Dear Washingtonians:
In the current issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education,
economist Daniel Drezner writes about “The Uses of Being Wrong,”
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Uses-of-Being-Wrong/147459/. His
point is that academicians shouldn’t fear being wrong or admitting that
they were wrong. “Anyone who has a passing familiarity with the social
sciences is aware that, by and large, we do not get an awful lot of
things right.”
“I’ve read a fair amount of international-relations theory over the
years,” Drezner writes, “from predictions about missing the great-power
peace of the Cold War to the end of history to the rise of a European
superpower to the causes of suicide terrorism. Most of these sweeping
hypotheses have either failed to come true or failed to hold up over
time. This has not prevented their progenitors from continuing to
advocate them. Some of them echo the biographer who, without a trace of
irony, proclaimed that ‘proof of Trotsky’s farsightedness is that none
of his predictions have come true yet.’”
Here’s your chance to compete with Trotsky’s farsightedness. Predict
the outcome of November’s general election in DC. Who wins which seats?
Can Bowser win the mayoralty race by continuing to duck all debates and
refusing to take positions on any issues? Can the press continue to
ignore the fact that Schwartz is in the mayor’s race? Will the marijuana
legalization petitions have enough legitimate signatures to qualify for
the ballot? Will the number of voters who turn out in November be enough
to fill a high school stadium?
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Public Service Commission Update
Dorothy Brizill,
dorothy@dcwatch.com
On Tuesday, July 8, Kenyon McDuffie’s Committee on Government
Operations, with limited notice, held a markup and approved Betty Ann
Kane’s nomination to a new five-year term on the Public Service
Commission (PSC). Although he had indicated to the members of the
committee that he would delay any consideration of Kane’s nomination
until the fall, when the council returned from the summer recess, on
late Monday afternoon McDuffie informed them that he would hold a
mark-up of PR20-812. During the mark-up and the debate and discussion on
Kane’s nomination, Councilmember Mary Cheh offered a motion to postpone
committee consideration until October 15. Cheh argued that Kane’s June 5
confirmation hearing was held without adequate public notice, and noted
that as a result, despite the role and significance of the PSC, there
had been no public witnesses or written testimony submitted. Although
Muriel Bowser joined Cheh in raising concerns regarding how the
committee had handled the nomination of Kane and Willie Phillips, she
nevertheless refused to vote in support of Cheh’s motion.
In the end, three councilmembers — McDuffie, Catania, and Orange —
voted to support Kane’s nomination. Cheh voted against, and Bowser voted
present. Continuing his effort to fast-track the Kane and Phillips
appointments to the PSC, McDuffie plans to put the nominations on the
agenda of the council’s July 14 legislative meeting.
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Deconstruction vs. Demolition — Second
Chance, Inc.
Mary Rowse,
merowse@aol.com
In June, I paid a visit to Second Chance, Inc. (http://www.secondchanceinc.org)
in Baltimore, MD — an enormous warehouse filled with donated and
salvaged building materials. It’s like Community Forklift (http://www.communityforklift.org)
only in two hundred thousand square feet of retail space. This is a new
location; they’ve only been here a few years. I last visited eight years
ago. “Second Chance, Inc., creates ‘green collar jobs’ by taking apart
buildings that would otherwise be demolished and dumped in a landfill.
We then offer the reclaimed materials to the public at a discount,
helping fund our job training and workforce development programs,”
http://www.secondchanceinc.org/index.aspx?u=About_Us.
I took a lot of photos showing the variety of items that can be
purchased here, although I missed several areas. This was just one day.
Items are changing all the time. Click on the link to see the photos.
It’s a big file, at 15 MB:
http://www.historicwashington.org/docs/SecondChancePhotos.pdf.
When developer Robert Holman demolished 3823 Morrison Street, NW, in
Chevy Chase, DC, on June 17, 2014 (http://chevychasecommunity.com/docs/MorrisonHouseDemolition.pdf),
against the wishes of over two hundred neighbors (http://chevychasecommunity.com/docs/LettertoRobertHolman6-8-14.pdf),
he threw away a great deal, not the least of which were the reusable
contents of a one-hundred-year-old Arts & Crafts home filled with highly
sought after materials. The house could have been deconstructed down to
its foundation and the materials reused. Think organ donation, about
five thousand times or more.
Deconstruction “generates jobs because it takes more time and skill.
There’s a five-to-one ratio of workers in deconstruction verses
demolition.” More benefits of deconstruction vs. demolition can be seen
here:
http://www.secondchanceinc.org/index.aspx?u=Benefits_of_Deconstruction.
“Deconstruction enables thousands of tons of material to be diverted
from our landfills and reintroduced to enhance spaces where we live,
work and play. Deconstruction is one of the few triple-bottom-line
industries: it is socially responsible, financially sustainable, and
environmentally friendly. . . .“ Second Chance has made a huge
contribution to the effort to redirect landfill debris by saving nearly
5.8 million pounds of reusable materials. When will DC make it mandatory
to deconstruct rather than demolish?
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The Responsibilities of the
Washington Post
Jason Lee Bakke,
jlb@scifibridges.com
[Re: Ms. Brizill’s “Ruben Castaneda and the Washington Post,”
July 2]: I submit that DC residents are not owed an apology from the
Washington Post, any more so than if a reporter came to work sick
from chemo and maybe not in her best mind. Those in so-called active
addiction are not “sordid”; they are people suffering from a chronic,
progressive, terminal disease. I’ve seen plenty of co-workers come to
the office with “bloodshot” eyes and “disheveled’ clothes. This coworker
knew they were just new parents.
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