Editorials and Opinions

Tim Riethmiller • April 11, 2016

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.

David Roffman •

Former editor and publisher, David Roffman retired from the Georgetown in 2009 and moved to Alabama, a very different place compared to his years in the nation’s capital and the Old Dominion. Today, he lives in Foley, Ala., with his wife Carmen and two dogs, Brando and Bogart, and goes to the beach a lot.

On my 69th birthday, Election Day, Nov. 6, 2012, I spent 16 hours working the polls at the Foley Alabama Civic Center.

Voting in Alabama is not like voting in Washington, D.C. or McLean, Va., where I had spent 42 years before moving to the Gulf Coast. Alabama is a decidedly Red State and has been for quite some time. Mitt Romney’s winning here was a given before polls opened at 7 a.m.

Voting down here is antiquated. Paper bal- lots are still used, and there are no computerized machines counting votes. The seniors working the polls had to stay an extra four hours after the polls closed to count write-in votes. Was this even important?

At the age of 69, I was the youngest person working the polls here. To think that the entire election process is put into the hands of people in their 70s and 80s . . . amazing. Half these poll workers can’t even get a driver’s license anymore.

The ballot here in Foley, Ala., consisted of voting for president and vice president and sev- eral judgeships and state positions as well as 14 amendments, including one proposing an amend- ment to the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, to prohibit any person, employer or health care provider from being compelled to participate in any healthy care system. Alabamians voted 59 percent to 41 percent to repeal Obamacare. Again . . . amazing.

Roy Moore won the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court position. He ran a campaign espousing that the court buildings should post the Ten Commandments. Hmm, I wonder if one of the commandments he had in mind was “Thou Shall Not Do Meth.”

I was glad to see a couple of states voting to legalize marijuana. More than 1.6 million per- sons are in prison, and many of them are there for using or selling marijuana. Perhaps this futile war on drugs is ready to take a new turn to freeing up our prison system.

President Barack Obama was re-elected with a big minority vote, especially among Hispanics. Alabama will probably remain a Red State, how- ever, because down here Hispanic immigrants are frowned upon and forced to move to another state. Farmers have no one to work their fields anymore, crops die on the vine, but the good ol’ boys still vote Republican. Go figure.

The one-cent tax to save the school system of Alabama was voted in once again. Maybe President Obama should institute a one-cent tax increase for all Americans whenever they buy something. It seems to work down here without much protest. There are lots of ways to skin a cat. Even an ol’ poll cat.

Emily Lindstrand •

In 2008, it was estimated that 77 million Americans had grown up watching Sesame Street, learning from the likes of Elmo, Count, and, of course, Big Bird.

The beloved yellow creature was mentioned during last week’s presidential debates, but the topic of discussion was not the lessons he’s taught Sesame Street’s viewers. Rather, Governor Romney pledged to cut funding from public broadcasting and put Big Bird on the chopping block. Romney’s willingness to eliminate the bird that has been a childhood fixture to so many and in actuality receives very little amounts of funding from PBS is indicative of a greater pattern in Romney’s behavior: he has done little to endear himself to a large percentage of the American population. Instead, there seems to be a divide between Romney and the average American.

This was evident during Romney’s April lecture at Otterbein University in Ohio. He suggested that students borrow money from their parents to pay for their education, seemingly indifferent to the idea that such a luxury is simply not feasible for all Americans. While Romney was able to use a stock portfolio his father had given him to support his family during his college years, many other college students are dependent on public funding.

Romney’s 47 percent comments are now infamous, and they further contribute to the divide between the candidate and the average American. He referred to a large percentage of the population as acting “entitled.”

“They should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” he said. He ultimately stated that his job was “not to worry about those people.” Though Romney later admitted that these comments were “completely wrong,” the damage had already been done. His earlier statement had painted a self-portrait of callousness and indifference, and that is not something easily forgotten.

Between wanting to eliminate a central childhood figure, showing an indifference to the financial realities of a college education, and referring to nearly half of the population as irresponsible and entitled, Romney has done little to make himself a relatable or even likable figure. He has shown indifference to factors that are significant to many Americans, and it will be interesting to see how this will influence his results in next month’s elections. Meanwhile, Big Bird, unsupported by Romney, continues to educate the youth of the nation.

Robert Devaney •

After 18 years as the face of Georgetown University at so many neighborhood projects and events, a woman who strove to balance the demands of the community and university has announced her retirement. Linda Greenan, Georgetown University’s associate vice president for external relations, will retire, effective Oct. 1.

