Our Winning Nats Lose, But the Natitude Remains
• October 24, 2012

Before RGIII blots out the sports sun in Washington and maybe the world, let’s remember when baseball revealed itself to us, kissed us smack on the lips, and then like a feckless bride-to-be, left us standing at the altar, jilted for this time, the words “I do” already forming on our mouths, then stunned into silence.

Let us — before we succumb to our sporting lot in life, the yearly bout of Redskin mania, win-or-lose, and the startling charms of an astonishing rookie — one last time celebrate the coming of Natitude and appreciate the joys and sorrows of young Werth and the rest of the Nationals and the sunshine and sadness saga of the last five games of the astonishing 2012 season of baseball of the Washington Nationals.

The whole season exceeded all expectations by fans and the Nationals themselves, including the team’s first appearance in the post-season of any sort since the 1930s. The five-game series with the seasoned defending world champions St. Louis Cardinals further showed the dramatic rollercoaster ride baseball can provide for fans and players alike. As one baseball sage, oft-quoted, said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” He failed to mention that when it is over—perhaps when the fat lady sings on some other stage—the effect is stunning, like an unforgiving punch in the mouth from someone you love.

The billions and billions of dollars and high television ratings that professional football generates does not negate the fact that it is NOT America’s game, but it has successfully marketed itself as such. Sure, we all remember where we were and what we were doing when the Redskins won their first Super Bowl—drunk and disorderly outside of Nathan’s at Wisconsin and M, watching people spinning from lamp posts, jumping up and down the roofs of parked cars.

Except for Bertram Abramson and perhaps two or three more, none of us remember when the Washington Senators won the World Series in 1924, because most who saw it are–to put it impolitely–dead. But we do and can go to the records of the day, the Baseball Encyclopedias, the stories by the much beloved Shirley Povich. Baseball has its own literature—part poetry, part hard numbers—that are unmatched by any sport, except perhaps some still missing epic fragment describing the events of an Olympiad in ancient Greece. Baseball brings out the romantic in us, as well as the statistician and mathematician. We’re forever writing fall classic poetry and figuring out new combinations of numbers that will tell us with runners on third and first has started the most double plays by a short stop, or who has dropped the most throws to first base in the second inning of any game.

I think that both tendencies point to what we really think of baseball, that among all team sports, it can contain the closest thing to mystery—even now with staggering player salaries which tend to remove them further from us, and the steroid scandals, which make hash of the very numbers we find mystifying. Baseball is about winning and losing, to be sure, like any team sport, but it’s also about how we live life, daily breathing, rising and sleeping interrupted by spurts of drama.

Here is the essential differences between watching the Nationals and watching the Redskins. The action in a football game are a series of miniature explosions in which 22 men on the field, disguised in warrior-like outfits of helmets, bulky pads, gloves, shoes, sometimes painted against the sun, sometimes bristling with tattoos, rise up in unison, rush at each other with unnatural speed and power. The quarterback yells, the defenders yell at each other, the linemen take the stance, the gibberish of the count is hollered out, the ball is snapped, runners move or not, receivers run down the field, and defenders run after them, the linemen collide and a play unfolds—run up the middle, pitch to the outside, throw down the field, screen pass, or, as happened Sunday, the quarterback runs 76 yard down field in a matter of seconds and wins the game.

Baseball is a game of silence and stillness at its core. Each half inning begins the same way—players trot out to the field, the pitcher takes the mound, the catcher—the only one with major protective gear—squats. The outfielders and infielders wait, while the pitcher decides how to throw to the batter. Essentially, nobody is doing anything until the pitch. What ensues is a kind of dance in which most of the dancers don’t dance but react.

Baseball is the opposite of football—not in its lack of violence—but in its definition of teamwork and what a team is. On the field, every individual is naked in spite of their uniforms, every act of symmetry, speed, throwing, hitting and throwing and pitching is glaringly scrutinized, especially in the time of the jumbo tron, the big screen, not just on the field but on television. That’s why it all becomes at some point theater, drama and resolution, both modest and sudden.

The Nationals won two games in the series: one when a rookie managed a two-run single after all the star bats had gone silent; the other when the $100-million plus star Jayson Werth worked St. Louis pitcher Lance Lynn for 12 pitches—seven of them foul balls that were all potential outs—and hit a 96-miles-per-hour fast ball perfectly on the last pitch, winning the game, tying the series, saving the day. “Walk off, play on,” read the Washington Post headline. Jubilation, unreasonable but worthy, ensued, accompanied by its unnatural outcome, hope unquestioned.

The day for which the game was saved came the next day, and it illustrates an entirely different aspect of baseball. It will break your heart, make you breathless and sadden and sour your days and nights for a year. If Jayson Werth felt the joys of victory, Drew Storen, one of the Nationals’ most effective relief pitchers, felt the uncommon, crushing, tantalizing despair of defeat, along with thousands of Nats fans. He was, to put in terms of how it was described, a strike away from victory, from the last out, from moving on to the National League championship series.

“Closed for the season,” cried the headline. Storen had given up four runs, three hits, allowing the Cardinals to come back from what was once a 6-0 deficit to a 9-7 victory. There is no explaining such a thing. It’s like coming home from a wedding to find your house has burned down. Only minutes before all this happened, one local broadcaster had eagerly and confidently said “and when we win tonight.” Baseball invites things like that and never lets you forget them.

