IT TAKES A VILLAGE; OR AT LEAST A PRESENT PARENT

So, Fran Mainella, head of the National Park Service is resigning, "...ending a five-year tenure at an agency often at odds with environmentalists and Westerners." Her stated reason for resigning was "to spend more time with her family." Of course the cyncial amongst us note that is the excuse for resigning whenever a government official is caught taking brides, a Congressman's fondling of a female staffer is unveiled, or a Cabiner member proves to be disloyal to George Bush. The extremely uncharitable (you talkin' to me?) might note that that Mainella has made great headway in her goal of having no more National Parks to service, and like the Lone Ranger, her work here is done.

But let's take her at her word. So does that mean her loved ones been languishing in neglect while she was busy selling off parcels of land with a view of Old Faithful? What does that mean for a "family values" administration? I can imagine the scene today at the Mainella household*:

[*NOTE: from what I could determine, Fran Mainella was recently remarried after having lost her first husband of 28 years, and I could not tell if she has any children. So let's take an archetypal female government employee who just resigned to spend more time with her family and call her, oh, "Fran Mainella"]

She: Who are those ill-behaved brats?

He: Those are our children, dear. You gave birth to them, remember?

She: Impossible! I gave birth to cute little gook-covered red dolls! What happened to them?? There were two, right?

And let's zoom in on a therapist's office, circa 2015:

"Life was OK, just us and Dad, and then this woman appeared, claiming she was our Mom and wanting to spend more time with us. But she had been away so long, she had no idea what we were like, and all she did was get testy with us. It was when she proposed thinning our numbers that things got really horrific..."

We can't let this kind of neglect go on! For the sake of the children, I propose that ALL adminsitration officials with families IMMEDIATELY resign to spend more time with them! And those who don't have families yet (paging Ken Mehlman) well, go out and get one! It's your duty, after all!