Here is what John DeGioia, the university’s president, had to say about Greenan:

“Linda has been a valued and loyal liaison for the university with the city and local community for almost two decades. Since joining the Georgetown University community in 1994, she has represented the university before the District government, the City Council and countless citizen groups and business and professional organizations. She is a respected authority on the city of Washington, its politics and its policies. Rare was an event with the Mayor of Washington when he didn’t single out Linda for her work on behalf of Georgetown. Most recently, Linda served as a key member of a senior leadership team that led the university in the successful passage of our campus plan.

“Over the course of a remarkable career, Linda has served on numerous volunteer and community activities both on campus and in the local community. She has served on the boards of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce and the Humanities Council and served as president of the Georgetown Business Association (2002 to 2006). From 1994 to 2008, she was appointed by three different mayors to the board of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, which was the city agency responsible for returning Major League Baseball to the city and for the construction of Nationals Stadium. She currently serves on the board of the Washington Convention and Sports Authority, which manages the city’s convention center, Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, the D.C. Armory and the Carnegie Library.”

Like the university, we in the neighborhood and at this newspaper are quite aware of how Greenan has given her time and support to Washington and Georgetown efforts large and small. Even when on the opposing side of an issue concerning the school, her faith in and love for the betterment of Georgetown were always appreciated. And we always knew the situation would come to a better conclusion because she was involved.

As a successor to Greenan’s work and as part of the Georgetown Community Partnership, the university is creating a new Office of Community Engagement. Lauralyn Lee, who has been with the university for nearly a decade, will lead this office, which will be part of the Office of Public Affairs.
Yes, we also knew that Greenan could not quite be replaced. Good luck, Linda, in the latest chapter of your life. We know you will still be around, and we hope to see you soon.

Juliana Zovak • April 9, 2016

The Washington Nationals lost their home opener to the Miami Marlins 4-6 on Thursday, April 7 — after both an exciting opening day program and a rain delay.

The loss will be dwelled on for a day or two, and analysts will debate what went wrong and why the Nationals couldn’t hit with runners in scoring position.

But the game itself is unimportant — there will be 159 others this season to discuss and break down, many more exciting than this one. This opening day was about celebrating the community that makes baseball so special.

Prince William County, Virginia, police officers Jesse Hempen and David McKeown threw out the honorary first pitch in front of a crowd of more than 40,000, the memory immortalized for them in the baseballs signed by pitchers Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg.

On Feb. 27, Hempen and McKeown were injured while responding to a domestic altercation. Their colleague, Officer Ashley Guindon, was also shot and fatally wounded in the incident. She and first responders Officer Jacai Colson, Officer Noah Leotta, Lieutenant Kevin McRae and Officer Brennan Rabain were remembered in a moment of silence before the game.

In collectively remembering the slain first responders, in hearing the crowd chant “MVP” as Bryce Harper emerged from the dugout, in watching young kids with their gloves on eagerly awaiting a foul ball, we are reminded of how this sport brings people together.

Governors Larry Hogan of Maryland and Terry McAuliffe of Virginia joined Mayor Muriel Bowser and Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lynn Lanier down on the field. After he received his MVP award and a Silver Slugger award, Bowser presented Harper with a key to the city, a symbol of how much this team and its success means to Washington, D.C.

Fans left work early, braved narrow and congested streets and rode Metro’s crowded Green Line to see their team begin the 2016 quest for glory. Anyone who read the weather report knew it would rain and the game would most likely be delayed. They came anyway, and they celebrated together.

The emcee announced that this day was the beginning of “our annual right to hot dogs and high fives” (a right you can enjoy for the bargain price of $6.25 per hot dog!). He called this season’s mission “our one pursuit.” Our.

Baseball is a business. It’s about making money, selling tickets and hoping for the ultimate payoff in a World Series title. But it’s also about uniting fans behind something that inspires them. It’s about making sure that the community that supports the Nationals can count on the team to have their back on and off the field. It’s about the feelings of hope and possibility that come with every new season.

That feeling could be captured during a special moment yesterday.

The sun was shining brilliantly as it does after rain.

The United States Army Chorus Quartet sung “America, the Beautiful,” whose words rang throughout the stadium: “O beautiful for spacious skies …” The cast from “Jersey Boys” at the National Theatre then sang, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the national anthem, joined to baseball more than a century ago in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

The songs ended. The crowd roared yet again. The umpires arrived.

Play ball.
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Gary Tischler • April 8, 2016

Here it is the day after Tuesday, and it turns out that the Wisconsin primary really was a big cheese.

