This is ridiculous. I’m going to keep it short and sweet: taxpayers want, and are entitled to, transparency in those institutions funded by taxbucks. Primarily, I’m speaking of the government. But when the government lends out money to big institutions (that, frankly, should’ve known better than to engage in risky business practices), than the taxpayers want transparency from them, too.
If the banks choose not to, y’know, be transparent, I’ve got a suggestion: pay that money back. Now.
There’s a water-main break in Bethesda that’s making national headlines, but as I’m affected by the lack of water, I won’t make light of the fact that there’s a flood on River Road.
Rather, instead of staying until 4pm in a building with no water (i.e., the bathrooms are closed and the cafe downstairs can’t possibly be open), I’m leaving early. It’ll probably mean a few extra hours of PTO I’ve got to use, but it also means I get to relax this afternoon. I e-mailed a coworker to see if she can cover my night shift at the Bookstore tonight: I don’t think I’d mind an evening spent with a book and Christmas music. (And a beer).
We’ve been working holiday hours at the Bookstore — basically, that means we stay open really really late, even though we usually don’t have any customers after 9pm. There was actually a lady browsing the DVD section around 10:30, and we had a conversation about Christmas music. It’s all we are allowed to play over the speakers until December 26th. Per her request — she’s sick of the stuff — I turned down the speaker and made some fake sympathy with her.
Really, though, I love Christmas music. I had to physically restrain myself from buying more Christmas albums this year (I have, four? Including Twisted Sister’s).
Now, understand, I went to Catholic school until 6th grade. So when I say I like Christmas music, I’m not talking about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or that stupid Chipmunks song. Basically, I’m an atheist who loves actual religious Christmas music (although I am partial to some old crooners). Here, courtesy of YouTube, a selection of my favorites:
For three months, I woke up at 5am and was on the road from Timonium (north of Baltimore) no later than 5:30am so that I could be at my northern Bethesda job by 7 (most days, I was in considerably earlier). For many, many years before that, I fought traffic while trying to deliver pizzas to ungrateful cheap assholes. So, let me just say, first, that I have tremendous sympathy with people who suffer from road rage (I used to be one).
Of course, reading the article, it’s hard to determine if the shooter was actually suffering from road rage. But I’m assuming that shootings at rush-hour in dense areas with horrible traffic are usually going to be as a result of sort of road rage.
So, I sympathize with the shooter. Doesn’t make what he did right, doesn’t mean he shouldn’t spend a nice long rest of his life in jail or that I’ll feel anyway that he received a miscarriage of justice if the police shoot him to death while apprehending him, just that I can understand where he’s coming from, because, really, road rage really is the suck.
This is also part of the reason I remain in undying love with the best reason to live in the DC Area.