Say What You Will

Dear Neighbors:

As you know, themail is about us here in Washington, and what affects us at home. In the past week, we have all been affected by events around the world, so the usual restrictions on submissions to themail have been lifted for now. I'll leave it that way for another couple issues or so, but let's move steadily back to what's happening here in our city and in our neighborhoods. There are plenty of other outlets for thoughts on world and national affairs; let's concentrate here in themail on our city and our communities.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Herman Melville, \“The Martyr,” Upon the Death of Abraham Lincoln
B. Warren Lane, buddlane@msn.com

There is sobbing of the strong,
And a pall upon the land;
But the People in their weeping
Bare the iron hand;
Beware the People weeping
When they bare the iron hand.

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Where to Send Financial Help for Relief Efforts
Dorothy Marschak, dwmarschak@yahoo.com

I am passing on this E-mail I received [from Mark Stein of the National Capital Chapter of the American Red Cross]: While the entire country has been struck by the enormity of the destruction left by the September 11 terrorist attacks, each of us has certainly asked ourselves what we can do as individuals to assist the relief efforts. One of the best ways is to provide financial support to organizations with the infrastructure and ability to directly help those in need.

As part of a group of business and community leaders in the greater Washington DC area, we created a new and directed fund — the 911Fund4Relief — in conjunction with the American Red Cross National Capital Chapter. The fund was designed, and is specifically earmarked, to provide relief to the families and individuals who were affected by these tragic events with grief counseling, food, shelter, and burial expenses. Additionally the funds will help the American Red Cross National Capital Chapter acquire the resources, and organize a system of disaster relief for any future event of this horrific nature.

The 911Fund4Relief Committee would like to ask for your fundraising assistance in two ways: 1. Please go to www.redcrossdc.org/911Fund4Relief to make a contribution of $25 or more. All contributions will be received collected by the American Red Cross, and are fully tax deductible. 2. Please send this E-mail to everyone in your contact database. Your colleagues, your employees and your personal network. Thank you in advance for your direct contribution as well as your efforts in spreading the word.

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Arizonans Stricken, Too
Jean Lawrence, JKeLLaw@aol.com

Being a former DC resident, I was horrified by the news, which first reached my ears via Bob Edwards on NPR. What? WHAT? But you didn't have to be a former resident to be completely devastated. Our stores are hushed, people sort of clustered talking about it. I am a writer and wrote an article first thing on coping. I interviewed five psychiatrists and professors yesterday, and one minister. The stages of grief, apparently, have been overturned as a theory of how people cope. Some may enter some of the phases, some none, some may not come out of one. The most important thing, they all said, was to talk, talk to family, draw family close, and do anything you can. Prayer is an action, giving blood is an action, donating money, vigils -- all are cognitive ways to process grief. All of the processing does not have to be emotional. My prayers are with us all, and with our leaders.

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DC’s Lost Freedoms
Don Lief, d.lief@att.net

I'm stuck in Oregon for a day probably, waiting to fly to Ireland, but it's a slight inconvenience compared to the real disasters. Anyway, comments [in the last issue of themail] reminded me of this. While in college, I worked at the Post in its old building at the intersection of E and 14th Streets and Pennsylvania Avenue, across from the District Building. During President Truman's 1949 inaugural parade, I went to the top floor -- the attic actually, with its floor cluttered with piles of rolls, each one containing all the original hard copy for a day's edition. This was the Post's morgue, and God help anyone who needed to find the actual story in all that mess.

The top floor had French doors (unlocked) and tiny balconies. I stood on a balcony, about seven stories high, and looked directly down at the motorcade, marching bands, military units, and all the panoply that expressed America's strengths and innocence. How often I've thought, while watching recent parades on TV, that such a grand opportunity will never come again for anyone.

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80 Million DCPS Overspending
James F. Perna, JPerna@krooth.com

The silence of the DC Government about the $80 million overspending by DC Public Schools is deafening. Under the federal Anti-Deficiency Act (31 USC. Secs. 1341, 1342, 1349, and 1351) as made applicable to the District of Columbia Government by D.C. Code 47-105, no person can obligate the D.C. Government in excess of the dollars appropriated. More, particularly no person can authorize an expenditure or obligation exceeding an amount available in an appropriation or fund for the expenditure or obligation. There are severe penalties on the individual D.C. Government officers who violate the Anti-Deficiency Act. It is ironic that D.C. often wrongfully tries to invoke this Act to avoid paying people and companies the money it rightfully owes; but it studiously ignores the Act when a clear violation occurs.