These things do pass: we in Washington have found a baseball team to cheer for not because we must but because they’re good, better than good. The loss doesn’t mean they’re suddenly a mediocre team, but a heartbroken team which failed at a critical moment, an inch ago, days before in the series. It will still be the same team next year, and so, we follow the most enduring cry of baseball: “Wait ‘Til Next Year.”

That’s part of baseball, too. It hinges equally on the most amount of success and the least amount of failure, because a .333 batting average is a success, which means you succeed in only a third of your at bats. It also matters when you succeed. The Nationals’ last game was a matter of when. Brutally, it wasn’t then.
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Salute to Woody Guthrie at 100 at the Kennedy Center
•

That Woody Guthrie, he’s some big-time feller, even at a hundred.

Women loved him, and he stood up and spoke up and rambled across the country in the Dust Bowl and Depression days. He had the love of friends, whole generations of musicians, the good folks of this country, which has never abated, even though he passed away in 1967 at the age of 55 of Parkinson’s disease.

He sang about vigilantes and deportees, and people who got hit over the heads by riot police and scabs, and he sang the most innocent, playful songs written for his kids, and he rode the rails where the sun hit him all the time, and he sang about unions and he railed against fascists, homegrown or monstered overseas. He wrote the songs, and they spread into other hands and singers and musicians. This year, just about everybody who ever heard of him sang his songs, in his homegrown Oklahoma, in a place called Skid Row in Los Angeles, in New York and small towns, celebrating this year which was his 100th year, had he lived that long.

He’s alive as you or I. I can vouch for that because that was a mighty lively little hootenanny they threw Oct. 14 at the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall called “This Land Is Your Land—The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration” for which a couple of thousand people showed up and in the end wound up jumping up and down on demand and singing their feelings. They looked pretty much like each other. I suppose you could call them baby boomers for want of a better cliché. They dressed down, lots of blue jeans, lots of less—less hair, less glitter, less polish, less ties, less tony jewelry, less socks, but lots of memories, it seemed.

There was lots of music and musicians—and most of them were of a certain age, too, and some of them had heard Woody sing, or collected his songs. One had lived with him for a time, and another was his daughter. (His son Arlo Guthrie did not attend because that morning his wife Jackie died of cancer.)

They all had something in common: they played his music, it seems, a ton of times during their time of singing others’ songs; his songs were the first music some of them heard or, in John Mellencamp’s case, the first two songs he played on a guitar.

So, they all came together, marched on stage between tunings. They sang their songs and sang his words. They were as different as they could be, but they shared some things: banjos, guitars, drums, ukuleles, strings and fiddles along with a dusty glamor. They marched on by and by, singing and strumming, fiddling and whistling, and picking and wailing and clapping and tapping their cowboy boots, and often, fiddling around as in “less guitar, less vocals,” or the other way around for the techies backstage, who would come out like ninjas between musicians.

And it was grand. At turns, the proceedings resembled a tent meeting, an oft-described hootenanny, those folky get-togethers of the 1950s and 1960s and big-time concerts led by the likes of Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, but those two weren’t here. Sometimes, it sounded like a union rally, which must have seemed heartening for the much beleaguered laborites of these times, the working stiffs, government and private. Every time “unions” were referenced in a Woody song, and that happened often, there were cheers from the audience, because unions rattled in Woody’s songs as much as ramblers and gamblers and trains and fascists and migrants and laborers. Politics, those of the Dust Bowl and Depression, the war(s) and big government and big business and such, simmered in the songs like hot pepper and a bitter taste, like the melancholy that made the love songs delirious.

Out they came, and there was the Old Crow Medicine Show, singing Woody’s greeting song “How Do You Do,” inviting, pickled with banjo and accordions and it went from there. Actor Jeff Daniels popped out periodically to read from Guthrie’s writings, songs and letters.

Folks like Jimmy LaVave and Joel Rafel, both acknowledged Guthrie experts and followers and singers, sang things like “Reckless Hobo” and “Hard Traveling,” the music of the folks Guthrie had eulogized, celebrated and bled for, being one of them to his holy shoes full of holes. More and more instruments came, the guys with the harmonica hooked to the guitar, the accordions and their endless rolling sounds and the wonder of the c-note, the ukulele.

D.C.’s Sweet Honey in the Rock appeared in Dashiki chic, singing “I’ve Got to Know,” and Donovan, the sunshine-through-my-window man, rock star, poet and artist by way of Scotland in the 1960s sang a children’s song that Guthrie had written and said that Ramblin’ Jack Elliott had introduced him to Guthrie’s music. People just sort of admired the hell out of each other, outdoing their love for Woody by way of music.

Judy Collins, one of the folk queens of the 1960s along with Baez and Joni Mitchell, came out like a startling, still beautiful witchy woman, dressed in shiny black jacket, black boots and slacks and hair as white as a page of paper, but wilder. Yet other sang Woody’s ode to Pretty Boy Floyd, where he was a kind of Robin Hood, and the main crooks were the bankers, as in “some people rob you with a gun, some people rob you with a fountain pen.” Ani DeFranco, folkie supreme, sang “Deportee,” which sounds as modern as gunfire on the Arizona border, saying, “This here is a shoutout to Mitt. This song’s for you, Mitt.”

