At long last it's official: Washington is a city beyond redemption. Last week, after a decade of collective meditation designed to lower the capital's crime rate and improve its quality of life, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has ordered his flock to give up and pull out of the place. From his European headquarters in the Netherlands, the bearded founder of the transcendental meditation movement declared, "Everyone should leave this sea of mud. People should move to a peaceful, neat, clean atmosphere." Oddly enough, the Maharishi did not include any specific references to Congress in his remarks.
In the wake of the Maharishi's pronouncement, his remaining followers put their homes on the market and planned to move to Fairfield, Iowa, where both the organization's national office and Maharishi International University are located. City officials responded to the abandonment with a yogic equanimity worthy of the Maharishi himself. Declared a spokesman from the office of Washington's unruffled Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly: "Peace be with them."