Miscellaneous: June 2009 Archives

• The D.C. Fire Department says it will try to do better this year in terms of busting illegal fireworks in the District. We'll believe it when we see it, but in the meantime, you might want to refresh your memories on what kinds of fireworks are legal and what aren't.
• The District recently adopted stricter rules on valet parking outfits.
• A first sighting of members of the D.C. Real World cast, who reportedly arrived in town today: "2 girls- blond, strawberry blond, regularly dressed- jeans and casual. looked young." This is going to get old really fast.

• The Red Line crash is still dominating the local headlines: WJLA is reporting that Metro GM John Catoe has rejected Jim Graham's proposal to move ahead with scrapping all of Metro's older, 1000-series rail cars, instead focusing on moving them to the middle of the trains.
• A memorial service is set for tonight at the D.C. National Guard Armory for retired Maj. Gen. David F. Wherley Jr. and Ann Wherley, the married couple who died in last week's Metro crash.
• ICYMI: Don't neglect to read Eli Saslow's detailed timeline of the Red Line crash in the Post.

by DCist contributor Andrew Helms

Yeah, getting around town on two wheels sure can be great. But if you're anything like me, if something goes wrong, you're at a total loss. Just looking at the maze of spokes and gears without some kind of help is enough to drive most normal folks to the brink of insanity.

"I'm not going to be content. I want to make the World Cup team."

• The American Prospect's Adam Serwer looks at how black leadership is changing the fight for gay rights in D.C.
• The Post's Annie Gowan reports from Metrorail operator Jeanice McMillan's funeral, where Metro GM John Catoe and Mayor Adrian Fenty both spoke.
• The Washington Business Journal's Sarah Krouse has some nice coverage of the ceremonial reopening of the historic Eastern Market building today. Remember to check out the official community celebration on Saturday.

It's been a big week, with lots of crazy stories and tragic ones. No matter what you think about him, Michael Jackson is seemingly on everyone's mind.

• It looks like Michael Jackson has suddenly died at the age of 50.
• Also, Farrah Fawcett, after a long battle with cancer. She was 62.
• Metro is warning people about a jump in robberies on the system recently.

Written by DCist contributor Andrew Helms

• House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer may be trying to find $3 billion in Metro funding to help replace all the city's 1000-series rail cars, but in the meantime, Mike DeBonis put together a guide on how to avoid the older cars. Personally, I'll still be riding in the front or back, where you can always find a seat.
• Just to clarify, yes, Clear customers are getting totally ripped off.
• Cary Silverman and Martin Moulet are challenging anti-gay marriage crusader Bishop Harry Jackson's D.C. residency status.

• LAist watched as the Lakers won the NBA championship then as people "celebrated" by vandalizing, looting, smashing, and burning things in Downtown L.A.
• Gothamist had its fill of the controversial, from a scandalous Calvin Klein billboard (with threesome) to the killing of Canada geese, in the name of airline safety.
• Seattlest went 29 days without rain, girls went feral and old men turned on each other.

Well, this whole article has 'tread lightly' written all over it in imaginary red pen.

Oh, those anonymous sources -- they sure can burn you, as any journalist will tell you. After all, Manny Acta is still the manager of the Washington Nationals and Jim Riggleman still can only have "Bench Coach" on his business cards. Wha happen?

It's good to be nice to your elders. But everything has limits.

• Oh. Dear. Apparently some local non-profits have started getting calls from MTV about placing their D.C. castmembers as volunteers. Who wants a bunch of useless summer help? (+ TV cameras!) [Fishbowl DC]
• Looks like a deal is shaping up for the Contention Center Hotel that doesn't involve looting other city projects and should cost the city much less than first feared. [WashBizJo]
• Dan Froomkin is out at the Washington Post, White House Watch blog kaput. [Politico]

That's the message some commuters on the Key Bridge may have gotten this morning, as somebody changed a couple of electronic road signs to say naughty things -- namely "F**KTACO/MUDKIPZ!/BALLSACK," although without the asterisks. Needless to say, the Virginia Department of Transporation was not amused, reports WTOP.

