Goofing Off
Dear Escapists:
I would write something profound, but just as I finished the rest of
themail, Silverado (written, directed, and produced by Lawrence Kasdan,
starring Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner, and Danny Glover) came
on television. I haven’t seen it in years, and I’m not going to miss
it tonight. Who says I don’t have my priorities in order?
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Why Can’t DC Get It Right?
Frank Zampatori, frankz05@att.net
In mid-May, the DC Department of Public Works took over the last of
the private contracts for recyclable trash pickup. One of these
contracts was in Ward 6, where recyclable trash pickup had not been a
problem. Since this transfer occurred in mid-May, many neighborhoods in
the Hilleast section of Ward 6 have gone without recyclable trash pickup
in three of the last four weeks. Residents have called 727-1000,
reported the problem, and collected confirmation numbers; complaints
have been lodged with Sharon Ambrose’s office as well as with Jim
Slattery in Schwartz’s office and William Easley in Public Works; and
Public Works Director Bill Holland has been contacted four times by an
Ambrose staff member. Still the recyclable trash remains overflowing in
the alleys.
Mr. Holland did offer a variety of reasons for the continuing
problem. Pick the reason you like: the drivers don’t know the route;
not enough drivers; not enough trucks; supervisors don’t know the
routes; supervisors don’t supervise; drivers are absent from work;
etc. The excuses go on and the recyclables remain uncollected. It makes
you wonder if anyone in DC Government is paying attention.
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A Really Nice Job
Ed T. Barron, edtb@aoldotcom
If you haven’t seen the new construction atop the old Sears/Hechiniger’s
Building in Tenleytown, you are in for a treat. The old Sears Building
has never looked better and the condo apartments atop the building were
very well designed and constructed. The complex is quite an attractive
addition to the Tenleytown neighborhood. The condos are separated from
the retail space by the rooftop parking lot above the Container Store
and the Best Buy store. The entrance to the apartments is very
tastefully done and is on Albemarle, just down from Wisconsin Avenue.
Too bad the city has turned down the offer by developers to build a
similar complex on top of a refurbished Public Library right across the
street.
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WTU: The third week of the federal trial of Gwen Hemphill, James
Baxter, and James Goosby in the Washington Teacher Union embezzlement
gets underway tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. in Courtroom 7 of the US District
Courthouse (3rd Street and Constitution Avenue, NW). Witnesses to date
have included Ester Hankerson, the former general vice president of the
union; and Edward J. McElroy, the current president of the American
Federation of Teachers, the union that conducted the forensic audit in
2002 that uncovered the embezzlement of approximately $4 million in
union funds from 1995-2002. Barbara Bullock, the former president of the
WTU, who is already serving a nine-year sentence for her role in the
theft of union funds, will be the principal witness for most of this
week. The US governments’ 27-count indictment can be read at http://www.dcpswatch.com/wtu/031120.htm.
Orange: As expected, Councilmember Vincent Orange formally announced
his candidacy for mayor at a backyard father’s day garden party at his
home in Northeast. Catering was provided by the Dream nightclub, and the
guest list included slots proponents John Ray, Vickey Wilcher, Margaret
Gentry, and Tina Ang; baseball stadium supporters such as Neil Alpert,
chairman of the DC Baseball Association; and a large contingent of
individuals who are already actively campaigning to succeed Orange in
the Ward 5 Council seat that he is vacating: Harry Thomas, Jr., Frank
Wilds, Rick Lee, Regina James, Ron Magnus, and Anthony Hood.
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DC Voting Rights Amendment
Timothy Cooper, worldright@aol.com
The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly will consider an amendment to the
draft resolution of the third Committee on Democracy, Human Rights, and
Humanitarian Questions at its annual meeting in Washington, DC, July
1st-5th. Over three hundred parliamentarians from fifty-five countries
will be in attendance. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Senate Majority
Leader Bill Frist, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will also be
attending the opening plenary session on July 1st. The amendment is
likely to be brought before the entire parliamentary assembly for a
final vote on July 5th.
