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On Explaining the Sequester
@WaityKatie Maybe...but there's a reason I wince-laughed at your original description of federal employees. I bet the American people will just expect feds to do their cushy blood-sucking jobs in less time, and when a good and decent federal employee makes a miracle happen and gets some desperately-needed thing done for them, the American people will nod smugly and say we knew you were just being lazy before
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On Explaining the Sequester
@stuffisthings The members sure won't be. They have important work to do, manufacturing crises, hurting people, and taking lobbyist money! Haven't heard anything about staffers, but I don't think they're going to be affected. I know they're different from federal employees but I don't know where their pay comes from.
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On Explaining the Sequester
I mean I get that, in the scheme of things -- even in the scheme of the sequester, which will do huge damage to already vulnerable people everywhere -- there are worse outcomes than my parents going from a comfortable existence to a less comfortable one. But my dad has literally bled for this country and he's going to be sent home from work one day a week without pay like some naughty schoolboy. If I saw Boehner or Eric Cantor in the street I'd have to be physically restrained. Fuck them.
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On Explaining the Sequester
@WaityKatie "alternately sleeping at our desks and drinking the blood of innocents." ahahahaha/oh god :( This applies to both of my parents, who now know for certain that they will not be able to retire on anything like a normal timeline. This after decades of steady, reliable service at pay rates well below industry standard, in my dad's case in war zones, in uniform and out. I cannot believe this -- the nuclear, tie-our-hands option -- is going to happen. I've been alternating between rage and sadness. Mostly sadness, at this point.
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On More Than a Place For The White House
It is a great read, and thank you for sharing it! My hackles are raised (often unnecessarily, as here) when people start talking about DC the city, because, as you note, it’s so dominated by what other people see/think/think they know about it. And so much of that “DC has no identity!/Hill staffers amIrite” moaning drowns out the many people who build lives here, have memories here, and love it, busted politics, sad history and all. (to be clear, I never thought you were knocking DC or projecting anything on it!)
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On More Than a Place For The White House
If you visited Washington and never made it past the Mall, no wonder you thought it was a weird city to visit. (probably you didn't! and if you did no big, there's interesting free stuff there.) (This is the deeply ingrained defensive reflex of the native Washingtonian speaking.)
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On The Bodega 'Eggs on a Roll'
@stuffisthings Wow, that's...something something neighborhood dynamics. I like this quote: "We fell in love with this place because of how we are treated, with dignity and fresh fish," he said. That's how I would like to be treated. I'm making a field trip.
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On The Bodega 'Eggs on a Roll'
@stuffisthings Agreed! We do have awesome cheap, fast, ethnic food in the suburbs. Bit of a hike, but it's here and it's delicious. Plus, as cherrispryte points out, we do have an excellent mid- to upscale food scene. And I really really love that we have great soul food on corners, in our versions of bodegas, as opposed to/in addition to in trendy restaurants.
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On How Much You Should Pay to See: 'Moonrise Kingdom'
I loved this movie so much, entirely on its own, its place in the Wes Anderson oeuvre aside. It's sweet and sad and uplifting. It made me want to be 12 again and live on an island and groove to new wave-y French pop. Also "St. Jack's Church" is the church my aunt is rector of, and she said Wes Anderson was great and friendly and wore a corduroy suit. If your travels take you to Newport, RI, this summer, go check out Trinity Church! It's full of history and also Wes Anderson Has Been There.
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On Explaining the Sequester
@WaityKatie Sorry, I knew you were being ironic and I was trying to respond in kind! My point was that that awful misperception (that federal employees=lazy, overpaid ) runs weirdly deep in the American public, and while I wish the sequester could be the thing that wakes them up to the fact that the govt and its employees does a lot of good stuff they'll miss when it's gone -- I'm not hopeful, because Americans seem to love to hate their bureaucrats. Believe me, I know how hard federal employees work, and what truckloads of nonsense they have to put up with.