Congressional Dems: Sound off like you got a pair!

I just sent this letter to my Democratic US Congressman on my lunch break. If you have a Democratic US Congressperson, and also support reform of the health care system, I urge you to do the same:

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Mr. Ellison,

I am writing to urge you to continue to push for passage of health care reform. This was a reason MN-5 sent you to Washington. If this fundamental promise is not fulfilled, and you vote to let the bill die, you can not count on my vote in 2010.

In the wake of Mrs. Coakley's loss yesterday in Massachusetts, the Congressional Democrats who have made public statements seem to be utterly demoralized. While the arrival of Scott Brown in the Senate will mean picking off a Republican vote for cloture in order to get anything significant done in that body, *health care reform must go on*.

The House can, and must, pass the Senate bill unchanged. The instinct of some of your colleagues seems to be that this special election was a referendum on HCR. It wasn't: it was a reflection of the economy, and of Coakley being a worse candidate than Brown.

If the House passes the Senate bill, some of the additional provisions of the House bill can be made individually, perhaps through reconciliation if they reduce the deficit. In this scenario, the House Dems will certainly need to defend the bill to their constituents, but at least they will have something to defend. The only worse scenario, for the country, our health care system, and for the Democratic caucus, is for the bill to be dropped. Because the only thing the electorate will hate more than a bill that needs defending is a waste of a year's legislative focus.

A vocal minority of the country may oppose this plan from the right. Another vocal minority may oppose it from the left. But the votes for doing at least much as the Senate bill does is a majority. It is time for that majority to speak. There is no drawing board to go back to. The Senate Republicans will assure that. This is likely the only chance in our generation to get this done. Please take that chance, and GOVERN.

I hope that this email is not necessary. I would expect a solid progressive like you to understand the stakes and the import of the moment. But then, I would have expected the same from Barney Frank and Anthony Weiner, and they seem to have formed the Curl Up And Die Caucus.

Please keep up the fight. The Republicans ran roughshod over the country with slimmer majorities in both houses during most of the Bush Administrations. Democrats must do the jobs they were elected to do.

I am about as reliable a Democratic voter as you can find, but I will vote for a primary challenger and may not vote at all for Congress if you do not fulfill your promise to fight for health care reform.

Sincerely, etc etc.

The Robinson Caruso Organization re-organizes

If the last time you saw Robinson Caruso's ten-piece juggernaut play old-school soul & r&b, you saw me play with them, then, fella, you've missed out. While I was busy learning and regurgitating civil engineering, the Organization was busy doing more shows. One of them, outside on the Metrodome plaza the morning of the Vikings-Lions game in November (we play Motown songs, get it?), was a double-long set featuring all kinds of new (to the band) tunes.

Well, the RCO is back, and I'm back with them, and we've got two shows in the span of one week. Great googaly moogaly! No more of this one-show-a-month nonsense. We've got new (to me) original songs written by James Rone Robinson Caruso himself, and more classics from the likes of the Jackson 5, the Supremes, and Al Green.

Maybe you heard about the passing of Hi Records producer Willie Mitchell last week and want to pay tribute. BAMF! We're playing Love & Happiness. Maybe you want to buy a Robinson Caruso t-shirt. SNIKT! There will be those, there, too. Maybe you wanna do The Kangaroo. ONOMATOPOEIA! Now's your chance.

Two. Shows. TWO SHOWS!

ONE!
Friday, January 15, 2010
Fine Line Music Café
Doors at 8, Show at 9, RCO at 11 (so we're told)
$6, 21 & up

TWO!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Lee's Liquor Lounge
Hip Replacement at 9:30, RCO at 10:30
$5, probably also 21 & up

Presented without comment

Ended the year not with a whimper...

Stay classy, National Review Online:
(Click here to see the original if you really feel like giving them the eyeballs.)

Happy New Year!

I hope all of you in the mid-Atlantic and eastward are enjoying 2010. 2009 was a good year in a lot of ways, but difficult in others. I'm looking forward to a new year and a new decade, and in order to keep myself accountable, I present to you here three new year's resolutions I intend to keep for myself. There is a theme:

1. Bike to work (to downtown St. Paul from south Minneapolis) on Bike to Work Day.
2. Ride in Southwest Community Education's annual Midnight-to-Dawn bike ride.
3. Always get to the gym enough times each month to get the health insurance discount on my membership fee.

Hopefully having concrete goals (metrics!) rather than a vague notion of "work out more" will help me. Measurement is useful.

Someone from Grinnell linked to this piece on how to make resolutions, which I liked. It in turn linked to the One-Minute-Rule, which I really like and hope to implement.

Anyway, masturbatory self-improvement aside, I hope you all have a fine new year. Don't take any guff.

Good news, everyone!

(Some of you may have heard about it in person or on Facebook. Apologies for the repetition.)

I got some good news on Christmas Eve. I received* a letter from the MN Board of AELSLAGID stating that they need $132, because that's the license fee to be a registered professional engineer in the State of Minnesota, which was pertinent because I passed the PE test in October! I guess the 36 hours of review class and 78 lbs of books worked. And my knowledge of things such as vertical highway curves (pictured) won't be tested again any time soon.**

This is all very good for a host of reasons, but here's an interesting one: because a coworker and I passed this exam, it keeps alive a streak at our company. In the history of our firm, no structural engineer in its employ has ever failed the PE exam or its historical equivalent. I mention the historical equivalent because the firm will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2010. So the pressure's off.

* ...and promptly dropped in the snow off my front stoop and had to retrieve with a pair of scissors...
** Note: if you have questions about vertical highway curves, I can recommend some people.

Obama joins the Advent Conspiracy?

"Isn't there anyone [beat] who knows what Christmas is all about?!"





"Sure, uh... Charlie Brown. I can, uh, tell you... what Christmas is all about.

Uh, lights, please?

Let me be clear: there were, in that same country, shepherds. abiding in their fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night..."

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Anyhoo, I don't think if Charles Schultz had studied 21st Century consumer trends and personally cast a group of kids with attitudes towards Christmas as much like Lucy ("I never get what I really want: real estate") or Sally ("All I want is my fair share. All I want [breathe] is what I have coming to me") as can be found, he could have set up and scripted this mayonnaise:



I actually prefer the unedited transcript. This exchange reads better than it sounds. A tip of the hat to Kotaku anyway, since that's where I saw this first.

If I don't post again in the next day or two, Merry Christmas, everybody.

If you're looking for something Christmassy, you should know that someone has posted the entirety of A Muppet Family Christmas on YouTube in HD. Enjoy!