Editorials and Opinions

Gary Tischler • May 4, 2016

Who knew? Indiana turned out to be the graveyard where Sen. Ted Cruz interred his presidential hopes.

Which is to say that our long national nightmare — call it the race for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination or “17 Little Indians” or “The Citizen Trump Reality Show” — is over. (Or may just have gone to a new level.)

The next one — the national race for the presidency — is about to begin in earnest. (Or at least on the day when Sen. Bernie Sanders calls it a day, which could take a while.)  And, yes, it’s official:  GOP chairman Reince Pribus  has declared Donald Trump the presumptive nominee of the party.

For now, however, we can be thankful for many things: Tuesday is now just the second day of the week, super no longer.  The second tier is gone, and so is the first tier, except for one. With no primary races to predict and maps to fill in, CNN immediately set about filling in a national map in which Donald Trump becomes president.  Please, guys. One nightmare at a time.

Here is the headline of the hour, in simple, Trumpian terms: “Donald Trump Won, Ted Cruz Quit.”

Did we forget John Kasich again?  So has everybody else.  Kasich — or as he has always called himself, the grown-up in the room — was still in the race last evening, on the track to nowhere.  He has become, for better or worse, the forgotten man.   Kasich stuck it out in Indiana long enough to get a taste of the back of Trump’s hand — metaphorically speaking — when Trump called him out on his “disgusting eating habits.” But wait — this just in — it’s official: Kasich has suspended his campaign.

Cruz, whose remaining chance of ending up with the nomination rested with the hope that Trump would not get the required number of delegates, insisted all along for the past two weeks that Indiana was shaping up to be make-or-break, hugely important and critical in the GOP race.  He was absolutely right. It buried him.

The Indiana portion of the GOP road show grew increasingly bizarre as it went along.  Cruz, in a weirdly desperate move, chose former business CEO and presidential candidate Carly Fiorina as his running mate, a move that’s usually saved for the general election.  She had supported Cruz after she dropped out of the race and at one point had been the target of one of Trump’s less classy criticisms and stood up to him.  There was no help there, other than a musical moment in which Fiorina, who also literally managed to stumble and fall at one point, sang to Cruz’s children.

It got worse for Cruz. Former House Speaker John Boehner awoke from a long political slumber to attack Cruz, calling him, among other things, “Lucifer in the flesh” and an SOB, for reasons that remain obscure, an occasion which took away from whatever Cruz was hoping to accomplish.  Trump called him “desperate and demented” and then made mention of a National Enquirer article that hinted that Cruz’s father was connected to the Kennedy assassination.  This was done almost casually, like throwing a grenade in an empty parking lot.

Cruz on the last day erupted or imploded, right before the voting began, calling Trump a “serial philanderer” and a “narcissist.” (Tell us something we don’t know.)

Nothing much helped.  Trump got over 50 percent of the vote and all the delegates. Cruz got to make a sorrowful speech in which he did not get behind Trump or say anything warm and fuzzy about him.  He exited clumsily, even managing to elbow his wife in the face as they headed for a hug. The video is streaming endlessly online.

Trump, surrounded by wife and children, stayed calmed and seemed a little amazed that what had started out with such strange drama was becoming a reality.  He was nice to Cruz, the man he had continually called “Lying Ted” just, oh, minutes ago.  He called Cruz “one hell of a competitor. He’s one tough guy, and he’s got an amazing future.”

Trump was not so kind to Hillary Clinton. “We’re going after Hillary Clinton,” he said. “She will not be a great president. She will not be a good president. She will be a poor president.”

That remains to be seen. First, Clinton has to  win out over that pesky Bernie Sanders who beat her convincingly in Indiana by a 53 to 47 percentile margin — once again buoying his hopes that where there’s a win, there’s a way.  Clinton, talking to coal miners in West Virginia, ignored Sanders and continued to focus on the fight ahead against Trump.

It turned out, in the end once again, that this particular Tuesday, was super indeed.  Tuesday and Indiana decided who the GOP nominee would be, even if it did not quite yet determined the fate of the Democrats.

