Moving Against People
Dear People:
My introduction to the last issue of themail got a few angry
responses, but they haven’t convinced me that the administration isn’t
anti-car. As Marilyn Simon pointed out in the last issue, the Office of
Planning has proposed eliminating minimum parking requirements for new
residential construction, reducing parking requirements for commercial
uses, and even limiting the amount of off-street parking that developers
are allowed to provide in new buildings. That’s a deliberate effort to
make it more inconvenient, difficult, and expensive to own and drive a
car, and I’m at a loss as to how it can be understood any other way.
Martin Austermuhle and Mark Eckenwiler, in their comments below, seem
to equate driving with dangerous driving, to define suburban drivers as
inherently dangerous, and to see measures that reduce available parking
and make streets less navigable as equivalent to enforcing laws against
speeding and running red lights. I don’t agree with any of that. The
major purpose of normal traffic laws is to make driving safer. (I’ll
argue another day that the major purpose of red-light cameras is to
raise revenue from tickets, but I’ll readily agree that it should be
illegal to drive through a red light.) But Martin and Mark argue that
the administration’s latest traffic initiatives are just like normal
traffic laws. There we differ; the purpose of the administration’s
plans is not to increase driving safety, but to make driving more
difficult. The administration assumes that parking is too easy and too
cheap, that there are too many parking spaces that are too readily
available, and that DC’s streets are too convenient and allow drivers
to move too quickly and easily through the city. Therefore, parking
spaces should be reduced, and streets should be made harder to navigate.
Mark and Martin both argue that the purpose of the administration’s
moves is simply to arrive at a better “balance” between automobiles
and mass transit. There are two difficulties with that formulation. The
first is who defines what the right balance is, the people who live in
the city and its surrounding suburbs and who demonstrate their
preferences through their choices, or the “experts” who want to
change dramatically the balance people have arrived at for themselves
over time. The administration’s traffic planners think there are too
many people in the city who own and drive cars, that too many
suburbanites drive into the city, and that the “proper balance” can
be reached by reducing the number of cars and the number of miles that
they are driven. Even if, for the purpose of the argument, we accept the
“experts’” prescription that more people should use mass transit
and fewer people should own and drive cars, that leads to a second
problem. How should that shift in “balance” be achieved? The choice
is the traditional one, between the carrot and the stick. The carrot
would be to make mass transit more convenient, more pleasant, more
reliable, and cheaper, and therefore to attract more passengers.
Prospective passengers won’t use subways and busses if they don’t
run when and where they want to go, if they’re overcrowded and
unpleasant, if they break down frequently and don’t keep to their
schedules, or if they’re too expensive. If, however, government is
intent on forcing people into mass transit option and is incapable of
improving its mass transit system, it is tempted to use the stick and to
do as the Fenty administration’s transportation planners want to do
— to make driving more expensive, to make parking more difficult, to
make streets less accessible in order to create traffic congestion and
lengthen driving times. As ways of changing peoples’ behavior, carrots
are attractive and unobjectionable, though they can be expensive; by
definition, sticks are unpleasant and hostile.
Here are the latest articles on DC’s resistance to the Second
Amendment: Mark Segraves on why you may not be able to buy a gun for
months or even years, http://www.wtop.com/?nid=695&sid=latest;
the National Rifle Association on the federal legislation that is
waiting in the wings to amend DC law to comply with the Supreme Court
decision, http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=4089;
and Bob Owens on a surprising reason why DC’s ban on semiautomatic
guns is ill-advised, http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/dc-handgun-restriction-may-be-deadly.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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King Fenty’s Decree
Sue Hemberger, Friendship Heights, smithhemb@aol.com
You’d think that a mayor announcing a major construction project
that would rebuild a neighborhood’s library and expand and modernize
its award-winning but overcrowded elementary school would be eager to
share the news with the community. So why did Mayor Fenty fail to
publicize his decision to select LCOR as a development partner for the
Janney School/Tenley-Friendship library site? Why did he change the day
and time of that announcement as soon as he discovered that residents
knew of the event and planned to attend? And why did Ward 3
Councilmember Mary Cheh, who was standing by Fenty’s side on Thursday
morning, also neglect to inform the community that such an announcement
had been scheduled? The short answer: both knew that this decision would
be greeted with outrage rather than applause.
