Editorials and Opinions

Georgetowner • February 15, 2013

District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray’s State of the District Address last week was downright celebratory — and there appeared to be a lot to celebrate and promise.

Mayor Gray promised to pay special attention to the issue of affordable housing, pledging to commit $100 million to affordable housing and the thousands of additional units that would result. There was talk about the continuing rise in the District’s population, at the rate of a thousand per month, rising school enrollment and a rising number of charter schools, and numerous commercial developments en route to being begun or completed all over the district, including areas which hadn’t seen many cranes before. Things were getting to be just peachy in the district, what with at least two vastly improved sports franchises and another apparently on the road to getting better.

We have a major $400 million surplus,
ladies and gentlemen, which is great for everybody, even city employees who may get a raise after years of having none. Yup, it’s great to live in D.C.

…Unless you happen to be homeless. Washington Post Metro writer Petula Dvorak pointed out the startling fact that there are 600 kids living in the city’s single family homeless shelter. Six hundred kids. Not only that, but according to her report, the kids and parents living in that shelter have to go through uncommonly difficult bureaucratic hoops just to get cots there.

The mayor rightly indicated that we’re on our way to becoming a capital capitol city. Everyone can enjoy living here and wants to come here to live here. It’s a great town unless you’re homeless.

It’s good to hear about the focus on affordable housing, but we haven’t yet heard any details, or if there’s money in the hundred million that might go toward the homeless, increasing shelters or housing for the homeless and making sure that children. There was talk once of creating affordable housing geared for the homeless, especially for homeless families, single parents or children. Let’s hear details about those funds for affordable housing. Maybe then we can call ourselves a capital city.

David Post •

Twenty-seven words.

13 don’t count.

“A well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state…”

Those opening words of the Second Amendment are completely ignored by the NRA and largely ignored by the Supreme Court.

14 words, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” count and those 14 words kill tens of thousands of people every year.

From 1776 to 1783 the Continental Army, a ragtag citizens’ army of 17,000, fought our Revolutionary War. The army was rounded up by the Paul Reveres who rode through towns marshalling the forces. Citizens arose from their beds, grabbed their guns – because the army didn’t own any – and went to war. When the war ended in 1783, the Continental Congress did not want a permanent army like the British had, so it was disbanded. Soldiers went home with their guns.

Eight years later, when the Second Amendment was passed, an army of private citizens on call was the only military. Hence, the first 13 words. Some argue that those 13 words were intended to allow citizens to rise up and declare war against a “bad” government.

Poppycock! The idea of citizens rising up against the U.S. government is laughable. A member of the Tea Party recently asked me, “Don’t you believe that the Holocaust would have been avoided if the Jews had been allowed to have guns?” Jews with guns could no more have held back the Nazi army than could the citizens of a city hold back the U.S. Army.

No government gives the governed the right to overthrow it violently. In fact, the United States Constitution specifically dis- allows that possibility. Section 3 of Article III of the Constitution says that ”levying War” against the government is Treason, and Section 4 of Article IV says that the federal government shall protect the states “against domestic Violence.”

Instead, the founders gave us the First Amendment and the ballot box so that citizens could criticize and overthrow the government peacefully. What purpose is a Constitution that gives citizens the right to wage war against – that is, to destroy – the government they create?

Conservatives theorist and judges argue that courts should apply the original intent of the Constitution and that the Constitution does not change with the times. At the time of the Revolution, muskets could only shoot one bullet at a time. While one soldier shot a musket, a second soldier loaded another gun with another bullet. Not until ten years after the Second Amendment was passed, did Eli Whitney – of cotton gin fame – invent the concept of standardized parts which allowed thousands of guns to be manufactured from similar interchangeable parts. His only cus- tomer was the federal government.

Ironically, when guns are involved, conservatives become liberals and embrace the “times change” attitudes. True conservatives would not be debating clips that hold thirty bullets or automatic weapons that can fire hundreds of rounds a minute. They would be debating one-shot muskets.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the deceased philosophic US Senator, quipped that because the Constitution failed to mention bullets, Congress should simply outlaw bullets. After all, he said, bullets, not guns, kill people.

