Inauguration Day 2010

Four more years for Amma. The re-elected House Leader of the Amrita Party of Patria begins her new term of office by waving the flag.


The Hon. Member from the Precinct of Arboria about to take the oath of office. "I do solemnly swear that I will...support and defend the Constitution of Patria...and will to the best of my abilities, preserve, protect and defend the Inner Realm of Patria...against all enemies both foreign and domestic. So help me God". Bhagavad Gita used for the 49th Congress inaugural ceremony is Gandhi's translation and commentary ("The Gita According to Gandhi").

Oh my God, the 48th Congress is toast!

The last full day in office for the 48th Congress. Patria's fiscal 2011 budget has been presented to the House and duly ratified. Once that last major item of business was done and other pieces of legislation were cleared off the order paper (or left to die on the order paper without being brought to a vote), shortly after 10 PM, the Speaker Pro Tem of the House stopped all proceedings with the following announcement that all Patria had been waiting to hear: "Under the power vested in me by the Constitution of Patria, I declare the 48th Congress adjourned sine die!", followed by several long, loud blasts of the Congressional vuvuzela (which has replaced the traditional Speaker's gavel for the duration of the World Cup). For those who don't remember their Latin, sine die means adjourned indefinitely, without setting a date on which to re-convene.

The work of the 48th Congress is done. Finished. Amen. It is toast. On to the 49th Congress-elect. Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

Cleaning house for a new Congress

Almost nothing says Inauguration Day is almost here more than recycling bins stuffed full (yes, they have Blue Boxes in Patria) and shredders working overtime, as members of the soon to be toast Congress - not only those who are retiring or were defeated for re-election - clean out years (and in some cases, decades) of accumulated paper that no longer serves their needs or Patria's expansive growth into Positive Possibilities.

A stack of high school notebooks from the failed, brutal 40th Congress (1974-1978) are offered at Amma's feet before being chucked into the recycling bin for collection on June 29. Note the Wacky Packages on the Duo-tang on the left. On the eleventh grade physics notebook on the right, check out the attempt to draw Montreal Expos and 1976 Olympic logos. These notebooks were apparently saved "for reference", but weren't consulted much over the past 30+ years.

Last days in the bunker

With less than a week until Inauguration Day, the Fourth (and extremely lame-duck) Session of the 48th Congress is hunkered down in the Capitol, sitting day and night in order to pass various pieces of last-minute legislation and hammer out Patria's 2011 budget before adjournment, which is expected some time on June 29. Indeed, it is said that the only time any significant work gets done in Patria's Congress is in the ten weeks between election and inauguration.

From the Capitol, lawmakers can view the platform and reviewing stands being constructed at the main entrance (on Schaefer St. and the eastern end of Castoropolis Common, if you have your map of Patria's capital handy) for the inaugural ceremonies and parade. For many members of Congress, particularly the National Union, which lost half its seats in the April 17 election, they might feel like the death row prisoner looking out from the cell window and watching the gallows being built.

Countdown to inauguration: the last ten days

Ten days remain in the 48th Congress term of office. With due credit to Parvati, let's count them down:

Day one, life is fun.

Day two, I am new.

Day three, I am me.

Day four, I adore.

Day five, I'm alive.

Day six, create the mix.

Day seven, I'm in heaven.

Day eight, I co-create.

Day nine, feeling fine.

Day ten, do it all over again! (or do it all over again in 2014).

I AM...open, ready, willing to be completely restructured around the positive possibilities of the 49th Congress-elect.

Sometime between now and June 30, most likely in the late afternoon or early evening of June 29, the Speaker of the House will bang the gavel (or blow the vuvuzela) and say the words we've been longing to hear: "Under the power vested in me by the Constitution of Patria, I declare the 48th Congressus Patriaë adjourned sine die"! In the meantime, there is still some work ahead for the lame-duck session. The report of the Chancellor of the Exchequer - Patria's 2011 budget - is still on the order paper.

48th Congress Triple-U

In one of the last speeches delivered on the floor of the 48th Congress, the Jungle Party deputy leader summed up the past four years as "Triple-U: Uninspiring. Unfulfilling. Underachieving". That pretty much says it all about the 48th Congress: a mostly "maintain the status quo", "hold the line", or "same old same old" administration with few real accomplishments to its credit, simplistic boilerplate solutions to fight the recession ("spend, spend, spend"), and little in the way of real growth since 2006. It wasn't a truly failed administration like the 41st Congress, which pretty much failed right out of the box, or the 40th Congress, which was unfortunate enough to hold office during the god-awful 1970s. But the 48th Congress was unequal to the task of fighting the global economic downturn, kick-starting Patria's failing industries or stopping the export of jobs to China.

A number of other U's could also describe the lame-duck Congress limping on to adjournment: underemployed, underperforming, underwhelming, unrewarding, unsustainable, unprepared, etc. The term "Triple-U" was, of course, coined by Jim Rome to describe truly awful e-mails and texts (Unfunny, Uninspired, Unreadable) that often result in the sender being blocked ("BLOCKED!! BLOCKED!!").