It is George Washington’s Birthday. “No”, you say, “it is Presidents Day”. But I am correct. The official holiday is George Washington’s birthday even though today is the 17th of February and he was born on the 22nd and everyone, absolutely everyone, calls it Presidents Day. If you want to know more, you can do one (or both) of two things. You can Google either Presidents Day or George Washington’s Birthday, or you can look at the fact-filled post I wrote a year ago on George Washington’s birthday, which I believe was February 19.

One of the things that happen on George Washington’s birthday is that the DC trash collectors get the day off. Our regular Monday pickup slips over until Tuesday, as it does with each of the federal holidays that always fall on Monday. So, I was surprised when, at about seven this morning, I heard a trash truck coming down Davenport St. It was too late for me to pull the trash and recycling bins to the street, so the garbage will fester in the trash bin for another week. That really isn’t a problem. But what happened?

I googled the question this morning and found some conflicting information. The DC trash collection is pushed back a day for George Washington’s birthday, and the DC trash collectors will be working this year on George Washington’s birthday. I am sure that, after Trump takes over running DC (“mayor for life”), this will never happen again, but we received no notice of a change for this year. The result, I assume, is that the only people who had their trashed picked up this morning were those who forgot that today was a holiday with no trash pickup.

That’s the way it’s been around here since about…..January 20.

You may wonder how Trump has affected Washington so far. I am not sure that I am the one to ask, since I don’t think he has affected my daily life yet, but I see that there have been a lot of mini-demonstrations in front of government buildings, for one thing. I also hear that some federal buildings have been locked, some abandoned, some put up for sale, and some invaded by a smart-alecky bunch of teenagers.

I hear that again the Republicans want to abandon home rule for DC (and give up any idea that it will ever be a state, of course). I doubt that they will succeed because they will need 60 Senate votes, but you never know. They have their ways. Trump has already issued at least one executive order affecting DC – he wants all of the graffiti removed from federal buildings and monuments. I agree, and there is more of this than there used to be, but I guarantee you that the president’s call to remove graffiti will only have one result. More graffiti.

Let me digress for a minute and talk about TikTok. You recall that TikTok was a MAJOR SECURITY CONCERN, that the Chinese owner could scoop up the personal and financial information of any user at any time it wanted to. So, with all of our national intelligence agencies saying this was a security problem, Congress passed a bill and Biden (remember him?) signed it, to force TikTok to be sold to an acceptable buyer (it being unclear if such a sale would include the algorithm that tells you what you want to see) by January 19 or be shut down. There was an exception if TikTok was in the process of being sold, and more time was needed (I think there was a short limit) to consummate the transaction.

On January 19, TikTok went dark and the app was no longer available to purchase in the various online app stores. On January 20 or 21, new/old president Trump said that TikTok could go back in business, that it should still be sold maybe sometime soon or not, that it wasn’t a bit of a security risk, that it had helped him in his election, and that the app stores that sold the app and the platforms that serviced the app would not be charged with any malfeasance or misfeasance if they went back to business as usual.

The January 19 closure of the app by the Biden administration was the canary in the coal mine, and the January 20 or 21 resurrection of the app was the camel’s nose under the  tent. Since then, the whole issue of TikTok has receded into the place where memories are lost, and nobody even mentions it.

But TikTok is where Congress first fell apart. It passed a law, the president signed it, the new president said he was going to ignore it, and Congress, so anxious to terminate TikTok on a bipartisan basis by a date certain, now said…..”Meh.” Once this happened, it was only a short step to let a racist, xenophobic teenager into the Treasury Department to rewrite the code governing the federal payment system. And today, I have read, that same teenager, or maybe his BFFs, will get access to the IRS.

Okay, let’s wrap this holiday issue of the blog up. Last night, NBC had a Sunday night special celebrating the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live (that it was on a Sunday is also exemplary of where we are as a civilization). Edie and I turned it on and, about 15 minutes later, turned it off. I was reminded of why I never watch Saturday Night Live. It stinks.

Which brings me to the new Chairman of the Board of the Kennedy Center (soon to be rebranded as the Trump Center, just as the capital of the country is soon to be rebranded Trump, D.T.), Donald J. Trump. He will, I am sure, not allow programs as bad as Saturday Night Live at the Center and, to be honest, I had been thinking that he should take over the Kennedy Center for some time now. Even had Harris won the presidency, I think that Trump should have been put in charge of culture in DC.

One reason, of course, is his impeccable taste. A second is that he has no connection with any artist who has ever performed at the Kennedy Center before, so there will be no conflicts of interest. (If there is one thing Trump abhors, it is a conflict of interest.) He comes into this pure and clean. In fact, it is not clear that he has ever been in the Kennedy Center before. I saw part of an interview where he was asked why that was the case. His answer was as clear as an answer can be: “Because the programs were bad. So bad.” So there.

I for one look forward to thevGolden Age of American Culture, and I look forward to my next visit to the Kennedy Center, maybe in 2029.

Well, when I sat down this morning to write this, I had no idea what I was going to write about. What’s that? It’s obvious? Thanks, that means a lot.