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Georgetowner • October 15, 2012

Reel Independent Film Extravaganza

Oct. 12 at 02 p.m. | $11 | $35 | $75 | PR@YourPlatinumImage.com | Tel: 301-772-7434 | Event Website

The 3rd Annual Reel Independent Film Extravaganza (RIFE) is an event created BY filmmakers FOR filmmakers and takes place Oct. 12 through 18, 2012 at West End Cinemas on M Street in D.C.’s West End. The event, presented by Skyrocket Productions, will highlight the talents of local, national and international filmmakers, offering a diverse program and fosters public awareness of independent cinema as a cultural and educational asset.

Address

West End Cinema, 2301 M St NW

Palimpsest

Oct. 12 at 8 p.m. | Free | info@wpadc.org | Tel: 202-234-7103 | Event Website

Palimpsest is a Coup d’Espace project curated by Steven H. Silberg and Neil C. Jones. It explores the constant layering of information in contemporary society and the impact technological advancements have on the ways we represent and receive information. The exhibition runs Oct. 12 through Nov. 9.

Address

Washington Project for the Arts, 2023 Massachusetts Ave, NW

Yoana Baraschi Trunk Show

Oct. 13 at 11 a.m. | Free | Tel: 202-298-7464 | Event Website

The trunk show samples arrived, and they
look fabulous. Lots of color — cobalt, gold, orange and gunmetal. And Yoana’s signature knit dresses with the best fit ever. Come shop the newest designs from NYC-based designer Yoana Baraschi.

Address

Everard’s Clothing, 1802 Wisconsin Ave., NW

Recycle Love-Adopt A Rescue Pet Adoption Event

Oct. 13 at 11 a.m. | N/A | mnute@cbmove.com | Tel: 202-333-6100 | Event Website

Pet adoption event at the Washington Harbour in Georgetown. Coldwell Banker partners with Operation Paws for Homes. Visit OPH’s website www.ophrescue.org. Great variety of breeds, sizes and ages, including puppies at the event. Our last two events were extremely successful with more than 27 dogs finding their forever homes. With your help we can make this event even more successful. For more information, visit www.cbmove.com/georgetown, or call 202-333-6100.

Address

3000 K St, NW, Suite 101, Plaza Level

Days of Design 2012 at Cady’s Alley

Oct. 13 at noon | free | events@cadysalley.com | Event Website

Georgetown’s Design District is celebrating National Design Week by hosting Days of Design (Oct. 13 through 21). Stores and showrooms of Cady’s Alley are will host a series of workshops, lectures, exhibitions, promotions and design-focused pop-ups. Open to the public. Some highlights include: AIA pop-up design book store, In-store workshops at West Elm & CB2, live music.

Address

3314 M Street, N.W.

Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival

Oct. 14 at 11 a.m. | Tel: (202)-777-3251 | Event Website

The DCJCC will present the annual Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival from Oct. 14 through 24. The program will include 15 events with celebrated authors and scholars including Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon speaking on his latest book, “Telegraph: A Novel.” Other events include an evening of film and theater appreciating Franz Kafka along with a local authors festival and a day of storytelling.

Address

Washington DCJCC, 1529 16th Street, NW

Gary Tischler •

Come Sunday evening, Oct. 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall, it looks like it is going to get crowded on that stage when all the performers get together to honor America’s troubadour of the working man and Dust Bowl poet. “This Land is Your Land—The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration Concert” is a tribute to the Oklahoma singer-songwriter, born in 1912.

It’s also probably fair to say that there is likely no performer on that stage—and it’s scheduled to include, among others, Ry Cooder, Judy Collins, Donovan, Jimmy LaFave, John Mellencamp and the Old Crow Medicine Show—who is more directly and closely connected to the spirit of Guthrie’s music and song book and to the man himself than a guy named Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. (Elliott is also appearing in a special Guthrie centennial concert at 8 p.m. and is part of a discussion and celebration with LeFave and Noel Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary at beginning at 1 p.m. at the Library of Congress on Saturday, Oct. 13.)

