The following tweet makes me want to check out “Lie to Me“, even though the mini-review it contains exposes the apparent laziness of the show’s writers:
There’s plenty of drugs in Northwest, TV writers.
Author Archives: Anna
DCentric was created to examine the ways race and class interact in Washington, D.C., a city with a vibrant mix of cultures and neighborhoods. Your guides to the changing district are reporters Anna John and Elahe Izadi.
Murdered Girl Found in Columbia Heights Trash Can
Terribly sad news in my neighborhood, this afternoon:
D.C. police say they have found “what appears to be a human body” in a trash receptacle in Columbia Heights.
The apparent female human remains were found Monday in an alley in the 1000 block of Fairmont Street NW.
D.C. police say the body appears to be that of a teenage girl, and that she appears to have been murdered.
Sources said the victim appeared to be 16 or 17 years old.
I was scouring local blogs and news sites for additional information, which I did not find…what I did find were comments attempting to link this with the fact that Gray won instead of Fenty:
Is it just me or has the shootings / bodies gone CRAZY since Vince won the primary? I swear I have heard more in that short time than I have in the 3 years I have lived in DC.
This situation is unfortunate enough, there’s no need.
D.C. Budget vs. The Healthy Schools Act
USDAgov
Mmm, cruciferous veggies!
Balancing the city’s budget is going to require some painful cuts in spending…but who should get less? If you’re concerned about how cuts could affect D.C.’s youngest residents, this may be of interest to you (via DC Action for Children):
A last-minute opportunity to take action for DC’s Kids! The DC Council is holding a hearing tomorrow morning on the Mayor’s gap-closing budget, and more than $4.6 million in funding for the recently passed Healthy Schools Act is on the chopping block.
The Healthy Schools Act was passed this summer to help ensure that children in DC Public Schools receive fresh, healthy meals in the classroom and comprehensive wellness services to combat childhood obesity and malnutrition. With 43 percent of District students overweight or obese, we can’t afford to squander this progress to fix a short-term budget gap.
I know that it’s almost 4:30 pm, but I just saw this and there’s still time to call your Councilmember if you are so moved. Readers: are there other, similar programs you are worried about, with regards to gap-closing?
Stabbing at Petworth Metro Station on Sunday
Wayan Vota
This is so disturbing (via WAMU):
Metro Transit police are investigating the stabbing of a man at the Georgia Avenue-Petworth station. A Metro spokeswoman says a man was stabbed while exiting the station around 4:15 p.m. on Sunday.
The victim had passed through the fare gate when he was approached by another man who stabbed him in the neck.
The Georgia Avenue-Petworth station, located in Northwest D.C., services the Yellow and Green lines.
Metro says the victim was taken to an area hospital. His condition is unknown.
I hope the victim makes a full recovery, and that they catch whoever did this.
A Drop in the Bucket
DCentric
Salvation Army Red Kettle, Social Safeway, Washington, D.C.
Last week, for the first time this holiday season, I put money in a Salvation Army red kettle– at a Safeway, not Giant. However, whatever I or my fellow shoppers have been dropping in that nostalgia-inducing red bucket isn’t enough to make up for Giant Food’s new policy which limits the charity’s access to its shoppers:
One of the Salvation Army’s most recognizable fundraisers — the Red Kettle campaign —isn’t performing well in its first week and representatives are pointing toward a new Giant Food policy as the reason.
The National Capital Area Salvation Army reported today that the campaign — where volunteers and paid personnel stand outside shopping centers during the holidays ringing a bell to draw attention to the large red bucket next to them — has seen a $74,000 drop in donations compared to the same week last year…Area Commander Major Steve Morris, reported today that “the economy’s tight hold on family budgets” and a new policy instituted by Giant Food account for the decrease. The grocer’s policy reduced the number of days the Salvation Army can be at the grocery stores to one week in November and one week in December for four hours each day.
Tasty Morning Bytes – Voting Rights, Kaplan Law School, City Tavern Club
Good morning, DCentric readers! Welcome back from all that tryptophan and traffic.
