01 July 2010
 
Practical Democracy

(Grilled corn con quesa, photo courtesy Bonds in Northampton)
 
Brutal Day. I won’t bore you with the details, but I ended it with a complete understanding of Democracy, Socialism and Fascism.
 
That is not bad for a single 24-hour period, but I will have to do the set-up. Your government, bless its little pointy head, summoned a bunch of us concerned citizens in expensive suits to a meeting where it presented two potentially profitable opportunities to bid on.
 
Good news, right, but at a cost. Due to entirely predictable circumstances, the CFO of the program will sequester funds that are not obligated by 30 July. That means the contracts must be awarded by then, and under Free-and-open competition, must go through the process of submission, evaluation and award before then.
 
If you walk the cat backward, that means the first of them will be due to the Government on the 7th, and if you scald the cat badly enough, you might be able to do that if you have people work through the Holiday weekend.
 
There is no point bitching about it. The Government crashed to get this done so that they could grill undisturbed, and no one said we had to bid on the things. C’est la vie, goes with the territory.
 
I pounded on the keyboard to try to get the information out about the lost weekend, and realized with a start that dinnertime had passed and it was time for the monthly Big Pink Board meeting. I had an issue on the agenda, so I felt I needed to attend and show interest.
 
I don’t normally go to these things, since I am a busy guy and get up early. That is the same reason none of us pay much attention to what our government is up to, day to day, unless it has gored our particular ox.
 
The meetings are held in the East Party Room, a suite on the roof that would have a magnificent view of the Capital if anyone had thought to put a window in it. Francis Freed had decreed a roof garden would be up there to watch the Fireworks on the 4th, but that vision got lost with the suicide dive from the roof a couple decades ago.
 
My feeling is that I could find a way to throw myself off something lower on the building if I wanted to do that, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the insurance company, who thinks the vista of the District to be an attractive nuisance and had them shut off the roof to the residents. Assholes.
 
Anyway, a quorum was eventually convened, and with the Board at the folding table and a small audience of residents with issues, we lurched into an exercise in practical democracy.
 
The elevator guy’s time is actually worth something, so he got to go first. He is going to spend a million of our dollars to fix the ancient Otis elevator cars spent an hour explaining why Code required a modest increase in the refurbishment plan. The whole thing was painfully clear in about two minutes; in order for the elevators to work during one of our periodic power outages, we need to upgrade the back-up generator.
 
Doing it the right way means replacing the current one, which would give the benefit of powering the garage doors, communications from the front desk, and the circuit that runs minimal services to the units.
 
We could spend less, of course, and Leo the Engineer rolled his eyes when the option of carrying diesel fuel to the roof for a smaller and less capable unit that would do nothing about the other emergency services. Turned out in the course of the discussion that the Board members did not know if we had electric or hydraulic elevators to begin with.
 
Your government in action. It may be a microcosm, but damn if it wasn’t just like downtown.
 
It took an hour to get through that issue with some bad feelings.
 
Then there was the Window guy, who explained the big fuck-up with the replacement aluminum windows- that will be $5,000 a unit, average, and he apologized for the fact that only fiberglass would be available and he was going to take a small loss on each of them, installed, and was remorseful about the quotes, which were likewise screwed up and really were half the amount in the letters they had mailed to interested residents.
 
I had to use the restroom, and when they let the Window guy go, Bruno from the 8th floor got his chance to make General Remarks. He made a display of turning on his tape recorder, since he is chronically unhappy about the structural state of his balcony, and finds the Board unresponsive.
 
The click of the recorder lead to an extended discussion of the Virginia Condominium Act, 1973 as amended, which apparently stipulates that Board meetings can be recorded, but only with previous notification of such recording. Since Bruno was ambushing the Board membes, the Weasel attorney fiercely objected.
 