The existing draft resolution reads: “12. Urges participating
States to organize their systems for the recording of civil status and
census information so as to move towards an optimal degree of
reliability, to guarantee the individual right of vote to all citizens;
. . .” The proposed amendment is as follows: “. . . and calls on the
Government of the United States to adopt such legislation as may be
necessary to grant the residents of Washington, DC equal voting rights
in their national legislature in accordance with its OSCE human
dimension commitments.”
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Higher Achievement Chosen for Award
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
Higher Achievement, a nonprofit organization giving intensive
academic enrichment to middle school students at several sites in the
city, has been chosen to receive the 2005 Washington Post Award
for Excellence in Nonprofit Management. I have attended this
organization’s annual graduation ceremony and visited some of its
sites, and concur that these folks are doing many things right. Middle
school years are formative. Higher Achievement is doing great things for
students during those vital years. If you know someone wanting to get
involved in tutoring or otherwise supporting an excellent nonprofit
organization, do pass along info about Higher Achievement. Their web
site, which includes a press release about this latest award, is at http://www.higherachievement.org.
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I had a need to ride the Red Line last night from Van Ness to Gallery
Place, and was glad to see a train coming in when I reached the station
at about 10:30 p.m. However, the train was so crowded I barely was able
to squeeze in! It was worse than a rush hour train. At my transfer, it
was a sixteen-minute wait for a Green Line train north. Why the Yellow
Line ends at the Convention Center is beyond me; it always confuses
tourists and residents alike. Metro either needs longer trains or more
frequent trains after prime hours.
And while I’m ranting, has anyone noticed how horribly out of date
the local Metro maps are? The U Street station maps have schools, but
don’t include the current Garrison Elementary School at 12th and S,
which was built in the 1970s; in fact, it still shows the 1700 block of
12th Street that once cut through the square. There are many more
amusing gaffs once you start studying the map; churches gone or renamed,
health clinics long gone, etc. I make a note not to trust Metro maps
when I’m studying them in an unfamiliar station, hoping to walk
somewhere close. Chances are the road or building on the map is no
longer there.
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Booz Allen Hamilton and Metro
Bryce A. Suderow, Streetstories@juno.com
One of the things that struck me about the first Post article
on Metro was that Booz Allen Hamilton was directly responsible for some
of Metrorail’s problems (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/04/AR2005060400350.html).
These are the same clowns that got billions of dollars from the city for
their studies of the MPD, most of which were plagiarized from studies
already written by other companies.
Here’s the excerpt from the Post article: “Booz Allen
Hamilton, the consultant hired by Metro to ensure quality in
manufacturing, was conducting only ‘loosely structured inspections’
of the cars without adequately documenting the cause of problems and the
steps being taken to prevent them from recurring, auditors said. Metro’s
oversight of the program had suffered a ‘breakdown’ that needed to
be quickly addressed, they concluded. ‘Time is of the essence,’
auditors warned. Despite the warnings, problems persisted. One of the
first rebuilt Breda cars caught fire during a 2003 test run because of
an electrical wiring problem, records show. In May 2004, Metro’s
auditors found that the cars that had been returned to service were
hobbled by poor propulsion, badly installed door hardware and water
leaks from evaporator assemblies. Two months later, auditors once again
targeted Booz Allen, saying that the ways it monitored production and
inspected completed cars ‘clearly require improvement.’ Metro has
paid Booz Allen more than $13.1 million for its work on the Breda
contract, according to agency officials.”
