Wednesday, April 18, 2007

List of Excuses

OK, so I could bore everyone reading this with a long list of excuses for my blogging absence - but I will spare you all. I do promise to get back in the saddle and start blogging more regularly. I went on a rant last night about the pathetic state of politics in the District after a speech I gave to a local group. It really does mystify me that after decades and decades of some of the worst mismanagement and incompetence that voters in DC continue to vote for Democrats. Is there a breaking point? Is there something the elected Democrat leadership in this city could do that was so outrageous that voters would actually demand a change? Or are voters in DC just completely resigned to totally incompetent leadership?

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Jury Duty Blog

Jury duty is something that DC residents have to perform much more than almost anyone on the planet, at least according to my unofficial anecdotal surveys. In ten years in the District I have served five times, just within the legal limit of how many times they can call you. Today I did my latest.

The experience is always heavy for me as it is a window into the underbelly of DC and the daily tragedies that are played out in the criminal justice system.

I arrived at the I. Carl Moultrie III courthouse on Indiana Ave at 10:30. The building itself is an assault on the senses: ribbed concrete stained by the years and on a windy, cold plaza. The building is named after the head of the DC Superior Court at that time, 1972. The exterior of the building is etched with the names of about ten other civil servants and the walls of the atrium inside are filled with the names of former judges. I cannot imagine a private sector equivalent to this sort of vanity and self-importance.

Outside, there were two long lines to pass through the metal detectors and screening machines so I joined one of them. Sadly, the eye can immediately distinguish those serving jury duty and those who are there to see a trial of friends or family members. The jury pool comprises all races and nationalities: the hip urbanista, the business woman reading the WSJ, the somewhat frail and elderly genteel black woman behind me and the doddering elderly WASP man wearing a tie and tweed jacket but looking sort of rumpled, like his wife passed away years ago and he doesn't quite know how to launder his clothing properly.

In contrast to the diversity of the jury pool, the court attendees were uniformly black and underclass. Think: The Wire in DC.

After passing through security, I went to the juror check-in. The line was unimaginably long. It took me one hour and 45 minutes to check in, a new record. The frail woman behind me was ready to pass out. We were then dismissed for lunch and a couple of hours after lunch were dismissed for good. In the line to get our $4 for serving, the man ahead of me was illiterate and couldn't understand the screen prompts. Ten minutes later after I helped him get through the transaction II thought, how could an illiterate man serve on a jury?

DC jury duty confronts you with all of the dysfunction of this city, from having so many felons that we get called every two years to having potential jurors who cannot read or write. It also confronts you with the long arm of the law, as so many cases are drug-related. It also reminds you that judges are so entitled and imperious that they get their names etched into a public building.

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Sunday, April 15, 2007

Mary Cheh Emulates NY In The Worst Way

As the article on Joshua Bell being totally ignored by DC commuters showed that we are not New York, our council members pushed legislation to make us like New York in the worst way. Specifically, Ward 3 council member Mary Cheh has proposed legislation to ban trans-fats in the District. I would link to a Wa Post story, but there isn't one, as the Wa Post doesn't really cover District news. Sadly, I only read about this ban proposal in the Northwest Current, which is not available online. A quote:
Cheh says, "We are not getting any thinner."
Then the one-sided article goes onto quote the bane of freedom called the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Those guys would have us all living in plastic bubbles eating tofu while wearing helmets and never drinking or smoking. I totally despise them, and I don't despise many things, but they should be thrown out of our country as they have no idea what freedom means or what our country means.

Please, fellow DCists, write your council members to oppose this idiocy. Unfortunately, Cheh had four co-sponsors. We can assume sell-out Catania will also convert and our only hope is Schwarz.

PS can I tell you how disenfranchised I feel? Not only do I not have a congressional vote, but for the past four months I don't even have a ward rep. Even worse, Kathy Patterson, in some back room political move, agreed to shave off of my part of Ward 3 to annex with Ward 4, which is a mile across the park and we have no streets in common or anything else. So I am in this little sliver of nothingness in Chevy Chase annexed to a Ward with completely different issues and radical politics.

They could have done the redistricting in a much more logical/neighborhood way, taking some away from Ward 2 and moving them into 3. Wards should represent neighborhoods that are contiguous. Ugh.

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Saturday, April 07, 2007

Joshua Bell and Are We Really New York-Esque

The Washington region is rich. In fact, the three most prosperous large counties in the United States are in the Washington suburbs, according to census figures released yesterday, which show that the region has the second-highest income and the least poverty of any major metropolitan area in the country.

But how rich are we in culture? The Wa Post did an amazing study of that by putting a man who is known as the best American classical musician in the Metro as a busker. The reporter told the head of the Ken Cen about the effort and when Slatkin heard it was Joshua Bell he said, "NO!!!"

As a woman in the study said,"It was the most astonishing thing I've ever seen in Washington," Furukawa says. "Joshua Bell was standing there playing at rush hour, and people were not stopping, and not even looking, and some were flipping quarters at him! Quarters! I wouldn't do that to anybody. I was thinking, Omigosh, what kind of a city do I live in that this could happen?"

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Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Spring and the Arrival of Fanny Packs

We DC'ers all love the Spring but cringe a bit when the tourists arrive. See my TtP post for more ranting and raving on the subject.