Newest Heritage Trail Hits Downtown
• August 8, 2012

Cultural Tourism D.C. and the General Services Administration are starting the newest Neighborhood Heritage Trail, which will focus on the architecture and art of the Federal Triangle. “Make No Little Plans” begins at the Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter Metro station and charts a 1.75-mile path around the grand neoclassical buildings that house key agencies of the federal government. The trail consists of 16 illustrated signs that take participants through Beaux-Arts and Neoclassical buildings. The first sign is located in the 700 block of Pennsylvania Avenue and tour Pennsylvania Avenue west to Freedom Plaza, turns south, and continues east along Constitution Avenue to the Federal Trade Commission. For more information about this Heritage Trail, email Trail@CulturalTourismDC.org or call 202-661-7581.

The Joy of Major League Baseball in D.C.
•

As I write this article, the Washington Nationals have the best record in Major League Baseball. It has been widely reported that you have to look back to 1945 to find the last time our team was 20 games above .500. We are clearly in uncharted territory.

Before baseball came to Washington in 2005, it was a real challenge to get the District government to embrace the team. I want to acknowledge the seven members of the District Council who consistently voted in support of baseball: Linda Cropp, Vincent Orange, Sharon Ambrose, Kevin Chavous, Harold Brazil, Sandy Allen and myself. Without them, and without the leadership of Mayor Anthony Williams, we would not have a team here today.

Not only is the team performing well, but the area around the ballpark is now beginning to develop rapidly. I cannot begin to tell you the number of articles I read about the failure of this concept. With a little patience, I knew this investment would pay off.

We are yet again having record-setting temperatures this summer. The best thing you can do in this kind of heat and humidity is to take it easy and have a cool, frosty drink nearby – the ballpark is a great place to do that!

With the arrival of the summer comes the council’s summer legislative recess. Just because we do not “officially” meet does not mean that business comes to a standstill, however. In addition to using the opportunity to draft legislation in advance of the fall, my office spends much of its time providing constituent services – our constituents’ requests don’t take a vacation. All summer long, my staff and I answer calls, letters, and e-mails on issues relating to trash, potholes, permits, taxes and so many other services, advocating for our constituents before city agencies as needed.

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. But just when we hit a great stride, it will be September, and work and school will return to everyone’s minds. Though without jinxing anything, perhaps we will also be gearing up to host some Major League Baseball playoff games?

Jim, Carl and Myself and Our Embrace of Civility
•

Please don’t tell anyone, but some of my friends are evangelical conservative Republicans, my political polar opposites.

I am a talking voice on an Internet radio political talk show in small rural southern county begun and moderated by an Episcopalian vicar.

I am an unapologetic Democrat on a program that broadcasts to an audience that is close to 65-percent Republican. Two of the local county commissioners, Jim and Carl, are unabashedly evangelical conservatives who, despite a federal court ruling to the contrary, open county commissioner meetings with Christian prayers. They led the opposition to same sex marriage.

Regardless, I like Jim and Carl.

I’ve known Jim for 40 years. If I were drowning, I bet he would be the first to dive in to save me. I knew of Carl – I didn’t really like him – but I met him across the table every week as one of the Republican talking voices, and I now really enjoy being with him.

Most of the time, I find myself swimming upstream advocating my theories that government is important, does good and is critical to helping make tomorrow better than today. That makes me a liberal. In today’s world, I cannot be called much worse. Carl and Jim generally believe the best government is the least government and support traditional values, that is, that yesterday was better than today.

The U.S. political axis shifted in the 1960s. We put a man on the moon, but we also expanded the social safety net and waged a failed War on Poverty. Voters began shifting to conservatism. President Richard Nixon exploited the politics of division. When he declared that he was not a crook, government became the enemy, not the friend, of the people, even though the government is us.

Carl and I laugh way too much. We and the other talking voices share humorous emails during the week.
We also agree on a surprising number of issues, or at least, find a lot of middle ground. Maybe too much. Every week, I find myself saying, “If anyone hears that I agree with Carl, it may ruin my reputation.”

