It's hard to NOT shake your head sometimes at news and notes from the nation's capital. There are many surveys, too many for my taste, that suggest a lot of us hold the people whom we have selected and elected to represent us in the houses of the legislative branch in extremely low regard. From what I've read, we don't feel that way quite as strongly about our own representative, at least usually-given the opportunity to personalize her/him-but rather in the abstract, as in 'those Senators' or 'those colorful expletive deleted we send to Congress'.
It can't be an easy job, sitting in either house and weighing the arguments and deciding the merits of issues as diverse as national health care (with as many opinions as ticks on a dog; some being espoused by folks who resemble one or the other of those two), through government intervention in attempts at economic recovery to issues of war and peace across and throughout the globe. The vast majority of representatives, Congressional or Senatorial, are in some way, shape or form, our neighbors--maybe we don't each or any of them personally, but I'll bet we know someone who does know them.
My point is none have cloven hooves or pointy heads, or vice versa (I guess). And just as I'm about to convince you to at least think momentarily more kindly about 'those people in DC' up comes a story like yesterday's Sport Illustrated bulletin (is that a little too dramatic, or do I mean redundant?), "House Panel Passes College Football Playoff Bill."
This is why we are helping Afghanistan to build its fragile democracy, so that they, too, can enjoy the blessings of liberty and peace, and maybe getting a chance to stick a large red, white and blue foam index finger (the clerk did say it was an index finger, right?) on one of their own freedom-starved hands and scream themselves hoarse for some manner of mascot representing an institute of higher learning in something as sacred as a college football game (I'll bet it won't be for the College of the Holy Cross, for obvious reasons).
And you thought all the folks in D. C. did was take expensive junkets to exotic places and pass laws they don't have to abide by. Wake up and smell the coffee. If you thought passage, unanimously in the Senate, declaring August is National Peach Month was as good as it gets, break out the face paint and start working on a buddy now, pilgrim. When sponsor GOP Representative Joe Barton, Texas, and his posse get through with this important legislation, there will children all across these United States if not around the globe, born perhaps during Capital One Bowl Week, who'll be named after him. The World According to GOP. Are you receiving, or taking the wind?
-bill kenny
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