There was no copy of the Act available, except on Blackberry, which I was able to find, and the Board was stymied until the President said that if the Weasel did not agree to be recorded, he would have to adjourn the meeting. Bruno is a loon, and a new Rule was moved and seconded that states if crazy residents want to record things they have to say so before the meeting is gaveled to order.
 
The Rules are that residents can only speak during the time for General Remarks, so when we finally got to my issue- the smoking on the Pool deck- I wasn’t able to say a damn thing, which is where we are as citizens watching the antics of the Congress. Our only input is about which mountebank or scoundrel we elect to represent us.
 
So that went on for a while, until Leo was directed to go get a quote on how much it would cost to shut Bruno up, which means next month he will come back with a Report on which the Board could deliberate. Think of it as a Blue Ribbon Panel.
 
But as the discussion of the smoking ban commenced, I realized I had to sit mute. The Members agreed they had been hasty; the Weasel said he had a lot of complaints, which amounted to “two” and they were undocumented. My petition had twenty names in favor of a designated smoking area. The Treasurer thought we should go back to the old  rules, which permitted unrestricted puffing, but the Weasel bristled, and said he didn’t mind regulating perfectly legal conduct. He looked over at me squarely and smiled.
 
I could not speak, those are the Rules.
 
So, they designated a little patch of earth at the back of the pool that is just as far from where I usually sit as the front gate as the designated smoking area. That is where Montana sets up camp, and she is allergic to smoke, so there is going to be hell to pay on that.
 
I will have a chance to speak about that in thirty days, at the next Board meeting.
 
I walked out of the meeting fuming. That is Democracy. You don’t necessarily get what you want, and sometimes the outcome of the process is exactly the opposite of what you hoped for.
 
Socialism is some Weasel that thinks it perfectly fine to jerk you around because he can, and he knows much better.
 
Fascism is when you seize the podium, throw the Weasels off the roof, and rule by fiat.
 
I suppose Chuchill was right about Democracy, in that it is worst form of government except all the others, but I still really wanted to see if the Weasel could grow wings and fly as he passed the seventh floor on the way down.
 
I was hungry when I finally got back to the unit. I really wished the Rules permitted me to do the corn on the grill, but we can’t have them on our balconies, whether they are structurally sound or not. I looked at the recipe that my pal Bonds sent from Massachusetts, with a summer theme and wondered if I could do it in the microwave.
 
CORN ON THE COB WITH CHEESE AND LIME

The corn is coming in, and the grill at the back of the pool, near the new smoking area that will really piss off Montana is the perfect place to try this out.
 
It sounds unbeatable as an accompaniment to juicy steak or burgers.
 
These messy but irresistible ears of corn coated with cheese are a popular street snack in Mexico. For this recipe, Bonds used cotija, a crumbly, pungent, aged-curd cheese that can range in consistency from soft to very hard, depending on the brand. I can get the authentic squeaky cheese down at the Hispanic market on the corner where the Day Laborers wait with hope and resignation. I managed to find Los Fortales brand, a hard variety available at specialty shops or where the local market demands it, like Guatamarlington. If you don’t live in a marvelously diverse neighborhood with moderate street crime, you can substitute feta, which is more widely available.
 
 4 ears of corn in the husk
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/8 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste
3/4 cup shredded cotija or feta
 
On the side:

Lime wedges
 
Directions:
 
Fire up the grill.
 
Soak corn in husks in cold water 10 minutes. Drain corn and grill on a rack set
5 to 6 inches over fiercely glowing coals until husks are charred, about 10 minutes. I love that part. Makes me feel solidarity with the Mexican peasants.
 
Shuck corn and grill until kernels are browned in spots, about 10 minutes.
 
While corn is grilling, in a small bowl whisk together mayonnaise and cayenne.
 
Using the small teardrop-shaped holes on a four-sided grater, shred the cotija.
 
Brush mayonnaise mixture onto hot corn and sprinkle with cojita.
 
Serve corn on the cob with lime wedges.
 
Man, I love Summer!

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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