Carl jokes likewise.

That’s not to say that Carl and I don’t disagree. We do, but we are never disagreeable or nasty toward each other. I miss Carl when he is not there. He genuinely believes what he believes and that makes me think. And we laugh.

One question last week was, “What is necessary to revitalize our county’s economy?”

I said: “For decades, the county’s economy was dependent on textiles. Almost 10,000 jobs are gone and are not coming back. Independent drug stores like my family’s are being crushed or swallowed by CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart. The only answer, in my opinion, is to have a strong education system that produces a highly qualified workforce and strong leadership that aggressively chases smart businesses because we offer them a workforce and lifestyle no one else can. Amazon is opening 140 new warehouses around the country. Why not here?”

Carl talked about reducing regulations and the importance of widening the interstate highway in the county. I agreed having been through a regulatory purgatory but reminded him that building highways was a government action.

Carl and the other participants on the broadcast are different than I am. They put their names, their ideas and their reputations on the ballot. Abraham Lincoln once said, “Only the test of fire makes fine steel.” They face the heat of public opinion. I only write about it.

Certainly, I’ve disagreed with Jim and Carl – particularly on the public prayer issue – and have said so to them publicly. But, if I ever ran for office and won – both very unlikely – I’m confident that we would get along, find a lot of common ground and have some laughs along the way.

A few weeks ago, I met Joe Scarborough, Morning Joe on MSNBC. He talked about how “vile” Washington has become because congressmen no longer know each other personally. He talked about his first term as a Republican congressman when he was hell-bent against a Democrat who had proposed new legislation. One day, he picked his daughter up at kindergarten and learned that her best friend was the Democrat’s daughter. He thought, “Oh, my God, he’s a nice guy. I can’t attack him.” He toned down his rhetoric and worked out a compromise.

President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill were on opposite sides of the political spectrum but famously shared drinks and laughter after dark.

Washington must find a way to be pleasant to each other again. Only then will government work again.

See you next week, Carl.

The Dancing Monkeys of Libor
• August 7, 2012

Aesop tells the fable of a prince who had trained some monkeys how to dance. As natural mimics, they soon proved to be very good dancers. And when dressed in rich clothes and masks, they danced as well as any of the human courtiers. The spectacle at the lavish parties the prince held became wildly popular throughout the land and was repeated each night to great applause from the partygoers.

Applied today, at a time where the extremely affluent are today’s self-appointed royalty, the prince could be the CEO of any of the world’s superbanks: Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, or Deutsche Bank. No commercial arena has consolidated more power, influence and wealth. In that glamorous world of hedge fund managers and investment executives, the monkeys—the lowest-of-the-low (with the low bonuses and salaries to prove it)—are the money market traders.

Until the financial boom began to show signs of slowing, there was no real incentive for the royals of finance to pay any attention to their money market traders. With their princes awash in cash, this band roamed the dense jungles of finance from The City of London to Wall Street, happily feeding off scraps. One day in 2007, however, the jungle caught fire and began to consume their collective habitat. Cash flew out of high rise windows. Banks began to fail. Panic ensued.

A few years earlier, Thomas Haye, and Philippe Moryoussef, both former derivatives traders, began to form loose cells of fellow traders from the other superbanks to manipulate interest rates. They had one goal: to obtain advance knowledge of the benchmark interest rate. Together, they communicated with the money market traders—the monkeys—and then colluded to rig the world’s benchmark interest rate, called the “Libor.” The adjustments were slight—usually just fractions of a percentage point—with the specific intent to eliminate any uncertainty in the rise or fall of the core interest rate.

It was a dazzling and grand scheme. Today, the Libor is tied to up to an estimated $800 trillion in financial derivatives and instruments worldwide.

And so it went. Suddenly, the prince’s monkeys found themselves in the spotlight, with a key role in eliminating uncertainty for the superbankers—the princes. They were now thrust on center stage.

The advanced rigging was often done in bars and pubs over champagne.

