What's That You Say?
A big aloha to all the esteemed members of the commentariat joining us for another edition of What's That You Say?.
This week, we're featuring a high concept version of the Comment of the Week - IMGoph felt the urge to "live-comment" his reading of the Outdoor Outside magazine story which named Washington as the "best town in America." Unfortunately, he found that Outdoor Outside could really, really use a fact checker - prep those résumés now, people.
[1:21 PM]: ok, i'm going to live-comment my reading of this article here...
right in the first two paragraphs, they call us "the D.C." and say that barry was mayor for 8 years. time to do some fact-checking there, outside.
they use warren brown for their go-to quote?!? what is this, 2004??
[1:22 PM]: the "capitol riverfront 'hood"? maybe someday, but for now, that's just a BID, folks.
[1:23 PM]: the bike sharing program is already up and running, folks. outside magazine says so.
so where's my damn pee-wee herman look-alike bike?
[1:24 PM]: cork is on U street! great falls is in the district! AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!
fact check!
[1:25 PM]: they give population stats for the city, but give employment stats for the whole metro area (thus making U of MD, inova health, and lockheed martin some of our biggest employers). why not give pop. stats for the whole metro then. apples and oranges, folks!
[1:26 PM]: alright, katie arnold (author of the DC section of the article), you are officially on my "bad writer" list.
After the jump, your reaction to the awful bicycle accident in Dupont Circle, plus the best of the rest of your comments.
photo by furcafe.
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One of the biggest stories this week was obviously the death of Alice Swanson, who was killed after she was struck while riding her bike in Dupont Circle. You had plenty to say about the tragedy in and of itself - but the fact that the ubiquitous debate regarding the safety of bicycling and driving was central to the story made it all the more inflammatory.
You also had a lot to say about WABA's ghost bike ceremony, which some of you found moving, others creepy, and perhaps a bit too much press conference and too little memorial.
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Wizzyliz seems to be tiring of the shady behavior of public officials and their cars:
Hmmmmmmm. Let's see.
Scenario 1: A pedestrian gets bumped by a car driven by a Metro Transit Police Captain, both parties agree all is well, life goes on.
Scenario 2: A metro bus sideswipes Marion Barry's car, nothing is reported and no witnesses come forth, months later Barry gets a wad of cash.
Newsflash: I was the pedestrian hit by the Police Captain's car and my medical bills after the incident were over $20,000 dollars. Please deposit here.
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Granville Moore's Teddy Folkman took Bobby Flay to the woodshed, but most of the comments were about the supposedly slow service and the comfort level of the bar at his Northeast outpost.
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The Fourth of July is said and done - so, how about those massive restrictions on fireworks? Not so much, says Disco Stu:
Are there any reports of arrests for these supposed illegal fireworks? The Examiner said that the police were expecting thousands of calls. There was the all hands on deck, and I could see all sorts of cruisers out from 12th and U, but I could see far more fire works displays. It looked like the Hubble deep field.
Meanwhile, LCT has the reasons why - the cops just wanted to watch them like everyone else:
Up in Petworth, people were launching rockets from pretty much right on Georgia Ave, while the police were hanging out admiring the shows with everyone else.
Which was good, since we had about $300 worth of illegal incendiary devices to shoot off ourselves.
God Bless America.
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Of course, IMGoph wasn't the only one who had a say about whether or not we lived in a town, a city, a colony, a prefecture, a hamlet, or something else entirely.
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boondoggle knows how to stick it to The Man:
See I imagine the perp was wearing jean shorts, less commonly known as jorts. Hemmed or cutoff, nothing says ‘Sic semper tyrannis’ to those MPD thugs quite like ‘em.
‘You may be empowered to effect public and social order through the legitimatized use of force but you will never cover my entire leg in denim.’
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Since Metro's decided to note bus delays on their homepage ticker, DE wonders:
MetroBus delays? Will the D6 be permanently listed?
Oh wait...I guess they won't be listing those buses delayed "for no apparent reason."
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Not to say that there aren't issues with the roads in the area, but gathering public opinion on the state of them by going door to door in the 'burbs is probably not the best way to go about it - most of you seemed to agree.
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Word is that those Metro managers who were participating in a prostitution ring are heading to a "diversion program" to reduce their potential sentences. Enter Stanton Park for appropriate questions:
So do Johns hang out around the "diversion program" the same way drug dealers hang out around the methadone clinics?
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HCE's commenting - cue the rimshot!
These "Week Around the Ists" posts are always so shortsighted. Why don't they ever update us on what's going on at racist.com, polygamist.com, tourist.com and defeatist.com?
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Nats President Stan Kasten claims that Teddy will someday win the President's race. But erahk0 finds the statement quite ironic:
It's also inevitable that the Nats will win...will Teddy win before the Nats win the world series?
(Touche.)
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Just when you thought you had enough of the Jessica Cutler story, HBO's developing a series based on her tell-all book. But as Nate notes, it could be alright if they go with the more overarching themes, instead of the word-for-word interpretation:
They're developing this novel as a series, not remaking Cutler's personal story as a fact-based movie-of-the-week, so the issue of whether or not the story is "old" seems completely irrelevant. In fact, I'd say that allowing a few years to go by actually gives them more freedom to play around with and expand the material.
Chances are good that they bought this property back when the story was still relatively fresh for a fairly modest lump sum, and now they're just figuring out a way to leverage it. It's probably just that much easier to sell a "sexy DC interns & scandals" show when it can be linked to a well-publicized novel and an actual real-life incident. Frankly, I'd be really surprised if the show ended up making Jessica herself very much money, or least making her much money directly.
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This week, The Magical World of Monkeyrotica features Mr. Monkey channeling his inner stream of consciousness:
I bet the kid's dad was a big-time multitasker. They can't drive to save their asses, yet they still are screwing with their Blackberries while they're poking at their GPS and texting their bitches while trying to get the straw into the Capri Sun pack because the kids yelling his head off in the back seat of the Tahoe. And when they're not on the road, they're "synergizin" down the grocery aisle, yelling at the Campbell's Cream of Failure Soup for One like some homeless maniac, except then you notice the Bluetooth dongle blinking in his head so you don't have to hold your purse close to you. God knows what these people will do when the s**t comes down and it's $12 a gallon gas and they have to sell their ass on the street because they forclosed on their 4 acre spread in Front Royal except nobody's buying because they've been reduced to using livestock for currency and they can't take any more goddamned emus. And this s**t is only going to get worse when everybody has TWO iPhones and they're walking into everybody else on the sidewalk because they're busy downloading music from the iTunes store and Twittering all those people they've never even MET before and then they realize, "S**T! I left my baby at the Genius Bar at the Apple Store!"
Game over, man. I'm moving to f**king American Samoa and opening a BBQ stand. You all can f**k yourselves with a white hot poker.
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somegirl, I somehow doubt that the irony registered.
Nothing represents a town where people eat, sleep, and breathe their jobs like a show about people with... no jobs.
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The Avatar Award for Achievement in the Field of Avatars selection committee often wonders what kind of campaign PR tactics that we'd see if the characters from Star Wars existed in the current political climate. (For instance, would we see debates at Cloud City?) But chances are we'd probably see more stunts like ajw 93's avatar. Vader's mask, urging you to vote for the Dark Side. Love it.
And this week's Username of the Week goes to Cease and DCist, whose fanciful wordplay is just splendid. Nice work!