There’s a story in The Wizards of Armaageddon about how people used to protest the building of Nuclear Weapons at the Lawrence Livermore Lab in Northern California. The protestors would line up, single file, at the end of the military base, and take a single step forward onto the test field, where a very polite police officer would arrest them for criminal trespass, read them their rights, and put them in a waiting van. This would happen over and over and over the day of various nuclear tests.

It was polite. Civilized, even.

No such joy today, in DC, when people on stilts in giant Uncle Sam suits coated with dollar bills, or oil, will stop traffic, render a couple of parks unusable, and attempt to “shut down” places like the IRS. They come from their homes all over the nation to the Capital to exercise their right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

But, instead of being polite, like those at Livermore, they’re angry, and they’re out to get the government that they feel is out to get them. Is that my fault? No. Why are you punishing me by destroying my commute or making my life more difficult? I don’t like the war any more than you do, but that doesn’t mean I need to get all drastic and mess up the lives of ordinary people, doing ordinary jobs.

Some protests, like the one described here are a lot more clever than the movement to “shut the IRS down for funding the war,” and I welcome its non-disruptive creativity. Sadly, they’re not the standard around here.

You want protest? Protest at your congressman’s office. Protest at your senator’s office. Protest at the Capitol. Protest at the White House.

Leave the rest of the city to those of us who live here.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Looks like the Library of Congress was reading last month when Max asked what was up with the lack of new photos in their flickr account. Justin posted about the fact that they’ve just added 50 more, and although that’s not a real big number compared to the initial add of 3,100, it positively pales in comparison to the over one million accessible on their own website.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

District of Columbia vs. Heller was today.

The Second Amendment.

Guns. Militia. Rights.

So, what happens now? We’re in that limbo period between the arguments being made and the resultant decision from the Supreme Court. The case rests now in the hands of 9 learned judges, whose wit and wisdom are the law.

While I didn’t get the chance to see the arguments (as I valued my Sunday and Monday, and that’s when all the camping for gallery passes began…) there’s a wealth of coverage at SCOTUSblog, including a very good “live blog” of the hearing that went a good 30 minutes overtime today.

Early indications support a verdict in favor of Heller (and against the District’s firearms prohibition) by either a 6-3 or 5-4 margin, which would require that the District re-examine the laws surrounding firearm ownership.

Non-violence – the Knotted Gun – United Nations — Originally uploaded by Al_HikesAZ

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’re aware of DC’s gun ban being argued before the Supreme Court today.  I’m looking forward to seeing what the scene outside must have looked like. I took my Dad to the tour of the chambers last week – when they were not in session – and it’s amazing how small the gallery is. I can only imagine that the people who got to come in and watch the proceedings had to have gotten in line far before this morning’s session.

Marc Fisher has a rundown of some of the points the arguments might pivot on in his column today, but for me the fun reading is over at SCOTUSBlog, where Lyle Denniston has a recap of the proceedings.  There’s not a lot of surprises in there – Ginsburg and Souter seem sympathetic to the District’s case, Scalia and Thomas not so much. To the Justices’ credit, they supposedly seemed entirely unmoved by the suggestion that the 2nd Amendment didn’t apply to DC as the federal capital rather than a state in and of itself. I am somewhat disgusted that the District would put that forth as a position at all, given how many other implications it could have.

If Denniston is right in his read of their tone, it sounds like the court is willing to take a sweeping position on the 2nd Amendment’s general meaning.

Plastic Guns 2, courtesy of barjack

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

If you have not read this week’s Washington City Paper, I encourage you to do so. Especially, there is an article called Hire Education that really sums up the frustrations of tutoring rich kids with entitlement issues and dealing with their parents, who often have entitlement issues. The article takes a hard look at these kids and paints them with a very negative brush, but not all is as bad as it seems in the article.

As a tutor myself, I can vouch for many of the experiences the author relates and found it reassuring that I am not the only one with clients who sometimes seem like they recently came off their meds. However, the difficult kids and parents are the exception, in my experience. Most kids are okay, regardless of why they seek out tutoring, and most parents are understanding when I assure them that I am an expert and know what I am doing.

