Fiddler on the Hill

I found out rather recently, late last year, that my family has known the dean of the 114th House of Representatives a lot better than I had previously thought, but John Conyers, always the "me" politician throughout his career, wrapped up in his own self-glorification and his own family's advancement, never lifted a finger to help me when I ran for the MI House of Representatives in 1976; not even a phone call to some political buddy in the city to say give me a hand so as myself not to be very low in the vote count, at least.  Nor any notes of inquiry or congratulations when I won successive congressional nominations in Alaska at the turn of the millennium.  So surprise, surprise, surprise, after a half-a-century in Congress, Conyers didn't let himself and his fossilized stature step aside in the 2014 elections so that some young, up-and-coming politico from Detroit, whoever that could have been, could finally get some federal political experience and start to build bridges to the new generation and 21st century challenges.  Even while Detroit has been going through one crisis to the next, Conyers and his cronies fiddle, while luxuriating in excessive congressional pay and perks, nepotism, and barely avoiding being implicated in scandals.  The CBC swearing-in on C-SPAN over the weekend, that reminded me of Conyers, again, was pretty much a mirror of Conyers' politics and career, just a varying roster of players.  Pretty dismal.

[revised on 1/22/15]