Tuesday and Indiana guaranteed that in spite of all the efforts of the mysterious GOP establishment Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president.  If the New York Daily News is to be taken seriously, it also signaled the end of the Grand Old Party, as we or they know it.  It may be that, for the Republican Party, the only worse thing that could happen than Trump winning the nomination is Trump winning the election.

All of this is no small thing in the scheme of things and the way of the world.  Trump is no longer just a celebrity, a mogul, a reality show host.  And if he is only these things, then the race for president will turn into his very own reality show.

But for now, Trump is as real as it gets: Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for President of the United States.

Gary Tischler • April 22, 2016

When news came April 21 of the death of Prince, the 57-year-old  rock-funk-jazz-soul ageless music dynamo through the course of the day and night, the response here in Washington, D.C., seemed especially electric and full of shock.

A Hispanic bank teller looked unbelieving and asked, “How, when, what happened?”  A black woman, pacing back and forth, replied, “Today, this morning . . . We’re losing our icons. He was an icon. I mean whom do we have left?”

As his name, given to him by his father, another Prince and musician, indicated, he performed from the get-go as some kind of special royalty — not in any kiss-the-ring fashion, but in a way that set him and his multitude of gifts apart. He was an original, who could play all the instruments that any sort of music required. He was a gem and something of a genius, a songwriter, a movie star in his own movie based on his life, a live performer who was brazen, colorful and full of color, a thin, small African American who cast a large shadow on America’s music.  He was a chameleon of independence. He changed bands, identities and clothes, styles and ways of walking and talking and writing.  

To America’s black funkadelics and soul-searchers, this was a hurtful loss because it seemed to come out of nowhere. The cause of his death — he was found unresponsive in his Minneapolis compound — has yet to be determined, although there have been rumors and speculations swirling that he had several days ago perhaps overdosed on the highly addictive pain killer drug Percocet and that he had been in serious pain for some time due to hip problems and the fact that religion forbids the blood transmissions required for such surgery.   Whatever the cause, the end result will be only sadder for all the loss.

To youthful and also memory- and music-driven African Americans, his death is a heavy blow, every bit as painful as the deaths of the legendary Whitney Houston — and perhaps more to the point, Michael Jackson. 

Prince embraced — and then often improved upon, and  certainly embellished just about every form of American pop music that he encountered.  He jumped into those waters gleefully, confidently, even arrogantly early on and just stirred and muddied the waters, singing with a certain rawness about sex and love, and also a adding a considerable amount of soul-searching content, especially in “Purple Rain,” which was the title of his best known album and a movie about himself in which he starred. The film grossed around $80 million — not a bad outing for the times and for what it was, plus an Oscar for musical score.

The youthful generations of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s embraced him, including young white people, while others were baffled by him and underappreciated him. That could include many of us who didn’t bother to explore the depth and range of the body of work which placed him — and continues to — in the top ranks of rock, pop, soul and jazz musicians.  Some folks scoffed at his attempts to put almost every kind of music into one album, or one song—but he did it anyway. Duke Ellington’s phrase “beyond category” appears created for him.

He pressed issues of his identity — including his much speculated-upon sexual identity. On stage, he managed to project a kind of direct, male sexuality that could also be at turn androgynous, driven by a feel for costume and style, and his forays into high-pitched vocals.  Girls — and boys — loved him. Boy George claimed he had an affair with him, but then so did some high-profile female sex symbols like Kim Basinger and Madonna. 

His appeal seemed to defy category, gender, ethnicity and race, while embracing all their aspects.

His younger self party-inducers were explicit. In his later years, Prince became a Jehovah’s Witness and toned himself down a little.  He seemed always to be searching: so much so that for a time he dropped the name Prince and instead went by his own love symbol symbols or as “the artist formerly known as Prince,” partly in a fight with his record company.

The musical beat this year has been darkened by sadness. The world has lost David Bowie, Glenn Frey of the Eagles and recently one of country music’s most authentic voices, Merle Haggard. And now, Prince, and doves cried.

Gary Tischler • April 21, 2016

It looks as if we’re going to be in for another round of non-stop political noodling, Trump-o-mania, Hillary-Bernie battles, and who will clinch the Republican and Democratic presidential nominations.