It turns out that having Governor Scott Walker on your side was a good thing for Senator Ted Cruz and the hard-to-figure-out-who-belongs-to-it GOP establishment in their first really serious bid to stop Donald Trump.

It turns out — if you believe Cruz — that this primary, which Cruz won by 13 percent (48 to 33 by last count), was, while not only impressive but also  “a turning point” or a “pivot point,” as some experts would have it. Or it may be just two weeks until the New York Primary.

On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders further muddied the waters by scoring an impressive win over Hillary Clinton, which prompted the experts and Sanders to claim that he now had the big mo, a big thing in presidential campaigns, as in having momentum.  Here, too, there is the anticipation and the wait for the next big thing, the New York primary.

The Wisconsin primary may be all these things — pivotal, momentum-changing, a turning point, the final shoe to drop finally on Trump. Maybe this time Trump’s gaffes and outspoken bloopers (turning off women by the millions with his abortion comments) finally caught up with him.  Maybe Ted Cruz has the big mo too, although it’s not likely that he can catch up with Trump in terms of delegates before the GOP gathering in Cleveland.

Cruz, it should be remembered, is nobody’s darling among his peers in the Senate. While he has picked up supporters that are motivated by being repelled by Trump, nobody except for his family has so far fallen in love with him. What does appear to have emerged is a better picture of Cruz, the candidate, which is that he is not a demagogue but an ideologue, who appeals to the tiny government faction of the party as well as its Christian evangelist side, the side that will fight to the bitter end against Obamacare, gay marriage, planned parenthood and so forth.

It’s fair to perhaps take away a sigh of relief among the voting populace as this little spring break in primaries arrives and take a look backward as to how we got here.

More and more, we see that we have arrived at a juncture in American election politics where the process has become circus-like, a kind of long-running, regularly scheduled television show which was taken by surprise by the hostile takeover of the GOP race by Trump, himself a celebrated developer and reality show host.

While Clinton — beleaguered at times by her e-mail troubles and her status as being anointed the front runner from the beginning — has struggled once again to live up to expectations in her campaign, dogged by the surprising insurgent campaign of Sanders, the Republicans have put on a mini-series of thrills and spills, debates and election results.

There have been all kinds of commentary on the campaign from the print media as old sages and veteran commentators on both sides weigh in every week on the dangers of Trump, the collapse of the Republican party, the strength of feeling the Bern and so on.

But this has been a campaign that has been almost entirely conducted — in the popular imagination and mind — on television.  The theme, to be sure, has been anti-politics-as-usual on both sides, to varying degrees, but mainly, the campaign has been a television show, reported on by television media, with loud noises in the background on social media, which Trump has engaged with surprising ease, commandeering Twitter and Instagram.

The question in terms of experiencing the campaign this way is one of authenticity.  Look at the screen. It seems a strangely fantastical, unreal experience that follows certain patterns of scripted and unscripted dramas. The campaign so far has been full of debates, sponsored by networks who call themselves neutral, but actually are called Fox and MSNBC to the right and left, as well as CNN, and the major networks. The Trump explosion has been a boon for all concerned, except when Trump chose not to appear.

Debates led up to primaries and caucuses, and in all cases — the aftermath of the debates and the results of the elections, followed a familiar pattern — someone would have a battle at a debate or embarrass themselves (I refer to small hands, little Marco, the failure of Bush and the second-tier candidates).

There would be an election, won, more often than not by Trump. In both cases, the television media, and the talk show hosts and experts, strategist and consultants and white-haired men and women from campaigns past, would go over the results and explain to us what happened, and then make predictions (most of the time, wrong) about what would happen next.  They appeared like the priests after a consular election in Ancient Rome, brought out to slaughter a chicken and read the entrails for omens of the future.

There was nothing authentic about any of this, and none of the candidates appeared to me to be either an embodiment or a representative of the people who would decide their fate in the ballot box.  What Trump managed to do in at least the case of his rallies was articulate the resentments and failed hopes of a particular segment of voters by speaking in ways that seemed to speak to their anger and feelings — and by speaking, not in tongues, but phrases that he hurled out into the crowds like firebombs. Sanders also managed to do something similar, although without the rancor or the divisiveness that characterized Trump’s most outrageous statements.

Although Cruz would like us to believe, as he most certainly does, that he is now the anointed one (or will be at the convention), chances are we are still in for another long slog through more primaries.