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Nanny Laws and Smoking
Ann Loikow, Cleveland Park, aloikow@verizon.net
I just wanted to respond to your comments [themail, June 15]
regarding “nanny laws” as they apply to the current efforts to limit
smoking. As someone who seen the ravages of smoking first hand when my
father, a longtime smoker who was hooked as a soldier in World War II,
suffered from three smoking related illnesses — bladder cancer, a
stoke (which robbed him of most of his eyesight and his higher
intellectual functions), and pancreatic cancer (which finally and very
painfully killed him) — and is watching several close friends dying
from smoking related illnesses, it is not an academic subject. There has
been much discussion of the effects of secondhand smoke and its effect
on those around smokers, but what I have not seen discussed much is the
financial consequences of smoking generated illnesses on all of us,
especially all of us taxpayers. The public pays for the treatment of a
huge percentage of the chronic and ultimately life-threatening illnesses
caused by smoking, whether through Medicare and Medicaid costs or
through increases in health care prices and insurance costs needed to
cover uncompensated care costs for those unable to pay for health
coverage. Everyone should be aware that rising health care expenses are
one of the major expenses eating up government budgets, whether at the
local, state, or federal level. A significant portion of these expenses
are ultimately due to illnesses caused by or related to smoking, many of
which could have been prevented. Smoking has major societal and
governmental costs and diverts scarce resources from many other areas
which we need to adequately fund. Tobacco is one of the most addictive
substances known and has little redeeming value, other than as profit
generator for a few large corporations; so, given its now demonstrated
individual and societal costs, it is a ripe subject for government
regulation.
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Good idea, Gary, but a little overblown. Last night I learned that in
the 1870s there was a DC law to stop children from walking on walls in
the “public parking” — most of our front yards in DC. Kind of
foolish, and, oh, those Michigan laws against public swearing. Then,
again, there are those laws regulating hours of work called the Lochner
cases from NY which in the early 1900s tried to attack the evils of
child labor — which our latest Judge on the DC Circuit, Judge Brown,
called bad law because they violate freedom of contract. Of course,
banning smoking in public spaces has nothing to do with imposing
“values” but has everything to do with one of the worst public
health problems in America — smoking and second hand smoke. Of course,
if you are like my wife and have such significant asthma that a smoking
allowed restaurant is a public health hazard, then more than half of DC’
restaurants are off-limits to her — and these are places of public
accommodation. During my sojourn in DC I have seen restrictive actions
by restaurants fall — racial discrimination, access to the
handicapped, denial of accommodation to gays, etc. Gary, some laws
restricting behavior are ridiculous and some are necessary. It’s a
complicated world.
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Nanny Laws and Seat Belts
Ernesto Gluecksmann, ernesto@infamia.com
There’s one law that doesn’t belong with your “follies” list,
seat belt laws. The reason they’re vital to your own interests is if
by chance you were to be involved in a car accident, you want the driver
of the other car to be in control of his/her car as much as possible
through the process of the accident. By wearing their seat belts, they
will be far better likely to stay seated with their hands on the wheels
and their feet positioned correctly on the brakes.
As a volunteer firefighter for over seven years, I have seen my share
of accidents. The problem with unbelted drivers is that their accidents
tend to be worse. It’s not just that the risk of ejection is greater
for the drivers (it certainly is, especially SUVs that tend to have
larger driver side windows), but they tend to also involve more cars,
cause more damage, and increase the risk of pedestrian involvement. I
have been called to accidents where unbelted drivers, after the first
initial impact, where shifted off their seats enough that while they
thought they were pressing the brakes, they actually were hitting
accelerator. The forces of car accidents are incredible and simply put,
unseat belted drivers increase the risk not just for themselves, but for
all of us on the roads as well.
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Seat Belt Laws
Erik Gaull, egaull at starpower dot net
Mike Livingston and Gabe Goldberg make some excellent points about
seat belt laws [themail, June 15].
All of the discussions against seat belt laws (and by extension,
motorcycle helmet laws, etc.) presuppose a "right" to drive.
No such right exists. Driving is a privilege granted by the state.
Therefore, laws affecting driving do not, by definition, affect people’s
rights. The seat belt law and laws like them make sense for all of the
reasons Mike and Gabe give.
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Subsuming the Whitehurst Freeway’s Ugly Past
Within Georgetown’s Bright Urban Future
Len Sullivan, lsnarpac@bellatlantic.net
Loosely interpreting the (few) attaboy comments NARPAC received
concerning fixing, not nixing, the Whitehurst Freeway, our staff of
artists and architects has exercised their mandate and designed a
double-decked urban intermodal transportation center topped by a
multilevel, multipurpose park. With something for everyone, it tries to
offer innovative, future-looking solutions that eliminate the worst of
yesterday’s mistakes, but without denying progress towards tomorrow’s
inescapable needs for higher density urban living. Take a look at this
update to our Whitehurst Freeway commentary at http://www.narpac.org/REXLRPRO.HTM#decks
and then ask yourselves: isn’t this what the national capital city’s
various planning groups (and ever-present consultants) should be doing
with federal funding instead of pondering how far back to regress the
city’s marginal transportation infrastructure? Shouldn’t DC’s
professionals be well ahead of these frivolous freebies from
geriactivists? Perhaps when Senators Hutchison and Brownback finish
fixing DC’s gun laws and wasted school properties, they should take on
our capital city’s transportation planning!
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Parking Ticket Put-On
Andrew Lightman, andrew@hillrag.com
Have you received notices for parking tickets that can’t be yours?
On a day you and your car were out of town? Supposedly issued on a block
that doesn’t exist? The Hill Rag uncovers more than just the
usual DPW nonsense — a rogue parking attendant has been prowling the
Hill. To get the whole story, visit http://www.capitalcommunitynews.com/parkingtickets.cfm.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
New Orleans Cocktail Seminar
Phil Greene, pjg1161@yahoo.com
Join me on Tuesday, June 21 at the Crystal City/Arlington Ruth’s
Chris Steak House for a spirited seminar on the history of several
classic New Orleans cocktails (Ramos Gin Fizz, French 75, Hurricane,
Sazerac and Mint Julep). The cost is $35, which includes four drink
samples, delicious appetizers, and a goody bag that includes a cocktail
music CD, and a cocktail shaker and/or a bar spoon. I’ll also tell you
about our new museum in New Orleans. For more information and to
register, please go to http://www.museumoftheamericancocktail.org/seminars.
The June 7 event at the Bethesda Ruth’s Chris was sold out, so
register now! Laissez les bons temps rouler!
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DC Public Library Events, June 21
Debra Truhart, debra.truhart@dc.gov
Tuesday, June 21, 12:00 p.m., West End Neighborhood Library, 1101
24th Street, NW. West End Book Club, book discussion group. Call for
title. Public contact: 724-8707.
June 21-30, Books Plus, Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library,
901 G Street, NW, Main Lobby. Books Plus, The Library Store, is
presenting its summer sale of 20 percent off all greeting cards, note
cards, new books, postcards, posters and gift items. Proceeds from the
sale support the DC Public Library. Public contact: 727-0321.
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Wagner at the Library, June 22
Justin R. Swain, justin-r-swain@att.net
The Washington National Wagner Society, http://wnwswashdc@att.net,
presents Paul Heise’s “How Elsa Showed Wagner the Way to Siegfried’s:
The Influence of ‘Lohengrin’ on ‘The Ring of the Nibelung’” at
the West End Neighborhood Library, 24th and L Streets, NW, on Wednesday,
June 22, 6:30-8:45 p.m. For more information, visit WNWS’ interim web
site at http://wnwswashdc.home.att.net/programs.html.
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Jewish Washington at the National Building
Museum, June 23
Brie Hensold, bhenhold@nbm.org
Thursday, June 23, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Member preview day: Jewish
Washington: Scrapbook of an American Community. National Building Museum
members and their guests are invited to attend a private viewing of the
museum’s latest exhibition before its public opening. To inquire about
Museum membership, call 202.272.2448 or E-mail membership@nbm.org. At
the National Building Museum, 401 F Street, NW, Judiciary Square stop,
Metro Red Line.
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CLASSIFIEDS -- VOLUNTEERS
In late fall 2005 community activists, leaders, family members,
friends, and all others will come out and assist in restoring the “Big
Chair” on Martin Luther King Avenue, SE. The chair is owned by Curtis
Properties, and they are teaming up with community leaders to make the
chair look new and beautiful For more information, call Sharon Wise,
organizer, 492-4229.
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CLASSIFIEDS — HOUSING
Studio for Rent
Linda Clausen, lclaus9@aol.com
Chevy Chase DC, Charming semi-furnished large studio plus, with
private kitchen and private bath. Share washer/dryer, utilities
included, near park and plenty of parking. No smoking. $875. Contact LClaus9@aol.com.
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