It will be presidential politics 24-7, right up to the California primary in June which ought to settle things — if they haven’t been settled by then.

The roller coaster ride, which once used to feature a whole slew of candidates, but now contains only three Republicans and two Democrats, begins, well, yesterday.

As far as Donald Trump is concerned, he’s won already, which is maybe why his victory speech sounded a little like a national victory speech.   In the big New York primary for both parties, Trump won 60 percent of the vote in the Republican race, leading him to claim that Ted Cruz was technically eliminated.  This isn’t quite true, but let’s face, when you finish third in a race to John Kasich (I know, we forgot again) as Cruz did, your chances are on life support. 

Hillary Clinton also did well, stopping the onrush of victories that Bernie Sanders brought to New York . She won convincingly, with 57 percent of the vote. Sanders had 42 percent, which, while not entirely crush-worthy, was impressive for her and disheartening for the Bern, who had thought — as did the polls and the media, which dashed out a 52-48 exit poll — that he would do better here, what with the proximity to his home state and such.  But New York is Clinton’s home state, too.  The more Sanders won, the more he seemed to lose.  This was also the case with New York.  If you look at a map of the counties in New York, he won almost the entire state — except for the big urban areas, except for New York City jurisdictions.

Now, we’re off and running — five major primaries will be held next week in Rhode Island, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Connecticut.   This will spark — as it already has — another round of speculation, predictions and the meaning-of-it-all articles like this one.  The media — and this is especially true of the television media of all stripes — and objective non-objective persuasions have been reduced to cheerfully congratulating themselves on being wrong every time out when it comes to the fate and progress of Donald Trump.  Some weeks past, when Cruz won an unlikely victory in Wisconsin as well as Colorado — victories which sparked a Trump cheating tirade which he’s never entirely abandoned — the media had Trump finally stopped, wounded, all but derailed and predicted that soon enough the mysterious GOP establishment would rally around Cruz or the other guy, whomever that might be.

Didn’t happen.   Trump did a showy reshuffling of his staff, added some veteran strategists, a mixed bags of effective pros, old-timers going back to the Dole campaign, foreign policy advisers that included Cold War warriors and so on.   He made some policy speeches that did include complete sentences and were read from prompters.  Gone were all but a few rallies and clashes with demonstrators and free-wheeling claims about history and events that did not happen.  True, he whined about the delegate system, saying it was rigged. This was like a guy cleaning up all the chips, and claiming that the other guys had cheated.

Of course, the danger of an ur-Trump who doesn’t behave like Trump is that he may become boring.  His victory speech was something like that: Trump light.  “Huuuge” has been replaced by “amazing.” Gone was “lying  Ted,” replaced by Senator Cruz who, of course, doesn’t stand a chance any more.  Trump will still get rid of Obama-care. He’s still going to make “amazing” deals, with the help of other dealmakers like him. “The economy, we’re going to fix it. It will be amazing, you watch.”

The idea that Trump — and less so Clinton — might sweep the next batch of states is not as viable as it might sound, especially since that’s what media types are positing.  They have been known to be wrong.  Pennsylvania is not New York, and neither is Maryland, for that matter. Trump’s message to the forgotten working class will resonate in troubled mid-sized cities like Scranton, where for a time “City in Crisis” seemed like a permanent headline in the local newspaper.

The thing of it is we’ll be talking Trump morning, noon and night again.  Trump said the media was wrong about his chances, but added, “I don’t mind. As long as they keep on talking. Just keep on talking.”

Maybe Washington, D.C. — the center of the world, not necessarily Trump’s world, at least not yet — will escape the political immersion that will visit other states and cities. 

This time of year, there are other things happening here that reminded you that there is a life after primaries and elections.  This time of year, we’re invested in modest and celebratory things like house tours, and the not so modest operatic extravaganza of Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the Kennedy Center, which begins the same night of the also im-modest and out-of-touch-with-the-reality-of-daily-life White House Correspondents Dinner. This dinner and parties before and after are where elected officials, the Washington establishment of politicians and media go kiss-kiss without trying to bite each other.  That other surreal world showing up at those parties will be the denizens of Hollywood — at the tables and on the red carpet.

