Anecdotes
Dear Anecdoters:
By now, you may be tired of my referring you to a Colby King column,
and recommending that you just read him instead of whatever I have to
say. But his column yesterday on the Department of Youth Rehabilitation
Services is his strongest yet, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/20/AR2009022002890.html,
and I’m referring you again. King lists incident after incident of how
the DYRS has failed to protect the safety of criminal youths who are
under their care, and how it has failed to protect the public from those
youths. He also recounts how the city council has failed to use its
oversight duty to hold DYRS accountable for its ideologically driven
refusal to provide adequate supervision of the violent and vicious
criminals who pose a threat to the public. Government’s first duty,
its primary reason for existence, it to protect citizens against
violence. Everything else is secondary. But DYRS, the city council, and
the mayor not only fail in that duty; they scorn it.
Colby King writes of how DYRS director Vincent Schiraldi and a DC
councilmember dismissed the repeated incidents he has reported on as
mere “anecdotes.” King doesn’t name the dismissive councilmember,
but I’m certain I know who it was: Tommy Wells, who as chairman of the
Committee of Human Services refuses to do any meaningful oversight of
DYRS, but instead agrees with and abets the Department in its contempt
for its public safety responsibility. The roundtable that Wells held
earlier this month on two murders committed by one of DYRS’s charges
didn’t try to get to the facts of what went wrong with the murderer’s
early release and lack of subsequent supervision; it tried to protect
and shield DYRS and Schiraldi from responsibility and blame, and to
shift that responsibility and blame to the court system, the police, or
anywhere else instead. Instead of protecting their constituents, Wells
and his colleagues concentrate on legislating and regulating the
minutest details of our private lives so that we will conform to their
private lifestyle preferences. Wells isn’t concerned with the danger
of violent young criminals in our communities; instead, he’s intent on
eliminating the danger of paper and plastic grocery bags (another
candidate for stupidest pending legislation, by the way).
You’ve been reading about the appalling letter that Attorney
General Peter Nickles wrote to the city council, essentially saying that
he would be the judge of whether laws were constitutional or not, and
threatening not to enforce a perfectly constitutional law that he didn’t
like. And you’ve heard about the great put-down reply that
Councilmember Mendelson wrote to puncture Nickles’ presumptuous
arrogance, saying that he was appalled by the appalling letter and
reminding Nickles that the job of an Attorney General was to enforce the
law and not to command the city council to obey his policy. Now read the
exchange yourself at http://www.dcwatch.com/govern/occ090217.htm.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Anti-Loitering Bill, an Undue Infringement
Ralph Chittams, rjchittamssr@gmail.com
Jim Graham’s Hot Spot No Loitering Zone Act of 2009, while
well-intentioned, is a superfluous piece of legislation and an undue
infringement upon the Constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to
assemble. The preamble to Graham’s bill reads, “To authorize the
Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department to declare a Hot Spot No
Loitering Zone, and to prohibit the congregation of 2 or more persons on
any public space on public property, within an area currently designated
as a Hot Spot No Loitering Zone, for the purpose of participating in
criminal activity within the perimeter of the Hot Spot No Loitering
Zone.”
However, Section 3, “Prohibitions,” states that “Whenever a
police officer observes two or more persons loitering in any place
designated as a Hot Spot No Loitering Zone, the police officer shall,
subject to all applicable procedures promulgated by the Mayor: (1)
Inform all such persons that they are engaged in loitering. . . ; (2)
Order all such persons to disperse. . . ; and (3) Inform those persons
that they will be subject to arrest if they fail to obey the order
promptly. . . .” Section 4, “Right of lawful assembly,” goes on to
state: “The Mayor shall promulgate rules to prevent the enforcement of
this act against persons who are engaged in assembly protected by the
Constitution of the United States or the District of Columbia.”