Sure, I have had parents call and fuss at me, send nasty emails and even had one jerk of a father try to physically intimidate me. If I weren’t twice his size with greater strength and a longer reach, it may have bothered me. As it worked out, I let him know he should back off and I resumed tutoring his son.

Student issues include being inattentive, sometimes even snotty, feeling entitled to high grades or high SAT scores and generally not wanting to work. Another problem is having little unstructured time, with too much emphasis on academics and other school activities and not enough on enjoying being a kid. Helicopter parents shuttle them around from school to soccer to tutoring to study groups and in the end the high school graduates have no idea how to manage their own time or actually study in college, instead of having tutors tell them what to do.

I have also had parents who were very gracious, students who were polite and attentive and with those families it is a lovely time. To me what makes the difference when working with students is having kids who want to learn or are interested in the subject material such as what they can learn at sisd. Whether they like the material or not, they should have a good attitude about it and at least be open-minded to learning it.

If you were ever curious about tutoring, I highly recommend it. Seeing kids absorb and integrate information is a blast. Take that article and my own complaints with a grain of salt. Most kids are good and most parents, when the rubber meets the road, simply want to help their kids. However, I can tell you with all certainty that helping kids get A’s instead of B’s or helping them get higher SAT scores is far less worthwhile or rewarding than helping kids with bigger issues, like literacy or their GED.

Having prepared many kids for both the SAT and GED, I will take an interested GED student any day over an interested SAT student. The pay is lower and the barriers higher, but getting someone over that hump means so much more opportunity that the trade-off is worth it.

So who wants to join me in shaping the minds of our future leaders? Before you answer, let me assure you that there is work to be had in this market because I have had enough of it for now and will be focusing more of my time and attention on my photography business. The kids? The parents? The last-minute test preparation? You can have it all.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Remember the Giant supermarket in McLean? The one with the kitty pee Starbucks? Well, I found myself driving by that store again and needed to pick some things up. The help there is so freaking helpful, it’s unbelievable. Even in the self-check line they have people to bag your groceries. The other supermarkets don’t do this, except possibly the cult-like Bloom stores. Bloom simply freaks me out. It’s like a love bomb, one step away from a low-protein, high-carbohydrate diet, closely followed by a coerced disowning of friends and family.

So there I was, scanning my 20-some cans of cat food and a fellow came up to bag my goods. “Can I have paper bags?” I asked.

He reached under the conveyor, pulled out a few paper bags and through them on the bagging station. “You want paper? You bag it yourself.”

I have no problem bagging my own stuff, but I am curious if Giant has a policy about this or if I simply caught this guy a day before he went postal. He seemed like he could use some cooling down. Maybe Bloom would be a better fit for him. With his attitude, I am sure he would not have a lot of friends to disown.

Have you ever had this happen? Anyone from Giant Food Stores care to comment?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

As a good photographer, I sought out the rally at the Chinese embassy on Connecticut Avenue today. In case you were driving by and were curious what all those people just south of the Woodley Park Metro were hollering about, it has to do with the rights and freedom of the Tibetan people. Tibet has been occupied by China since 1959 and has been subject to many violent instances, including what you have been reading about in the news recently.

Like I said, I figured there would be a big rally there, so I made my way down there and was snapping pictures of the crowd when I noticed that someone had thrown red paint at the embassy earlier. I crossed the street to get a few pictures of that and was approached by two uniformed Secret Service officers who informed me that I was not allowed to photograph the embassy or even be on that side of the street.

I have been through this before with other law enforcement officers. The difference this time was that the lady and her male partner were polite when they stopped me, even if they did lie about my rights.

I explained that I was on public property, it being a sidewalk, and that I was within my rights to be there and photograph the building. After about a minute of back-and-forth, they could see that I was not budging and after examining my press credentials, they determined that I really was a journalist, or perhaps that I simply knew my rights, and left me alone, but not without some huffing and puffing about crowd control. They were determined to have the last word, even if the words were ultimately empty.