The salutes include Guthrie’s son Arlo himself (who’s also scheduled to perform), who had acknowledged that he learned a lot about his father’s music mostly from Elliott, who’s described as Guthrie’s protégé by folk music chroniclers.

Elliott is 81 now, still touring a lot, still holding the Guthrie legacy up high, still singing, still wearing cowboy hats and boots, still scattering stories around like candy “I think my agent’s trying to kill me,” he said in a phone interview while he was staying with friends in an old East Coast stomping ground. “He’s scheduling me all over the place.” He’s not riding as a hobo on freight trains like Guthrie did. Elliott is flying a lot, however, which he doesn’t appreciate because it involved going through airports. “I don’t like airports,” he said. “They make me nervous. I like the window seat because I can look out and see what we’re flying over, and that makes me calm.”

“He’s out buying boots,” they told me when I first called. “Say, did you ever hear how Jack got his name?” I allowed that I hadn’t so I was told the oft-told tale of how Elliott once visited the famed folk singer Odetta at her home. Her mom said she was taking a bath and would he like to sit and chat with her on the porch while they waited. So, they did. After a considerable time, Odetta’s mom said in amazement, “Well, that Jack, he sure likes to ramble.”

He did, and he still does. I can vouch for that. A conversation with Jack Elliott is a bumpy ride, but not unpleasant, with many detours. It’s like a ride in an as-yet-uninvented but often imagined time machine, one of those modes of transportation that he’s so enamored with. “I used to be a truck driver and when I see a red light, I stop,” he often tells people.

A small confession is in order here: I used to hear Elliott sing—stuff like “If I Were a Carpenter” and “San Francisco Bay Blues” that I remember clearly—in Marin County in the San Francisco Bay area in a place called the Lion’s Share, run by the son of a well-known national conservative columnist. In the late 1960s around there, you could run into legendary musicians and legends to be legends who were every five minutes if you tried. They gathered regularly at the Lion’s Share, some of them, the folkies like Dave Von Ronck, Mississippi Blues stalwarts like the Reverend Blind Gary Davis and locals living in Marin. Of course, the locals there were Jerry Garcia, Grace Slick, Steve Miller or Van Morrison and Janis Joplin’s band Big Brother and the Holding Company.

“I remember that place, Mike Considine and the bartender, Zane, Zane Plemmons,” he recalled. “He was a fighter pilot in Viet Nam. The place burned down in 1969, and they moved to San Anselmo.”

All of that true, and much more. It was one of the pit stops. But I remember even then he had that thin, laconic cowboy look when he was singing and walking around. You’d never have guessed that he was born and raised a nice Jewish boy in Brooklyn. “Then, I ran away with the rodeo,” he said. Literally, for a few weeks at least, long enough to get him into the cowboy music and cowboy mode, courtesy of a rodeo clown who sang.

When he took music seriously—always traveling, sometimes trucking, sometimes by plane—he had learned to fly a P41 Mustang, somehow. While going to Adelphi University in Long Island, he had heard a lot about Guthrie and was learning his music and knew a guitar player who knew Guthrie and sometimes went to Guthrie’s home in Coney Island to jam with other musicians. “About this time, he landed in the hospital (Guthrie had Parkinson’s to which he succumbed in 1967), and I met him there,” Elliott said. “He had skin gold brown from his time as a hobo riding the rails. He and his family, they kind of took me in for a time. Then, I traveled out west with him, and I sang with him sometimes.”

Elliott also picked up on trucking, sailing, cars, planes, the trains, planes and automobiles—things about which he writes and sings, and surely talks. It is the imagery of night roads and trucks, as water and flying sort of drift into his conversation and stories, and as he said, “Yeah, I got an interest in that stuff, sure.”

“Woody, he was the great American troubadour, the song man,” Elliott said. He was for the common man, the working man. He was a labor guy, the hobo and the hungry children, and he didn’t much like big business. He was a union guy, I guess. But you know what I think? I know some people wouldn’t agree with you on that: he was a great American to me and a great American patriot. He was about the American spirit. He embodied it.”

