Good evening spies I am happy to have gathered you all here. To prepare for your mission you are going to find your secret identity. Hello everyone! As you can probably guess I went to the Spy museum this weekend and was in my own nirvana. So a few things you should know about the spy museum: 1) It is very kid oriented 2) The museum does not give all of the details of a spy's life (no matter how much we want them to) 3) There is a whole floor dedicated to James Bond 4) They do give a lot of details about being a spy in the 'good old days' As a girl who grew up watching James Bond save the world from evil. I wasn't too upset that there was a whole floor dedicate to Agent 007. The museum draws you right in starting you off just like you are a real spy letting you pick your own mission and undercover persona. You then watch a short introductory film with a narrator that sounds like Madame M from James Bond. Then you go through "spy training" where you test your memory of your cover story and finding drop locations even being able to crawl through an air vent. In "spy training" the museum intersperses actual spy tools and devices used by actual spies. The museum also slightly discusses the consequences of when a spy is captured. However, as I said before it was a very kid friendly museum so the nook did not go into gory detail focusing on a life in prison and not a tortuous death. Now obviously it is all materials that are no longer used by spies because they are currently hidden in the nation’s secrets. But I did see some fascinating old weapons such as the one seen below. There was the second floor dedicated to the history of spies and how over the years there role has changed. Believe it or not Benjamin Franklin was a modern day spy, writing letters to British-German troops and hiding them in their supplies causing some of them to leave the British militia. They also gave tribute to spies in other nations such as in the British and of course the ninjas in Asia. Below you can see a statue of a ninja in typical garb. The last step in the spy museum is the James Bond exhibit. This exhibit went through James Bond’s entire glorious career. So this is the root of my captivation with James Bond, all of the villains in the James Bond movies reflect real villains in current times. The villains focus on drug, and diamond trade for some movies, then moving to nuclear war fears, with villains trying to convince nation leaders to start an all ending nuclear war destroying the world, while the villains hide in space or under the sea. As seen in the latest James Bond movie we see the exploits of cyber warfare and that is all I will say for those who have not seen it. Now several feminists have a problem with all of the women who fawn over Agent 007. Now I am not saying that I am exactly thrilled with how women are always portrayed in the movies; but especially when the earlier movies were made women were not super heroes. It was always a man who defeated the Villains in the end. This is a reality we thankfully do not need to live with anymore since the woman revolution. The revolution is apparent throughout the movies when we have a Madame Director of MI 6. *stepping down from platform* The exhibit on the other hand was really cool to see the touch screens revealing sharks swimming in your face and a metal pole you could hold on to compare your strength against James Bonds. Below is a picture of all of the propaganda in the stairwell leading to the exhibit. On a more academic note for this week, I started my poster project for the end of the semester and have shopped around for topics for my final paper. At my internship this week I wrote the answers to a set of interrogatories. Interrogatories are inquiries each side makes requesting document production during discovery. So I was really excited to do the answers for the OAG. Obviously, the attorney I wrote them for must look them over and then my supervisor must also approve it, but I was excited and very nervous that the Attorney would let me write them. I also prepared and reviewed an exhibit binder, finished printing around 1500 emails for document production, called witnesses for deposition preparation and wrote a Rule 37 Letter. A Rule 37 Letter is the next step after you receive document production if the opposing side does not fully answer your interrogatories. I am not going to lie that it was fun to go through and see what the opposing side did wrong. I think it went well because then the same lawyer then asked me to write another one! On Tuesday night I went to a talk by Norman J. Ornstein on his most recent book. The discussion also included Mark Chester a photographer who produced a book of photographs of juxtaposing pictures. My favorites were of one of a young married couple compared to an old married couple and a glasses shop compared to a pair of glasses framing a beach scene. The night turned into a serious talk on the media, how it has changed over the years and the direction it is heading. After the event Mr. Ornstein was signing books so I had him sign my book we read for class called It’s even worse than it looks by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein. Well I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving and I hope that even if you are not with your families you still have a wonderful time this holiday!
1 Comment
12/1/2013 03:39:02 pm
HI Shannon, thanks for the tips regarding the spy museum. I was thinking about going there, but maybe I might skip it and go to the Newseum instead. Nevertheless, the gadgets and the James Bond exhibit looks fun!
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AuthorMy name is Shannon McCullough. I have Political Science and Legal Studies degree at Nazareth College of Rochester. I have previously interned at the Office of the Attorney General for DC. Currently, I am studying my Masters degree in International Relations at Shandong University in Jinan, China. Archives
September 2016
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