Before I embark on this missive, let me just state, for the record, that I really, truly, psychotically, hopelessly, love Washington DC.  I love the buildings, the streets, the landscape, the trees, and even the potholes.  I love the hubbub, the scandal, the general obsession with who is doing what to who, when, where, how, and why.  Because I was born here, I am even hard-wired to have a soft spot for the Redskins, in spite of my total disinterest in football and a decade of ill promise.  I love how traffic ebbs and flows in accordance with the tides of Congress.  I love the 10 days of perfect weather that we get each year, in between the rain and the snow and the swelter.  I love how the city shuts down when it snows.

As hard core a lover of our fine city as I am, however, I do not love DC in the summertime.  Here’s a quick pop quiz for anyone who may be contemplating a summertime trip to our beloved District of Columbia:

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING IS MOST SIMILAR TO A SUMMERTIME TRIP TO WASHINGTON?

1. Being trapped in the eye of Hurricane Katrina
   
2. Being trampled by a herd of lobbyists who’ve just sighted Karl Rove
   
3. Being slowly boiled in a vat of $100-per-barrell oil
   
4. Being stuck in the middle of a 3^rd grade marching band
   
5. Having Geraldo Rivera deliver your eulogy

The answer, of course, as you no doubt have guessed, is F:  All of the above.

It is at about this point that exacting readers will note that option F wasn’t listed in the first place.  This subterfuge is the literary equivalent to the political life of a DC resident.  DC denizens tend to be quite well informed about events and players, and terribly vocal to boot.  But when it comes down to it, those of us who proudly vote a few mere miles from the Capitol never really had a voice in whether we invaded Iraq or what is to be done with Social Security. 

Except, of course, for the thousands of people who pretend that they don’t live in the city, but gobble up lots of valuable parking spaces in Zone 1 while maintaining a residency elsewhere on paper so that they can pay lower taxes, drive badly, escape to a cooler climate in the summer, and cast a more meaningful ballot by mail to be counted (and counted, and counted, and counted) in the red states.

How, say the good readers chiming in from Iowa, can this be?  I just say that because I love Iowa.  First, I am obligated to love Iowa because Grinnell College is my alma mater, and if I didn’t pay appropriate tribute to it, Alumni Services would have me hunted down, pecked to death by a pack of telethon staffers, and reincarnated into a French fry.  Or a Freedom fry. Whatever. Second, the good people of Iowa have brought us corn, Johnny Carson, the Des Moines Register, and boundless surprises during election years.  The bad people of Iowa mostly keep their contributions to themselves.  Well, except maybe for that Paris-Hilton-in-the-Midwest reality show.

“Isn’t this a democracy?” the Iowans protest.  “Weren’t suffrage rights made universal to all adults over the age of 18 in the 1960s?”

Alas, Hawkeyes!  We reside in a republic, wherein legal residents over the age of 18 have the right to register to vote and to cast a ballot.  What happens after that, though, as the debacle of 2000 showed, is an exhibition called “representational democracy”, which really means, “Let’s see who can redraw the district lines the fastest”.  Under this enlightened system, which has brought us such spectacles as Watergate, Gore v. Bush, and stained blue dresses, the 500,000+ residents of the District of Columbia are represented on Capitol Hill by 1 Congresswoman and 2 “shadow” (read: non-voting) Senators. 

In other words, a group of individuals larger than the state population of Wyoming has no representation in the Senate, simply because they happen to reside in 68 square miles of highly developed swampland, instead of roughing it out in the West with the wearers of cowboy hats, the sultans of mining, the founders of cults, and the NRA’s truest believers.  Might I add that these 500,000 Americans also uncomplainingly tolerate the presence of the world’s most powerful politicians, which keeps said politicians' escapades safely out of the backyards and bedrooms of the rest of the country.

