September 30, 2010 | 7:45 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! While you were out jumping in puddles, we were in, searching for interesting links!
High Speed Rail could get you to Boston in 3 hours, but it’s pricey “Trips from Washington to Boston would take only 3 hours. Amtrak rightly points out that there is almost no better candidate for true, “next-gen” HSR than the Northeast Corridor. But the density in the corridor would also make this easily the most expensive rail project ever undertaken in this country.” (Greater Greater Washington)
Lanier on Adams Morgan Day, CoHei Car Fires, her Future, More “Lanier also addressed the Adams Morgan Day incident in which a dog was killed by an officer who discharged his service weapon. She spoke about how MPD officers undergo training with Humane Society workers. “The investigation is under way…and so I don’t have results of that yet. The whole thing is sad all the way around,” said Lanier. “Officers don’t want to shoot dogs.” She also noted that the officer who shot Parrot at the festival has a dog of his own.” (DCist)
Why the Wizards can’t be the Bullets Check the screen shot above it: “This, in my opinion, is why you can never go back to the “Bullets” nickname, nostalgia be damned. And it made me instantly think of the statement Abe Pollin issued when he announced the team would change its name…” (voices.washingtonpost.com)
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September 29, 2010 | 10:15 PM | By Anna
Beware: these phones make you a target.
Two weeks ago, we alerted you to a disturbing rise in robberies of smart phones and mp3 players on Metro; people who were playing with their toys by the doors of trains were relieved of their iPhones and iPods as thieves jumped out of the closing train doors. If you felt safe as long as you avoided metro doors, I have bad news for you. People have been jumped for their phones in Georgetown, Dupont and Shaw. TBD has details, as well as this harrowing account from a LeDroit Park Listserve (I’m posting the whole version):
On Saturday evening at 7pm en route to Shaw metro north entrance, I was jumped from behind and wrestled to the ground by a teenage thief trying to steal my iphone. Rather than risk being stabbed, I let go of the iphone. What is disturbing is that this is a busy road with many pedestrians walking by, yet not one person stopped to help, including the shopkeepers stood on the doorsteps. When I asked for assistance, I was told to use the payphone on the corner of 7th and T which is where the gang of teenagers preying on their victims hang out in the evening – including the evening I was attacked. There were 10 or 12 on the corner of 7th and T and all fled after I was robbed. A good Samaritan let me use his cellphone to call the police who arrived in under two minutes. They said they are aware of the gang on 7th and T and have been monitoring them, yet the brazen robberies and attacks in broad daylight continue unabated.
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September 29, 2010 | 4:06 PM | By Anna
Kinorama
One of you just sent me the link to an amazing album of photographs taken in the mid to late 1980s. They depict a D.C. that I don’t recognize (I arrived ten years later); they are vivid, engrossing, beautiful. The photographer who took them said this about them in the album’s introduction:
From 1985 to 1988 I wandered the streets of Washington DC photographing the unseen and vanishing moments of the city. These images lay dormant in the archives until I realized that they needed to be brought to life before the persons and spaces are totally lost to entropy and time…
These images depict the hidden parts of Washington DC rarely if ever traversed by tourists. Here are the places and some of the people trapped in their own world while the rich and powerful swirl around in a seemingly separate world a mile away.
The pictures deserve to be seen. If any of you have similar links or ideas for DCentric, please send them my way.
September 29, 2010 | 1:45 PM | By Anna
TalkMediaNews
Marion Barry
Earlier this month, I mentioned that Marion Barry’s popularity is something I’d like to explore on DCentric. Half the city loves him, the other half is perplexed and occasionally angry at such affection. If you’d like to learn more about the “Mayor for Life”, you’d do well to get a cup of coffee and set aside some time for a long, but fascinating read from last year’s Weekly Standard. Titled “A Rake’s Progress: Marion Barry bares (almost) all”, it was penned by Matt Labash. I met Labash at a book release party held in his honor; while there, I met Marion Barry. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that he stole the show.
Supporting him, in spite of his struggles–even because of them–is almost a symbolic sacrament. Plus, he does something few other politicians in the District, even the city’s later black mayors, do: He shows up.
That’s exactly my answer, when people ask me to explain the popularity of Barry; he shows up.
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September 29, 2010 | 10:40 AM | By Anna
Carosaurus
Native Americans at the inauguration, January, 2009.
I’m no scholar on architecture or the original Americans, so I don’t know how much merit it has, but I thought this post from Beyond DC was fun and interesting:
As an older, walkable city with a baroque street grid and no skyscrapers, Washington is sometimes thought of as one of the more European-like cities in America. That may be true, but I think our city can lay claim to an even more interesting title: The most distinctly Native American city in the country.
Obviously Washington is not Santa Fe. There is not a strong Native American cultural influence here. Physically however, Washington bears a strong resemblance to most of the large native cities that populated this continent before the arrival of Columbus.
