“Don’t put on the hat.” If there is one piece of political advice about which my daughter is resolute, it is that.

In our line of work, people give us hats. And I look terrible in hats.

Not, perhaps, career-threatening, Dukakis-in-the-tank terrible.

But pretty dorky.

So you aren’t likely to see me wearing a West Potomac Wolverines, Mt. Vernon Majors, Obama for President, or any other hat.

Now we see this picture of Gov. Rendell. Sara’s wisdom is confirmed.

The bad news is, the headline on the article reads: “Sleazy Campaign Tactic of the Day.”

The same week the New York Times tries to scare the bejeebers out of us about granite countertops, they give us ten things we shouldn’t worry about.

According to the New York Times, they may contain uranium:

“‘It’s not that all granite is dangerous,’ said Stanley Liebert, the quality assurance director at CMT Laboratories in Clifton Park, N.Y., who took radiation measurements at Dr. Sugarman’s house. ‘But I’ve seen a few that might heat up your Cheerios a little.’”

From this morning’s Richmond Times-Dispatch:

” . . . Warner’s donors include singer and actress Barbra Streisand, movie director Steven Spielberg, television producer Norman Lear, bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley of Coeburn, singer and actress Bette Midler, musician Bruce Hornsby of Williamsburg, writer John Grisham of Albemarle County and Walt Disney President Robert Iger. Warner also received a donation from Madeleine K. Albright, secretary of state in President Bill Clinton’s second term.”

Today we learned that Sen. Joe Gartlan, who served in the Virginia Senate for 28 years, died. Few Virginians have made such an impact on our Commonwealth.

Joe never blew an uncertain trumpet. He was a clear and forceful voice for the issues he believed in. He was determined to protect the Chesapeake Bay. He was outspoken in his commitment to persons with mental health. 

He was known for a ready supply of Irish jokes and a belief that government could make a difference in people’s lives. He was truly a great Virginian, and I will miss him.

Our little community, tucked in south of the Beltway in the Washington, DC suburbs, lost a good neighbor this weekend.

We knew him as a devoted dad. He showed up at swim meets. He sat through elementary orchestra concerts. (Greater love hath no parent.)

We knew him as a neighbor. He helped raise money for local charities. He pitched in whenever he could.

Oh, and he apparently also did something at the White House.

I’ll leave it to others to talk about the political legacy of Tony Snow. I’ll just say that we’ll miss him as a good neighbor and a good dad.

At 1:39 a.m. Thursday, the House and Senate staggered to an end of the Special Session on Transportation. The result: very little. I am deeply saddened by this outcome.

I went to Richmond to solve problems. Over the years, that has meant voting for many bills I did not think were perfect, but that represented the best compromise we could find. Like Reinhold Niebuhr, I understand that “Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.”

So I was pleased when House and Senate Democrats and the Governor created a compromise bill that we could all support. It wasn’t perfect-no bill is. But it offered the opportunity of making real progress. In all, it would have generated approximately $1.92 billion in statewide revenue, $2.28 billion for Northern Virginia, and $1.366 billion for Hampton Roads over the next 7 years.

It would have raised the revenue in a variety of ways – a ¼¢ increase in the sales tax statewide, a full penny here in Northern Virginia, and a few other modest increases. There was no increase in the gas tax in our compromise. It would also have reduced the state sales tax on food.

But on virtually a straight party-line vote, the bill was defeated. Instead, we were offered the opportunity to vote on “innovative solutions” that were not serious efforts to provide the funding we need.

We heard about the need for audits. (I’m for them-and even carried a VDOT audit bill designed to measure the maintenance funding gap.) But ask anyone sitting in traffic on the Beltway whether we need an audit to know there’s a problem. Audits are no excuse for inaction.

We heard about “public-private partnerships.” (That’s legis-speak for “tolls.”) Again, I think PPPs can be part of a solution-but we should not sell off assets that taxpayers have already paid for.

Finally, we heard a proposal that I called the “pixie dust” proposal. We would not raise any taxes. We would just dedicate “future growth” to transportation funding.

Does that sound familiar to you? That was how we were going to pay for the car tax. Instead, we were left with a billion-dollar hole in our budget that it took Mark Warner two years to address. Of course it passed the House, but the Senate took little time to dispose of it.

We all know the truth-if we want something, we have to pay for it. Promising people they can get something for nothing is a way to economic disaster. And economic disaster is what we’ll have if we don’t do anything about transportation.

Pixie dust is not a grown-up funding proposal.

How did you like the play?

That’s pretty much what our day has been like. Speech, recess, speech, recess. The House actually had a transportation bill that would have provided substantial transportation revenue. It was killed on basically a party line vote.

We did pass what I am calling the “pixie dust” transportation funding bill. HB 6055 won’t raise taxes. It won’t raise fees. It will just dedicate FUTURE revenue to transportation.  How much? Don’t know. But trust us.

We have been down this road before. That was how we were paying for the car tax. And we all know how well that turned out.,

The House (again on basically a party line vote) passed this. I am confident that the Senate will dispose of it in the appropriate way.

For people in our line of work, this is pretty much a Holy Day of Obligation. I’ll be doing the usual rounds of parades and picnics.

But my very favorite will be the first–the Waynewood parade. Waynewood is a suburban neighborhood that maintains a true small-town feeling. The Fourth of July parade looks like a Norman Rockwell painting — kids with crepe paper streamers in their bikes, big sisters and brothers pulling younger ones in wagons decorated with stars and stripes. The parade traverses a three-block route and ends at the community pool.

It’s a chance to connect with old friends (some of Sara’s friends are now there with THEIR kids). We’ll all wave flags and eat hot dogs and be thankful for all the sacrifices (past and present) that make this a truly Glorious Fourth.

Hope yours is half as good.