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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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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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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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 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.
###############
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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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
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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