Madame Chair
August 27th, 2008 – 7:04 PM by James LileksI was down on the floor near the New York delegation for the roll call – high drama when Illinois passed. Why? What are they up to? My sources – which consisted entirely of DB from the Miami Herald, who’d heard a rumor on TV – said that New York’s vote would be spectacular: Sen. Clinton would enter the arena, release her delegates by using the Delegate Bondage-Sundering Scepter (it’s an old tradition) and call for a unanimous vote. At the last minute, thought, New Mexico passed to New York for no reason anyone could possibly imagine, unless they thought people were getting restless.
They weren’t; the roll call is the best part of the third day, what with all the endless self-flattery: AS THE PROUD ASSISTANT WATER COMMISSIONER OF THE GREAT STATE OF NEW DAKOTA WHERE THE SUN PASSES OVERHEAD ONCE A DAY AND THE VALUE OF PI IS 3.14285714 AND SO ON, I AM PROUD TO CAST TWO VOTES FOR THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, etc. The fellow from Maine got somewhat lost in the middle of his remarks, and ended his praise of the state by actually saying “ . . . whatever.” Another touted his state’s “prodigious hills.”
In the end you want to hear what the last person will say – but we didn’t get the chance, since Sen. Clinton entered the hall and asked for the rules to be suspended. You have to feel sorry for the Xyogenia delegation.
Here’s the Minnesota reps, Sen. Klobuchar and Mayor Rybak, with concluding remarks by Rhoda Morgenstern:
6 Responses to "Madame Chair"
Why does pi have a different value in New Dakota than it does in Pennsylvania?
By the way… the first candidate to have a position that is not about a)abortion b)gay marriage or c)the other guy sucks, will get my vote. With all the problems we have after eight years of the Decider, who really cares what the gay couple does when they get home?
I didn’t think it could be any worse than Bush. Now, I’m not so sure.
Um, is Amy drunk?
Amy Klobuchar made MN looks particularly pathetic during roll call. Bragging about the Duluth hockey team or something. She made it abundantly clear that we are famous for and known for nothing.
My sources – which consisted entirely of DB from the Miami Herald, who’d heard a rumor on TV
Heh. I’m guessing DB = Dave Barry. The two of you are providing the best coverage of this thing by far, and I bet you’re having a great time hanging out. (Too bad someone couldn’t get a picture of both of you in that pedicab.)
Keep up the good work.
“kevpg32″ from buzz
Apparently in Colorado they’ve legislated pi to be 22/7, which is 3.142857142857142857… repeating endlessly.
As any math buff knows (and apparently I know too, somehow), Pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. However, that assumes that the diameter is a straight line. New Dakota is so flat that the people of New Dakota don’t realize the Earth’s surface actually curves. So one day, when they wanted to draw the world’s biggest circle (their only claim to fame, since the title of Biggest Ball of Twine is shared by both Minnesota and Kansas, for some reason). In doing so, they “discovered” that Pi was wrong, because they failed to take into consideration the fact that the diameter was slightly bowed do to the curvature of the Earth, resulting in a diameter slightly longer than what they would expect. Upon realizing this, they decided to recalculate Pi, and somehow managed to oversimplify it to 22/7, since that’s about the limit of mathematical complexity that anybody in New Dakota ever achieved.
I’m glad New Dakota isn’t a real place, otherwise I might be offending some people here… FYI: I don’t really feel this way about the actual Dakotas, in fact I’m spending the weekend in rural North Dakota with my girlfriend’s family. And the state really isn’t that flat.