I had a big political day yesterday.  In the morning I rode my bike to the Metro and went to the "National Day of Witness" action in DC.  The purpose is to encourage Obama to sign a presidential order banning torture immediately upon entering office.  We met at a church near the White House, and then marched to the White House, with a police escort and everything.  A number of people gave speeches -- I looked for a photo, but couldn't find one yet.  

I hooked up with a group from the Arlington Unitarian Church, and they asked if I wanted to come with them to visit Congressman Moran and Senator Webb (well, their aides, of course).  It's so amazing to not be booked up all day, so I said sure -- why not (but I felt bad, I was dressed for an outdoor rally, not meeting in congressional offices...oh well, it's a perk that comes with age).  So, we went to the big buildings near the Capitol and met with aides, and I think we got our point across.  Certainly both of these people support an end to torture, but it's always an issue of how to do that, what the timing should be, protocols, etc.  Both the aides were young(er) men, and seemed to have a process for bringing up our request to their people.  I was assigned to follow up with Webb's people next week (does it mean I get to lunch with people?  I think not:-)  One really cool thing was that there's this whole underground network of passages between the Capitol and the offices -- they have a little subway that you can take if you have a pass, which we got from Moran's office.  So we went from one office to the basement of the Capitol, then got another subway to Webb's office building.

It's a great time to live near Washington and participate, in this little way, with a new administration.