As the sequestration apocalypse gears up to swallow us all and destroy everything and everybody we've ever loved, it's important to take a moment to hear from those who will be most affected from these savage, brutal cuts, cf. the National Parks Service: "For National Parks, Sequester Could Mean Cancelled Parades, Dirty Bathrooms."

I know, I know: it sounds like your average holiday weekend in Richmond. But for the NPS, it's devastating.

As Republicans and Democrats continue to point fingers about which side dropped the axe to trigger the deep, indiscriminate sequester cuts across the federal budget today, one agency head fielding the splinters from the chopping block wants the public - and lawmakers - to know: "This is real for us."

"We've been sort of accused that this is all political theater," Jon Jarvis, director of the National Parks Service, told CBS News. But at the NPS, he pointed out, "we're apolitical."

Right. If there's one entity on the planet that's able to rise above the din of politics, it's a federal bureaucracy.

Have you ever seen a child throw a temper-tantrum in a toy store because he wants something so badly? I hear its echoes. I used to do that every now and then; in one instance, my father was refusing to purchase an excellent computer game for me and my brother because he was worried that it would lead us to become the next Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. I had no shame, and so cried in the computer store in front of the adults, publicly shaming my dad. He proceeded to buy it on the spot, so I guess it worked. (We then proceeded to not shoot up any public schools, though to be fair we were in homeschool at the time.)

Of course, the NPS isn't the only institution on the brink of destruction:

Early this month, the White House raised the prospect of a mass layoff, which would shutter the meat industry for two weeks. Plants cannot operate without USDA inspectors.

Hmm. So the federal government created a rule wherein businesses can't function without USDA inspectors on-hand, and now they're attempting to terrify the public using the inane rule they created in the first place. The schizophrenia of the whole thing would be something to behold, if we weren't all about to die from e. coli 0157:H7.