
“I’ll tell you, to me she’s the best thing that could have happened to him – he’s all alone down there,” his mother said emphatically. “Anything could happen to him, and it’s good to have a sweet girl who cares for him. It’s time now anyway, he is 30.”
Now on his way to forming his own family, Dunn said one of the greatest lessons his mother ever taught him was understanding the value of a dollar.
“I tell my children, even if I had everything to give to them, I wouldn’t,” she said. “That’s not teaching them responsibility.”
He listened and learned well, according to his father, who said Dunn has consistently worked a lot of overtime, trying to save money for his greatest love: restoring old cars.
As part of a “car family,” where his father spent much of his free time restoring the blue 1968 Dodge Coronet he eventually sold to his son for “a good price,” Dunn caught the restoration bug, and now owns an orange 1969 Dodge Super Bee and black 2007 Corvette in addition to the Coronet.
“The funny thing is, before I met him, I knew nothing about muscle cars,” said 37-year-old Fuentes of Dunn’s passion. “Now I know about every tire and engine and name. He says he’s trying to swear off it – with the economy so bad – but not a day goes by that he’s not online looking.”
Dunn laughed at his friend’s comment, and said the cars would stay with him as long as he’s around, confessing he’d part with one only if he could pass it down to his own son, as his own father did with him.
But despite his potentially expensive passion, Dunn managed to save enough to procure a house for himself and new fiancée in suburban Washington, D.C. When his parents – who have been married for 35 years, after meeting in church – and sisters visit his newly-purchased Fredericksburg, Va., home this Thanksgiving, they will meet the extended Anderson clan for the first time, in preparation for next year’s late summer wedding.
And so, the facets of Dunn’s life appear to be falling into line – the single holdout remains his dream of being accepted into the Dignitary Protection Detail. But after all of his hard work, that dream may come into reach in the next few months, according to Fuentes.
A few spots in the coveted protection unit will be opening at the start of the 111th Congress early next year, Fuentes said, and Dunn will have the chance to finally grab the post he’s been aiming for since childhood.
“I’ve worked as hard as I could, and I take my job very seriously,” said Dunn, staring out the window at the Capitol. “I hope to one day make that leap.”
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New Bedford Residents Come to Washington Seeking Relief through Prayer, Meetings
RELIEF
The New Bedford Standard-Times
Courtney Hime
Boston University Washington News Service
November 18, 2008
WASHINGTON – Chants of “Wake up, Secretary Paulson” filled Pennsylvania Avenue Tuesday morning as three New Bedford residents – and 200 others – prayed outside of the U.S. Treasury Building.
The Rev. Donald Mier, Anibal Cruz and Daniel Lesser of United Interfaith Action met other members of faith-based community organizations to pray and persuade lawmakers to vote for home foreclosure relief.
Mr. Lesser, organizer for United Interfaith Action, said foreclosures were “racking New Bedford.”
“We see the abandoned houses everywhere,” he said.
In New Bedford this year there have been 302 foreclosures on buildings, compared to 196 this time last year, said Greg Enos, neighborhood planner for the city’s Office of Housing and Community Development.
The purpose of the demonstration was to persuade lawmakers to use money from the federal bailout program to modify 1.5 million mortgages in order to prevent foreclosures.
The plan, proposed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), would cost roughly $24 billion and would encourage banks to rework loans and provide a federal guarantee for the losses on the modified mortgages.
Mr. Lesser said that United Interfaith Action believes the FDIC plan would be a good model for foreclosure relief. He cited the IndyMac Bank in California, where the FDIC enacted a similar plan, as an example of relief that worked.
“To keep people in their homes, to stop preventable foreclosures – it’s a moral duty to take this program nationally,” he said.
Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, however, opposes using funds to buy up bad mortgages.
Lewis Finfer, director of Massachusetts Communities Action Network, came to Washington with the New Bedford residents and attended a Tuesday morning hearing of the House Financial Services Committee before going to the demonstration at the Treasury building. Rep. Barney Frank, the committee chairman, and Secretary Paulson seemed to be in a stalemate in the hearing over how to use the funds, Mr. Finfer said.
“The Secretary of the Treasury is balking at [the plan] even though he has $400 billion left that he could spend,” he said. “That’s why we’re here, to push the Treasury. So we’re hoping they’ll move.”
After the group prayer outside the Treasury Building, the New Bedford residents and a few others from Massachusetts met with Rep. Frank to discuss what he was planning to do about foreclosures.
Mr. Finfer said the meeting renewed his hope that some sort of loan modification program could still be passed before the end of the year.
Rep. Frank said he was still hopeful that Secretary Paulson might agree to a large-scale loan modification program in the next three weeks.
“He is starting to move,” Rep Frank said. “I think we have gotten his attention that this has to change.”
Mr. Finfer said Rep. Frank’s comments were encouraging.
“That seems significant that he felt that that wasn’t a closed issue and that it was moving possibly in the right direction,” he said.
The meeting was also a chance for Mr. Finfer and the United Interfaith Action to ask what they could do to help Rep. Frank with foreclosure relief.
Rep. Frank said he told the New Bedford residents to take advantage of a later scheduled meeting with John Podesta, co-chairman of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team. He said he “urged them to urge the president-elect to join us” in supporting the efforts to use federal bailout money for foreclosure prevention.
“It was a really important day to be here at this juncture when such a major issue is hanging in the balance,” Mr.Finfer said.
Mr,.Cruz said that even though United Interfaith Action came to Washington with a local perspective, he thought it was important to remember foreclosure was a national issue.
“We’re here in hope that our faith and our prayer will reach out to these people,” he said. “Because it’s not only affecting our community in New Bedford, it’s affecting everywhere in the country.”
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Inauguration Ticket Requests Swamp N.H. Congressional Offices
NH TICKETS
New Hampshire Union Leader
Jenny Paul
Boston University Washington News Service
11/18/08
WASHINGTON – The hottest tickets in the country right now are free, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy to get.
New Hampshire’s congressional delegation expects to receive 1,000 to 1,200 presidential inauguration tickets to give to New Hampshire residents looking to snag a spot at President-elect Barack Obama’s Jan. 20 swearing-in ceremony.
But the demand for the tickets is on track to outpace supply. Staff at the congressional offices said they’ve already gotten hundreds of requests for tickets, and they expect thousands to pour in by January.
“There has been an enormous amount of interest, and right now we are taking down all requests,” said Jamie Radice, press secretary for Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.), whose office has received several hundred ticket requests. “We want to accommodate as many constituents as possible.”
There are 240,000 tickets available for the inaugural ceremony, with the largest portion of tickets going to the president-elect and vice president-elect. The remaining tickets are distributed to members of the new Congress. The offices of House members have been allotted 198 tickets each to give to constituents, while Senate offices expect to receive 300 to 400 tickets each.
Constituents can call or e-mail their members’ offices to request tickets, free of charge. The offices will receive the tickets in the week before the inauguration, and constituents must pick them up in person in Washington Those who don’t get tickets but still want to travel to Washington will be able to watch the inauguration on large television screens set up on the National Mall and along the inaugural parade route.
Each congressional office may choose how to distribute the tickets to the public, meaning some members could award the tickets on a first-come, first-served basis, while others could use a lottery system. New Hampshire’s offices have not released information on how they plan to distribute their allotments.
Because tickets are allotted to members of the new Congress, some of New Hampshire’s tickets will go to Jeanne Shaheen, the Democratic senator-elect who defeated Republican John Sununu on Nov. 4.
“We have been getting requests on an ad hoc basis,” said Judy Reardon, a member of Shaheen’s senior staff. “We haven’t formalized a process yet with how we’re going to deal with those requests.”
The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, which organizes all inaugural ceremonies held at the U.S. Capitol, is working to see if new members could set up their Web sites before they take office on Jan. 3 to handle requests, spokeswoman Carole Florman said.
Florman said there “really isn’t a mechanism in place” for newly elected members to take ticket requests from constituents. Often, outgoing members take requests and pass on a list to the incoming members, she said, although they aren’t required to do so. Barbara Riley, a Sununu spokeswoman, said the office is referring all calls about inauguration tickets to the office of Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.).
People who can’t get tickets through a congressional office should not try to buy tickets on the Internet, officials warn. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced legislation Monday that would make it a misdemeanor to sell or attempt to sell tickets to the ceremony. It also would be illegal to forge tickets. The crimes would be punishable by fines up to $100,000 and a year in prison. Feinstein said she hopes Congress will pass the bill this week.
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Washington Capitals’ ‘Family Man’ Captain Seeks Return to Form
CLARK
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
Nov. 18, 2008
WASHINGTON—Chris Clark was taking his time. The 32-year-old captain of the Washington Capitals hockey team, a South Windsor native and lifelong Hartford Whalers fan, was flanked by reporters as he loosened his skates after practice one morning. Twice, a Capitals staffer tried to pry him from the scrum for a meeting with the team’s general manager, George McPhee.
“How long are you going to be?”
“Another minute,” Clark replied, and then, assessing the queue of quote-hungry reporters, added, “Oh, probably another couple of minutes.”
Clark has been called a calming presence in the locker room. But lately, his patience has been put to the test. After enjoying two career seasons in Washington, playing with National Hockey League superstar Alexander Ovechkin on the scoring line, the affable, blue-eyed father of three spent most of last season sidelined with an exasperatingly persistent groin injury.
Clark watched from home as his teammates won 11 of their final 12 regular season games to scrape into the playoffs, and then lost in the first round.
“This is just awful,” he told The Washington Times last spring. “It is the most frustrating thing—not just not playing but not being able to help the team in some way, any way.”
Clark is back in the lineup this season, but his frustration persists. Although the team is off to a flying start, Clark has only two assists in his first 17 games. And his defensive record, normally his calling card, is just as spotty.
Clark traveled from his summer home in upstate New York to Vancouver seven times last summer to see a groin specialist. He insists that “everything feels great” as long as he adheres to an intensive rehab regimen.
But the plucky right-winger, whom McPhee once described as quiet off the ice and cantankerous on it, has grown tentative. His mighty stride has slowed, and he no longer dominates the corners and crease as he used to.
“He’s still in his training camp,” Capitals’ coach Bruce Boudreau said more than a month into the season. “He’s better than he was a month ago; he’s going to be a lot better in a month than he is now. He’s getting there; he will get there.”
Chris Clark is, first and foremost, a family man. The local hockey writers tease him for wearing “bad Macy’s suits” and for having driven a pick-up truck when he arrived in Washington three years ago.
Clark’s married to his college sweetheart, Kim, whom he met 12 years ago while studying business—and playing hockey—at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y. The couple lives near the Pentagon with their three young kids—two boys and a girl, all under 6. His parents still live in his childhood home in South Windsor, and he tries to visit at least once a year, though “with three kids it’s getting pretty tough.”
He still keeps in touch with his buddies from South Windsor High School, one of whom recently e-mailed him the old Hartford Whalers anthem, the “Brass Bonanza,” to use as his cell phone ringtone.
Family stability was one of the reasons Clark signed a three-year, $7.9 million deal last year that will keep him in Washington through the 2010-2011 season—as long as he avoids another trade or injury. Clark doesn’t know what he’ll do when his career is over, but hopes that day’s a long way off.
“It’s great now that my kids are old enough to recognize what I do for a living,” he said. “I’d like to play as long as I can so they could enjoy being in this life as well.”