Here’s why: 1) it means that the reopening of our branch library
(whose design had just been completed and whose construction was slated
to begin next fall) will once again be delayed for at least two more
years. 2) It means that instead of athletic facilities, there will be
apartments on Janney’s soccer field and that the exterior facilities
(playgrounds and a multipurpose sports field for physical education)
DCPS’s educational specifications mandate for an elementary school
campus of 550 students will not be provided as the school’s capacity
is expanded and its facilities modernized. 3) It means that the mayor
ignored both the community’s wishes and his own promise not to go
forward with a public-private project unless the there was strong
support for one. It also means that Deputy Mayor Neil Albert reneged on
his oft-repeated commitment that the community would see the proposal
chosen by the selection panel and have a chance to comment upon it
before DMPED forwarded any recommendation to the mayor.
These were the predictable sources of outrage, but there were also a
few surprises in store for the approximately fifty angry residents who
made it to the press event after its existence and time change was
leaked (by a non-governmental source) to a few community members who
quickly spread the word. We learned that while both Fenty and Cheh
endorsed the selection of LCOR (which entailed pulling the plug on DCPL’s
reconstruction of the library), Fenty hadn’t bothered to look at DCPL’s
design for our library before making that decision and Cheh hadn’t
seen LCOR’s best and final offer before endorsing it. We also learned
that there were no more concrete details available — no site plan, no
timelines, no financials — than were provided to us four months ago,
when LCOR’s design was rejected as unacceptable by the ANC and the
Janney SIT, as well as by all but two or three of the one hundred and
twenty some individuals who submitted written comments on the proposals
to DMPED.
And finally, we realized, though not immediately, that apparently the
lesson that the Fenty Administration has drawn from the West End debacle
last July is not “go to the Council earlier” but “avoid the
Council altogether.” In Tenleytown we have the spectacle of a mayor
asserting his unilateral authority to offer public land for private
development without any council input regarding that land’s
surplussing or disposition.
It’s time for this scofflaw administration to be reigned in. This
isn’t a feudal monarchy where the sovereign can dispose of public land
as he sees fit as long as he can induce the local lord to stand loyally
by his side. It’s a democracy in which the rule of law is supposed to
govern the decisionmaking and in which elected officials (both the mayor
and the council) have a fiduciary duty to protect public assets which
are owned by the public, not by the (temporary) head of state. The deal
Fenty wants to strike with LCOR is a disaster from a public facilities
standpoint. Tenleytown will get less attractive facilities, later, and
at greater public expense, than we would have if the government had
proceeded with separate publicly funded modernizations of both school
and library, using the capital funds already budgeted for the two
projects (rather than turning those funds over to LCOR).
Will Fenty get away with it? I guess it depend in part on whether the
media (and the citizenry) wake up and stop believing that decisions that
engender vociferous and sustained dissent are presumptively “bold and
visionary” rather than stupid and ill-conceived. It also depends on
whether the council stops playing the role of enabler and starts acting
like a check on the power of the executive. Stay tuned. Because your
school, library, or fire station may be next.
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More Costs of Ballpark Boondoggle Come Home to
Roost
Ed Delaney, profeddel@yahoo.com
First, there’s the ongoing stadium rent game: http://tinyurl.com/5fktb2.
“DC officials said they plan to hire a special lawyer to handle what
they expect to be prolonged arbitration over the ballpark, which was
built with tax dollars.” So the cap-busting ballpark-related deal with
Venable LLP wasn’t enough, as now there are more agreements with law
firms in the offing of unknown cost and scope to cover “prolonged”
arbitration and who knows what else against the private business entity
for which the city broke the bank and saddled itself with massive debt
in building the cut-rate greenhouse and insisting in keeping it at the
cost-bloated current site. Before the hiring, the public and the full
council need to be consulted, since the Venable deal was so bad that
even Vincent Gray admitted that “I have frankly not seen ever in my
service a contract more poorly administered than this one.” (Examiner,
June 7, 2007).