Whatever gun laws emerge from Congress in the next few months will pale in comparison to the next Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment. The NRA and its ilk point to DC v. Heller, the 2008 Supreme Court decision, believing it prohibited all gun control. Heller merely held that DC’s ban on handguns was too restrictive, but the Supreme Court left open many questions, including acceptable “limits” on gun laws and “dangerous and unusual weapons.”

The gun debate is about patience. Over the next eight years, four Supreme Court justices over age 74 – two liberal and two conservative – will likely retire and be replaced. The winner of the 2016 presidential election will likely re-shape the Supreme Court – and gun rights – for decades to come.

Until then, the first 13 words of the Second Amendment will be ignored. Pray for the quarter million people in the U.S. who between now and then will die from bullets.

Georgetowner • January 30, 2013

Here’s a word you haven’t heard on the hill in a while; bipartisanship.

Why, just about the only time you heard the word was when partisan on one side bemoaned that the other side wasn’t being bipartisan, and that it was their fault. It was sort of a constant varia- tion to the tune of “I’ve Got Those Ain’t Got No Bipartisanship Blues,” and everything was singing it off key.

Well, it’s a new day on Capitol Hill, and bipar- tisanship—”bipardismo” to you Spanish speak- ers—was in the air, sort of like love springs in the spring. And it was the need, desire, aching-for- action on a comprehensive immigration bill that was the spur.

Three Republican and three Democrats, two of them—Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida—making their statement in Spanish to the delight of English and Spanish speakers alike. The gang of eight—it includes Republicans John McCain of Arizona, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democrats Richard Durbin of Illinois, Charles Schumer of New York, and Michael Bennet of Colorado— announced a wide-ranging proposal to overhaul the country’s immigration laws as they exist. Sen. John McCain who has waxed hot and cold on the issue for years is once again in the forefront—he said we need to fix the mistakes of 1986.

President Barack Obama was expected to set forth his own principles and plan Jan. 29, which rumor has it are somewhat like the Senate plan but more liberal and more focused on getting illegal aliens on a path to citizenship.

The president and senators agreed that the effort would be bipartisan. For Obama, he was keeping a promise and a voting bloc. For the Republicans, it was pragmatism, spurred quite a bit by electoral defeat in which the Latino vote figured prominently.

Here are elements of the Senate plan: quick legalization status for illegal immigrants provided that they pay back taxes and a fine. The path toward citizenship would be delayed until further strengthening of the nation’s border. Rubio said it would modernize the entire legal immigration sys- tem and added that we have to deal with the people that are here now “in a way that’s responsible and humane.”

The White House’s participations in the Senate bipartisan effort was minimal while reports said that Obama’s administration had been working on their plan for a long time.

So: bipartisanship or competing plans?

Still, here are Democrats and Republicans working together, and the White House praising the effort and calling it similar to its plans. In the age of lowered expectations, that’s something, a far cry from four decades in which both sides in the end seemed to stumble, often bitterly, toward the arid desert of complete breakdown and failure to negotiate. Obama pushed through a Health Care bill without a single Republican vote. The Senate Republican leader almost from the moment Obama took office four years ago vowed to make it his mission to oust and opposed Obama.

The Republicans are going back to work chas- tened by their unexpected electoral loss. That may have spurred a lot of soul searching by party stalwarts and future presidential candidates, which is all to the good.

Of course, there have been attempts to reform and re-plan immigration before without much headway.

But just listening to the remarkable blame-free and rhetoric-free talk of late (the last 24 hours) should give one, if not hope, at least pause.

What’s next?

A joint . . . ahem . . . bipartisan effort on tax reform?

David Post •

Some heroes are famous. Others are just quietly courageous.

The most courageous people I ever met, and admittedly never knew very well, were the handful of 14-year-old African- American students who in 1963, when we were freshmen, chose to come to my white high school rather to their black high school. They chose to be strangers in a strange new place rather than be stars in a familiar place.

In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education decid- ed that “separate education facilities were inher- ently unequal.”My typical small southern town ignored the Supreme Court. In 1970, the courts required southern schools to integrate, but, in the 1963 south, it was a choice that took real courage.

Four of my black classmates came to mind during the Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration.

Clarence passed away three weeks ago. He was a gentle giant who always recognized me with a smile, reminded me who he was, and told me to not worry about forgetting his name.

