Council Votes Themselves Another Year in Office

Vladimir Putin is Here in Emeryville 

                                             (in spirit)

"I'm Putin!"

Opinion

"No, I'm Putin!"

"No, I'm Putin!"

"I'm Putin!"

It was suddenly very cold.  It seemed you could see your breath as people buttoned up their top coats and raised their collars against the chill.  A chimera wafted through Emeryville's City Hall on an icy breeze.  It was Vladimir Putin. You could FEEL his presence filling the council chambers.  As council members one by one unshackled themselves from the yoke of democracy and one by one voted themselves an extra year in power, it seemed Vladimir Putin, not one normally associated with demonstrative emotion, smiled just a little as he vanished quickly as he came, in a vortex, ethereal, rising up above the dais with only the sound of papers left gently rustling in the room.

And just like that, what Emeryville voters wanted, four years, suddenly became five.  Scarcely five minutes had passed.  An issue seemingly pugnacious and vexing ultimately was mechanical even mundane...cold, like Putin.  Citizens looked around...it was done.

Emeryville and Moscow; sister cities, if not in letter, certainly in spirit.

"I'm Putin!"

"No, I'm Putin!"