Here’s a refresher on the audit of the Venable deal: http://tinyurl.com/59rxqf.
The irony is that the city initially balked at the nearly four million
dollars in legal fees to Venable but concluded, according to Gray, that
they were “in too deep” not to complete the deal, the city could’ve
used that money either to pay a firm to demand a reworking of the MLB-favored
ballpark lease before approving it or to pay most of the
five-million-dollar penalty for possibly not opening the stadium in time
were the project to have been shifted to the RFK Stadium site. As it is,
the city attached itself and its debt levels and treasury to a deal that
gives MLB and the Lerners leeway to withhold rent and make plays to
penalize the city one hundred thousand dollars a day and demand that the
city pay for team uniforms and so on.
Some want to judge the stadium project a success simply because it
hosted the Nats’ opener on time. They want us to close our eyes to the
other results and fallout from the project. However, what must be
factored into the picture is the continued economic mess and abuse of
the public process by those in government seeking to mitigate the
perpetual financial issues caused by this project. The day also brings
us another consequence of the out-of-control costs of the ballpark
project which has eaten up so much of the city’s debt capacity.
From http://tinyurl.com/5dpdm4:
“DC Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi yesterday called on
government leaders to rein in their borrowing on Wall Street, a warning
that, if heeded, eventually could limit the city’s ability to pay for
major redevelopment projects proposed for the Southwest waterfront and
at Poplar Point along the Anacostia River.” In essence, the CFO is
suggesting killing upcoming city development projects left and right
(none of which are to house a private business entity owned by a
multi-billionaire who could fund most of the project himself as previous
sports owners have) to please Wall Street and keep his precious bond
ratings somewhat intact, as the city shoulders the enormous debt load of
the ballpark, for which anticipated income such as rent is delayed and
anticipated attendance numbers and turnstile aren’t materializing
according to his rosy projections. When the baseball brigade so
confidently boasted that this ballpark would not cost citizens one penny
(which was almost as deceitful and amusing as the ballpark cost cap),
they should have mentioned the number of city projects that would also
be compromised by pursuing a baseball stadium and refusing to adjust
where it was sited when the costs at that site exceeded the legislative
cap for the project. I hope the city doesn’t have to float bonds to
pay for its “special lawyer” and its prolonged fights against the
Lerners!
###############
An Ominous Sign
Ed T. Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
Attendance at the Nationals games seems to be declining as the summer
progresses. I can’t agree with the posted numbers for attendance the
day after I’ve attended a game. There are several thousand fewer folks
in the seats then they claim in the attendance figures at the bottom of
the scoring in the Post. The team, in the vernacular of old
Brooklyn, stinks on hot ice. True, they have several of their first line
players on the disabled list, but they seem likely to lose about a
hundred games this season. Next year, given the health of their players,
they might even win half their games. The ominous sign is the number of
folks watching the games on TV. Of the half million folks in the DC
watching area, barely nine thousand are watching the games on TV. That
seems to me to indicate that a lot of the folks attending the game are
coming because of the stadium, not the team. They may also be coming to
only one or two games this season. Next season will tell the tale. The
bloom may be off the rose, and it will take a very competitive team to
inspire interest in the team and attendance at the games.
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Simple Summer Pleasures
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com
During the cold winter months, Gary and I, like most Washingtonians,
tend to hibernate indoors at home. However, as soon as the weather
breaks in the spring, we become more mobile and try to take better
advantage of all the region has to offer — festivals, fairs, outdoor
concerts, farmers markets, sidewalk cafes, seasonal foods (crabs, fresh
tomatoes, peaches, berries, figs), and scenic drives. In recent years,
our favorite summer pleasures have included summer restaurant week in DC
(this year, August 11-17, with three-course lunches at $20.08 and
three-course dinners at $35.08), in Bethesda/Chevy Chase (July 8-August
3, with two-course lunches $12-$15 and three-course dinners at $30), and
in Baltimore (July 26-August 3, with three-course lunches at $20.08 and
three-course dinners at $30.08). It has included Friday afternoon
crawfish and shrimp boils on the patio at Acadiana in Mt. Vernon Square;
frozen custard at the Dairy Godmother in the Del Ray section of
Alexandria, frozen ices at Rita’s; three-dollar ice-cream sundaes on
Mondays at Giffords on E Street near 11th; and steamed crabs at Obrycki’s
in Baltimore, Gunnings in Hanover, and the Bethesda Crab House, in
Bethesda, of course. Simple summer pleasures have included the July 4th
fireworks, viewed from the grassy overlook at Cardozo High School rather
than the overcrowded Mall, and, as Gary wrote a week ago, minor league
baseball rather than the overpriced and over-hyped Nationals games.
