Easy Sacrifices
Dear Sacrificers:
This is a strange war. In World War II, sacrifices on the home front
meant shortages, rationing of food and gas, pleas to conserve and reduce
consumption at home in order to save strategic necessities for the war
front. Now the sacrifices we are being called on to make are to go to
the malls and local stores and spend money to stimulate the economy; to
take vacations and travel; to go out to expensive restaurants. We must
sacrifice by indulging in luxuries.
Well, if we must, we must. DC's own Restaurant Week, which offers
well-priced prix fixe meals at some of this city's best restaurants,
begins Monday (the web site is given in David Hunter's message, below).
Dorothy has already made seven reservations, one for each day of the
week. As a result, by the end of the week I'll have to purchase new
slacks to fit my new larger waistline. Will the sacrifices never end?
It is reasonable for us to become tourists in our own city because
— we may as well face it — tourism to Washington is going to be down
for at least the next couple years. If you didn't already live here,
would you schedule a vacation to DC right now? So what are your
recommendations for hometown vacations? Instead of one-day trips or
weekends out of town, what are your recommendations for one-day trips in
town and weekends downtown?
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Missing US Mail Throughout the City
Joan Eisenstodt, jeisen@aol.com
Ron Eberhardt of SW wrote that he was missing mail. Our bank (not in
SE or SW) had not, as of 11/8, received checks I mailed on 10/19 as a
deposit. I was told all their mail went through Brentwood and the bank
had been told they didn't know when to expect it. (I was fortunate;
clients stopped payment on those checks and Fed Ex'ed new ones that were
walked to the bank.)
We have begun to receive current mail but, like Ron, have lots of
mail from mid-October that has not been received. I contacted the
Mayor's office and other offices and was told no one could help. I was
not given instructions about how to deal with bills that could be
overdue because they weren't received.
I want the postal workers safe. I want us all safe. We need more
information to know how to deal with this.
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DC Government Fleet and License Plates
Shaun Snyder, shaunsnyder@erols.com
Has anyone else noticed how many DC Government cars are large-engine
sedans? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the only agency that would
have a need for speed would be the Police Department (Fire Dept./EMS
have ambulances and trucks, and DPW can use 4x4s). Why would the Public
Library system need large Ford Crown Victorias with a V8 engines? Why do
other agencies need Chevy Suburbans with leather seats? Is this money
well spent, or could the government employees get to where they are
going in mid-sized Ford Tauruses with V6 engines? I think the Council
should establish stricter guidelines for DC Government automobile
purchases. Unless they can show a need for a gas-guzzling car, they
should be required to buy something more economical, which would
probably also be cheaper to buy. And leather seats . . . don't waste my
money!
One of the departments that does a better job than others is the Fire
Department when it comes to selecting cars. I see a lot of Dodge
Neon-type cars around One Judiciary Square with Fire/EMS labels on the
side. My one question to Chief Few is: why do these DC Government cars
have federal government license plates on them? Also, why have I seen at
least one DC Government Ford Taurus, gray with an MPD “official
business” placard on the dashboard, with BB-xxxx series license
plates? Is the DC Government going out of its way to not use the
Taxation Without Representation license plates? (In case you don't know,
if you strenuously object to that phrase on your tags, you can get a BB-xxxx
series plate which has the DC website as the logo.)
And finally, if you haven't already noticed, the new license plates
being printed by the DMV are no longer embossed. New York state has been
doing this for a few years now. I'm not sure if I like it yet.
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DMV: Registration Renewals via the Web
Taylor Simmons, ttsimmons@aol.com
Regarding the apparent browser explosion that initiated Willie
Schatz's DMV nightmare, it seems that the DMV web site's standard
functionality after accepting all registration renewal information is to
issue an error message. This has happened twice to me. I had printed out
the previous screen, which seemed to confirm everything, but then there
was a button saying “click here to complete the transaction,” which
yielded the error. Sensing that any attempt to inquire about my status
would be futile, I gambled and just waited. (Luckily the car's not
parked on the street.)
Sure enough, about ten days later, the stickers arrived in the mail.
