Graham Proposes "Barack Hussein Obama Park"

Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) introduced a resolution today to rename Girard Park in Columbia Heights "Barack Hussein Obama Park." (WP)

Watch out, Jim, this will just draw out the loonies who want to name everything after Reagan!

Culinary side effects

Celeb chef Anthony Bourdain says the economic downturn may be good for the restaurant business:

There is going to be an apocalyptic shakeout. On the plus side, the bullsh** will be the first to go. (Nation's Restaurant News via The Big Money)

If the recession leads to a purge of derivative, sub-par tapas bars and Belgian beer-and-frites places, maybe it will all be worth it.

Purple people power for DC voting rights?

So, Sen. Dianne Feinstein has sent some apologetic packets of swag to all the Purple Ticket people who were blocked from attending Obama's swearing in. (Politico)

I love this comment someone left on the "Survivors of the Purple Tunnel" Facebook page:

Just received my packet. I will compose a collage with my Metro smart card, purple ticket, inauguration photo and a picture from our Day of Service at the Marvin Gaye Park. Recent good news for DC is that debate will resume to give the District a voting House member. Our experience at the Purple Gate may not be atypical for DC residents whose city has suffered too many years from lack of voting representation and influence in Congress. Maybe the Purple Gate group can help make that finally happen. [emphasis mine]

Damn right! Living in DC is like living one's entire life inside the Purple Tunnel of Death, every single day, until we get fair representation in Congress. Powerless and trapped, we never get to participate in the big event, even though we have tickets. The ticket which every eligible American citizen is granted upon birth or naturalization. The ticket to democracy. Sniff. This is great; I could keep riffing on this one for a while.

R.I.P., Zippy: 1999-2009

Yes, it is true--I am now carless.

My last few moments with Zippy, my beloved 1999 Civic.

Dear Zippy,

Today I sold you to a car dealer named Moses. Because of the large amount of work required to get you into saleable shape, you weren't worth that much money. But that's ok, because you were always more valuable to money than me. You have done so many things for me--and the environmental movement. Think about it. In your ten years of loyal service, you have:

o made countless 12-hour nonstop drives between Johnson City and Princeton.
o traveled across the continental U.S.--twice--to take me to and from organizing assignments.
o scouted all the best turfs in Little Rock, Arkansas.
o driven hundreds of CMDs worth of canvassers around Little Rock, Nashville, and even DC.
o trolled across the eastern Oregon desert and, once, coasted 50 miles from Bend on a completely empty gas tank.
o carried groceries, kittens, books, IKEA furniture strapped to your roof, and all my worldly possessions to and from new and old homes.

But it wasn't all hard work. You've also:

o made a million trips to the Quaker Bridge movie theater with my college buddies.
o climbed halfway up Mt. Hood.
o swooped through the Badlands.
o made many beautiful trips around Shenandoah NP.
o cruised the East Coast, from Cape Cod to Atlanta.

It's nothing personal, Zippy. You've been broken into and harassed too many times here in Mt. Pleasant. The recent attempted hotwiring was just the last straw. I don't drive you enough to give you good exercise. You'll be better off with someone else, someone who shares a similar appreciation for your incredible turning radius and solid gas mileage, but can offer you a safe, good home.

So Zippy, Godspeed. I hope you end up in greener pastures.

Love,
Your owner,
Waage

Ahh, NoVA.

The Post reports today that the Bristow area of Virginia's Prince William County has the longest average commute in the country. (WP)

"Number one, huh?" said homeowner Michael Kasun, 42. "I wish it was for something else, like oil in the ground."

Yeah, that'd be awesome! "Highest density of T.G.I.Friday's locations" would be pretty cool too.

Sorry; I'm not really a 'burb hater. But still.

Random bag checks begin on Metro

...as reported by the Post. All I can say is, about time. The Metro's vulnerability to attack has secretly freaked me out ever since the terrorist attacks on London's public transit a few years back. You can walk right in to any station and onto any train carrying practically anything.

There may be high tech security measures in place on Metro currently (explosion-proof trash cans, surveillance cameras) but they are not nearly visible enough for my taste. I guess there are no civil libertarians in foxholes.

And it doesn't help that all those Fallout 3 posters are up in Metro stations right now. How would you like to see this every morning on your way to work?

Injunction not granted, City Paper

This "journalism bankruptcy complaint" feature is possibly the worst, most bizarrely self-absorbed, lazy cover story our alternative weekly has ever published.

Know what, City Paper? It's not about you. Or maybe, We're just not into you.

