District of Columbia Councilman David Grosso has introduced a resolution that Washington’s professional football team should change its racist, derogatory name, the one beginning with “R.” It’s a non-binding resolution, to say the least; the team doesn’t even play in DC anymore.
Removing Native American slurs and stereotypes from sports nicknames and mascots has been a nationwide trend, but the second part of Mr. Grosso’s resolution is a bit arcane, and puzzles lots of folks. He suggests changing the team’s name to “Washington Redtails.” This is in honor of the Tuskegee Airmen, African American pilots of World War II. While more people should know about the Airmen, even the few who do don’t know that “Red Tails” was their nickname, unless they saw the flop movie of the same name.
“If you’re a barber in the District, you have to be licensed and regulated by a city board. But if you’re a tattoo artist or piercer, a certain libertarian ethos seems to govern your trade within city limits—currently, the District remains one of the last places in the country in which tattooing and piercing are wholly unregulated.”
More:
“Regulations on Horizon for D.C. Tattoo Artists,” Martin Austermuhle, DCist
“It used to be that D.C. architecture consisted of graceful Georgetown mansions, neoclassical federal buildings — and, of course, the monuments. When the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts was founded in 1910 to guide Washington’s architectural development, it reviewed designs such as those of the Lincoln Memorial and the Federal Triangle. Over the seven years I’ve served on the commission, however, an increasing amount of time is spent discussing security-improvement projects: screening facilities, hardened gatehouses, Delta barriers, perimeter fences, and seemingly endless rows of bollards. We used to mock an earlier generation that peppered the U.S. capital with Civil War generals on horseback; now I wonder what future generations will make of our architectural legacy of crash-resistant walls and blast-proof glass.”
– Wittold Rybczynski, Meyerson professor of urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania. Read more:
“The Blast-Proof City,” Wittold Rybczynski, Foreign Policy
“I Came, Eyesore, I Conquered,” Witold Rybczynski, Slate
“Security concerns have transformed Washington, taking a city envisioned as the physical embodiment of the openness of American democracy and turning it into a garrison town that is increasingly inaccessible to the general public.”
The IMF/World Bank Annual Meeting paralyzes the streets of Washington again this weekend as police defend our economic overlords from scruffy college kids and hippies playing drums.
The Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk begins at Nationals Park, travels into Maryland and back to Union Station, 60 miles in all.
See the variety of DC’s visual art at the Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery at Smith Farm Center today through Wednesday, August 25, 2010. The free exhibit features work by Washington artists applying for DC Arts Commission fellowships. This is a chance to see the latest painting, prints, photos and drawings by some of our favorites (Rex Weil, Rik Freeman, Roderick Turner, Elaine Langerman, Alec Simpson) as well as emerging artists. Sample works are on view here.
Get high in DC this summer – go to Fort Reno. The park is 429 feet above sea level, the highest point in the District. This season you can get high on music, too. Fort Reno Summer Concerts are on Mondays and Thursdays at 7PM to 9:30PM, starting June 28th with The Public Good, American Hearts, and Tiny Bombs. The outdoor concerts are free. Bring a blanket, balloons, picnics, glass bottles, soft drinks, alcohol, the family, drugs and friends.
Fort Reno was built in 1861 as part of Washington’s Civil War defenses. It guarded the Tenleytown Whole Foods or something like that — ask the kids from Wilson High School down the street; it was probably on the final exam. The Fort Reno Summer Concert Series has been a Tenleytown tradition for four decades, starting right after the Civil War, showcasing whatever they called loud, fast music back then (“Indy Rock” or “Reconstruction-Core,” maybe).
Fort Reno Concert Series Mondays and Thursdays (weather permitting)
June 28 – August 12, 2010 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM
Fort Reno Park, Chesapeake Street and Nebraska Avenue, NW
The District of Columbia Council voted down a proposal to tax sugar-sweetened beverages, but turned around and passed a bill extending the city’s 6 percent sales tax to all “non-alcoholic beverages with natural or artificial sweeteners.”
The original proposal would have added 10 to 60 cents to the price of containers of full-sugar soda, punch or sports drink. The new bill taxes all sweetened beverages, even diet sodas without sugar. If it passes the final vote, the new tax would be easier to administer and will raise revenue, but it will not be the disincentive to sugar consumption the original bill sought to create. Sugary drinks contribute to obesity, a major American health problem.
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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