I once sympathized with Obama's primordial reaching out to Congressional Republicans; dignified gestures were long overdue in our abundantly uncivilized politics and I couldn't help, however guardedly, but be approving. But now enters reality, Mr. President: They just aren't interested. They'll say they want to work with you on this difficulty or that crisis, but when the time comes to act they'll nearly always present themselves as nothing but a huge platter of your indigestion.
Obama as president very much wanted a nice, pleasant and Kennedyesque game of touch football, but Republicans see themselves as apocalyptic commandos in the throat-cutting Thunderdome.
'Apocalyptic commandos' my ass. They're just speed bumps in the path of progress and democracy. They slow things down a little, but then you get to run over them.
I'm glad Gregg's gone. He didn't want the census to count people if they weren't home or didn't want to talk to the enumerators. I think he was afraid that an accurate count would create new Democratic congressional districts.
I worked for the census in 2000 and may again next year. It was fun, and it paid well + mileage. I wasn't an enumerator. I checked addresses, mostly out in the boonies around here, and I met a lot of nice people who really wanted to get counted so they could maybe get their roads paved and not have to schlep their kids three miles by snowmobile to get them to the school bus. I met one guy who thought the census was government intervention, black helicopter stuff. I had a 'U.S. Government' placard on my dashboard and his neighbors actually intercepted me and told me to be careful around him. Heh.
Just a fun story about my census job, one of many. I was accompanying a young lady of about my own age on an evening run to check on addresses out in Russell Valley, where indoor plumbing and electric lines have only recently arrived. It was snow melt season and the dirt roads were muddy, slick, and slippery. We were in her beat-up old 4-wheel-drive Toyota van. On our way back from waaaay out in the woods, we were going up a little hill and the thing started spinning its wheels, ran outta steam and very gently slid backwards off the road. Stuckamundo. That was when she informed me that the 4-wheel-drive hadn't worked in years. Oh fucking swell.
Remember that this was nine years ago. Neither one of us had a cell phone. We started walking towards town. It was as dark as a Repug's soul, and the gal kept telling stories about bears and how glad she was that I was there to defend her from them. If a bear had attacked us, highly unlikely that one would be around unless it's trash day, I'm pretty sure I coulda outrun her, but I didn't tell her that. We walked maybe two miles on what passed for the main drag out there until we got to a paved road. We figured we had about another mile until we got to houses and could perhaps get someone to call for a ride the last two or three miles to town.
Amazingly, a car came by at that point. I flagged it down. It was an old Monte Carlo fulla Mexican guys. I got no idea what they were doing out there, but I'm sure they were up to no good of some sort. I suspect some sort of herbal remedy or pharmaceutical deal was involved, whether coming or going I have no idea and couldn'ta cared less. One of 'em almost spoke English and sorta reluctantly, they realized we were in a jam and gave us a ride into town. Six Mexicans and the two of us in a two-door coupe. I can't recall the exact seating arrangement, but 'clown car' comes to mind. They dropped us off at the 76 station in town and sped off into the night. Muchas gracias, vatos. It was maybe a little after 9PM.
The gal called her son to come get her. She was a coupla hours overdue at home and they were all in a tizzy. About ten minutes later two carloads of her son and his friends roared up and the son, who had a temper, jumped out and started berating me for putting his Mom in such a spot. Me. Putting her in such a spot. I gently told the lad that a) his Mom was never in any danger whatsoever, b) I was gonna go all Marine Corps on his ass if he didn't tone it down, and c) what the hell was he thinkin' lettin' his Mom ride around in a load like that old Toyota anyway? His Mom told him that she was really glad I was along and he shut up.
The kids around here party out in those same woods, they know the back roads, and they're all pretty well equipped with shovels and yank straps to extricate beer-and-hormone-stuck rigs, so a pickup load of 'em peeled out and were back with the Toyota in about thirty minutes. I stayed with the gal until they came back.
I got to enjoy an unplanned evening stroll in the woods with a nice gal whilst drawing pay from the taxpayers. Ho-hum. Just another day in Paradise...
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