The Congress that called "Shutdown!"

The thing that's got all the political wags going this weekend is the Republican response to President Biden's State of the Union address to Congress on Thursday night. While Sen. Katie Britt's little presentation was eminently memeable -- and came SNL-cold-open-ready -- there's another aspect of congressional shenanigans that I want to talk about tonight. It's this business of the once and future government shutdown. 

lightsource | Deposit Photos

On Friday, mere hours before Congress's self-imposed deadline, the Senate approved one of two continuing resolutions to fund the government for the remainder of fiscal year 2024. To be clear, a continuing resolution (let's call it a CR) is not the budget -- it's an agreement to keep the government running under a previously-agreed-to level, often the previous fiscal year's budget, while Congress continues to work on the current-year budget. A CR to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year -- like the one just passed -- functions as a budget, but technically it's not.

We're not out of the woods yet for this fiscal year. The CR passed last week only covers part of the federal government's operational needs. A second CR needs to be approved by March 22nd, just a hair under two weeks from today. And you can rest assured that there will once again be a lot of breathless media coverage about congressional squabbling and who will block what, as well as which federal agencies will have to go dark if it's not approved and how it will all affect you, the American citizen.

I know this because this is the fourth CR this year. And CRs are becoming more commonly used -- there have been 135 since 1998 -- and are lasting longer. In 2007, 2011 and 2013, Congress never passed a budget at all -- it just used a CR for the whole year. Moreover, sometimes Congress and the President can't even agree on a CR; when that happens, as it did in 2014, 2018 and 2019, the government does shut down until an agreement is reached. So even though it seems like the media are crying "wolf" with their scary coverage of the potential damage if a CR doesn't pass, the threat of a shutdown is real -- and factions in Congress use that to their advantage in budget negotiations. 

It wasn't supposed to be this way. A mechanism that was supposed to be a convenience for a Congress that was close to a budget agreement but just needed a little more time has morphed into not just a negotiating tactic, but a cudgel.

The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, has provided a listicle of five reasons why careening from near-shutdown to near-shutdown is bad:

• When federal agencies have to prepare for a possible shutdown, it takes time away from their mission of helping Americans.
• If a shutdown actually happens, the affected agencies can't do their jobs -- which, remember, is to provide services to Americans. Also, some federal workers are mandated to keep working, even if they're not getting paid for it -- including the military -- and worrying about how they can pay their bills isn't going to help their performance.
• In a shutdown, it's harder for Americans to access government services. Everything from visa processing times to getting answers to doctors' questions to Medicaid, and a bunch of stuff in between, could take longer. And the people who use the most government services -- the poor -- will be impacted the most.
• It hurts Americans' trust in government.
• It hurts the reputation of the United States among foreign governments by making us look unstable.

But here's the thing: The folks throwing the biggest wrench in the federal budget process right now are MAGA Republicans. For them, these five problems are a feature, not a bug. A lot of them believe the federal government is too big and too bloated. They want it to appear dysfunctional -- it gives them an excuse to either cut funding for these apparently floundering agencies or do away with them altogether. Then taxes will be lower! That's always a good thing, right?

Eh, maybe not. Smaller government and lower taxes sound great -- until you need help.

***

Sick of it all? There's a way to fix it.

Shutdowns and threats of shutdowns occur most often when control of the executive and legislative branches of government are divided. The best way to fix it? Give control to a single political party, and give that party big majorities in both the House and Senate. And if you want government to work for you -- if you want services to be there when you need them -- that means funding them at an adequate level, not constantly cutting the budget. And that means voting blue.

***

So far, we've been talking about the FY 2024 budget. What's up with FY 2025, which starts October 1? 

President Biden is supposed to deliver his draft to Congress tomorrow. Congress is supposed to have the budget deal ready to go by the time the new fiscal year starts, but the current members will still be in office then. So brace yourself for more budget shenanigans.

***

These moments of breathless blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!

How old is your city?

So I was chatting with friends on Facebook, as one does, and the definition of "old" came up -- not in terms of people, mind you, although we talk about that a lot, too, but in terms of cities. Specifically, how Europeans marvel at the way Americans marvel at their castles, and how new most of America is in comparison.