Clark has never taken his NHL career for granted. The Calgary Flames’ third-round choice in the 1994 entry draft, he played four years at Clarkson and a full year for Calgary’s farm team in Saint John, New Brunswick, before seeing his first NHL start. He then spent another two seasons shuttling across Canada, finally securing a spot in Calgary at the hockey-ripe age of 25.
In Calgary Clark was a reliable third-liner, scoring 10 goals in each of his three full seasons there. He scored three goals in his first playoffs in 2004, the year the Flames lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup final. During the lock-out season that followed, Clark played in fledgling leagues in Switzerland and Norway to keep up his game.
Then, after 10 years in the Flames system, Clark was traded to Washington—for a sixth-round conditional draft pick.
“I think he was surprised,” Darryl Sutter, Clark’s coach in Calgary, said. “Chris was getting to the point where he was probably going to double his salary and we weren’t able to keep him.”
Within a day, Clark dropped from the top of the Western conference to the bottom of the East.
“It was tough in the beginning,” Clark said. “Going from the Cup finals, seventh game, and then coming here, reading the papers and seeing, ‘It’s going to be a tough couple years, it’s a rebuilding year.’”
But there was an upside. The career third-liner was put on the first line with rookie phenomenon Ovechkin, and suddenly the 10-goal man became a 20 and 30-goal scorer in successive seasons. Even Clark seemed mystified by the experience.
“It’s unbelievable playing with him,” Clark told The Washington Post, referring to Alexander the Great. The Post called it a “once-in-a-lifetime break” for Clark and Ovechkin was quoted saying, “I’m very happy for him.” Here was a seven-year veteran playing with a 20-year-old kid, and everyone was acting as if Clark were the Cinderella man.
When Clark returned to the third line last year—before his groin injury cut his season short—he reacted with typical deference, saying, “I think it’s great because it means our team is going in the right direction.”
At times, Clark seems equally incredulous about his captaincy—even though he wore the “C” during his senior year at Clarkson and for Team USA at the 2007 World Championship. When the Capitals named him captain, at the beginning of the 2006 season, Clark told the Calgary Herald that being an NHL captain “was never one of my goals because I never thought it was attainable.”
When an XM radio host asked Clark if people assumed he was warming the captain’s seat until Ovechkin matured, Clark responded, “It’s definitely going to be his eventually.”
Still, Clark takes his role to heart. He puts pressure on himself to lead by example on the ice and to maintain team spirit behind the scenes. When a junior is called up, or a European player joins the team, Clark makes a point of reaching out to them, making sure “they’re comfortable, they’re settled, so they can do the best they can,” as he put it.
“If we have any questions, that’s the first guy we go and ask,” said Milan Jurcina, the Capitals’ 25-year-old Slovakian defenseman. “He welcomed us [European players] pretty good…making us a little more comfortable.”
Goalie José Theodore, a Quebec native, said that when he joined the team, Clark assured him that “if I needed anything, he was there for me.”
In other words, Clark brings his family values to the team. Just ask Brooks Laich, the Capitals’ 25-year-old, Saskatchewan-born center who by his looks could be Clark’s younger brother.
“Being a single guy, not having a wife down here,” Laich said, “the last three Christmases I’ve been at Chris Clark’s house. He invites me over for Christmas Eve…. He has Christmas morning with his family and he invites me back over…. And in the last couple years there’s been a couple guys who’ve gone over there…. So he’s always looking out for guys and making them feel at home.”
Whether Clark can return to rugged form remains to be seen. What’s clear is that he has a locker room full of fans rooting for him.
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Ris Lacoste Brings a Life with Food to New Washington Restaurant
RIS
The New Bedford Standard-Times
Courtney Hime
Boston University Washington News Service
November 17, 2008
WASHINGTON – Ris Lacoste drew her first inspiration for cooking from Peanuts.
“I started making these cakes when I was a kid, Charlie Brown cakes. I would sell them for like $5, to parents or whoever wanted them,” she said.”
