Dear Eaters:
I was born allergic to cows’ milk. I couldn’t tolerate the stuff,
which made me a fussy baby. My parents tried a variety of baby formulas,
but I couldn’t tolerate them, either. Finally, at the suggestion of one
doctor, they tried feeding me goats’ milk, which I could digest easily,
and which finally alleviated my constant hunger. In those days, it was
difficult to find a reliable source of goats’ milk (it certainly wasn’t
stocked in our corner grocery store), so my parents bought a goat, which
we they kept both as a pet and a milk animal. Eventually, somewhere
around the age of six, seven, or eight, I outgrew my allergy to cows’
milk, but that didn’t solve the problem completely.
The milk that goats produce, in case you aren’t familiar with it, is
much richer and thicker than cows’ milk. While I was no longer allergic
to cows’ milk, I still didn’t like it. It tasted thin and watery to me,
and I didn’t want to drink it. In fact, I hated it. My parents were very
influenced by the advice of the nutritionists of the day, who proclaimed
that a balanced, nutritious diet for children required several glasses
of milk a day, and they tried to urge me, or force me, to drink that
milk. Finally, desperate to get me on a healthy diet, they brought the
matter up when I visited my pediatrician for a regular checkup.
“Doctor,” my mother coaxed him, “doesn’t a growing boy need to drink his
milk?” The pediatrician, whom I will always remember fondly and
thankfully, didn’t pause or flinch. He said, with a proper measure of
scorn in his voice, “Milk is for babies.”
After a longer and more complete explanation from the doctor, my
parents no longer insisted that I force down a glass of milk with every
meal, and I no longer believed in the faddish superstitions of
dietitians and nutritionists. That disbelief has been strengthened by
living through the past several decades, during which nutritionists
preached that butter was artery clogging and margarine was the healthy
alternative, during which eggs were practically poison and should be
limited to one or two a week, and during which chocolate and coffee
switched practically every year between being forbidden and being health
foods.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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District Elections in 2014
Dorothy Brizill,
dorothy@dcwatch.com
Nominating Petitions. On Friday, November 8, candidates running in
the April 1, 2014, party primaries were able to pick up their nominating
petitions at the DC Board of Elections. To date, there are three
Statehood Green Party candidates, (for Delegate, Natali Stracuzzi; for
Ward 1 councilmember, Ming J. Lowe; and for US [Shadow] Senator, David
Schwartzman). There are two Republicans (for Delegate, Nelson
Rimensnyder; and for At-Large Councilmember, Mac Morgan). Meanwhile the
Democratic Party primary has a large field of candidates, with more
expected to pick up petitions in the coming weeks (for Delegate, Eleanor
Holmes Norton; for mayor, Muriel Bowser, Christian Carter, Jack Evans,
Michael Green, Reta Jo Lewis, Vincent Orange, Andy Shallal, Frank
Sewell, Octavia Wells, and Tommy Wells; for council chairman, Phil
Mendelson and Calvin Gurley; for at-large councilmember Anita Bonds and
Nate Bennett Fleming; for Ward 1 councilmember, Myla Moss, Brianne
Nadeau, Bryan Weaver, and Beverly Wheeler; for Ward 3 councilmember,
Mary Cheh; for Ward 5 councilmember, Kenyan McDuffie; for Ward 6
councilmember, Charles Allen, Joseph Slovinec, and Darrel Thompson; for
Attorney General, Paul Zukerberg; and US (Shadow) Senator Pete Ross,
Paul Strauss, and Octavia Wells; and for US (Shadow) Representative,
Antoinette Russell).
Currently, eight members of the city council will be running for
elective office in 2014. If at-large councilmember David Catania and
Ward One councilmember Jim Graham run, then that number will rise to
ten. That will contribute to a contentious, unwieldy legislative body
for the next year. Petitions, with the requisite number of signatures,
must be filed by 5:00 p.m., January 2, 2014.
