Mike O'Connell

An organization called the “New Virginia Majority Education Fund” has delivered several fliers to my home recently. These are full-color, high-gloss jobs, and as someone who used to be in the business (both actually… politics and the mails) I know these ain’t cheap.

The NVMEF (if I may) is promoting its “Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy,” urging me to vote on November 7. Vote exactly how and for whom I’m not sure, as the flier doesn’t list any candidates or ballot initiatives. “Paid leave!” “Affordable college!” “Living wages!” “Affordable elder care!” and other vague platitudes are pretty much all they got. “It shouldn’t be so expensive to live and raise a family here,” reads the advertisement. Exactly whom we’re putting the screws on to lower prices everywhere is a bit unclear. Just make things cost less? That’s how six-year-olds think.

“In a Family Friendly Economy, hardworking people would have more time and money to invest in themselves and the people they love. And Virginia businesses could attract and retain the best employees, helping strengthen our economy for everyone.”

One-eyed communism.

Here are a few things we might invest in first:

1. Magical money trees.
2. Suspension of the laws of economics.
3. The rare ability that certain lawmakers possess in which they can spend money other people’s money on you without spending any of your money on anyone else.

What was the number of that ballot initiative again?

I’ve been waiting 25 years for the secret JFK assassination files to be unleashed upon the American public.

Seriously? A bunch of redacted bureaucratic gobbledygook?

Somebody get Donald Sutherland on a park bench and tell him to start talking.

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.