Mask-wearing protestors in D.C. can now be arrested “The D.C. Council has unanimously passed a strongly worded bill to deal with an animal rights group that has been known to wear masks and appear unannounced outside District residents’ homes shouting things like “You should die.” Residents have been complaining to their council members that they felt “terrorized.” Critics of the bill say it’s too broad and limits First Amendment rights.” (Washington Examiner )
For D.C. voting rights, window appears closed “Now, with Republicans set to take over the House in January, the window to move a voting rights bill appears to have closed, and glum supporters are wondering what – if anything – to do next. “I think the best shot we had at voting rights was probably last year,” said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.),” (The Washington Post)
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We’re thankful for DCentric readers!
istolethetv
Lobster dog wishes you and yours a happy, yappy holiday.
Why yes, that is a puppy in a lobster outfit, coordinated for maximum cuteness to distract you, so that you don’t notice we are gone. DCentric is off to celebrate Thanksgiving with family, food and football (Go Lions!)– just like all of you do.
We’ll be back early Monday morning, when we’ll serve up a fresh plate of Tasty Morning Bytes, possibly with the help of kitchen appliances procured at 3am on Black Friday. Happy Thanksgiving!
Turkeys on Obama’s Plate, Today
Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy
Courage the Turkey was the lucky recipient of the 2009 Pardon.
After the President partakes in the Thanksgiving tradition of pardoning two turkeys at the White House, he has some nice plans for the rest of the day:
Later Wednesday, Obama and his family were delivering two turkeys less fortunate than Apple and Cider to Martha’s Table, a local charity that feeds the hungry and provides other community services. A Pennsylvania turkey farm donated the birds.
The Obamas visited the charity last year, also on Thanksgiving eve, and helped hand out frozen turkeys, stuffing and other fixings to people standing in line.
Whole Foods for some, Bodegas for others
DCentric
Organic fruit at a D.C. Farmers' Market
I just had a conversation about this with one of you yesterday, about the stark disconnect and borderline shame I felt when I came home after buying cheese, local plum chutney and organic bread for entertaining– and walked right in to a display for a food drive. Newsweek is thinking about food inequality, too:
Alexandra says she spends hours each day thinking about, shopping for, and preparing food. She is a disciple of Michael Pollan, whose 2006 book The Omnivore’s Dilemma made the locavore movement a national phenomenon, and believes that eating organically and locally contributes not only to the health of her family but to the existential happiness of farm animals and farmers—and, indeed, to the survival of the planet. “Michael Pollan is my new hero, next to Jimmy Carter,” she told me. In some neighborhoods, a lawyer who raises chickens in her backyard might be considered eccentric, but we live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a community that accommodates and celebrates every kind of foodie. Whether you believe in eating for pleasure, for health, for justice, or for some idealized vision of family life, you will find neighbors who reflect your food values. In Park Slope, the contents of a child’s lunchbox can be fodder for a 20-minute conversation.
Over coffee, I cautiously raise a subject that has concerned me of late: less than five miles away, some children don’t have enough to eat; others exist almost exclusively on junk food. Alexandra concedes that her approach is probably out of reach for those people.
Understanding Courtland Milloy
It’s one of the busiest days of the year, but I wish I had a half-hour of quiet and a good cup of tea to sit down and give the City Paper’s front-page profile of Courtland Milloy the attention it deserves. Milloy infamously earned the ire of my laptop-toting peers when he mocked them by calling them “Myopic little twits” in his Metro column for the Washington Post. While my friends of one hue were outraged that the Post would legitimize a point of view they considered backwards, incendiary and racist, a few friends of another hue quietly maintained that he is the only one publicly representing the point of view of many D.C. residents who are otherwise never heard.
In Milloy’s telling, his barbs at D.C.’s creative-class newbies aren’t about lashing out at them because they’re new. He’s lashing out at them because they’re not. As gentrification takes hold of Washington and issues of inequality emerge, it’s not enough to take solace in Obama’s post-racial ideal while neighborhoods acquire a new mono-cultured cast. People who move into changing neighborhoods have a responsibility for what’s going on. Or so Milloy, in his role as the crotchety grandfather they never wanted, wants to tell them.
Milloy sees new Washingtonians as the flip-side of a process that, in his view, involves older ones being pushed out. And if the actual truth behind African-American departures is more complicated—plenty of folks, starting with Milloy, decamped voluntarily—he argues that it’s pretty damned egocentric to imagine that everything is sweetness and light.
“Well, I don’t know why people think I have a problem with the influx itself,” he says. “Not to be deliberately provocative, but that is the white view, it’s white-centered. ‘Why are you opposed to us moving in?’ But nothing about, ‘Why are you concerned about the way black people are being kicked out?’