Actually, I kinda am into the WCP, when they're not publishing lazy-ass cover stories and lazy-ass copycat stories that I have complained about in the past. Pick yourself up, kids, you're better than this.

Hose in different area codes

I have always regarded pantyhose as a tool of the patriarchy (or, possibly, the devil). Show us your legs! But partially obscure them! In an uncomfortable way!

So I was glad to read (in the Wall Street Journal, of all places) that not wearing hose is now officially OK.

The weather grows warmer, and the debate heats up: Are bare legs proper? [My question is, are bare feet proper?--Ed.] In today's casual workplaces, many women have peeled off the panty hose, and it is now common to see bare legs even on conservative Wall Street and at business events. Yet the transition has highlighted a generational divide. For women who entered the work force before the 1990s, hose were considered as necessary as underwear. But many twentysomethings have never worn panty hose at all.

DC, to my mind, has been uncharacteristically ahead of the fashion curve in this regard--probably because we live in a reclaimed swamp and would really have to resort to loincloths for true comfort May through October.

Estimated new DC cab fares

With metered cab fares coming soon in DC, the Washington Post provides a neat little calculator to compare the current, zone based fare for a given route with the estimated metered fare.

Honestly, I don't have an intimate understanding of taxicab economics, so I don't know whether this is a bad deal for cabbies (as they claim) or a victimless boon for cab riders (as is my hope). But the cabbies' professed reason for opposing the change is counterintuitive:

[Taxi drivers' association president Nathan] Price said many of the District's 6,500 to 7,000 cabbies worry that fares based on time and distance will be higher than the current flat rates based on geographic zones and that a price increase would cause a drop in ridership and force many independent owner-operators out of business.

Basing the metering partly on time does seem to be a recipe for high fares in traffic-plagued downtown DC. But then again, the time is most likely to add up during morning and evening hours--when cabbies are already adding a rush hour surcharge under the zone system.

Whatever. The slam dunk is the confusing and easily-cheated nature of the zone system, which I have discussed before. Welcome to the rest of the world, DC. I want to see little numbers tick by in my cabs as they do in more civilized places like New York and, like, Knoxville.

Helping people affected by Mt. Pleasant fire

Just sending out a note of gratitude* that none of our neighbors were seriously hurt in the big apartment building fire on Mt. Pleasant St. last night. Unfortunately, though, 50 or more make that 200 residents of the building are now homeless. I saw the building this morning, and believe me, they lost everything.

According to a post at the Mt. Pleasant Facebook group,

Neighbors' Consejo is taking food and clothing donations at 3118 16th St, NW. Please consider making a donation. You can reach Evar Sandoval at (202) 234-6855 for more details.

*Clearly, I pray to the blogosphere.

Home Sweet Gentrifying Home

All the tragedy and hilarity that you'll read on the highly entertaining Mt. Pleasant neighborhood forum has found its way onto the pages of the Post.

Mount Pleasant's Growing Pain
An Outdoor Trash Bin At a Latino Restaurant Proves an Unlikely Trigger Of an Ideological Clash In a D.C. Neighborhood

I live across the street from Don Juan's, the Latino restaurant at issue in this article. I've been there and like the place. Of course, I'm often awoken by the sounds of drunken arguments and vomiting in the street when Don Juan's and the other bars close. But unlike certain members of the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance, I always chalked that up to what happens when you live on the main drag of a neighborhood full of bars.

Is the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance racist? There certainly seems to be an element of that. But I suspect that if the rowdiest bars in Mt. Pleasant were frequented mostly by college students, they'd be anti-college-student instead. I'd characterize them more as "anti-party" and encourage them to move to Ballston if they have a problem with life in a real city.

Defeating the plastic bags of death

Plastic grocery bags have been revealed as such a scourge of the environment that municipalities like San Francisco and retailers like Whole Foods have been halting their use entirely. That's great for the People's Republic of SF and regular Whole Foods shoppers, but the rest of us have to take matters into our own hands.

A few months ago this blogger's household resolved to cease or at least greatly reduce its use of plastic bags. So we bought a bunch of reuseable grocery bags and repurposed some of my many canvas totes, and got to work implementing the new no-plastic policy. Results have been mixed, though generally positive--but I'm coming to realize that going plastic-free is not as hassle-free as it sounds.

The main problem is that store clerks are trained to be pretty quick on the draw when it comes to plastic bags. In grocery stores, the simple solution is to put your reusable bags on the conveyer belt first, ahead of your groceries. This works about 90% of the time.

