Mike O'Connell

I received a letter from my member of Congress the other day. That’s Barbara Comstock, “Republican”-District 10 of Virginia, also known as Barbara Comstock-Libous. Actually, to say the letter came from my congressmember is a bit misleading. The letter came from me, because I paid for it. “Public servant, official business,” reads the return address. Ms. Comstock’s signature is reproduced where a stamp would usually appear, like some 18th-century franking mark.

The “official business” promoted is a meet-and-greet with Ms. Comstock at a local library. That’s a thinly-veiled campaign event advertised in thinly-veiled campaign literature paid for by not-so-thinly-veiled tax dollars. Thanks, Barb.

The last time I contacted Ms. Comstock’s office was some years ago, when I requested that I no longer receive taxpayer-financed campaign literature at my home. Would you like it sent to your e-mail instead? inquired her eager staffer.

I’m still wondering whether that was a joke.

Note to self for when counting the Yankees out of a playoff series: Do not count the Yankees out of a playoff series. Down 0-2? Got ’em right where we want ’em.

This is one final ride, remember?

One final ride.

Usually hedging your bets is a good idea.

When you’re me, and you’ve got a favorite American League baseball team and a favorite National League baseball team, and both of them are in the playoffs, you think you’ll be happy when at least one of the teams make its League Championship Series. I’m happy, of course, that my childhood heroes, the New York Yankees, are in the ALCS after improbable victories three games in a row over the Cleveland Indians. A thing of glory, as a matter of fact. On the other side of things, however, there are my almost-equally-beloved Nats, my hometown (now) team, who’d had a great season and every chance in the world to make the NLCS. Just one more victory last night would have done it. Even if it took until the wee hours of this morning they needed just one more win.

And in epic Washington-failure fashion, it just did not happen.

Can’t say it wasn’t a great game last night (and this morning), but the result was one we’ve become all too accustomed to in the DMV. That sound you hear all across the area this morning is fans sleepily and angrily hitting their alarm clocks knowing they’re going to be late today, if they can make it in at all.

Usually hedging your bets is a good idea. Get a different meal than your wife gets in case one of them isn’t good. But this? The heartbreak last night is more like finding out one of your kids survived a plane crash. One of them. Following a sports team ain’t exactly life and death—I get it. But tell that to the thousands of crushed Nats fans across the area, fans who on top of all this have to endure the same pain and suffering from the Capitals every spring as well.

I find myself one step closer to finally admitting that the team of my youth is now overshadowed in my heart by my new hometown team. The Yankees are great anyway; the Nats need me. Like the Brooklyn Dodgers of old, they need me, and like said Dodgers we’re now waiting ’til next year. And is it better or worse that the Nats are actually good now? At least during the regular season. After decades of futility (many in which the city did not have a team at all) Washington baseball now is actually good, which somehow makes it all the more painful.

But before I go all in for the Nats…

O Yankees, O team of my youth, give me one more ride. Just once more. For CC, for Gardner, for Girardi, for John Sterling for God’s sake. One more time, just one more time.

This is going back a bit, but not exactly time sensitive so worth examining on this Columbus Day. (You know Columbus… the murderous pillager of native lands.)

Last Sunday my hometown paper (that’s The Washington Post) published a piece in its magazine section (the “Education Issue”) about third graders in the D.C. area and how they feel about certain grownup topics. (The world according to third graders or some such thing.) I think the editors of the Post intend for you to take this seriously, and weep and wail for the future. Please do not. Just laugh along at some of the responses. (Save the weeping for the grownups who peddle this junk.)

On presidential politics…

“I think Hillary should have won because people are saying that Trump cheated in the election because they said he was working with Russia or ISIS or something.”

“I would vote for Hillary Clinton because Donald Trump doesn’t like black people and Hillary Clinton does.”

“I think that if I could vote, I would vote for Hillary Clinton because I wouldn’t vote for Donald Trump because he’s orange.” (This was about the most reasoned, thought-out response I encountered.)

On race and gender issues…

“Girls can’t pass the gas without saying excuse me, but sometimes some boys don’t have to.” (Actually this was the best response of the whole lot.)

“I heard on the news that this black guy, he was graduating, and… he was sitting at the bus stop, and then a white person came and he was telling him stuff about things, and then the guy got a knife and then he killed him.” (Doesn’t really say who killed whom, but I wouldn’t let facts get in the way of this story.)

“Some people can be very rich for doing nothing, and they can just sit back and relax their whole life, and there are some people who are poor and they have to get really hard jobs and they get paid very little and they get treated horribly, and Donald Trump hasn’t done anything to help people about this.” (This is pretty much the thinking at the big-boy version of the Post as well. And CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, etc.)

On climate change…

“I don’t really understand climate change, but didn’t Donald Trump do it?”

If I were president…

“I would end slavery.” (I should note this survey was conducted in 2017.)

“I would make slavery against the law, and, what I would do, I would let blacks and whites get along.” (Same comment.)

“I would tear down the wall from Mexico and let them be free. Because Donald Trump is a jerk to Mexicans… I mean, Mexico is not that bad. I mean, it’s not like what it used to be. It has tall buildings.” (#smh)

Lofty goals for our kid presidents, the brainwashed gang of eight-year-olds roaming the streets of the DMV. Fear not, though, grownups, for among the zero percent support for Trump or anything resembling diversity of opinion there is this nugget of wisdom, easily the most reasonable answer given among the presidential plans for a future generation:

“I would make it so that there’s only 10 states so it’s easier to remember all of them.”

Brilliant.

I hold no illusions of grandeur, that people actually read this blog to find news or that there are legions of readers out there beside themselves just itching to know what I think about a particular topic. I mostly write this blog for myself: one to practice writing and two to perhaps one day look back myself and see what I had to say about topics X, Y, or Z.

With that in mind, it would be foolish to have a blog and say nothing about the recent events in Las Vegas, Nevada. I have nothing, really, to add to the dialogue other than what any normal person would think: just an unthinkable tragedy you’re glad you had no part in. I realize that hundreds of people were affected by this horror, and of course one feels awful just thinking about those situations.

About the only constructive thing I can say about the event is that, well, it’s not changing how I feel about large-scale live music events and it’s certainly not changing how I feel about Las Vegas.

Still going to concerts, still going to Vegas.

That’s it.