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Mozzie
Local Government Chronicle
Bastards. Absolute bastards. Sneaky bastards. Not a tell-tale whirr; not a hint of a hovering buzz. Not a nana-second of a warning. Just the sensation of prickling skin in the steaming, fetid, torrid heat.
Mosquitoes. Asian mosquitoes. The Asian Tiger Mosquito to be precise. Aedes albopictus. Black bodies with white stripes and a broad white band down the back. Aggressive biters, a known vector of Dengue in southeast Asia and a potential vector of yellow fever, dengue, LaCrosse encephalitis and dog heartworm in the US.
And where is this little monster? Singapore? Burma? Papua New Guinea? Washington DC. That’s where. Freedom’s capital in Bush-speak. Imported into the US in used car tyres it hit Texas in 1985 and is now found in 25 states from the south to the Atlantic to the mid-West. And it just loves the standing water found in used car tyres. And in the US there are a lot of used car tyres.
Washington in August is grim. The temperatures nudge 100F and the humidity is energy-sapping. The canopy of the trees which shade the suburban streets seem to trap the heat.
The political atmosphere is pretty fetid as well. The mid-term elections for Congress might attract international attention but they are just the tip of the ice-berg. There are elections for pretty well everything. America is a deeply political country. The grass patches outside the houses which lead down to the road (there are precious few pavements in the relatively well-to-do and predominantly white suburb of Bethesda where it is forbidden to erect barriers between the houses or to hang washing out to dry in case it detracts from the park-like tone of the neighbourhood) sport a mini forest of placards he names on which are testimony to the ethnic diversity of this country. Almost everyone is promising leadership in one shape or another.
The politics can be pretty unforgiving as well. Alongside the “conventional” campaigning of the national parties and the often direct negative attacks on opponents of the TV ads there is now the vastly growing sub-culture of the blog. Virulent blogging is blamed at least in part for the surprise defeat in a primary election of the incumbent Democrat senator Joe Liebermann at the hands of a rich novice politician campaigning against his support of President Bush’s policies in Iraq.
And when up-and-coming and would-be Bush heir Senator George Allen – son of a famous football coach- spotted a campaign aide for his Democratic opponent at a meeting and referred to him as “macaca” the bloggers erupted. The young man in question had American Indian blood in him and Allen’s remark was seen as racial. The story ran for three days in the national media egged on by the blog offensive.
The District of Colombia with its 600,000 or so residents might be the nation’s capital but it has precious little say in its politics: it has no representation in Congress. DC number-plates carry the complaint “Taxation without representation” and there is now talk of creating a seat in the House of Representatives for the district. That would, of course, be rock-solid Democrat so it will not happen without some balancing addition to Republican strength. Utah- iron-clad Republican with a growing population- may end up as the happy recipient of the compensating allocation.
Politics is very local in this country. The “folks back home” are never far from the mind of the inhabitants of the Hill. A ranking Senator or Congressman can introduce a witness from his or her home state at a hearing in terms which make it clear that whatever expertise or interest he represents his main strength is that he is simply “a great guy.”
And in a society which tends to wear its emotions on its sleeve and where public and often lachrymose confession before the TV cameras is standard, patriotism is on universal display. The US flag flies from countless homes in countless streets. The patriotic bumper stickers shout from the cars. “Support our troops” stickers are common. Bush’s America is not a nation going through one of its occasional periods of self-doubt. The melting pot that is America is works its historic alchemy and folds its people into new generations of patriots.
Even the damned mosquitoes have the stripes if not yet the stars – and I bet they bite the poor wretched foreigners first.
© Local Government Chronicle
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