General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thursday, January 16, 2025
Joseph Heller was acclaimed for his novel ‘Catch-22’, which enjoyed ca(t)che with anti-war protestors in the ’60’s. Gotta admit, started it, didn’t like it, didn’t finish it. Have no desire to give it a second chance.
Anyway, he subsequently wrote a poorly-received novel called “Something Happened”. The entire sum part and parcel of one classic review also serves as today’s Big Story:
“Nothing happened.”
Not exactly nothing, but close enough. Here is yesterday’s Session (In)Activity Report. I believe, but am not sure, that both SB 30 and HB 100 reflect the Carney Administration’s obligation to submit budget and Bond proposals to the General Assembly. An obligation, I might note, that Ruth Ann Minner declined to follow at the end of her second term. At some point, the incoming Governor will submit his own budget proposal.
I really like HB 6 (Osienski), which:
…allows the Auditor of Accounts to issue subpoenas directly, removing a requirement that the Auditor first file a praecipe with the Superior Court prothonotary. It also allows the Auditor to effect service of such a subpoena, and to apply for a court order if a recipient fails to respond to a subpoena. Failure to comply with such a court order may be punished as contempt of court.
Hopefully, this puts the University of Delaware on notice that it must change its scofflaw ways.
Neither the House nor the Senate have agendas today, nor are there any committee meetings scheduled for today.
However, and you won’t want to miss this, there will be…
…a Joint Session for the announcement of the official election results from the three counties for the offices of Governor and Lt. Governor.
Spoiler Alert (Skip this if you don’t want to know the results): Matt Meyer and Kyle Evans Gay will be announced as the winners.
See ya next week.
There was an interesting (and probably bad) bill in yesterday’s late Senate pre-file. SB 44 would remove the requirement that the chairperson of the Diamond State Port Corporation be confirmed by the Senate. Instead the chair would be selected by the board members. Anything that reduces oversight of that group and its tens of millions of taxpayer dollars deserves a lot of scrutiny. Townsend and Cooke are the prime sponsors.
I SAW that. If any agency is ripe for Sunset review and for an audit by the State Auditor, the Diamond State Port Corporation is that agency.
Catch-22 only masquerades as an anti-war novel. It’s anti- all the American pieties of the ’50s.
Did you like it? Does it hold up?
I liked it the first time I read it, but didn’t pick up on how a lot of the Army bureaucracy he was ridiculing came not from the Army but the ad agency he worked for.
The humor works almost entirely by oxymoronic juxtaposition. “The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him.”
Here’s one that applies today:
“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.”
I remember, now. You’re right about that humorous trick he played. Didn’t register with me then, it might now…BTW, did Heller coin the acronym SNAFU, or had it already been in use?
Asked, and answered:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAFU
A vote here for “Catch-22.”