The Lost World
Dear World-Weary Readers:
The Washington Post is closing down its Sunday weekly stand-alone
book review section, Book World. Mediabistro has the Post announcement
that was circulated to its staff, http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/books/brauchli_on_book_world_107135.asp.
Over five years ago (themail, August 31, 2003), I wrote about Book
World: “Today’s issue of the Washington Post’s Book World
is bookended by reviews by Jonathan Yardley and Michael Dirda, two of
the best book reviewers in the business, who between them provide a
better public education than most schools. These two pay attention to
books of broad interest and lasting importance, rather than to political
tomes that will be outdated as soon as they are proven wrong by the next
election or to novels that have every virtue except for plots and
characters. Dirda today writes that the book he is reviewing, on, of all
subjects, the ambiguity of classical oracles, provides ‘a short trot
with a cultured mind,’ which is what he himself provides for us in his
frequent reviews of classics and forgotten classics. Yardley, in his
review of Geoffrey Wolfe’s biography of John O’Hara, concentrates on
one of O’Hara’s virtues: ‘He was also — a quality that appealed
to men and women alike — a “good listener.” As he grew old and
famous the voice he most like to hear was his own, but as a young man in
the 1930’s “the fictionalist in the making, whether by vocational
design or inquisitiveness, soaked up what he could learn about
strangers, speech, manners, and always, facts: names, dates, geographics,
metes and bounds, titles, liens, weights and measures, yards gained,
speed, dollars made and spent, meum et tuum, dowers, goods,
stuff.”’ Yardley himself listens carefully to the voices of the
writers he presents, and distinguishes himself from most other reviewers
by serving those voices, rather than by simply judging books as good if
they agree with his personal opinions and bad if they don’t. We’re
lucky to have Yardley and Dirda as our local book reviewers and as our
guides to the books we should be reading, even if we won’t.”
Book World hasn’t failed; the newspaper has failed it. Its reviews
of political books may have become predictable — liberal books good,
conservative books bad — but its range extended far beyond politics,
and it often published essays that were small gems in themselves. Having
a first-rate book section was something that made the Post a
first-rate paper, and having a first-rate newspaper helped make
Washington a first-rate city. We weren’t just some provincial town,
with a thin newspaper that published nothing besides short summaries of
things we had already seen on cable news. We were major league. While
some people measure the greatness of a city by the size and number of
its sports stadiums; I’m indifferent to that. To me, what makes a city
great is the richness of its culture — its libraries, museums,
theaters, bookstores, and local media. With this decision, the Post has
diminished itself, but it has also diminished the city it serves.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Le Pain Quotidien
Ed T. Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
That’s the name of the new eating establishment on the corner of
49th Street and Massachusetts Avenue, NW, which opened almost two months
ago. Since its opening, roomie and I have eaten there twice, once for a
Sunday breakfast and once for lunch. I would rate their food good, not
great. Excellent bread, but the food, though fresh, is bland. This
place, over the twenty-two years we’ve been here, has been a florist,
a liquor store, Sutton Place Gourmet, and Bagel City. The new restaurant
serves a big menu of mostly organic offerings. That’s easily attested
to by the tee shirts worn by the servers proclaiming everything is
organic. If you want real milk instead of soy you’ll have to settle
for skim. If you want butter for that delicious bread you’ll have to
ask for it. The seating for about eighty folks is on plain wooden chairs
with plain wooden tables in a very nice open triangular environment with
large windows fronting Mass. Ave. and 49th Street. The place offers
organic coffee for sale and that wonderful bread. They also have a big
case filled with outrageously delicious looking pastries and muffins. In
my somewhat untrim condition, I have not yet partaken of these
offerings. At some point, if I don’t need to see a loan officer, I’ll
take some home to see if they are as tasty as they look. All paper goods
are made from recycled paper products. This eating place is a real haven
for Yuppies (are there any still around?) and greenies. Hard to think
that this place, as currently configured, will be very popular with the
AU Law School folks just down the street. I give it two stars out of
four in my rating system.
Just across Mass. Avenue, in the Spring Valley Shopping Center, the
Homemade Pizza Co. is cranking out those marvelous “We make it, you
bake it” pizzas. They are delicious, addictive, and expensive. A large
is about the size of a Papa John’s medium and costs almost twice as
much. For the taste and ingredients, it’s worth it for special
occasions.
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The inaugural crowd control system this week was a disaster. What the
Park Police, Secret Service, Capitol Police, and MPD did not understand
is how to manage a large crowd and get them in and out of a venue
quickly and with courtesy. They should talk long and hard to the folks
who manage large sports facilities and entertainment venues. They would
have found out that to move a large crowd you need lots of well marked
entrances and exits. There were far, far too few entrances and exits to
every event. One of the biggest problems was trying to force tens of
thousands of people through a handful of entrances, most only a few feet
wide.
