Flashes from Washington

There are some anecdotes from the Washington trip that bear repeating. I found them personally quite enlightening, so here I pass them along to you.

Access to Government

I know that a lot of television personalities, authors, and song writers like to gush about why this is the greatest country in the world. Most of them seem to think it’s because you can get paid to be a celebrity publicist, or because of baseball or pie or certain kinds of beer. Many seem to think it’s because we take down other countries, or because of our food. The secret to the greatness of a nation such as this is in none of those things. Rather, it’s in the access of the people to the halls of power, because it is the people that have made them and the people that can take them away.

The ability to make a few phone calls and setup an appointment with a Member of Congress or their staff seems a small thing, so small that it’s not worth the time of many Americans who are otherwise busy or engaged in their own lives. However, to know that you can set aside the trivial things of the day and walk into a Congressional office, state your case and have a discussion, and ask them to do something for you, is a powerful and life-changing thing. There is no greater power than that derived from the consent of the governed, and while it may seem inefficient compared to a dictatorship and maddeningly frustrating compared to a monarchy, the slow crawl of the republic is the only protection against the whims of the few and the desires of the corrupt.

One of my non-U.S. colleagues remarked, at the end of the trip, that with great enthusiasm he had never witnessed such access to government. The ease with which they welcome you into their office, the eagerness with which they choose to serve your cause, can be overwhelming. Indeed, he remarked, he now understood what a great thing we had made here in America. Is not all the toil of the Republic worth the revelation that a government for the people, by the people, serves as a beacon even in the hearts and minds of those who have already looked toward the United States as a friend and ally?

The Fear of Exodus

I was a second on a visit to a NY congresswoman. By “second”, I mean that I was not the one who made the appointment but I went as a support person to the one who did. In our training, we emphasize that we should go in pairs and use each other to avoid “pregnant pauses” or to steer the discussion back to the core message. In this meeting, we met with a new staffer that was eager to learn a lot about particle physics and the nature of our work. Overall it was a good meeting, and the Congresswoman was clearly supportive of these efforts.

The lesson from this meeting was an unexpected one. The staffer grew concerned when we discussed the international aspects of the field. “Don’t people just come from other countries, learn how we do our work, and then take it back to their own countries?” It’s a tough question. In many cases, the answer is yes. However, in my own personal experience I have known several outstanding non-U.S. physicists – students, post-docs, and faculty – who have stayed here a long time and cannot imagine going home. I told the staffer as much, that my own personal experience was not like this.

As a product of a graduate program in which I was the first student of a non-U.S. faculty member at Madison, as a person whose first post-doc was under the guidance of a non-U.S. born faculty member, and as a mentor and colleague to several students who have made the choice to stick with the U.S. for the long haul, I find the practices described by the staffer alien. However, I know that they happen.

The lesson here? Approach internationalism with caution. Clearly, a native talent pool drawn from all the diverse corners of the U.S. is critical to the sustainment and development of a 21st century economy. No nation can long rely on the good graces of other nations to send talent, and no nation can rely on the gamble that enough of those will stay to make a difference. The education and training of the domestic 21st century workforce is paramount to the continued success of this nation. However, no nation can long survive in a vacuum and the import of and exposure to the best and brightest the world has to offer is needed to facilitate good foreign relations and develop new ideas that perhaps might never have taken root even with a talented home-grown talent pool. However, be prepared to react to the reality that countries do “loan” out their most gifted students and young geniuses with the intent of reeling them back in for use at home. It’s a distasteful practice, one our nation should work to discourage at the highest levels.

Be Open to the Universe, for It Delights in Surprise

The most startling revelation of this trip had nothing to do with FY09, or the omnibus, or international relations. It had to do with a single paragraph in a single speech, and the actions of a single man. That man is President Bush, that speech is the State of the Union, and that paragraph was about science.

On a trip shortly after the SOTU, President Bush was accompanied by two Senators from the state that was his destination. The Senators took it upon themselves to thank the President for his stern support of the basic research efforts proposed by the Congress in response to his own American Competitiveness Initiative. It was then, apparently, that the President revealed that in the original draft of the speech did not contain this paragraph. He felt so strongly about this issue, specifically about the need for basic scientific research to stimulate the economy, that he inserted the paragraph himself.

Go and get some tea. Take some aspirin. You’ll need it to stop the buzzing in your head.