“Come on over; I’ll open a bottle of Bollinger,” one trader emailed his colleague after a triumphant Libor rigging session. To another monkey trader he exclaimed, “Dude. I owe you big time!

… I’m opening a bottle of Bollinger.”

What’s the harm in a little Bollinger?

When I recently asked one veteran Wall Street friend his thoughts on the Libor scandal, he shrugged. “Nothing significant will be done about it because the adjustments were done mostly on the downside, not the upside.”

It’s taken me a while to frame my thoughts on this, but I’ve come to the conclusion that my Wall Street friend is wrong. Libor matters to everyone. Everyone who borrows money—whether it’s a car loan, student loan, credit card, mortgage or personal loan is affected by what happens to the Libor, because it affects the cost of money for all of us. So, if the Libor rate was artificially high when you took out any of those loans, you were effectively ripped off.

Many pension funds are also pegged to the Libor. Cities like Baltimore are suing the superbanks involved with artificially rigging interest rates because of the adverse affects the rigging had on their city pension funds.

Superbanks who were in relatively weak financial shape arranged through the growing Libor cartel to artificially inflate or deflate their interest rates to give the false impression that they were strong and creditworthy.

What’s perhaps most intriguing about the Libor scandal is how brazenly and open the collusion was:

“Hi Guys, We got a big position in 3m libor for the next 3 days. Can we please keep the lib or fixing at 5.39 for the next few days. It would really help. We do not want it to fix any higher than that. Tks a lot.”

–Senior trader in New York to submitter

Senior Department of Treasury and Federal Reserve Officials openly admitted that the Libor was “deeply flawed,” and yet proceeded to use the same rigged rates for federal bailout programs like TARP, knowing that in doing so, they were saving the superbanks billions and billions of dollars.

So, even if you still don’t know what Libor is, know this: it’s a very big deal, and we’re all affected. “This is the banking industry’s tobacco moment,” said one bank’s CEO. “It’s that big.” An investigating official recently remarked, “It’s hard to imagine a bigger case than Libor.”

Aesop’s fable goes on to relate how the prince’s monkey’s were received with great applause, until on one occasion a courtier, bent on mischief, took from his pocket a handful of nuts and threw them upon the stage. The Monkeys at the sight of the nuts forgot their dancing and became (as indeed they were) Monkeys instead of actors.

Pulling off their masks and tearing their robes, they fought with one another for the nuts. The dancing spectacle came to an end amidst the laughter and ridicule of the audience.

Let’s hope that the Libor Cartel Show has come to an end, and that the Glass–Steagall Act is being brought back to replace it.

Weekend Roundup August 2, 2012
• August 6, 2012

Old Fashion, New Look

August 8th, 2012 at 06:00 PM | rsvp@streetsclotheir.com

Streets Of Georgetown cordially invite you to “Old Fashion, New Look” on Wednesday, August 8, 2012.

Join us for a distinguished evening of bourbon, antiques, and shopping- along with a fine tailoring, timeless style, and the finer things in life. To RSVP, email rsvp@streetsclothier.com

Cocktails and Hor d’ oeures will be served.

30% Discount on Made to Measure Tailored Clothing Additional 10% Discount on Sale Merchandise.

Address

1254 Wisconsin Ave, NW (Georgetown)

Blues Alley: Freddy Cole

August 2nd, 2012 at 08:00 PM | Tel: 202.337.4141

This week at Blues Alley (1073 Wisconsin Avenue, NW), from Thursday, August 2 through Saturday, August 4, jazz and music lovers alike are in for a treat with performances by Freddy Cole.

Address

Blues Alley (1073 Wisconsin Avenue, NW)

BrickFair – Family fun at the largest LEGO fan festival in the United States

August 4th, 2012 at 11:00 AM | $10 | Event Website

Be inspired by original LEGO creations covering 100,000 square feet! Sat & Sun, August 4-5, 2012 11:00 am – 4:00 pm. Get creative yourself in the Stay & Play area. Vote for your favorite creations.
Play LEGO-themed games and win prizes. Check out some of the newest LEGO sets! Shop for unique souvenirs and original LEGO artwork and collectables. $10 at the door. Cash is recommended. Advance tickets are not available. Sorry, strollers are not permitted inside BrickFair.

Address

Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, VA

Signature Open House

August 4th, 2012 at 12:00 PM | Tel: 703-820-9771 | Event Website

Free shows every 15 minutes on 4 signature stages! Featuring the best of DC and broadway. Including SIGNATURE IDOL, FAMILY CABARETS, BROADWAY ON THE PLAZA, and ALL THAT JAZZ. One day ticket sale! 50% off select shows for next season. Available at the box office only.

Address

Shirlington Village Plaza, 4200 Campbell Ave. Arlington, VA

“Go for the Gold” celebrates competition, history surrounding the Olympics

August 4th, 2012 at 01:00 PM | abibb-carson@ncm.museum | Tel: 216-926-3911 | Event Website

National Children’s Museum Teams Up With Former Olympian To Get Opportunity in the Summer Games Spirit. Olympic athlete and local resident Tiombe Hurd will join the National Children’s Museum in celebrating the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

Address

National Children’s Museum’s Launch Zone
112 Waterfront Street, National Harbor, MD 20745
(street and garage parking available)

Sports Zone: Meeting Jessica Brown

August 4th, 2012 at 07:00 PM | Tel: 240.277.0620

On Saturday, August 4th, from 8 p.m. until midnight, join Sports Zone (3140 M Street, NW) for an all-in-one night event. From 7 to 9 p.m., come out and meet Jessica Brown (MTV’s Daddy’s Girl), buy a pair of her new Piro TabloidKiss shoes and get them autographed. At 10 p.m., the store will reopen for a BTS Fashion Show with terrific models and great musical and comedian performances. You will not want to miss this fantabulous event!

Address

Sports Zone (3140 M Street, NW)

The Dandelion Patch: Summer Soiree

August 5th, 2012 at 12:00 PM | Tel: 202.333.8803

Please join The Dandelion Patch for their Summer Soiree in their new Georgetown location. Joining to help cut the ribbon will be Page Stationery for a special stationery trunk show. While mingling with fellow Georgetown neighbors, sip sparkling beverages, sample tasty treats, and shop with a 20% discount store-wide. Enter to win a $200 shopping spree and receive a swag bag full of coupons, samples and goodies from fellow Book Hill retailers: Sassanova, Urban Chic, Sherman Pickey and more.

Address

The Dandelion Patch 1663 Wisconsin Avenue, NW

The Bump Bring Your Baby Matinee

August 7th, 2012 at 12:00 PM | Event Website

The first Tuesday of each month, parents can enjoy movies in a baby friendly environment without worrying about baby making too much noise, no place to breastfeed or room to park the stroller. The featured movie is The Amazing Spider-Man. This month, we’re giving away a Little Pim Spanish Playtime DVD to the first 10 moms or dads in the theater!

Address

AMC Theatres across the country

U.S. NAVY MEMORIAL CELEBRATES THE U.S. COAST GUARD’S 222ND BIRTHDAY

August 7th, 2012 at 08:00 PM | Free | mweber@navymemorial.org | Tel: (202) 380-0723 | Event Website

In celebration of the U.S. Coast Guard’s 222nd birthday, the U.S. Navy Memorial will host the United States Coast Guard Dixieland Jazz Band for a special birthday performance during the 2012 Concerts on the Avenue series. The five-member group was organized in 1970 to perform classic jazz, blues and rags with a “New Orleans” flavor and has since entertained audiences across the globe.

Address

United States Navy Memorial
Naval Heritage Center
701 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20004
www.navymemorial.org

Concert
Outdoor Plaza
Tuesday, August 7, 2012 at 8:00pm

50 Years of 1789 and the Tombs, and a Party for Founder Richard McCooey
• August 3, 2012

Friends of Richard McCooey who founded two Georgetown classics half a century ago —1789 Restaurant, an upscale fine dining establishment, and the Tombs, a student-oriented tavern—gathered at another joint he started, F.Scott’s, July 23—50 years to the founding day to celebrate the restaurateur and his creations.

The party was hosted by John and Ginger Laytham of the Clyde’s Restaurant Group, which owns 1789 and the Tombs, and organized by Susan Lee Mahan in short order since a good number of McCooey’s old pals were going to be in town that night. Attendees waited at F.Scott’s, while McCooey’s wife Karen, Tom Zito and others bought him into the retro dance club — much to his surprise. For a moment, the self-described introvert McCooey was speechless — and then he begin to speak and speak some more.

On hand were past and present members of the Chimes, Georgetown University’s a cappella group which holds court at the Tombs. They serenaded the honoree with two songs. Clyde’s Restaurant groupers, such as John Laytham, Tom Meyer and Sally Davidson chimed in themselves with praise for the 81-year-old restaurant designer. It was all a bit overwhelming to which McCooey, a Georgetown alumnus, simply said, “Thanks for the memories.”

Colleagues and fellow art collectors, McCooey and Laytham recalled the lunch that prompted the transfer of 1789 to Clyde’s in 1985. McCooey causally told Laytham he was thinking of selling 1789 to which Laytham shot back before the end of the sentence: “You just sold it.”

Now the owner of 1789 longer than its founder, Clyde’s has held and improved upon the McCooey dining concepts. (President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel dined at 1789 in July 2011.)

The well-wishers were a mixture of older Georgetown neighborhood, business and university friends, from Bud and Jonda McFarlane to restauranteurs Paul Cohn and Stuart Long, to Linda Greenan, a vice president of Georgetown University, and to Sherrie Westin (with the Georgetown Business Association years ago), executive vice president of Sesame Workshop in New York.

Years from running a restaurant, McCooey and his wife Karen now use their design talent and impressive art collection of posters and other artwork in their restaurant design business, Persona Studios.

Before McCooey made 1789 and the Tombs a reality, he had to convince Georgetown residents that his plan made sense for the community as well. There was opposition to his project. When The Georgetowner’s founder and publisher Ami Stewart stood up at a citizen’s meeting to back McCooey, the tide turned. McCooey never forgot Stewart’s support and towards the end of her life would regularly send waiters to her home with meals from his restaurant.

By the way, if anyone asks, why the name “1789”? That was the year the Federal government was established, Georgetown University founded and Georgetown, Md., incorporated. And “The Tombs”? Inspired by T.S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.” In it, “Bustopher Jones, The Cat About Town” likes to lunch at the tomb. (Add to that McCooey’s nickname in the Air Force: “Bustopher Cat.”) As for the now private club, F. Scott’s, it is named after author F. Scott Fitzgerald, a distant cousin of Francis Scott Key, author of “the Star-Spangled Banner.” ? [gallery ids="100917,129109,129085,129103,129092,129100" nav="thumbs"]

Living Earth Festival features Native American Dance (photos)
• August 2, 2012

The Smithsonian’s American Indian museum hosted its 3rd Living Earth Festival on July 20-22 featuring Native American music, dance, crafts and a special cooking competition.
One of the featured acts was the popular group Brule’, featuring contemporary music accompanied by traditional dancers.

There was also a Native American cooking competition which will be an annual event. Chefs Rob Kinneen (Tlingit) and Jack Strong (Siletz) competed for bragging rights as the NMAI’s top chef, emceed by Mitsitam Cafe Chef Richard Hetzler and judged by three DC-area chefs.

View our photos by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="100912,128589,128597,128605,128613,128621,128628,128636,128644,128652,128660,128581,128574,128566,128694,128520,128687,128528,128680,128535,128676,128544,128550,128558,128668" nav="thumbs"]

Kaypi Peru Festival: The Rich Culture of Peru Is Featured at American Indian Museum (photos)
•

Kaypi Peru was the name of the National Museum of the American Indian’s week-long celebration of Peru’s native people and culture held July 25 through July 30. In the Quechua language, “Kaypi Peru” means, “This is Peru.” The festival featured continual dance and music performances, photo exhibitions, paso horse shows, alpacas and traditional Peruvian food.

View our photos of the festival by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="100925,129431,129438,129446,129456,129466,129475,129483,129490,129497,129505,129423,129416,129542,129353,129535,129362,129528,129373,129522,129385,129394,129405,129513" nav="thumbs"]

Imagining a Better Olympics Opener, Despite NBC
•

Every four years, I turn into a mushy little kid when the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics are broadcast, be it from Beijing, Sidney, Athens or even Atlanta. Ditto for the Winter Olympics, although those games tend to be a little monochromatic.

And every four years, I get a little ticked that I have to listen to the folks at NBC: to have Matt Lauer go through his little book of fun facts when the parade of nations with its many athletes commences or watch interviews of only American athletes, or get a parade of commercials during the parade of nations, letting little countries without a major arsenal pass by during said ads.

I’m as a patriotic as the next immigrant citizen, but do we really have to watch Ryan Seacrest continue NBC’s Phelps gush-a-ton in lieu of more “Rule, Britannia”? Ryan Seacrest? Seriously?

Speaking of ads, was that a Batman ad I spied, and was that maybe a little soon to ca-ching for that movie? And by the looks of all the Cadillacs and Chevies—at what cost per second we can only imagine—General Motors seems to be doing just fine. I so hope we’ve gotten all that bailout money back.

Still, you gotta love it all, even with the presence of Lauer, the too-soon return of Meredith Viera who apparently has Johnny Rotten in the songbook of her life, and even sad to say, the veteran Bob Costas, a shrewd, often witty and eloquent announcer, who lulled himself into clichés sitting besides the droning Lauer. Costas noted that the International Olympic Committee had chosen not to have a moment of silence in honor of the Israeli athletes slain at the 1972 Munich Olympics but offered no opinion on that choice—perhaps because the IOC gets to select recipients of broadcast rights to the Olympics? He also churlishly quipped, after citing a glowing description of Uganda by Winston Churchill, “He probably didn’t know Idi Amin” or some such tripe. And when in the odd segment in honor of Britain’s national health system and children’s literature, we saw a sweeping view of children and hospital beds, Lauer gasped, “It’s bedlam out there.” Perhaps not.

Opening ceremony director, Academy Award winner Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire”), hooked into the vibrancy of London and the mashier aspects of British history to put on a show that was at once stupendous fireworks, smokestacks rising out of the green soil of England, a quick and smart appreciation of the United Kingdom’s contribution to rock and pop music and a starring role for Queen Elizabeth II, who just got through celebrating 60 years of her reign, outpomping and outcircumstancing Queen Victoria.

Bet you never thought you would see (even if only in a film clip) the queen herself (as opposed to Helen Mirren or Judy Dench as M) greet James Bond (Daniel Craig) in person, while her corgies rolled on the carpet or watched mournfully as mums lifted off in a helicopter. While the queen rarely smiles, as rudely pointed out by our announcers, she appears to know how to laugh at herself, even parachuting out of a helicopter. Or not. It was a splendidly cheeky.

There was a lot of speculation about who would light the Olympic Cauldron. No soccer superstar: neither Roger Bannister nor Ringo Starr. Turned out to be a bunch of young budding Olympians in training, lighting up the future, which was touching.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney played his heart out on “Hey Jude.” Although if you watched NBC, only our American Olympians, completely preppy in Ralph Lauren, and our British hosts heard it, even if none of them had been born when the Beatles ruled the world. Or as a friend’s daughter once said when she was 11 years old: “Did you know that Paul McCartney used to be in a band?”

Here’s what I would have liked to have seen: shots of all those majesties, rulers, kings, queens, prime ministers, presidents or potentates and potato heads that were watching their country’s athletes march jubilantly by—not just first lady Michelle Obama, the unsmiling queen, the splendid Kate and her sleepy husband, the queen of Spain, the once again prime minister of Russia.

Likewise, I’d like to see more of the athletes competing for other nations, because we do live in a global village these days. The Olympics always represent one of the best opportunities for the athletic citizens of that world to interact and present. If we have athletes with the hearts of lions, the looks of models, the courage of tireless heroes, why surely there must be similar types on other teams: archers we have not seen, rowers from Finland, shot putters from one of the former Soviet Union–stan countries, the marathoners from small villages in new countries, the first women athletes from the Middle East. We never or rarely see that on television where the pool tends to be full of Americans, which has a two-man team of Phelps and Lochte, as opposed to the female Chinese swimmer who set a world record.

“Hey Jude” is a wonderful song. But imagine for a moment if the song had been, well, “Imagine,” and the cameras had scanned all the teams, all the faces and you could hear John Lennon singing, “Imagine there’s no countries . . . and no religion too. Imagine all the people…”

Not in London? Celebrate the Summer Olympics Here
• July 30, 2012

With the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games, London has been the center of the attention this summer. More than 10,000 athletes from 204 national Olympic committees are expected to participate in the athletic and cultural celebration. As the motto of the London 2012, “Inspire a Generation,” reveals the spirit of the Olympics and urge the athletes to perform at their very best and inspire the world. For those of us in Washington, not making it to London, a number of Olympic-themed events will be going on from today throughout the weeks of the games.

Olympic Fun Day
Olympic Fun Day, an effort by first lady Michelle Obama to encourage kids to engage in physical activity, will be held at the National Museum of the American Indian, Imaginations Activity Center, third level. The event will take place on Saturday, July 28, at 12:30 p.m. The activities include several Native-American games, Amazonian games and more. There will be virtual skateboarding and a photo op in a kayak. Before leaving, make sure to head down to “Best in the World: Native Athletes in the Olympics,” an exhibit showcases actual gold and silver medals won by great Native-American athletes. Children under the age of 12 will receive their own miniature U.S. flag for participating.

Brix and Ale
Come watch the Olympic games at Brix and Ale, the official Tyson’s Corner viewing headquarters. Join the fun by participating in the “Corporate Olympics.” Sign up your team to compete against local businesses throughout Northern Virginia. The top three teams will win the gold, silver or bronze medals. The gold-medal winner earns a dinner for 12 in the Brix and Ale private dining room. The silver medal wins a dinner for four at Brix and Ale, and the bronze medal wins 20,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points. Brix and Ale is located at 8661 Leesburg Pike, Tyson’s Corner Va. 22182. Follow them on Facebook for the official Olympic viewing schedule and daily specials. Register your team before the Olympics begin; call 703-610-8275 or email Chelsie.Chemla@Sheraton.com for more information.

The Queen Vic
The Queen Vic invites you to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Summer Olympics with them. There will be drink specials throughout the Olympics including $4 pints of Newcastle whenever Great Britain wins a gold medal. The party starts at 8 p.m. The Queen Vic is located on 1206 H St., NE. For more information, visit them at www.thequeenvicdc.com

The Pug
In celebration of the Olympic Games, The Pug bar located at 1234 H Street, will be promoting drink specials corresponding to the Olympics games themselves. These specials include $3 bud tall boys for the entire duration of the Olympics. For the US women’s soccer team tomorrow, buds will be $2 along with hot dogs at $1. Take advantage of these specials while they last, from 12:00 p.m. – 3:00 a.m. For more information, contact tony@thepugdc.com.

H Street Olympic Bar Crawl
What better way to welcome the start of the Olympic games than with an Olympic bar crawl? This bar crawl, inspired by the Olympic torch relay, will begin today at the Argonaut at 5:30 p.m. with stops along the way at the Pug, the Star, Shamrock, and concluding at Queen Vic at 8 p.m. H street bars welcome all bar crawlers to join together to celebrate the Olympics in style. Admission is free.

Lincoln Restaurant
Lincoln Restaurant — at 1110 Vermont Ave., NW — will be celebrating the Olympic games by offering Olympic-themed cocktails. These include the gold, silver and bronze cocktails. Make sure to check them out while the games are in session. For more information, call 202-386-9200.