And while Ms. Lacoste no longer bakes, she certainly cooks. She was executive chef at Georgetown’s upscale 1789 Restaurant and worked alongside prominent seafood chef Bob Kinkead, establishing herself as one of Washington’s most high profile and well-respected chefs.
“There are a lot of people who come in through your door that should be thinking about careers in something else, not the restaurant industry, but Ris clearly had it,” said Mr. Kinkead, who served as a mentor and boss to Ms. Lacoste for a number of years.
Recently, Ms. Lacoste reflected on her 39 years in the food industry, and her future which includes the chance to open her own restaurant in Washington this summer. .
“Everything that I did brought me to where I am today,” Ms. Lacoste said, “which is odd to me.”
Odd only because when she was growing up in New Bedford no one would have pegged her as a chef. Or maybe because even though all the signs were there, no one, not even Ms. Lacoste, picked up on them.
Ms. Lacoste’s career as a chef formally began after her graduation from France’s La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine and with her first position cooking under Mr. Kinkead at the Harvest Restaurant in Cambridge, Mass.
But layered within her childhood, adolescence and early adulthood are details that, in retrospect, signaled her love of cooking and career path much earlier.
Doris Lacoste – called Rissie as a child and later just Ris – was the fifth of seven children and the youngest girl in her family.
With a family of nine to support, her parents worked hard to make sure that everyone ate three hot meals a day. Rene Lacoste worked as a fireman and part-time handyman while Yvonne Lacoste, who still lives in New Bedford, spent many years at home supporting the family before eventually going back to work as a secretary.
Because of their busy lifestyle, food became the centerpiece for the Lacoste family.
“We were poor, but there was always enough food,” older sister Cathy Lacoste-Hamel said. “The kitchen table was a major focus in the house.”
But even beyond her family’s kitchen, the young Ris was finding herself drawn toward the food industry. At age 12, she got her first job working as a cashier and shelf-stocker for Johnny Gorka at his Polish market near her childhood home.
At 16, Ms. Lacoste was hired as a waitress at Friendly’s Ice Cream shop, where she began to develop her way with food.
“She made the greatest cheeseburgers,” said Brian Pepin, a high school friend, who still lives near New Bedford. “If she was on the grill, I ordered lunch. If she wasn’t, I didn’t.”
Friendly’s also instilled in her the love of food service.
“I loved waiting on people. I loved knowing what they had to eat,” she said. “It was a great neighborhood place, and the same people came in every day. I loved that.”
Ms. Lacoste juggled her job at Friendly’s throughout high school and still managed to graduate as valedictorian from St. Anthony High School in 1974. Then she headed to the University of Rochester in New York with the intention of becoming a doctor.
“It was just that that was something you would do if you were smart,” she said of her decision to go pre-med. “It really did not mean anything to me. I had no vision of it.”
When Ms. Lacoste realized she lacked the passion for medicine, she moved to San Francisco to live with her sister Cathy. She attended the University of California at Berkeley, where she majored in French.
While she was there, she continued working with food as a waitress and then assistant manager of the university’s faculty club where she worked for a while after she graduated from Berkeley in 1980.
In 1981, with money she had borrowed from her older brother Roger, Ms. Lacoste went to Paris to perfect and practice her French. After a few weeks there, she found herself at the doors of the cooking school La Varenne looking for work.
She was initially hired as a part-time typist, but was then offered a position as the school’s full-time receptionist. The position was unpaid, but she was given room and board and the chance to receive a grand diplôme in French cooking in exchange for her work.
After graduating from La Varenne, she came back to the U.S. and went to work with Mr. Kinkead at the Harvest. After two months he called her in for her first review. “He said, ‘Your knife skills suck, but your cooking is magic. It’s innate, either you have it or you don’t and you have it,’” Ms. Lacoste recalled. “And that solidified it. I never looked back.”
She worked with Mr. Kinkead for 13 years, helping him open 21 Federal in Nantucket and following him to Washington to help him open a branch of that restaurant in the capital city.
