photo by Fritz Myer
“Dear PoPville,
‘Tis the season to complain about Pepco, but maybe something will be done if we all make a lot of noise? I keep my house between 75 and 78 degrees, and we received a bill for over $440! We do our best to be energy savvy this time of year (little to no cooking in the house, it’s grilling season!) we keep our blinds closed, all those kinds of things.
The charges are insane,
the delivery prices crazy, and don’t get me started on the taxes and surcharge section ($35 to empowr Maryland? Why don’t we pass that charge to data centers?) (yes this doesn’t affect DC folks but I bet y’all have fun extra charges too!)
Help us shout from the rooftops, Prince of Petworth! Force Pepco to do better. Force MD, DC, and VA to pass extra charges to huge data companies, not the people.
Thank you!”
It is so done. Allow me to also share this poem with you:
I am the People, the Mob
Carl Sandburg
1878 –1967
“I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.”