Okay, I get that the police need to keep order and make sure that nobody does stupid stuff and to ensure that a peaceful rally like this does not turn violent, but to me, photography is not a very threatening activity. If there had been a “do not cross” tape set up, that would be different.

When are we going to learn that photographers are not the problem? When is the last time you were told by police that you weren’t allowed to take pictures of something or walk on a public sidewalk?

Photo: Secret Service Officer, Tibetan Independence Rally
Originally uploaded by carlweaver
See more photos of this event here.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

My Lovely Wife and I were at Tastee Diner in Bethesda a few days ago and had an unexpected visitor at our table. When we told the waitress, she said we could sit somewhere else if we wanted, but she did not look at all surprised. Nor did the other customers.

I had hoped that they might at least comp my cup of coffee or give us some sort of discount. I guess I should just be glad that I wasn’t charged extra.

Have you been there and found little critters running around?

Photo: Tastee Diner, Bethesda
Originally uploaded by carlweaver

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

 Erik Wimple at the City Paper’s City Desk blog is reported this afternoon that Murky Coffee on Capitol Hill may be shutting down for good. Apparently, a note has been posted to the popular coffee house stating that their month-to-month lease is up and the landlord has given them notice to vacate. The shop closed its doors recently – ostensibly temporarily – due to a substantial overdue tax bill, but now it looks like they may not be opening back up. It will certainly be a big loss to DC coffee swillers if true.

 photo by rockcreek on flickr

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Tiff commented on the hot dog drama and WaPo’s article on the matter today, and since I’d spent some of my lunchtime clenching my teeth over this article – rather than my meal – I thought I’d follow up.

The article is a mess, and fails to accurately indicate what the controversy is over, beyond changes in regulations. Brittany comments in Tiff’s posting that she got some second hand information about zones and reserved spots for existing vendors, but if that’s part of what’s in the regulation change – and it well could be – there’s no indication of it in the WaPo article.

You would reasonably expect it to be there, though. After all, the article is titled “D.C. Food Vendors Fear War Of Hot Dogs vs. Hummus.” The article talks more about wholesaler WG Food Distributors, however, and covers the real issue while completely failing to spell it out or make it the focus of the article.

But the past two years have been especially intense, as WG and others face a city aspiring to boost its vending image and competitors eager to fight to become new kids on the block.

The crux of WG’s complaint has nothing to do with image and new entrants, however, since WG as a wholesaler could give less of a crap who they sell to. At the end of the article it’s revealed there’s only three depots left to choose from in D.C., so there’s little competition. As a provider of product for vendors to resell, they don’t care who those vendors are. They’ve got some interest in that material being standard manufactured food product rather than fresh made things like hummus, given what they provide, but that isn’t really the issue.

The issue is buried in paragraph ten, and has nothing to do with the content of the carts. What WG and the other depots are fighting to maintain is a government mandated process for the vendors to follow from which they reap a lot of money. Namely, the provision of the Department of Health rules that requires a vendor to identify a food depot where preparation, storage, and cleanup happen. A food depot that is often WG Food Distributors.

A food depot that, if you make it all the way to the last third of the article, you discover often demands that anyone using their storage facility make sizable purchases from them or face a rise in their storage rents. WG admits that there’s an “unwritten rule” that people buy from them, and defends it by saying that anyone who has to go it on their own could spend up to $900 a month on “a small storage facility with hot water and enclosures necessary to meet health standards.”

Little surprise, then, that WG and the other two depot are so interested in preventing any alteration in the health standards, and doing their best to spin this – to us and their customers – as a big guy vs little guy fight. Fair enough: it’s their livelihood and they can be expected to protect it. The real question is this: Why is WaPo helping them by so poorly examining the issue?

