December 1, 2010 | 6:38 PM | By Anna
The White House
Long tables are more Presidential!
It sounds like Mayor-elect Gray’s lunch with President Obama went well (via The Hill):
Speaking alone to reporters outside the White House, Gray described his lunch with the president as “delightful” and said that it was “Even better than I could have hoped for.”
“One of the most important things to me was that the president really wants to work closely with our city,” he said. “We’re going to — in the days and weeks ahead after I’m sworn in — are going to work very closely together.”
I had a feeling D.C. schools would come up, after that infamous interview the President did with Matt Lauer for TODAY, which referenced his daughters attending private school…
Gray said that the president and he spoke about improving public education and early childhood instruction in Washington, as well as funding for infrastructure around the proposed new Department of Homeland Security headquarters in impoverished Southeast Washington. They also discussed solutions to the city’s high unemployment rate.
Continue reading →
December 1, 2010 | 4:36 PM | By Anna
DCentric
Hey, holiday shoppers-- be careful out there!
Worrisome, but predictable (via TBD):
D.C. police second district commander Matt Klein sent out an email saying a woman was robbed last night shortly after leaving the Georgetown Apple Store on Wisconsin Avenue NW near M Street. As she was headed to the 3300 block of N Street, a pair of thieves threw her to the ground and fled with the two laptops she’d just bought.
According to Klein, it appears the woman was tailed from the store. “The suspects may have been waiting for someone to leave the store with large bags or other obvious indications of a large purchase,” Klein wrote.
Last Christmas (I gave you my heart), I was still living in Georgetown and I was always a little paranoid about exactly this happening– not that I was dropping a few thousand dollars for anything as spiffy as a new Mac, but still. There were plenty of logo-covered bags bearing loot, hundreds of shoppers carrying too much stuff and nowhere near enough vigilance. Several times a day, I saw people on M street put down their shopping bags and turn around to use the PNC Bank ATM which is next to Old Glory, blithely assuming their packages were safe.
I think some people are lulled in to a warm, fuzzy sense of complacency because it IS Georgetown, but that’s the wrong attitude to have. It may be an expensive neighborhood to live and shop in, but that’s exactly what would make it attractive to people coveting shiny white and silver toys.
December 1, 2010 | 1:10 PM | By Anna
Washington Humane Society
Ivan is a four-month old pit bull puppy; he was stolen on Monday.
Last February, I adopted a little black and white puppy who was surrendered with her litter at the Washington Humane Society’s New York Avenue shelter, so I am extra-sad about this:
Four month old Ivan was snatched from his kennel at the New York Avenue shelter early on Monday afternoon. Three suspects were caught on surveillance video taking the dog from the shelter. The individuals entered the shelter on 1201 New York Avenue, NE posing as potential adopters. Once inside the shelter the suspects took Ivan from his cage and escaped by breaking through a wooden fence behind the building.
On the news, I saw a WHS official describe the crime by saying that the suspects entered a restricted area and then kicked down a wooden fence to exit with the puppy. As commenters on other news sites and blogs have pointed out, the dog-nappers look young, and it’s possible that a local teacher or school employee might recognize them. I hope that’s exactly what happens and that the story is picked up by other outlets, so more people can see the suspects.
Continue reading →
December 1, 2010 | 11:03 AM | By Anna
Julie Lyn
View of the Capitol from Barry Farm, in Southeast.
Last week, I pointed you towards the City Paper’s extensive profile of Courtland Milloy by Rend Smith. Over at The Root, Natalie Hopkinson continues to unpack why Milloy’s voice is important to some and offensive to others. I think she nails it. It’s not about Milloy, it’s about the disconnect, the disparity:
This is the color-coded reality of life in the District. White median income is $92,000; black median income is $34,000. The boom in cafés and farmers markets has done nothing to stem a stunning slide into poverty in recent years. In 2007 the black child poverty rate was 31 percent; in 2008 it was 36 percent, and the latest figures show that the figure has shot up to an appalling 43 percent. Forty-three percent. The poverty rate for white children is 3 percent. Unemployment doubled, and black people disproportionately lost their jobs and homes.
This is what they mean when they talk about class warfare: two trains — one privileged, one not — running in opposite directions at a dizzying speed, each with divergent needs and expectations from government. No need to invent it or “inject race” into it; this is the objective reality of life in the District. Yet somehow the narrative about change becomes “Courtland Milloy doesn’t care about white people!”
