October 8, 2010 | 7:45 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! While you were standing in line for a lobster roll at Curbside Cookoff, we were foraging around online, looking for links:
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Hurts Black Women Most “African-American women were discharged under DADT at almost three times the rate at which they serve in the military…Although black women made up less than 1 percent of service members, they represented 3.3 percent of those discharged under the policy, the report says. “We do not know why African-American women are so adversely impacted by this policy…We are in the midst of conducting a new study to try to understand why they are being hit so hard.” (The Root)
Curbside Cookoff proves food truck popularity; Tryst/Diner-owner counters with restaurant industry’s p.o.v. “Thousands of Washington D.C.’s working crowd ditched the power lunch places Thursday afternoon and stood in snaking sidewalk lines instead. All for a taste of the District’s burgeoning street food scene…Attendance at D.C.’s first Curbside Cookoff, sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Commission, was a testament to the demand for more interesting dining choices in the city.” (myfoxdc.com)
Metro prepping iconic map for makeover (because the Gap’s new logo is such a hit!) “Contrary to popular belief, the rail extension out to Dulles International Airport has not officially been selected as the “Silver Line,” although it is commonly called that now…Asked about the possibility of Metro moving away from a color-based system and more toward a system with rail lines identified by numbers (like in New York City), Richardson wouldn’t rule out the possibility.” (wtop.com)
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October 7, 2010 | 6:46 PM | By Anna
Several hundred people are still happily waiting in very long lines for grub from D.C.’s 20 best food trucks, as of 6:45. Though some trucks are already out of treats, the event will continue until 9pm, at 11th and H streets nw. If you are busy today, it resumes tomorrow, at 11am.
p.s. Check out our review of the event, here!
October 7, 2010 | 3:33 PM | By Anna
aprilzosia
From the "Do I look illegal?" campaign.
I’ve seen several tweets today regarding the term “illegal immigrant”. Apparently, so did Nicole at PostBourgie:
In my little (and decidedly liberal) corner of the blogosphere, it has now become inappropriate to use the word “illegal” when referring to immigrants…
“Undocumented”, “unauthorized”, “without papers” — aren’t those all just other ways of saying illegal? Is it just the use of the word “illegals”? Or is it “illegal immigrant” as well?
For the record, I don’t like the term “illegals.” If you’re going to call people “illegals”, let’s be fair and apply it to everyone who has ever done anything illegal. That would include me, you, Lou Dobbs, jaywalkers, underage drinkers, and almost everyone I know over the age of 10.
But “illegal immigrant”? The simple fact is that if one immigrates without a visa, or stays after the visa expires, that is illegal. I’m not saying there aren’t justifiable reasons for doing so, but that doesn’t make it any less against the law.
October 7, 2010 | 1:17 PM | By Anna
World Economic Forum
The list of famous people who are fans of Michelle Rhee now includes media baron Rupert Murdoch:
In a speech…He said more people like Rhee need to stay in place to overhaul an educational system that overspends to protect ineffective teachers through their unions and the politicians who support them. He said no business could ever operate like the monopolies that school districts have become, without performance goals or consequences when those goals weren’t met.
“Let me be blunt: There’s not a single one of us in this room tonight who would allow one of our children to be randomly assigned to a Washington, D.C., public school,” Murdoch said.
WaPo reader “UrbanDweller” was not impressed by Murdoch’s endorsement and commented accordingly:
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October 7, 2010 | 9:30 AM | By Anna
http://twitter.com/LobstertruckDC
So remember way back on Monday, when I blogged about Council member Tommy Wells’ tweet? The one which admonished the red-hot Lobster Roll truck for doing business near Eastern Market without paying a vendor fee? It also mentioned Lobster Roll patrons shamelessly devouring their sought-after seafood at Marvelous Market’s tables. Well, it is irrelevant whether you remember it at this point because I just recapped it all. Handy!
I said I would reach out to Red Hook Lobster Truck to find out more and I did. We eventually connected late Tuesday afternoon, when I had a very long conversation with co-owner Leland Morris about “The Food Truck War”, his business philosophy and whether or not they let people get tacky and mooch Marvelous seating.
The first thing Leland said to me was this, and it set the tone for the entire interview: “We do everything by the book and in the spirit of the community we’re doing business with. We want to put positive energy out there. We do this because we love the positive experience people are having.”
What would you take away from that intro, DCentric readers? Yeah. Positivity. Morris was upbeat and up front. He sounded ready to answer any question I might pose. He also sounded…nice. I found myself hoping that he had a great explanation for Wells’ tweet…
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October 7, 2010 | 7:45 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! While you were in, unpacking winter clothing, we were out, searching for links!
At Farragut Square, mourning the burrito man who became a friend “Guardado came, illegally, to the United States in 1981, as the war in El Salvador made life dangerous for a 17-year-old boy. He told Sheahan how he’d had one cousin die in his arms and discovered the body of an uncle. For years, Guardado worked as a painter, eventually gaining legal residency. In 1990, paying in installments, he bought a hot dog cart licensed for Farragut Square. Soon, he changed his menu to burritos, which put him years ahead of the food-cart boom the city is now enjoying. He put out a basket for people to pay by the honor system – so he wouldn’t have to handle money in his “kitchen” – and found himself a career.” (The Washington Post)
Peaceoholics Buildings Yanked, Will Be Used for Homeless Families “If the Peaceoholics lost out, they might have brought in on themselves. At a hearing on their real estate activities in July, Ron Moten and Jauhar Abraham hurled insults at Councilmembers Michael A. Brown and Harry Thomas, saying that racism and politics were at the root of their inquiry (”Man, this ain’t right, man. You got to check yourself, brother,” Moten huffed. “Put politics in the way of our children?”)” (Washington City Paper)
The Third Rail of the American Blogsphere – Ta-Nehisi Coates “It’s weird because people always say “race is hard to talk about.” I haven’t found that to be true. I have found that obesity is, far and away, the hardest issue. It’s pretty clear that there’s been some sort of cultural overlap between what we consider healthy and what some of us consider attractive. I say “some of us” because, in all honesty, this has all been a dose of culture-shock for me. I would not go so far as to say that black people don’t have their shares of issues about weight, but it plays out a lot differently (though not necessarily better) for us.” (The Atlantic)
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October 6, 2010 | 3:53 PM | By Anna
DCVirago
Inspired by "Black is Beautiful", in the '60s Kameny said, "Gay is Good".
Recently, Washingtonian magazine profiled Dr. Frank Kameny, a notable local leader for Gay rights. Over 50 years ago, Kameny, a veteran of World War II who holds a PhD from Harvard, was fired from his astronomy job because of his sexual orientation. According to Wikipedia, he filed “the first civil rights claim based on sexual orientation”. Two things about the extensive profile jumped out at me:
W: Has DC been the center of the gay-rights movement?
FK: I’ve said for many years that San Francisco was looked upon as the center, but DC is very much the success story of the gay movement.
Huh. I just read a post on SFist expressing surprise that D.C.’s Starbucks would offer gender neutral bathrooms before San Francisco’s did.
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October 6, 2010 | 2:01 PM | By Anna
I just learned that the “Mosquito”, an anti-loitering device which emits a high-pitched beeping that only young people can hear (supposedly) has been turned off at Gallery Place. I write “supposedly” because I’m a wizened old 35 and I could hear it, easily. It was meant to annoy (and thus discourage) the hordes of teens who congregate nearby– some residents think the youth are a nuisance, some business owners worry that they scare off customers. Now, after a month of meeping and beeping, the Mosquito is quiet because “a youth rights activist complained of age discrimination”. More:
The decision to install it at Gallery Place came after a meeting in July, at the office of D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), between District officials and business owners who were concerned about the impact of loitering and lawlessness.
In a letter to The Washington Post and the city human rights office, Transwestern, the company that manages the Gallery Place retail, office and residential complex, said the District’s lack of an anti-loitering ordinance limits the ability of police to control crowds. According to the letter, Transwestern told the July meeting that drugs and stolen merchandise were being sold at the Metro entrance at Seventh and H streets; the company recommended the Mosquito as a deterrent to loitering.
Hey Transwestern– you may want to pay closer attention to what’s actually happening in the area. An employee who would only speak to me anonymously told me that the drug vending had nothing to do with teens. He said that while the young people could be disrespectful, loud or annoying, it was adults who were selling drugs. It’s easier to just blame pesky kids though, I get it.
October 6, 2010 | 11:56 AM | By Anna
Nestorsam_
Obama on an iPod
Much has been made of the music on President Obama’s iPod. I saw one news story that made him seem like an old fogey who nostalgically partook in much classic rock; within an hour, I saw another which sounded (heh) the alarm about the Commander-in-Chief liking gangsta rap.
Now, there is this opinion piece, from the Wall Street Journal, calling out the President for listening to hip-hop because “that’s the wrong message for the president to be sending black America”.
For so many black Americans, Barack Obama is appealing and promising precisely because he represents a powerful, necessary alternative to Jay-Z’s version of blackness.
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October 6, 2010 | 7:45 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! I promise that this morning roundup will not contain a single reference to “Glee“– oh, wait…sorry. Allow me to distract you from my failure with these links!
I didn’t even know Library kiosks existed, did you? “Back in 2008, the D.C. Public Library decided to close five neighborhood kiosks, the tiny one-room libraries set up during the 1970s in some of the city’s poorer neighborhoods to increase access to books where full-service libraries didn’t yet exist. Many of those neighborhoods were getting new libraries, the Board reasoned, and the kiosks weren’t very well-used anyway…” (Washington City Paper)
How Mark Zuckerberg Hacked The Harvard Crimson “Mark used his site, TheFacebook.com, to look up members of the site who identified themselves as members of the Crimson. Then he examined a log of failed logins to see if any of the Crimson members had ever entered an incorrect password into TheFacebook.com. If the cases in which they had entered failed logins, Mark tried to use them to access the Crimson members’ Harvard email accounts. He successfully accessed two of them. In other words, Mark appears to have used private login data from TheFacebook to hack into the separate email accounts of some TheFacebook users.” (The Business Insider)
Cathy Lanier Won’t Exactly Go Broke if She’s Fired “”Lanier’s retirement pension shall be fully vested and fully payable and vested at the maximum level allowable by law, notwithstanding Lanier’s age or term of service,” her contract reads. That means if presumptive Mayor to-be Vince Gray decides to let her go, Lanier will be able to retire at the ripe-old-age of 43…Adding a little cherry on top, if she’s fired, she also gets the typical three months of severance pay.” (Washington City Paper)
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