Chicago Style Hot Dog, courtesy of Diva Eva

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Has anyone else noticed the horrid whiff that you get descending into the Rosslyn station? It smells like burning asbestos, like so many worn-out clutches I dealt with in my youth. The acrid smell permeates the whole place and I never know which is worse – breathing through my nose or mouth.

On the bright side, at least it smells better than Jeremy Bentham’s corpse. I hope.

Have you noticed that smell at Rosslyn? What images does it convey for you?

Photo: Rosslyn Metro
Originally uploaded by briancotylawson

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Starting just after midnight, and still smoldering now, a Five Alarm Fire in Mount Pleasant forced over 200 people from their homes. The blaze has closed 16th St in Mount Pleasant, roiling the morning commute, as buses moved to 14th street, and traffic was diverted to 14th Street and Georgia Avenue. It’s likely that the road will reopen today, but I certainly wouldn’t want to count on using 16th Street as a route home today.

It’s terrible to see a whole apartment complex go up in smoke, putting families out in the street. What’s worse is that the Post is reporting that the building had multiple code violations, and that tenants had been fighting with management to get them fixed for some time.

Kudos to the DC Fire Department for helping everyone escape the blaze. There were no injuries reported in the fire, and a lot of credit should go to the DCFD for making sure that everyone got out unharmed.

— Originally uploaded by m.j.b.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Anybody who has picked up today’s Washington City Paper has probably seen the ballot for “Best of D.C.: Celebrating the Classics 2008”. They are getting in the game with The Washington Post and The Washingtonian, asking readers to vote on what places, things, and cute bartenders make life in DC special and fun.

This has inspired me to finally launch a new series here that I have been mulling for some time.

Here is how this will work: I will take on the challenge of finding the “best in DC” – one thing at a time. Be it cupcakes, shoe stores, or dj nights, I will solicit recommendations of competitors, do some research, and then go try out those which claim to vie for title of “best”.

In other words – one girl’s highly subjective search to sift through mediocrity and mass-name-recognition (is Potbelly really the best sandwich place in town as it is consistently voted – or just the only one that a majority of the voters have been to?) to bring you what I think are the best bets around.

For this to work, I will need a lot of input from you. I want you to send me on missions that you want to read about. In the comments below, I would love to see suggestions of things you want me to review for you! I also need your suggestions of where to go. Do you think you know about the best beer selection in town? Let me know! Hopefully, other people will have different ideas, and I will try to put them all to the test.

One stipulation: I am not finding out the best fetish club. If you want to know, you will have to wait for the City Paper’s results. (Also, I reserve the right not to be sent on any missions I consider immoral or generally icky. You know.)

Also, we are going to need to think of a name. I thought about calling it “The Decider”, but that seems pretty dated at this point…

photo by erin m on flickr

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Oh yes indeed, I asked for hot dog controversy, and WaPo has tracked it down for me. The guys who sell the junk food to the street vendors are outraged- appalled, even!- that the city might grant some vendor licenses to people who wouldn’t buy their Utz potato chips and crappy hot dogs.

It’s not that I don’t admire the owners of WG Food Distributors- they have the most American of stories: immigrant brothers who started out with an ice cream cart and built their business into one of the biggest vendor cart food distributors in the area. I congratulate them on their success, even.

So it’s with that in mind that I wonder why the Gulajan brothers don’t just view the SmartKafe/SmartKart competition as an opportunity to innovate and raise their game a little bit. Surely Gabe Klein and his partners aren’t the only people capable of bringing something other than hot dogs to the streets of DC. Capitalist pig that I am, I find few things more frustrating than when otherwise successful businesses rely on government regulation to protect their cash cows rather than innovating to accommodate a changing market.

So bring on the chicken shwarma, On the Fly. I’ll be checking out your Farragut North SmartKafe today. If anyone is convenient to their other locations and wants to check them out, please add your comments.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

On my morning commute through Petworth I see many things. Few puzzle me as much as a random boat propeller on Sherman Avenue NW.