We were purple ticket holders at the swearing in. It was idiotic that
there was only one eight-foot-wide entrance on Louisiana Avenue to the
purple area at the Capitol while there were a dozen or more security
checkpoints waiting inside. They should have used the full width of
Louisiana Avenue as an entrance and lined the security checkpoints
across the road so people would go right to the security checkpoints,
rather than be forced through just one entrance in order to reach them.
If this had been done, ten to twenty times as many people could have
entered at the same time and the crowd would not have reached crushing
pressure with no movement for hours.
Similarly, since all the roads around everything were closed to
vehicular traffic, when an event was over, all barriers should have been
opened and removed quickly. This could have been done by making the
fences a series of gates. This would have allowed the crowd to spread
out and disperse quickly. Forcing large crowds through very narrow
funnels is inherently unsafe and dangerous and just concentrates the
crowd. After the inauguration, the people did some of this themselves by
knocking down the fences, which helped a lot, but they shouldn’t have
had to.
On Sunday, I was on the Washington Monument grounds for the Lincoln
Memorial concert outside the security perimeter. Yet even there, the
Park Police arrogantly took half of 17th Street as a motorcycle parking
lot for a half dozen motorcycles. As a result, they created this very
narrow funnel (due to the port-a-potties and fences on the Monument
grounds on one side and the fences on the security area on the other)
for tens of thousands — possibly a hundred thousand — people to
exit. A number of us politely asked them to park them more compactly and
open up the road so more people could get out, but they arrogantly
refused to do anything to help alleviate the crush. This was inexcusable
and indicative of their basic attitude that they are not public servants
and can do whatever they please. A friend who working as an inaugural
volunteer on the Mall told me they all learned Sunday that they could
not trust or expect any help from anyone in uniform. If someone fell
down, or something got knocked over, the police would not lend a hand. I
should note that the Metro Police were a notable exception. I heard a
number of people comment how helpful they were and how well they handled
crowd control at Metro Stations.
The worst practice that the police have adopted in the past five to
six years, as far as crowd control is concerned, is the idea of fencing
people in with these metal barriers, fences, and snow fences. In a large
crowd, you can’t see where the barriers or entrances and exits are and
people get pushed up against them and panic. This is a particularly
outrageous situation in DC because there are so wide open areas right on
the other side of a barrier that people could easily spread out to
without problem, except for the damn fences. In many events or
demonstrations I have attended in recent years, I have witnessed the
panic in people’s eyes, particularly if they have small children,
someone who is somewhat mobility impaired, or if they develop
claustrophobia from being crushed against a barrier with no visible way
to get out of the crowd. When authorities fence people in like cattle,
the least they can do is install adequate signage. High banners,
balloons, and/or signs should have been installed at every entrance/exit
so people deep in the crowd could tell where they were being pushed or
how to get out. In addition, there should never be fences around the
port-a-potties. If something bad had happened this week, it would have
been a disaster because there was no place for people to go and they
would not have been able to quickly find the way out. This is safety?!!
All it says is that authorities don’t value the lives of the American
people.
In the case of an event like the inauguration with color-coded
tickets, these banners, balloons, and signs could be appropriately
color-coded. There were a few color-coded signs, but nowhere near enough
at the inauguration. In every case, though, as an event ends, the walls
should immediately come down and many, many exits should be opened up to
allow the crowd to quickly exit. I stopped going to the July 4th
fireworks after 2002 because of the ham-handed security. This used to be
my favorite holiday, and we went every year for over forty years, Trying
to walk out from the reflecting pool area along snow fenced paths in the
dark with hundreds of thousands of people is scary and dangerous and
makes one feel like a criminal.
The final thing I want to mention is the attitude of many police
officers (the Chicago officers at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue
being a notable exception). The police in recent years, with the Park
Police, Secret Service and Capitol Police being by far the worst, have
lost the sense that they are public servants, that they work for us. You
can accomplish much more if you do it with common courtesy. With the
militarization of police forces since 9/11 and the attitude that
everyone is a terrorist, we have lost something very valuable in our law
enforcement officials. Many times, I don’t recognize my country
anymore. It is so very sad to see this happen to officers in our city.
We desperately need a change in attitude so that public servants,
which all officials paid by the taxpayers are, recognize that and act
accordingly. On Sunday, my sister was at the concert and standing near
the Reflection Pool. Someone had a medical emergency and the EMS folks
brusquely and brutally elbowed their way in. A little courtesy, like
shouting “EMS coming through for a medical emergency, please move
back,” would have made a lot of difference. The way they did it could
easily have caused other injuries, something that is quite
counterproductive when you are supposedly trying to help on another
medical emergency.
