What's That You Say?
Hmm, it seems like the right time to lug the trusty ol' machine which spits out the week's best comments out of storage, and give her a whirl -- and What's That You Say? has got the keys to start the engine. Vroom vroom.
This last week was a feisty one in the comments -- what was going on out there? Oh yeah, that whole influenza panic, right. You all should just be grateful that we didn't break out a swine flu-pocolypse headline this week. (Wait, one of those is actually about pigs. Ah, whatever.) In the midst of so much hype, we were looking for one of our commenters to make some sense out of the whole thing for us. Luckily, boondoggle came through in our Comment of the Week:
Every decade, the media creates some Latin-themed menace that will rise up from south of the border to kill us all. Back in the eighties it was Menudo; in the nineties it was those killer bees we needed to be worried about.
Who wants to bet this Swine Flu turns out to be just as innocuous as the hot sauce at Taco Bell?
After the jump, you're officially entering a no-H1N1 zone; IHOP debate, confusion about civil defense alarms, and hockey trash-talk is still plentiful, though.
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Last weekend's All Hands On Deck police initiative ended with violent outbursts on Sunday. hillvada didn't seem too pleased with the overall effort:
Are you sure it was called "All Hands on Deck?" It sure seemed to me like it was called "All Hands at the 7-11 on South Capitol Street."
Cops in cars, on foot, on bikes, and, of course, on Segways. Most wearing billowing oversized cargo pants that made them look like cartoon characters. It was quite a sight, a sad sight, but a sight none the less.
Meanwhile, 2 blocks south in the housing projects, the drug dealers were working their corners without a care in the world.
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Let the trash-talking commence! west kicks things off ably:
I believe I read that those cases of swine flu in Maryland have been attributed to Pens fans. Also, Many Park Police are known Pens fans and bike chopping originated in Pittsburgh.
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Well, they weren't pink, but there was definitely some elephants on parade yesterday.
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Monday's big news? A potential IHOP in Columbia Heights. Reaction, of course, was mixed.
mommyworks' attitude -- IHOP is better than nothing:
At this point they need to fill in the enormous amount of empty space, so IHOP should be a win win. Most people like breakfast food or the other casual dining offerings on their menu. It is not gourmet but will appeal to a broad swath of residents. I don't really eat pancakes but love a omelets and don't always want to spend $$$ for a fritata at some smancy place. Plus you gotta appreciate a breakfast joint that leaves you a carafe of coffee at your table so that you don't have to beg for refills.
Of course, if you wanted to hear the same arguments regarding local businesses vs chains and how it is or isn't killing the neighborhood, well, there was that too.
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Virginia is for Losers: "Eventide, thoughts arrive like butterflies."
Is it true that this place was originally supposed to be a 90's grunge-themed tapas place called Evenflow, until the owners heard from Pearl Jam's lawyers?
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The first six comments use the same quote and burst out in virtual laughter? This could only involve Marion Barry in some capacity.
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Sure, it might have caused "severe pain in the genital region," but as NewHCE says, perhaps we're being a little bit too hard on these GWU kids:
Aww come on. You can't be that hard on them. It SOUNDS like a good idea.
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Oh come on, Wizzyliz, everyone knows that the "Presidential hang-out" clause got taken out after the Fathers edited down that version with the word "suckers" in it.
Boo Hoo Hoo. Cry me a river.
I just checked the Constitution of the United States, Article 2, Section 3 (Presidential Responsibilities). I re-read it ten times to make sure I didn't overlook the "hang-out time with the wealthy parents of your child's private school" responsibilities.
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DreadPirateRoberts, using this week's protest by disabled individuals to ask the important logistical questions:
What are the logistics of arresting a bunch of wheelchair-bound miscreants? Does the MPD have a paddywagon with a handicap lift? Can you link the wheelchairs together in a "chain gang" and tow them all back to the station?
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"New WaPo ombudsman is spearheading a plan to finally print a backlog of five years worth of corrections."
By Peter Whoriskey and Kendra Marr
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, April 27, 2009
Gore wins Election
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This week in the Magical World of Monkeyrotica, our good friend Monkey goes on one of his lovable tangents -- this time, about civil defense alarms that wake up entire neighborhoods:
"It appears that the alarm may be part of a Municipal Civil Defense system."
So is it or isn't it?
"The University has contacted the appropriate District and Federal agencies to resolve this concern."
How do you contact the "appropriate" officials if you don't even know who the alarm belongs to?
Now, I'm no fancy city lawyer monkey (GASP!) but it seems to me that an alarm is supposed to indicated to people that they need to do something. When the fire alarm goes off, you leave the building. When the cop siren goes off behind you, you pull over. When your tailgunner starts bubbling, it's time to go ca-ca. WTF is up with a nondescript siren going off for an hour and nobody knows who set off the alarm, who the alarm belongs to, and what the alarm is supposed to indicate?
And WTF is up with "Civil Defense" anyway? Didn't we get rid of all that Mccarthy-era cr@p when Reagan became a contra and rescued all those christian aid workers being held in Burma? I thought Homeland Security was supposed to handle that nonsense, or are they just in charge of the flamethrowers we're supposed to use to burn all the corpses? Because their website is totally lacking any details on alarm responses, corpse burning procedures, or even rudimentary zombie attack survival scenarios.
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rdo, how dare you speak ill of the Allegiance!
HA! I'd like to see them fighting crime at midnight somewhere in the 'hood in Cincinnati. It looks like their "beat" is the Cincinnati equivalent of Connecticut Ave. Really effective. I guess D&D gets boring after 15 years.
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Our comment section got busy on Wednesday, after news was released that acute alcohol poisoning was the cause of death for a sophomore at George Washington who passed away earlier this year. Some people were offended that our commenters were discussing the situations that caused the tragic death -- but as qbert rightly puts it, by talking about these difficult issues, we might be able to prevent it from happening again:
I'm sure this stuff is painful for her friends/family to read, but I don't think it's inappropriate for people to be discussing and asking questions about the circumstances that evening. Since nobody wants something like this to happen again, people are going to wonder what went wrong and how this kind of tragedy can be avoided.
In particular, it's pretty obvious that underage drinking and overserving are rampant on 18th Street. The bars need to operate responsibly, but with the volume of business they're doing, they also need more capacity for enforcement. Maybe there's something the city or BID can do, like supplying bars with those infrared ID verification systems to detect fakes. Maybe during peak hours, shots should be limited to one per customer so that bartenders can better assess whether the person is too drunk for another round. Maybe something to keep people in one establishment longer instead of bar-hopping, so they're not ordering a double shot from a bartender that doesn't know they just knocked back five in 20 mins at the last place. Adams Morgan is just so out of hand; there have got to be some reasonable measures to discourage overserving.
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Hey, let's give out some awards, eh? Alright!
This week's Username of the Week goes to FnA. Our sentiments exactly, dude.
Anyone who's followed the hallowed history of the Avatar Award for Achievement in the Field of Avatars knows that the esteemed committee charged with making such a difficult choice are often tempted by images of food and drink. (It's probably because we only let them out once a week to make their selection -- then it's back to the basement!) Anyway, this week's recipient is eriss for a delicious rendering of an Oreo. (Note: not a Hydrox. God help you if you like Hydrox.)