Today I’ll be pretty hard to contact: my only window when I’m not in meetings is between about 12 and 3, and I need to write. (How to contact me)

I’ve got a staff meeting in the morning, a press interview in the afternoon, and I have to clear out of the office a bit early to attend a reception for my 12-year-old daughter who won the District of Columbia Spelling bee a week ago. Then it’s back to the office, where WOLA is hosting a reception for all of the Latin American human rights defenders who are in town for the ongoing hearings of the OAS Inter-American Human Rights Commission.

When not doing that, I’m within striking distance of finishing edits to all 109 U.S. military aid program descriptions that we’ve identified for an upcoming report on the Defense Department’s ascendant role in foreign assistance. This has been a slog, a bit like writing an encyclopedia. Maybe this will be the day we get through it.