Finally, I would like to mention the idiocy of keeping the public
from seeing the parade. There were blocks with no people or very few
people. Cross streets were blocked with buses, trucks, tents, fences,
etc., so people could not stand there, as we have for centuries, to see
the parade. The press reported many people who said they had tickets and
couldn’t get in, yet there was lots of room. Given that the parade
started several hours after the inauguration ended, there was no
rational reason why people couldn’t have done both if the security
planners had actually had the public’s interest in mind. Seeing the
situation, I felt so bad for the parade participants who came from all
over the country only to not have the crowd watching and cheering them
that they should have had. I hope our public officials take a long, hard
look at their performance this past week and decide to put the public’s
interest first next time we have a big event in town. We need to replace
“Brownie.”
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At Last
Ed T. Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
Ralph Chittam’s posting “another Perspective” in the January 25
issue of themail shows there’s at least one more sane person who
realizes that statehood is absurd for DC. Another layer of government
and decision making would just compound, or confound, the ability to get
the right things done in the District. Just look at what happened with
the planning for the Inauguration. All those agencies, supposedly
working together, came up with a ridiculous plan to handle the crowds.
It was clear from the beginning that large crowds would descend on the
Mall very early in the morning. Yet, checkpoints would not open until
8:00 a.m. It did not take a rocket scientist to figure out that they
should open security at a time when the large crowds would be arriving.
Planning is a very short suit in most, and especially, in DC
organizational elements.
In a former life, I worked for a guy I initially thought was a real
pessimist. He always assumed that the worst could happen (and he often
was right). He always had his teams plan for contingencies. We often had
to go to Plan B or even Plan C when the unexpected happened. In DC,
planning begins after the fact — reaction is the key word with deer
eyes in the headlights. Chittam has it right. We don’t need another
expensive layer of government and someone else to involve in decision
making for the city. And, being free of Federal taxes would be a real
perk if we were a territory instead of an island in the federal
government morass.
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Inaugural Crowds
Kathi Sullivan, kathims@aol.com
I went to the inauguration along with thousands of others and several
out-of-town guests. We had blue tickets. The place was a madhouse and we
never got in. To say it was a disappointment would be an understatement;
I wish we had gone to the Mall. However, I have to say that I do not
blame our city government or even the police department for what
happened. I would lay the blame squarely at the feet of the inaugural
committee, chaired by Diane Feinstein. There were no signs, no public
address system, and way too few entrances for the number of tickets that
were issued. This was basic math that anyone with the slightest
experience would have realized was a recipe for disaster. The committee
knew that security would be tight and that huge numbers were expected
and yet they were not prepared. Perhaps they had not read their own web
site or the Post? They also turned away much needed volunteers (I
saw two) and had no back-up plans for failed equipment. I wonder how “our”
senator can manage a committee as important as intelligence when she can’t
get people on the capitol grounds.
################
Once Again, with Feeling, on DC Statehood
Anne Anderson, mobileanne@earthlink.net
I, for one, refuse to be bought off with the thought of paying no
federal taxes in return for giving up my right to an equal voting voice
in the government of the United States. I don’t enjoy being kept by
anyone, no matter how benevolent, and I can’t imagine that things
would actually get better if we paid no taxes. Please check in with the
residents of our various territories to see how that status works for
them before you recommend it to us. If this were a federal
income-tax-free zone, it would be interesting to see who would want to
move here — lots of very rich people, I suspect, who have access to
the powers that be through other avenues than the ballot box. On the
other hand, it would also be very interesting to see who would want to
move to the new state of “New Columbia,” once they knew they would
continue to have an equal voice in our national legislature. Perhaps we
would actually fix the broken one-party system that we struggle with
under our current system.
Of course, if we were a state we would need to create a state
government! We would also no longer need the unlovely structure of Home
Rule, so there would be many changes to how we govern ourselves. We
already are treated like a state in some five hundred instances to
interact with the federal government, so just about all that would
change is that it would become clear where the buck stops — on the
governor’s desk, or with the state legislature. No more running to
various members of Congress anytime someone with money and power doesn’t
like what our council is doing. By the way, as a state, we also become
an equal player with our neighbors, and can negotiate things like
reciprocal agreements on who gets to tax whom, depending on where they
work and where they live. I have not kept track of the billions of
dollars annually that Maryland and Virginia siphon off from people who
work in DC and pay taxes in the suburbs, but it is billions.