The key similarity is the National Mall. Archaeologists have discovered that every large native city of any importance had an over-sized ceremonial center populated by palaces, government offices, historic monuments, ball courts, and religious pyramids. The National Mall may not have the religious importance that native centers had, but the basic idea was the same. They are all the ceremonial heart of the city and state.
September 29, 2010 | 7:45 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! Ready for some morning links?
D.C., region show disturbing rises in childhood poverty “The poverty rates in the District, where use of food stamps went up by about a third in two years, exceeded every other jurisdiction and even surpassed the rate in Mississippi. “Child care is very expensive,” said Jenny Reed, an analyst at the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, which researches budget and tax issues in the District. “A lot of families in D.C. are in low-wage jobs, so even though they’re working, they’re not earning enough to live above poverty.”" (The Washington Post)
Share and Share Alike “I would like to propose that we have one rude-free transportation day in DC. And not just for the types of things that happen to me personally – the jostling, the nasty comments, the seat hoggers – but for everybody who has to get somewhere. I would like a rude-free day for every commuter, car driver, biker, walker, bus rider, and train rider alike. Even if we don’t like, surely we could all pretend to be nice, at least for one day?” (emilyhaha.wordpress.com)
Men like Bishop Eddie Long are fouling the legacy of the civil rights movement. “What concerns me isn’t even the laughable obviousness of his cupidity: the jewels and gold chains and limos and bodyguards. This is all a familiar part of the tawdry business of “Churchianity” now finding loopholes for the rich and venal at a well-upholstered religious establishment somewhere near you. No, what offends me is that Long was able to get four presidents of the United States to attend his opulent circus for the funeral of Coretta Scott King in 2006. What a steep and awful decline from the mule cart that carried her husband’s coffin in 1968.” (Slate)
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September 28, 2010 | 11:51 PM | By Anna
…and he was the man who died today on U Street, after the funeral of Ashley McRae. Bryan Weaver, who ran against Jim Graham for the Ward One City Council seat, knew Coates. This is what he told the Post:
“Unfortunately, it looks like a continuation of the crew violence,” said Bryan Weaver, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in the area who runs a nonprofit group, Hoops Sagrado, that helps at-risk young people…
Weaver said he knew Coates for more than 10 years. Last year, he said, Coates worked with him on community service projects in Guatemala, where he also studied Spanish and worked on conflict mediation issues.
After his return, Coates entered a GED program, held an internship with a city agency, and was working with the Shaw Family Collaborative, Weaver said.
Weaver said that he thought it “highly likely” that the shooting was connected to an ongoing crew war between groups from the Columbia Heights/Adams Morgan area and a group from the Petworth area of Northwest.
September 28, 2010 | 5:12 PM | By Anna
More sad information, about today’s shooting (via TBD):
Five uniformed police officers also attended the services, Ward 1 D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham said…
Graham said gang members from Columbia Heights and Adams Morgan were exchanging words during the funeral services and the taunting escalated to violence outside.
Council member Jim Graham told Mike DeBonis that in addition to the five uniformed cops, officers in plain-clothes were at the service, too. And this still happened.
September 28, 2010 | 3:29 PM | By Anna
I’ve had my head in my hands for most of the day, first because of frustrating WordPress issues, then because of the horrific shooting down the street from where I live (and write this blog). You’re probably already aware of the details, but if you aren’t, I’ll summarize what I’ve read at DCist, TBD and on various Twitter feeds:
- A funeral was held at Walker Memorial Baptist Church for 21-year old Ashley McRae, a Columbia Heights woman who was killed in SE last week after leaving Ibiza nightclub. Ashley worked at Commander Salamander in Georgetown and she was a student studying accounting.
- As the procession started down 13th street, a group of men opened fire on a vehicle, which crashed in to other cars and flipped upside down at 11th and U. An employee at Ben’s Chili Bowl said he saw the gunmen fleeing South.
- Some witnesses saw people fleeing the car, which was totaled.
- One person inside the car was killed, two others were shot, one of them is in critical condition.
All of this, at a funeral procession.
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September 28, 2010 | 10:36 AM | By Anna
ltmayers
Segway tour of the Capitol
I don’t think I can phrase this better than
Will Singer did on Twitter, so I’ll just quote him:
the following is a news story “in which white folks from Baltimore compare the injustice of DC professional licensing to that of the Dred Scott case”:
Whenever Tonia Edwards leads a Segway tour to the Capitol…she continues to the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse, which has become a place of particular interest for local tour guides – especially Edwards and her husband, Bill Main, who own and operate Segs in the City. Last week, the couple joined the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit libertarian law firm, in filing a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the District’s tour-guide regulations, which make it illegal to lead a paid tour in Washington without a license.
The $200 licensure process, which includes a multiple-choice exam on Washington history, violates those First Amendment rights, Edwards says: “They’re telling me that I have to be licensed to talk to my customers? That’s a real violation of my right to free speech.”
Of the people who take the exam, 91% pass it; it’s not difficult. But let’s get back to the part where tour guide operators who don’t take the easy test are compared to slaves denied U.S. citizenship (I can’t believe I just typed that):
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