Sending out the ~ma to askye.

Lots of ~ma for askye.

Toddson lives in DC so her congresswoman doesn't have a vote, which is a whole 'nother wrong like a wrong thing.

Today is my last day of work before the Thanksgiving break, and tomorrow I have a long list of stuff to do including getting my first haircut in well over 6 months, and my first color in over a year.

Research and sociology nerds (I'm looking at you, Shir, my sistah in postmodernism): I am stuck on a problem. It gets dull, but basically there are two threads running through my dissertation. One is the straightforward research project on healthcare training, which has become necessarily brief through all manner of issues. The other is those issues themselves, which (in what I take as proof that God still likes me) has turned out to be helpfully linked to my research strategy of using the emancipatory research paradigm (I warned you this was going to get dull). I'm trying to argue that the interplay between these two strands is central to the project. (Which is a really important point, and also a desperate grasping at anything that may yet be the difference between a good mark and a failing mark for me.) The only term I can find for this is 'dialectic', but I'm not at all sure that's right. Anyone who can think up a better term gets a digestive biscuit, and can then Wake Up With QI [link] while knowing what they're talking about.

That was a very long-winded way of explaining that, and I could probably have asked the question in two sentences. Shir? I am those pointless 80-page off-topic papers that you want to hack apart with Ockham's Razor.

Inon-dissertationN, I've been playing with Hamish The Little Girl Dwarf Hamster (am going to have to start calling her Hamish TLGDH) and drinking tea. I do not intend to change out of PJs, bath robe or slippers today. They are comfy and are helping me with the dissertation purgatory. OK then.

Toddson lives in DC so her congresswoman doesn't have a vote, which is a whole 'nother wrong like a wrong thing.

Seriously?!? I live in London. If my MP didn't have a vote 'cos it's the city that has Parliament in, I'd be annoyed as all hell.

DC is virtually a colony. A high portion of the most valuable land is occupied by the federal gov and thus not part of the city's tax base, the sole representative has no vote (and there are no Senators at all) and Congress can directly interfere with the city's legislative system, adding or killing measures pretty much at will. (For instance: the District voted on allowing needle exchange programs some years ago. Congress put out a measure barring the District from using any federal or local funds to count the ballots. Into the black hole they went.)

Puerto Rico, Guam et all also have non-voting Reps and no Senators; but they also pay no federal taxes. District residents get the double whammy.

No hangover this morning for me, just a need for more sleep.

~ma for askye

smonster, the nowdothis site is so rocking. I use it when I need something else to focus for me because I can't. Thanks for the recommending it!

Oh, yay, I'm so glad! I use it every single day, seriously. It's amazing what showing one task at a time in large font can do. Plus the feeling of accomplishment when one clicks "done."

smonster, the nowdothis site is so rocking. I use it when I need something else to focus for me because I can't. Thanks for the recommending it!

Oh yes, I use it all the time too! I have it open in toolbar form on the left of my browser (and I've just noticed I can tick off a list item. Hurrah). I have such trouble concentrating on one thing at a time that it's a huge help.

The basic reasoning behind DC not having representation is that representation is apportioned by state, and DC is not in any state. (The land it's on used to be part of Maryland, and Maryland and Virginia kept having disputes about who had fishing rights in the river, so the federal government took some of the land on each side of the river and said "This is where our capital will be, and it's not in any state." After a little while, Virginia somehow took back their part of it, which is why DC is bordered by straight lines most of the way around and then by the squiggly river.)

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics had a fantastic episode about a month ago that dealt with the issue of DC's representation in Congress. The main political problem with giving DC statehood is that it would add 2 Democratic Senate seats more or less by default, which obviously would make it hard to get bipartisan support for. (One solution that's been tossed around is to grant DC statehood, but also split California into two states on the assumption that South California would probably elect Republican senators and keep the current balance intact.)

Another solution I've heard would be to incorporate most of DC into Maryland, and to keep just a small area around the Mall as the district proper.