I saw WALL-E yesterday with a friend and I thought it was superb. All of you should watch it. The only complaint I'd make is that the political commentary is a little heavy-handed. But a lot of people eat that up, especially here in DC. At the Smithsonian festival, the Bhutanese in the food traditions tent was explaining that if the churned milk does not produce butter, they attribute it to an evil spirit brought in by the guests. (The milk in the churn wasn't producing very much butter, because it wasn't raw milk, but pasteurized milk brought in by "Washington cows".) "So," he said, "I hope there are no spirits here from the White House..." A member of the audience broke out in a loud guffaw.
A few patterns I've noticed here in DC:
1. Rain in DC comes out of a blue sky, lasts for 10 minutes, and stops by the time you head inside. There is no way to predict the rain. I saw a forecast of thunderstorms and brought my umbrella around last Monday; there were no thunderstorms, even through 6PM. So I went to Trader Joe's without the umbrella, and then it started raining. I thought I had caught on; I carried an umbrella for the rest of the week, and it didn't rain once. Finally I decided the storm had passed and the umbrella was dead weight, so I left it in my room. Of course, then it started raining again. Since then my umbrella has never left my side. The best way to prevent it from raining, apparently, is to carry an umbrella in your backpack.
2. The have-nots in DC will often ask for change to ride the metro, and the haves never give it to them. There are panhandlers everywhere, but based on my completely objective and impartial sample, I have concluded I am the only person in DC who actually gives money to people who ask for it.
3. Maybe it's just a summer internship, but I've noticed a lot of people from Compassion over Killing handing out flyers about vegetarianism and veganism. Right at the Capitol Hill metro stop (!) they were handing out flyers. I like the fact that unlike PETA, who make all vegetarians look crazy, they promote veganism as a multilayered choice and not a question of religious purity. The booklet reminds you that it's okay to accept meat from friends every once in a while and you won't become unclean. On the National Mall at the entrance to the Folklife Festival, they were handing out free samples of orange veggie chicken and booklets with lists of vegetarian restaurants and grocery stories. I took them up on their offer and went to an Asian restaurant in Georgetown with my friends. You could replace all their dishes with mock meat, and it the kung pow mock-chicken delicious! A+++++++ would go vegetarian again.
