Washington, D.C.

I was out of town because I was in Washington, D.C. This was kind of a big deal for me because I'm a pretty big law/poli si/history junkie and, baby, that's all there in Washington. Got into the Supreme Court for five minutes of argument. That was pretty impressive, but, next time, I'm figuring out a way to stay all day. Other than going to the Court, I went (usually with my mom and some with my mom and my dad) to the American History Smithsonian, the Natural History Smithsonian, the Air and Space Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, the WWII Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the Korean War Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. Walked under the Washington Memorial, didn't go in.

None of those featured the oddest thing that I saw. That honor goes to Larry's Homemade Ice Cream on Connecticut Avenue. They had pretty good ice cream there. They also have a wall-size mural of Picasso's Guernica. You know, this is the Picasso that features people in various states of geometric fracture looking like they're howling. It is Picasso's protest of the firebombing of the Spanish town of Guernica by the Fascist army of Generalismo Francisco Franco (who is still dead, BTW) during the Spanish Civil War. So I'm looking at this mural and thinking "Why in the world is there a mural of Guernica in this ice cream place? That's a pretty big downer for this kind of place." Then I notice that all of the wide open mouths of the people (well, as close as Picasso gets to depicting people) have colorful scoops of ice cream in them. Ah, there it is, it's irony. I thought it was pretty funny personally, but I can see where other people might be pretty appalled. They did have good Oreo Cookie and Mud Pie ice cream. I did a lot of walking, so I felt entitled to some ice cream.

I wasn't particularly impressed by the American History Smithsonian when I first went in with my mom and dad. We didn't look at much, but just went through to get to the cafeteria because it was convenient for lunch. This was a little distressing because I was really looking forward to it. Anyway, it kind of had that look of an antiseptic and worn-down academic building built in 1962. My mom and I, however, went back a couple of days later and, boy, it's cool. The thing about the Smithsonian is the amazing stuff in it. It looks like a pretty basic great big museum, but, then, hey, there's the actual Brown v. Board of Education decision that the Supreme Court issued. There's the actual Supreme Court voting record for Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 decision that said "separate but equal" was OK. There's Muhammad Ali's gloves that he used to knock out George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle. There's Jerry Seinfeld's puffy shirt. There's Judy Garland's ruby slippers. There's a piece of plutonium and the Nobel Prize that Glenn Seaborg won for deriving it. There's the speech that helped stopped the bullet when someone tried to shoot Teddy Roosevelt. It just goes on and on. And we skipped the big exhibition on America's wars. The Natural History Museum was similar -- there's the Hope Diamond, there's a piece of the oldest rock in the world, there are real dinosaur artifacts -- and pretty cool. I just went through the lobby of Air and Space, but I did get to see the Campbell Soup cans that we used to send the Mercury and Gemini astronauts into space. You would not have caught me getting blasted into space in those things.

Going to the Supreme Court was a pretty big deal to me. I mean, this is the top of the top in my profession. The building itself is more or less built like a temple (they have marble busts of all of the Chief Justices, like they were from Rome or something). I did not make it into see a whole case get argued and ended up sitting in for about five minutes of argument. Arguing there is something that I would like to do -- I'm an attorney, after all -- but it would be a daunting prospect. Usually, we argue in front of one judge. A good judge may ask quite a few questions even in a 15- or 30-minute motion hearing and you should try to anticipate them. If a case goes up on appeal, it generally is argued in front of three judges in both the federal and California courts. I externed with a California Court of Appeal and sat in on a number of oral arguments. They could get pretty involved if more than one judge decided to start asking questions. The U.S. Supreme Court has NINE judges! In the five minutes that I watched, I think five of them -- Scalia, Roberts, O'Connor, Kennedy and Breyer -- asked questions. Justice Thomas apparently never asks questions at oral argument, so you'd only have to really worry about 8 of them asking questions. Still, 8 judges asking questions would be something. And these are supposed to be pretty much the best judges in the country and, even if you don't like them, they are undoubtedly very sharp. Then you would pile that on top of the facts that, one, arguing there would be a career highlight for nearly all attorneys, two, you probably would take your family along to see the argument and, three, your clients would be fired up for the experience, too. It would be quite an experience, no doubt.

Finally, something that really struck me was how tightly packed all of these institutions are. I mean, you can pretty much stand in the middle of the Mall and see both the White House and the Capitol and, if the Capitol wasn't so big, you could see the Supreme Court, too. Meanwhile, the Mall is lined by these huge buildings that house various federal agencies and courts. I guess that I knew intellectually that all of these places are all packed tightly, but, seeing it in person, I can see how people can lose perspective if they live and work in Washington for a while.