The question arises, to paraphrase Edward G. Robinson in “Little Caesar,” regarding Trump: “Mother of mercy, is this the end of Donald?”

Probably not, but it could be the beginning of the end. Nevertheless, no one has gotten rich in this campaign making predictions about the fall of Trump.

Gary Tischler • April 6, 2016

All the harbingers of the season — cherry blossoms, the city of trees alive with fresh buds, Easter and the end of March Madness — have already come and gone. But the coming of spring really means nothing until the baseball season has begun.

More than any contemporary sport, baseball still relishes its association with hope and the season. The traditional retort “Wait until next year” follows the failure to make the playoffs or win a division flag or the World Series — not an NBA title, a gold medal, the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup. It ignores not only a losing season but insane salaries, drug tests and bad behavior, instead savoring the spirit of Ernie Banks, who said: “Let’s play two.” Ernie never complained (and never won a World Series).

Baseball fans — old and young, past, present and future — go against the modern grain because they trail with them, more than fans of any other sport, the baggage of yesteryear. It’s not just statistics, though baseball fans and sports writers are probably more obsessed with data than hedge fund managers, inventing new categories (see Wins Above Replacement) of achievement or failure every year. It’s a kind of tribal memory that blankets every city worthy of having a team.

For years, for instance, the Boston Red Sox lived not only in the shadow of the New York Yankees, but also of the Curse of the Bambino, whereby Babe Ruth, arguably the greatest power hitter in the history of the game, was traded by the Red Sox to the Yankees. For decades, the Sox remained without a World Series title. To collector of mementos of good fortune and misery alike, whisper the name Bill Buckner and see what happens.

The Red Sox finally won a World Series in 2004 (in improbable fashion, trailing the Yankees 3-0 in the playoffs, winning four in a row, then sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals). But the Chicago Cubs haves not been so fortunate, having failed to win a World Series since the first decade of the last century.

Guess who’s favored by many to win the World Series this year?

The Chicago Cubs.

This is not necessarily a good sign. Guess which team was favored by many last year? The Washington Nationals — who suffered a strange, inexplicable collapse after the All-Star game and failed to make the playoffs.

But baseball hope springs eternal. At least one Sports Illustrated writer has the Nats winning the World Series, and a number of others have brash outfielder Bryce Harper, who sports a millennial beard and haircut, repeating as NL MVP. (If those initials mean nothing to you, you should perhaps stop reading.)

The Nationals, who brought baseball back to Washington, have already built up enough history to create a tribal memory of sorts, one of per-usual expansion-team defeats, but also of never-fulfilled expectations. That is the way of baseball. These things hurt in a way that knowing Dan Snyder still owns the Redskins does not. The Nats already have a history of two playoff losses that defy explanation, wound the heart and survive as bar talk. In today’s world, there are as many explanations of how the Nats lost those games as there are regional beer brands, which is a lot.

Like no other game, baseball has the beauty of endless hope. It has no clock, and therefore anything can happen and quite often does. Time is not an enemy and not a friend; it barely exists except as a backdrop where things like a 22-inning game can occur deep into the morning, where a kid brings a glove to the game in hopes of being the one — out of 30,000 people — to catch a home-run ball.

If it’s one hit by Bryce Harper, it will be a treasure. Harper, who will be playing on a team that also includes relief pitcher Jonathan Papelbon, who very nearly strangled him in the dugout last year, is one of the game’s superior two young naturals (the other being the much more well behaved but equally lethal Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels).

Anything can happen at a baseball game. Two years ago, I was present at an opening-day game in which often wounded pitching ace Stephen Strasburg pitched a shutout and Harper hit two home runs — the kind of game which, if it had been the seventh game of a World Series, would have made many fans feel that they could die and go to heaven right then and there.
Hope springs eternal. Come next Thursday — the exhibition game doesn’t count — it starts all over again.

Georgetowner •

Jose Antonio Salinas is the owner of the stand at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Dumbarton Street. He has been a fixture in Georgetown for the past 16 years. Salinas not only sells sunglasses, hats, scarves, umbrellas and other items, but keeps an eye on the street and knows all the neighbors. He has stopped several crimes and supplies some of the charm and character of our town. With the departure of Five Guys Hamburgers at Wisconsin Avenue and arrival of &Pizza, Salinas has been told to leave by April 25.

Georgetown neighbors: Let’s help Jose Antonio Salinas stay at the corner or get a new place nearby. We’re looking for a few good ideas. To lend a hand, email The Georgetowner at editorial@georgetowner.com.