The Washington branch of 21 Federal closed in January 1993, but Ms. Lacoste assisted Mr. Kinkead with the opening of Kinkead’s, an upscale seafood restaurant, the following September.
In 1995, Ms. Lacoste was offered the position of executive chef of the 1789 Restaurant in Georgetown.
“I was so scared cutting those apron strings from Bob,” she said.
But Mr. Kinkead said he knew the transition would be good for her, though he described it as bittersweet.
“It was time for her to get her own place and do her own thing with 1789,” he said. “You don’t want to lose good people like that, but at the same time, it’s kind of like ‘This will be good for them.’”
While she was at the helm at 1789. Ms. Lacoste cooked for a number of luminaries including Woody Allen, Diana Ross, Nicole Kidman and Bill Cosby. She was even asked to prepare the 90th birthday dinner for Julia Child, one of the food world’s superstars.
Ms. Lacoste stayed with 1789 Restaurant for 11 years before leaving in 2006 with larger ambitions of opening her own restaurant.
In August 2007, she signed the lease on the property, which shares space with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington’s West End. The restaurant will be called simply Ris, and is set to open in late July.
“I characterize it as a classy neighborhood joint,” she said. “I really want to create that feeling that I will know everybody that comes in.”
The goal of her restaurant is simple, but many would say that’s not a surprise.
“She’s a simple person,” her mother said. “She really is. She’s not a fancy-dancy girl.”
That simplicity comes into play with Ms. Lacoste’s food and her ability to make basic things taste better.
“She makes food taste good,” Mr. Kinkead said. “That’s something that a lot of chefs just plain don’t do.”
Her friend Michelle Jaconi, a producer at NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said, “She makes these sandwiches with like ham and butter, and it’s my husband’s absolute favorite thing. And I can’t replicate it. It’s like the most simple thing, but it’s just her touch.”
That touch, Ms. Lacoste would say, is a little bit of herself.
“Your heart does go into your food,” she said. “So much of you goes into what you make. And that’s what people taste, is you. And, I truly believe that.”
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Keene Native Spends Summer Working with Africa’s Poor
Dowley
Keene Sentinel
Joe Vines
Boston University Washington News Service
November 13, 2008
WASHINGTON − Caitlin Dowley was going to be sick to her stomach. She was about to spend the next two months in South Africa, where she didn’t know a soul and was about as nervous as a Yankee fan sitting in the Green Monster seats at Fenway Park.
Dowley, 21, a Keene native, has spent much of her life dedicated to community service. A junior at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., studying international business, Dowley has spent much of her college career doing local charity work, in soup kitchens and impoverished areas of New Haven.
This time, her trip and the project in South Africa were sponsored by a Washington-based nonprofit, the Student Movement for Real Change.
With her parents, Bill and Vicki Dowley, in tow, she departed for John F. Kennedy airport in New York City on June 15 not knowing what to expect: “What if I don’t get along with the other people in the group,” she thought to herself. “What if I want to come home?”
She arrived in the terminal, kissed her parents goodbye and boarded a plane for her 18-hour journey to Cape Town with two bags: a suitcase filled with antibacterial soap to distribute to the villagers and a backpack containing her clothes, including the one pair of jeans that would have to get her through the next two months.
“A lot of people in the villages do not have money, and cleanliness is a huge problem,” Dowley said.
Traveling on service missions is nothing new for Dowley. As a high school student, she traveled to Puerto Rico, Virginia and Washington, D.C., working with United Church of Christ in Keene, helping needy families. “I really got involved and learned to love community service and helping others,” Dowley said of her upbringing in Keene.
Dowley’s interest in community service is rooted in her faith and in the teachings of her church. The mission trips she went on as a high school student were organized by Woody Shook, former associate pastor at the church. Shook does not take credit for Dowley’s desire to help others. “This is natural for her and her family. They are all very active and very community-oriented,” Shook said.
