October 1, 2010 | 4:20 PM | By Anna
AHHfred
Aztec Pole Dancing. It is unrelated but everything else was NSFW!
I was reading The Hill when I came across an article in the “Capital Living” section titled, “Pole-sters: Capitol Hill women burn stress, stay in shape with ‘exoterobics’”. See what they did there? So punny, right? Anyway, I dove in while thinking, “it’s about pole-dancing or some flirty aerobics class”. Then I got to this paragraph:
The exercise program is nothing to be ashamed of, Carroll, owner Michaela Brown and other clients insist. Its strip, pole, chairwork and floorwork classes are “really just…fitness class[es] with different equipment and in higher heels”…
Brown’s new studio opens Friday at 518 10th St. NE, the latest success in her quest to help women find “fun, creative ways to work out.” Though her exercise of choice may seem racy, “I approach pole-dancing strictly from a physical-fitness point of view,” Brown says, and she has already attracted women who work in Congress, the White House, executive agencies and other high-profile places..
And that’s when the weirdness of it all snuck up on me. “Nothing to be ashamed of”.
Continue reading →
October 1, 2010 | 2:37 PM | By Anna
Return or renew on time, less hassle.
When I first read this on TBD, I worried about people who don’t have credit cards, since they might really need to use the library:
Starting November 1, the D.C. Public Library will no longer accept cash as payment for fines at its branch locations. Customers will be asked to log on to the library’s website either from home or at branch locations in order process their payments via Visa or Mastercard.
The issue is one of cost. If public libraries accept cash for late fees, then armored cars have to pick up that cash– and that’s expensive when the amounts in question are small.
There are provisions for those with no plastic:
Customers without credit cards may also pay fines by check or money order at branch libraries, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library will continue to accept cash, regardless of which library branch the fees originated from.
Of course the easiest way to prevent the hassle of getting a money order or trekking out to what may be an out-of-the-way library is to return or renew books on time.
October 1, 2010 | 1:58 PM | By Anna
notorious d.a.v.
Head Start student
Just received an email with important information I want to pass on…if you live in the District and have a 3- or 4-year old, there are still spaces available for D.C.’s Early Education program, at public schools all over the city. From their site:
Our nurturing pre-school program (for 3-year-olds) and pre-kindergarten program (for 4-year-olds) provide stimulating activities and learning experiences that prepare children for success in kindergarten and beyond.
All 85 elementary schools in DCPS offer pre-kindergarten, and most elementary schools also offer pre-school.
DCPS pre-school and pre-kindergarten programs operate on the regular school system calendar for the length of a typical school day, and are free of cost to residents of the District of Columbia.
Please call 202-478-5738 for more information.
October 1, 2010 | 12:45 PM | By Anna
nika2
WaPo Metro Columnist Petula Dvorak on “The grinding reality of growing up poor“:
The no of poverty in kids’ lives today means no new clothes, no bed, no sleeping past 5 a.m. or we won’t have time to take three buses to get to your school, no telling the guard at the Metro station that we’re sleeping there tonight, no after-school tutoring program designed just for you, because, the truth is, we can’t afford to get you there and back every day.
This is the daily reality for thousands of our children, especially African American children growing up in the District.
30% of D.C. kids are impoverished. Dvorak’s piece includes a glum story about a social worker who took her mentee to see “Karate Kid”; the teen loved the movie and the martial art so much, the social worker secured free lessons for her in two different neighborhoods– neither of which she could afford to travel to.
October 1, 2010 | 10:30 AM | By Anna
Laura Padgett
National Portrait Gallery
One of the reasons why I feel lucky to live in D.C. is because there are so many neat things going on, many of which cost nothing to attend; here’s an example of a free event, for tonight.
Skip rush hour, and join us for “Portraits After 5″ at the National Portrait Gallery. This happy hour event combines art and music with a contemporary twist.
The NPG will have a photobooth, a DJ, an artist “projecting” images and of course, an exhibit to explore– this time it’s “Americans Now“, and it focuses on celebrity and fame. Peep images of LL Cool J, Toni Morrison, Le Bron, Martha Stewart and more, while you debate whether they’ll still be famous in a century. If nothing else, it will help you avoid traffic. 8th and F Streets NW, from 5-8 pm.
October 1, 2010 | 7:45 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! While you were trying not to get soaked, we were looking for some light links for a flooded Friday.