DC also has the bluest blood of any territory around, generally returning more than 80% of its ballots to the Donkey column.  I do have to wonder if we might make more progress towards true representation if the area was a little more red... or at least, purple.  But hey, maybe it’s because we just don’t wear enough cowboy hats.  We've got plenty of cults.  Just look at Marion Barry.  How else do  you explain our most famous crack-smoker-turned-tax-evader's ability to not only avoid prison, but also hold elected office?  (By the way, speaking of Marion Barry, longtime Barry scoffers will be most pleased to hear that a statistically significant number of voters, myself included, went to the polls in 2002 at the last minute to re-elect Mayor "I bungled my nomination petition forgeries" Anthony Williams solely because we got an automated call from Marion Barry, extolling the virtues of Williams's opponent.  I swear it's true.)

Going back to the District's political servitude... civics books call this “taxation without representation”.  Our founding fathers certainly considered it so, and they promptly informed King George that, cowboy hats or no, their lack of voice in government would not be tolerated.  In fact, the city of Washington has been unfailingly patriotic in its continuing war on the Union Jack.  For over 150 years after the Brits torched it to the ground, DC exacted climactic retribution on the Brits, who were forced to issue hardship pay to their DC diplomats for service in the city’s “subtropical climate” until the British embassy was finally blessed with air conditioning in 1973.

Former President Bill Clinton recognized the hypocrisy of DC's status just enough to adorn the presidential motorcade with DC’s official “Taxation Without Representation” license plate just prior to his departure, though probably more to irk the incoming occupant and inspire the tossing of eggs at his limo than out of any real sympathy with the District’s plight.  In the grand scheme of things, I'm not sure Bill did much more for the city than raise the visibility of its vast cadre of interns and dry cleaners.

Personally, I would love to see the city council issue a new Declaration of Independence to the current King George.  In addition to the city’s lack of self-government, the modern version could be expanded to allow for the requirements of progress.  These could include such inalienable rights as:

     * The right to co-opt all of the eternally-occupied-or-
     illegal parking spaces around Federal buildings.  If
     they could be sold as real estate, each parking space on
     Capitol Hill would by itself no doubt be worth more than
     my sister's entire 5-bedroom house in the
     suburbs.  Besides, those spaces are bigger than most of
     DC's studio apartments.

     * The right to universal air conditioning.

     * The right to ban all cowboy hats on principle, especially
     when they are donned by residents who start wars they
     can’t finish and clog city streets with their motorcades.

But I digress.  I must apologize; I get discombobulated when it’s freezing.  Did I say it was freezing?  That’s only because my beloved city is a giant oven right now.  Huh?

It's the air conditioning, you see.  The only way I can cope with the summer swelter is to creep indoors and turn the air conditioning to 50 degrees. Fahrenheit, of course; 50 on the Celsius scale would be even hotter than the guys on “Battlestar Galactica”, or so my friend Ryan tells me.  I think Congress has the same dilemma (over the air conditioning, not the "Battlestar" beefcake), and that this is the true reason for filibusters.

If you do have the misfortune of visiting the city in the summer, there are many fun things to do once you’ve exhausted tourist obligations like waiting in line at the Washington Monument for 4 hours in 100 degree heat with 500 other sweaty strangers to hike 400 feet of stairs so you can hastily enjoy a hazy view of the city.  (The haze comes from the pollution and humidity in the air, which come from Congressional filibusters and moisture, respectively; filibusters being a by-product of 500 sweaty Congressmen, and moisture being a by-product of 500,000 sweaty residents.)

If you can stand the heat, try watching people who are exiting buildings and cars for a telltale mist over their sunglasses, which means they have been keeping themselves nicely preserved in jets of Freon.  Hey, it beats talking to your Congressman.  Or you can saunter on down to happy hour in one of the air-conditioned bars on Capitol Hill.  For the adventurous, you can add a layer of fun by proclaiming loudly that Vice President Quayle is doing a hell of a job this term, and you’re so glad that the electival college is keeping the country on track.  The locals will turn purple.  And just like that... real progress towards our voting rights.  You, as a nonresident, will have made more progress towards giving DC an equal voice in government than a century of elected officials.