“He wasn’t necessarily an easy man, but you could love that man,” he said. “ He wrote hundreds and hundreds of songs, all kinds of songs, and he wrote about construction work, and the road, the railroads and he had a song about building a dam, the Columbia River. ”

Over the phone, he started singing to the tune of “Wabash Cannonball,” and the voice was as strong as I remembered it, rich and moving like a train whistle. “I wrote a lot of songs, but I didn’t write ‘If I Were a Carpenter,’ but I sang it a lot—and so did a lot of other people. Tim Hardin wrote it, he was a brilliant guy, but a tough guy. Don’t want to tell you how he felt about the Bobby Darin version.”

If he was Guthrie’s successor, protégé, why then Elliott had a similar effect on Bob Dylan, who was also smitten with the legend and songs of Woody Guthrie and influenced by Elliott. They would kid around—Dylan inviting Elliott on his Rollling Thunder Tour, Elliott kiddingly talking about “my son Bob Dylan.”

Dylan—who started out doing talking blues—became a major genius-grade superstar, while Guthrie’s name is now iconic and historic. They even celebrated his centennial in Oklahoma along with Austria. Elliott is the living legend flying under the radar, making music and albums.

“Talking blues, man, that was around a long time,” he said, and then started telling me about a man he met in Petaluma, Calif. “ He had really interesting seafaring tattoos. So, you meet a guy like that, talking about shore leave all over the world, talking about the ships and stuff, and we’re in Petaluma.”

I wish I’d recorded that and just about everything Elliott said. He carries Guthrie’s stuff around with him—like dust that never washes off. He travels a lot, he sings strong and clear and he has a cartful of memories he draws on. “Janis,” he recalled. “Well, I spent a week with her one afternoon. She was going to be doing the “Pearl” album I think, but here we all were, Kris [Krisofferson, who had written “Me and Bobbie McGee”] on one side of her and me on the other, and she started singing the song “…busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train…”

Right there, you could see it and hear it. You could hear train whistles in the stories, you could see the gaunt face of Woodie Guthrie. On Elliott’s website, there’s a recording of Elliott, Sonny McGee and Guthrie singing about “Railroad Bill.” Woody is singing clearly and then says, “Take it, Jack.” And Jack picked up.

Come Sunday, they’ll be singing, not “Bye, bye, Miss American Pie” but “This Land is Your Land”—which I heard a few thousand people sing at a Ukelele festival on the lawns of Strathmore last year. It could stand some singing now.

One stanza goes like this: “I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps/To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts/and all around me a voice was sounding: This Land was made for you and me.”

Take it, Jack.
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Robert Devaney • October 11, 2012

A night following the U.S. presidential debate, the Georgetown Business Association will host a panel-style candidate forum Oct. 4 for candidates vying for D.C.’s two contested At-Large seats on the District Council.

Mary Brooks Beatty, Michael A. Brown, David Grosso and Vincent Orange, will answer questions and make their case to the Georgetown residential and business community, Oct. 4, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at St. John’s Episcopal Church (3240 O St., N.W.).

The forum, moderated by Davis Kennedy, publisher-editor of the Current Newspapers, and co-sponsored by the Citizens Association of Georgetown, will include questions submitted by the community, the audience, and the event’s local media sponsors: the Georgetowner, the Georgetown Current, the Georgetown Dish and the Georgetown Patch.

Incumbent Michael A. Brown (Ward 4) was first elected in 2008 and currently serves as the District Council Chairman Pro-Tempore and as an at-large councilmember alongside D.C.’s other at-large councilman, Vincent Orange (Ward 5), who was elected in the April 2011 Special Election. Mary Brooks Beatty (Ward 6) and David Grosso (Ward 5) round out the field as challengers.

Event RSVPs should be forwarded to admin@otimwilliams.com for confirmed seating. [gallery ids="101000,133132,133121,133129" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

Today, Oct. 1, the Times Picayune of New Orleans ceases publication as a daily newspaper and will instead publish three times during the week: Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. That makes New Orleans the largest metropolitan area in the United States without a daily newspaper.

More than that, though, the news was indicative of the precarious and fast-changing world of newspapers as a thinning force in the media world, as many dailies have gone out of business altogether, and as the Internet becomes an increasing source of news for many Americans, a fact that has also altered the way news are being presented on television.

Today’s news also comes on the heels of the announcement of the death of former New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs “Punch” Sulzberger, a reminder of a time when major newspapers were a significant force in our daily lives in terms of how we viewed and received the news, in terms of the discussion and presentation and reporting of American politics.

Sulzberger was a living symbol of the prime status that the New York Times—the paper of record—held in the publishing world when its reporters ranged the world, and its investigative pull and factual authority was rivaled only by the then rising Washington Post.

Sulzberger—a member of the powerful family which had led the Times since 1896—was the publisher for 30 years, during which the Times garnered 31 Pulitzer Prizes, led the way in publishing the Pentagon Papers. The Washington Post followed suit in that court battle and then found its own source of journalistic glory in its Watergate coverage, followed closely by the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

During that time, it meant something to be a reporter in the world—American college graduates brushed off journalism schools all over the country, eager to follow in the footsteps of Woodward and Bernstein and legendary Times reporters like Johnny Apple or Tom Wicker. Books were written by publishers, reporters and writers that worked for national dailies, and books were written about them. “The Boys on the Boys” is as great a piece of work about election coverage of the 1960s and 1970s as you could hope to find, not to mention Gay Talese’s history of the Times, “The Kingdom and the Power.”

“Punch” became publisher at the age of 37. He not only increased circulation for the paper—when others were declining—but increased its size and its reach, making it more of a modern newspaper with a redesign that had a little something for everyone, something it still does You could make an argument that the Times cultural section, its book review, if not its sports department, were and remain second to none.

The new Times initiatives in popular culture, for instance, were not greeted with joy by some of the more hidebound members of the ruling powers at the paper, including the Sulzberger family itself, but it helped the Times become a powerful force nationally.

Sulzberger, who acquired his nickname of “Punch” by dint of his service in the United States Marines, was 86. He died after a long illness, according to news sources.

His son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., continues the tradition that a family member would always be at the helm of the paper. According to reports, he said that his father “was an absolutely fierce defender of the freedom of the press,” an accolade also deserved by his rival Katharine Graham at the Washington Post.

Hayley Markovich •

Dinaw Mengestu writer, novelist, teacher and Georgetown University graduate was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant,” the university announced Oct. 2. The grant of $500,000 comes with no strings attached.

“The MacArthur Fellowship is not only a recognition of their impressive past accomplishments but also, more importantly, an investment in their potential for the future. We believe in their creative instincts and hope the freedom the Fellowship provides will enable them to pursue unfettered their insights and ideas for the benefit of the world,” said MacArthur head Robert Gallucci of the awardees.

Mengestu, an Ethiopian native who immigrated to the United States at the age of two, received his bachelor’s degree from Georgetown College in 2000. He received a master’s degree in fine arts from Columbia University in 2005. He serves as Lannan Chair of Poetics of Georgetown University Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. He began teaching the course, “The Writer’s Perspective,” this fall. “Having the honor of coming back as the chair, more than anything, confirms the value of the program,” Mengestu said. “It was during my time as a Lannan fellow that I most profoundly felt that I had found a community of students who didn’t all necessarily want to be writers, but who were just as serious and engaged with literature as I was.”

His first two novels “The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears,” published in 2007, and “How to Read the Air,” published in 2010, are about the Ethiopian immigrant experience. His next novel “All Our Names” is being finished. His journalism and fiction have also appeared publications including Harper’s, Granta, Rolling Stone, the New Yorker and the Wall Street Journal.

Twenty-two others — including a pediatric neurosurgeon, a marine ecologist, an arts entrepreneur and a journalist — were awarded $500,000 grants in this year’s class.

Robert Devaney • October 10, 2012

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Korean religious leader, businessman and founder of the Unification Church died Sept. 3 in South Korea. He was 92. Moon considered himself the second coming of Jesus Christ, an idea directly heretical to mainstream Christianity.

In the popular mind, his Unification Church provoked images of mass marriages performed by Moon and his wife — the “True Parents” — and of young promoters who sold flowers at the airport or on the streets. And his Moonies, a word church members do not like, have been accused of being part of a religious cult.

His attendant business interests ranged widely from media and automobiles to supplying fresh fish to local restaurants, namely, sushi.

But the powerful ambitions and personality of Moon sought more: he wanted influence throughout the world, East to West. Where was the best place to set up his own version of a heaven-on-earth lobbying firm? In America. And the best place there? Of course, the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C.

Beside his religious activities, the fiercely anti-communist Moon become known in the United States for strongly supporting then-enbattled President Richard Nixon, who later resigned. He led a huge rally at the National Mall, complete with fireworks, in the late 1970s. People here took notice, even as a few young Unification Church missionaries spoke casually with Georgetown University students in the lobby of Lauinger Library. (A new religion which unites the peoples and churches of Christianity can sound fresh, pure and worthy to a young mind.)

Moon’s church and businesses continued to grow, and he was ready to stake his claim as a major Washington influencer by establishing the Washington Times in 1982. While it was during the administration of President Ronald Reagan, it came along before many other popular media outlets which trumpeted conservative issues.

I got the opportunity to work as an editor at the Washington Times during the 1990s — the Bill Clinton years — working in special sections. We wrote and edited varied features, anything from travel, history, dining, real estate, jobs to specials on inaugurations, Martin Luther King, Jr., Apollo XI and World War II. Our bailiwick did not involve any ideological comments, specifically speaking, although we were aware of the preferences of the editor at the time, Wesley Pruden. Just being in the newsroom, it was instructive for a centrist Democrat like myself to learn a bit of the thinking from the conservative — and increasingly Republican — playbook.

Now, the Washington Times newsroom is off the beaten path, as far as media offices go. While the Washington Post — and the Washington Star (many staffers went to the Times when it folded) in its heyday — chose downtown D.C., the Times is in Northeast D.C. on New York Avenue between the National Arboretum and the train tracks.

There was that one day in the mid-90s when Rev. Moon, who would visit occasionally and go straight to the executive offices, walked around the voluminous newsroom meeting each editor and writer individually at his or her desk. One veteran writer, surprised at this never-before greeting, said that it was either really bad or really good. (The Times could wait for about another 15 years before things might go really bad.) Moon smiled as he joked about a top investigative reporter’s weight and poked him in the belly, saying he liked to eat as much fish as Moon liked to. At least, that’s what what the translator told the reporter who was not used to being messed with and who, I imagined, had to restrain himself as I also imagined steam coming out of his ears.

Like most newsroom creatures, Times employees were skeptical of authority and would make a quip as easily as those on 15th Street. They called their paper “little scrappy,” which did more with less and whose editors encouraged new hires to take chances. One said he was glad people believed in God, because he knew along with others that companies affiliated with the Unification Church had worked with News World Communications to spend more $1 billion over the years on the newspaper, which was one of the first to report regularly on religion, spirituality and, yes, God.

Of course, that other newspaper on 15th Street — “the OP” as Times editors said — looked down at Moon’s creation as Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee vowed never to visit — until a birthday party for Arnaud de Borchgrave, a former editor-in-chief of the Times. Bradlee had worked with de Borchgrave at Newsweek in Europe and was happy to go to the New York Avenue newsroom as the Times printing presses produced a Times parody version for de Borchgrave’s party in the Arbor Ballroom; the banner headline aptly read: “A legend in his own mind.”

