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May 30, 2007

Brutal

Dear Civilized Readers:

I’ve just finished watching the six Tarzan movies that starred Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, which I hadn’t seen since childhood, and I’m amazed that I didn’t remember how brutal they are. They don’t show the details of human destruction and dismemberment, like the autopsy-featuring television series that are currently our most popular dinnertime entertainment, but their indifference to death is still astounding.

People die by droves in the Tarzan movies, and their deaths are shrugged off. People are killed by spears, arrows, gunshots, fire, torture, drowning, falling from cliffs, being split by being tied to two trees that are bent together and then released, illnesses, and attacks by a variety of wild and mythical animals (rhinoceroses, crocodiles, lions, apes, elephants, and, in Tarzan Escapes, crocodile-sized lizards). It’s just the way of the jungle. When a native safari bearer falls from a cliff, the only concern of the survivors is for what he may have been carrying in his pack. Bearers who try to run away from the safari are shot in the back with no remorse. But the indifference to life can’t be attributed to racism, since the white characters almost never return alive from their safaris, either. And white characters die without regard to their virtues or sins; the good and honest white characters die just as readily and as unmourned as the greedy and evil ones. Jane’s father, C. Aubrey Smith, dies at the end of Tarzan the Ape Man; Neil Hamilton, the civilized rival to Tarzan to be Jane’s boyfriend, survives that movie but is killed off in its sequel, Tarzan and His Mate. In Tarzan Finds a Son, all five of Boy’s relatives are killed, including his mother, father, and kindly uncle Henry Stephenson. Boy is happy and smiling at the end of the movie. The comedy relief characters, who invariably survive unscathed in other adventure films, are not immune from violence in Tarzan movies. Barry Fitzgerald, the only survivor of his safari, rides off on an elephant at the end of Tarzan’s Secret Adventure (with a bag of gold he doesn’t yet know that Tarzan has given him), but Herbert Mundin is betrayed and shot as he flees in Tarzan Escapes, and Chill Wills is betrayed and shot in the relatively tame Tarzan’s New York Adventure.

There is no almost no end to the brutal indifference to life. In Tarzan and His Mate, even Cheeta the chimpanzee is killed saving Tarzan from a rhino attack. That isn’t widely remembered, because in the next scene Tarzan and Jane substitute Cheeta’s daughter for her, start calling the daughter Cheeta, and carry on as if nothing happened. I say almost no end to indifference, because the film studio finally reached beyond the limits of the audience’s tolerance. In the first screening prints of Tarzan Finds a Son, the studio killed off Jane with an unfriendly tribe’s spear. At last, audiences rebelled, as well they should at the sacrifice of the lovely Maureen O’Sullivan, and the film went into wide release with an alternate ending in which Jane survives. The only sign of mourning in any of these six movies is in Tarzan’s Secret Adventure. At one moment, Boy saves the life of a native boy a little younger than him, Cordell Hickman, and becomes his best friend; in the next moment Hickman’s mother dies of the plague, and Hickman actually sobs a couple times before his tribe threatens to kill Boy and the adventure begins again. Life goes on; there’s no moral to be taught and no lesson to be learned. Enjoy it while you can. And they call this a cynical age.

New documents on DCWatch: the Saint Elizabeth’s settlement agreement between the Department of Justice and the DC government, http://www.dcwatch.com/issues/health070510.htm, and the DC Department of Mental Health’s summary of the Saint Elizabeth’s agreement, http://www.dcwatch.com/issues/health070510b.htm. The just released International Economic Development Council’s report on the National Capital Revitalization Corporation and the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, dated March 15, 2007, http://www.dcwatch.com/ncrc/070315.htm, and the staff list for the Mayor’s Office of Community Relations and Services, http://www.dcwatch.com/mayor/0705.htm.

Gary Imhoff
gary@dcwatch.com

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MPD Goldbricking on Memorial Day Weekend
Paul Michael Brown, pmb@his.com

Sunday the 27th was a gorgeous day, so I decided to take advantage of the spring weather by taking a little stroll along M Street, SE, near the marinas that line the banks of the Anacostia River. As I walked under the Pennsylvania Avenue bridge about 4:30 p.m., I was surprised to see two of MPD’s finest busy waxing their patrol car. While I applaud the officers’ fastidious upkeep of taxpayer property, I suspect they should have been on patrol. If anybody from MPD reads this, it was 1-D cruiser #1111, with tag GT-4231, and the officers were both male and both in uniform.

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An Investment in the Past for the Future
Ron Leve, Dupont Circle, theron@comcast.net

I want to second the thoughts below of Bell Clement in her letter in Sunday’s Post [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/25/AR2007052501750.html] on the need to for the District of Columbia to provide financial support to the Historical Society of Washington. In the relatively brief period that I have resided in Washington, I have been amazed to discover the wealth of our historical heritage, with its unique blend of both local and national connections. There isn’t an area of this city that doesn’t have a fascinating tale to tell and that one that must be preserved and presented so that our children will understand and value the sense of place where they live. On a larger scale, it should be noted that we are quickly approaching the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, and that much of the effort to understand and evaluate the events of those months will come from the work of the Society. So, please contact Council Chairman Gray, Economic Development Committee Chairman Kwame Brown, and both your local council representative and those at large. [E-mail addresses for councilmembers are available at http://www.dcwatch.com/council/address.htm].

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School Takeover Issues
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

In preparation for his school takeover, Mayor Fenty has scheduled a series of “education town hall meetings” in each ward throughout the summer. The schedule for these meetings is posted at http://ec.rrc.dc.gov/ec/cwp/view,a,3,q,582228.asp. The first town meeting was held last night at Johnson Junior High School in Ward 8, a school completely surrounded by boarded-up apartment buildings and town houses. The gymnasium was sweltering; it lacked both air conditioning and windows that opened; and the sound system was inadequate; in the cavernous gym, it was difficult to hear the presentation. It was a very structured meeting, controlled to minimize the participation of attendees, like most such meetings held by the government in recent years. About 125 people attended. Attendees were seated at tables of eight, and at most of those tables Ward 8 residents were badly outnumbered by government employees. The town hall leaders gave several lengthy presentations, and attendees were allowed to discuss only predetermined questions, and only at their tables.

Last Tuesday, May 22, at a special meeting, the DC Board of Elections voted to accept the “Referendum on Certain Provisions of the Public Education Reform Amendment Act of 2007” (http://www.dcboee.org/nws/news_frame.asp?filename=pn_117.pdf&mid=5&yid=2007&type=News%20Releases&hl=t)  as a proper subject for a referendum. Filed by Mary E. Spencer, the referendum would allow DC residents to vote to accept or reject key provisions (Titles I, IX, and X) of Mayor Fenty’s school takeover legislation. These provisions turn DC Public Schools into a government agency controlled by the mayor, give the mayor the power to appoint a chancellor to oversee DCPS, and transfer to the mayor all local education agency functions of the Board of Education. The text of the referendum was published in the newspapers this past weekend, beginning a ten-day challenge period during which the Fenty administration or any interested party can file a complaint in DC Superior Court challenging BOEE’s designation of the referendum as a proper subject under District law. If a court challenge is filed, the Board cannot issue petitions, and the signature-gathering process cannot begin, until court proceedings have concluded.

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Red Light District NIMBYs
Peter Turner, felinehostage@yahoo.com

To all the suddenly concerned Ward 5 residents terrified of entertainment establishments opening up a supposed new “red light district” around Ivy City, have you looked out your windows lately? New York Avenue has been a haven for open street prostitution and drug dealing for years, boarded-up warehouses line the streets, dilapidated houses are everywhere. Where has your open outrage about that been? The minute some displaced nightclubs want to open up and bring some life and investment to your area, you wave your arms in horror. Something less than silence in the past would lend some weight to your scared, homophobic rants now.

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Pedestrians and Crosswalks
Jack McKay, jack.mckay@verizon.net

In a recent DDOT poll of factors making it difficult to be a pedestrian in the District, “unsafe street crossing” was the number one concern, and “drivers not stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks” the top complaint. In 2004, the District passed a law requiring drivers to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, where previously they were required only to yield the right-of-way. But DC-area drivers didn’t yield to pedestrians before the new law went into effect, and they don’t stop for pedestrians now.

DDOT struggles with the problem, installing traffic-congesting pedestrian-operated traffic lights, and offering red pedestrian pennants, to try to give pedestrians a fair chance at crossing busy streets alive. Yo, DC, maybe we should try enforcing that law requiring drivers to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks. I have tried persuading the Metropolitan Police to do some pedestrian-rights enforcement. They’re not interested. They’ll issue tickets to jaywalking pedestrians, perhaps because pedestrians are really easy to catch. Scofflaw drivers are not so easily caught, requiring patrol cars and teamwork, and our police officers think they have better things to do. Safety, the MPD asserts, is their primary concern, but evidently not primary enough for them actually to try to catch and ticket automobile drivers who brush by pedestrians in crosswalks.

The culture of DC-area drivers has to change, to be more like that out in the West, where drivers actually recognize that pedestrians in crosswalks have rights. This can come about only through an intensive and sustained program of enforcing the law requiring drivers to stop for pedestrians. Only the MPD can do that. But somebody -- Mayor Fenty, the District council — is going to have to order them to do it.

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Shotgun
Bill Coe, bceedeec@aol.com

What a provocative issue of themail on May 27. Every item invites comment (except Mr. Imhoff’s odd comparison of DC politics to the work of Alfred Hitchcock, who strikes me as an overrated movie director). In response to Mr. Borbely, I urge readers not to sign the petition for a referendum on Mayor Fenty’s school takeover. Notwithstanding the noble arguments made here and elsewhere against the Mayor’s actions, we should not try to block his plan until opponents offer a proposal of their own which is viable and ready to go — else our kids will be stuck another year (at least) in an unacceptable status quo. We need to do something for our young people right now! The procedural, legal, and constitutional objections are all well taken, but, folks, where’s your alternative for fixing our schools? Is it doable? Does it have popular support? We’re waiting, with no time left to wait!

To Ms. Pearson, I say a little sin is a good thing for the big city. Businesses catering to the sex trade should be grouped in one vicinity for easier access and regulation. (In my opinion, placing them close to churches is an excellent idea, for the sake of equal time in the morality wars.) Establishments displaced by the stadium deserve a fair shake and a chance to move. At the same time, it’s right that they be restricted to zones found throughout the community — exposing everyone to the risks and rewards of naughty entertainment. This is now the case, is it not? I believe commercial/light industry zones exist in multiple wards. Ms. Pearson has no principled argument here. The process proposed for relocating these businesses is fair; what gripes her is that the merchants of sin have chosen a CM zone in her part of town, not mine. Folks in Ward 5 will have to do better than this, if they want my sympathy and help.

To Mr. Jordan, while I acknowledge all the interesting facts and figures, they don’t support your conclusions. No decision in the last election was “taken out of the hands of the voters.” I believe everyone of voting age had equal access to the polls, to information on who was running, and on data showing who gave money to whom. Isn’t it possible those voters took all this into consideration and freely cast ballots? If not, so what? As Mr. Jordan points out, "too few voters attend forums." Well, a lack of interest and action from voters is not caused by money. No one pays us to stay away from politics or remain uninformed. Give people in Wards 4 and 7 a little credit! They might have actually have weighed the issues, the money, and the candidates then made a rational decision. If not, then let it be said they’re complacent and get what they deserve, but regulating money won’t make them less so. Elaborate systems for controlling campaign finances — much like term limits or mandatory sentencing — are only cumbersome ways to get around our own laziness. They won’t work!

Lastly, to Mr. Eckles: as an avid walker and urban bicyclist, I resent any suggestion of moral equivalence between those traveling our streets under the power of their own legs and those driving 1500-pound vehicles, who can accelerate with a turn of the ankle (often while talking on the phone). There is no such equivalence, no matter what the law says. When bikers and drivers and pedestrians are thrown together, it’s the walkers and cyclists who are in mortal danger. Everyone in transit should exercise courtesy and common sense, but don’t expect us all to operate the same way. I often find myself cycling in heavy traffic on one of our narrow roads. When I work my way to the right around a line of cars or cross an empty intersection to get ahead of drivers or resort to a sidewalk, I’m just trying to protect myself -- to stay safely in your field of vision, away from your car. If you are going to insist on a strict equivalence for drivers and bikers, then expect us to pedal in the center of every lane (as we’re already legally allowed to do), and be happy to motor along at our speed. Is this the safety you want?

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Format for DC Library Events
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com

I really love having DC Library events listed here in themail, but I find I don’t read the listings because it takes too much time scanning through the data to discover what the events are. The first piece of information I’d like to know is what the event is. The second piece of information I want to know is where it will be. The last piece of information I want to know is when it will be. Do others in themail have a similar preference?

An alternative that could work well for me would be a short hyperlink to a colorful web page with the information clearly laid out in columns — Event, Location, Date.

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Deal Junior High’s Public Protest
Mai Abdul Rahman, spotlightoneducation@yahoo.com

Deal Junior High School is losing its standing as a flagship DC public school junior high school. This is occurring because no one in Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration or DC Public Schools has the foresight or executive leadership to solve a problem that is damaging the reputation of one of the city’s best schools. Since April 25, a group of Deal parents who call themselves “Save Alice Deal” have stood outside the school protesting. They claim that their children have been mishandled and subjected to harsh treatment by Deal principal Melissa Kim.

Whether these parents’ actions and complaints are justified is not the question that needs to be answered at this time. The key question now is why have Mayor Fenty, Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso and Superintendent Clifford Janey allowed this problem to spin so far out of control, threatening the stability and standing of Deal in our community? Janey and Reinoso have both opted to ignore the protesters, calling them a small faction. But ignoring the group’s daily morning protests is jeopardizing any possibility for an amicable solution, and it adds to parents’ and teachers’ anxieties about the transition of Deal from a junior high school to a middle school and as the mayor’s takeover initiative proceeds. Janey has refused to meet with Save Alice Deal parents. He reportedly offered them instead a meeting with one of his assistants because he “cannot meet with every parent in the city.” Reinoso met with the group and is reported to have said there is little his office could do.

Janey is missing the point. As a DC Public Schools parent of more than fifteen years, I do not remember any public protest involving Deal, Lafayette Elementary, or Wilson High parents who took their concerns out in the street. This protest is not a run-of-the-mill parent-teacher-principal complaint. Mayor Fenty and his deputy mayor are also missing an opportunity to save Deal from this public humiliation — and to showcase their resolve to deal with contentious public school issues effectively and respectfully — by giving parents a chance to address their claims constructively indoors. A meeting of all concerned groups, including principal Kim, Save Alice Deal members, Deal PTA leaders, other Deal parents, school system officials, and the deputy mayor for education, needs to be held as soon as possible. This public protest needs to go indoors so all concerns can be resolved. Otherwise, we are bound to lose one of the system’s few successful schools.

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Why Ask Now?
Cherita Whiting, cherita_whiting@yahoo.com

Fenty is now holding town hall meetings to see what people who actually have children in DCPS want. Too little; too late. He should have asked us while he was campaigning. Oh yeah, he could have mentioned he was going after a take over while he was asking for our vote. Now town hall meetings are being held to find out how to do the job that they have no experience at doing. Now he needs to pick up ideas to try to show that they have the skills to do the job.

He has already presented the public with a written document that was plagiarized. Stop the presses . . . isn’t this what we teach our children not to do? But Fenty and team try to pass it off with a lie, and then come clean only after they were exposed.

Victor Reinoso is going to be Fenty’s fall guy when this takeover doesn’t work. Fenty will blame him and keep the fire off of himself. I want to apply for the job that pays $175,000 where all you have to do is copy and paste!

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Mayoral Arrogance Has Major Consequences
Dennis Moore, dennis@DCIndependents.org

The mayoral career of Adrian M. Fenty is over. He crossed an unforgivable line through deception and arrogance in his efforts to deny basic citizen rights and due process through a public referendum on our schools. Mr. Fenty’s deception and true colors have been revealed. Grandmother Mary Spencer is the latest in a line of everyday District citizens being targeted and victimized by a brazen and insensitive young mayor. She is among thousands behind a petition drive to enforce our electoral rights. It has unintentionally become a David and Goliath scenario, or grandma versus city hall. No doubt, we anticipate Mayor Fenty will try to sabotage the referendum effort at every angle. Delays, distortions, deceptions and town hall forums stacked with nonresident ward participants or special interest operatives only reveal Mr. Fenty’s real mistrust of DC citizens.

This citizens’ referendum is not about the good or bad of Mayor Fenty’s takeover bid. It is clearly and completely about all District citizens (parents, grandparents, taxpayers, etc.) using their right to vote either yes or no. Anything else is a corruption of our Home Rule Charter and Constitutional rights. Mayor Fenty is setting a dangerous legal precedent that will empower him for future denials and challenges to DC citizen rights. If Mr. Fenty’s plan (however plagiarized) is the best thing since mama’s fried chicken, then put it to a vote for us to decide through genuine due process. Democracy still matters, especially in the nation’s capital. Are we so desperate for change and improvement that we’ll give up our right to a controlling decision in the fate of our children and city? Beyond his hypocritical challenge to Mayor Anthony Williams’ own school takeover bid, the negligent guardianship of MRDDA, and his phony mayor-of-the-people action-figure image, Fenty is our latest version of a mayoral mistake. This mistake is proving to have major consequences against real democracy and public oversight in DC. As we shall soon discover, when the real numbers are crunched, the District’s fiscal and socioeconomic health will also take a major hit.

Many thought they elected a genuine people’s mayor. That is not what we have in Adrian Fenty. District of Columbia citizens of every political and socioeconomic persuasion are realizing we were the victims of a slickly crafted electoral fraud. Fenty’s campaign facade and hype of hope was just a political ploy to get elected. However, the time for regret and disgust is over. It is time for action and activism. The first effective action step is to protect our right to an electoral voice through a referendum. Failure is not an option regarding the signing of the referendum petitions. It takes about thirty seconds to protect a right we fought for over thirty years ago.

Step two involves the eventual removal of a defective and deceptive public servant, before or during the next mayoral election. Mr. Fenty having defined and repackaged himself as a smiling enemy of parents, grandparents, and genuine democracy makes this effort easier. Remember, despite the hype, statistically less than one-third of us actually bothered to vote for him (see the actual D.C. Board of Elections voter results at: http://www.dcboee.org/nws/news_frame.asp?filename=nr_92.pdf&mid=11&yid=2006&type=News%20Releases&hl=t.

Mayor Fenty’s hypocritical arrogance and deception in asking Capitol Hill to give us a vote in Congress, while trying to remove our local referendum voting rights, has set an early new record in dysfunctional and corrupted DC governance.

Http://LetMeVote.org is not just a web site of politically diverse DC voters (Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Independents, no party voters, etc.), it is the evolution of a revolution in average District citizens waking up and taking control of their government. How many more examples and experiences are necessary for us to realize the damage caused by District officials gone wild?

True democracy in the nation’s capital has become a fragile and diminishing element. Ironically, the same people we elect and pay to protect our rights and resources are destroying them. Enough talk. Take action. Sign the referendum petition. Democracy is a terrible thing to waste.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

Domestic Violence Forum, May 31
Cherita Whiting, cherita_whiting@yahoo.com

Join us in our fight to stop all domestic violence. The Ward Four Education Council presents its second forum on domestic violence on Thursday, May 31, 6:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m., at Calvin Coolidge Senior High School, 6315 5th Street, NW. Moderators, EZ Street and Jeannie Jones, 93.9 KYS radio personalities. Keynote speakers: Chief of Police Cathy Lanier, DC Metropolitan Police Department, on how the police department will handle domestic violence in our communities? And Mildred Muhammad, ex-wife of DC Sniper John Muhammad Come hear her story: The terror of living in fear at the hands of a domestic violence perpetrator and survival in the aftermath of such a horrible life experience. Other special guest speakers: Karen Cunningham, executive director, Women Empowerment Against Violence (WEAVE). Help is available for victims and their families: DC has the highest teen DV rate in the country. LaVika Bhagat Singh, chief operating officer, Children Network International. What impact does domestic violence have on children who have parents that are victims of domestic abuse? Sponsors: DC Women Commission for Women, Safeway Food Store. Contact info, 487-5926.

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DC Public Library Events, June 2-4
Randi Blank, randi.blank@dc.gov

Saturday, June 2, 1:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room 215. Demonstrations of new assistive technologies and group training for people of all ages who use assistive technology for the blind and visually impaired. For more information, call 727-2142.

Saturday, June 2, 2:00 p.m., Cleveland Park Neighborhood Library, 3310 Connecticut Avenue, NW. Local children’s author Jennifer Allison will talk about her two books, Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator and Gilda Joyce: The Ladies of the Lake. A book sale and signing will follow the program. For more information, call 282-3073.

Sunday, June 3, 1:00 p.m., Juanita E. Thornton/Shepherd Park Neighborhood Library, 7420 Georgia Avenue, NW. The music students of Mary M. Hill from the Shepherd Park Community will perform in a piano recital. For more information, call 541-6100.

Monday, June 4, 6:30 p.m., Northeast Neighborhood Library, 330 7th Street, NE. Capitol Hill Mystery Book Club. Please call 698-3320 for the book title for June’s meeting.

Monday, June 4, 7:00 p.m., Juanita E. Thornton/Shepherd Park Neighborhood Library, 7420 Georgia Avenue, NW. Sharon Pabon will present her music students in a flute and clarinet recital concert. For more information, call 541-6100.

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Chief Lanier at Cleveland Park Citizens Association, June 7
George Idelson, g.idelson@verizon.net

Police Chief Cathy Lanier will address the Cleveland Park Citizens Association on Thursday, June 7, at the Cleveland Park Library (Connecticut Avenue and Newark Street, NW) at 6:30 p.m. Also on the agenda: election of CPCA Officers for 2007-08. All are welcome.

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