the view from here

The conference I attended last week was at the very nice building of the US Chamber of Commerce, which is on H Street NW just north of the White House. There was a pre-conference reception that was supposed to be on the roof of the US Chamber building. But we were told that due to a helicopter landing at the White House, we shouldn't go up there if we didn't want to get shot. So that wasn't a difficult choice. But at 6:30 we were allowed on the roof, and we were treated to a perfect night with the dramatic view pictured here. (The photo was snapped with my cruddy little phone camera.) The building to the right is the Eisenhower Old Executive Office Building. I think it means the building is old, not that it's a building full of elderly executives.

I admit that it is a bit of a different thing for this liberal Democrat to be teaming up with serious business-first and faith-based proponents, but the ultimate goals of everyone at the conference were improvement of our communities, elimination of (or at least amelioration of) poverty, and overall improvement of opportunity and quality of life for everyone, especially the neediest in our country. And unlike certain things in politics where it's either one philosophy or the other, in this arena there's room for all approaches as long as you can find someone to underwrite it. The trick is to get all those different approaches coordinated to reduce redundancy and maximize impact. And after all, that's not a bad job to have, if you have to work for a living.