Looking over my list, it seems awfully heavy on food and eating. What
simple summer pleasures am I missing? What do you recommend?
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Parking News From Elsewhere
Gabe Goldberg, gabe at gabegold dot com
I’m not sure parking spaces stay open long enough for this to be
useful, and it might create more conflicts as multiple drivers aim for a
supposedly empty spot. But it’s interesting.
In San Francisco, “The secret to finding the perfect parking spot
in congested cities is usually just a matter of luck. But drivers here
will get some help from an innocuous tab of plastic that will soon be
glued to the streets.” (“Can’t Find a Parking Spot? Check
Smartphone,” by John Markoff, http://tinyurl.com/6g7o5o.)
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Street Robbers Now Required to Use Trigger
Locks
Matt Forman, Matthew.Forman2@verizon.net
The last issue of themail reported on Phil Mendelson’s legislative
proposal that homeowners will still need to keep trigger locks on their
guns at home. But another, unnoticed provision would also require
criminals to keep trigger locks on any gun involved in street robberies,
gang fights, and drug deals. This provision will greatly reduce the city’s
gun violence. In addition, the legislation requires house burglars to
give shout out a warning when breaking into someone’s home, to give
the victims time to take off their trigger locks, which will ensure a
fair fight.
Of course I’m kidding, but the proposed legislation (Bill 17-843)
is grammatically a mess: “Except for law enforcement personnel
described in section 201(b)(1), each registrant shall keep any firearm
in his or her possession unloaded and either disassembled or bound by a
trigger lock or similar device unless such firearm is kept at his or her
place of business, or while being used for lawful recreational purposes
within the District of Columbia, or for the purpose of immediate
self-defense in his or her home.”
What’s unclear is the lack of parallel construction among the “or”
phrases which follow the “unless.” What word does the phrase “for
the purpose of immediate self-defense” modify? Unless, kept, or used?
Also, I’m allowed to keep a gun at my place of business? And I can
keep it unlocked at work, but not at home? What if I run a business out
of my home? Do I need a master business license from DCRA?
###############
Recommendation to City Council Regarding
Fireworks
Kathy Henderson, khenderson029@aol.com
The fireworks issue has generated a significant amount of discussion
on the Ward 5 listservs and within many of our neighborhoods. While some
are clearly opposed to banning or limiting the discharge of fireworks in
DC, enough of us are irritated by the disruption of our peace, order,
and quiet that the issue merits revisiting by our council. Some
compilation or version of the previously four submitted bills banning
fireworks should be resubmitted and a public hearing should be held. I
propose that the council consider including language for a three-year
moratorium on the selling, distribution, and discharge of all fireworks
in the District, excluding public professional displays that are
typically held on the Mall. I believe the public hearing component is
important to allow any citizen to be heard regarding this matter,
voicing support or disdain for the measure.
If you agree, please contact Council Chairman Vincent Gray at
724-8000 (this is the general Council number and the receptionist will
be happy to transfer you). This message is not intended to extend the
debate on the various listservs. Many of us have been complaining for
two years; it is time for action.
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Allow me to comment on Mr. McKay’s piece in themail of July 9 about
the pathetic death last week of the bicyclist, Ms. Swanson, near Dupont
Circle. McKay accurately labels and describes the problem. (I’d never
heard the term “right hook.” How apt!) I doubt, though, that a right
hook could have been avoided in this case, since large utility trucks
often have to make wide turns to negotiate our narrow intersections.