Margaret came to our 25th reunion picnic – but not the dinner – and askedus white kids to sign her yearbook. Now twenty years later, that episode embarrasses me still. No other black classmate ever came to our white reunions.

Herman was asuperstar student and athlete who excelled at football, basketball, and track. Today, he’s a doctor in New York City. During my freshman year, Key Club selected new mem- bers.It was an honor. Herman was not selected. The following year, our longest meeting was debating whether to offer him membership. We didn’t. Race was never mentioned. Race was the only issue.

My memory is vivid because as a Jew in the South, I knew how quiet – and deafening – discrimination could be. My parents and I discussed whether I should quit Key Club. I didn’t. It was easy, as it has throughout my life, to quietly hide behind my white skin and blond hair. Herman couldn’t do that.

Linda graduated number one in our class with a 4.0 average, the highest grade point average then possible. She never received the recognition that others with lower grades (like me) got. She was also – and may sue me for publishing this – drop-dead gorgeous.

Linda is a lawyer in Connecticut, now a nationally known “mover and shaker” in the non- profit world. After being a bank attorney and serving as a commissioner of the Connecticut utility regulatory agency, she became president of one of the nation’s largest non-profit foundations managing $750 million dollars, more than a thousand funds, and thousands of grants.

In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. declared, “I Have a Dream,” just days before school started. Did these young heroesdecide to break the race barrier because of that speech? How do they remember those years? It can’t be good.

“Connect . . . connect . . . connect,” Dr. Zinerva White slowly repeated at my city’s MLK breakfast until the 500 of us absorbed his message and reached out to hold hands with the person next to us.

I called Herman and Linda, 50 years late, to “connect.”

In 1963, my little town had its own heroic Martin Luther Kings.

Jack Evans •

Council Period 20 is now well underway, and we will soon be swept up in our oversight and budget season. Before
that happens, I want to lay out some of my top priorities for the term.

Our public education system continues to be one of my top areas of focus. I was pleased to work with the community in helping to advocate that the Chancellor keep Garrison and Francis-Stevens open. Fortunately, the Chancellor took note of what we are already well aware of in Ward 2 – demographic trends in our neighborhoods require our city to pro- vide residents with the educational and other resources our new children will need. I hope families will continue to decide to stay in the District, unlike in past years, when so many young families would move to the suburbs once they started having children.

Next, public safety is a continuing prior- ity of mine. As the District’s population continues to grow, not to mention the daytime commuter population, we need an expanded police force to continue to keep us safe. While I applaud the Chief for reporting the lowest homicide rate in decades last year, we have to give her the resources she needs to continue this trend. When I first moved to DC, we had 5,200 officers on the police force. When I joined the Council, we had 4,800. Would you believe that today we have only 3,890 sworn officers? I introduced a bill a few weeks ago that would mandate that the Mayor fund 4,000 officers as a minimum staffing level. That is not a magic number, but in my judgment, after 20 years of service, it is a first step in the right direction. We also need to fund overdue pay raises to the officers currently on the force – when you don’t give pay raises for several years, retention starts to become a problem.

Third, I want to continue to focus on providing access to quality health care for all our residents. Hopefully, it is well known by now that we have the second-highest state insurance coverage rate in the country, with only Massachusetts consistently outscoring us. Isn’t it nice to finally be at the top of one of those state ranking lists? I am excited about the implementation of the District’s new health care exchange, which should make it easier for individuals to avail themselves of private health insurance options. I want to make sure, though, that this is not done in a way that increases insurance costs for our small businesses.

Fourth, I want to continue to fund afford- able housing. I was one of the original cre- ators of the Housing Production Trust Fund, and I still support it because it is one of a relative few government programs that con- sistently exceeds our performance expecta- tions. I believe it is critical to subsidize private developments, such as the Howard Town Center project, so that they include affordable housing components. I was dis- appointed to see undoubtedly well-meaning but nonetheless misguided opposition to this project from a handful of public officials and public interest lobbying groups. I think there is a misunderstanding by many of how this business works – developers will choose the most profitable business proposition available to them. Care to take a guess as to whether affordable housing generates more profits than the development of an office building? Anyone familiar with economics knows that if we don’t at least help cover the opportunity cost spread between the use we want (such as a mixed use that includes affordable housing) and the most profitable use (yet another office building), all we will get is office space. Not to mention that with regard to Howard Town Center, specifically, the land was sitting vacant for nearly a decade and will continue to do so if not for our efforts.