• Crap commute? Multiple Metro delays around the Reagan National Airport and Braddock Road stations have been causing delays on both the Blue and Yellow lines, which will last for the rest of the evening.
• Creepy story we missed this morning from the Examiner: apparently there are a healthy number of diplomats living the D.C. area who get away with enslaving household and sex workers while hiding under diplomatic immunity.
• Jason Cherkis catches up with Shadow Senator Paul Strauss, post-DUI guilty plea. Strauss just wants to "move on."

• Don't miss Mike DeBonis's liveblog of today's D.C. Council crime bill debate! All the exclamation points you could ever want, and more! [City Desk]
• For a less exalted assessment of the proceedings, try Tim Craig. The bottom line: Jack Evans lost his bid to enact so-called "civil gang injunctions," while Phil Mendelson's more conservative emergency crime bill, which focuses on stiffer penalties for certain gun crimes, committing crimes with stolen cars, and chronic offenders, passed, and now goes into effect for 90 days of summer. Oh yeah, and no curfew. [WaPo]
• Folks in Shaw and LeDroit Park suffered a 6-8 hour blackout last night. [In Shaw]

       

Eastern Market is officially set to reopen to the public on June 26, a little over two years after it was gutted by a devastating fire. Lucky dog Flickr contributor erin_m, aka local photog Erin McCann, who has been documenting the market's progress since the fire, managed to get a look inside the building on Monday night as crews work to put the finishing touches in before next Friday. She's posted her entire photo set here. Erin writes:

A very, very nice security guard gave me a tour of the rebuilt Eastern Market tonight.

Continue reading "Sneak Peek at Eastern Market Renovations"

• SILVERDOCS kicks off tonight, complete with LeBron James appearance! Stay tuned to DCist all week for lots more on the festival.
• Fun with typos over at WJLA/ABC7, courtesy Twitter user mlw219
• Today marks two years since Michelle Rhee took over DCPS as Chancellor. WaPo's Bill Turque commemorated the occasion in Sunday's paper.

• Bostonist went to the Boston Pride Parade and saw everything from Batman and Robin to dancing lifeguards. Oh, and a local sports team swept its rival.
• Chicagoist was all about artifacts this week: the collection of Italian artifacts worthy of Indiana Jones a local man had stashed in his house and an old photo of Bulls Rookie of the Year Derrick Rose flashing an alleged gang sign.
• SFist reacted to the city enacting the toughest recycling and composting laws in the U.S.

A number of funds have been established for those interested in donating to the family of Stephen T. Johns, who heroically sacrificed his life in Wednesday's shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

It's tough being a kid. There's homework, early bedtimes, and the universally dehumanizing "kid's menu." It's all the same fare, no matter the restaurant -- chicken fingers, grilled cheese, barren pizza -- and much less of it. Is it too much to ask for something legitimately tasty to eat while the big people talk about boring things like politics and finance?

• The Washington Business Journal spotted a Microsoft-owned digital mapping vehicle tricked out with 12 cameras in town this week.
• DC Metrocentric surveys the construction site at the new Arena Stage in Southwest.
• PoP breathlessly shares rumors of a new bar heading to Petworth.

D.C. is blessed with a lot of green space: parks, gardens, the Mall, and more. There's a couple botanical gardens, grottoes, fancy manicured lawns, and trees everywhere. Rock Creek is almost a wilderness in places, and even the smallest little pocket parks have nice landscaping. It's good that visitors can appreciate it.

We've officially clocked 37 different reader requests to post this admittedly kinda funny rap spoof that's apparently been making the rounds on the interwebs. So by popular demand, DCist presents: "Arlington: The Rap" by YouTube user GoRemy.

