October 30, 2007
Morning Roundup: Flying South Edition
Good Morning, Washington. Birds may finally be heading south for the winter now that overnight temperatures are dipping down towards freezing, but if you can believe it or not it's actually looking like Wednesday is going to be warm again, with temperatures predicted to be back up in the 70s. Well, at least if it's going to be tough to find a cab tomorrow, it'll be pleasant enough to walk or bike. CapitalWeather.com points out that October 2007 will finish around 8 degrees above normal, making a serious new record of about 2 degrees warmer than the previous warmest October in history, in 1984.
Many D.C. Fire Stations Missing Smoke Detectors: A new report by the D.C. Inspector General shows unsafe and unhealthy conditions at nearly every D.C. fire station. Inspectors found broken smoke detectors, asbestos, broken windows, doors that didn’t lock, rodents, leaking roofs, clogged pipes, and broken toilets, heating and a/c systems. Meanwhile, of the four D.C. firefighters who were seriously injured in yesterday's Northeast rowhouse fire, two are now in good condition and expected to go home today, one is in critical but stable condition, and the fourth is in a medically induced coma awaiting further evaluation and surgery.
Rhee Comes Under Fire: D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is having a busy morning, to be sure. First she's taking heat from community activists who are accusing the chancellor of intentionally filing her budget submission late in order to sidestep public involvement in its approval, which is required by law. Then she's also dealing with a new report by Johns Hopkins University that classifies three D.C. public high schools, Ballou, Bell and Woodson, as "dropout factories."
Briefly Noted: Juvenile detention facilities called for reform ... How do the seats at the new baseball stadium compare? ... Hispanic officials urge immigrant voters to get to polls.
This Day in DCist: In 2006 we said goodbye to Red Auerbach and came up with an excellent plan for leftover Halloween candy.
Photo by Pianoman75
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I think we should give Rhee and Fenty a few years and a lot of latitude on the schools issue. The DC game of endless input, studies, commissions etc., not only wastes our time and money, but diffuses any sense of responsibility so broadly as to have no one to blame at the end.
"Rhee comes under fire." Okay, here we go. It's like rooting for the Redskins. They have high hopes in the preseason, and then reality sets in and folks start fingerpointing about who's at fault for all of the problems.
Only differences here are:
1. I actually like to watch the Redskins fall apart.
2. You can't blame the 'Skins owner for the DC public school system.
3. DCIst doesn't have a cool graphic to cover the schools story like it does for the Redskins.
Ok two things:
Why are the stadium seats blue? That makes no sense. They should be red. What a completely failed chance to reinforce the brand.
Second, I really wish those education "activists" would shut up. They're still so bitter at the fact that Fenty has cut them out and that they've lost their powerbase on the board of ed that they're going to oppose each and every reform Fenty comes up with, regardless of its merit. In my opinion, it's the defenders of the status quo power structure that have the failed lives of countless DC school children on their hands.
I was wondering why they are not red, but red seat do have a tendency to fade to pink. Blue or dark color seats seem to be the preferred color for newer stadiums. The main reason for this is because empty dark colored seats are less noticeable than empty lighter colored seats...especially during a night game. Plus, Costco only stocks blue seats.
let the cabs strike. they are useless. i hope dc gov't doesn't cave to a bunch of whiny babies.
aren't those the seats they didn't put in? I was watching that show Build it Bigger on Discovery (or was it the Science Channel?) a few days ago and they showed an empty spot where four seats were supposed to be, but they realized you couldn't see home plate from those seats. So they decided against putting them in..