Daily life here is different in the city and in the neighborhoods removed from Trump and Clinton land.  Here, we have neighborhood parties and neighborhood issues — liquor licenses in Georgetown, a homeless shelter plan for all the wards still being chewed over, a June 14 election which may see the return of  Vincent Gray to the District Council at some point, no matter what the Washington Post may opine.   We live in a city that is still defined by the people who live in it, although we live in a rapidly changing city that is also redefining its demographic identity.    We have a mayor who is faced with the unusual task of making prosperity work for everyone.  We live in  a city that still has little or not enough say in some of its critical concerns — such as its budget, guns and civil rights.

But we live in a city of people, nonetheless, a city that, besides its monuments, has some unique qualities that are common to small towns and the great wide world all at once.  I was present at a celebration, a Sunday afternoon party in Adams Morgan attended by a group of people that fought long and hard and won a zoning battle on the issue of pop-up housing projects.  There was music by a rock band headed by a veteran diplomat, playing “Mr. Tambourine Man.” There was beer, paella, strudel and conversation about dogs and neighbors and schools and crime and news of an impending grandchild. There were, as it were, dogs and children present, and the realization of neighbors and neighborhood.

More recently, on the evening of the New York primary, there was a musical offering with the aid of the Embassy Series of Chopin and Jewish prayers at the Embassy of Poland, commemorating the 1943 uprising of Jews against the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto, fought bravely by Jewish resistance fighters. The uprising failed militarily but triumphed morally in history.  There were Holocaust survivors in attendance along with the writers and diplomats. There was a lighting of menorah candles, and the music was as sweet as spring incense.

Now, that afternoon and that evening were amazing.

Georgetowner • April 11, 2016

We hear that business is booming in the legal marijuana trade in Colorado.

That’s good news, right?

Well, maybe yes, maybe no.

When it comes to legalizing the use of recreational marijuana, and decriminalization of the same, it’s a little like the invention of the Internet. Beware of what you’re getting into.

You can be of several minds on the issue: there is no question in our minds that when it comes to policing and the justice system, the heaviest burden — in terms of prison time, incarceration and policing — has befallen young black men in America. So, for certain, something has to be done about sentencing, those penalties exacted for using and buying. Those kinds of inequities should not be abided.

We do feel that some proposals on fines for just walking or smoking in public are too light. There should some more disincentive.

Lots of people worry about marijuana and its uses. So goes the argument: people will start smoking again and become addicted and even move on to stronger things like cocaine. Those claims are questionable. You have to smoke a lot of pot to get into the cancer territory, although the danger exists. The leap from strong to stronger is debatable, too—marijuana and coke are two very different kinds of drugs and usually don’t go hand in hand.

But marijuana, like alcohol, is impairing. Smoke enough and you can miss your turnoff, while driving, and end up in Ohio—or, for that matter, miss seeing that stop sign or red light. That’s no laughing matter, and police have complained already that there is no way of testing for its use.

There should be, however, some studies done on the use, control and economic effects in such places as Colorado, Washington or Oregon. But economic success—big bucks for entrepreneurs—shouldn’t override common sense and legitimate concerns.

Would legalizing marijuana be the end of the world as we know it? You bet. But our world is ending every day and becoming something else. Just ask the people who miss Jay Leno so badly. ?

Tim Riethmiller •

I come from a rural area that at this moment is getting pounded by the “Polar Vortex.” Indiana to be exact. Coming from a place where roughly half a mile or more spans between intersections, it was startling to drive half a mile and hit 6 – 8 of them. I wasn’t used to this stop-start type of driving, but I caught on quickly when I noticed police at almost every intersection. Then I noticed the cameras…

Most people in D.C. Metro know by now the “all seeing” traffic cameras have turned on and are watching our every move. We need to get something understood right off the bat, though. These new traffic cameras are looking for license plate numbers when an automobile violation occurs. These violations include: speeding (fine $50-$300), failing to clear an intersection (fine $50), failing to yield to pedestrians at an intersection (fine $250) and overweight trucks in restricted truck weight zones (fine $150-$250). With all these automated cameras we (as drivers) need to understand the cameras do not hold the human elements of compassion and empathy. In fact, these cameras see nothing but violations. So if you think you may be reimbursed a fine or two for waiting for a cross-walker don’t hold your breath, the cameras don’t care.