• The FBI has found a disturbing note from accused Holocaust Museum gunman James von Brunn, in which he describes his intention to "defend the Constitution" from "Jews - Bolsheviks - Zionist" [sic].
• Democrat Creigh Deeds has the early lead in the Virginia governor race against Republican Bob McDonnell.
• D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles says that a referendum on gay marriage recognition should not be allowed. It's not up to him, of course, but his thoughts on the matter should be reassuring to local same sex marriage advocates.

• Both D.C. Wire and City Desk cover today's D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics hearing on a potential same-sex marriage referendum. No decision has been made, as the board is keeping the record open until 5 p.m. tomorrow to give residents more time to submit written testimony.
• Craziest D.C. same sex marriage debate story to date: The Washington Blade is reporting that gay marriage opposition leader Bishop Harry Jackson claims as his D.C. residence a 1-bedroom condo in the Shaw/Mt. Vernon Triangle area Whitman condo building, and that the unit in question is in fact occupied by another man who has reportedly told people that Jackson is his "roommate."
• There will be a protest at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow in Dupont Circle against CVS's practice of locking up their condoms, via Washington Business Journal.

If you haven't been watching The Tonight Show since Conan O'Brien took over the show last week, you might have missed a segment that aired Monday night featuring local WUSA-9 TV news reporter Armando Trull. The sketch, which Conan dubbed "Trull Busters," features a clip of Trull reporting on a story outside a Metro station (looks like it could be Silver Spring, but it's hard to make out), only to have a portly gentlemen take a rather exaggerated pratfall directly behind him. You can view the video here; the sketch gets going around the 11:30 minute mark.

• DCist reader Shaun sent us the neato time-lapse video above of the threatening thunderstorm clouds rolling in earlier this evening.
• Examiner picks up story of Tysons Corner mall ads that look like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which have been yanked since why.i.hate.dc first wrote about them.
• Hey how about that, the Post actually hired a woman to be their new Metro columnist! Longtime metro reporter Petula Dvorak will take up Marc Fisher's spot.

• D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty was named one of Men's Fitness magazine's Top 25 Fittest Men, via City Desk. Fake Adrian Fenty surely concurs with the distinction.
• Oh hey, the city totally got reimbursed for the Inauguration! Have to admit to being surprised on that one.
• Metrocurean previews Kids Restaurant Week. In other words, don't go to any of these restaurants next week if you're the sort who doesn't enjoy screaming and crying along with your meal.

There was some lamentation in the local tech community over D.C. Chief Technology Officer Vivek Kundra's decision to leave city government for a post with the Obama administration. Under Kundra's watch the Office of the CTO did some cool things, most notably the city data catalog and the Apps for Democracy contest (which was a great idea, even if the money-saving numbers quoted in relation to it are transparently ridiculous). But — the occasional FBI raid notwithstanding — there are encouraging signs that OCTO* is going to continue to pursue a spirit of innovation even after Kundra's departure. Yes, the diminished quality of the city's crime incident data feed is disappointing, but that seems to be MPD's fault, not OCTO's. More encouragingly, a second Apps For Democracy contest is underway; the city's geographic shapefile repository seems to have removed some of the hoops through which users previously had to jump to acquire its larger datasets; and — most excitingly — OCTO is rolling out a new 311 API. If you haven't checked out the city's online service request center, you really ought to. From scheduling bulk trash pickup to reporting broken streetlights to arranging for graffiti removal, there are nearly forty different city services can be accessed through the system. And although I'm still waiting on a new recycling bin (any year now!), my admittedly anecdotal experience with the system has been mostly positive. By providing a standardized and reliable interface for developers, the new 311 API aims to make these capabilities available through sites and programs other than the dc.gov website. The example most often cited is a theoretical iPhone app for reporting potholes: fire it up, snap a photo of the offending divot, and press submit. The phone could then whisk the information (along with your current latitude and longitude) to the city government without the need for additional information. At least, that's the dream. The API is still under development, and things are in flux. For instance, it's not yet clear exactly how users will obtain the API keys that will let them use the system — or how griefers will be prevented from reporting every parking meter in the city to be broken every hour of every day. But that hasn't stopped developers from beginning to work with the system. For instance, local developers Zvi Band and Aaron Brazell have released Ruby and PHP libraries, respectively, that aim to make it easier for programmers working in those languages to access the API. And we're sure that the next Apps For Democracy will include many entries that make use of the API, whatever state it's in. There are some functions that are already useful, like the capability to convert a geographic position to a nearby street address (which can be surprisingly difficult to do when using conventional mapping services like Google's). It's an exciting time to be a D.C. resident with a computer and a desire to get a streetlight fixed. What kind of apps would you like to see? * Also: is it just us, or is OCTO's logo in desperate need of improvement? The current state of affairs is inexcusable — particularly when you consider the anthropomorphic octopus options that are open to whoever's responsible for the agency's graphics.

