Dear Washingtonians:
In August 2013, Courtland Milloy wrote a laudatory review (http://www.tinyurl.com/lc2lwj7)
of Ron Moten’s self congratulatory and self justifying self published
autobiography, Drinking Muddy Water. Milloy wrote then that, “So
far, neither Moten nor [Jauhar] Abraham has been accused of wrongdoing.
If anything, city officials have ended up looking incompetent for
failing to provide oversight.” Milloy clearly sides with Peaceoholics in
their dispute with the city over Moten’s and Abraham’s mishandling and
misappropriation of city grant funds. He ends the review with a quote
from Moten, “If the city auditors want to go through my books again,
they can start with the one I wrote. . . . Go line by line about the
politicians. That’s where they’ll find the malfeasance and corruption.”
But the story didn’t end in 2013. On July 1 of this year, Judge Brian
Holman upheld “the District’s claims that Peaceoholics and Abraham
improperly diverted, for personal unauthorized uses, District grant
funds, which were intended to support youth anti-violence services, and
[held] them liable for the full amount of damages that the District
sought,”
http://www.tinyurl.com/mnouyyd. He entered a default judgment
against Abraham and the Peaceoholics of $638,989. Moten’s lawyer now
claims that Moten had nothing to do with Peaceoholics’ finances, even
though he held the title of Chief Financial Officer, and that he looks
forward to going to trial.
#####
Streetcars are a fad that not even all the cool kids support. Emily
Washington, on the Market Urbanism site, lays out bicyclists’ case
against streetcar lines in ”DC Streetcar: Worse than Nothing,”
http://www.tinyurl.com/lacn6ph.
“Earlier this spring, I was in a bike accident that cemented my
opposition to DC’s streetcar. Because the streetcar tracks cover the
right two-thirds of H Street’s right-hand lanes, bicyclists typically
ride between the two tracks. This creates a situation in which the
sudden need to swerve or a brief loss of concentration puts cyclists at
a risk of catching their front tire in the track, causing an
over-the-handlebars accident when the front wheel comes to a sudden
stop. In Toronto, streetcar tracks are a factor in nearly one-third of
serious bicycle accidents. While I can say I’ll now go to great lengths
to avoid riding on H Street, DC’s lack of good east-west bike routes
make it unrealistic to expect all cyclists to avoid the streetcar
tracks. Avoiding tracks will be much more difficult for cyclists under
DDOT’s plan to eventually construct 22 miles of tracks. Aside from
creating a hazard for cyclists, this streetcar will only provide
effective transportation for people visiting H Street retail
destinations from the adjacent residential neighborhoods. It does not
connect residential neighborhoods to job centers.”
#####
Here’s another entry in the bad idea contest, as described by Mike
DeBonis in The Washington Post: “In order to send a
don’t-tread-on-us message to Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), sponsor of the
budget amendment overturning DC’s marijuana decriminalization law, Mayor
Vincent C. Gray (D) and DC Vote are urging city residents to ditch their
Ocean City plans and head instead to Rehoboth, Virginia Beach, the Outer
Banks, even Ocean City, NJ — anywhere but Maryland’s 1st Congressional
District,”
http://www.tinyurl.com/oedfwyf. Representative Harris’ response is
included in the Associated Press’ version of this story: “The nonprofit
group DC Vote called for a boycott of all vacation spots in Harris’
district, including popular Ocean City. Harris, a Republican, says city
residents ‘know better’ than to boycott his district. He says spending
the weekend on the family friendly Eastern Shore is more important than
increasing drug use by teenagers in Washington,”
http://www.tinyurl.com/n8elxrl.
Does anyone think this boycott will be successful?
#####
In the continuing saga of the shrinkage of local news coverage of the
District, the “We Love DC” web site has announced that it will stop
posting new stories by late fall,
http://www.tinyurl.com/lok8y53
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
###############
Ruben Castaneda and
The Washington Post
Dorothy Brizill,
dorothy@dcwatch.com
Last week, a book by former Washington Post reporter Ruben
Castaneda was released, S Street Rising: Crack, Murder, and
Redemption in DC. An excerpt was published in Politico,
http://www.tinyurl.com/kj3a2cg,
“I Was a Washington Post Reporter. And a Crack Addict.” The
autobiographical book chronicles Castaneda’s work at the Post as
a night police/crime reporter in the District in the 1980’s and 1990’s,
when Washington was dubbed the murder capital of the US (for example
there were 434 homicides in 1989; most were drug related). The book
details how drugs and violence overwhelmed the city during that period
and also tells the personal story of Castaneda, who was an alcoholic and
drug addict even before the Post recruited him from the Los
Angeles Herald-Examiner in 1989. Castaneda openly acknowledges that,
as a Post reporter, he frequently wrote about how drugs and drug
violence were overwhelming the city while he was at the same time drunk
or riding a crack high.
