My Cool DC Life

After work I usually spend an hour or so at the gym ... sweating it out. Today, however I had the IN to a Capitol Hill presentation on displacement and I did some celebrity stalking - all at the same time!

Ryan Gosling was the celebrity (as well as Ben Mackenzie from the OC - but he didn't speak and all I saw was the back of his head) and let's just get it all said and done so we can move on to what he said and what the !Enough campaign is all about. Ok - he looked really really good. Scruffy (just the way I like my men), brooding, contemplative, and sincere. He was wearing a white collard shirt, open at the neck, with a suite jacket. His hair was short and messy (kind of like the picture here but a bit longer; and he was talking mostly about Norther Uganda, not Darfur like his shirt says) and he looked really really good. He sounded EXACTLY like he does as Noah in The Notebook. It was dreamy.

Take a good long look ...
and now lets move on to what was said and what I observed at the presentation.
P.S. - check what his wiki says about his family:
Ryan Gosling was born in London, Ontario and raised in the small paper mill town
of Cornwall. His parents, who were Mormons, divorced when he was young.
And this article confirms it in his own words ...
another peep in Hollywood (or at least a former peep)

First and foremost - the room in the Dirkson Senate Building was FULL of young female hill staffers. Multiple presenters, including Mr. Gosling, commented on the youthfulness of the Hill. It was interesting to see how the ENOUGH campaign was using celebrity to promote the cause - which is totally the thing to do. Mission - create awareness (because really that is the first step to success - people need to know about it). How to accomplish this mission? - enlist the visibility of a celebrity. CHECK.

All the speakers encouraged us to send letters to the President of the United States ... does that really work? Perhaps I am skeptical. Also, they asked the audience (mainly staffers of Senate and Congressional offices) to go to work tomorrow and ask their bosses to "sign on" ... I hate to break it to them - but that crowd was mostly interns that are lucky to even say hello to their bosses the Congressmen/women or Senators, let alone suggest they support a US delegate to the peace talks in Uganda (there I go again with the skepticism).

But really - lots of good things were said. There was an aura of hope in that room, even though the topic is seemingly hopeless. Children being stolen from their beds in the night to be enlisted in the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Really tragic things are going on there ... its hard to believe, but I know its true especially because my roommie lived in Uganda running a medical clinic for four months. Its bad there and she didn't even really deal with the LRA or the issues of Northern Uganda.

In conclusion, it was a good presentation and Ryan Gosling was sincere in his desire to make a difference ... to do something more.

In response to the looks on the people's faces in a displacement camp - looks that seemed to say "you can help us" he said,

"I'm just an actor ... I just pretend to be people who you think can help you ... I am just a guy."

But he realized he could help by speaking about his experience. He said of a boy he met in a camp,

"This little tiny boy was more of a man than I will ever be."

The five minute film Displace Me was also touching. Demonstrating the many peoples around this world that are displaced from their homes because of war. The destruction of culture, families, tradition, health, and other basic fundamental qualities of life that occur due to displacement. It is heart breaking. The movie ended with this great reminder:

EVERY WAR HAS AN END

Lets make them end sooner, rather than later.