Out came Coot Ryder, who long ago provided the evocative banjo-guitar ripping and running soundtrack to “The Long Riders,” the best of all Jesse James movies, and he sang the powerful “Vigilante” and played powerfully, too. There was the remarkable Lucinda Williams, one of the most wayward, in-your-honest-face female singers today. She sang an uncompleted song about “a woman who folks here at the Kennedy Center might not want to hear about a prostitute who wants to teach a man some things his wife never done,” and she sang it with verve and in a style and eye-and-ear popping fashion all hers.

John Mellencamp—our modern troubadour of the men who work in mills and farms and such—sang, and so did Jackson Browne, who sang for about 15 minutes or so with back ups a delirious love songs that came out of a letter Woody had written to his first wife, about falling in love and first meetings and impressions. It went on and on like the kind of dance you never want to finish.

Finally, Ramblin’ Jack himself came out—thin, all of 81, with a voice as wrenching as ever, cowboy hat, boots, bandana and red shirt. He sat down and said, “I heard of this guy named Ramblin’ Jack, and I think he died.” Not yet: Elliott sang a powerful rendition of “1913 Massacre,” marking him as the grand old man of musical story-telling.

We and they, all together—you could have too—sang together “Bound for Glory” and, of course, “This Land Is Your Land,” led by the powerful-voiced Bob Morello of Rage Against the Machine. He got people to jump up and down like kids who cared about it all.

Later in the dark of the night, you dreamed you heard the sound of a train whistle, the wheels chugging like a woman beating sheets on a wash line.

There Is Hope After All
•

The noise has been deafening. The sport of the post presidential and vice-presidential debate punditry has grown from a torrent to a deluge, moving from on-air to online and virtually everywhere else. After the now-famed Romney Resurrection,
Saturday Night Live dared to hilariously get inside the heads of the candidates. Obama, it posited, was distracted thinking about how he had forgotten to buy the first lady an anniversary present. It would have been even funnier had it not been what we in the media all seem to have been trying to do since Obama-Romney I got us all nattering.

The coverage seems to be only reinforcing this weird epoch of journalism today which wobbles between punditry and a “just the facts” dirge.

Even as journalists work harder than ever, nobody seems very happy. Especially not the audience if a Gallup poll – brought to our attention, of course, on Facebook – is to be believed. It says an all-time high, 60 percent of us, now “have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly.” Perhaps worse than that, in recent conversations with graduate and undergraduate journalism students, even these driven youth who represent the future of this industry feel that, at best, today’s media is so-so. These are people want to do this for a living. One more tasty treat of negativity – the University of Colorado closed its famed journalism school last year partly citing loss of relevance and recently Emory University in Atlanta announced a similar move with its growing journalism department. Others are sure to follow.

ATM comes not to bury Caesar, but to give a call to action to save him.

With the permission of our valiant publisher, I am taking a column away from observing or commenting or critiquing to urge. To misquote a frequent television ad, “It’s my journalism, and I want it now!”

I urge anybody interested in being a part of creating that future of journalism to support the Kickstarter campaign for DecodeDC – the new podcast devoted to reporting on Congress in a way nobody else is.

Yes, we have venerable publications like the Hill, Roll Call, the entire Congressional
Quarterly family, and even the future-is-now Politico devoted to the daily throes of our legislative and executive bodies – but few have proven able to cover Congress like former NPR Congressional correspondent Andrea Seabrook. For anybody wondering why her voice has disappeared from NPR airwaves, Seabrook decided this summer that she couldn’t continue to cover Congress as a daily mud fight any longer. “It just didn’t seem to be doing anybody any good any more. What was the point? I was becoming as much part of the problem.” So instead Seabrook decided she, and we, deserved something different.

Seabrook left to start an independent podcast called DecodeDC at DecodeDC.com. In her first two episodes, she truly humanizes Congress and simultaneously eviscerates all that should be eviscerated. They are worth listening to. They are good. Very good.

And worth supporting.

Seabrook is turning to people who want great journalism to support her and provide the seed money needed to fully fund a year of DecodeDC, and she has turned to the online money-raiser – Kickstarter.

Kickstarter is a wonderful way for ordinary people can play venture capitalist, venturing to put their money where their mouths are. If you are one of those who loves, is interested in learning something more than the latest mud slinging, and wishes journalism reached for something better than it seems so often to be today, take a listen and then support. Seabrook has until 6 p.m. Oct. 19 to raise the money to fund 28 more episodes.

Near the Finish: at Last, the Last 2012 Presidential Debate
• October 23, 2012

Well, this last in a series of three presidential debates—all of them the debates that will change-alter-decide (pick one) the election—is over. It was not the debate to end all debates—however much we might cheer such a prospect—nor was it an election decider. For some of us, and perhaps for the debaters themselves, the end is a relief.

On the face of it, the debate, ostensibly on foreign policy, but always slipping like a brazen pickpocket into other areas and old arguments, claims and counter claims despite the best efforts of moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS News, will probably change few hearts and minds and the agonizing indecision of the purported undecided. As for who won—well, even some Romney supporters might agree—President Barack Obama won, but to what effect is more difficult to say.