Section 4 is directly at odds with Section 3. Notwithstanding the
language in the preamble, the clear language of Section 3 will prevent
two or more law abiding citizens who happen to meet on the street from
stopping and conversing with each other — an action protected by the
Constitutions of the United States and the District of Columbia. What
lawful right does Graham envision protecting under Section 4? Clearly
not the right to assemble, because that right is eradicated in Section
3. There is no requirement in the bill itself that the individuals
instructed to move, under threat of arrest, have the intent of
participating in criminal activity.
This bill is also superfluous because all the Police Department has
to do to break up a crowd of individuals gathered with the intent of
engaging in illegal activity is to show up. Whether they are
drug-dealers, craps-shooters, pot-smokers, liquor-drinkers, or what have
you, the minute an MPD cruiser parks and the officer emerge, the crowd
will disperse. I do understand and can sympathize with Graham’s
frustration. However, more effective community policing, not an
infringement upon the Constitutional liberties of law-abiding citizens,
is all that is required to solve this particular problem.
[This very bad bill criminalizes even a couple’s taking a stroll in
their neighborhood, as long as their neighborhood is designated as a
hot-spot and a police officer accuses them of having a criminal purpose
for being on the street. Of course, supporters of the bill would say
that we can rely on the good intentions and good judgment of police
officers to use the law only against bad people. But the point of having
written guarantees of our rights is that we shouldn’t have to rely on
hope that police officers will have good intentions and display good
judgment. — Gary Imhoff]
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Oppose the Nomination of Lori Lee
Chris Weiss, cweiss@foe.org
Take action now and let the DC council know you oppose the nomination
of Lori Lee to the Public Service Commission. The Washington, DC, Public
Service Commission plays a crucial role in making energy conservation
and renewable energy affordable to DC consumers and reducing the city’s
carbon footprint. With so much work to do to save our planet, we need
new commissioners to be able to hit the ground running. Unfortunately,
Mayor Fenty has nominated Lori Lee, a close family friend of his. She
has little to no understanding of or experience relevant to the issues
so important to us and the Public Service Commission: global warming,
air pollution, and energy conservation.
Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club’s Washington, DC, chapter,
the DC Consumer Utility Board, and the Metropolitan Washington Council
of the AFL-CIO (and others) believe Lee should not be appointed to the
PSC. The District is full of potential candidates with the necessary
experience. Why then, should we have to settle for someone who is not
qualified? Several members of the city council have taken a stand in
opposition to the Lee nomination. On Saturday, January 31, the Washington
Post took the rare step of declaring Lee “Not Qualified.” The Examiner
newspaper has also done so. Now we need the public to speak out. Take
action now to oppose the nomination.
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Looking at It the Wrong Way
Ed T. Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
The proposal to charge a nickel for every plastic bag used by
consumers in grocery and drug stores won’t work. Better to give a
five-cent credit to those who bring their own shopping bags for their
groceries or drug store goods. Reward those who think green.
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Nour’s Voting Record: Another
Disqualification
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com
In 1993, President Clinton announced his intention to appoint John
Payton, then the District’s Corporation Council (the position now
called Attorney General) as Assistant Attorney General and head of the
Civil Rights Division at the US Department of Justice. After the
announcement of the appointment, I was called by local reporters who
asked me to comment on Payton’s nomination. They asked whether I
thought Payton, who had been the District’s Corporation Council since
1991, would be a good appointee, and how well he would perform as head
of the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department. Rather than give
an immediate opinion, I researched Payton, his legal career, and his
tenure as Corporation Counsel.
What I found surprised even me. A review of Payton’s voting record
revealed that he didn’t register to vote in the District of Columbia
until 1988, and that he had voted in only one election. This was
particularly significant because the Civil Rights Division was
responsible for enforcing federal civil rights laws, including the
Voting Rights Act of 1965. Within days after the Washington Times published
this information, the Congressional Black Caucus and civil rights groups
told the White House that they would not support Payton’s nomination
because of his scanty voting record; within weeks, Payton withdrew his
candidacy for the position.