Thus, when the same error appeared a couple months later when renewing
our other car's registration, I didn't worry. I sent a note to the
site's webmaster, but received no response.
Bottom line lesson from lifelong Washingtonian: with morons in
charge, try never to be an exception, requiring manual,
out-of-the-ordinary assistance.
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Speaking of the DMV
Matt Carter, carterm@toad.net
I fear that this thread could go on forever, but here goes: my
registration expired early this summer. About two weeks before the
registration expired, my wife went to our local First Union, which has a
system that allows you to renew your registration. Thinking this was a
great alternative to actually going to the DMV, and seeing that the
First Union system promised the registration would be renewed in ten
days or fewer (giving us a four-day cushion) she gave it a try. Fast
forward to sixteen days later. Nothing from the DMV. She calls them up,
and they tell her to come on down. She goes down there , waits in line,
and gets to the teller, who tells her that the registration is in the
computer, so it must be in the mail, and that she can't issue us any
stickers because we can't have two, but that she would make sure that
the registration got to us if it was anywhere in the DMV mail system.
Fast forward to a week later. Add a $50 ticket for having an expired
registration (we don't have a driveway, so we're screwed). Still
nothing. Wife calls and ends up talking to a supervisor at DMV HQ. She
then goes down and sees the supervisor, who is supposed to send a letter
(that day) that we can send to Traffic Adjudication to get the ticket
overturned (because our registration is in the computer, you see).
Twelve days later, nothing. Ticket is due in two days. Wife calls
supervisor again, who promises to send letter that day. Finally we get
it about a week later, and the registration magically showed up as well.
All this about two months after we first tried to renew our
registration. The good news is that the ticket was overturned, even
though we were late sending it in.
Maybe going directly to the 9th Circle would have been easier. New
DMV is still the DMV.
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I too am troubled by the lack of budgetary information on the HIV/AID
agency. Perhaps this is a job for the Auditor or the Inspector General.
However, the most likely reason the AIDS rate in DC is larger is its
proximity to treatment facilities, such as Whitman-Walker and NIH. In
other words, people don't just get sick here, they come here for
treatment, or come to NIH for treatment of AIDS and then live in Dupont.
Some also come here for drug treatment, as well as AIDS. Far more
troubling is what we are doing or not doing about the addict population
who share needles. The House GOP is still trying to stop local money for
needle exchange even as I write this.
DC Health stats as a whole are suspect, especially the infant
mortality rate. Our dirty little secret is that the number of abortions
is included in that rate. Many of these abortions are not even given to
DC residents, but to suburbanites — further inflating an already
fraudulent statistic. Why does the District count child mortality this
way? Federal funds. The higher the mortality rate, the more money is
available for prenatal care.
[To Michael or anyone else who knows for sure — can you confirm
whether DC infant mortality rates include abortions? It doesn't sound
right to me. — Gary Imhoff]
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Question About Parking Tickets
Wendy Stengel, wendywoowho@yahoo.com
Do parking tickets in DC have to have the VIN on them to be valid
tickets? Part of me thinks that they do (maybe it's a location by
location thing?)
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“Take Back Our City” sounds like a wonderful idea. However, l do
not suggest holding your breath while waiting for some government
official to do this. Let's do it ourselves! I'm sure the citizens would
do a much better job, anyway. I'll be willing to donate my time to this
cause. With a few more people, some free air time on the radio, maybe an
ad in the City Paper, E-mail announcements, etc. This can happen!
Count me in!
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In response to Ralph Blessing's message about "taking back our
city": DC is sponsoring a restaurant week, this week, where a
three-course lunch is fixed at $20.01 and a three-course dinner is fixed
at $30.01. Lots of great restaurants in DC are participating. Check out
the web site at http://www.washington.org/frameset.html.
[Peter O'Toole, Peter_O'Toole@was.bm.com,
also has my thanks for forwarding a copy of the press release announcing
Restaurant Week. — Gary Imhoff]
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Willie Schatz is right that DC has some good Italian restaurants, but
that's not my point. The restaurants, including all the ones he
mentioned that I'm familiar with, are relatively pricey specialty
restaurants. Compare that to, say, Boston's North End, where there's a
range of fantastic Italian food from inexpensive to top of the line, and
if you don't feel like having dessert in the restaurant you can stroll
over to one of the bakeries and get a fresh cannoli and eat it on the
street, watching the crowds go by. Where are the little hole in the wall
Italian delis where you can get really great stuff?