It was pretty clear early on that Mitt Romney’s main mission was to give the appearance of being presidential. To that end, he resisted the combative and aggressive tactics he had shown in the two previous debates. If not the picture of moderation and reasonableness, Romney nevertheless appeared to have put some thought into the foreign policy issues at hand or was coached to within an inch of his memory.

The result, unfortunately for Romney, was that he and the president appeared to share similar viewpoints and approaches on Middle Eastern affairs. Both promised they would never allow Iran to have a nuclear capability, both agreed to leave Afghanistan within the stated time frame and both said that military interference in Syria was not an option. Gone was the red line option so favored by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the disdain for diplomacy and sanctions. Romney wants tougher tightening of sanctions and wants to indict the Iranian president as a war criminal now.

Startingly to many, Romney resisted attacking the president on the ongoing Benghazi, Libya, controversy, an arena in which the president remained vulnerable to attack. Instead, Romney invoked a broad vision for dealing with emerging and new regimes rising out of the ruins of the old. All well and good, but as is often the case with Romney, the vision lacked details—for example, how do you make a legally elected regime, such as that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, agree to American interests and human rights?

By contrast, Obama seemed to be itching for a fight, often going after Romney boldly or with saracasm, as when Romney repeated his oft-told complaint that the U.S Navy was at its lowest strength in number of ships since 1917. “We also have fewer horses and bayonets in our armed forces as we did then,” Obama countered with an Internet-inspiring zinger. “We have such things as submarines and aircraft carriers where planes can land.”

Obama once again lauded his administration’s success in killing Osama bin Laden, but Romney said that the problems in the Middle East are such that “You can’t just kill your way out of them.”

They contended to be sure, but the fight seemed not quite so vehement as the thriller-in-Manila atmosphere of the last debate during which both men seemed ready to come to blows. This time, they fought over the auto industry, a discussion which once again Romney muddled through without clarifying. They fought over Romney’s accusation of an Obama “apology tour,” to which Obama responded with vehemence, all but calling Romney a liar. “My first stop on a tour when I was a candidate was a visit our troops. In Israel, I went to the Holocaust Memorial, not a meeting with fundraisers.”

There were glitches of all sorts—arguments over China, over the economy. But as has been the case with all four of the debates, including the vice-presidential debate, these reality shows were about appearances—not so much about flubs, truth and consequences, even facts. They were exercises in part-truths, not total truths. They were media extravaganzas. NBC News framed the drama against a 47-47 deadlock in one national poll conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal.

Still, some interesting things emerged. Obama was still fighting his way out of that deep, awful hole he had dug for himself in the still difficult-to-comprehend first debate and so was more energized than a Romney playing it somewhat safe, trying not to lose the momentum, the edge that he may appear to have—at least in his mind. The score, as a colleague of mine, said was two close wins for Obama, one major, game-changing win for Romney.

Still, there was that picture of Romney that the GOP standard bearer couldn’t quite erase. He remains someone who changes and moderates positions, and even appearances, on a dime. There was the aggressive Romney, there was the pugnacious Romney, and now the sagacious, statesmanlike, presidential Romney who suddenly expressed a concern about the Taliban coming down the mountains from Punjab in Pakistan. You had to wonder when Punjab ever came up at the dinner table in the Romney household as in “Well, geez, Ann, I’m really worried about Punjab, you know.” Much as flex scheduling, or a sudden interest or an embrace of pre-existing conditions coverage, and his mysterious magical ability to reach across the bi-partisan divide, these are things that seem to come out of nowhere, with no factual history.

Schieffer proved to be a brisker moderator and —except for bringing up the drone issue and once saying “Obama’s Bin Laden”—did a professional CBS-news-anchor job.

Not so for some of the reactions on the blogosphere. On the net, we found the sweetheart of Limbaugh University, Ann Colter call the president a “retard” and, mysteriously, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell saw the “horses and bayonets” reference by Obama as an insult to American sailors.

Unlike the previous debate, this one ended with a semblance of sweetness and light as the usual gathering of the large Romney clan on stage was joined by Barack and Michelle Obama. It seemed to startle some of the Romneys, but not one of the grandchildren, who seemed fascinated by Obama and ending up shaking his hand, a tender and spontaneous moment of sorts.

But, after four debates, and much gnashing of teeth and stress, I knew that it was past my bed time and that I could safely turn off the local news, because most of them would be talking about the return of Chris Cooley to the Washington Redskins.

Weekend Roundup October 18, 2012
• October 22, 2012

2nd Annual “Get Hitched in Georgetown” Competition

October 18th, 2012 at 06:00 PM | FREE | Event Website

Georgetown BID is organizing Get Hitched in Georgetown, where on October 18, 75 engaged couples will compete for the ultimate wedding prize package valued at over $10,000…A few highlights include a wedding gown from Hitched, stationery from The Dandelion Patch and Haute Papier, a day at the spa at the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown and much more!

Address

Grace Church (lawn); 1041 Wisconsin Ave. NW

Victor Horta and Brussels Exhibit

October 19th, 2012 at 06:30 PM | Free | Tel: 571.312.1237 | Event Website

The SIGAL Gallery will hold a free opening ceremony for their new exhibit The Cradle of Art Nouveau: Victor Horta and Brussels. The exhibit will be staged in French, Dutch, English and German.

