John C. Calhoun looks as intense as he was said to be

Thanks to my buddy Phil, I got to tour the Capitol this morning. I was, of course, star struck. The art was amazing, the statues of men I've read about almost brought them alive for me and the rotunda really is an amazing thing to stand beneath. But I was also struck by what a remodeled and reremodeled labrynth the place is.

And one very old school thing: There's a cheap folding table next to the stairway up to the Capitol from the underground passage that leads from the Senate office buildings. It's the same sort of folding table you'd see at a church barbecue. That's where copies of any amendments are kept for the senators returning to the floor, just stacks of white Xeroxed papers sitting on a cheap table next to a handwritten note. Very old school, almost Third World.