As for the idea that people pushing for Statehood are just out to get
more Democrats in Congress — please save your accusations for after
you have done some real study of the issue. Are you actually accusing
the League of Women Voters of partisan activity? They have been working
on this issue since the early 70’s, just as I have. I joined the DC
Statehood Party in 1971 because I could not see a way out of this mess
without DC’s becoming a state, or retrocession to Maryland, and
Maryland would have to vote to accept us. We tried a constitutional
amendment; that failed. We have actually reached the floor of the House
once with our petition for statehood, and lost, but we would not be the
first state that lost the first vote and were eventually admitted into
the Union. Sir, this is about equity and joining the rest of the United
States of America, not partisan politics.
###############
Response to “DC Statehood — Another
Perspective”
Tolu Tolu, Tolu2Books@aol.com
Ralph Chittams wrote [themail, January 25]: “If DC obtains
statehood, the citizens of the District of Columbia will have to pay the
salaries, benefits, and perks.”
My response is that, if DC can have a low level employee steal
fifty-four million dollars and not even notice or miss it, then DC
certainly can pay all the salaries you mentioned, plus.
But my position is, does this clue all of us in about how out of
control the DC government is on the most important matters?
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DC Vote Responds to Yesterday’s Judiciary
Subcommittee Hearing
Jaline Quinto, jquinto@dcvote.org
On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution,
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, held a hearing on the DC House Voting
Rights Act (H.R. 157). Ilir Zherka, DC Vote Executive Director,
commented: “Today, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said that he is
committed to moving quickly on passing the DC Voting Rights Act. Just
one week after the inauguration, Congress held a hearing on this
critical legislation. One panelist, Captain Yolanda Lee, US Army Guard,
told the Subcommittee her harrowing story of aiding a fellow soldier in
the Iraq war who died when their convoy was hit. Captain Lee’s bravery
earned her a Bronze Star for her service, but when she returned home to
DC she was still denied a vote in Congress.
“Captain Lee, like her fellow Washingtonians, is denied voting
representation in the Congress who makes life or death decisions on
issues vital to all DC residents. This is an injustice that we can and
must end during this Congress. We are optimistic that, with the help of
Majority Leader Hoyer and our many advocates in the House and Senate, a
DC voting rights victory is just on the horizon in early 2009.”
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Response to “Honest and Humble”
Introduction, January 25
Star Lawrence, jkellaw@aol.com
If you didn’t crink these people, I wouldn’t even read this
thing. March on!
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
DC Public Library Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Events, January 29-31
George Williams, george.williams2@dc.gov
Thursday, January 29, 4:00 p.m., Washington Highlands Neighborhood
Library, 115 Atlantic Street, NW. Poems of Dr. King’s Footsteps. Read
and write poems on the events of Dr. King’s footsteps. Ages 6–12.
Contact 645-5881.
Thursday, January 29, 6:00 p.m., Washington Highlands Neighborhood
Library, 115 Atlantic Street, SW. Black History Movie Night: Standing in
the Shadows of Motown. In Detroit Michigan, 1959, Berry Gordy gathered
the best musicians from the city’s thriving jazz and blues scene for
his new record company: Motown. They called themselves the Funk Brothers
and became the greatest hit machine in the history of popular music. 1
hour, 47 minutes. (PG-13). Contact 645-5881.
Friday, January 30, 10:30 a.m., Washington Highlands Neighborhood
Library, 115 Atlantic Street, SW. Dr. King Story Time. Enjoy stories,
films, and reading activities about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. Ages 1-5. Contact 645-5881.
Saturday, January 31, 2:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Great Hall. Storytelling: A DC Oral History
Project. Attend a youth-produced film presentation of a local oral
history project. Teens interview older Washingtonians about their
memories of the civil rights movement and other experiences. Contact
727-5535.
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Department of Parks and Recreation Events,
February 1
John Stokes, john.astokes@dc.gov
Sunday, February 1, 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Prince George’s Sports and
Learning Complex, 8001 Sheriff Road, Landover, Maryland 20785. All
Comers Track Meet. All ages can run. DC Speed Track Club will compete in
this developmental track and field meet. For more information contact
Edgar Sams, 671-0395.
Sunday, February 1, 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Maryland Cup Cheer
Competition, Show Place Arena, 14900 Pennsylvania Avenue, Upper
Marlboro, MD. Ages 6-18. DPR cheerleaders from Harry Thomas, Sr.,
Community Center and Joseph H. Cole Recreation Center will participate
in a cheer competition to try to win the Grand Prize of $1,000. For more
information contact Kyanna Blackwell, Site Manager, 724-4876.