Circulating Petitions. This year, the DC Board of Elections and the
council changed District law regarding the circulation of nominating
petitions. Under that change, petitions may be circulated by a resident
of the District or a nonresident, provided that the individual has
“registered as a petition circulator with the Board prior to the
circulation of the petitions.” The registration forms, with proof of
one’s permanent address, must be signed in person under oath at the
BOE’s office at 441 4th Street, Suite 280N. Meanwhile, it is unclear
what measures the BOE will put in place to police the circulation of
petitions by non-DC residents properly. When I questioned the BOE staff
on Friday, their response was that they would rely on individual
citizens to observe how petitions are being circulated and then assume
that, if they note any irregularities, they would file the appropriate
challenge to these petitions after they have been submitted to the BOE
in January.
On Friday, approximately ten college students working in Jack Evans’
mayoral campaign arrived at the BOE en masse to register as
nonresident circulators. The government ID’s that they submitted with
the registration forms indicated that they were permanent residents of
New Jersey, Maryland, California, Michigan, Virginia, Texas, and
Mississippi.
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The Ward 1 Parking Plan proposed by Councilmember Jim Graham and put
in place by Terry Bellamy, Director of the Department of Transportation
(DDOT), is a complete and absolute failure. It was stated that the plan
would be good only if the parking restrictions were enforced. As usual,
the implementers do not think outside of the box. The RPP (residential
parking plan) is not enforced due to the easy pickings of violators of
the Ward 1 parking only requirement. Thus the plan falls apart when
street sweeping is suspended, and vehicle owners are not required to
move their cars. So owners are warehousing their cars at the curb, tying
up valuable parking spaces. Once we had the 72-hour rule that assured
that there would be a turnover of parking spaces, but that was removed
by a former councilmember for unknown reasons. What we have now is a
series of parking rules that do not complement one another, therefore do
not serve any useful purpose, since parking enforcement is unequal for
many who live east of 16th Street, NW.
How can we develop a plan to provide relief for the residents of Ward
1 who are victims of the bar crowd that seem to be able to park with
impunity? We can by simply demanding that parking be for all of Ward 1
with one exception, by identifying vehicles by the ANC, in which they
live, thus making any vehicle not identified as such subject to an
automatic ticket unless the vehicle owner has a guest permit like we do
now. Further, take a stand against the Office Of Planning that wants to
make it easier for the developers by reducing the number of parking
spaces in their building. This causes problems with the residents due to
the tenants of these condos/apartments who are reluctant to purchase a
parking space in their building which they can afford.
Taxicabs should be removed from residential streets after business
hours, because they are commercial vehicles for hire, or they should be
charged with a five hundred dollar ticket like other commercial vehicles
or be garaged. this should apply to all taxicabs all over the city. In
major cities you do not see taxicabs parked overnight on the street,
especially in New York City after business hours. The movers and shakers
are so hepped on bicycles and public put the horse before the cart, and
refused to consider the residents.
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Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
J. Polinger,
jpolinger@verizon.net
For the past several weeks, a DC government car, a white Toyota
Corolla, DC tag DC 9805, has been parked on the east side of 14th
Street, NW, about fifty yards shy of Pennsylvania Avenue during the
morning rush hour (and perhaps for the entire day). It blocks a lane of
traffic, specifically the inbound traffic in the morning. It takes away
the curb lane and forces those who wish to make a right turn from 14th
on to Pennsylvania Avenue out in to the middle lane, further impeding
the flow of inbound traffic in the morning. On a recent morning, a call
to 311 elicited heartfelt concern and a promise to dispatch someone to
investigate. No word of what the investigation found, but we can assume
it brought no enforcement since the car remains there. DC traffic is bad
enough with city employees appropriating a lane of traffic for their own
convenience. Does anyone in the Department of Transportation or the
Metropolitan Police Department pay attention?
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United Medical Center’s Future
Richard Layman,
rlaymandc@yahoo.com
Carol Jacobs asks some questions [themail, November 6] in response to
Sam Jordan’s earlier post. I have written here I believe as well as in
my own blog about the example of the Denver Hospital and public health
system (also written up in Governing Magazine), the creation of a
health and wellness campus by the St. Anthony Hospital in Chicago, and
the rural health initiatives in Mississippi, modeled after best
practices in Iran, and written up in the New York Times,
