DOMA

You can't get on Facebook or the Blogosphere and not read something about DOMA this week. It's as prevalent as a trucker hat at a roadside diner along I-80 during Trucker's Week at lunchtime. I do live in DC, but that doesn't mean I know everything about this crazy city or the country it represents or it's governing systems or roadside diners. DOMA is something I know little about. I first figured DOMA was an internet abbreviation like unto ROFL (Rolling on the Floor Laughing) or BRB (Be Right Back). But a quick AOL search quickly revealed the obvious truth. (I always go with AOL as my search engine. They just have such a way of finding exactly what I'm looking for in the first 234 pages.) According to America Online, DOMA stands for the Deliberately Owning Maracas Act. Apparently there was some legislation passed back in the nineties that sought to define how maracas could be owned. It was determined that maracas should never be deliberately owned, but that since there were many of them in existence already it was acceptable to 'accidentely' own a pair. You might 'accidently' own a pair if they were given to you as a gift or if your five year old came back from school with a homemade pair made of paper plates and dried beans. When the legislation first passed many people were pleased, and many people (musicians especially) were dismayed. For me, as far as homemade Latin instruments go, I would have to say I'm more partial to lining up old glass bottles and creating a xylophone than I am to the Maraca. If the government tried to limit my xylophone use I would never win any alphabet games again. Xylophone is the only 'x' word I know, and I only learned it didn't begin with a 'z' about 4 minutes ago when I tried to look it up. Turns out I never should have won all those road trip games when we passed all the xylophone factories next to the yam farms and zoos. But back to DOMA. I saw in the newspaper that a lot of people were camping outside the Supreme Court trying to get in to hear the arguments. To them, I say I prefer to camp in a place where I can build a real fire (as opposed to metaphorical one) and where I can wear a flannel shirt and sweats without being looked at like I'm homeless. If I wanted to camp in DC I'd join Occupy DC. If I wanted to sleep in a tent in DC I'd go to the REI store.
So much passion for some instruments! The last time I felt such feelings for a musical instrument was in 4th grade when Matt Greenfeld grabbed my recorder straight outta my mouth, snapped it in two across his knee, and shouted at me "Record THAT, &$*#($!" Something tells me Matt Greenfeld is not in favor of maracas either. Well anyway, that's neither here nor there.
Deliberately owning maracas may be good and it may be bad. The whole issue is just over my head, and probably too much to discuss on a mere blog post such as this. Check my twitter feed for 160 character updates, I guess.