DC Buys Bronze Bobbleheads for Billionaires

As part of its economic recovery effort, the DC Government commissioned $700,000 worth of sculpture for billionaire Theodore Lerner and his family. DC already built $611 million Nationals Park for the Lerners, who own the local Major League Baseball franchise, and the government wants to decorate it to suit the wealthy tenants. Who knows, this might even encourage the Lerners to actually pay rent on the stadium.

You can admire the artistic gifts your tax dollars bought for the Lerners at 11:00 AM on Wednesday, April 8th, when the sculptures will be dedicated. 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, so go see the art you paid for before you have to buy Nationals tickets to do it.

Forbes estimates the personal wealth of Theodore  N. Lerner at $2.5 billion, but why spend your own money on art when the taxpayers will commission it for you?  The DC Government dead- panned that the baseball art belongs to DC and is only on loan to the Lerners, an assertion worthy of a Larry Neal Award for fiction.  The sculpture  is site-specific, so saying the art is on loan is like saying you don’t own the fillings in your teeth, you only rent them.

Criminal Justice and Self Protection — Debate, Hearings

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary of the District of Columbia Council will hold a public hearing on Bill 17-843, the “Firearms Control Amendment Act of 2008” today, Thursday, September 18, 2008, at 11:00 a.m. in the 5th Floor Chamber of the John A. Wilson Building. The purpose of the public hearing is to receive testimony from the public on Bill 17-843 and related issues regarding the 1975 Act.

Bill 17-843 would amend the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 to repeal the prohibition on the registration of pistols, require a ballistics record for each registered pistol, require a waiting period when registering a firearm, and establish a self-defense exception to the requirement for safe storage of firearms in the home.

On July 15th, the Council passed Bill 17-886, the “Firearms Control Emergency Amendment Act of 2008.” This bill amended, on an emergency basis, the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975, provided for a registration process for pistols for use in self-defense within the home, authorized the Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department to require a ballistics identification procedure for registered pistols, set a one pistol registration per person policy for a period of 90 days, clarifed the firearm storage requirements, and included an exemption from those requirements for the use of a firearm for self-defense in the registered owner’s home, and provided that a registered pistol owner shall not be required to obtain a license to carry the pistol within the registered pistol owner’s home.

The Grog is Gone

It’s closed. The Grog and Tankard tavern at 2408 Wisconsin Ave, NW in Washington’s Glover Park. Where can white college boys go now to posture with guitars? American civilization is doomed. Doomed!

You can read Moira E. McLaughlin’s print paean to rock mediocrity in the Wasington Post, but read it on line; the reader comments, along with Dave McKenna’s rock reminiscence on the CP City Desk blog, hint at the true essence of Grog. Add the smell of spilled beer, cigarettes, carpet mildew, melting lighting gels and amp transformer windings. Feel the bass pulse; hear chainsaw guitar, stuttering snare, incomprehensible lyrics. See the GU and GWU women drinking beer, trying to look tough. I sing the coed electric!

Olympic Animal Cruelty?

The Dolphin Kick? Is this sportsmanship? The media brim with reports of Americans winning Olympic gold medals by tormenting Tursiops truncatus. Stomping svelte swimmers is the most revolting athletic competition since the Canadians introduced Baby Seal Harvesting as a demonstration sport in the Winter Olympics.

Eternal Vigilance is a Symptom of Paranoia — Part One

Regard the poster above. Laconic, attracts attention. Addressed to “you;” about a threat to you. Not much information; no names of sponsors, phone number, URL, or email address. Curious? Uneasy? Alarmed? Go to the event.

Say you are a typical all-American, Frisbee-flipping college student, and Muslim. And say there are hundreds of these posters all over your campus. Now look at that poster again. Does it say “a few radicals who are also Muslim are killers”? Or does it say “Islam itself is radical and murderous”? Is it intentionally ambiguous or outright defamatory? The sense of unease remains, either way.

Islamo-Fascism Flyer Fallout

Those naughty GWU students whose flyer mocked October’s Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week have been punished, put on probation and fined $25 each.

That’s a pretty steep penalty, considering it cost less than five bucks to make the flyers.

There are the predictable howls of rage from the GWU campus host of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, the well-funded Young America’s Foundation. Perhaps YAF’s esteemed Regan Ranch Presidential Scholar, George Allen, will object and issue the kind of closely-reasoned essay, dense with citations of academic and legal precedents, for which Regan Ranch Presidential Scholars are known.

Horowitz: Ottoman Empire Awareness Week

According to a participant at David Horowitz’s much-ballyhooed Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week speech at George Washington University on Thursday, he delivered a rambling discourse on his concepts of Middle Eastern history, with emphasis on the dangers posed by the Ottoman Empire, which many of us naively thought had ended in 1922. What a clever Ottoman ruse.

Halloween Warm-Up

This week is “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” at U.S. campuses nation-wide, but not at American University, where event producers couldn’t find student sponsorship.

100 universities are said to be participating, including George Washington, Georgetown and George Mason. The activities are not without controversy, here and elsewhere. “Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week” is a production of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and local Young America’s Foundation chapters appear to be campus hosts for many of the events.

Locally, Michael Ledeen and Daphne Patai spoke Monday morning at George Washington University’s Mt. Vernon Campus, and Luana Saghieh and Alan Nathan appeared Monday at 8:30pm at George Mason University’s Johnson Center Cinema. The initiative’s founder, David Horowitz, speaks at GWU’s Marvin Center at 8pm on October 25^th.

The list of speakers, a guide to student host organizations, and other information is on the web.

Why Invent YAF Jokes?

The Young America’s Foundation; victimized by ghastly, unspeakable photocopies with the actual URL of their actual event website on it!

I am confident the brave young members of YAF will be able to put this ATROCITY in proper perspective, because they can draw on the wisdom and knowledge of the Young America’s Foundation Reagan Ranch Presidential Scholar, a man with the philosophical depth and intercultural sensitivity needed to comprehend this kind of horrible victimization.

The YAF  Reagan Ranch Presidential Scholar:  Former Virginia senator, Governor and Macaca-spotter George Allen.

Find out what Governor Allen thinks about this horrible chain of events. Contact Katie Koenen at 703-850-7961

Image created by Mike Licht, in tribute to the brave men and women of YAF who are creating tomorrow’s Conservative leaders on a mere $22 Million a year.

GWU Joke Update

Seven George Washington University students, including Iraq War veteran Adam Kokesh, have admitted pasting controversial flyers around the GWU campus.

In a letter to the school newspaper, Kokesh and fellow students Yong Kwon, Brian Tierney, Ned Goodwin, Maxine Nwigwe, Lara Masri and Ammal Rammah, billing themselves as “Students for Conservatio-Facism Awareness,” apologized for their confusing shock tactics and lame humor, cited their aim as exposing the campus activities of the Young Americans Foundation (YAF), chiefly the upcoming “Islamo-Facism Awareness Week” campaign.

YAF and Muslim organizations are still arguing over who is the victim of the stunt and have yet to react to these developments.

In addition to the expected public service campus clean-up penalties and compulsory cultural-sensitivity training, I urge the GWU administration to sentence the seven pranksters to compulsory humor training, perhaps with Comedy Sportz^TM or GWU’s own Kimberley Stern.

Image by Mike Licht and (I cannot tell a lie) GWU.