In drugstores and corner markets, you have to alert the clerk way ahead of time (like, before you put your items down on the counter) that you won't be needing a bag. About half the time I get a bag anyway, whether through misunderstanding or through the clerk's unstoppable bagging reflex.

My favorite was the time I said, mid-bagging, "oh, no, I won't need a bag. Use it for the next person!" and had my request half-honored when the clerk removed my items from the plastic bag—then chucked it in the trash.

Seems like the real task, in absence of a legal ban, is sending retailers the message that it's worth it to train their staff to ask before bagging, even though it adds to transaction time.

Rough week at the City Paper?

Color me unimpressed with the Washington City Paper's cover "story" this week. The topic: the public forums at which locals overwhelmingly opposed Mayor Fenty's plan to close 23 neighborhood schools.

The article includes about five hundred words by Erik Wemple, followed by a montage of quotes (in varying point sizes) and photos from the forums. Looks like a scrapbook; reads like somebody got lazy and just filed his notes instead of synthesizing and analyzing the information and stringing it together into a story.

Sigh, it's so hot and cold at our local alternative weekly. I'd take another Eastern Market arson investigative piece any day.

Washington wins in walkability

The Brookings Institution ranks Washington, DC the #1 most walkable metro area in the country. (CNN)

Let's add that to the running list of reasons to overlook the climate and the housing market and live in this great city.

Four people show at citywide hearing on Metro fare hike

Seriously. (WP)

Part of the reason, according to one rider, is that the hearing was held at "a conference center in Reston, that was not easily accessible by bus or rail. The rider said she could not even find it on MapQuest."

Brilliant.

Metro is proposing to increase parking fees by $1.15 a day, and fares by 30-80 cents per ride.

Giant to start selling Metro SmarTrip cards

(WP) Wow. How convenient is that?

I am never shopping at Whole PaycheckFoods again. Except when I get that "grass-fed, free-range, Tibetan-virgin-massaged lamb stuffed with pine nuts and feta" craving, or need a new bag of organic 50-cents-apiece marshmallows. (Actual product, that second one)

Tourons, go home

The defeat of the DC voting rights bill (AP via WP) has made me less inclined than ever to suffer the DC tourist hordes gladly. They stand on our escalators when they should walk; they get in the way of our jogs on the Mall; they are oblivious to the fact that some of us live and work here and need to get where we're going now; and then, their members of Congress deny us fair representation. A lot of them, anyway.

Tourons. (Tourist + Moron = Touron). I like it, Eavesdrop DC.

Git yer T-shirts...

... here in a variety of colors and styles for men and women.

Use your voting power to help us get some voting power

The DC House Voting Rights Act is headed for the Senate floor after passing committee yesterday (The Hill). This long-awaited piece of legislation has already passed the House, which means we are one (big) step away from gaining a vote for the half million citizens of DC.

That's right, half a million people with no true representation in Congress. And this is the same city that had to battle, as late as 1973, to establish home rule. As in, an elected city council with some control over the way the place is run. What are we, a 17th century British colony? It gets worse when you realize that many DC citizens belong to demographic groups that are already underrepresented in Congress due to voter turnout and voter suppression issues.

Help us out here: please contact your senators and ask them to support the bill. DC Vote makes it easy on you with this quick e-mail action alert.

Genius on 18th St.

Washington, meet M'Dawg. The puppy-themed "haute dog" joint was opened recently by the same people who brought us the Amsterdam Falafelshop, and you'll see the similarity.

M'Dawg offers your choice of 3 different buns and about 15 different types of dogs, from the humble Hebrew National to a $22 Kobe beef dog. And 3 flavors of veggie dogs. But the real joy is the toppings bar, where for a dollar extra you can add any of a dozen hot and cold toppings. Mmmm...

There are a couple of flaws here, though. First, the cost: each dog will run you $5, and the toppings bar is a dollar on top of that. Not bad for a decent meal in DC, but something inside me shuddered at coughing up $27 for our four-dog meal. I mean, these are hot dogs. Second, the veggie dogs: sawdusty and dry, another brand or house-made dogs might make them worth the price.

But anyway, check it out, across the street from the Falafelshop on 18th in Adams Morgan.

Good Friday weirdness in Mt. Pleasant

At around 9 o'clock on Friday night there was a crashing sound, and then a swarm of police and ambulances on the main strip of Mt. Pleasant Street. Police officers unrolling crime scene tape were visible from my apartment windows.

A few minutes later, there a low rumbling...like chanting...and someone on a loudspeaker, unintelligible. The source of the chanting soon became apparent as a huge procession of people holding candles and carrying purple banners began to file across the street, next to the scene of the accident...followed, ultimately, by a truck containing a full band.

