Nationals Owner Hits Grand Slam

Last season, Forbes magazine listed Washington Nationals owner Theodore Lerner at number 462 on their annual Billionaires’ List, with a personal wealth of $2.5 billion. The 2009 Forbes list is shorter, of course; we’re in a worldwide financial meltdown and the number of billionaires is a mere 793, down from last year’s 1,125.

Mr. Lerner, though, has bucked the trend: this year he’s #191, with assets of  $3.2 billion. In 2007 Ted Lerner was in true Nationals form, at the bottom of the Bigs (#664, $1.5 billion). Let’s hear it for the home team!

Tomorrow, to celebrate Mr. Lerner’s coup, the cash-strapped DC Government will present him with $700,000-worth of sculpture it bought for him, decorations for the $611 million stadium taxpayers built for the Lerner family last year. We have not learned if the Lerners are actually paying the stadium rent this year.

 

Admire the sculptures your tax dollars bought for the Lerners 11:00 AM on Wednesday, April 8th, when the artwork will be dedicated at Nationals Park.  RSVP to Deirdre Ehlen at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) by email or phone (202-724-5613). The event is free. See the art you paid for before you have to buy Nationals tickets to do it.

 Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Meltdown Limits Medical Resources

For the first time in years, hospital employment has declined. Medical facilities are laying off employees in New York City, Philadelphia, and Ohio; Milwaukee-area hospitals lost $45 million in the last five months; over 45 million Americans lack health insurance; public hospitals deny cancer patients chemotherapy; U.S. hospitals are going bankrupt and closing.

Troubled times call for great sacrifices. The School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco has imposed drastic new financial limits. From this date forward, UCSF doctors and administrators will have to limit expense account wine purchases to $75 per bottle or less.

Cherry Blossom Parade Today in DC

Just another spring weekend in the DC. The gentle lapping of the Potomac, cherry blossoms bobbing in the breeze, police barricades across major thoroughfares ….  Festivities start with the Southwest Airlines National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade®. Festival Grand Marshal: Alex Trebek. Forget about driving on Constitution Avenue from 7th to 17th streets, NW.

The Sakura Matsuri (Japanese Street Festival) will be on Pennsylvania Avenue between 14th & 10th Streets NW and 12th Street between Pennsylvania and Constitution NW.

The day ends with three simultaneous pro sports events:  basketball ( Wizards at Verizon Center), soccer ( DC United at RFK Stadium), and baseball (Nationals at Nationals Park). Metro promises extra trains.

Road closures, parking restrictions, traffic jams, Metro crushes and crowded sidewalks.

I’ll take “Spring in DC” for a hundred, Alex.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Live DC Bluegrass Broadcast Tonight 6-8PM

One of the best Bluegrass bands in the Washington DC area is Rockledge (Darrell Slone-Banjo; Mark Clifton-Dobro; Lynn Healey-Guitar; Bradley Sams/Bill Taylor-Bass). The band will sing and play live in the WAMU-FM studios in the Nation’s Capital on Katy Daley’s Open Mic program this evening (Friday April 3rd, 6PM to 8PM EDT), but you can hear them from anywhere on the planet through BluegrassCountry.org.

There’s more. Thanks to to a cutting-edge breakthrough in wireless radio-telephony,  people in Northern Virginia and parts of  Maryland can hear this exciting live concert free on those ordinary FM radio receivers found in many homes and motor vehicles! Astounding. Simply set the indicator on the device to 105.5 megahertz.

Both of the Bluegrass fans who actually own HD(tm) radios can hear the digitally-modified broadcast at HD 88.5-2 if they live near the transmitter.

This is a seriously awesome band. Hear Rockledge on the radio tonight and in the flesh each Wednesday at FireFlies in Alexandria’s Del Ray neighborhood.

  

Image by Mike Licht, who is proud to have played bass for amazing singer and guitarist Lynn Healey.

Shopping Bag Bill — Elitism or Environmentalism?

To some, a DC Council bill encouraging District consumers to substitute reuseable shopping bags for disposable plastic and paper ones sounds like a regressive tax on the poor. The measure would put a 5 cent charge on plastic and paper shopping bags.

But DC Bill 18-0150, introduced  by Ward 6 Council Member Tommy Wells, is called the “Anacostia River Clean Up and Protection Act of 2009” for good reason, one that becomes compelling when you look at what windblown plastic bags have done to the Anacostia. The environmental and sanitation clean-up costs are immense.

Don’t live near the Anacostia? The same bags are clogging storm drains on your block. If you haven’t been flooded out yet, go ahead and oppose the bill — you will be.

The charge of elitism is bogus. Washington’s working poor are more likely to use public transit, so many of them carry reusable tote bags already.

Cherry Blossom Web Cam 2009

The digital horticulturalists of the National Park Service have weeded, fertilized, and pruned their code and routers into full bloom, so you can now enjoy the 2009 Cherry Blossom Web Cam. Click here.

 

Hat tip:  Danielle Piacente for the National Cherry Blossom Festival®
Cherry Blossom facts, National Park Service.

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Download the “desktop” image (Cherry Blossom Viewing at the Tidal Basin, after Hiroshige) here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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McCain Responds to the Budget Proposal

Senator John McCain, speaking for Republicans because Rush Linbaugh was busy, presented his party’s fiscal year 2010 federal budget counter-proposal in words of two letters, all of them spelled “N-O.”

Blog Stats for March 2009

I’t's April First, but we’re not fooling: 37,418 page views in March.

There were 28,318 page views in January, 23,732 in February.

Serving two helpings of Blogs With Bite last month seemed to whet the Blogosphere’s keen appetite for food-related content. This food feature is firmly fortnightly.

Thanks, folks. More to come.

 

Image by Mike Licht.