April 16, 2008
Morning Roundup: Crustacean Cessation Edition
Good morning, Washington. Get your return filed? Well, good. Hopefully your tax bill wasn't too enormous. And if you still have some cash lying around, perhaps you'd like to spend it on a tiny piece of Popemania? If so, today offers two new options: there are of course t-shirts, coffee mugs and other pope swag; or you could eat like a pontiff at Cafe Milano, official birthday meal supplier to the Vatican. Personally, we're hoping some of the vendors outside the stadium are selling miters covered with blinking LEDs.
Virginia, Maryland Cut Crab Harvest: Yesterday governors Tim Kaine and Martin O'Malley announced substantial reductions in the number of crabs that fishermen will be permitted to remove from the Chespeake Bay. The AP (via WTOP) has the details; the Post provides more context. In short: there are just too many fishermen for crab populations to be maintained. As a result, female crab harvests will be reduced by a third. Subsidies will be offered to help affected crabbers, but the specifics haven't yet been worked out.
Jefferson Scholar Unimpressed With Dancers: Today the Post picks up the story of the arrest made over the weekend at the Jefferson Memorial. As we reported on Monday, a group of people assembled at the memorial on Saturday night and danced silently in celebration of Thomas Jefferson's birthday. One of the revelers was arrested by the Park Police. The Post doesn't add much to this account other than a higher profile and a few choice quotes from the University of Virginia's Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation professor Peter Onuf, who doesn't think T.J. would have sided with the dancers.
Briefly Noted: Men robbed and stabbed, one fatally, while riding ATVs in Prince George's County last night... Gaithersburg woman wins Pilsbury Bake-Off... Montgomery County scraps pope-welcoming message on buses; also, county considering energy tax... Double shooting in Northeast...
This Day In DCist: Today is the one year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings.
Image posted to DCist Photos by Flickr user Samer Farha
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wow, morning roundup at 8:15....is everything OK at dcist HQ?
another shooting in bloomingdale/eckington land. take that trinidad, we're way more 'hood than you guys!
So I go to meet my main man Benny at the Vatican Embassy yesterday, because we go way back. I used to let him crash on my couch back in our days at Heidelberg U. (ask him about that duelling scar some time). Here's a bit from my live blog:
5:10 - Parking sucks in Northwest. Lots of Latino families in Toyota minivans doubleparking. This makes Sunday morning at Logan Circle look like Death Valley in '81.
5:14 - Benny exits his limo, white beanie in hand. Totally clashes with the shoes. Never could dress hisself. Shoving my way through the crowd.
ME: God save thee, my sweet boy! My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!
BXVI: I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers. How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!I have long dream'd of such a kind of man, so surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane. But, being awaked, I do despise my dream. Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace. Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape for thee thrice wider than for other men.
ME: (dejected) Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.
SHALLOW: Yea, marry, Sir Monkey; which I beseech you to let me have home with me. What did you spend it on?
ME: Sewage trebuchet needed a new recoil spring. Come, Shallow, to the Home Depot! We need some fresh mulch. That kraut will be sorry he screwed with me! He can friggin forget me ever paying his bail again, Mister I'm-not-drunk-just-shut-up-and-get-in-the-van. I swear, put a guy in a dress and he thinks he's Leona Friggin Helmsley.
wait, she won the pillsbury bake off by wrapping slice and bake cookies around peanut butter balls? slacker.
was nekko at the new pornos last night? anyone know?
and here's a guess for what's going to be a big news story tomorrow. parking woes.
MPD has those temporary "no parking" signs slapped up on every tree, signpost, and lamppost from at least logan circle to north capitol street (and i'm sure they go farther east and west) saying that there is no parking from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. today. plus, they're up on the cross streets for a block in either direction from rhode island.
i guess that's going to be the pope's route up to brookland. betcha a ton of cars are going to get towed, and a bunch of people are going to be pretty incensed...
yeah, neko was there....and it was great
Did someone say pornos?
I'm celebrating Benny's big day out gastronomically. Eggs benedict with communion wafers instead of english muffins for breakfast, a brat for lunch, and for dinner a soul schnitzel with spätzle.
Southeast will really be screwed to the floor tomorrow, particularly since they're shutting down South Capitol Street. The lines to get in the stadium should start around dawn tomorrow. I'm sure the neighborhood will be flooded with minivans disgorging hoards of the faithful to hear the Pope's message: be fruitful and breed like maniacs so we can encase this dangerously underpopulated planet with a shell of humanity three-people deep.
Yes, all of DC's got "papal fever" and not the kind that attacked my intestinal lining some years back.
Monkey, thanks for the play-by-play with your good friend BXVI. I really feel like I was there, even though I didn't want to be there.
Totally clashes with the shoes.
An English friend of mine taught me the phrase "red shoes mean no knickers".
Just sayin'...
dammit, i know how to spell her name. i am a huge np fan. but yet i misspell it ALL THE TIME. argh.
One detail from the Jefferson Monument story:
"Talley said it was a long-planned gathering of friends"
So in other words, not spontaneous, and something for which they could have sought a permit if it was really important to them.
"Jefferson was very anal about obedience to the law."
If only other presidents felt this way as well.
Everyone's talking about the Pope, and I can care about is if the new measures by VA & MD will make local crab prices shoot up. I fear for my unkosher goodliness.
demonfafa,
You should bring this up with the Pope, I heard his boss did wonders with two loaves and a few fish.