What had at first appeared to be a zombie invasion turned out to be a perfectly normal Good Friday procession to the church at 16th and Lamont. I don't think the car accident was related, though.

Go Pepco Go!

The metro area set a new record for daily winter electricity use yesterday, a reporter declared on our local Fox News broadcast last night. But it's another cold one and I think--no, I know--we can do better than that.

Here are few simple things you can do to help take us over the top!

• Keep your thermostat set at at least 75 degrees. If you become uncomfortable, simply remove extra layers of clothing.
• If you must blow-dry your hair, be sure to do so during peak hours.
• Two words: incandescent bulbs.
  
• The hotter the water, the better. And baths are better than showers.
• Your electric oven will do a much better job than your microwave at burning energy. So preheat away and then throw in that chicken pot pie.

The District makes its New Year's resolutions

1. No new tapas bars.
2. Quit smoking. (Check!)
3. Build the purple line.
4. Vote.

A heartwarming Capitol Hill holiday scene

If you ever make the walk between Union Station and the Senate office buildings, you probably know the Friendly Senate Homeless Guy. He is an elderly man who lives in the park behind the Russell Building, and as people walk by he offers cheerful greetings like, "enjoy your day!" or, "Friday, only one more day to go, have a great day!" He is quite friendly and sincere, and though he never asks for money, you always feel compelled to give him a little change (good strategy). Anyway, I like the Friendly Senate Homeless Guy a lot, so it was nice yesterday to see a Capitol Police officer pull up to the park and give him a big gift basket full of candy and treats.

On a related note, Friendly Senate Homeless Guy is just one of about 6,000 homeless people in DC. If you're so inclined, consider helping address this problem with a donation to DC Central Kitchen.

Dinner down under!

Gidday!

Tonight me 'n' me mates fired up the barbie. Cracked a tinnie and ran around in a T-shirt like I had kangaroos loose in the top paddock. It was bonzer!

Except for this is the Northern Hemisphere and it's seven days 'til Christmas.

WTF?

Next week I'm going surfing off the coast of Ohio!

&#%$ photo enforcement

Duuude, no way is that my car.


Actual Speed: [redacted] Speed Limit: 35
Location: 600 Blk New York Avenue NE w/b Weather: DAYLIGHT

When I got the notice of my ticket in the mail, including photos, I felt a little dirty. It's sad to see Zippy on display in such a compromising position.

R.I.P. Martha

At first glance I thought I'd spotted this headline in the sports section...

Eagle Euthanized After Injury (WP)

...and that was pretty shocking. But almost as sadly, it's about one of our hometown mascots, Martha the bald eagle, who lived with her mate, George, near the Wilson Bridge. I spotted them swooping once or twice and it was a cool sight! Previously poor Martha had been attacked by a rival eagle--a result of the habitat crunch for bald eagles around the Chesapeake. Bummer.

Please, just stay far, far away from U Street

"we decided to dedicate this edition of On the Go to the newbie university crowd: It's the College Freshman's Guide to Washington ." (WP)

*cringe*

Hey, the kids are alright. But you know what I mean.

Our fair city

The crime wave probably won't kill you, but the weather might.

DC considers switch to metered cabs

Taxi industry rep: "The zone system is a good system, and I'll tell you why: People in Washington, D.C., they know what the fare is because the zones don't change -- I don't care how much traffic you're in." (WP)

To this I can only say, HAHAHAHAHA. Everyone knows the quoted fare for virtually identical trips in the District varies on the weather, the phase of the moon, and what your cabbie may or may not have eaten for lunch that day. And to successfully challenge a cabbie's interpretation of the fare, one must have a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of the DC zone map:


I say, make sure cabbies and riders are getting a fare shake: switch to a metered system that guarantees a fair price for riders and a living wage for drivers.

Green Liners finally get their due!

WMATA is extending the Yellow Line up to Ft. Totten.

Fashion notes from today's commute

A. Black lipliner confuses me.

B. Communication devices (celphone, Blackberry, pager) in a holster? It's a functional thing and you might need to do it for work, so I'm not going to give it a blanket denunciation. But let's just be clear. When this happens to you, you have officially gone and done it: you have become The Man. And I don't mean "da man!" I mean The Man. It may no longer be possible for you to have fun. What're you gonna do, bring that holstered celphone with you to the Black Cat for the Pretty Girls Make Graves show? Those kids with the LCD belt buckles would kick your ass.