You can find more good Italian food in a typical suburb of New York
than in this whole city. And you can find more bad Italian food around
here than a supposedly cosmopolitan city should tolerate. (I still can't
figure out how the 17th Street Olive Garden, oops I mean Dupont Italian
Kitchen, stays in business.) Probably just an effect of not having the
kind of huge Italian-American community you get in the northeast. Of
course, having tons of great Latin American and Asian food around
softens the blow.
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In Georgetown, we still have one or two neighborhood holdouts, my
favorite being Martin's Tavern. Think upscale Cheers grafted to a pretty
good restaurant. Currently run by William (Billy) Martin, Jr., son of
William Martin, Sr., who opened the place a millennium ago. Billy is a
cheerful tavern keeper who really does remember his customers. This is
the place where Georgetown locals go, and on Sunday mornings the north
side of the bar has a regular brunch group with roots going back twenty
years or more. In the interest of full disclosure, I have no business
interest in the establishment except that Billy feeds me on a regular
basis.
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About three years ago, after getting my severance check from the
Mayor's office, a lady friend and I went to Hogates for dinner on a
Tuesday night. We were one of the few parties there. Granted, it was
mid-February, but even by those standards the place looked unusually
dead. No matter what the city fathers do, you just can't keep a place
open without a customer stream — and assuring that is up to management
(which is why many such places offer midweek special deals).
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Impact of the Economic Downturn on Low-Income
Residents
T.J. Sutcliffe, So Others Might Eat, tjsutcliffe@some.org
Is it possible to achieve economic security in this time of
uncertainty? Find out at a District-wide forum sponsored by the Fair
Budget Coalition of the District of Columbia: “Meeting Human Needs in
DC — Providing Stability in Times of Uncertainty.” Thursday,
November 15; registration, light refreshments and information tables
open at 6:30 p.m.; program begins promptly at 7:00 p.m. At the UDC David
A. Clarke, School of Law, 4200 Connecticut Ave., NW (Metro Red Line, Van
Ness/UDC station; limited parking available), Building 41, Room AO3.
Confirmed panelists are Maria Gomez, Mary's Center for Maternal and
Child Care; Carolyn Graham, Deputy Mayor for Children, Youth and
Families; Vincent Gray, Covenant House Washington; John McClain, George
Mason University; Mary Rudolph, The Greater Washington Board of Trade;
Dr. Cheryl J. Sanders, Third Street Church of God; Joseph Williams,
AFL-CIO. Invited but not confirmed is a panelist from the DC City
Council. RSVPs are encouraged, but not required. RSVP to Youth Advocates
Programs, Inc., 722-8640, by close of business 11/13.
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CLASSIFIEDS — HOUSING
Extremely responsible (and considerate, funky, relaxed, educated,
pleasant) woman, late 30s, seeks inexpensive short-term rental or
house-sitting assignment in the city. Very flexible about situation, but
timing needs to begin as soon as possible. Prefer duration of stay to be
two to six months, but can be flexible — shorter time considered. Can
be a room in a share rental, a single home, can involve pet/plant care,
etc. Very responsible, savvy, capable person. Preferred locations: Adams
Morgan, Cleveland Park, Calvert-Woodley, Georgetown, Capitol Hill. Have
lived in DC for four years, and can offer a number of personal
references from longtime District residents. Currently overseas. Please
contact ASAP at svwatson@hotmail.com.
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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS
Replacement Windows
Phil Greene, pgreene@doc.gov
We live in a 55-year-old home in Upper NW, and we need to replace our
original casement windows. Does anyone have any recommendations as to
contractors, brands, etc.?
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New Silver Spring MD History Web Site!
Jerry A. McCoy, sshistory@yahoo.com
I wanted to let you know about a new web site detailing an exciting
documentary film project that is currently in production on the history
of Silver Spring, Maryland. Please check out http://www.silverspringfilm.org
to learn more about this great project!
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