"another shooting in bloomingdale/eckington land. take that trinidad, we're way more 'hood than you guys!"
IMGoph: What was that you were saying about taking your chances in Bloomingdale over Adams Morgan any day? Ha ha ha!
Hey fafa (yes, it's me)...I think most "local" crabs have been imported from the Carolinas for a while now, so I doubt it will impact prices too much unless you insist on real Chesapeake crabs.
Everyone's talking about the Pope, and I can care about is if the new measures by VA & MD will make local crab prices shoot up. I fear for my unkosher goodliness.
I love crabs, but I will gladly pay more for them or simply take a season or two off from eating them to support this uncommonly responsible step by MD and VA.
I usually only get crabs once or twice a year at a place up in Baltimore [insert VD joke here] called L.P. Steamers. I thought since the place is in a pretty blue-collar neighborhood in Baltimore that they got hooked with the good crabs 'cause they knew the guys that worked the boats. As it turns out they have some sort of hook-up where they get most of their crabs from the Gulf of Mexico. Hopefully prices and quality there won't be affected too much by the cut in the Bay crab harvest.
If you're interested in getting some authentic crabs, I hear Paris Hilton has them by the bushel. But don't come crying to me when you feel a burning sensation when you go potty.
You know, that Jefferson scholar has a point, but... I want to side with the libertarians (in general) but hate being stuck next to them on a bar stool.
I have to agree with hillrat's comments from yesterday regarding white privilege. It is ridiculous and offensive that they're calling Oberwetter the Jefferson 1. There's no comparison between what happened to her and the Jena 6... except considering privilege.
IMGoph-- check your MPD Crime Summary. Shootings on Staples & Montello last night (let's give up for Montello, huh?).
Trinidad wins again!
Or... ok... at least ties. But including Monday's dramatic hand-shooting incident, we're having a stellar week so far.
"Jefferson was very anal about obedience to the law."
Except those persnickety fornication and miscegenation laws.
drew: i said i'd take my chances walking around bloomingdale at night. all of our shootings the last couple days have been happening in broad daylight...that's the dangerous time. luckily, i am at work when stuff's going down.
meganomics (awesome name, BTW): yeah, you guys just had to go and one-up us, didn't you?
@Reid
Don't confuse the issue by presenting facts!
IMGoph: I'll join you once I get my kevlar vest back from the dry cleaners.
Driving up Wisc this a.m., had to make room (where, as usual, there was no room) for the oncoming MPD car, the unmarked white minivan and the phlanx of about 9 cycle cops (no sidecars though).
Unless Benny was in the van, it looked like a quick donut delivery.
I'm with hillrat. The fact that MD and VA actually worked together on this agreement is great. For too long MD's been doing one thing and VA another, obviously to the detriment of the crabs. I love crabs (the shellfish :p). It's a requirement that all children growing up in the Old Line State learn how to pick'em. You can tell the people who aren't from here when they complain there's too much seasoning (you can NEVER have too much Old Bay), they can't tell the males from the females (Washington Monument vs. Capitol dome), and they spend half an hour trying to get the meat out of one claw. Amateurs.
Save'em then eat'em!!
Flapjack, I like crab meat, but I find crab is too much effort for the reward. Being a New England boy myself, you get much more bang for your buck with lobster.
Stop calling His Holiness Benny. He is called Ratso, from Ratzinger.
Thank you.
drew - You're the reason why Jerry's Seafood created the Crab Bomb. If you've ever wanted to commit suicide by crab and mayo, they've got you covered. In crab and mayo. Also, the lobster roll at Hank's Oyster Bar is about as good as it gets 'round these parts. Five-out-of-five shrieks on the monkeyrotica scale.
But what about the porn?
Also, the lobster roll at Hank's Oyster Bar is about as good as it gets 'round these parts. Five-out-of-five shrieks on the monkeyrotica scale.
Coming from someone that shares my taste for Mangialardo's and Deli City, that's a strong recommendation.
mike: why can't we call him benny ratzinger or just benny ratso.
best of both worlds there...
drew - it's not just about eating crab, it's about the experience of sitting at a picnic table covered in paper with foot high piles of crab shells, oil slicks of butter, a whole trees worth of used paper towels, empty beer bottles, and Old Bay and crab guts up to your elbows. It's criticizing your friends for their inability to get every last piece of meat out. It's forgetting to wash your hands before you rub your eyes or go to the bathroom. It's realizing that no matter how hard you try your hands are just permanently stained yellow and will always smell like crab.
Sure it may cost half your paycheck to have this experience but every once in a while I think it's worth it.
How about Ratzo Rizzo Ratzinger, for a little Midnight Cowboy mashup action? "Frankly, you're beginning to smell and for a stud in New York, that's a handicap."
"Also, the lobster roll at Hank's Oyster Bar is about as good as it gets 'round these parts."
I know. I feel like a stranger in a strange land.
...and terrific. now the shootings are happening on the block where i work. the timing is right for me though. i seem to be at home and work during the opposite times that they become 1980s beirut...
drew - I can grok that s**t. Straight UP.
Also, Hank's fried clams are amazing. These are not the deepfried breaded rubberbands they have at Howard Johnsons. The crust is like the best fried chicken crust you've ever had and the clams taste like clams, not like reused Trojans. Believe me, I've done some things I aint' proud of.