The United States Census Bureau claims D.C. holds a population of 632,323 residents. In 2010, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) stated that 25 pedestrians were killed in D.C. from vehicle strikes. NHTSA then released that the fatalities had dropped to 19 deaths in 2012. That is a mere 0.003 percent of D.C.’s population. Although deaths from traffic accidents have dropped to a very low number, that number still has not reached zero and it may never do so. This is due to the “human element,” a factor of mistake and error.

What these numbers do not show is how many people illegally crossed the street and expected traffic to stop for them. These numbers don’t show how many drivers stopped, when they had the right of way, to let a mother and her child cross the street to get out of the rain. These numbers do not indicate the honest mistake that a driver can make when approaching an intersection and someone runs out from between two parked cars only to be met by an oncoming vehicle.

People are going to make mistakes and as much as we want to punish them for making those mistakes, we need to also realize there are other factors that can come into play. I’m sorry Washington, but people are not all the same nor the situations. I vote that these violations be reviewed by a human prior to being administered to a fellow human. Sounds like that could take a good deal of time, doesn’t it? Maybe the city will then learn we as residents are more than just voters, tax payers and law abiders.

As for the drivers, I suggest popping in a favorite CD or tuning into a favorite radio station. Enjoy the traffic, it comes with living in a city. I also would like to challenge every D.C. driver to make a point to smile and wave the next time a pedestrian crosses the intersection in front of you. Who knows, you may just be the person on the crosswalk next time. Oh, and if we all start driving safer and crossing intersections with more caution, those “all-seeing” cameras may just disappear, but it’s a team effort.

Gary Tischler •

There don’t seem to be too many facts in contention here.

Medric Cecil Mills a 77-year-old District Parks & Recreation employee for most of his life, was walking with his daughter along Rhode Island Avenue, NE, when he collapsed. She ran into a store to ask them to call 911, and while others approached a firehouse which could be seen from the sidewalk where Mills collapsed. They knocked on the door, but the people inside refused to come. Several people knocked on the door. A dispatcher in the meantime reportedly sent another fire engine to an address in Northwest.

The critical issue was simple. Mills died. The D.C. firefighters in the firehouse did not come to his aid. A lawsuit seems likely. People were appalled. Firemen in the house, including the probationary fireman who apparently said he could not do anything without asking his superior, are being questioned. Fire Department officials as well as Mayor Vincent Gray called Mills’s family to express their concerns. Paul Quander, the D.C. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, said that he was”quite disturbed and disappointed by what appears to be an inappropriate response.” Gray said, “… frankly, on its face, it’s really hard to accept what happened here.”

Something should be done, someone should be held to account. Mills did not deserve this kind of neglect and apparent negligence. Nobody does.

But there’s more to it than that, sad as that is. There’s an issue of trust here in a fire department that has been steeped in controversy over the last year or so. In almost any city, any neighborhood, people love, admire and trust the firemen who work for the city. They are underpaid, put their life at risk for the rest of the citizenry, and often, too often, die doing their impossibly difficult jobs. We count on them for help.

I live in a neighborhood which has a firehouse almost as its center, a seamless part of the streets, the sirens rushing out to fires and dangers, the firemen known and respected well enough to greet. We just assume they’re there to help. I’ve watched them come to a local fire with speed and courage.

On one occasion, when I suffered a deep cut on a finger which bled profusely, I couldn’t think of anything else to do except to run to the firehouse a block away. Two EMS personnel happened to be there and cleaned and washed my wound and bandaged it.
I’ve never forgotten that even though the personnel have changed in the firehouse. I just assume they’ll be there unless they’re out on a call, that they’ll help when asked, or even when not.

This time they were asked.

No one came.

That hurts everybody.