The Washington Times persevered in its quest to bring an alternative voice to the Washington and national scene, even as it sometimes beat the Post on local news stories. It was not afraid to make mistakes and offered many reporters who went on to bigger media groups a great start. Allow me to mention a few (mostly former) staffers who made the newspaper shine and had an impact for me, professionally and personally: Patrick Butters, Peter VanDevanter, Kevin Chaffee, Ann Geracimos, Tracy Woodward, Jim Brantley, Denise Barnes, John McCaslin, Lorraine Woellert, Tony Blankley, Deborah Simmons, Adrienne Washington, Cathryn Donohoe, Thom Loverro, Susan Ferrechio and Jerry Seper.

After the Times fell victim to squabbles within the Moon family, its staff and sections were cut a few years ago — and it looked like the end was near. But Moon did not want to lose face, as it were, and intervened two years ago and took the newspaper away from one of his sons who had controlled it. Today, the Times remains a strong conservative and journalistic voice amid the newer ones, such as the Washington Examiner, adding to a more dynamic media landscape. It is trying for a comeback. Whatever your opinion of its ideological bent, you know the Times kept D.C. from being a one-newspaper town. And you can thank its writers, editors, photographers, artists and pressmen — and a self-proclaimed messiah — for that bit of journalistic luck. [gallery ids="100969,130854" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner • October 9, 2012

Bar Dupont James Bond Party

October 5 | Free admission

“Bond, James Bond.” This week marks 50 years since Sean Connery first said this famous phrase in “Dr. No,” the first Bond film. Bar Dupont — 1500 New Hampshire Ave., N.W., is celebrating this anniversary with an all night movie party. Cocktails and songs from the films will be featured, and there will be a photo wall covered with Bond-related images. The event starts at 5 p.m. Admission is free; cocktails are $11 to $12.

D.C. Fine Art Photography Fair

October 6-7 | Free

The fair will feature more than 15 fine art photography galleries from all around the United States. On display will be a range of photos from the 19th century to modern images, all available for purchase. Saturday morning from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. hosts a panel discussion, “On Collecting Photography.” The fair will be held at 2801 16th St., N.W., accessible by the Columbia Heights metro and bus routes. Saturday, Oct. 6, noon to 7 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 7, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. All events free to the public.
For more information: 202-986-0105

Redskins’ Lorenzo Alexander at Sprinkles Cupcakes

October 6 | Free

Washington Redskins linebacker Lorenzo Alexander will be making an appearance at Sprinkles Cupcakes in Georgetown from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Address:
Sprinkles Cupcakes, 3015 M St., N.W

Oktoberfest 2012

October 6, Noon to 7 p.m. | $25

The Capitol City Brewery in Arlington hosts its 13th Annual Mid-Atlanic Oktoberfest, featuring more than 50 breweries, giving four-ounce samples. The event will also host local food vendors, an authentic German band and Oktoberfest food. The event is $25 to sample beer, which includes a wristband, tasting glass and ten tickets; it is free for those who do not wish to drink. This is a 21+ with valid ID event, taps close at 6:00 p.m.
Address:
Shirlington Village, 4001 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, Va.

Columbia Heights Day Festival

October 6 | Free

The Sixth Annual Columbia Heights Day festival is this Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. It will boast live music, a petting zoo and a cupcake-eating contest. There will also be a yoga workshop starting at 10 a.m. and a food truck row. More than 60 local nonprofits and businesses will be there. The festival is at the Harriet Tubman Elementary Field, Kenyon St NW, between 11th and 13th Streets. A complete schedule of events can be found on www.columbiaheightsday.org.

Taste of D.C.

October 6-8, Noon to 7 p.m.| $10

More than 50 Capital Region restaurants and food trucks will be serving food at the festival, located on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W, between 9th and 14th Streets. Restaurants will have four items for sale, with some items under $3. The festival will host a beer pavilion, serving more than 30 brews, wine and non-alcoholic beverages. There will be music, a chili-eating contest and family-friendly activities.

Robert Devaney • October 3, 2012

The Georgetown Business Improvement District is getting a new boss, the group announced last week. Joe Sternlieb, the new BID chief executive officer begins his job in mid-October. The BID’s previous executive director, James Bracco, departed in July.

Sternlieb, who holds a master’s degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has years of experience in D.C., including as vice president of acquisitions at EastBanc, Inc., and as deputy director of the Downtown D.C. BID for 10 years.

“I have a passion for the District and for helping the city reach all of its potential,” said Sternlieb in a BID press release. “So, leading the Georgetown BID is one of the greatest positions that a city planner like me aspires to hold. Georgetown is one of the greatest mixed-use neighborhoods in the nation. Still, it faces the challenges of access and mobility; competition from revitalizing city neighborhoods; addressing 21st century environmental issues; and the need to realize its full potential as an employment center, retail destination and waterfront community. This is an exciting time for Georgetown and the District and I am really looking forward to getting started.”

“The Georgetown BID is moving in an exciting direction to help ensure the continued success of the neighborhood as a vibrant local community and international destination,” said Crystal Sullivan, president of the Georgetown BID’s board of directors. “Joe is widely regarded for his talent, energy and ability to move things forward and we are pleased to welcome him to the Georgetown BID. We are looking forward to the leadership and vision he will bring to the Georgetown business community.”

“Prior to his leadership role at Downtown D.C.,” according to the Georgetown BID, “Joe was staff director of the D.C. Council Committee on Economic Development where he shepherded the BID enabling legislation through the City Council. He currently serves on the Board of several civic organizations, including the D.C. Building Industry Association, D.C. Surface Transit, Inc., and D.C. Vote.”

Established in 1999 by its property owners and merchants, the non-profit Georgetown BID has more than 1,000 members. Its full-time CEO reports directly to the BID’s board of directors. There are nine business improvement districts in Washington, D.C.; there are more than 1,000 in the U.S.

David Post • October 2, 2012

The old man was sitting at the kitchen table, holding a hanky over his weeping eyes.

“What’s the matter, Pa?”

“I’m confused.”

In the movie Moonstruck, family and neighbors were pouring into the kitchen. The mother had just demanded her husband terminate his affair, and he meekly agreed. One brother had just proposed to his reluctant brother’s long-suffering fiancé. And now the grandfather was crying.
Mitt Romney has a similar effect. I’m confused.

I can’t figure out where I fit into his view of America. Am I in the 99%, the 50%, the 47% or 100%?
Being in the 1% in the top 1% of income and wealth would be nice, but I’m not.
Even being in the top 13% and paying tax at Mr. Romney’s income tax rate would help. My rate is much higher because I work for a living and don’t have overseas investments.

Mr. Romney recently criticized 47%-ers for being 0%-ers and paying no federal income tax. He says they won’t vote for him anyway. Since I pay income tax, he must be counting on my vote.
On the other hand, some say he has been 0%-er on some of his tax returns. If he is a 0%-er, can he vote for himself in good conscience? It takes real political courage to call half the country a bunch of moochers who feel “entitled” when you belong to that club. If he were a 35%-er, paying the top tax rate, surely he’d proudly tell us, but we’ll never know because his lips are sealed.

Learning that I’m not a 50%-er was a surprise. I thought I was doing pretty well. I got a good education, have graduate degrees, repaid my student loans, live pretty comfortably, don’t live paycheck to paycheck, own my home, and have some savings and retirement. Then, Mr. Romney said the average middle-income family earned $250,000. OK, I’m below average.

Even worse, this 50% thing makes me feel horribly guilty. Is my company a sweat shop? We don’t pay any of our employees enough to be a 50%-er, or even half of a 50%-er if someone else in their home earns enough to lift the household up to that $250,000 average. It’s a wonder all of my employees haven’t quit and taken an average job somewhere else.

If 47%-ers pay no tax and 50%-ers earn $250,000, that means only 3% earn between the point where the 0% bracket ends and $250,000. Paul Ryan is good at charts and graphs. You can bet that’s a good one.

To clear it all up, Mr. Romney now says his campaign is “about the 100% of Americans.”

Are non-Americans now 0%-ers?

I’m so confused.

Get me a hanky.