I mean, Europe has some really old cities. The oldest city in Europe is generally recognized to be Plovdiv, Bulgaria, founded in 6000 BCE. Athens, founded in 3000 BCE, is a relative newcomer. (The oldest city on that list that I've been to is Seville, Spain, founded in the eighth century BCE.) In short, Europeans think it's normal to share space with really old stuff.

Compare that to the oldest city in America -- St. Augustine, Florida, founded in 1565 CE. Second oldest? Why, that would be Santa Fe, founded in 1610, give or take a year or three. It's also the oldest state capital in the country, and the loftiest, at 7,199 feet above sea level (yes, we're higher than Denver). 

In 1882, Santa Fe had already been a capital city for more than 250 years.
Wikimedia Commons | Public Domain 

And yet those people on the East Coast are so impressed with how historic their cities are. I mean, I used to be impressed, too. I grew up near Chicago, which was incorporated in 1837; cities on the East Coast are venerable by comparison. New York City was founded by the Dutch as New Amsterdam in 1624; the English seized it from the Dutch 40 years later*, and it stayed in British hands until we declared our independence from England.

This topic always seems to crop up around Thanksgiving, when the annual bickering starts over the first Thanksgiving. It was the Pilgrims, right? Plymouth Rock and all that? Eh, not so fast. The famous feast in Plymouth happened in 1623, but Berkeley Plantation in Virginia claims their Thanksgiving occurred in 1619.

Note, if you will, that 1619 is nine years later than the founding of Santa Fe.

Last fall, I attempted to point this out on a Facebook post about the Berkeley Plantation event. Other commenters were not amused. "We're talking about colonial America," one fellow said. So if the Spaniards founded it, it doesn't count?

Another person put it more bluntly: "What's your point?" 

To which I replied, "I'm told I don't have one." See, I'd belatedly remembered that famous quote by some Virginian whose identity has been lost to the mists of time: 

To be a Virginian, either by Birth, Marriage, Adoption, or even on one's Mother's side, is an Introduction to any State in the Union, a Passport to any Foreign Country, and a Benediction from Above.

And you thought Texans were impressed with themselves.

***

Don't get me wrong - I lived in Virginia for more than 30 years, and both my kids were born there, so I guess I qualify as a Virginian by adoption. And it's a lovely state (sorry, commonwealth). But ... yeah.

***

*Among the English sailors who liberated New Amsterdam was Capt. Edmund Cantwell -- the first Cantwell of our line in America. I guess that means I could join the DAR if I wanted to?

***

These moments of state-pride blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!

By Grabthar's hammer: Sci-fi in New Mexico.

 

Lynne Cantwell 2024

The New Mexico state legislature has wrapped up its annual session, so I've finally had a chance to learn the answer to a question that's been bugging me for several weeks: Why does Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham have an R2-D2 in her office?

See, our office is on the same floor in the Roundhouse as the governor's. There's a small gallery behind her reception desk that I pass on my way in to work, and you can see that R2 unit from the hallway.

It turns out that it's part of an exhibit on science fiction and New Mexico's connection to it. Now Albuquerque is the place for Breaking Bad fans (just check out the plethora of merchandise for sale in any tourist trap there), but a whole lot of movies have been filmed all or partly in the Land of Enchantment. Not any of the Star Wars movies, alas, according to this list on Wikipedia, even though there was some talk about Episode VII being shot here while the production crew was scouting locations.

Nor was Galaxy Quest filmed here. Nevertheless, the governor's office has on display a costume worn by Alan Rickman in that movie (and happy belated birthday to Alan). 

Lynne Cantwell 2024

Apparently the only connection between these props and this state is that they're on loan from the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamagordo. That's the closest town to White Sands Missile Range, the site of the world's first nuclear explosion, in 1945. (Oppenheimer was actually shot in New Mexico, although not at the Trinity site.) 

The exhibit in the governor's gallery also features info with a much less tenuous connection to the state: sci-fi authors from New Mexico. 