Now, Mayor Fenty has nominated Omar Nour to fill a vacant seat on the
DC Board of Elections and Ethics, which administers and enforces the
District’s election laws. Nour, 30, first registered to vote in DC in
2005, and he has voted only once, in last November’s presidential
election. He didn’t even bother to cast a ballot for his benefactor,
Adrian Fenty, in the 2006 mayoral election. This casual attitude to
voting may not be relevant to membership in many other boards and
commissions, but it is disqualifying to membership on the Board of
Elections and Ethics. Just as civil rights groups told President Clinton
that no matter how much they respected John Payton’s legal career, his
failure to vote meant that they could not support him for a position
overseeing voting rights, councilmembers should tell Mayor Fenty that
Nour’s failure to vote means that they cannot support him to oversee
the District’s elections.
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Your Technology Columnist: TextTwist Word Game
on Yahoo Games
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
Do you know a school-age student or older community member who loves
word games? One of the best free word games on the Internet is TextTwist,
a lively and attractive word jumble game that gives you points for every
word you find. Clicking your mouse or pressing the space bar twists —
mixes — the letters to give you a better chance of finding words. The
aim is to find the hidden seven-letter word and sub-words made using the
same group of letters. I played TextTwist this afternoon for thirty
minutes with an eighty-seven-year-old community member who is new to the
Internet. We used a donated Windows 2000 computer on dial-up to play
TextTwist. The game played well, even on such an old computer. She and I
took turns yelling out the words we could see. A fun time was had by
all.
Since this game is written in the Java computer language, I brought a
downloaded version of Java for Windows 2000 with me on a Flash drive.
(The file size is about 17 megabytes, which is no fun to download via
dial-up.) Using the Flash drive it took just five minutes to copy Java
onto her computer and install it before we played TextTwist. Games like
TextTwist bring greater intellectual vibrancy to our community. To play
TextTwist, search for it using Google. You can also purchase a copy to
play off-line, which might be a fun laptop diversion on a long airplane
flight.
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Selling DC History, Part 2
Jonetta Rose Barras, rosebook1@aol.com
District officials confirmed this week that they are “taking a look”
at a proposal presented to them by The Generations Network, which owns
and operates, among other sites, Ancestry.com. “At this point, the
office is neither moving forward nor disregarding [the proposal],”
said mayoral spokesperson Mafara Hobson. Read the full story at http://jrbarras.com./site/?p=314
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[In response to Selling Our History, themail, February 18] This is of
great concern to me, as I don’t think the city really knows what is in
the Archives. A few years back the City Paper did an article on
the Archives, and one of the wills it holds is George Washington’s. So
Utah would have ownership of this valuable document of unknown value on
the open market? Why don’t we just auction it off instead? Having
spent some time at the Archives, it is an interesting collection of all
sorts of things some of great historical value. When Ms. Scott
[Secretary of the District] testified before Councilwoman Schwartz’s
Government Operations committee she stated that they were re-looking at
the renovations of the Recorder of Deeds Building to make it
computer-centric and also a display of our history. Having had some
experience with this company in doing genealogical research, I know this
would now mean that District residents would be paying a Utah company
for a copy of the census records with their ancestors or who lived in
their house, etc.
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Advisory Neighborhood Commissions
Tolu Tolu, Tolu2Books@aol.com
[In reply to Robert Meisnere, themail, February 18] I agree
completely that ANCs actually act as a special club that should be shut
down. They are wannebes and bullies.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Ward 5 Democrats Meeting, February 23
Hazel Thomas, thomashazelb@aol.com
Monday, February 23, 7:00-9:00 p.m., Michigan Park Christian Church,
Taylor Street at South Dakota Avenue, NE. Agenda: brief business
meeting, plans for spring fundraiser (volunteers are needed), report
from Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr., report from School Board Member
Mark Jones, reminders and announcements. For questions, contact Tim
Thomas, Ward 5 Democrats Chairman, 390-2229 or Timthomas2202@gmail.com.
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Department of Parks and Recreation Events,
February 24, 26
John Stokes, john.astokes@dc.gov
Tuesday, February 24, 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m., Fort Davis Community
Center, 1400 41st Street, SE. Mardi Gras celebration. Have a fun time
enjoying the taste of New Orleans cuisine while listening to the sounds
of Creole music. Ages 55 and up. For more information, contact Tonya
Cousins, 645-9212.
Thursday, February 26, 6:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Southeast Tennis and
Learning Center, 701 Mississippi Avenue, SE. All ages. The 2009 Annual
“Blacks in Wax” program will celebrate the accomplishments of
African Americans by bringing alive a span of historic individuals from
Harriet Tubman to Mayor Fenty and President Barack Obama. For more
information, contact Donna M. Stewart, 645-6242.
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Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will kickoff Duke
Ellington Week activities with a celebration of DC’s new quarter that
features Ellington at his piano on Tuesday, February 24, 10:00 a.m., at
the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, 14th and
Constitution Avenue, NW, where the African American Museum, temporarily
housed there, has mounted the Scurlock Exhibition of photographs of
Black Washingtonians, including Ellington. The celebration will feature
a presentation of the quarter and the state coin map, where the DC coin
will be inserted; remarks by US Mint Director Edmund Moy; a presentation
of a Congressional tribute and a coin to Ellington’s family; remarks
by Lonnie Bunch, director, the African American History Museum and by
Dr. Brent Glass, director, the National Museum of American History; a
performance by the Duke Ellington School of the Arts jazz band, and a
viewing of the Scurlock Exhibit.
Ellington week activities will continue Wednesday, February 25, 11:00
a.m., at THEARC, 1901 Mississippi Avenue, SE, with a “Celebration of
Black History Month, the Arts, and the Duke Ellington Commemorative
Quarter,” featuring Edward and April Ellington, Duke Ellington’s
children; the Ellington School of the Arts School jazz band, and the
Washington Ballet. Later on Wednesday, at 8:00 p.m., there will be a
concert, “Sophisticated Lady: An Evening with Denyce Graves,” at the
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall, 2700 F Street, NW,
to raise funds for the Ellington School of the Arts, the soprano’s
alma mater.
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Historical Society of Washington, DC, February
27
Ed Bruske, euclidarms@yahoo.com
Friday, February 27, 6:30-9:30 p.m., 801 K Street, NW, at Mt. Vernon
Square. Black History Celebration. Coco Cafe’: Black History Month
Finale and Artist Exhibition. Coco Cafe is a production of National
Public Radio’s Black History Month Committee, which is comprised of
NPR employees and volunteers throughout the organization. The fifth
annual Coco Cafe’ will feature various performances including
musicians Gregory Gavin and Burke Hunn; spoken word artist Rodzilla;
singer-songwriter, Angie Head; hip-hop dance troupe Lavish; and a
special presentation by Howard University’s Thunder Machine drum
section. (Coco Café is a collaboration between National Public Radio’s
Black History Month Committee and The Historical Society of Washington,
DC.) For the entire family. RSVP@historydc.org
or 383-1828. Free admission.
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DCPS Community Meetings on School Closings,
March 4
Jennifer R. Calloway, jennifer.caloway@dc.gov
District of Columbia Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee
announced the schedule for public meetings to allow the community to
provide input and comment on the proposals to close three DCPS school
buildings. The proposed changes will allow Birney Elementary School
students to move to a state-of-the-art building and Draper Elementary
School students to receive a comprehensive school program and additional
resources that were previously unavailable to them due to their small
size. The proposal will also move Webb-Wheatley students to a fully
modernized building.
All meetings will take place on Wednesday, March 4. They will begin
at the following times: Draper Elementary, 908 Wahler Place, SE, 6:00
p.m.; Birney Elementary, 2501 Martin Luther King Avenue, SE; 6:30 p.m.;
Webb Elementary, 1375 Mt. Olivet Road, NE, 7:30 p.m. In addition to the
meetings any written comments are welcome. Comments can be submitted
online at http://www.k12.dc.us (click on “send us your feedback or
questions”), or by mail to The Office of the Chancellor; 825 N.
Capitol Street, NE, 9th Floor, Washington, DC 20002. After considering
all public feedback, the Chancellor will make final recommendations to
the mayor.
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