Subscribe Today!

Above the Fold. Below the Fold.

Friday August 9, 2002

                      Click here for an Easy Print Version


---

A MULLINGS EXCLUSIVE! The Transcript of the Clinton interview with an Israeli Recruiting Sergeant!
Right HERE!

---

• One of the continuing jokes in Washington, DC is ... Washington, DC.

• The Peoples Republic of the District of Columbia, was being run so badly, that in 1996, the Federal government had to take over control of all the city's finances. In that year, for instance, the city had no clue how many students were enrolled in its public school system.

• Above the fold:

• The People of the People's Republic elected a guy named Anthony Williams to be their mayor. He wears a bow tie (which, in the District of Columbia - unlike the rest of America - is not an automatic disqualification) and has been a person of good repute his entire adult life: He was the CFO of the Department of Agriculture, a graduate of Yale, Harvard Law, and the JFK school with a masters in public Administration.

• In 2001 the District of Columbia got it's power back.

• Mayor Williams is running for re-election this November and was considered a shoo-in. Then the other shoo dropped.

• It seems that the people the Mayor hired to collect the 2,000 signatures to get on the ballot couldn't actually FIND 2,000 people who could or would sign up, so they invented a few.

• According to a Washington Post front pager yesterday (above the fold) the Mayor's campaign turned in 10,102 signatures of which "more than 6,500 were outright forgeries written in the same hand, page after page."

• Some of the people who were eager to have Mayor Williams back on the Democratic ballot were: Kelsey Grammer (actor), Carrol O'Connor (dead actor), Dudley Moore (another dead actor), George W. (votes in Texas where he is from), Kofi Annan (votes on Mars where HE is from), and "Saint Paul I" (not immediately clear where he votes).

• So now, the Mayor will have to run as a write-in against four other Democrats including (according to the Post article by Craig Timberg and Yolanda Woodlee) "a bugle-playing exotic dancer and a former D.C. City Council member once convicted of biting a tow truck driver."

• A stripper and a guy who bites truck drivers could figure out to get 2,000 signatures on a petition but the Mayor - from Yale, Harvard Law, and the JFK School - could not.

• Below the fold:

• Also on the front page of yesterday's Washington Post is this headline: "First Case Of W. Nile Diagnosed Here in 2002."

• I was at a dinner party the other night in the District of Columbia, which was unique in that someone invited into their actual home.

• It was a good party - journalists, lawyers, publicists, and political folk; all smart, charming, and witty. And me.

• As the dinner chatter developed, it turned out that the hostess had found a dead bird outside the house earlier that day and had called the appropriate number in the city government to have someone come over, pick it up, and see if it had died of West Nile Virus.

• SIDEBAR

  To review our 8th grade world geography:

  The Nile River flows from South to North. It begins more or less at Lake Victoria in Uganda (the White Nile) and flows for about 4,200 miles north to the Mediterranean Sea. The Blue Nile starts in Ethiopia and joins up with the White Nile in Sudan.

  There does not appear to be an EAST Nile Virus, so it is not clear why this particular disease is called the WEST Nile Virus.

• END SIDEBAR

• The shorthand version of the story is this: Everyone in the District of Columbia connected with collecting dead birds to test them for West Nile Virus were at a press conference announcing the existence of West Nile Virus in the District of Columbia (the very press conference which had led to that headline) so, she was instructed to put the dead bird in a baggie, put the baggied bird into her refrigerator, and someone would probably stop by the next day to get it.

• The dinner menu, happily, did not include squab.

• August: The best month of all.

• An excellent Secret Decoder Ring page today: The definition of a Broadsheet vs. a Tabloid newspaper, links to the two stories mentioned, a brief bio of St. Paul I, a recipe for squab, how the month of August got its name, and a link to the Clinton Interview parody.
  --END --
  Copyright © 2002 Richard A. Galen

  ---

  If you are working at a lobbying firm, a government affairs office, a coalition, or a PAC you should take a look at this page to see how advertising in Mullings might serve your organization very well: