Weekend Round Up May 7, 2015
• May 21, 2015

Opera on Tap D.C. Metro

May 7th, 2015 at 07:00 PM | FREE | kristina@operaontap.org | Tel: 8434377251 | Event Website

Our next show is Thursday, May 7 at Vendetta. Come celebrate opera classics and new works as we toast to Opera America’s “Opera Conference 2015” being hosted that weekend in our nation’s capital! We will be joined by the vocal stylings of Opera on Tap General Managing Diva Anne Hiatt and Board Prez Diva Krista Wozniak!!! So bring a friend and grab a Prosecco on draft and some Happy Hour specials and revel with Opera on Tap DC Metro!

Address

1212 H St. NE

Mother’s Day Afternoon Tea

May 9th, 2015 at 01:30 PM | $75-$95 | info@washingtonetiquette.com | Tel: 202.6707349 | Event Website](http://www.washingtonetiquette.com/)

Mothers, daughters and grandmothers alike will enjoy a full-service afternoon tea, etiquette lesson, terrace photo shoot & more!

Address

City Tavern Club; 3206 M Street, NW

Twilight Polo Opening Night in Great Meadow

May 9th, 2015 at 02:00 PM | $30 | [Event Website](http://www.greatmeadow.org/)

At this event, attendees can sip Virginia wine in Virginia horse country while watching the sunset and cheering on their favorite polo teams. Greenhill Winery will be on site with a selections of wines available for purchase. One pass admits a car-ful of family and friends.

Address

Great Meadow Polo Club, 5089 Old Tavern Rd., The Plains, Va

VinoFest DC

May 9th, 2015 at 03:00 PM | $45 | [Event Website](http://vinofest.co/)

Presented by Vinolovers, VinoFest DC is a curated wine and music festival that celebrates memorable wine experiences, flavorful music, passion for food, diverse communities, and charitable giving. This year, QuestLove will be headlining the event.

Address

Storey Park in NoMa – 1005 First St NE

Daikaya Celebrates Sumo May Season, Wrestling up Some Japanese Tradition

May 10th, 2015 at 05:00 PM | $7-$18 | info@heatherfreeman.com | Tel: 202-589-1600 | [Event Website](http://www.daikaya.com/)

In celebration of the Sumo May Season tournament, Daikaya, located at 705 6th Street, NW, will be showing these lively, full contact sport matches in the upstairs Izakaya, as well as showcasing sumo-themed offerings from Sunday, May 10th through May 24th during dinner service. Guests can eat like a true rikishi (wrestler) with Executive Chef Katsuya Fukushima’s mini Chanko-nabe, a smaller version of the traditional Japanese hot pot dish made with dashi, sake, mirin, chicken, fish, and vegetables

Address

705 6th Street NW

Mother’s Day Brunch at Rí Rá Georgetown

May 10th, 2015 at 10:00 AM | $11.95 – $25.95 | marycatherinecorson@rira.com | Tel: 202-571-2111 | [Event Website](http://rira.com/georgetown/)

Treat the most important woman in your life to the best in Irish hospitality on Mother’s Day! Sunday, May 10th, enjoy a special brunch menu & complimentary Baileys Buns. Accepting large group/family reservations from 10:00am – 4:00pm, please contact marycatherinecorson@rira.com for details.

Address

3125 M Street NW

It’s the Garden Tour but a People Show, Too
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Neighbors and visitors alike got a chance May 9 to see some of Georgetown’s “Edens Unveiled,” as the May 6th Georgetowner described this year’s eight select spots around town that show how great or small a garden might be.

It was time again for the Georgetown Garden Tour – the 87th annual – presented by the Georgetown Garden Club, an affiliate of the Garden Club of America. Beginning at Christ Church, the gardens-curious marched along the sidewalks, east and west, stopping at 30th and N Streets to see a classic backyard that contains the northeast boundary stone of “olde George Town” or basking in the expanse of the Cafritzes’ back lawn with pool and “the Architect’s Garden.” It was perhaps the biggest star on the tour.

On the west side, Mrs. Knight was welcoming many to her intimate side garden, at once enchanting and practical with its perfectly pruned trees and plants. The next door neighbor’s garden was equally impressive with its new refinements. Three blocks away, easily entered from the alley, were the Italianate garden of Patrick McGettigan and the perfectly remade Georgetown garden of designer Gwendolyn van Paasschen, along with a three-car garage and jacuzzi, to boot.

While the gardens’ plants, layout and the home thereof were the top draw for most, the Georgetown Garden Tour also sets up the added fun and ease of neighbors and friends meeting each other along the walkways. Plants are named, conversations go on and people linger in the sun-kissed, spring day.

The book, “Gardens of Georgetown: Exploring Urban Treasures,” sold briskly before and during the day of the tour and is on sale at GeorgetownGardenClubDC.org. It is not for sale at Amazon.com, as reported in last week’s newspaper.
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Friday Is Bike-to-Work Day
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This Friday, May 15, has been dubbed Bike-to-Work Day. Commuter Connections and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association aim to gather more than 17,000 area commuters for a celebration of bicycling as a clean, fun and healthy way to get to work.

Bike riders can stop by one of 79 pit stops throughout D.C., Maryland and Virginia to receive refreshments and enter into a raffle for a bicycle giveaway.

Each pit stop will also provide registered attendees with free t-shirts. T-shirts are available to the first 14,000 who register and attend.

Cyclists can visit as many pit stops as they would like on Bike-to-Work Day. However, the free Bike-to-Work Day t-shirt can only be picked up at the pit stop one chooses while registering.

The Georgetown Business Improvement District has invited participants to come by its pit stop, 7:30 to 9:30 a.m., at Georgetown Waterfront Park, where commuters can enjoy refreshments, snacks and bicycle-themed giveaways. Registration is free. The first 300 visitors will receive a Bike-to-Work Day water bottle.

Before the bike-themed festivities, the Georgetown Professionals, a networking group that hosts monthly happy hours, will partner up with Washington Area Bicyclists Association and the Georgetown BID on May 12 to host an afternoon bike-from-work day happy hour at Malmaison, starting 4 p.m., at 3401 K St. NW. Send RSVPs for the happy hour to erinflynn09@gmail.com.

Visit www.BikeToWorkMetroDC.org for more details.

Obama at Georgetown: ‘It’s Hard Being Poor’
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A unique panel met May 12 at Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall to discuss the difficult topic of poverty in America. One of the panelists happened to be the President of the United States.

President Barack Obama sat next to discussion moderator E.J. Dionne, a Washington Post columnist and Georgetown faculty member, along with Harvard professor Robert Putnam and Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute.

The four men looked for solutions and advanced perspectives that went beyond the everyday left-right rigidity in addressing the plight of poor Americans, a widening economic gap and how to advance opportunity for all.

If the dialogue was not quite a clarion call for concerted national action, it almost did become that, as the president showed a more personal side to issues about national policy.

The president first answered the question of why this panel and this discussion: “I think that we are at a moment — in part because of what’s happened in Baltimore and Ferguson and other places, but in part because a growing awareness of inequality in our society — where it may be possible not only to refocus attention on the issue of poverty, but also maybe to bridge some of the gaps that have existed and the ideological divides that have prevented us from making progress.”

“And there are a lot of folks here who I have worked with — they disagree with me on some issues, but they have great sincerity when it comes to wanting to deal with helping the least of these.  And so this is a wonderful occasion for us to join together,” Obama continued.

“Part of the reason I thought this venue would be useful and I wanted to have a dialogue with Bob and Arthur is that we have been stuck, I think for a long time, in a debate that creates a couple of straw men.  The stereotype is that you’ve got folks on the left who just want to pour more money into social programs, and don’t care anything about culture or parenting or family structures, and that’s one stereotype.  And then you’ve got cold-hearted, free market, capitalist types who are reading Ayn Rand and think everybody are moochers.  And I think the truth is more complicated.”

Putnam, author of the recently published “Our Kids: the American Dream in Crisis,” spoke of the slowing of social and economic mobility — a given for Americans for decades.

“I think in this domain there’s good news and bad news, and it’s important to begin with the bad news because we have to understand where we are,” Putnam said. “The president is absolutely right that the War on Poverty did make a real difference, but it made a difference more for poverty among people of my age than it did for poverty among kids.” 

“And with respect to kids, I completely agree with the president that we know about some things that would work and things that would make a real difference in the lives of poor kids, but what the book that you’ve referred to, “Our Kids,” what it presents is a lot of evidence of growing gaps between rich kids and poor kids; that over the last 30 or 40 years, things have gotten better and better for kids coming from well-off homes, and worse and worse for kids coming from less well-off homes.” 

“And I don’t mean Bill Gates and some homeless person,” Putnam continued. “I mean people coming from college-educated homes — their kids are doing better and better, and people coming from high school-educated homes, they’re kids aren’t.  And it’s not just that there’s this class gap, but a class gap on our watch — I don’t mean just the president’s watch, but I mean on my generation’s watch — that gap has grown.”

“You can see it in measures of family stability. You can see it in measures of the investments that parents are able to make in their kids, the investments of money and the investments of time.  You can see it in the quality of schools kids go to.  You can see it in the character of the social and community support that kids — rich kids and poor kids are getting from their communities.  Church attendance is a good example of that, actually.  Churches are an important source of social support for kids outside their own family, but church attendance is down much more rapidly among kids coming from impoverished backgrounds than among kids coming from wealthy backgrounds.”

Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute answered the question on expanding the socio-economic safety net in a non-partisan way: “One concept that rides along with that is to point out — and this is what I do to many of my friends on Capitol Hill — I remind them that just because people are on public assistance doesn’t mean they want to be on public assistance.  And that’s the difference between people who factually are making a living and who are accepting public assistance.  It’s an important matter to remember about the motivations of people and humanizing them.  And then the question is, how can we come together?  How can we come together?”

“I have, indeed, written that it’s time to declare peace on the safety net.  And I say that as a political conservative.  Why?  Because Ronald Reagan said that; because Friedrich Hayek said that.  This is not a radical position.  In fact, the social safety net is one of the greatest achievements of free enterprise — that we could have the wealth and largesse as a society, that we can help take care of people who are poor that we’ve never even met.  It’s historic; it’s never happened before.  We should be proud of that.”

In response, Obama said: “We don’t dispute that the free market is the greatest producer of wealth in history. It has lifted billions of people out of poverty.  We believe in property rights, rule of law, so forth.  But there has always been trends in the market in which concentrations of wealth can lead to some being left behind.  And what’s happened in our economy is that those who are doing better and better — more skilled, more educated, luckier, having greater advantages — are withdrawing from sort of the commons — kids start going to private schools; kids start working out at private clubs instead of the public parks.  An anti-government ideology then disinvests from those common goods and those things that draw us together.  And that, in part, contributes to the fact that there’s less opportunity for our kids, all of our kids.

“Now, that’s not inevitable.  A free market is perfectly compatible with also us making investment in good public schools, public universities; investments in public parks; investments in a whole bunch — public infrastructure that grows our economy and spreads it around.  But that’s, in part, what’s been under attack for the last 30 years.  And so, in some ways, rather than soften the edges of the market, we’ve turbocharged it.  And we have not been willing, I think, to make some of those common investments so that everybody can play a part in getting opportunity.”

“Now, one other thing I’ve got to say about this is that even back in Bob’s day that was also happening.  It’s just it was happening to black people.  And so, in some ways, part of what’s changed is that those biases or those restrictions on who had access to resources that allowed them to climb out of poverty — who had access to the firefighters job, who had access to the assembly line job, the blue-collar job that paid well enough to be in the middle class and then got you to the suburbs, and then the next generation was suddenly office workers — all those things were foreclosed to a big chunk of the minority population in this country for decades.”

“And that accumulated and built up,” Obama continued. “And over time, people with less and less resources, more and more strains — because it’s hard being poor.  People don’t like being poor.  It’s time-consuming. It’s stressful.  It’s hard.  And so over time, families frayed.  Men who could not get jobs left.  Mothers who are single are not able to read as much to their kids.  So, all that was happening 40 years ago to African Americans. And now what we’re seeing is that those same trends have accelerated, and they’re spreading to the broader community. ”

The meeting was part of a three-day Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit on Overcoming Poverty at Georgetown. At the summit, put together by the university’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life and the National Association of Evangelicals, attendees included leaders from various religious communities, policy makers, researchers and community organizers.
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Expanded Sidewalks Are Back for Graduation
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This Saturday and Sunday, the Georgetown Business Improvement District will widen sidewalks on the 3300 block of M Street by eight whole feet to accommodate increased foot traffic from Georgetown University and George Washington University graduations. To lessen the sidewalk expansion’s impact on drivers, the BID is offering $5 all-day parking at the PMI parking structure at 3307 M St. NW. Northbound Circulator busses, meanwhile, will offer free rides from K Street up into Georgetown.

BID put a similar plan into work earlier this year to accommodate tourists for the Cherry Blossom Festival and the Georgetown French Market. The business organization also widened the sidewalks for Georgetown University and George Washington University’s overlapping parents’ weekend in the fall.

The widening is a key part of the Georgetown 2028 15-year action plan, which aims improve the business district by modernizing aspects of the historic neighborhood and upgrading how Washingtonians access it.

Georgetown Rabbi Sentenced to 6 1/2 Years for Voyeurism
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Barry Freundel, former rabbi of Kesher Israel Congregation at 28th and N Streets NW, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison for voyeurism by Senior Judge Geoffrey Alprin of D.C. Superior Court May 15, according to media reports.

Over a period of years, Freundel secretly videotaped dozens women during a ritual bath at the Georgetown synagogue.

The 63-year-old Freundel received 45 days in jail for each of the 52 counts of voyeurism. Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 17 years in prison. The former religious leader also received $2,000 in fines and taken into custody upon his sentencing.

Freundel once led Kesher Israel, a modern Orthodox synagogue, at 2801 N St. NW, five blocks from his former home, owned by the congregation. He was arrested at the O Street house on Oct. 14, 2014, by the Metropolitan Police Department.

Since 1987, before being fired last year, Freundel had been with the synagogue, which counts among its members former Sen. Joe Lieberman and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.

Bluesman B.B. King (1925-2015): the Thrill Is Not Gone for Us
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Bluesman B.B. King, a legend in his and many people’s times, a man who personified the music he played, influenced hundreds of black and white singers and guitar players who played the blues, died in his sleep in Las Vegas May 14 at the age of 89.

He died forever famous and died rich, but he did and could and would still play the blues, especially “The Thrill is Gone,” which was the biggest hit of a storied career that probably began when he heard all those sounds swirling around him and his life, beginning in Mississippi. There was gospel, Robert Johnson at the cross roads and all those Delta blues guys, sharecroppers at some point or another, visitations to the road side boogie joints and jukebox joints and front porch guys, soon to be on the road, playing for quarters and dollars in edgy, hazy, sweaty place where the local brew could make you sick or crazy.

Listening to the blues could evoke that whole world and B.B. King evoked better than anybody ever—the blues were about remembered pain, but sometimes they could just make you get up and jump around, like kicking the demons out.

Born Riley B. King, B.B. was Blues Boy, which was pretty apt, although it is hard to think of him, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Woolf, the Reverend Blind Gary Davis or Johnson as boys of any sort.  Nothing much playful in that song, or many of his songs or any of the blues songs—they’re about loving, losing, about back-breaking and heart-breaking stuff and not ever, ever getting over it: “The thrill is gone away/you know you done me wrong baby/and you’ll be sorry someday.”

He was a sharecropper who made less than five dollars a day for a time, and he heard gospel, and blues, and country music and Count Basie, and for a time he played in places on Beale Street in Memphis.   He was married a couple of times, but everybody says the love of his life was Lucille, his guitar.  According to reports, he once ran into a burning hotel to rescue his guitar.

Once King got successful—with a hit called “Three O’Clock Blues”—he toured extensively with stops at the Howard Theatre in Washington, along with the Apollo and the Royal Theater.  He had a star on Hollywood Boulevard and was inducted double duty in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame. He also received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1995 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006.

He influenced people—especially some of the blues rockers from England in the 1960s, especially Eric Clapton who paid him a online special tribute.  “Thank you for everything, your friendship and your inspiration” says Clapton, looking older, too.

King can be found all over YouTube—including a rendition of “The Thrill is Gone” from 1993—glitzy blue jacket, black bow tie, sweating a little, squeezing the music out of Lucille, you guess, alive as you and me and then some.
           
“You know I’m free, free now baby, free from your spell,” he sings, “and now that’s all over/all I can do is wish you well.”