Register for the event at aiadc.com.

Address

The SIGAL Gallery at the District Architecture Center; 2012 AIA|DC 421 7th Street NW

Making Strides DC

October 20th, 2012 at 10:00 AM | Donations Requested | Event Website

Join the American Cancer Society for the 9th annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer DC 5K walk at 10am Saturday, October 20, starting at the Sylvan Theatre on the National Mall. Since 1993 Strides events nationwide have raised $460 million to fight breast cancer. And the American Cancer Society spends more money on breast cancer research than any other cancer type. Half of American women diagnosed with breast cancer turn to the American Cancer Society for help. Be the change. Make Strides.

Address

15th Street and Independence Avenue SW

Oatlands Participates in the Loudoun County Fall Color Tour

October 20th, 2012 at 10:00 AM | Tel: 703-777-3174 | Event Website

Explore the historic grounds of Oatlands during the Loudoun County Fall Color Tour. Visitors can walk the grounds, visit the historic Carriage House and learn about vintage carriages and farm equipment on display. Ayrshire Farm in Upperville, Va., will also exhibit their heritage breed farm animals under the trees at Oatlands. Additional paid activities, such as tours of the house and garden, are available for guests.

Address

Oatlands Historic House and Gardens, 20850 Oatlands Plantation Ln., Leesburg, VA

Yoga for Homeless

October 20th, 2012 at 01:00 PM | $30 adult (26 and over); $20 youth | Tel: 202.338.8301 | Event Website

in conjunction with Fannie Mae’s Help the Homeless program, Georgetown Ministry Center will host a yogathon to benefit homelessness. Multiple sessions with local instructors will be featured, and yoga mats will be provided.

Address

Grace Church; 1041 Wisconsin Avenue, NW

Where to Start: Site Analysis and Design Thinking for Public Art

October 21st, 2012 at 02:00 PM | Free | info@wpadc.org | Event Website interested in sharpening their skills preparing for public art commissions.

RSVP by Thursday, October 19 to Christopher Cunetto at ccunetto@wpadc.org. Seating is limited.

Address

National Building Museum, 401 F Street NW, Washington, DC 20001

Their Final Debate Is the Super Bowl for Obama and Romney
•

In the days after Mitt Romney ran over a seemingly passive, even docile President Barack Obama in the first debate between the two candidates not to mention moderator Jim Lehrer the GOP candidate seemed to bask in the after-glow and poll gains of his victory. Publicly, on the stump, and in his ads, he allowed that he enjoyed himself in the first debate.

In the second debate Wednesday, Romney was still enjoying himself at the outset brisk walk, big smile, happy to hear from the young man worried about finding a job after college, chatting him up per his plan to look more accessible, down-to-earth and personable.

But here’s a fair bet: I’d bet that Romney won’t be talking about this town-hall format debate moderated by CNN correspondent Candy Crowley in terms of how much he enjoyed it any time between now and the next debate of the century, which comes smartly on Monday. It might be that Romney expected the meek and mild version of Barack Obama to show up again. He didn’t. Obama came ready to spar and fight, a little too much so early on, then later, much more in a more measured, self-assured, but still combative way.

Romney once again tried to ramrod his way into taking up more than his share of time by not answering questions and repeating his oft-told tale of the failures of the Obama presidency and touting his five-point jobs plan. Somehow, that didn’t work so well, as could be seen from his early big, and smug smile, turning into a slight smirk, and then, in the end disappearing altogether, his face becoming tense and drawn. He remained, it should be said, aggressive throughout and challenged the president often, especially on his claims on energy issues.

The difference was that the president was no longer staring at his shoes with every Romney assertion. He fought back from the get-go. This debate while getting into new territory and new issues not covered in the previous two debates was not especially substantive, but was special because it revealed the differences between the two candidates as stark in terms of issues as in temperament and personality.

Obama was no Biden, neither Romney nor Clinton, but he stood strong and made it clear that he was passionately fighting for re-election and that this was a battle between two different philosophies of governance. More than that, in this debate, Obama had size, he had passion and he had the gravitas a president should have.

While his supporters claimed that he looked “presidential,” Romney at times had the face of a bully denied a walk in the park. He sounded and looked tense, frustrated and peevish, going so far as to argue with Crowley at one point. He stopped trying to engage the questioners, an interesting lot of 50 individuals who were supposed to be as yet undecided.

One of them brought up the potentially hazardous for the president issue of what happened in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. Romney blasted Obama for going to Las Vegas for a fund-raiser the day after the killing of Ambassador Chris Stevens. Obama blasted Romney for making critical statements before the facts were known then took umbrage at the idea that his administration had politicized the events. Obama said that he had on the following day called it “an act of terror.” Romney jumped and all but called him a liar, while Obama repeatedly said, “Check the transcript.” Crowley then corrected Romney and said that the president had indeed used the phrase, “an act of terror,” but that the administration had not responded for two weeks in that manner.

The exchanges left Romney frustrated and not a little embarrassed. Because the exchanges on this point were somewhat pivotal, they’re still being argued about in the media and by Romney reps who said Crowley was essentially biased in what she did.