This vehicle probably couldn’t have made a tight turn of the sort he
suggests (i.e., moving to the right into the bike lane, thus crowding
[and alerting] the biker, before turning).
The fatal crash on R Street reminds me of an interesting statistic
presented at a public meeting on pedestrian safety last winter. Those
paid to measure such things have discovered that the rate of pedestrian
crashes (in other words, being run down by a car while crossing a
street) is highest in marked pedestrian crosswalks at intersections not
controlled by a traffic signal — higher even than the frequency of
crashes for jaywalkers! I believe this comports with something known for
a long time by our traffic police — that painted lines on the street
are believed by pedestrians to confer some sort of magical charm which
will protect them, even when they foolishly step in front of moving
automobiles. Too many walkers apparently assume that, since the magic in
the paint works for them at intersections with stop lights, it must work
everywhere. I think the same sort of bad magic animates bicyclists in
bike lanes; they fall victim to a complacent belief that the paint
confers protection. This is wrong, disastrously so. Paint on the
blacktop might carry legal significance, but its practical value in
life-and-death situations is doubtful. In my opinion, lengthening bike
lanes to run all the way through intersections, which Mr. McKay
suggests, is counterproductive; this would merely enlarge the illusion
which beckons so many bikers (including, possibly, Ms. Swanson) into the
valley of the shadow.
DC should do away with bike lanes altogether, unless these can be
physically separated from auto traffic (which on most DC streets will
occur, approximately, never). Bikers should not be permitted to assume
that painted lines confer any protection not available on unpainted
streets. Such fanciful assumptions are too often fatal. The same
applies, I believe, to marked pedestrian crossings at intersections
without traffic lights. Those on foot would be better protected by
eliminating these particular painted lines. Mr. McKay’s ultimate
prescription hits the nail on the head. Drivers should be careful and
share the road. Bikers should be defensive. Pedestrians should be alert.
Everyone should be sensible. Absent a traffic light, pedestrians should
cross the street when and where it is safe to do so -- irrespective of
any painted markings or signs. Bicyclists should protect themselves in
the same manner, by simply being mindful of themselves in traffic. When
crashes occur involving bikers or walkers, primary responsibility should
always rest with drivers; they must be presumed to be at fault, since
they’re the ones operating half-ton lethal machines. This presumption
can often be disproved by countervailing facts; bikers and pedestrians
are known to commit traffic violations or behave stupidly. Still and
always, responsibility for safety on our streets must rest first with
automobile drivers.
###############
As a continuation to The “Right Hook” (Jack McKay, themail, July
10), the “Right Hook” is sometimes referred to as the “Kill Zone”
when a bicyclist does not exercise the rules of the road. Never place
yourself in the position of not being seen by a driver when riding on
his right side. If you can see the driver in his right side view mirror,
he can see you. If you cannot see the driver in his right side view
mirror it is best to drop back until he can see you and you him. Riding
too close exposes you to the danger of a driver’s making a right turn
on top of you because he can’t see you in his right turn mirror. Aside
from looking out for jay walkers and those that do not stand on the curb
until the traffic light indicates that it is safe to cross, bicyclists
must assist in their own safety by helping the driver to see them as
they ride adjacent to the vehicle in a bike lane. There are rules of the
road, and all vehicles and bicyclists must obey them else more
unfortunate accidents will occur.
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The Anti-Car Fiction and Its Believers
Martin Andres Austermuhle, martin.austermuhle@gmail.com
In “Making Life Difficult” (themail, July 9), Gary fully buys
into the fiction that the District is somehow “anti-car.” He writes:
“City planners and urban ‘experts’ hate cars. They want to make
people walk or use busses, subways, and bicycles. . . . The problem is
that city planners and urban experts return the compliment, and don’t
care what most people want, either. Instead of planning Washington to
accommodate the actual preferences and real lives of both DC residents
and suburbanites, our city’s planners want to force us to accommodate
their preferences and their theoretical ideals. Instead of making our
lives easier, our city’s planners want to make our lives more and more
difficult until we give in, give up, and adopt the way of life they
think is best.”