All of these priorities lead to my fifth goal – more jobs for District residents. When you provide a world class education system, a safe environment, and affordable housing, as well as health care, to all our residents, jobs will follow. While many parts of our city are doing well, other parts of our city remain at very high levels of unemployment and deserve our best efforts in facilitating job creation in the District. Helping to incentivize the creation of construction jobs through city projects prepares our residents for long-term career paths through apprenticeship programs. Once the developments are completed, permanent hospitality jobs result as businesses occupy the new spaces, and we receive many dollars in expanded tax revenue for each dollar we initially invest in subsidies.

Thank you for all your support and good ideas, and please don’t hesitate to reach out to my office if you have any constituent services requests with which we can assist you.

Georgetowner • January 16, 2013

Remember Thelma and Louise?

Louise shoots a drunk guy who tried to rape Thelma. They headed for Mexico, chased by police cars and helicopters. Everyone was in a state of hysteria. Holding hands, Thelma and Louise decided to control their own destiny, hit the accelerator, and drove over the cliff. The movie ended before they hit bottom.

What about Road Runner? For decades, Wile E. Coyote has been chasing Road Runner. In every episode, Road Runner speeds over a cliff, realizes he is standing in midair, turns around, runs back to the safety of solid land, and off he goes, still beyond the reach of Wile E. Coyote.

That’s all that happened, and everyone knew it that was going to happen.

So why the fuss?

Would going over fiscal cliff have been such a bad thing? Taxes would have gone up to Clinton-era rates (when 22 million new jobs were created). Discretionary domestic and defense spending will be cut by about 5%.

Simpson-Bowles is looking much better today. It and a number of other commissions seem to agree that deficits must be reduced by $4 trillion over the next 10 years. The fiscal cliff would have done it. Avoiding the fiscal cliff means less deficit reduction over the next couple of years and more deficit reduction in future years. In other words, to avoid a painful adjustment now, we’ll have less economic growth in the future.

Paul Volker and Alan Greenspan supported heading off the cliff. They believe in taking some strong medicine now in exchange for increased growth in the future rather than tepid growth or slight recession for years.

Mr. Volker did just that in the early 1980s. He raised interest rates to choke the 10% inflation of those times. Unemployment climbed to 10% and created a deep recession. Two years later, after the economy lost almost 3 million jobs, the U.S. came roaring back. Over the next six years of President Reagan’s presidency, stock market values surged fourfold and 16 million new jobs were created.

Both President Obama and the Republicans bought into Thelma and Louise rather than Road Runner, that is, that we would hit the bottom rather than running back.

Republicans knew that on Jan. 3, a new Congress would be sworn in with more Democrats and less Republicans in both the House and the Senate, and that it would be easier to cut a deal before that happened.

So, at the stroke of midnight after tax rates went up, they voted for a tax cut.

Everyone claimed victory.

President Obama got his higher tax rates on the wealthiest taxpayers.

Republicans got to vote for a tax cut for most people.

Even Grover Norquist declared victory and said that his pledge was intact.

On Jan. 3, the new Congress will arrive and begin the arduous task of dealing with spending cuts, the debt ceiling, and entitlements reform.

Like the Road Runner, the US economy will again speed off the cliff, look down, turn around, come back, and still escape the clutches of Wile E. Coyote.

Until March . . .

Beep beep.

Georgetowner •

The New Year has already rushed in on us living her in Washington D.C., daring you to catch your breath, but also reminding you that living here is like living nowhere else in the United States, in the world.

Already, we’ve more or less avoided going over a cliff and at the last second no less, with more thrills and spills to come—hello, debt ceiling, hello, government shutdown … or not.

We live in Washington, and we’re grateful for it, or should be, because here, people can live in their neighborhoods and still be a part of history every day, which is something you can’t do in Ames, Iowa, or Tuscaloosa, or San Francisco or Toledo, Ohio, or Toledo Spain.

