The Best Politics Are Local
Today started off with imported things, i.e. stuff from Outside: coffee, coffee filters, coffee maker; and the imported political news of the morning; The Democratic National Committee's Rules Committee had decided to seat all the delegates from the Michigan and Florida primaries, but only give them half votes.
Oh, and Sen. Obama had decided to resign his politically embarrassing church.
Then, my politics turned local and tasty. The doorbell rang and standing there was a well-dressed young man - suit, tie, 3 point handkerchief, dress shoes - with a plastic bag in one hand and my Sunday paper in the other. He handed me both, we chatted for a moment and then he took off.
The young man at the door is a member of Alaska State Legislature. What he had in the plastic bag was some of his home-smoked red salmon.
The genesis of my morning encounter with this elected official was a chance meeting in the grocery store. I happen to have grown up with the mother of said representative's sister's boyfriend. While chatting with him, about dip netting in Chitna, I made a sort-of whimsical but sort-of serious plea that he tell his sort-of brother-in-law that I would like some of his smoked salmon.
His salmon is not that lightly brined mush that gets sold to the tourists. This is the deeply smoked fish that I grew up on. And by deep, I mean "a-little-goes-a-long-way" deep, "eat-too-much-and-your-tongue-goes-numb" deep. The kind that you can smell through three layers of plastic. In short: the good stuff. Mixed with a little cream cheese and slathered on a round of Pilot bread, it is both a call back to childhood and a contemporary tasty treat.
To be honest, I didn't really expect the message to get through any time soon (if at all) and I planned on calling him right around dip netting time to make my seasonal plea. However, we ran into each other at the Alaska Democratic Party's State Convention down in Palmer and instead of discussing the possibility that Alaska might actually get a natural gas pipeline within our lifetimes, we discussed my fish delivery.
We did eventually talk about AGIA, the legislative session just past, and I wished him success in the special session.
During the 1960's and '70's there was much talk about politics being personal, and certainly in these Karl Rove-ian days, the extremely personal is extremely political. Stuff that should be an individual's personal decision (i.e. reproductive health, religious beliefs, the decision to own a gun) have become so politicized that a single "wrong" answer makes it impossible to hold public office.
And that's just nuts.
We are currently in the end stages of a hard fought campaign for the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination. And the pundits are still all a-twitter about how Sen. Obama has drawn people, especially the young'uns, into the process. Color me old and jaded but these kids simply do not get it. For the day to day of our lives, it doesn't matter much who our President is. It matters plenty who it is he hires. But who we hire for Prez, not so much.
Politics that we, as citizens, can truly effect, truly change, are on the local level. It matters who we put on local public boards, commissions, school boards, borough assemblies, the state legislature. I, as a regular citizen of the republic, have little voice in the national defense budget but I can certainly harass my local House rep about the state budget - 'cause I know where he lives, I know where he works. Every time my name is in the local paper, I get an extra newspaper clipping courtesy of the office of my state senator, and in return I get to call that office when I think he is being an idiot about revenue sharing.
And a causal conversation in the store scores me delicious fish from a legislator in a district I don't even live in because it's good constituent service.
The best politics are local, and occasionally tasty.
Bunny's Bon-Bons:
Pilot Bread #2
Pilot Bread #3
Pilot Bread #4
Oh, and Sen. Obama had decided to resign his politically embarrassing church.
Then, my politics turned local and tasty. The doorbell rang and standing there was a well-dressed young man - suit, tie, 3 point handkerchief, dress shoes - with a plastic bag in one hand and my Sunday paper in the other. He handed me both, we chatted for a moment and then he took off.
The young man at the door is a member of Alaska State Legislature. What he had in the plastic bag was some of his home-smoked red salmon.
The genesis of my morning encounter with this elected official was a chance meeting in the grocery store. I happen to have grown up with the mother of said representative's sister's boyfriend. While chatting with him, about dip netting in Chitna, I made a sort-of whimsical but sort-of serious plea that he tell his sort-of brother-in-law that I would like some of his smoked salmon.
His salmon is not that lightly brined mush that gets sold to the tourists. This is the deeply smoked fish that I grew up on. And by deep, I mean "a-little-goes-a-long-way" deep, "eat-too-much-and-your-tongue-goes-numb" deep. The kind that you can smell through three layers of plastic. In short: the good stuff. Mixed with a little cream cheese and slathered on a round of Pilot bread, it is both a call back to childhood and a contemporary tasty treat.
To be honest, I didn't really expect the message to get through any time soon (if at all) and I planned on calling him right around dip netting time to make my seasonal plea. However, we ran into each other at the Alaska Democratic Party's State Convention down in Palmer and instead of discussing the possibility that Alaska might actually get a natural gas pipeline within our lifetimes, we discussed my fish delivery.
We did eventually talk about AGIA, the legislative session just past, and I wished him success in the special session.
During the 1960's and '70's there was much talk about politics being personal, and certainly in these Karl Rove-ian days, the extremely personal is extremely political. Stuff that should be an individual's personal decision (i.e. reproductive health, religious beliefs, the decision to own a gun) have become so politicized that a single "wrong" answer makes it impossible to hold public office.
And that's just nuts.
We are currently in the end stages of a hard fought campaign for the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination. And the pundits are still all a-twitter about how Sen. Obama has drawn people, especially the young'uns, into the process. Color me old and jaded but these kids simply do not get it. For the day to day of our lives, it doesn't matter much who our President is. It matters plenty who it is he hires. But who we hire for Prez, not so much.
Politics that we, as citizens, can truly effect, truly change, are on the local level. It matters who we put on local public boards, commissions, school boards, borough assemblies, the state legislature. I, as a regular citizen of the republic, have little voice in the national defense budget but I can certainly harass my local House rep about the state budget - 'cause I know where he lives, I know where he works. Every time my name is in the local paper, I get an extra newspaper clipping courtesy of the office of my state senator, and in return I get to call that office when I think he is being an idiot about revenue sharing.
And a causal conversation in the store scores me delicious fish from a legislator in a district I don't even live in because it's good constituent service.
The best politics are local, and occasionally tasty.
Bunny's Bon-Bons:
Pilot Bread #2
Pilot Bread #3
Pilot Bread #4
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