In a Washington Post article in December 2007 simply titled
“Cracked,”
http://www.tinyurl.com/nrf4uuh, Castaneda detailed how his
addictions affected his work as a reporter, “During the previous three
months, I had called in sick to work ten times. That’s a lot when you
are part of a skeleton night crew of two editors and two reporters. That
fall, I dragged myself in for my shifts, though I was in no condition to
work because I’d binged on rock during the afternoon, then slammed down
two or three gin-and-tonics to take off the edge. My eyes were
bloodshot, my clothes were disheveled, and I often sported a day-old
growth of beard.” Castaneda’s account is especially disturbing to anyone
who lived or worked in the city during that period, particularly in the
many inner-city neighborhoods that were totally devastated by the drug
epidemic. Castaneda was a Post reporter who was assigned to
report objectively on drugs and crime in the District while he was a
customer of the very drug dealers and prostitutes who citizens and
community leaders were organizing to fight.
Castaneda has written a revealing and self-critical book to cash in
on his sordid past, but it is troubling that, to date, the management of
the Post has remained silent. Castaneda describes how he would
come to work disheveled, barely coherent, and reeking of alcohol. What
did his editors and coworkers know about his addictions, and when did
they know it. Did they simply look away and fail to acknowledge their
own ethical conflicts in having one of their leading crime beat
reporters writing articles about drugs, violence, and prostitution in
the District while actively using crack and prostitutes himself? DC
residents are owed an apology or, at the very least, an explanation from
the Washington Post.
###############
To the State Board of Education, re
“Competency-Based Learning”
Erich Martel, ehmartel at starpower dot net
The announcement of the SBOE’ July 9 Summit on Graduation
Requirements and Competency-Based Learning (CBL) states that the
proposed changes in the graduation requirements, diplomas, and
replacement of Carnegie units with competency based “units” contains
sweeping generalizations, but no specifics, and assertions of fact with
no supporting evidence.
The “SBOE seeks broad public discussion” of these proposals,
especially the very radical change that “competency” credits would bring
about, but after one year, the SBOE, including its “Policy and Research”
section, has yet to provide the public with the evidence of the
effectiveness of this radical change.
Requests: Please send me, and post on the DC SBOE web site: 1) a list
of the specific “skills and knowledge beyond the traditional core
subjects” that these proposed changes, including CB, will “help ensure
that students [will] gain.” 2) A list of all studies and advice of
experts that led you to conclude that CBL “will form a foundation for .
. . encouraging personalized, deeper learning [and] for improving high
schools.” 3) Evidence of improved student achievement and graduation
numbers in socio-economically similar schools systems. 4) Studies and
testimony and advice of experts arguing that the adoption of CBL would
have a potentially negative effect on student learning. 5) An
explanation of how CBL’s use of “personalized . . . learning,” which is
a euphemism for online instruction, will improve student achievement
more than relying on online instruction.
The SBOE web site that lists the proposed changes to the graduation
requirements and credit unit requirements contains the following
statement: “This revised set of graduation requirements were (sic)
developed at the request of the State Superintendent of Education and
reflect the ideas received from hundreds of educators, students,
parents, community groups, the District of Columbia Public Schools and
public charter school leaders, and experts,”
http://www.tinyurl.com/q5nae9r.
Please post on the SBOE web site all of the comments “received from
hundreds of educators, students, parents, community groups, the District
of Columbia Public Schools and public charter school leaders, and
experts” that were submitted to the SBOE on the subject of
competency-based learning. I am looking forward to you positive reply
and confident that you don’t think that public information should be
withheld from the public.
###############
themail@dcwatch is an E-mail discussion forum that is published every
Wednesday and Sunday. To change the E-mail address for your subscription
to themail, use the Update Profile/Email address link below in the
E-mail edition. To unsubscribe, use the Safe Unsubscribe link in the
E-mail edition. An archive of all past issues is available at