The world comes to this city and we can’t help but noticing—look what happened just recently when the President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai came to meet with President Barack Obama and talk about the future of his country, and the future of our eventual withdrawal from his country. Karzai also happened to be giving an address at Georgetown University and with that speech—rare in terms of the opportunities provided to hear the leader of a country where American soldiers are still fighting and dying—we are reminded of where we live. The visit was also a reminder of the fact that all of us—in Georgetown, Adams Morgan, in all the wards, in Anacostia or Chevy Chase, live in a city where events of major and ritual import happen every day. In a few days, we’ll be celebrating the ritualistic inauguration of President Barack Obama for a second time, in an entirely different mood from his first, on the same day that we celebrate the birthday of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Both celebrations are events and are accompanied by other events—balls and parades, concerts and speeches, prayers and the gathering of crowds. At times like these, we gather on the Capitol, near the White House, along Pennsylvania Avenue, in our churches, and our performance arts centers and venues. Words will be said meant to inspire, but could also ire, given the current political climate of intemperance and gridlock. Songs will be sung—Smokey Robinson is in town for an MLK celebration.

Not far off is the State of the Union Address, and the great debates and hearings at the Supreme Court, this time taking up the issue of gay marriage. Lincoln and Washington will have birthdays, and before you know it, it will be opening day of the baseball season, and the spring opera season and Cherry Blossoms. The elected officials will once again gather to attempt to deal with each other with civility and a hope of a practical result. The language currently—on debt, deficits, gun control, shut downs and spending and saving and taxes and the like is uncommonly apocalyptic, apoplectic and uncompromising on just about any issue. Here in this city we hear the noises of discontent daily, they are a part of our walking-to-work muzak, along with the voices on the radio arguing health care, Obama, Boehner, the fate of the Redskins and the efficacy of photographic speed traps.
We still have no voting representative in Congress and are not likely to become a state anytime soon, but we appear to have a flush economy, a changing population and governing bodies that are not held in high esteem. Surely, you might know that the city council, the executive with the mayor in charge, might have something to do with the city’s enviable economic situation, but you can’t prove it by the news coverage, the news itself, where even respected elected types don’t get treated with respect. This may have something to do with the fact that the potential legal troubles hanging over the mayor’s head and others are still unresolved and remain an unrepentant focus of interest for the media.

We live in the sweet solace of neighborhoods where kids get taken to daycare and grow in spurts, and dogs rule on the sidewalks, where parking, shopping for groceries, getting flu shots, it’s the universal living and dying of every day, while within earshot, and eyesight, the great wild and wide world and its protests and protestations, its cultures, its troubles and dangers, lives right with us, down the street, inside government office buildings, the embassies of the world, in cultural institutions, in a note of music from a foreign land at an embassy on Massachusetts Avenue.

We, who live in Washington, those 99 percenters of us, appear after all to be rich in the wealth offered to us by living in a place that brings us the world into our world.

David Post • December 14, 2012

Imagine my surprise.

I was sitting in the lobby of an elegant hotel in Florence, Italy enjoying a glass of wine, listening to a pianist who could make his grand piano sound like an entire orchestra, and reading the International Herald Tribune.

On the front page was an attractive woman, a chiropractor, wearing a forlorn expression. She lives in McLean, Virginia, the Washington, DC suburb where Ted and Bobby Kennedy lived and where finding a condo or house for less than $1 million (or $2 million) is challenging.

She and her husband were worried that taxes on their taxable income above $250,000 might increase by 3.6%. They were wondering whether to close their practice temporarily and take a vacation to avoid higher tax rates that might take place next year.

I thought, “Huh?” until I saw the next paragraph quoting a friend of mine – let’s call him Edward. Edward owns a successful company that his father started 60 years ago. His parents and he have contributed deeply to the fabric of Salisbury, Md. Edward is a really smart guy with a great education. He worked with one of the nation’s largest financial institutions before returning to the family business. He has testified before Congress, served on national boards, and written articles in Washington newspapers about the hazards of regulations and taxes.

Edward said that he wanted to hire four new employees but that he was only going to hire three because his tax bill will increase $100,000 if the Bush tax cut expires.

Come on, Edward. You know better than that. First, an employer hires a new employee only if that employee produces more than he costs. If a new employee’s salary is $50,000, an employer will only hire her she produce at least $50,001 in benefits.