Not so biased were the new forces in the land on the Internet, the Facebook commentators, the twitterers and texters who latched on to such less earthshaking matters as “binders full of women,” a phrase used by Romney to explain how he had tried to make sure there were more women in his cabinet when he was the Governor of Massachusetts. It was while answering a question on equal pay for women in the workforce that Romney brought up his use of flex time to help female workers, a subject he had never broached through the entire campaign.

Romney repeated his five-point plan to create 12 million jobs ad infinitum. Obama shot back with “He doesn’t have a five-point plan. He has a one-point plan.” What also seemed obvious was Romney’s charting his way toward the moderate middle as best as he could, saying that he would not cut taxes on the wealthy (although continuing or making permanent the Bush tax cuts would do exactly that) and that he wanted to create a path to citizenship for some of the illegal immigrants, although he could not back out of the haunting phrase “self deportation,” which he tried to paint as something benign and innocuous.

What was apparent was that these two men did not like each other even a little. This debate often resembled a bullfight between two bulls they pointed at each, they argued loudly, they tried to steal time, they got into each other’s space, if not face, stopping only at stomping their feet on the floor. For Romney, the aggressive pushing for time was nothing new. For Obama, it was a turnabout he seemed to come out of a deep coma-like sleep and he came out energized which was exactly what he needed to do. He may have stopped the bleeding in the polls, and he may even have started some on the other side. Conservative pundit Gary Wills called it a strategic win for Obama and declared the debate the best presidential debate ever.

Asked as a closer in what way they were misrepresented or misunderstood, Romney brought up the point that he’s been painted as not caring for regular folks, for the common man, the working families. “I care passionately about 100 percent of the American people,” he asserted.

Obama said he was seen as a man who thinks that government can solve all the problems and said the he was not. And then, after Romney’s “100 percent claim,” Obama played the card he’d had all night. He brought the number down to the “47 percent,” which Romney had so easily dismissed in a speech made early in the campaign before a closed-door audience of supporters.

Catch your breath, folks, pollsters and spinners. The third debate comes up Monday, Oct. 22, a debate which many commentators had not considered to be an urgent matter, but has now suddenly became very urgent. It is here we go again the debate that could decide the election. It will concern itself with foreign affairs, which is to say you can expect to hear Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. It will no doubt be great television, and it appears now that this election was really about four debates. All the money spent by both sides on disheartening negative ads, Romney’s primary campaign and the two conventions were essentially meaningless exercises—on the road to four of the highest-rated reality shows ever staged. I guess the first three were the playoffs, and Monday is the Super Bowl. But will the fat lady sing?

Tax Time
• October 19, 2012

It’s crunch time.

The last week to file those tax returns on extensions. President Obama filed his return on time in April. Mitt Romney got extensions and filed later. I waited to see their returns before filing mine. Obama’s return is about 25 pages, similar to mine. We use almost the same tax forms, though he earns and donates substantially more than I do. Both of us have salary and investment earnings. I have some stock investments while all his investments are in US Treasuries. We both write. He earned $400,000 from his books. I learned, well, less. Both Obama and I made bad investments years ago that still reported on our tax returns. The Obamas donate $1,000 to $5,000 to a few dozen charities. Mine tend to be a digit shorter. The Obamas gave their kids $24,000 each. I paid tuition.

The Romney returns are in a different class. First, they had four returns, including three trusts, which totaled approximately 1 thousand pages long. Romney had no salary. He must be unemployed like he told an audience in Iowa last spring. Romney had $15,000 in medical expenses. To him, that’s less than a rounding error. To me, that’s my annual insurance cost. He made $260,000 in director fees. Is he still serving on corporate boards?

Approximately 75% of the Romney returns – hundreds of pages – are dozens of Form 8621 to report PFIC investments. That’s a Passive Foreign Investment Company. The Romneys had investments in the Cayman Islands, Amsterdam, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany and Luxembourg. It’s easier to learn to speak Dutch, Italian, and French than to read their tax returns. Romney’s foreign investments appear to conflict with his political positions. He invested in German and Danish pharmaceutical companies doing stem cell research, Chinese state-owned oil companies, an Israeli company manufacturing a “morning after pill,” Swiss, French, Italian and Japanese banks and manufacturers doing business with Iran, and a Chinese education company sued for US copyright infringement. Romney has been running for president for six years. Why didn’t he sell those investments years ago?

Last spring, when questioned about paying a lower tax rate that a secretary, Romney said that a person who paid more tax than legally required should not be president. This year, to get his tax rate up to 14%, he purposely didn’t deduct about $2 million of contributions and voluntarily paid an extra $500,000. If he loses, he has three years to amend his returns and get that money back.

One-third of his tax bill was the “alternative minimum tax” which he’s pledged to eliminate. That will save him $675,000. He also paid over $100,000 tax to foreign countries, which reduced his U.S. tax bill. Since most of his income flowed through trusts, what I really wanted to know was how much of his $20 million went to his kids, but those forms weren’t included. Romney surely paid more to have their returns
prepared that I earned.

Well, back to my return. Where’s that receipt I was looking for? That would save me $27.

