Shut It Down.

     I hope that if the government does shut down, President Obama has the fortitude and pop-cultural awareness to just shout "Shut it down!" and then walk out of the White House and head to his Colonial Williamsburg vacation.  The lines between politics are increasingly blurred mostly with help from CNN and their journalist-stand-up-comic team.
     Did you check out that CNN link?  There's a picture of The Three Stooges.  The headline reads "The Fight Just Gets Dumber."  Well sure, CNN, when you put it that way, it does seem to be getting dumber.  We're in a 24-hour news cycle and every angle of the possible shutdown has to be told.
     I caught the end of a news segment yesterday where the reporter was making the point that this is Spring Break (Spring Break!  Woo!) week and there would be many students here to check out pieces of historical interest, but those doors would be closed.  At first I scoffed thinking that was hardly the most important thing about this looming shutdown.  But then I thought about it and how pissed I would be if I was planning a week long vacation to some place and it was just closed.  It would be like Vacation- almost exactly like it.  WallyWorld is closed, except by WallyWorld, we mean the government so no, you can't visit museums or the zoo.
     The radio was full of reminders of the dozens of things that are still available even if the government does shut down.  The Newseum, for example, is not a government funded museum and is fun for all ages.  And there are plenty of private art museums.  My favorite was that you could still look at the monuments.  The elevator that goes to the top of the Washington Monument would be closed, but you can still go to the park and stare at it.  That's good news, they're not going to cover up the monuments.
     Here in the district this very national problem has also taken on a local flavor.  There was a town hall meeting held last night and the news coverage of it really did look like a scene from Parks&Rec.  Except instead of cool calm Leslie Knope fielding the irate townspeople, it was Virginia Congressman Jim Moran yelling back at the people who were yelling at him.  One man asked why Jim Moran was having an Emergency Town Hall meeting instead of being AT congress trying to fix the problem.  It may have been a fair point.  Jim Moran started answering the question and when the man interrupted, Moran laid the smack down.  It was local government.  But it's not.  An interesting dichotomy for the area indeed.
     If the government shuts down there won't be a Cherry Blossom festival.  People won't stand for that.  Recent news states that the Republicans and Democrats can't even agree on what they don't agree on.  I'm going out on a limb here.  Or at least I'm showing a limb I haven't shown before.  A huge part of the discussion is over Planned Parenthood, and therefore abortion.  You tell enough people that they can't watch a Cherry Blossom Festival parade and stare at some pretty pretty trees because the government doesn't want to fund abortion, they'll start pushing girls-in-trouble down the stairs.  Tell you what, I'll pay for your abortions.  First ones free.  Come on!  My friends want to visit the Natural History Museum.
     I don't know any more than anyone else about how the next few hours are going to go. As a matter of fact, this might be completely irrelevant by the time it posts. But if there is a shutdown, I hope they announce it in a manner consistent with this video.