July 29th, 2010

Last Friday, Ingrid, Peter, and I got to attend one of the first showings of Countdown to Zero, a documentary about the dangers of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era. The film uses interviews with experts on nuclear weapons and proliferation, street polls with citizens, and terrifying imagery and anecdotes to send a strong and controversial message: the only way to ensure safety from nuclear weapons is to wipe them off the face of the earth.

The movie functioned like an excellent piece of propaganda. A good portion of the movie was filled with clips of nuclear explosions, deaths, and widespread destruction put together in such a way as to scare the audience into believing the film’s message. Even with the drama, however, the film made some great points about the dangers and risks associated with nuclear weapons, particularly those from terrorists and other non-governmental groups or individuals that can easily get hold of the materials used to make bombs. One expert told a story about how someone literally walked through a gaping hole around a fence in a nuclear complex in Russia, broke into a toolshed, and stole several grams of uranium. Another talked about how nuclear weapons being transported in planes sometimes come loose and fall out, posing huge dangers to the unsuspecting people below it. This has happened several times, including once over South Carolina.

While I enjoyed the movie overall, my one problem with it was that it was very one-sided. It did a good job of emphasizing how dangerous nuclear weapons were; however, it would have been nice to hear an expert or two discussing the balance-of-power politics and other forces that make international cooperation on issues such as disarmament difficult. It also surprised me that, given the emphasis on how easy it was to steal Uranium, the film didn’t talk more about specific security problems at the labs and how to remedy them, as POGO has in its work on Los Alamos and other nuclear sites

After the movie, I had the chance to have a chat with Ingrid and Peter, who were able to give a lot more interesting background and depth to fill out the things I learned in the movie. To hear what they had to say, check out POGO’s latest podcast.

— Rick D’Amato

July 26th, 2010

“By 1996 there were more payday lenders than all the McDonald’s and Burger Kings in the land combined.”

Source: Ezra Klein

July 23rd, 2010

Daniel Ellsberg and Frank Serpico share a joke at the 2010 National Whistleblower Assembly. Photo by POGO’s own Danni Downing.

July 16th, 2010

July 9th, 2010

POGO staffers recently revealed their holiday whereabouts to the Watercooler. See how staffers spent their July 4th below and find a slideshow with select photos towards the end of the scroll bar.

Ingrid Drake, Investigator
To cool off, I took a bath in George Washington’s bathtub (1748) at the  Berkeley Springs state park in Bath, West Virginia. It was a brisk 74 degrees. The best part is that the state park is located in the town center and is free to the public. (Free parking too!) You can also bring bottles to fill up on the spring water, which is believed to have healing properties, for free. It was so refreshing that the springs have not been privatized.

Chris Pabon, Director of Development
I went with friends to the one night only showing at the AFI in Silver Spring of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, honoring the 30th anniversary of its release. AT-ATs advancing on Hoth. The Falcon navigating the asteroid field. Yoda. Han in Carbonite. Thirty years and still going strong.

Pam Rutter, Web Manager (traveling with Keith Rutter, Director of Operations)
While visiting our daughter, Jordan, at Oberlin College, we went to Cleveland’s famous Westend Market and found a line a mile long waiting to get one of the famous Steve’s Gyros! (Recently featured on the Food Network: Man vs. Food) It was awesome.  We also enjoyed the annual Oberlin fireworks display and visited Mill Hollow, a park with a slate river gorge wall that dates back 280 million years.

Michael Smallberg, Investigator
Trapped on a drinking bus with no A/C.

Neil Gordon, Investigator
I found a used copy of “The Godfather” DVD box set for 15 bucks, so I spent most of the weekend in my air conditioned apartment watching Godfather parts 1, 2 and 3.

Danielle Brian, Executive Director
We decided Sunday morning to throw a BBQ, and ended up w/ 40 people!

Bryan Rahija, Blog Editor
I found myself between warring factions of firework enthusiasts on the sands of Virginia Beach. It was all in good fun though! Each side was trying to outdo the other and see who could light up the sky with the most dramatic explosion.

