Political: B*tch Set Me Up!

D.C. Council, Ward 8, Democratic
Updated 9/14/04 10:25 PM ET
88% Precincts Reporting
Candidates Votes %
Marion Barry 2,413 61%
Sandy Allen * 902 23%

Cue the biblical weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth among every person who DOESN'T live in Ward 8: Marion Barry is going to unseat Sandy Allen to become Ward 8's member of the DC Council.

I am incredulous. Totally incredulous. You move to DC, you tell yourself that things are different now, that no one would ever be stupid enough to go back to the dark days of Marion Barry. And then the unthinkable happens. And you wonder how anyone--ANYONE--could be so stupid as to think for one nanosecond that Marion Barry gives exactly one rat's a** about them or their struggles. The man is unemployed and in need of a job with a decent salary, which the Council provides. THIS is why the District of Columbia has zero credibility with our Congressional overlords. THIS is why we have among the highest per-student-cost ratio in the entire country--and yet we have a third-world education system that drives the flight of middle class citizens with children above kindergarten age. THIS is why a show like "The District" is still on the air even though it is a big pile of doggie poop. Because we get the leaders--and the living conditions--we deserve.

Short Story Long: I feel like I am living in The Matrix. I am Neo. Marion Barry is Agent Smith. And he keeps cloning himself so that he cannot be destroyed. I look out my window, in my newspaper, on my TV, and there are thousands of cloned Marion Barrys trying to beat the tar out of me so that I cannot find my way back to the Oracle. As evidence I submit the following quote from the movie:

Agent Smith: "Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world, where none suffered; where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world, but I believe that as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. So the perfect world we dreamed, but your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why The Matrix was redesigned to this...the peak of your civilization."

Welcome to The Matrix, DC.