Second, taxes are admittedly complicated. I was a college professor for almost 40 years. Student often thought that “saving taxes”’ was the answer to any question about corporate strategy.

I’d ask, “Do you have $1.”

“Sure.”

“Give it to me.” The student would hand me $1. I’d give him 35 cents, put the $1 in my pocket, and say, “Thanks.” Then I’d ask the class, “Anyone else want to trade $1 for 35 cents?” No one would. No one trades $1 for 35 cents. Students always asked for their $1 back. “No,” I’d say. “That’s the best $1 you’ve spent on your education.”

Edward must be earning over $3 million per year. Here’s the math: how much income multiplied by 3.6% equals $100,000? The answer: over $2.75 million. Since Edward’s taxes won’t increase on his first $250,000, his net income (after expenses) must be over $3 million.

Edward is undoubtedly a terrific businessman. He probably doesn’t want the world to know that he’s making over $3 million per year. But if his taxes are really going up $100,000, he is.

Come on, Edward. Hire that fourth employee. If he’s good, he’ll make you more money than you pay him. And if you’re netting $3 million, you can afford it.

David Post •

A heavy dizziness like a black cloud engulfed me in a matter of seconds.

“Dad, are you ready?”

Blackout.

“Mom, he’s dead. Wait, he opened his eyes. He’s breathing again.”

A stretcher. An ambulance. The siren. Rolling through a hospital strapped to a bed. A sign that said “Triage” passed above.
Two IV tubes, one in each arm. Connected to machines measuring my heart rate, the oxygen in my blood, respiration, blood pressure (74/36). How low can that go?

An electrocardiogram. Blood being taken from both arms.

A brain scan. A chest X-ray. An abdominal X-ray.

Six hours later, another electrocardiogram. More blood tests.

Two doctors examined me. A half dozen nurses.

Talking to my daughter, Sasha, in Italian.

My daughter, Sasha, is studying art history in Florence, Italy. I visited her and rented an apartment about a half mile from her apartment. (Incidentally, www.homeway.com is the most incredible website if you want to consider an apartment instead of a hotel.)

We had walked six to eight hours a day all over Northern Italy and Paris for two weeks. My legs were sore. Our plan for my last day was to walk the hills around Fiesole, a famously scenic area overlooking the magnificence of this two thousand year old city.
With a sip of orange juice, I took an Aleve to ward off the soreness that was sure to follow. My head started itching. Then my body started itching. I glanced in the mirror. My face was flush red. My hair looked white. Sasha called at that precise moment. “Dad, are you ready?”

Blackout.

I knew I was dying and was out before I hit the floor. She heard my phone drop, ran down three flights of stairs, called an ambulance, found a policeman, and ran the half-mile to my apartment. She was in a panic but didn’t panic. Proficient in Italian after ten weeks, she convinced the police to break the door down.

A medic gave me a shot and I awoke out of anaphylactic shock. Had Sasha called two minutes earlier or one minute later, instead of packing to come home that night, I would have been the baggage.

My doctors in the U.S. are terrific, but my experience in Emergency Rooms has never been good. I’ve waited in pain or nervously four to eight hours to see a nurse or a doctor . . . or to do paperwork. In Italy, the attention was immediate.

The U.S. healthcare system is the only private-insured, employer-based in the world. We seem intent on keeping this system though less than half of U.S. citizens are now covered by employer insurance. In fact, an increasing number of employers are dropping or reducing or shifting the cost of healthcare to their employees.

What nation would create a system that costs almost twice as much as every other nation on earth and expect employers to pay for it – and wonder why its companies face competitive disadvantages in world markets? And results in shorter lifespans? Only the U.S. With average wages in the U.S. being $42,000, few employers can afford to pay $6,000 per employee, or $15,000 for an employee’s family health cost.

Luck smiled on me twice. First, my daughter was alert and decisive. Second, my medical care was incredible.

When we left the hospital ten hours later, the same woman who directed patients entering the hospital prepared my bill. She was embarrassed by how much it was – $525. Frankly, I’d rather pay cash in Italy than deal with insurance in the U.S.

Twelve hours later, I boarded a plane to come home. When I landed in the U.S., I suddenly started to cry. Sasha had saved my life and was now 6,000 miles away. I needed to be near her and couldn’t stop crying.