William Raspberry, Pioneer Journalist and Other Black Firsts at the Post
•

To the Editor,

Growing up in northeast Washington, I was only a college sophomore when I first met William Raspberry in 1970. Bowie State University had no journalism program then, only two introductory courses. Our teacher Clyde Reid had invited Bill to the small class. In the Washington Post, I had often read Raspberry’s “Potomac Watch” local column as well as Carl Rowan, whose columns were on the op-ed page. Following his visit to the campus, I went to the newspaper – then at 1515 L Street, N.W. – and was hired as a newsroom copy aide on the fifth floor.

During summer months or on semester breaks, I answered phones, sorted mail, ran replates, gallery proofs and page proofs and moved supplies. It was Raspberry’s influence that inspired me to earn a B.A. in English and join the Post full-time in 1973, when President Nixon was being treated at the Bethesda Naval Hospital for pneumonia. The Pentagon Papers, Watergate and the printers’ and pressmen’s strikes at the paper were all roiling issues between 1970 and 1976, when I worked there.

The Post also had a two-year intern training program in the contract for minority employees. Thus, it was gratifying to see Post reporters and editors Ivan Brandon, Leon Dash, Dorothy Gilliam, Judith Martin, Martin Weil and Hollie West and Vernon Jordan, former president of the National Urban League, the second largest black civil rights organization in America. All were present for the funeral of William Raspberry at the Washington National Cathedral more than two months ago. It was a moving experience to shake Vernon Jordan’s hand just before the service. Jordan was shot in the back by a racist sniper in Fort Wayne, Ind., in 1980. Both Dorothy Gilliam, now at George

Washington University, and Bill were hired at the Post in 1962; he at 28, when Phillip Graham was publisher. Bill, who retired in 2005, did not get a Pulitzer Prize until 32 years after his hiring. Such prizes are for younger men with strong legs as career enhancers. Maybe the Post by now would have its first black managing editor or executive editor. Katharine Graham’s rise at the paper followed Phil Graham’s reported suicide in 1963. Bill, hired by Phil, was eulogized by Phil’s son Donald Graham, Dorothy Gilliam, Vernon Jordan and Dr. Vincent Adams.

— Mario B. Schowers,
Washington, D.C.

Annie Creamcheese Leaves for L.A.
• October 17, 2012

After seven years, Annie Creamcheese, the vintage clothing store at 3279 M St., N.W., has closed and is moving to Los Angeles. Owner Garrett Bauman, who resides in Las Vegas but is originally from Bethesda could not reached for comment at presstime The sign on the shop window thanked Washington and announced the store would open in L.A.’s Westwood neighborhood, near U.C.L.A. There is also an Annie Creamcheese, originally named for Bauman’s girlfriend at the time in 2004, in Las Vegas.

News Buzz: Ice Rink, Obamas, Jazz at EvermayOctober 17, 2012
•

**Ice Rink Ready Before Thanksgiving**

After inaugurating and showing off its newly re-worked fountains with water spouts,
Washington Harbour has shut it down and begun the seasonal conversion of the elliptical space into an ice rink?to be ready for skaters before Nov. 22.

According to Washington Harbour?s owner MRP Realty, ?The 11,800-square-foot
Washington Harbour Ice Rink?larger than the rinks at Rockefeller Center in New York City or the National Gallery of Art?s Sculpture Garden in Washington?will be ready to welcome its first skaters before Thanksgiving. In addition to offering open skating, discounts to college students and the opportunity to skate with Santa Claus, the rink will accommodate parties and special events, such as birthdays, family gatherings and
corporate events.?

Hours of operation for the ice rink will be noon to 9 p.m., Monday through Thursday; noon to 10 p.m., Friday; 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday; and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday. Admission is $9 for adults, or $7 for children, seniors and mili-
tary. Skate rental is $5, and skating lessons are
available.

**West Heating Plant: Oct. 25 Meeting; Auction Next Month**

Property hunters can now learn more about taking part in the upcoming auction of the
Georgetown Heating Plant at a meeting on Oct. 25. Jones, Lang, LaSalle is marketing the federal property, owned by the General Services Administration.

The meeting will be at the main auditorium of the GSA National Headquarters Building, located at 1800 F Street, N.W. Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. The building will be open for site tours from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Speakers at the meeting include Bill Dowd, the Acting Regional Commissioner for GSA. Tim Sheckler, the Director of GSA Real Property Utilization and Disposal Division for the National Capital Region, will also be speaking, as well as a representative of the District of Columbia Office of Planning.

Topics to be discussed at the meeting are the acquisition, the GSA online auction and the
terms of the sale. Neighbors, local groups and Ward 2 councilman Jack Evans have called for use of the included open space that part of the
sale to be set aside as parkland for public use.
The West Heating Plant is at 1051 29th Street, next to the C&O Canal and north of K Street NW. Built in 1948, it was used as a steam generating plant for federal building until 2000. The opening and closing dates, minimum bid and bid increments for the sale have yet to be set. The site is scheduled to go to auction in November.

**D.C. Jazz Fest, S&R Team Up for Performances at Evermay**

The D.C. Jazz Festival and the S&R Foundation have partnered to host the DCJF Annual Trustee Reception on Nov. 14.

