A Hurricane, Not An Earthquake

Last week, I saw a headline in one of the few remaining daily newspapers left in the whole wide world which indicated that the reptile house in Washington would be renovated.

Naturally, I headed to Capitol Hill to see what was going on in Congress. Turns out nobody was home. The guys are out of town, on vacation or running for president. Or just running.

But you know it’s been a weird summer. Heck, it’s been a weird year. Just plain everybody is still embarrassed and ticked about the way our resident politicians from the president to congress to tea party-ers to the media dealt with the debt crisis, which went from a routine yearly thing to political Defcon 3 in about the time it takes John Boehner not to return a call.

Was that a mess or what, and now you know why Eric Cantor was smiling. He for one is not running for president, but the dean of the GOP Young Guns is aiming straight at the speaker’s job. Squeaky wheel, indeed.

The Chinese are mad at us, so mad they picked a fight with the Georgetown University basketball team in China on a good will game tour.

The S&P is mad at the country because of the way Washington—that would be the fools on the hill and at the White House—handled the whole debt mess, so much so that it lowered our borrowing rating to AA, a low-light battery if there ever was one.

The media seems to be mad at Obama along with any number of people who are unhappy about him vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard with rich people. Did you expect him to vacation, I don’t know, Detroit, maybe or on the Texas-Mexico border with the drug lords?

Already, the media is in a kind of frothing frenzy about the GOP primary race, especially now that Texas Governor Rick Perry is in the race. Michelle Bachman won the straw poll in Iowa, whatever that gets you, Tim Pawlenty dropped out, Ron Paul finished second and Newt Gingrich, living up to his first name, finished behind but stayed in for reasons that defy logic, common sense, and Murphy’s Law.
Perry, the dark-eye-brow man who looks like and drawls like a Texas gunslinger, all ominous and mouthy, made his announcement in South Carolina, where all common sense takes flight to destinations unknown. Or as someone said, in South Carolina, Yahoo is a state of mind not a search engine. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union, and Perry is the only current GOP runner who thought that might be a good idea.

So far Perry has called the Chairman of the Federal Reserve a traitor, and reiterated that global warming is a science community plot to get grants, or something like that. He’s easy to mock if you’re one of those soft liberal commentators, or Bill Maher, but he’s also serious. I’m guessing he’s a pretty good poker player. Bill Clinton called him a handsome rascal, an odd choice of words which indicate he reminded him of another handsome rascally Southern governor of yore.

Almost everything that could happen this year, happened: Japan, the Middle Eastern spring turned into violent summer, the death of Bin Laden, the heightening casualties in Afghanistan, the debt ceiling fiasco, the shootings in Arizona, strikes by high paid athletes, horrible draughts, fires, tornadoes and heat waves, a stock market operating like a whiz bang, atrocity in Norway, the Kardashian wedding.
It’s nice to still be able to feel safe in our own neighborhoods. I mean, it’s not like we could get hit by an earthquake or something.

Oh wait. That happened. Just now, or less.

Cans flew off the shelves in the Adams Morgan Safeway, where a counter girl was in tears. Cars shook on the street; a chimney fell off an apartment building as a 5.8 or 5.9 quake hit the East coast, specifically Virginia. The Pentagon was evacuated. I was walking on 18th street and felt nothing. But the folks at the post office were a little off, feeling dizzy and everyone felt and sometimes saw buildings shake.

Well, there goes that.

A hurricane is coming, and it’s Hurricane Perry.