let me know if you run into any citizens

I instant messaged my friend JC today, telling him how I’d like to start exploring the citizen responsibilities in opening up government, and he replied, in that William Carlos Williams way that is so popular these days:

ok if i see any ill try to catch but you know its like looking for wild dogs in africa not many left [long pause] though they’re a sight to behold when you find them! I am searching for How long does it take to get a companion pet certification to get one of these.

But I walked through the main streets of Burlington at lunch, confident that there were sights to behold.

I couldn’t see, maybe the eggplant shaped elderly man leaning on the corner of the womens’ clothes block, with a cigarello and a small dog. Maybe he takes responsibility, I thought, maybe he’s found a habit in it.

I met a Professor of Citizenship last night, for Indian take-out dinner, with the light-bulb in my new apartment I’d forgotten to fill leaving room for the car lights to take over my dining room over with their shadows. "There ought to be at least shame," he said, in a rare moment of anger, "at least a norm that voting is not sufficient." He was responding to a BBC story about a young man who said he trusted his father in voting decisions, the young man saying it was nice for his father that he knew his vote counted for two people.