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An Open Letter to Delegate Norton
Stephen M. Reid, Battalion Fire Chief, firedog@starpower.net

Dear Congresswoman Norton: I am a 34-year veteran of the fire service and have enjoyed the last 24 years with the District of Columbia Fire and EMS Department, currently serving as a Battalion Fire Chief. Over the years you have provided invaluable support for the department and I wholeheartedly commend you for that. But, on Tuesday a cowardly act of terrorism wreaked havoc on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center complex which brought to light our ineffectiveness to provide proper fire protection to the many citizens, visitors and businesses of Washington, DC. As you have seen there was a great amount of devastation to which no dollar amount can be attached and many brothers and sisters needlessly lost their lives as they bravely tried to save others.

With that, I have serious reservations as to the readiness of the DC Fire and EMS Department. When I was appointed to this great department in 1977, we had two-piece engine companies with five firefighters. The benefit to this is drawn from the military strategy of divide and conquer which proved to be extremely positive in our operations during the 1968 riots. During such times, the 33 engine companies would be divided thereby making 66 effective firefighting companies. This can't happen today as the second piece of firefighting equipment has been removed from each engine company. Additionally, ladder trucks were staffed with six firefighters then, reduced to four and only during the current fiscal year was a fifth firefighter added back to the ladder companies. The sixth firefighter should be returned for safety reasons as well as for effectiveness and efficiency of our fire fighting operations. Other fiscal reductions which have impacted the department included the loss of Truck Company No. 1, Rescue Squad No. 4, and the loss of a full-time Hazardous Materials Unit.

Washington, DC is the greatest city in the world. It is the nation's capital and the capital of the free world. It should also have the best fire department. Therefore, I ask for your assistance so as to return us to a state of readiness and once again allow us the opportunity to be the best Fire Department: 1) Fund the purchase of 33 pumpers, with equipment, which would allow us to split our firefighting forces thereby doubling our capabilities to better handle terrorist acts. 2) Fund the purchase of one ladder truck, with equipment, to replace Truck Company No. 1 which protected the downtown area of DC — located at Engine Co. No 2. 3) Fund the purchase of one Rescue Squad, with equipment, to replace Rescue Squad No. 4 which protected the upper northwest section of DC — located at Engine Co. No. 31. 4) Return the funding so as to afford us the opportunity to fully operate an ongoing Hazardous Materials Unit. The threat of biological, chemical, nuclear, etc. is far too great and incidents such as Tuesday only exacerbate the issue. 5) Include funding so as to fully staff our engine companies with five on-duty firefighters, ladder trucks with six on-duty firefighters, and six on-duty firefighters on the Hazardous Materials Unit. This only scratches the surface, but will at least return our firefighting forces back to the level which we enjoyed in the past. This is not a luxury, but rather a commonsense approach so as to provide the necessary protection to the greatest city in the world. Much more is needed and I would enjoy discussing this with you in the not too distant future. Please allow me to thank you in advance for your support and feel free to contact me.

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The Issue of Security
Shaun Snyder, Chevy Chase, shaunsnyder@erols.com

After terrorist attacks I always worry about how many of our freedoms the government will want to take away to protect us, and just how quickly we are willing to give them up. But the more I think about it, it isn't so much giving up more freedoms because we have already done that. We walk through metal detectors, show ID, have our luggage searched, etc. The difference is that our security systems are a joke whereas they are taken very seriously in other countries. We all know that airport security is a joke. I can't help but remember how often I fly into LAX and the “security guards” are small, unarmed, women who have trouble speaking English. Or at Reagan National where the "security guards" are more interested in chatting than paying attention to their jobs. Now is the time for our governments and other authorities to fire these minimum wage, untrained and uneducated “security guards” and replace them with professionals.

