In D.C., Politics Springs Eternal
Springtime has arrived in Washington, D.C.
The National Cherry Blossom festival is underway. Some 3,700 cherry trees, given to America by the Japanese in 1912, will soon be in full bloom.
I lived in the D.C. area nearly eight years and always looked forward to this time of year.
Family and friends would visit to see the magnificent trees. With luck the weather would be sunny and warm. We’d laugh and frolic and forget our worries for a little while.
That’s never easy to do in Washington, the land of silly and never-ending political conflict and disagreement.
I still remember an incident that took place in the spring of 1999, when some culprits were caught chopping down cherry trees.
It took a while, but the National Park Service was able to identify the tree-fellers - three beavers, who had decided to construct a dam in the Tidal Basin.
If those beavers were to strike today, those on the political right would blame Antifa and those on the left would blame Trump supporters - and talking heads on cable news channels would point fingers endlessly until the beavers were identified.
The reaction wasn’t much better in 1999.
In a normal city, the beaver situation would have been dealt with swiftly. The beavers would have been quietly trapped in a humane manner, transported to another location and released.
...continued
Copyright 2021 Tom Purcell, All Rights Reserved. Credit: Cagle.com