Let’s be honest. Compared to other urban areas, the District is
surprisingly friendly to drivers. There are no tolls to drive into the
city, parking regulations remain flexible enough to allow nonresidents
to park in city neighborhoods for extended periods of time, and speed
and red light cameras are not very widely used. As both a city cyclist
and a car owner, I can faithfully attest to the fact that I have never
felt that the city was stacking the rules against my being able to
drive.
Recent initiatives are not meant to be anti-car; they are merely
meant to reestablish a sense of balance between those that drive in and
out of the city and those that choose alternative means of transit. City
planners aren’t making the rules so prohibitive as to force anyone to
give up their car; they are simply establishing commonsense guidelines
so that drivers are encouraged to be more cognizant of the fact that
they are in a congested and densely populated urban environment. Doing
away with the reversible lanes on Constitution Avenue doesn’t force
anyone to ride a bike, it merely makes them drive more slowly through a
residential neighborhood. Red light and speed cameras aren’t going to
push anyone onto a bus; they just make them pay fines for violating
well-justified traffic laws. Increasing rates for parking meters
recognizes that on-street parking is increasingly scarce and that the
current rates are low enough that they do not encourage the turnover
necessary to allow more cars to park for shorter periods of time. That
sense of balance between drivers and non-drivers is key to establishing
a sustainable transit policy for the District and its surrounding areas.
The ironic thing about the Post’s recent article about the
District “anti-car” initiatives is that reporter Eric Weiss could
only find one person to speak against them — and it was a spokesperson
for AAA, America’s largest pro-car lobby. Everyone else, including
suburban officials, recognized that the District is taking the same
steps that they’re taking to better balance driving and more
sustainable means of transit. Hilariously, Montgomery County Council
member Nancy Floreen (D-At Large) had this to say to Weiss: “You’d
like me to lambaste the District, but we’re all in the same boat.”
Moreover, it’s interesting to note that another suburban area,
Arlington County, imposes fines ten times higher than the District for
not yielding to pedestrians in crosswalks. Essentially, Weiss managed to
write an article about suburban drivers feeling shunned without actually
being to find that mass of shunned suburban drivers willing to give him
juicy quotes and anecdotes. Maybe it’s because they don’t exist;
maybe it’s because they’re sympathetic to the District’s efforts
to make the city just as friendly to pedestrians and cyclists as it is
to drivers. Whichever it is, it’s saddening to see Gary buy the
anti-car fiction hook, line, and sinker.
###############
On the subject of a walkable vs. drivable DC, I am not one of those
“young, childless DC residents who see no need to own a car” whom
Gary derides. Color me a middle-aged, car-driving, married homeowner
with two kids in DCPS and, more to the point, one who thinks it’s high
time to strike a better balance between commuter vehicles and the
interests of DC residents. As Matt Yglesias says of the DC government’s
modest efforts to rein in misbehaving drivers, more, please.
I labor under no illusion that DC ought to be one giant pedestrian
mall. We need to drive ourselves, our kids, and our elderly relatives
plenty of places and at plenty of times when and where Metro isn’t an
option. But I fail to see why we should continue to bear the burdens
imposed by inconsiderate and at times dangerous drivers from the
suburbs. (In my experience, those burdens include incessant parking
pressure on restricted residential streets; commuters driving too fast
on those same side streets because congestion pushes them off of primary
arteries; the ubiquitous problem of blocked crosswalks; and the usual
array of red-light and stop-sign running.) Our historical faith-based
approach to managing commuter traffic — just pray that folks that obey
themselves, sort of, and that not too many DC residents find themselves
killed or otherwise inconvenienced — has produced dismal results. That
needs to change, and I applaud DC government for taking steps in the
right direction.
###############
[Re: “Making Life Difficult,” themail, July 10] Considering there
is no statistical information about the folks who post messages on DCist,
to assume that the majority of the folks who posted there are young and
childless is about as adolescent as you accuse them of being. Besides,
to pay credence to anonymous blog posts (albeit they do have to
register, but that can really be done anonymously) is ridiculous.