This summer was going to be different, though. “I’ve always been interested in Africa,” Dowley said from her dorm room at Quinnipiac. “My main interest is in extreme poverty.”
Dowley arrived in Cape Town on a warm afternoon and spent her first couple of weeks visiting the urban areas of Cape Town and Johannesburg. “You don’t feel as if you’re in South Africa because the city is industrialized and modern,” Dowley said.
According to Dowley, the impoverished areas of South Africa are predominantly black, while the more affluent areas have blacks and whites. Dowley said that you would never find a white South African living in one of South Africa’s destitute provinces.
After touring South Africa’s metropolitan areas, Dowley traveled to the village of Utah in South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province, her home for the next two months.
Dowley likened the village to a ghetto in an American inner city. Many of the village’s residents live in close quarters and earn less than $2 a day. Even the simplest tasks such as getting clean drinking water can be difficult.
South Africa’s infrastructure is severely antiquated or in some cases nonexistent. Homes in the village do not have running water. The water taps that line the streets don’t work because the pipes break easily and residents often travel long distances to get water, which makes bathing a rare occurrence.
While in South Africa Dowley undertook many community projects, including tutoring students in geography. Dowley recalled that when she showed students a world globe, they reacted as if they had never seen one. “They have such an isolated view of the world,” she said. “They don’t understand what they don’t have.”
Dowley, a 2006 graduate of Keene High School, also helped design an adult education program to teach the village’s women conversational English with the help of interpreters. The program is still being taught, and the South African government is now paying the interpreters to teach the course.
Most children do not have the chance to expand their education beyond Utah because of the high cost. The South African government offers free tuition to South African children who score 70 or above on the school exit exam but in the black villages only about one student every two years earns a high enough score, she said. The average score on the test, she noted, is 50.
Dowley and her friends also converted an old storage room at the Samson Primary School into a library to organize the school’s books.
“She was committed to empowering the local community. For her, it wasn’t about going out and experiencing poverty,” said Saul Garlick, board chairman of the Student Movement for Real Change, which organized the trip. “For her, it seemed a lot more about understanding the community, but also finding ways for local communities to solve their own problems.”
Garlick started the organization in 2001 when he was a senior in high school. Its mission, he said, is to improve health and education in neglected regions of the world.
Garlick emphasized the work Dowley did running sanitation workshops with HIV/AIDS patients. He estimated that 25 percent of the village’s residents are HIV-positive. “Everyone has a family member who has been affected by the disease,” Garlick said.
Like Dowley, Garlick is optimistic about the country’s future. “Young people in South Africa are constantly pursuing solutions, and they’re ready to take risks, and they’re looking for work, and they’re studying without any real hope of getting to university because there’s no money, they’re still working hard,” Garlick said.
As in every society, there are stigmas associated with being HIV-positive, and one of the reasons AIDS is an epidemic is that it is difficult to for people to get tested. While the test is free, many people can’t afford transportation to the clinic. Dowley estimated that unemployment in the village is 60 percent and that only 25 percent of the village’s residents had been tested for the AIDS virus.
What Dowley will remember most is her host family and how welcomed she felt. “I would come from work and there would be 25 kids wanting to hang out with me,” she said. “Living with my host family, I was able to understand South African culture so much better.”
Dowley had wanted to go to South Africa for some time but can’t see getting back any time soon. But as her father, Bill Dowley, put it, “When she wants to get behind a project and push her energy, she’s usually successful.”
Dowley’s summer in South Africa made her think more about domestic poverty issues and the cultural values of the United States. “In South Africa, they might be very poor but they have really close knit communities and families. They are ignorant to the things they don’t have,” Dowley said. “In the United States, the poor see what they don’t have everyday. The United States doesn’t have the culture of being as close to family and friends.”
Most importantly, her summer made her reexamine her own life. “I value the simple things in my life more,” she said. “I’m a lot more of appreciative of what I have.”
If you would like more information about the Student Movement for Real Change, visit its Web site at http://www.studentmovementusa.org
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