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How to Spend a Trillion Dollars, February 2
Jazmine Zick, jzick@nbm.org
February 2, 6:30-8:00 p.m., Sustainable Communities: How to Spend a
Trillion Dollars. It is estimated that more than one trillion dollars is
needed to fund the nation’s transportation priorities for the next six
years. How should this money be spent? Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D., Herbert and
Joyce Morgan senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation; and Bill
Millar, president, American Public Transportation Association; and
moderator Dr. Jonathan L. Gifford, George Mason University School of
Public Policy, debate the future of transportation in America. $12
member; $12 student; $20 nonmember. 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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DC Statehood — Now Is The Time!, February 5
Ann Loikow, aloikow@verizon.net
The DC Statehood Green Party is hosting a public discussion on DC
statehood on Thursday, February 5, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the UDC
School of Law, 4200 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Building 39, Room 201 (Van
Ness Metro Station (Red Line)). Radio host Mark Plotkin will moderate a
panel including DC Statehood Senators Michael Brown and Paul Strauss;
At-Large Council Member Michael Brown; Ann Loikow, DC Statehood Yes We
Can Coalition; Sam Smith, longtime DC journalist and editor of the
Progressive Review; and Anise Jenkins, statehood activist with Stand up
for Democracy.
Friends, family, and local business people welcome. Musical
entertainment, food and refreshments will be provided. For more
information, go to http://dcstatehoodgreen.org/events/
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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS
Being a renter and having no deductions, my federal and local taxes
aren’t very complicated to prepare. However, with my “special
relationship” with the IRS, I always feel much more comfortable having
my tax returns done professionally. Thus, I am in the market for a good,
reasonably priced DC-based accountant. Can anyone offer me a referral?
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I’m in need of some minor body work on my car and I’d really like
to use somebody in DC. All the recommendations I’ve gotten so far are
for folks out in the ’burbs and I’d like to keep my dollars in
circulation here at home.
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CLASSIFIEDS — DONATIONS
Calling All Neighbors for Improved Public
Safety
Marika Torok, Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance, marika_torok@msn.com
Would you like to be able to contact a police officer on duty
directly who is patrolling in the neighborhood when reporting suspicious
activity or crime in progress? In Mt. Pleasant, after making the call to
911, you can do this by calling one of the Operation LiveLink lines. You
are likely to get quicker response this way as long as one of three
officers who have the three Operation LiveLink mobile phones (689-4277,
689-4278, and 689-9913) is on duty. Previous successful arrests
resulting from Operation LiveLink included a suspect with a felony
warrant for armed car-jacking and others on check fraud in one of our
local businesses.
This program is operated by neighborhood donations. Without your help
this program cannot run. LiveLink is running very low on funds and will
discontinue if enough funds cannot be procured to at least pay for the
phone bills. Phone bills are about $1,450 per year at this time or
$120/month. Additional funds, if available, are used for outreach and
public awareness about the program. No donation is too small. It takes a
village; just $5 from twenty-four neighbors would keep it running one
month! Please consider donating what you can today! Donations can be
made easily online or you can mail your donation check payable to MPNA,
PO Box 21554, Washington, DC 20009 (earmark the check for Operation
LiveLink Fund).
You can also volunteer for LiveLink. If you are interested in any of
the following, please contact us at admin@mtpalliance.org: help with
billing/payments, fundraising, accountability tracking with MPD,
printing public awareness materials and MPD log books, public awareness
campaign/marketing, posting signs around neighborhood, graphic design
work of public awareness materials, and liaison with MPD.
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CLASSIFIEDS — VOLUNTEERS
Volunteers Needs for National Cherry Blossom
Festival
Danielle Piacente, danielle@lindarothpr.com
Participate in the nation’s premier springtime event, March
28-April 12. Friendly, helpful, and reliable volunteers are needed to
join the 2009 National Cherry Blossom Festival Volunteer Corps. Local
businesses with community service programs and community service groups
are welcome and encouraged to participate. The volunteer program is
supported by Guest Services, Inc. The National Cherry Blossom Festival
is an annual two-week, citywide event celebrating spring and the 97th
anniversary of the gift of the cherry blossom trees from Tokyo to
Washington, DC. Volunteers will assist in all aspects of festival events
and programs and help serve the community and visitors during the
two-week celebration.
The festival runs March 28-April 12. Volunteers are needed to begin
immediately as well as throughout the duration of the festival calendar.
To view specific volunteer opportunities and download an application,
visit the National Cherry Blossom Festival web site at http://www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org.
For more information, call 626-1130 or E-mail volunteer@downtowndc.org.
For schedules and information visit http://www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org
or call the Festival hotline at (877) 44BLOOM.
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