Security at One Judiciary Square, and now The Wilson Building, are further examples of how unimportant true security is to us. I've gone through security at 1 Judiciary Square countless times only to find that I don't feel any safer being on the other side of the checkpoint. Recently, the somewhat professional DC Government Protective Services Police were replaced with private security guards, who don't carry guns and whom I can only suspect have less training. Enforcement of security rules is totally arbitrary. Why do they wave through a woman carrying a sack lunch after setting off the metal detector, but stop the man in the suit with a cell phone? Why did they make me put a thin spiral notebook through the x-ray machine?? It's a similar situation over at the Wilson Building. If you're dressed like a construction worker, you have no problem gaining access to the building. But if you're dressed as a professional, they harass you upon entering. It's time for the DC Government to completely reevaluate the security at its facilities. We can no longer afford the savings we have been realizing by accepting mediocrity in our security apparatuses.

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Not About Freedom
Elizabeth Heyd, Mt. Pleasant, naussie@his.com

[Gary Imhoff wrote:] “This morning, President Bush spoke a few words that have given me the most hope that I have had in the past two days: 'We will not allow this enemy to win the war by changing our way of life or restricting our freedoms.'”

Ah, but we already have allowed it already. All the tightened security measures they're proposing for airports, including no e-tickets or curbside baggage, etc., and, as you said, the supposition that people are guilty until proven innocent. Many have publicly acknowledged that we will lose our freedoms. Don't let President Bush's words -- carefully crafted by his handlers, by the way, fool you. The World Trade Center and Pentagon were symbols of great wealth and military power, respectively. Liberty by extension, perhaps. But not primarily. Bush and company are vowing vengeance not for denying our freedoms (I think we've proven our resiliency already) but to prove we are the tougher kid in the sandbox with the bigger, badder toys. It's pure arrogance what Bush's words propose. Defending personal freedoms I think not. Defending the right to be the world's policemen, yes.

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Justice, Not Revenge
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aol.com

In a war against world terrorism we must, at least while no others seem to be in peril right now, be a little patient. The war must not be misperceived as a war against any religion. There is no one more inclined than me to employ "frontier" justice, but, in the long term, this planet will be better served if we take some deliberate steps to win the long term war against world terrorism. This will require two undertakings.

First, we must enlist the full support of all those nations who agree that they are in a partnership against world terrorism. This means having their individual intelligence sources and organizations working directly together with all the other intelligence organizations of the partnership. I can think of no more effective intelligence organization than the one used by the Israelis. They can tell you where any of their enemies in the world is having lunch that day, and at what time. Let's use all these organizations and sources to properly identify and locate just where these bad guys are. The second step is to give the nations where these bad guys are located thirty days to turn them over to a proper tribunal for a trail using any evidence gathered. We are doing that with the war criminal, Milosevec, and should do just that in this case.

If, however, a nation is harboring those criminals and refuses to turn them over, then God help those who get in the way of combined forces who should go into any such country in pursuit of the war criminals.

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Tolerance
Wayne Turner, actupdc@aol.com

As we grieve in the face of a national tragedy, I give New York's Mayor Guiliani a great deal of credit for denouncing violence against Arabs, Arab-Americans, and Muslims. ABC just ran a report describing such incidents across the country which amount to nothing more than hate crimes. I hope that we here in the nation's capital can help set the tone for justice, and not random reprisals.

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Victory
Josh Gibson, joshgibson@alumni.ksg.harvard.edu

Bad choice of title on your last mailing, Gary [“The Terrorist Victory,” themail, September 12]. I read the last sentence of your piece, and I know what you meant to say, but your title doesn't send that message. The physical or collateral victory might have ever so temporarily belonged to the terrorists, but the moral and emotional victory will be ours. It always has been.

