Good Morning, City Desk readers! It’s the second week in August, which usually means that most people are on vacation and not doing anything news-worthy. But when he was elected, President Obama promised change and he has followed through on that. Congressional town meetings, once sedate opportunities for schmoozing with your elected officials, have suddenly become centers of lunacy, where anyone will get up and scream their opinions at members of Congress. Let’s take a closer look at two of yesterday’s meetings:
- Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) held a town-hall meeting in Hillsboro, MO yesterday. Or rather, she tried to hold a town-hall meeting and was met with so much anger about health care reform that she took to disciplining the audience. Video of her questioning the audience’s rudeness is here, but McCaskill also tweeted her feelings about this great day in America.
- At another town-hall meeting in New Hampshire, President Obama spent time addressing the concerns of citizens who are wary of the new health care plan. Unfortunately, this guy couldn’t be assuaged, so he decided to show up with a (legal) gun strapped to his leg. Chris Matthews is ready to tear William Kostric a new one but apparently the gun was more for show than actual use and according to Kostric, no one from New Hampshire was alarmed.
- With the death of Eunice Kennedy Shriver yesterday morning, newspapers are reporting that the Kennedy era is really over. A year ago, the same newspapers reported this news when Senator Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with cancer, which they also reported ten years ago after the death of JFK Jr. The Post attempts to clarify what is meant by the end of the Kennedy era but the more pressing question is which Kennedy will carry on the legacy.
- The staff of DCist has officially jumped on board the DC Voting Rights bus. Literally. Editor Martin Austermuhle is not a US citizen, so he can’t vote anyway, but he lent his image to a new bus campaign sponsored by I-Am-DC. Look for his poster on your favorite Metrobus and then consider joining the cause, so that maybe a person who can vote in the District can be the next spokes-model.
- And finally, after the death of John Hughes on Friday, the supposed inspiration for Ferris Beuller is coming out of the woodwork. Edward McNally went to high school with Hughes in the suburbs of Chicago and apparently caused some trouble with his friends as a teenager, but that’s less important. In this essay, McNally pays tribute to a friend and encourages everyone to live just one day as Ferris did. Apparently, this is a tactic used by many trial attorneys.
Enjoy the day and bring an umbrella, City Deskers!