Jonetta Rose Radio

 

 She’s Back! Ace DC political reporter Jonetta Rose Barras broadcasts on radio again starting Tuesday, May 5th (11 AM to Noon) on WPFW-FM.  Her first guests: DC Attorney General Peter Nickles and activist Phil Pannell.

Jonetta Rose Barras publishes the Barras Report and writes a column for the Washington Examiner. An experienced reporter, analyst and commentator, she has written for the Washington City Paper, the Washington Times, and other publications, and appeared on WAMU-FM for several years. 

Ms. Barras has written several books, Bridges: Reuniting Daughters and Daddies (2005), Whatever Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl: The Impact of Fatherlessness on Black Women (Ballantine 2000, 2001), The Last of the Black Emperors: The Hollow Comeback of Marion Barry in the New Age of Black Leaders (1998), and a collection of poetry, The Corner Is No Place For Hiding (The Bunny and the Crocodile Press 1996).

Image by Mike Licht.

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Downtown Art Picture Fades

Margery Goldberg is closing Washington’s Zenith Gallery on March 29th.  The gallery was founded in 1978 as part of Zenith Square, a complex of 50 studios at 14th Street and Rhode Island Avenue, NW that offered DC artists a place to create art as well as show it.

The gallery moved to 413 7th Street NW twenty years ago as part of the city’s effort to create an Arts District. In another triumph of DC urban planning, the area is now characterized by chain restaurants, shopping mall retail, loitering teenagers, and bewildered tourists.

DC Budget — Good News and Bad News

Good news and bad news on the District of Columbia Government budget:

The good news — there’s a surplus of $191 million.

The bad News — that’s only because DC departments are glacially slow in spending budgeted funds to meet the crushing needs of citizens.

Read the column by Jonetta Rose Barras in the Examiner. 

 

Hat tip: Mike DeBonis.

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

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Eastern Market Schedule

Eastern Market is bustling along as always as Capitol Hill’s  place for fresh food shopping, schmoozing and art, but reconstruction of the fire-gutted original  1873 building seemed stalled and unlikely to meet the planned  June completion date. 

In home remodelling, medicine, or automotive work, once you get under the hood you find problems you didn’t expect. Historic restoration is no different. Deteriorated flooring, corroded steel beams, and weakened brick arches slowed progress, Bill Rice of  DC’s Office of Property Management told Michael Neibauer of The Examiner.

OPM has extended construction hours so market business can blossom in the  spring. Workmen will be on the job from 3:30 PM to midnight weekdays, 6 AM to 3:30 PM Saturdays (never on Sundays) until May.

DC School Crossings — Don’t Walk?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Crosswalks at some D.C. Public Schools do not have crossing guards, reports Stephen Smith in today’s DC Examiner.

The School Crossing Guard Program was transferred to the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) this year, but DDOT needs 200 part-time adult crossing guards and has 134.  DC Councilman Phil Mendelson, Chairman of the Council’s Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary, says he has observed some MPD officers doing school crossing duty and some school crossings, but MPD spokesperson Traci Hughes says this is not the case.

U.S. Public School Fees — Sign of Third World Education

Public elementary school parents juggling “back-to-school” clothing expenses for growing kids and budget-busting food and gas costs are stunned by the hidden costs of “free” education, reports Leah Fabel in the Washington Examiner.

Germantown’s Ronald McNair Elementary requires each student to pay $65 (a $25 “activity fee” plus a $40 “snack fee”). Fees for area high school students can total over a thousand dollars. In Virginia, only Loudoun County does not charge fees to public school students, according to “The Price of a Free Public Education,” a paper by the Legal Aid Justice Center.

School fees are a blight on primary education in the Third World. The World Bank, UNESCO and other agencies fight to have them abolished. Perhaps Washington-area parents should ask these agencies to speak with local school superintendents on their behalf.

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

Welcome to the Gun Zone

Zoning rules adopted on July 28th restrict Washington, DC firearms dealers to high-density downtown commercial areas and keep gun stores at least 200 yards from residences, churches, schools, libraries, and parks, writes Michael Neibauer in today’s Washington Examiner. The emergency regulations, adopted by the D.C. Zoning Commission at the request of the D.C. Office of Planning, will be in effect for 120 days, and will be revisited at a public hearing of the Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) on September 29th.

The C-3-C, C-4, and C-5 Zone Districts consist of the downtown core area, dowtown Pennsylvania Avenue and downtown Massachusetts Avenues in the Northwest quadrant, and several blocks of Southwest (excluding the waterfront). The zoning map is here. Firearms dealers will be restricted to sale of firearms and accessories, so don’t look for revolvers at a downtown CVS.

Why Web Newspapers Stink #1

 

 

 

 

 

 

This morning I tried to read a story in the Washington Examiner. It was about a new website. The article had hyperlinks to every random article in old Examiners but no hyperlink to the website the article was about. Exasperating. A typical online newspaper. It could have been the New York Times or Washington Post website.

Newspapers made of inky cellulose are losing readers. Younger and more affluent readers tend to read newspaper websites, if they care to read news at all. Newspaper editors are boomers, who either fear losing web readers or don’t have a clue, so they forbid or avoid full use of hypertext, insisting that each newspaper constitute a closed, self-referential system, with hyperlinks only to itself. What infuriating nonsense.

Eastern Market Burned Again — by the Media

News stories about Washington’s Eastern Market filled the DC media yesterday, describing the restoration of the South Hall of the historic building, gutted by fire last year. Coverage noted that exterior work is largely complete, and renovation of the interior of the building has begun.

Except for an excellent report by NBC4’s Tom Sherwood and perfunctory throw-away lines by ABC7 news and the Examiner, though, stories omitted the fact that the market itself has been open for business and functioning for over a year, across 7th Street, SE, in the “East Hall.” Even a WAMU-FM radio story that included an interview with one of the merchants— Melvin Inman of Market Poultry — omitted this fact.

Ye Olde Surveillance Camera Plan

Gaithersburg, Maryland is considering installing surveillance cameras in its Old Town section as well as in crime hotspots, according to Kathleen Miller of the Examiner. The proposed system would also scan all license plate numbers for information, even if vehicles are not involved in infractions or suspected of involvement in crimes. 

The plate-scanner system has proven effective in nearby Baltimore, but the crime camera system as described appears useless, a waste of public funds and police time, only on the table because Gaitherburg has federal money that must be spent.