Reasons why Pandas do not deserve your love “Tai Shan might bite you or bore you nearly to death, but he certainly won’t reciprocate your affections. Reasons why Tai Shan and his fellow giant pandas do not deserve your love…” (tbd.com)
Senate Votes to Shut Up Loud TV Commercials From the comments: “Here’s the funny thing, generally speaking, commercials actually are the same volume as the shows (technically, they have to be). The difference is that audio for commercials is mastered in such a way that the maximum punch is extracted out of the same dynamic range using compressors, limiters, maximizers, spectral enhancers and the like. So in this case, it really has to do with density of sound, not volume that creates the impression of “loudness”.” (gawker.com)
14th Street Streetscape: How Much Concept Does A Sidewalk Need? “Several residents were not particularly impressed….most of the head-scratching revolved around the alternative design — which features sidewalk designs which are based on some abstract ideas, like paying tribute to the fact that the corridor was the city’s “auto district” by using a wheel design at the P Street focus area. That’s right, a project with an emphasis on walking features a design which pays tribute to cars.” (DCist) Continue reading →
September 30, 2010 | 4:31 PM | By Anna
Smithsonian's National Zoo
This gray afternoon calls for something bright and cute, don’t you think? How about a Black-Footed Ferret Kit? Yup, that’s what Ferret babies are called: “kits”. This kit’s pic is from our National Zoo’s Flickr stream. Here’s another interesting, zoo-related fact– 25 years ago, they were almost extinct: Continue reading →
September 30, 2010 | 3:30 PM | By Anna
Justin Knol
SNAP cuts mean it would be hard to buy fresh fruit.
Annie Lowrey at The Washington Independent spoke to anti-Hunger activist Joel Berg about Congress’ attempt to cut Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (i.e. food stamps). The cuts are being made to fund a Child Nutrition bill championed by Michelle Obama. The whole article (which includes a transcript of Lowrey and Berg’s conversation) is a sobering read. Of course, I excerpted the saddest bits for you below (emphasis mine):
TWI: And what will the impact be for kids?
Berg: This cut is taking something away from every other meal for children in low-income families, to help get them a better lunch. Someone in the White House last week, I saw, claimed that the child-nutrition bill will dramatically reduce child obesity.
That’s ridiculous. They are cutting the budget from kids at home to pay for kids in school. If kids eat in school every day, in a year, that’s still only 16 percent of their meals, because there are weekends, there are holidays, there are nights, there is summer. There is no way that marginally improving 16 percent of your meals is going to dramatically change your diet — especially not if you are taking away from the rest.
People want to claim victory. They want to make exaggerated claims that the child-nutrition bill will help. The most heartbreaking thing about it, for advocates, is that this is supposed to be our great champion bill that was going to solve everything! We thought it would dramatically decrease child hunger. But, the fact is, you have hunger advocates lobbying against its passage. Our emotions are ranging from outraged to heartbroken. I’m really just gobsmacked that this happened.
More:
Continue reading →
September 30, 2010 | 2:00 PM | By Anna
Wayan Vota
D.C. Charter School
The always eclectic PostBourgie blog asks “Should We Avoid Race When Discussing Education Reform?”
…in so many discussions about education reform — a topic that seems to be inescapable right now — the issue of race is avoided…
You can see this at play in the documentary Waiting for Superman, in which the achievement gap is mentioned, but only as it pertains to class. But there are racial disparities in student achievement, even when controlling for parental income. In fact, when the movie talks about the halcyon days of American education in the 1950’s and 1960’s, there’s no mention at all of school segregation or desegregation or how they’ve impacted how American schools function.
I’d also add that bringing up race means inviting one of those predictable conversations in which the problems facing youth of color are chalked up to dysfunctional pathology. Still, it seems hard to ignore the role race plays in the achievement gap, as the disparities in performance often persist even when when the black and brown kids are middle class with college-educated parents.
September 30, 2010 | 11:27 AM | By Anna
ANC Chair Bryan Weaver on U street shooting victim, Jamal Coates, who struggled to get away from the gang culture he had participated in, in his youth:
“You know somebody for 10 years, and you fight for them to move away from a certain lifestyle,” said Bryan Weaver, 40, a neighborhood activist who ran unsuccessfully this year for Ward 1′s seat on the D.C. Council.
He said Coates, who had an arrest record, belonged to the “1-7″ crew, based around 17th and Euclid streets NW in Adams Morgan. In the summer of 2009, he was among 30 young people who spent six weeks in Guatemala teaching basketball to local children with Hoops Sagrado, an organization Weaver founded that aims to encourage peaceful coexistence by exposing District youths to foreign culture.
“You have this kid by the neck, and you’re trying to wrestle him out of that lifestyle, and then suddenly something like this happens,” Weaver said.
