Retrocession to Maryland

Dear Netizens:

Free Ward 3 is dead but an unrelated group has sprung up--The Committee for the Capital City--that advocates retrocession to Maryland for the entire city. The group cites retrocession as the best of many bad options facing the city. The advantages for the District would include enfranchisement and state support for city functions. Maryland would gain a rich city (with some significant but addressable problems) that could lend weight to Maryland's world prestige. In addition, if the District's situation continues to turn critical, Maryland might be wise to step in before the crippled city's problems flow across its porous borders. At a faster rate than now, anyway.

So what do you think about the idea of Maryland, D.C.?

I'd like to devote an issue to this topic when I return from my *congressional* recess. Until then, a happy holiday to all.

jeff itell

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UDC

I've just been catching up on some older dc.storys, and I wanted to throw in 2 cents about the complaints regarding the UDC protest.

I was especially taken aback by the woman who said, to paraphrase, "When I was an activist, I never thought about how my actions affected other people. Now that I'm more mature and less self-serving, I am less sympathetic to the students." This was in a hearty mix of other people's kvetching about "students not paying attention to other people's needs", "100s of police not doing anything", "100s of police paid to not do anything", and even "what if there was a fire?"

Gee, where to begin. Granted, tieing up Connecticut Avenue is a grotesque inconvenience, but we're still just talking *inconvenience*. Which means, literally, no longer convenient. As I've expressed here before, I see an ongoing trend for people here to raise conveniences to the level of necessities and sacred rights.

This is not to condone the actions of the UDC students. Ask my girlfriend; the night of the protest I commended them for their actions, but then said that if they were on the street a second day I hoped the police would cart them off to jail. The idea of the protest was to raise public awareness, in which it was certainly successful -- would any of us give a damn about UDC otherwise? But a second day is merely civil disobedience, and deserved jail time.

But to say that activism is more self-serving is the real rub here. Granted that just about every student out there had a personal interest in the school, but then again, doesn't every activist have a personal interest in their causes? I honestly *don't* give much of a damn about UDC, but I still respect the activist impulse that got them out there. For a driver, tied up in traffic, to think of himself as less self-serving than the activists strikes me as a serious misplacement of values.

Jeff Porten jeffporten@aol.com

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dc.events

Panel Sponsored by the Ward 1 Council "Fighting Crime in Our Community" Tuesday April 9, 1996 Meeting Starts @7PM The Reeves Municipal Center 14th. & U Streets, NW-2nd. Floor Free parking available. Enter from U St.

Meeting Notes: We all want safer, cleaner, quieter neighborhoods. The reality can be far different for some areas. This meeting presents two consecutive panels on crime and community action. Panel #1: Law Enforcement-Working with Ward 1 Panel Members: • Inspector Sonya T. Proctor, MPD-3D • Officer Judith Anderson, Community Affairs, • Ms. Debra Long-Doyle, Assistant to the U.S. Attorney

Panel #2: Community Action gets Results:Closing a Crack House Panel Members: • Mr. Wes Hare, Project on Urban Peace Making • Mr. Bill Golden, Columbia Heights • DCRA-Representative

Questions? Send e-mail to:

doughert@cpcug.org

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Easter Sunrise Service will be held at the outdoor Memorial Garden of St. Lukes United Methodist Church on April 7, Sunday, from 7:00 to 8:00 am. A breakfast will follow after the service in the Fellowship Hall. The service and breakfast is jointly sponsored by the Washington International Church and St. Luke's United Methodist Church. The location is 3655 Calvert St. NW (corner of Wisconsin Ave.) in Glover Park. Both churches will also conduct their regular worship services at 10:00 and 11:00 am respectively. For more information, call Rev. David Wong at (202) 298-6110 or Rev. Andrew Gunn at (202) 333-4949.

The Rev. Dr. David Wong Pastor, Washington International Church email address: wongd@gusun.acc.georgetown.edu

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dc.web

Join WAMU talk show host Derek McGinty online every Thursday night at 7 p.m., for "Live! with Derek McGinty" from Discovery Channel Online. There are three ways to participate:

With America Online: Keyword DISCOVERY With RealAudio: at http://soundprint.org/~live With Internet Relay Chat: server is bbs.online.discovery.com, channel is #live For more info: http://www.discovery.com (click on "World" and "Thursday")

April 4- "Lincoln's Killer: Booth or Botched Medicine" Derek's Guests: Dr. Richard Fraser and historian Mike Maione.

April 11- "Lost in Time: The Plausibility of Time Travel" Guests: Sci-fci author and UC-Irvine physics professor Gregory Benford, and Dr. J. Richard Gott III, Professor of Astrophysics at Princeton University.

April 18-"Shamanism" Guest: Leslie Gray, psychologist and practitioner of shamanism.

April 25- "Chernobyl--10 Years Later" Guests: Dr. David Marples, British Ukraine specialist and professor of history at the University of Alberta, Edmonton.

John Keefe Science Editor Discovery Channel Online jkeefe@intr.net

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The Woodrow Wilson House, 2340 S Street in Kalorama (387-4062), has an new exhibit about President Wilson deciding to make Washington DC his post-White House home. Architectural drawings are featured for homes (never built) on various Washington sites.

Open Tuesday through Sunday, 10am until 4pm. Exhibit is free; $5 to tour the house. Michael T. Sheehan, Director Frank J. Aucella, Assistsant Director

THE WOODROW WILSON HOUSE A National Trust Historic Site 2340 S Street NW Washington DC 20008 (202) 387-4062 FAX 483-1466

"Your Past Will Amaze You"

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dc.market

Cortland Group, a 12-year old, home based management consulting practice, is looking for part-time administrative help. We (partners Lorri Manasse and Diane Mazzoli) operate out of a home office on the edge of Cleveland Park and Woodley Park. We need someone approximately 12 hours per week (very flexible hours) to handle basic bookkeeping (Quicken) and billing, general filing, preparation of materials and participant notebooks for training sessions, upkeep of our mailing list (Lotus Organizer), and general office and marketing assistance. PC-based office uses Word Perfect for Windows. Please call Lorri or Diane at 202-387-2294, or fax at 202-328-3772, or e-mail at Lorriman@aol.com.

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Jeffrey Itell Publisher: dc.story

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