Our nation's capital. Everytime I visit DC, I experience this pervasive sense of big things going on all around that I'm not consciously aware of. This time however , though the self-important hub-bub continued at its normal frantic levels, I had a very real sense that the power subtext of downtown DC was a farcical backdrop for the really important work which has to do with ordinary people trying to find their way in the world. "Rome never looks where she treads." as Billy Bragg so aptly put it , but we have to live with results of the footfalls.