No Way to Run a Government

I watch a lot of news during the day. I became curious lately, hearing about this caucus or that caucus, as to what these numerous groups have to do with actually governing. You know, making laws and compromising with The Loyal Opposition to get things done. Governing.

I recently counted and the 435 members of Congress are involved in 220 caucuses. I did, I counted them. Let's see, let's do the math. Four hundred thirty five members divided by 220, carry the 1 (I know, mixed math) means that each member is a member of 1.97 caucuses. Presumably, we can round up and make it an even 2. Caucuses have way more than 2 members each so members of Congress are probably involved in way more than 2 apiece.

There is, I kid you not, a Cement Caucus. (It's true...look it up.) A Bike Caucus (presumably bicycles, though one can never tell. Perhaps they are bipartisan enough to include motorcycles). Does this include only members of Congress who bike to work? Doubtful. They mostly get to work being driven individually in limos. If we have another gas crisis like in the '70's, could they at least carpool? Again, doubtful.

                              - Editor's Note: The above is a rare example of what happens
                                 when the joint committee on Printing gets its teeth into a
                                                project... trains start to run upside down.

 What with caucuses and committee meetings, one wonders how they ever get ANYTHING done. It is a miracle, really. I didn't have the courage to look up the caucuses in the Senate at this time. I'm guessing here, but I doubt there is a Black Caucus in the Senate, since there's only one black senator and who's he going to caucus with, really?

It is easy to imagine that some caucuses overlap in their mission statements. The Cement Caucus might be a subset of the Construction Caucus. There is no caucus for skateboards, which might be included in the Bike Caucus. Or perhaps there could be a Recreational Vehicles Caucus or even a Things That Go on Two/Four Wheels Caucus. Of course then we'd need a caucus for unicycles and tricycles.

Then there are committees. (Not to mention "Joint" Committees where members of both bodies meet together, held for the really important stuff like Printing and the Library.) Several committees have similar names...Homeland Security in the House vs. Homeland Security and Government Affairs in the Senate, Small Business in the House vs. Small Business and Entrepreneurship in the Senate. I guess those topics aren't important enough to have Joint Committees. One can excuse the Rules and Administration Committee in the Senate and the Rules Committee in the House--commonly known as the Speaker's committee--as those two bodies have vastly different ways of conducting their affairs, more's the pity.

Don't get me started on informal groups, like the Tuesday Morning group in the Senate.

In an era of division, perhaps there should be fewer caucuses and committees. More talking to people you disagree with, and finding common purpose. But I ain't holding my breath.

Victimless Crimes

Last night, while watching a DVD (yes, I'm old-school...can't figure out how to "live-stream" or whatever), the usual official warning came on. You know, the FBI's seal and the statement "Piracy is not a victimless crime"...


It got me to thinking about the phrase "victimless crime". There is no such thing. I mean, if there's no victim, there's no crime, right? If there's a victim, there is a crime, sometimes a horrendous crime, sometimes a more minor one.


Which brings me to the attitude of many voters having put into office a Groper-in-Chief. "No one was hurt, right?" Millions of voters believed that what they thought he'd do as President outweighed his behavior toward women, toward minorities, toward the disabled, toward war heroes.


True story: When I was in my 40's, having attained a BA in English and Communications and a Master's in Public Administration and had several decades of career in the non-profit sector, I was looking for a change of scenery. So I enrolled in the Horticulture program at Warrensburg's Central Missouri State, the only such program within driving distance of my home in Kansas City. At first, it was great. I got a graduate assistantship and my job was caring for the University's greenhouse. I had many years of experience in home gardening and looked forward to learning the ways of the greenhouse (which is a different kettle of fish from taking care of plants in the garden).


The Horticulture program had a single professor and was a sub-set of the Agriculture department. I loved and learned a lot in Soil Science, I learned a lot in Plant Identification. I struggled through Calculus, all the while wondering what Calculus had to do with Horticulture. It was a totally different world from my previous BA in studying literature, being steeped in science and math. But I prevailed and got good grades. I also had a summer internship at Powell Display Gardens in King. All in all, a great experience.


Except, of course, for that Horticulture prof being a groper. I was a, ahem, "mature" student so I thought I could keep it inside, fend him off and deal with it. Until I found out that he was doing the same to younger, more impressionable women who were, in many cases, fresh off the farm and unable to deal with it. I found that I was not alone in keeping it from my significant other, for fear he would take matters into his own hands. I found out that he was teaching young male students how to grope and not get caught.


Another "mature" student and I started talking to present and past female students and found that he was doing it a lot. Had been for years. To dozens of female students. All from his position of authority over us. So we gathered ourselves together and a group of four of us (the rest, fearing retaliation, couldn't go) went to the Dean and lodged a complaint. Oddly, he'd never been reported before, or so they said. The Dean made all the right noises and promised to look into it.


Which she did. The prof was "counseled" to not do it again and I was removed from all the classes I had under him. I guess I was allowed to continue my work in the greenhouse (the one place where he and I were frequently alone) because the thought was I was on my own there. No witnesses. I was enrolled in alternate classes like "Agriculture in Third World Countries", a subject which wasn't required for my Hort degree and which I had no interest in.


(I will say I learned a lot and it was interesting from the standpoint that the seminar-style class had a total of 6 students, I being the only female. There was a student from Kenya and one from Afghanistan who argued that Afghanistan shouldn't be considered a third-world country just because they ignore half their population in terms of education and productivity, but that's another day.)


The upshot of all of this was, I couldn't avoid being in a class with the groper without drastically altering my educational experience. I left the University when it became clear that nothing was going to be done to him and that I was going to be penalized for having reported him


I've said all this to say that groping isn't a victimless crime. I regret to this day that I didn't go into Horticulture as a profession. His seemingly innocuous groping altered the course of my career life.
I awakened on Nov. 9, 2016 to the news that our voting population (well, at least the Electoral College) had voted for a Groper-in-Chief, KNOWING that he was a groper and potentially an assaulter of teenage girls.


I have no words to describe how that made me feel. It brought up all those moments with my groper again and all the feelings of helplessness and outrage that come with groping. Not only did he grope, he made lewd jokes during class, made comments about female students' endowments, and trained young males that, not only is it okay (who is hurt by groping, huh?) but how to get away with it.



Victimless crime, indeed.