Who Needs Representation?
The Nose values many things about being a District resident. Strolling down to eat pancakes on a Sunday at Eastern Market, pointedly ignoring the parvenu crepe dealer in favor of the known delights of the Market Lunch. Watching the sun setting over the Awakening on Haines Point, soon to be beamed up to Ward 9. The taste of a chili dog at Ben’s, or crab cakes at Mrs. Charlotte’s, can lift one spirits after a long day pounding the keyboard.

In the midst of this wonderful city squats the U.S. Congress, an institution whose roving eye closely resembles that of Tolkien’s chief villain. The beauty of being a District resident, however, is that voters in this great city are in no way responsible for this dysfunction. DC’s non-voting delegate puts The Nose and his fellow residents in a Bush league that includes The Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico. The only difference is that residents of these localities do not pay Federal taxes.

When traveling abroad, the Nose likes being able to plausibly deny any responsibility for the Iraq war. After all, he didn’t vote for any of those who prefer searching for weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East to seizing handguns in the District.

Voting activists would like to rectify this situation by obtaining a vote in the House. “No taxation without representation,” they say borrowing the battle cry of our Revolutionary fathers now emblazoned on DC license plates.

The Nose thinks that voting activists have got it wrong. Who is to say the District representatives would be any more sensible than their fellows in the House. The problem is not representation, but taxation. The Nose would gladly sell his vote if it could keep Uncle Sam’s hands out of his wallet. So, activists, in The Nose’s opinion, should stop talking about the fight for voting parity with tax-paying U.S. states and start talking about tax parity with the rest of the small, Congressionally insignificant and voiceless U.S. colonies – ahem, territories.

This Goes Deep
In the eighties and early nineties, the word ‘deep’ graced the covers of most videocassettes that lined the walls of the less savory rental stores in Dupont Circle. Recently, the expression has made a major comeback in the hallowed halls of the DC Council.

During a recent hearing on The District’s tax scandal, Kwame Brown (D – At-Large) repeatedly used the term ‘deep.’ “This goes deep, real deep,” he stated, describing the length and breadth of the city’s latest fiscal imbroglio. Perhaps, Brown had confused situation with the coterminous DC Public Schools outrage over the use of school activity monies to fund strip club visits.

Brown, in the Nose’s opinion, would be well served by an electronic thesaurus on his ubiquitous Blackberry. Several synonyms immediately spring to mind: pervasive, endemic, systemic, complicated, complex, rich, universal, total, unfathomable, unimaginable, unbelievable….

The Nose leaves it to Brown’s communications director to clarify his meaning.

Off With Their Heads
In the midst of that same hearing, Brown persistently cross-examined witnesses in an attempt to figure out how District Tax Office managed to repeatedly cut large fraudulent checks. The Nose shares Brown’s amazement given the difficultly many residents face in collecting legitimate refunds from the same office.

Under Brown’s relentless assault, the witnesses resembled snitches in a federal drug conspiracy case, each implicating a string of additional figures in hopes of public redemption. With each name, Brown declared his intention to further clean house in the manner of Lewis Caroll’s famous Red Queen.

The Nose half expected Brown and his brethren, challenging the spirit Gilbert and Sullivan, to break into song:

BROWN
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I've got a little list--I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed--who never would be missed!
There's the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs--
All constituents who have flabby hands and irritating laughs--
All bureaucrats who have their hands in the till, and get caught out flat--
All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands with you like that--
And that singular anomaly the financial specialist--
They'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of 'em be missed!

COUNCIL BACKUP SINGERS
He's got 'em on the list--he's got 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed--they'll none of 'em be missed.

BROWN
And that irritating nuisance, who just now is rather rife,
The Political humorist--I've got him on the list!
All civic activists, meter maids, and bloggers of public life--
They'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of 'em be missed.
And energetic mayor of a most frenetic kind,
Such as--What d'ye call him--Thing'em-bob, and likewise--Never-mind,
And 'St--'st--'st--and What's-his-name, and also You-know-who--
The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you.
But it really doesn't matter whom you put upon the list,
For they'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of 'em be missed!
Unfortunately, $30 million dollars in city revenues will be missed. The Nose suggests that the more fashionable members of the Council enjoy the usufruct of the thieves’ closets. After all, who can turn down a pair of designer shoes?

Get Me to the Game on Time
Every city should possess a major motocross event in the Nose’s opinion. In DC, we don’t have a Grand Prix or even NASCAR. In fact, the last time someone staged an auto race in Ward 6, it resulted in a huge hue and cry from inconvenienced residents. All this is about to change with the construction of the new baseball stadium.

Not content with the public largess ladled up by the Williams administration, the owners of the Nationals now covet the parking lots surrounding their current venue, RFK Stadium, and plan to run buses from one end of the city to the other. The problem that the Lerners are about to discover is that RFK is NOT near their new stadium.

The only person who might think that one could travel from RFK to the new stadium at rush hour in a reasonably rapid fashion must be a magnate accustomed to helicopter travel such as our esteemed president. Commoners would take one look at the traffic tie-ups on Pennsylvania Avenue and 295 and shake their heads in despair.

Before blithely seizing RFK’s parking lots by public proclamation, The Nose invites members of the Lerner family to join him in riding along the proposed game-day bus route at rush hour. This experiment might just result in funds for a new parking garage.

The Nose love to hear from his readers. Have a tip or suggestion? Email TheNose@hillrag.com.