Who was towing a boat down the street last night? And didn’t they hear the clank when the propeller came off? Or the screech of tires as the drivers behind swerved to miss the errant metal?

Either way, the boat propeller did make for street art, what with the morning light and shadows playing across its twisted head as it lay in wait for a passing pedestrian to kick.

Wayan’s DC Photos

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

It was supposed to start on April 6th. The new meter system designed to free us of the tyranny of the zones system. Unfortunately, the DC Superior Court has pushed that back to the 1st of May. The Cab Drivers sued for a delay after a typo on the public comment calendar reflected a slightly different schedule than one published in another venue.

Another hearing is set on March 27th, as the cab drivers are suing also on the grounds that the Mayor’s office has no jurisdiction to set the fees and system used by the cabs in the city. That would seem contrary to the law passed by the Congress last year, which included Senator Levin’s mandate for meters. Look for more in the coming weeks as the cab drivers fight to keep their shady ass zone system alive.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Usually, I associate manhole fires with the height of summer when everyone’s air conditioning is working overtime to cool the city from its swelter. However, Manhole season started early last night with an underground electrical fire between downtown and Columbia Heights. A supply line triggered a fire that shutdown power to over 5,000 homes in the middle of town around 11:30 last night. By dawn, most had power restored. Some, however, may be without power for days while the feeder line is repaired.

The Morning News is on hiatus this week, and will return next Monday.

Capital Sewer Cover III

Originally uploaded by ManHole.ca

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

If there was a house band at the gates of hell, The Pogues would probably be who you’d hear playing…. and you’d like it! I have to say, I wasn’t a big Pogues fan, but I do have a musicological interest in the origins of modern music. To that avail, I had the pleasure of taking in the Pogues on Monday front row center at the 9:30 Club to a knock down drag out drunken musical joyfest which DC has yet to equal. If the opener, the macabre Urban Voodoo Machine didn’t get the place started, Shane and Co. put the place into over drive in a frenzied selection of 25 songs (albeit, the setlist was repeated from Sunday). While few of the members (Shane included) looked a bit worse for wear, they delivered what the audience so needed to hear. I was wondering if I’d leave with a boot impression to the chest or head, but the crowd was into it, and the fans, given the shows have been sold out for months, held true to their desire to see, what according to Q Magazine, is one of the “50 Bands to See Before You Die”… the entire evening did not disappoint. Lets hope they come ’round again for an encore or two!

Shaaaaaaane!

Originally uploaded by webjedi

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

If you missed the final Pogues show this evening at the 9:30 Club, their astounding gypsy-surf-punk-rock opener, The Urban Voodoo Machine is playing at The Red & The Black at 9pm tonight ($8). This was one high energy act, and everybody in the place got into it. So if you think the opener gets the 9:30 “a rockin'”, catch them in a more intimate venue this evening, its truly something to behold. Just let you mind go and the rest will follow!

The Urban Voodoo Machine

Originally uploaded by webjedi

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

The deplorable state of street food in DC has been a given for so long (just how many hot dog carts DOES one square mile need?) that I almost don’t know what to do with this:

A local company called On-the-Fly is has launched a series of bright green, buglike vendor carts that will sell healthier food as well as local specialties on local streets. So instead of getting that hotdog of questionable age, you can have hummus or barbeque from Rocklands or something that actually, you know, is food.

But I’m a little confused by the WaPo article- it slams down the ominous-sounding line, “On the Fly hasn’t arrived without controversy,” and then fails to deliver any actual controversy. Council member Jim Graham said he wanted some more variety in the street vendor licenses, and then some other food service entrepreneur says some totally obvious thing about On the Fly having to differentiate itself in the market… and yet there’s not a single mention of hot dog vendors going on collective strike to protest greater consumer choice, or some kind of organized vendor cart parade down Constitution Ave. or even some outraged member of Hot Dog Vendors Against Competition disrupting a City Council meeting.

Is this what passes for controversy, WaPo newsroom?

Hot Dog Vendor

Originally uploaded by nolageek

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs