Can We Agree to the Campus Plan? With These Conditions …
• December 31, 2011

Georgetown University’s 2010-20 campus plan is now in the hands of the D.C. Zoning Commission. After all the points and counterpoints, we find ourselves not quite in agreement with anyone. We have previously stated on this page in July: “We agree that an overwhelming majority — and most definitely freshmen and sophomores — should be required to live on campus and be guaranteed on-campus housing. But 100 percent of all undergraduates? Sorry, no.”

With that said, we are in agreement with the Citizens Association of Georgetown that increased trash pick-up and improved shuttle, as cited by the university, is a less than spectacular response to the neighbors’ anger with student’s behavior after hours along their streets.

Here is but a bit from CAG of what some Georgetown residents report.

Michelle Galler: “I am writing as a resident of 36th Street, and a victim of multiple vandalism incidents involving drunk Georgetown University students. Once again, last night, at precisely 2:38 am, a band of drunken, loud students removed the plants from the planters in front of my home and maliciously threw them around the premises. They have done the same with my plantings in the past, as well as urinating on the front lawn and screaming and throwing loud street parties well into the night. . . . We are helplessly being surrounded by callous, entitled students who are not being sufficiently penalized for their bad behavior.”

Walter Parrs went further: “I have lost hope that GU will implement any enforcement plan that will address the extensive problems that Burleith and West Georgetown face. How can any university – or anyone for that matter – control literally hundreds of steaming-drunk college students spread over two neighborhoods? I understand why GU cannot propose an enforcement plan: There is none that will work.”

The university mailed brochures to Georgetown residents a month ago outlining their new efforts. The brochure displayed a headline which read: “We value you as neighbors.”

You think? Sounds kind of condescending.

We know the university is an invaluable plus to this neighborhood, Washington, D.C., and the nation. No doubt about that: one of the greatest schools in America. Its campus plan mostly gained approval from the Washington Post, which wrote in October: “Imagine a city telling its largest private employer — one that pays millions in taxes and salaries, strives to hire local residents and voluntarily does community service — that it can’t grow anymore, that it might have to cut back. That seems far-fetched in light of today’s scary economy, but it’s essentially what D.C. officials are telling Georgetown University by insisting it either house all its students or cut back enrollment. The District seems distressingly disinterested in promoting a knowledge-based economy.” Again, we find it hard to disagree with that.

Here’s the catch: students who live on campus walk back along Prospect, N and other streets from events, parties and bars. That will not change. Homeowners will hear their drunken cries at 2 a.m. It is the city, the partly youthful nature of Georgetown is a good thing. For students who live in off-campus houses and get repeatedly cited by neighbors and the likes of CAG, expulsion must be in play. (We haven’t even touched upon traffic, a new playing field or boathouse, among the many other proposals.)

University administrators must totally upgrade and update their mindset — promoting campus events, offering courses, crafting programs to its closest neighbors (not just those across the city or the globe), who are their “trustees” to the world just as the students are the university’s “representatives” to the neighborhood. We are here; we are not leaving, either. Ten-year plan? We think the university should be in close, continual conversation with local leaders and neighbors. No more closed doors: politics is local, after all. Time for the administrators to open their schools and minds to the neighborhood with an active wooing of — and union with — groups and citizens to the point that Georgetowners say, “We value you as a neighbor.”

National Menorah is Lit for Hanukkah (photos)
• December 30, 2011

A special lighting ceremony took place for the National Hanukkah Menorah, the world’s largest, on the Ellipse, just across from the White House on the first night of the eight-day Jewish holiday. The first candle was lit on Tuesday, December 20, 2011 by special guest, Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew. “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band, and “The Three Cantors” performed. The national menorah lighting dates to 1979 when Jimmy Carter was president. Hanukkah celebrates the Jewish Maccabees’ military victory over Syrian oppression more than two-thousand years ago. A candle is lit each night of the eight-day celebration, commemorating the miracle of one day’s supply of oil lasting a full eight days in the lamp following the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. This annual event is sponsored by American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad). View all our photos by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="100446,114854,114767,114845,114777,114836,114787,114797,114807,114817,114757,114863,114717,114908,114899,114727,114890,114881,114737,114872,114747,114827" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetown Senior Center Celebrates Christmas
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The reorganized Georgetown Senior Center held Christmas lunch Dec. 19 at St. John’s Episcopal Church on O Street. Founded in 1982 by the late and beloved Virginia Allen, the non-profit regularly gathers its members at the parish hall for lunch Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Volunteers help with the food and fellowship — local restaurants often pitch in, and Mary Meyer and Karen Cruise are still helping in the kitchen. For the seniors, there are programs after lunch as well as day trips to movies or Washington sights. For more information, call 202-316-2632 or visit www.GeorgetownSeniorCenter.org. [gallery ids="100447,114837,114882,114847,114874,114857,114866" nav="thumbs"]

Santa Claus Comes to Town . . . and Other Christmas Trimmings
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For sheer size and sense of fun, the big winner in Georgetown’s Christmas decorations has to go to Jack Davies of Prospect Street. His 20-feet-tall, inflated Santa Claus waves, “Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas” from the back of his house with its grand vista of the Potomac River to all entering D.C. from Virginia. While many Georgetown homes are trimmed from evergreens, red ribbons and small lights, Davies’s Santa makes for a happy surprise.

The Santa on his rooftop, overlooking Canal Road and M Street, can be seen by Key Bridge commuters stuck in traffic. And it is up there, Davies says, to make people smile. Davies, founder of AOL International, is a philanthropist and businessman who is part owner of the Washington Capitals, Wizards and Mystics.

Drivers and pedestrians enjoy the sight, illuminated at night, as does Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans who says he loves it, too.

Davies first began positioning a Santa a few years ago on a back balcony and discovered how easily the wind can bring it down. This year, with the advice of friend Michael Murphy, an environmental engineer, Davies erected his winning St. Nick the week after Thanksgiving. “The best $700 I ever spent,” he says — and quite a Christmas present from one of our neighbors.
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‘Billy Elliot’: Big Show, Big Heart
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“Billy Elliot the Musical” started out as a movie, a smallish, critically well received and quite popular English movie about a working class kid who wanted to become a ballet dancer. The movie became a popular hit and received some award nominations. Then, as small movies often do, it disappeared, apparently indelibly embedded in the minds of people who saw it.

If you go to the Kennedy Center’s Opera House—and you should—to see “Billy Elliot the Musical,”, you might be amazed to think that this was ever anything you could call small. The touring version is big—a really big show—big in physical size, in production qualities, and most importantly, big in ambition and heart, while rarely mushing or stooping to out-and-out sentimentality.

Oh, it’s still the same old story, one boy’s fight for leaps of glory, but it manages to be fresh, original, it manages to be about big subjects—the importance of art in lives that rarely come in contact with it, the mystery of talent, and as always, the equally mysterious natures of families. At three hours, the musical should be a bit of a slog, but it’s worth every minute, a worthy payoff of time and money and a critical success at that.

We’re in Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, where the national mining union has just gone on strike, and the Iron Lady is out to bust the workers in villages across the country, which may explain her natural affinity for Ronald Reagan. In one such village, Billy Elliot, an adolescent boy who’s lost his mother and lives with his belligerent father, tough brother and slightly daft grandmother, is taking boxing lessons when he accidentally wanders into a ballet class. He’s intrigued, watching the energy of the dancers under the guidance of the tough-talking, colorful Mrs. Wilkinson, but he’s also put off, because in the mining culture ballet is part of the upper class world, not to mention unmanly.

Still, he comes back, and finds something in himself—a gift for movement, flight, he’s a natural—and Mrs. Wilkinson gives him private lessons.

When pops and brother find out, they cut his budding efforts to get into the National School of Ballet short. But as the miners battle cops and scabs and run out of money, it occurs to Billy’s family and the extended family of miners that maybe Billy ought to get a chance to live his dream — and theirs — with him. And so, off they—Billy and pops—go to an audition in London, an enterprise that is often funny in a clash-of-cultures way, but also results in Billy’s audition number “Electricity” where Billy, in a bout of spectacular dancing expresses what dance means to him—its electricity, its hope, its dreams and freedom.

The show—with music by Elton John, a book by Lee Hall, choreography by Peter Darling and direction by Stephen Daldry—ended up winning 10 Tonys when it first hit Broadway. The road company requires a cast of five different Billys, and just watching, somewhat awestruck, two of the big numbers Billy is featured in, you can understand the need for a break.

Lex Ishimoto was the Billy I saw, lithe, unpretentious, a kid until he started to fly and leap. Billy talks like a normal working class kid, there’s nothing treacly here, no Oliver Twist, no David Copperfield or Tiny Tim. This is an often lonely kid who misses his mother tremendously, whose best friend is an exhibitionist gay teen who likes to wear dresses, who feels adrift in the often violent, macho world of the miners.

I expect that none of the Billys are particularly grand singers—both dance and voice are exacting disciplines that require training, and, as far as I know, there is no Rudolf Nuryev’s greatest hits album.

Darling and Daldry have done something remarkable here, they’ve put dance and music in the service of the story, instead of the other way around. In depicting the battles between cops and strikers, they’ve included the ballet dancers in seamless fashion.

“Billy Elliot” is in fact, very moving, in a tug-tug way, it delves into the fulfillment and pursuit of aspirations, it creates the world of the miners with not only drama but dance and song, some of which occasionally swerves into Les Mis territory.

And it should be said that while its hero is a kid, “Billy Elliot, the Musical” is no Disney effort. It’s gritty, with the occasional blunt, four-letter gruff language of working class types, something that we can applaud, but also approach with caution, if you’re a parent.

Christopher Hitchens & Vaclav Havel
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I’ve been reading stories about and obituaries of Christopher Hitchens these past few days.

I was amazed how much I laughed—out loud.

I mean no disrespect toward the noted writer, literary critic, verbal bomb-thrower, bane of organized religion, outrageous and
iconoclastic savager of the whole band-width of ideology and political rhetoric, who was, above all, a very serious man. His opinions and pronouncements were principled, well thought-out to the point of almost being irrefutable and passionately held.

But by God — okay, perhaps not by God — he could be and was funny in his writing, on the air, in debates and interviews and probably in his sleep. And I mean funny as in deadly serious funny. He died last week at the young age of 62 of pneumonia, and the effects of cancer of the esophagus. Put another way, he probably died of the way he lived, or rather the effects of his mammoth indulgent drinking and smoking.

He probably would have abided by that judgement, but not the one in which some mean-spirited religious types insisted he was being punished by you know who. He was towards his last days astonished by the amount of communications offering him prayers, but also urging him to repent and recognize God.

Hitchens suggested if that should somehow happen it would be from the effects of his illness, not a recantation.

He talked (and wrote) about the subject of his dying days on talk shows and his recent autobiography boldly titled “Hitch 22”. “I could not imagine seeing a good religionist on his death bed and screaming in ear that there was no afterlife, no nothing. That would be unethical,” he said.

Among the many entries in the comment sections of stories about his death there was this: “Just this once, I will admit I am not great.” God.

Hitchens became known a little late in his life as an atheist, with arguments aplenty to prove that he was right, including a book called “God is Not Great”. But he backed his arguments with his keen wit and intelligence, and it would always seem that in religious arguments, faith might trump reason, but reason holds the info cards.

What Hitchens despised was the intolerance, the violence against other religions that was practiced by fanatical religious adherents and fundamentalists, especially the most radical of Islamic believers who committed acts of terror and murdered in the name of their religion. He also attacked Mother Theresa. He loudly and bravely blasted the fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini against Iranian author Salman Rushdie for his novel, “The Satanic Verses.” He was in all his opinions and writings, an equal-opportunity critic, offending friends and enemies on the left and right. And I think he was a brave man—he reported for the Nation and later Vanity Fair from war zones and once underwent waterboarding personally to be able to write about it first hand. “If this is not torture,” he wrote, “then there is no torture.”

He was a brilliant and elegant, if sometimes brutish, essayist, a keen literary critic, and by all-accounts, non-stop talker, sober or not.

As somebody noted that if you’re a famous and respected writer, you’re bound to get good notices when you die. He got good notices from really good people all of his life. On the publication of “Hitch 22,” the great English novelist Ian McEwan wrote that “If Hitchens didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be able to invent him.” Richard Dawkins wrote “If you are invited
to debate … with Christopher Hitchens, decline. His witty repartee, his ready-access store of historical quotations, his bookish eloquence, his effortless flow of well formed words … would threaten your arguments even if you had good ones to deploy.”

I saw Hitchens once at a faux debate at the Shakespeare Theatre in Harman Hall, where, I believe a Supreme Court justice, several media pundits, historians and Arianna Huffington as well as Hitch debated the issue of whether Henry V’s invasion of France which resulted in the battle of Agincourt was a war crime or legal. I don’t remember the outcome, but I do remember Hitchens, apropos of nothing except that Shakespeare’s ghost was in the house, gave a perfectly vivid description of Edward II’s horrific murder (from a play by Marlowe), which left even Huffington silent for a second or two.

This is the kind of thing Hitchens could be counted on to do: whatever came out of his mouth, would come out in perfectly formed sentences, it would often be risible and offensive, and dead-on in the
facts.

He was on Bill Maher’s show at least once, because Maher, you suspect, saw him as a kindred spirit because Maher flayed against people of faith religiously on his show, in the manner of a petulant boy whose favorite insult is “redneck,” a peevish boy who had obviously been hit on the knuckles with a rule by a nun in his childhood. On that occasion, Maher might have been forced to believe that there was a higher being, because he was sitting next to one.

VACLAV HAVEL

Hitchens, unlike writers like Jimmy Breslin or Norman Mailer in America, never aspired to public office, high or low, because the tradeoff is inevitably a piece of your soul.

In other countries, especially in the latter part of the 20th century, during the time of the Cold War and the relatively imminent breakup
of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Europe, things sometimes were different.

The dissident, writer and playwright Vaclav Havel , who died at 75 on Dec. 17, would become president of what was then Czechoslovakia and later became president of the Czech Republic when the country split in two with Slovakia becoming a separate country.

In all cases, Havel was first and foremost an eloquent dissident and provocateur in a country where creativity and dreams of freedom burned
strongly even in the darkest hours when the Soviet Union crushed the Prague Spring in 1968 with an invasion of tanks into Prague.

Havel was a prolific playwright and prolific and open dissident which caused his writings to be banned, which caused him to be arrested and land in prison. He was a hero throughout the world for his defiant stance, and his plays were performed often in the United States and frequently by Scena Theater under its director Robert McNamara in Washington, D.C.

His letters to his wife published under the title of “Letters to Olga” were widely praised for their moral resonance and example.

Writers or artists, of course, don’t always make good presidents. The presidency in the Czech Republic, as it is in other European countries,
is large ceremonial and symbolic, but as a symbol to his country Havel filled the job. As a president per se, Havel was a very good playwright.

A noted filmmaker was visiting in Washington during the D.C. Film Festival at the time of Havel’s ascendancy to the presidency and passed on this story to me. “Someone told Havel that people were already making jokes about him,” he said. “And Havel said ‘Jokes? About me? But I’m the
president.’ ” “Yes,” he was told, “That’s the joke.”

Havel reportedly found that joke funny. But then, he would, because he was a serious man.
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ELEW Rocks Halcyon House for Sasha Bruce
• December 22, 2011

Rock/jazz pianist ELEW (Eric Lewis) held court with his mighty piano in the studio hall of Halcyon House Dec. 13 to benefit Sasha Bruce Youthwork, which provides shelter and counseling to runaway, abused and neglected children and their families. The D.C. non-profit – which began in Georgetown’s Christ Church – was enlarged by donations from Evangeline Bruce, wife of Ambassador David Bruce, following the death of their daughter Sasha who had helped troubled youths as a volunteer.

Jasmine Williams, a Sasha Bruce success story, saved from her abusive stepfather, told the crowd in John Dreyfuss’s studio that she was preparing to go to college. ELEW said he felt at home at the Sasha Bruce house. Even Mayor Vincent Gray showed up to praise the group and its founder, Deborah Shore: “We share the same values.”

Then, it was time for the main event. The expressive, high-energy ELEW pounded the ivories and plucked the cords with such tunes as “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Fireflies,” “Paint It Black” and more, along with his own “Thanksgiving” – and some Christmas riffs, too. (ELEW’s new album debuts soon.)
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The Hamilton by Clyde’s: Unique in Space, Time and Sound
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The Hamilton, Clyde’s Restaurant Group’s new 37,000-square-foot restaurant at 14th and F Streets, is making the scene in no small way. It is as big in space and in time as the ambition of the first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, whose federal department is but a block away with the White House nearby.

The same goes for the food and the music. Under the care of executive Brian Stickel, the menu is an expansive mix: steaks, seafood, salads, munchies, muffulettas and burgers, too. (Too much to name right now.) It changes for the time of day, there is a breakfast, brunch and lunch menu and more. There is an Eggs Hamilton on the late night menu. It will be the first Clyde’s joint (the original opened 1963 in Georgetown) ever to serve sushi. Oh, did we add that, as in 24/7, the Hamilton which opens Sunday, Dec. 18, never closes?

In keeping with the restaurant designers of Clyde’s, the artwork is custom, the woodwork perfection and the look and details contemporary but classic. Check out the Lady Liberty hanging lamps.
The Hamilton is in the old Borders space, where before that was the flagship of Garfinkel’s department store. It is the 15th Clyde’s restaurant; Old Ebbitt Grill, owned by the group, is one block away on 15th Street.

A lot of patrons can show up: first floor restaurant areas, 400 seats; upstair Loft private dining room, 80 seated/100 standing; live music seating, 260 seats, 100 bar stools. Downstairs, the sound-proofed, high-tech music space has its own menu for “quiet food,” such as sliders, pizza or sushi. It will display pictures of the likes of Dylan, Hendrix and Elvis. Musical acts are just getting scheduled.

At presstime, The Hamilton Burger was “to be determined.” Singer Mavis Staples will headline the grand opening celebration on Jan. 19. And, that’s right, no duels allowed.
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Christmas Heartbreak: 2 Deaths Near Key Bridge Dec. 16
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A man discovered on the towpath beneath Key Bridge after 5 p.m. and a United States Park Police officer responding to the emergency both died Dec. 16.

U.S. Park Police Sgt. Michael Boehm suffered a seizure 5:30 p.m. on the scene while first responding to the man on the towpath and working with D.C. Fire & EMS personnel. Boehm died of a cardiac arrest, according to Kevin Kornreich of the D.C. Homeland Security & Emergency Management Agency. He was pronounced dead at Georgetown University Hospital. The 45-year-old Boehm had been with the Park Police for 19 years and was an Army veteran.

Two joggers running on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal’s towpath halted when coming upon the so-called jumper. Prospect Street resident Andy Kline and his female running companion were stunned at the sight and the pool of blood, he said. The woman, who requested anonymity, said she called 9-1-1 at 5:05 p.m.

With Key Bridge at least 35 feet above, the man on towpath was attended by D.C. Fire & EMS personnel and later pronounced dead at Georgetown University Hospital. He has not been identified by police who have also not confirmed whether he jumped or fell from the bridge.

U.S. Park Police were on the scene at 34th and the C&O Canal, next to Francis Scott Key Park, as it is part of the National Park System. Along with the D.C. Fire Department, the Metropolitan Police Department were also on the scene. With the call, “Officer Down,” there were many Park Police cruisers on the streets and a helicopter flying overhead.

The emergency snarled Friday night rush hour traffic. Police stopped M Street traffic for a time, closed Key Bridge at M Street and in Arlington for at least 20 minutes and re-routed eastbound Canal Road traffic to Virginia. Police also blocked the intersections of 34th and 35th Streets at Prospect Street for about 30 minutes. Shortly after 6:30 p.m., fire trucks, ambulances and police cars began to drive off, and roads were opened to regular traffic.

Boehm is the only line-of-duty death this year for the U.S. Park Police, one of the nation’s oldest law enforcement agencies. He is survived by his wife Corrina and son Christopher. As of yet, a memorial service has not been announced.
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Santarchy Invades DC (photos)
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If you saw dozens of Santas parading around the District on Saturday, Dec. 17, you probably were witness to Santarchy. This is an annual Christmas event held in major cities around the world where thousands of Santas visit major sites and spread their holiday cheer. Organizers describe Santarchy as “a non-profit, non-political, non-religious & non-sensical celebration of holiday cheer, goodwill, and fun.” They are also quick to add that they are not protestors. and will not be occupying anyting except the North Pole. As of last count, no Santas have been arrested. We caught up with them as they gathered near the National Mall Carousel. View our pictures by clicking on the photo icon’s below. [gallery ids="100442,114457,114476,114447,114485,114494,114437,114503,114512,114427,114521,114530,114417,114539,114548,114467" nav="thumbs"]