You, too, Blues Boy.  Wish you well. The thrill is NOT gone. 

 

Police Seek Person of Interest in Quadruple Homicide in Woodley Park
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The May 14 murder of Savvas Savopoulus, 46, and his wife, Amy Savopoulos, 47, as well as their 10-year-old son, Philip, who attended St. Alban’s School, and a housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, 57, has shocked relatives and friends of the family, which lived blocks away from Washington National Cathedral and the Vice President’s Residence. After the attacks, the Savopoulus house — valued at $4.5 million — on Woodland Drive NW was set on fire. The couple’s two teenage daughters were at boarding school at the time of the murder and are safe. Savvas Savopoulos was the president and CEO of American Iron Works. He and his wife Amy were known around town and were involved with school and other social benefits.

D.C. police issued the following video — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh8egOuX4rc&feature — as well as request over the weekend.

“Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch are investigating a quadruple homicide. Investigators seek the public’s assistance in identifying and locating a person of interest in a quadruple Homicide which occurred on Thursday, May 14, 2015, in the 3200 block of Woodland Drive, NW. The subject was subsequently captured by a surveillance camera.

??”The subject was possibly operating a blue 2008 Porsche 911 sports car which was located abandoned in the 8000 block of Annapolis Road in New Carrollton, Md. Anyone with information about the vehicle or who saw it being operated between Wednesday, May 13, and Thursday, May 14, 2015, is asked to contact police.??

“Do your part to help prevent and solve crime. The Metropolitan Police Department currently offers a reward of up to $25,000 to anyone that provides information which leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons wanted for any homicide committed in the District of Columbia. Your assistance is appreciated by your community. Ref. CCN #15-069-981.

??”Anyone who can identify these individuals or who has knowledge of this incident should take no action but call police at 202-727-9099 or text your tip to the Department’s TEXT TIP LINE to 50411.

??”To learn more about the MPD Rewards program, please visit www.mpdc.dc.gov/rewards.”

District Council Complete: Todd, May Sworn in
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The Council of the District of Columbia now stands fulfilled.

That is to say, with the swearing May 14 of its two newest member—newly elected members Brandon Todd, who won easily in Ward 4, the seat formerly held by Mayor Muriel Bowser, and LaRuby May, who squeaked to victory in a tight election in Ward 8—the city council is now at full strength.

It is a council that is full of relatively fresh faces, a council that is made up of seven men and six women — and seven African American members and six white members.

Chaired by Phil Mendelson, this council has a number of new and newer members who were elected in the last several years, including May, Todd, Chair Pro Tempore Kenyan McDuffie of Ward 5, at-large members David Grosso and Elissa Silverman and Brianne Nadeau and Charles Allen of Ward 6.   The more veteran members of the council include Ward 2’s Jack Evans, the longest serving member of the council, Mendelson, at-large members Vincent Orange and Anita Bonds, Mary Cheh of Ward 3 and Yvette Alexander of Ward 7.

The newest members, Todd and May, have clear ties to Mayor Muriel Bowser.  Todd was a former aide to Bowser, and May worked on Bowser’s mayoral campaign. The mayor endorsed both candidates in their council races.

D.C. Cracks Down on Unlicensed Rentals
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That was the case when D.C. Superior Court Judge Maurice Ross ordered Douglas G. Jefferies, the owner of a Dupont Circle property at 2220 Q St. NW, to cease unlawfully operating an unlicensed residential housing business, public hall, boarding house, bed and breakfast and general business by renting the home for parties, weddings and concerts.

The order came after the Office of the Attorney General had filed a lawsuit against Jefferies for creating a hazard to public safety and a nuisance to neighbors. The order stated that Jefferies had been using vacation-rental websites to rent the property, despite the owner and the venue not being properly licensed or outfitted for such events.

“Assuming Mr. Jefferies abides by the terms of the consent order, this agreement will bring an end to the dangerous, illegal and troublesome use of this property to host large and noisy events,” Attorney General Karl A. Racine said. “Today’s action sends a strong message to individuals who seek to unlawfully conduct lodging and entertainment businesses without proper licenses.”

Jefferies was also ordered to pay an $8,000 fine.

The lawsuit was filed after an investigation by DCRA officials, who had received numerous complaints from neighbors about excessive noise.