• Gothamist was mesmerized by the amazing story of a cat who survived a 26-story fall from a lower Manhattan apartment building. And the cat's name is Lucky!
• SFist asked members of the gastronomic elite to reveal their favorite junk food.
• Torontoist took a look inside the spectacular Airbus A380—the world's largest passenger plane.

      

We're getting tantalizingly close to confirming that the house for MTV's The Real World is, in fact, in Dupont Circle. We had heard numerous tips that 2000 S Street NW was the place, but without much solid evidence to back those claims. Yesterday afternoon, we walked over the much-talked about house, which is located at the corner of 20th and S. There were construction people working on the exterior -- when asked what was going on there, one worker said "we're building a house, I dunno who lives there." When asked if it was related to MTV, he frowned.

I've met some opinionated people in my life, and if there's anything to be learned from those experiences, it's that universally-accepted truths are difficult to come by. Humans are an argumentative breed, whether that's Coke against Pepsi, East Coast versus West Coast, The Sex Pistols or The Ramones. We've got preferences. It's what makes us unique beings.

• Police say a body discovered in Piscataway, Md. could be Pamela Butler, the D.C. woman who has been missing since February, WJLA reports.
• City Desk has the speed camera image that led to Mayor Adrian Fenty's speeding ticket.
• Detailed write up of the most recent ANC2F meeting from 14thandYou, including more on the ongoing saga that is The Space.

Asking strangers questions can be a recipe for disaster. But sometimes, it can be awesome.

• Finally, some official word on the Owen Wilson/Reese Witherspoon/Paul Rudd movie heading to town: they'll start filming later this month (they have not, as had been previously rumored, already started principal photography); it's been tentatively titled How Do You Know?, a name that sounds destined to change; it's a romantic comedy directed by James Brooks, so let's hope for more As Good as it Gets and less Spanglish; it's going to be filmed largely around Adams Morgan, though other scenes will take place near Dupont, Penn Quarter and at Nationals Park. [WaPo, Yeas & Nays]
• We gotta admit, this is pretty funny/accurate. [why.i.hate.dc]
• Check out the Ward 8 Farmers Market, Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., which returns this weekend. [Congress Heights on the Rise]

JAZZ: We already previewed this year's Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, which kicks off officially tomorrow but is hosting a prelude concert tonight featuring pianist Allyn Johnson. The performance, taking place at The Phillips Collection, will also include bassist Herman Burney and flautist Jamal Brown. 5 p.m. Free.

• The wreckage of the missing Air France flight has been found. None of the 228 people on board appear to have survived. [CNN]
• Marion Barry's emergency proposal to limit the Summer Jobs Program to only six weeks failed to pass today. Score this one for Mayor Fenty. [City Desk]
• It's pretty hard to believe that the Prince George's County prosecutor looks like he's not going to file any charges in the death of accused cop killer Ronnie White, who died within 48 hours of being arrested and held in the PG County jail. The Maryland medical examiner ruled White's death a homicide. [WaPo]
• Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas made a rare public appearance by addressing the graduating seniors at Gaithersburg’s Quince Orchard High School. This is pretty much the first graduating class who were all born after Thomas's confirmation hearings. [Examiner]