The reception, including a performance entitled Jazz Meets the Latin Classics, will feature legendary musician, 10-time Grammy Award-winner and National Medal of the Arts recipient Paquito D?Rivera and his Latin jazz trio. DCJF and the S&R Foundation will also jointly host jazz performances by Yotam Silberstein on Nov. 2 and Cyrus Chestnut on Nov. 9 as part of the Overtures Holiday Concert Series. The events will be held at the Evermay Estate, the S&R Foundation?s headquarters. For his Jazz Meets the Latin Classics performance, D?Rivera will perform alongside the extraordinary Yotam Silberstein and Alex Brown. D?Rivera will bring his unparalleled virtuosity to the DCJF Annual Trustee Reception to celebrate the rich tradition of jazz in the nation?s capital.

?A great jazz performance energizes the spirit and stirs the soul,? said Sachiko Kuno, president of the S&R Foundation. ?The S&R Foundation is delighted to collaborate with the D.C. Jazz Festival for what promises to be three spectacular evenings of jazz.? Tickets to the first two performances of the Inaugural Overtures Holiday Concert Series can be purchased for $50 at www.OverturesSeries.org, and include refreshments and on-site valet parking.

**Obamas Celebrate 20th Wedding Anniversary at Bourbon Steak**

The Obamas — the president and the first lady ? celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary at Bourbon Steak Restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue Oct. 6. Because of his debate with Mitt Romney, President Barack Obama had missed the true date of the nuptials, Oct. 3. Chef Adam Sobel was happy to serve the first couple and tweeted an image of the menu ? which included
potato blintz with fried quail egg, creme fraiche and oscetra caviar, Chesapeake rockfish crudo with apple, radish onion, seared diver scallop with cauliflower tempura, risotto, and sweet potato soup with cabbage, seared foi gras and maple syrup. He later deleted that tweeted photo of the menu. The president gave Sobel a box of Presidential M&M?s; the press was kept across the street at at Le Pain Quotidien; the Obamas? waiter thanked the president for keeping his mother alive with Obamacare (it is not yet fully
operational).

**DDOT, GGW Host Live Chat on Parking**

The District Department of Transportation and Greater Greater Washington will host an online live chat at noon, Oct. 18, to solicit public input on the future of parking in the District. To date DDOT has held a series of a series of community conversations, called Parking Think Tanks, to gauge the state of parking and solicit public input on parking in the District. This live chat will offer an additional opportunity for anyone who visits, lives or works in the District to provide their input on parking. The comments received from the public will help shape future parking policies and programs to create a more efficient use of parking resources.

Following the Parking Think Tanks and the live chat, DDOT will host a public summit to report on the input received from the public; how the input may potentially shape the outcome of comprehensive curbside parking management plan; and the agency?s next steps. Additional information about this summit will be posted online at ddot.dc.gov/ParkingThinkTanks.

**COMMUNITY CALENDAR**

Oct. 25, 7 p.m. ?Dumbarton Oaks Park Conservancy: lecture by Judith Tankard on her book, ?Beatrix Farrand: Private Gardens, Public Landscapes.? Georgetown Public Library, 3260 R St., N.W.

Oct. 26, 7 p.m. ?Georgetown Gala: Putting on the Glitz; Citizens Association of Georgetown. Embassy of the Russian Federation, 2650 Wisconsin Ave., N.W.

Oct. 27, 10 a.m. ?Georgetown Public Safety Meeting, at Georgetown Safeway Cafe, sponsored by Citizens Association of Georgetown. Discuss safety and crime issues with Officer Atkins; bike registration demonstration.

Oct. 29, 6:30 p.m. ? ANC2E Monthly Meeting. Georgetown Visitation Prep, 35th Street. Halloween Happenings Georgetown Theatre Company will read poetry and short stories by the master of macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. A ?horrors d?oeuvre? reception will follow the reading, and a supernatural surprise is guaranteed. A $10 donation to
the Georgetown Theatre Company is requested. Oct. 27, 8 p.m. Grace Episcopal Church, 1041 Wisconsin Ave, NW.

**HALLOWEEN HAPPENINGS**

Paul Bakery has taken a different spin on Jack-O-Lantern making. They?ll be carving bread rather than pumpkins, and they invite you to join them at their Georgetown Bakery and Caf?. Cost is $15 per person; this includes a large pumpkins shaped loaf of bread, a stencil to carve a design, and a drink and treat. To reserve a spot email paulb03@paul-usa.com. Oct. 22 and Oct. 29, 10 a.m. to noon, 1078 Wisconsin
Ave., NW.

Smith Point will have its 11th annual Halloween celebration, featuring two options for open bars. From 9:30 p.m. through 12:30 a.m. the open bar will be $40, and from 11:30 p.m. through 12:30 p.m. it will be $20. Costumes encouraged, and tickets are first come first serve at the door. Oct 30, 9:30 p.m., 1338 Wisconsin Ave., NW.

Many families will be gathering in Glover Park for a Halloween parade. The event will begin at Stoddert Elementary School and will go down 39th Place, left on Benton Street down to 39th Street, Oct. 31, 4:45 p.m. Thunder Burger & Bar will celebrate Halloween with a costume contest. Prizes for Best Male Costume and Best Female costume will be awarded ? each will win a $50 Thunder Burger & Bat gift certificate. Oct. 31, 10 p.m., 3056 M St., NW.