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Tragedy — Any Hope for the Future?
Ann Loikow, johnl@erols.com

What an incredible and horribly sad day. I fear for our country and that our leaders are only looking for revenge and not realizing that force and violence only begets more force and violence. I wish President Bush had the insight and comprehension to realize the best path for the United States would be to change the entire dialogue and try to make friends of those who are the potential recruits of whomever did this horrible deed. If I were President, in addition to saying we will search out and bring to justice (whatever that might mean in the context of whomever really is responsible), I would directly, personally contact Arafat and Sharon and use the full might and influence of the United States to try to bring peace to the Middle East, a peace based on respect for the basic humanity and rights of self-determination of all peoples involved (including being willing to cut off US aid and arms to Israel if they persist in pursing "an eye for an eye" violence that only escalates the hatred of the Palestinians and other Arabs and guarantees that Israelis will be even less secure in the future). Desperate times call for bold action and action consistent with our national values. Otherwise, in our search for "security" from terrorism, we risk becoming a police state where the American people will have lost fundamental freedoms in return for even less security than we feel we have today.

Is there any reason to hope our leaders have any sense?

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Collapse of the Binary
Mark Richards, Dupont East, mark@bisconti.com

With the qualification that the Pentagon is located outside the District in Virginia, I can’t think of a time when a federal building of the national political capital has been attacked in any magnitude (beyond single gunmen) since the British torched Washington City in 1812. Apparently, the White House was a “missed target.” The attack on the US financial capital seems to be relatively recent. I have thought of the collapse of the Berlin Wall as the end of the modernist bipolar world (Soviet Union vs. US) and the start of a postmodern fragmented world — the enemy is no longer separate and visible, but is viral in form. The destruction of Manhattan’s twin-towers, those bipolar symbols of the modernist era and America’s financial might, was a truly shocking and eerie event, reinforcing my feeling that there is no end of History, that progress is a precarious concept at best, that postmodernists have a point. The images were apocalyptic, and I grieve for those who suffering and am unusually sad. See The Implosion, about Jean Baudrillard’s work: http://www.uta.edu/english/apt/collab/what.html#meaning

Here is a more optimistic idea from Walt Whitman, sent to me by a DC democracy activist: “This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, reexamine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in tits words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body. . . .”

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Question: “Unlawful . . . to Hide Police Cars”?
Sara Cormeny, sara@paperlantern.com

To quote Michael Binder: "The problem is, it is unlawful for the MPD to hide police cars."

What does this statement mean? This just smacks of dumb reasoning on the part of the officer with whom you spoke. There are many situations I can imagine that don't involve “hiding” a police car, whatever that means, in order to stop speeders. Police officers exist independently of their cars and are perfectly capable of walking a block or two away from it to do their work, which would be effective camouflage that doesn't require “hiding” anything. Do you have any further details that would suggest why “hidden” police cars are required, or even desired, to run a speed trap? I'm completely unpersuaded and frankly skeptical, so I'd love to learn more.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

Play “'Art'” at Olney
David Sobelsohn, sobelsohn@footlightsdc.org

“Hilarious” (New Yorker) and “unsettling” (Chicago Tribune), “brilliantly simple” (London's Daily Telegraph) and “sneakily profound” (Newsweek), “'Art'” depicts the impact, on a shaky three-way friendship, of one friend's purchase of a pricey all-white painting. “'Art'” ran for a few weeks last year at the Kennedy Center and returns October 9 for a month at Olney Theater Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Rd. (MD-108), midway between Georgia and New Hampshire Avenues in Olney, MD. You can get discount tickets through Footlights — DC's only modern-drama discussion group — for only $19 for the 2 p.m. October 14 matinee, special post-show discussion included. Send your check, payable to “Footlights,” to Robin Larkin, 5403 Nibud Court, Rockville, MD 20852 (301-897-9314 and rlarkin@footlightsdc.org). For more information about Footlights go to www.footlightsdc.org.

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CLASSIFIEDS — VOLUNTEERS

The Streets Were Closed, But the Kids Came
Susan Ousley, Co-Director, Community Club, slousley@aol.com

On Thursday, September 13, buildings were evacuated and streets were closing all around New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. But 26 new students made their way to ask for tutors — and 22 were disappointed. For these kids' sake, I write again. Community Club needs tutors to work Thursdays, one-with-one, with 7th-12th graders, on homework and friendships. We ask you to commit at least a year, but most tutors stay with their students until graduation.

Next orientation is 9/20 at 6:15 p.m. sharp, 5th floor, 1313 New York Avenue, NW. To read more, see http://www.nyapc.org. To ask questions, call Co-Director Dave Brown, 484-8626.

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