That was six days ago. Each time I’ve woken since, I’m surprised. Wow. I’m alive.

Georgetowner •

Wednesday is a big day. It could be a really, really, really big day.

It’s 12/12/12. Or dozen, dozen, dozen, doing the dozens, or December 12, 2012, the 12th day of the 12th month of the 12th year of the 21st century. Don’t you wish you’d been around on 12/12/12 of the 12th century? Just Google it.

In any case, this sort of convenient, coincidental but easy to plan for date doesn’t happen often—this particular series won’t occur again for a hundred years, when the great-great-grandson of the last official member of the tea party goes to his grave, whispering “no new taxes.”

For some, it is also a date in the Mayan calendar, and some people believe that this date, or Dec. 21, will signal the end of all things, or in the very least, no new taxes, and a new hairdo for Miley Cyrus. Dramatic things could occur tomorrow including: the end.

As it is, we’re heading over the cliff, or so it seems, although rumors abound that a deal is in the making, that the key people in the negotiations are having lunch, holding secret meetings that are apparently not secret, and, you know, joy to the world, don’t you worry about a thing, even if it ain’t got that swing.

Tomorrow will see the most significant rock concert in quite a while-the Concert for Sandy Relief, by which New Jersey rock stars Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen and (Gov.) Chris Christie will show up with a few of their friends like Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, the wonderful Alicia Keyes, Stevie-Is It Any-Wonder, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, the Who less two original band members and a host of others, including Brian Williams—who will not sing— at Madison Square Garden. It could be the greatest rock concert ever—and also the last if we believe the people who believe the Mayans. It could be true: there is evidence of a recent archeological find of what are believe to be statues of Mayan or Aztec High Priests, one of whom resembles the current incarnation of Keith Richards, with of an inscription advising believers to go to higher ground. This could, of course, be a spiritual admonition, and certainly should not be taken as a sign to get high.

Be that as it may, it seems 12-12-12 is an encouraging date for wedding planners, who have indicated that it’s a day many more people than usual decided to get married. Possibly, it’s because it’s a day easy to remember which means you cannot ever, ever forget your anniversary.

Oh, happy day, then, tomorrow for brides, grooms and bridesmaids and the makers of “Bridesmaids II” which is bound to happen. Or maybe not, if we go over the cliff, or, if per the Mayan believers, the cliff goes over us. What a honeymoon.
Now how does all this play out in the ongoing cliff debate and the politics of the day.

Well, let’s see:
Dateline—12/12/12. The White House phone is ringing. No answer. The president’s hot line is ringing. No answer. Eric Cantor’s phone is ringing. No answer. Nancy Pelosi’s phone is ringing. No answer. Grover Norquist’s phone is ringing. Taylor Swift’s phone is ringing, and gets only a recording setting out the rules for any future boyfriend. No answer, not even a dial tone. It’s as if the rapture has already begun.

House Speaker John Boehner leaves a message: “Hey, where is everyone? I’m really starting to worry. We’re going over the cliff, if we don’t do something. I’ll do anything. I’ll even raise taxes on Trump … and be glad to do it. You’re fired, my butt. But hey, seriously. Where are you guys? What’s happened? Somebody locked the door to my office, and I can’t get out. What the hell is happening? Somebody call me, please.”

At the White House, President Barack Obama, Eric Cantor, Nancy Pelosi, all the Republican tea party members, the Democratic as well as Republican senators, and Grover Norquist and Taylor Swift are listening to the message. They are all laughing their heads off. “I can’t believe he bought it,” Cantor says. “That was the deal,” the president says. “I’m glad you guys finally agreed. Let’s get this done.” “You mean, you don’t really want us to raise taxes on the rich, right?” Norquist says. “The hell I don’t,” the president says. “You all agreed and you signed the legislation.” Norquist and the rest hem and haw and start to argue.

“That’s it,” the president says. “I’m out of here. Do you want to go to the Sandy concert or not?” They all agree and sign the agreement, which even has a name called The Screwtape Agreement.

They all head out the door. The building starts to shake a little. “What’s that noise?” they all ask.
It’s 12/12/12.

Prepare for the Galactic Alignment.