Lynne Cantwell 2024

Some, but not all, of the books in the display case were written by New Mexican authors. And I've gotta say that they missed a whole bunch of folks, including but not limited to George R.R. Martin, Walter Jon Williams, Robert Vardeman, and -- the most glaring omission, to my mind -- Stephen R. Donaldson. (I mean, Stephen McCranie? Who the heck is he? Maybe the exhibit's creators should have asked fans of the genre for input.)

The exhibit is up until April 29th, and admission is free. In fact, the Roundhouse has an extensive collection of work by New Mexican artists, and you can see all that for free, too. I know most tourists don't include state capitals on their itineraries, but ours is worth a stop if you're going to be in Santa Fe anyway.

We missed visiting the space history museum when we were in Alamogordo last fall. Now I'm wondering whether to go back. I have a few other things I want to see in the state first, though.

***

These moments of speculative blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!

What Jimmy Mender did.

I had a great blog post idea teed up for tonight, but it can wait. I'd rather talk about a good friend who I've never met in person who died this week. 

I've been trying to remember how I met Leland Dirks. I think it must have been at Indies Unlimited. He wasn't on the staff with us, but he was a regular at the site, and he had a story in at least one of our flash fiction anthologies.

The indie author revolution has been both good and bad. The good: Today, anybody can become a published author. When Amazon and other digital publishers opened their doors, traditional gatekeepers, in the form of agents and publishing houses, became irrelevant; good writers could develop a readership by publishing their words themselves. 

The bad: Anybody can become a published author. Even terrible writers. 

And I admit that I have been a snob. Indie authors are encouraged to support each other by talking up one another's books, the theory being that your readers could cross over to the writers you talk about, and vice versa. I've always been a little leery about this blanket promote-everybody approach. What if the other author is a lousy writer? I don't want my readers thinking I recommend crappy books. (Note to my author friends: If I've ever passed along info on one of your books, rest assured that I do not think you write crap.)

Longtime hearth/myth readers may remember that I ran a book review blog called Rursday Reads for several years. In that period of time, I reviewed several of Leland's books -- some "co-authored" by his Border collie, Angelo. So believe me when I say that he did not write crap. Far from it. He wrote with sensitivity and heart. And he almost always included a dog or two.

Not only was Leland a wonderful author, but he was also a gifted photographer. He lived in southeastern Colorado in a house he built himself, and every day he would post photos and videos on social media of his canine companions, the local wildlife (the magpies and coyotes gobbling Maggie's stale kibble were always good for a laugh), and the mountains around his home. I got to know that landscape better than the view around my own home.

But back to the books: My favorite -- the one I thought of immediately upon hearing of his death -- is Jimmy Mender and His Miracle Dog. 

I reviewed it for Rursday Reads, but my review really doesn't do the book justice. The main character is Paul Young, a gay writer who lives in San Francisco. He meets a former cowboy and ex-Marine named Jimmy Mender. Paul is immediately smitten, but Jimmy is not sure whether he swings that way. They have a lovely week together, and then Jimmy just up and leaves town. Paul is devastated. Then by a twist of fate, he's offered a job as the anonymous author of an advice column, which he agrees to take on one condition: the column must be renamed "What Would Jimmy Mender Do?"

Some years later, Paul receives a package from Alaska. It contains several notebooks -- journals that Jimmy kept after he left San Francisco. They're accompanied by a note saying that Jimmy has died, that he wanted Paul to have the journals, and that Jimmy left a couple of other things to Paul if he'd like to come to Alaska and collect them. So Paul journeys north, using Jimmy's notebooks as a guide, and learns not only about Jimmy but about himself, too. And of course, there's a dog.

I'm rereading the book now, and I'd like to share with you the dedication that Leland wrote:

This book is dedicated to all the real life Jimmy Menders out there. Some of them are teachers, some of them are moms or dads or brothers or sisters or uncles or aunts or friends. All of them practice the most powerful yet simplest form of magic: Love.

Leland himself was a real-life Jimmy Mender. Since his passing, many people have come forward on social media to talk about how kind and helpful he was, and how much they're going to miss him. 

I hope he's in a place where he can hear how much he meant to people -- how many lives he touched, all over the world. And I very much hope that wherever he is, he's been reunited with his beloved Angelo and Suki.

Rest in peace, my friend.

***

These moments of bloggy remembrance have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe, y'all.