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The InTowner July Issue Now Online
P.L. Wolfe, intowner@intowner.com
This is to advise that the July 2008 on-line edition has been
uploaded and may be accessed at http://www.intowner.com. Included are
the lead stories, community news items and crime reports, editorials
(including prior months’ archived), restaurant reviews (prior months’
also archived), and the text from the ever-popular “Scenes from the
Past” feature (the accompanying images can be seen in the archived PDF
version). The complete issue (along with prior issues back to January
2002) also is available in PDF file format directly from our home page
at no charge simply by clicking the link in the Current & Back
Issues Archive. Here you will be able to view the entire issue as it
appears in print, including all photos and advertisements.
The next issue will publish on August 8 (the second Friday of the
month, as always). The complete PDF version will be posted by the
preceding night or early that Friday morning at the latest, following
which the text of the lead stories, community news, and selected
features will be uploaded shortly thereafter.
To read this month’s lead stories, simply click the link on the
home page to the following headlines: 1) “Alcoholic Beverage Control
Board’s Enforcement of Number of “Seats” Requirements Overturned
— Fallout Affects “Pub Crawl Prohibitions”; 2) “New 9th Street
Retailers Seen as the Vanguard of a Resurgence for Shaw East”; 3) “Historic
Iowa Apartments Reinstalls & Celebrates Rebuilt Prized Fountain.”
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Fun Family Films Under the Stars, July 16-17
John A. Stokes, john.astokes@dc.gov
The District’s Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) will hold
“Fun Family Films Under The Stars,” its 2008 Family Movie Night
Season, this summer. “Fun Family Films Under The Stars,” which
continues until late-September, will afford residents of all ages and
families of all sizes the opportunity to enjoy viewing the free,
family-oriented films in DPR’s outdoor settings. As in previous years,
viewers are invited to bring their own snacks, chairs, and blankets.
This year, District residents will have a greater selection of viewing
locations. Movies will be shown from 8:45 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.
Community members who arrive early enough for each screening will
have the opportunity to place a vote between two movies that may be
shown that evening. The movie that receives the most votes will be
shown.
Wednesday, July 16, Oxon Run Park, Mississippi and Southern Avenue,
SE
Wednesday, July 16, Anacostia Park, 1800 Anacostia Drive, SE
Thursday, July 17, Joseph Cole Recreation Center, 1200 Morse Street, NE
###############
Spotlight on Design, July 17
Jazmine Zick, jzick@nbm.org
Thursday, July 17, 7:00-8:30 p.m., Spotlight on Design: Michael
Maltzan. Hear Los Angeles-based architect Michael Maltzan, FAIA, discuss
his work, which includes MoMA QNS and the recently completed Billy
Wilder Theater at the UCLA Hammer Museum. $12 Members; $12 Students; $20
Nonmembers. Prepaid registration required. Walk-in registration based on
availability. At the National Building Museum, 401 F Street, NW,
Judiciary Square stop, Metro Red Line. Register for events at http://www.nbm.org.
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Hilton L. Root Book Signing at Politics and
Prose, July 19
Jaime Fearer, jfearer@brookings.edu
The Cold War mentality that the enemy of my enemy is my friend
continues to drive alliances. In Alliance Curse: How America Lost the
Third World (Brookings Press, July 2008), Hilton Root, a professor
of public policy at George Mason, argues that the US should foster
economic development in the third world rather than supply aid to
authoritarian regimes on the basis of their promise to support us in the
war on terror. On Saturday, July 19, at 1:00 p.m., he will hold a book
signing at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Avenue, NW.
Hilton L. Root is a professor at George Mason University’s School
of Public Policy and a senior fellow with the Mercatus Center. He has
served as adviser to the US Treasury and the Asian Development Bank and
has taught at Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania.
Root has a number of books to his credit, including Capital &
Collusion: The Political Logic of Global Economic Development
(Princeton, 2006), Governing for Prosperity, edited with Bruce
Bueno de Mesquita (Yale, 2000), and The Key to the Asian Miracle,
with J. E. Campos (Brookings, 1996).
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