The following point Hopkinson makes cannot be understated; certain black views are constantly invalidated. It’s sickening to read DCist or WaPo comments which refer to the residents of Ward 8 as if they are mindless, crime-craving savages who are too simple to grasp what their virtuous, wiser counterparts immediately grok (tellingly, occasionally when I’m mired in such threads, the words to “White Man’s Burden” appear, unbidden, to my mind’s eye):
Continue reading →
December 1, 2010 | 8:31 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! Here are your breakfast links:
Obama-Gray meeting set for Wednesday “President Obama and D.C. Mayor-elect Vincent C. Gray will break bread together Wednesday at the White House, a meeting the two Democrats began penciling in the week of Mr. Gray’s victory in the general election. The lunch follows Mr. Gray’s breakfast meeting last week with Education Secretary Arne Duncan, with interim Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson also in attendance.” (Washington Times)
Social services with nowhere else to go end up at D.C. General complex “Every time he walks in, he gets depressed, Poindexter said. “They closed this place down for a reason,” he said, waving his hand at the sprawling parking lots, run-down brick buildings and the grassy tracts that have become his front yard. “If they wasn’t going to tear it down, leave it closed. Turning it into a shelter is like going backwards.” (The Washington Post)
Who Wants a Park? “Urban land is extremely valuable, and city governments are generally far too quick to limit development on it. Limited development hurts everyone, including the poor…Sometimes, government use of city land for one thing or another, including the occasional park, is justified, but the use of regulation to deliver these ends fuels the pernicious idea that land obtained in such ways is somehow “free” — there to be appropriated by the local government for whatever is deemed by city officials to be the highest and best use. It isn’t.” (ryanavent.com)
Continue reading →
November 30, 2010 | 4:20 PM | By Anna
Trygve.u/Armenian Red Cross Youth
In case you missed it, here’s a must-read interview from WAMU about how powerful the stigma attached to HIV and AIDS is. This story is heartbreaking:
Dr. Sohail Rana is a member of Howard University’s Department of Pediatrics. As Washington, D.C., tries to reduce the incidence of HIV, Rana asks, “Is the stigma associated with HIV now worse than the disease itself?”:
Angel died last Saturday. She was 18. I was her doctor since she was four.
She used to call me Dad.
Technically, Angel died of an AIDS-related illness. The truth is, Angel died from the stigma related to HIV.
Angel contracted the disease at birth from her mother. With today’s medicine, she could have lived a long, productive life.
But many people, including her family members, made her feel dirty because of HIV. She felt rejected.
In shame, she refused to take her medication. Consequently, her HIV progressed to AIDS. The untreated AIDS led to her death.
November 30, 2010 | 2:23 PM | By Anna
The Washington Post has updates about the body of a teenager which was found in a Columbia Heights alley, after a resident saw tennis shoes sticking out of a trash can:
D.C. Police identified the woman whose body was found in a trash receptacle in Northwest Washington on Monday as an 18-year-old Prince George’s County woman.
The woman, who had been stabbed repeatedly, was identified Tuesday as Ebony Franklin, of the 4600 block of Pistachio Lane in Capitol Heights.
Franklin’s death was ruled a homicide by the D.C. medical examiner’s office.
One local blogger tweeted this information regarding the case:
CM Graham says the victim found in Columbia Heights Alley yesterday was “reported missing from her home in suburban Maryland.”
November 30, 2010 | 1:31 PM | By Anna
Taekwonweirdo
One more reason to wear EMS, Marmot, L.L Bean, Old Navy, anything but…North Face. You don’t want to be a target, as you’re distractedly playing with your mesmerizing iPhone:
The DC MPD’s community outreach department has a release out stating that in the last day there’s been two separate robberies where North Face items were stolen. You might consider replacing your North Face items with stuff from the satirical South Butt company. [WeLoveDC]
If it makes you feel any better (or more likely to retire your gear), I saw entrepreneurial types selling knock-off North Face fleeces near DCUSA last week.
November 30, 2010 | 11:30 AM | By Anna
TalkMediaNews
The Kaboom! Van
Yay for playgrounds! By next year, there will be a new one in Southwest, but they need 80+ volunteers to help build it (in a single day). I learned about this via Southwest: The Little Quadrant That Could:
It looks like the effort to bring a centrally-located children’s playground to SW has paid off and one is now planned for the park space adjacent to the Southwest Branch Library at 3rd & I Streets. If you recall back in April, I caught some flack from commenters after expressing my opinion (which I rarely do on this blog) about one of the proposed locations for a playground – the District-owned northeast parcel of Waterfront Station. I’m glad the selected location for the park is not on this parcel, which will cause less angst (and unnecessary expense) when the District eventually decides to allow developers to build housing and ground-floor retail on the site, and a new location for the playground would need to be found…
According to the project website, there are currently 14 volunteer members (myself included) and $5,000 has been donated so far, which is 10% of the $50,000 needed to build the park. The goal is to build the park by this time next year – November 29, 2011.
The playground is being developed with the help of KaBoom!, a neat non-profit which is headquartered in D.C. More on the group, via Wiki:
Continue reading →
November 30, 2010 | 8:45 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! Here are your breakfast links:
Panhandlers and guilt: Dealing with uncomfortable truths and lies “Every study around says that cash handouts don’t help, she said. “The top uses when they get cash are always alcohol, tobacco and drugs.” And there are so many food programs throughout the city, no one in Washington should be going hungry, she told me. If she’s got the time, Kaufman tries to engage with the person and help them with a no-cash solution. But she’s honest. “It’s a crapshoot; I don’t always have that kind of time,” she said.” (The Washington Post)
Should DC dump the sales tax? “DC should consider getting rid of the bottom tier of the sales tax and replacing it with a higher income tax. This could stimulate business, help the working poor by removing a regressive tax, and retain more money within the District by taking advantage of federal deduction rules…This would return as much as $341 million dollars to the District’s residents, serve as a tax break on the lower and middle class, and give DC businesses a competitive advantage over Maryland and Virginia, all while saving the District money.” (Greater Greater Washington)
DCPS sends letter to Dunbar parents after 6 accused of rape in school “Six juvenile males who are accused of sexually assaulting another teenager have been removed from classes and extra security measures are in place at Dunbar Senior High School, a DCPS spokeswoman said in a statement Monday. In a letter sent to students’ families, DCPS interim Chancellor Kaya Henderson said security has been increased in and around Dunbar, where a girl said she was assaulted last week. The victim turned 15 on Monday.” (tbd.com)
