Friday, March 25, 2011

Would You Like Paper or Plastic, Ma'am?

Various parts of the wowrld are exploding into headlines that change (for the worse) every half an hour. North Korea is running out of food. Japan's radiation levels are increasing by the mega second. Kill Ghadaffi; Free Libya! to mention only a few.

And yet ... the LA Times ran this on the front page this morning: the Republicans and the Democrats are now at war over the cups and utensils used in the Representatives' cafeteria. It's plastic vs. paper for cups and so forth.

The Democrats accuse the Republicans of being anti-environment, let's drill for oil thugs and possibly personally not as clean as they could be. The GOP just collectively shrugs and mutters, "Tree huggers."

Nancy Pelosi, representing the Dems, blew some $425,000 for a recycling plan for the cups and utensils that didn't work and diminished the carbon footprint by only a fraction. Further hiss: the compressed rice soup spoons melted when the soup was too hot.

At a time when their minds should be above such a genuinely petty matter, the hissing and spitting continues from both sides. Given the nature of the complainers (Whine till you're blue in the face, but for God's sake, don't actually DO anything) this will continue to distract them when alertness would better serve them and us.

So I propose this solution. Close the cafeteria. That's right, lock the doors. No more spending for heat and air conditioning, no salaries for cooks, servers and cleaners and as a money-spinner, rent the place out for private parties!

Then perhaps everyone would be happy and peace, if not in the middle East, would be restored in the House of Representatives.

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