Abby Evans, Development Associate
Went to a cookout. We had delicious food, stood in a baby pool to cool off, and celebrated w/ sparklers when it became dark.

Adam Zagorin, Journalist in Residence
I spent the fourth planning and thinking about my upcoming trip to Iceland with my son. Iceland has ten million puffins and 300,00 people—an unusually high puffin to people ratio. We understand that the volcano has subsided and the blue lagoon is still piping hot.

July 9th, 2010

At the end of June, POGO handed out graduation certificates to 13 congressional staffers for attending at least five seminars in our Congressional Oversight Training Series (COTS). The Series is going to take a summer vacation, and also lay low during the election season. But, we may schedule another seminar before the end of the year.

We thought it would be fun to learn what kind of impact COTS has on staffers. One investigator, who works in a Republican office, volunteered to answer some of our questions.

1. What was the most valuable thing you learned at COTS?

I can’t point my finger to a single critical issue.  I think it was mostly just listening to other people explain how they worked through an investigation.  It helps you understand the process.

2. Who else do you think would benefit from attending a COTS session?

I think that any journalist or Hill person would be helped, especially some Members of Congress who don’t understand how to go about doing oversight.

3. What is one piece of advice you would give to someone interested in congressional oversight?

Be very careful about your work.  There are a ton of interested parties who would like to saw off the branch you are venturing onto.

4. What makes your job interesting?

Getting to figure out a puzzle, uncovering a mystery.  And going after the bad guys.

5. What drew you to oversight?

Journalism is dead.  It’s all bloggers patting each other on the backs for saying something clever.  I wanted to do something that moved the needle, and this is what is available that you can’t get in journalism.

6. What changes (cultural or structural) would you like to see occur over the next few years in oversight?

There needs to be more appreciation and resources developed to oversight from members.  Getting a bill out of committee with your name on it is a lot less important than making an agency or area of the private sector alter their behavior.

__________________________________________

POGO continues to distribute copies of its oversight handbook, The Art of Congressional Oversight: A User’s Guide to Doing It Right, to congressional staff. If you are a staffer who hasn’t yet received a copy, we would like to offer you a copy. If you send an email to idrake@pogo.org we’ll arrange for a delivery.

– Ingrid Drake and Janet Su

June 30th, 2010

Not long ago, POGO Blog Editor Bryan Rahija dashed off to California for a vacation. Here he fields five questions about his trip.

1. When did you realize you were not on the east coast anymore?

When I hit my first LA traffic jam, driving away from LAX in a freshly rented car. Other moments of pure west-coast zen involved delicious sushi, frozen yogurt for $0.29 / lb, stumbling onto the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards on UCLA’s campus, and burritos at Los Jarritos II in Pomona, CA.

2. Coolest sight?

A few come to mind:

• Dolphins hopping out of the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara,
• The moonrise on our first night in Joshua Tree National Park,
• A rattlesnake on the Boy Scout Trail,
• The San Andreas fault—you can actually see the fault’s ridge peeking above ground from an overlook in Joshua Tree,
• A hillside populated only by charred trees, all blackened during a recent wildfire, but probably the best was
• The sight Pad See Ew—my first warm meal after four days of bagels and trail mix—being delivered to my table at a Thai restaurant in Joshua Tree, CA.

3. Most memorable activity?

Maybe just driving through the Joshua Tree National Park? The park is pretty large and the trails are spread out. There’s something special about the open road, jarring landscapes, and booming cactus metropolises that seem to appear suddenly out of thin air alongside the highway.

4. By plane, train, or car?

We flew in—not too bad a journey thanks to Delta’s in-flight trivia game, which lets you compete against your fellow passengers. So addictive. I now know that the average person has 24 ribs in their ribcage! Later we rented a car so that we could tool around the state.

5. Any tips for someone interested in visiting?

Bring plenty of sunscreen and don’t forget to stop at In N Out Burger.

May 3rd, 2010

Not only do POGO staffers refrain from tossing their tea bags and banana peels in the garbage, but we also save our dry cleaning bags, our cereal boxes, and our paper towels rolls.

I should know, as my office mate Mandy and I have a corner of our office designated for collecting this stuff. Approximately once a month, a handful of POGO staffers and interns carry bags filled with the boxes to the National Building Museum. There, the boxes and cardboard paper towel rolls are used by school children to construct houses and office buildings. The museum is continually in need of these (clean) items, so if you too want to collect Kleenex boxes, shoe boxes, or any other cardboard boxes that children can imagine are walls, just bring them to the Museum’s Visitor Center.

And what about the dry cleaning bags, you might ask. No, we don’t give those suffocation hazards to kids, we give them to artists. Several years ago, I took a teapot-making class at the Corcoran School of Art. The ceramics instructor said that the studio is often in need of plastic to cover students’ work-in-progress so they would not dry and crack. Instead of purchasing rolls of plastic for this purpose, the instructor said that reused dry cleaner bags work just as well. Some of us at POGO do not dry clean. But others do, a lot. And these individuals, who will remain nameless, are very diligent in bringing in their bags.

– Ingrid Drake

April 19th, 2010

Many people celebrate spring on the first day it arrives on the calendar. Some places mark its return with the arrival of March Madness or opening day of baseball season. Some organizations recognize it is spring when the first young employee tries to wear shorts to the office. Here at POGO we know it is spring when we can begin composting again.

For over 15 years the staff has placed their organic materials in a coffee can, which is then regularly emptied into one of my compost bins. POGO composts everything from paper towels to coffee grounds, from Potbelly bags to banana peels (we’re big banana eaters here at POGO). And of course, there’s the occasional apple core:

What do we do with the end product? It gets shared with the POGO folks in the area that have gardens. We’ve even had a Compost Party.

Oh, and when does winter arrive? When it gets too cold for the compost to decompose — usually right before Thanksgiving. That’s a very sad day at POGO. It takes weeks for staffers to stop coming in to me to ask why I’m not composting.

Is it part of our mission? No. But, we tend to be fiscal conservatives and try to use everything we have wisely. We also usually have fun doing it.

– Keith Rutter

March 5th, 2010

Yes, between all the “exposing corruption” and “exploring solutions” POGO staffers do occasionally sneak away for a vacation now and again. The Watercooler recently caught up with POGO national security investigator Mandy Smithberger for a quick rundown of her adventure in Israel, which had the incredible timing to coincide with Washington’s biggest snowstorm in ages. Here, she offers a snapshot of the trip by filling in the blanks:

Best meal: There was no real “stand out” meal, just lots of good, fresh food. I came away with a new appreciation for falafel and eggplant, though I can still take or leave hummus (editors note: Papa Smithberger reportedly raved about the desserts).

Moment you realized you definitely were not in the United States of America: There wasn’t snow everywhere! I left town right before snowpocalypse. But on a more serious note, probably the security everywhere — the Israeli guards around the Old City, and the Tourist police in Jordan.

New word learned in a language other than English: Yalla — Arabic for hurry up.

Favorite building or piece of architecture: Definitely Masada. It was amazing to see King Herod the Great’s baths, how he built into the rocks, and the cistern system. And of course there’s the story of the mass suicide of the Jews there to avoid being enslaved or killed by the Romans.

Overall most memorable activity / tour: There were so many things. I was particularly interested in the places where the stories in the Bible could be verified with archeological truth, especially seeing the Olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane. Riding into Petra on horseback — as touristy and hokey as that is — was a great way to see one of the most beautiful sites in the world. It’s also hard to beat going to where Jesus was bapitzed in the River Jordan. Finally, I think it can be easy to forget about the role of women in faith, so seeing the Church of Visitation — which is largely devoted to Mary and Elizabeth, but also honors other women of religious significance — was a unique and memorable site.

BONUS:

Experience that reminded you most of POGO: My mom asking our guide a question that hit a little too close to home.

Stay tuned for more dispatches from around the world!