Missy Smith’s Kafkaesque Bid for DC Rep
So I’m at the gym the other day at like 3 p.m.ish. I’m on the exercise bike, pedaling hard, I’ve got my iPod on, and I pump up the Taylor Swift Eminem to be deaf to the world. All of a sudden, I see this warning on the TVs, something along the lines of “The following commercial contains extremely graphic imagery, but this station is required by federal law to air it. Viewer discretion is advised.”
Intrigued, I keep looking at the muted TVs when all of a sudden, there are like five screens of dead fetuses intruding into my workout.
Bear in mind, my iPod is blaring and the TVs, as usual, are on mute, so I have no context as to what the hell is going on. Image after image of dead fetuses passes by silently until the phrase “paid for by Missy Reilly Smith for Congress” flashes at the bottom of the screen and a very angry-looking older woman who looks like she lives in a Baba Yaga house with chicken legs starts mouthing something incomprehensibly sinister.
Why does she smile so?
At this point, I’m very confused and trying to figure out what it is this woman wants. My initial suspicions were confirmed: she’s a DMV area Tea Party candidate for Congress. My other initial suspicion was confirmed when I realized she did, in fact, plan on using the dead fetuses for a dark motive. Not, not witchcraft. Something worse. Getting into the House of Representatives.
Now, I’m not going to wade into the abortion debate on this blog because that’s not what this blog is about. And so help me, if the comment section gets crazy I’ll shut it down. Nor will I even going to get into whether or not this is legal — Politico says it is as per a 1992 D.C. Circuit decision — or whether it should be legal (although, for the record, this ad was highly offensive. And I’m not going to whore myself out to her by putting a link to her ad, if you guys want it, Google it).
Rather, I think that we should we should all just step back, take a breath, and realize that this woman, regardless of where you stand politically, is crazy. I don’t say that because she has crazy eyes. And I don’t even say that because she would stoop so low as to use visceral and upsetting imagery to try and gain votes. I say this because she’s running for U.S. Representative for the District of Columbia. Who DOES that?! We don’t even get a vote in Congress! She might as well have ended the commercial by saying, “I’m Missy Smith, and I’m running for Queen of Narnia.”
In summary, this is her commercial: “Hi! I’m a grown woman whose name is Missy! Look at all these dead babies. OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA!!! Now that I’ve associated dead babies with our president, you should vote for me so that the reps from Guam, Puerto Rico, and I can smoke outside of Congress like the cool kids in high school while all the nerds from other states do real work.”
Dammit, DC! I told myself I’d go back to Texas after graduation, but the more I realize how crazy this place is, the more I feel compelled to stay.
Time For a Double Life?
A friend of mine from class — one of the SCOTUS crew that camped out to NOT see Synder v. Phelps — had her birthday yesterday. To celebrate, she, a non-law friend, and I (our other classmates flaked out/probably have social anxiety disorder) went to HR-57, a hole-in-the-wall jazz club in the U Street area named for a House bill that made jazz a national treasure. And for once, the Yelpies and I agreed — the place was awesome. Ambiance is great, cover was $8, and the music was fantastic.
The thing I didn’t realize until after talking to the sax player on stage during break (name is Elijah Jamal, check out his web site here, he’s a Howard University undergrad and he can play) was that Wednesday night is jam session night.
So now an actual confession from the law student: I used to be a jazz musician. I say “used to” because after working my butt off as a teenager to get into one of the country’s top conservatory-level jazz programs, I haven’t touched my sax more than four times in the past four years. Long story short, I lasted a semester in the program before I dropped out, partially because I hated the program, partially because I have a damaged nerve in one of my hands, and partially because I didn’t think it’d be realistic to pursue my dream. A friend of mine who left the program at the same time I did described it as “being like a really bad breakup.” That was a pretty accurate description.
In the time since I feel like I’ve done pretty well for myself (I mean, GW is T-2o, and rankings are how we assess our worth as human beings amirite?!?!). But sometimes I’d get this feeling that something was lacking. And last night, sitting there in that club, I figured out what it was. And I got a crazy idea.
I’m gonna ship my sax up from home and start playing again. And I might do a jam session every week or two.
I don’t know how realistic the prospect of being a law student by day and amateur musician by night (even just one night a week) would be, given the enormous workload we have as 1Ls. But while I was somewhat drunk feeling good last night, I thought, “Jazz makes me invincible!!!!” well, this will give me incentive to actually get my work done instead of procrastinating on Facebook. And if people with kids can succeed in law school, there’s no reason I can’t take a night every week to do what I actually love.
Anyways, just thought I’d put the readership on notice. We’ll see how this plays out.
Meantime I’m gonna use my fall break to get ahead on some things. Hopefully it’ll let me have some time next week to branch out and actually live a little. (…but probably not).
Confessions of an Aztec Law Student 
