Washington International Horse Show Gets Underway at the Verizon Center (photos)
• October 31, 2011

The Washington International Horse Show (WIHS), a leading equestrian event in the U.S., celebrates its 53nd year in the nation’s capital, Tuesday through Sunday, October 25-30, 2011. This championship event, drawing leading horses and riders from around the nation and the world, is one of the few remaining major metropolitan indoor horse shows and is the pinnacle of the annual equestrian season. The show takes place each October at Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., attracting the attention of tens of thousands of equestrians, non-equestrians, celebrities and politicos alike with events such as show jumping, dressage, hunter and equitation competition, plus Kids Day, Barn Night, special exhibitions, shopping and hospitality.

This year, about 500 horses are expected to perform in the competition. More than $400,000 in purses will be given to the top riders. The highlights of this week’s competition are Friday night’s $25,000 Puissance class and Saturday night’s $100,000 President’s Cup grand prix. In Friday’s Puissance, horses will jump the great wall until only one horse remains without knocking it down. The Washington International is the only remaining show in the US to offer this class. The record to beat is 7’ 7-1/2,” set at Washington in 1986. Riders will also gain valuable points to qualify for the World Cup Finals in April.

The Washington International Horse Show is open to the public; children 12 and under receive free admission during the day. Two performances are held daily except Sunday. Daytime events generally end around 5 p.m. Children’s tickets are $10 in the evening, except for Friday and Saturday nights when tickets are $20. Adults tickets are $15 during the day and $20 in the evening, except for Friday and Saturday nights, when admission is $40. For those who wish to watch the events remotely, the show’s Web site will feature more than 70 hours of live-streaming video.

View our photos from the early days events by clicking on the photo icons below. (All photos by Jeff Malet)

View additional photos by clicking here.

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Social Conservatives Gather in DC for Values Voter Summit (Photo Slideshow)
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The annual gathering of more than 3,000 Christian conservatives and elected officials was a joint production of the Family Research Council and other social conservative groups. Gay marriage, abortion, religion and the upcoming presidential election dominated the discussion at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC on October 7-8, 2011. Featured speakers included most of the Republican Presidential Candidates. (All photos by Jeff Malet)

Click on the icons below for the slideshow.

View additional photos by clicking here.
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Hillary Clinton Gives Opening Address at U.S.-India Higher Education Summit
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International education must adapt or face destruction, global educators said at the U.S.-India Higher Education Summit this morning.

“A democracy depends upon educated citizenry,” said Hillary Clinton, who gave an opening address at the summit, held at Georgetown University.

Also on hand to give an opening address was Kapil Sibal, Indian Minster of Human Resource Development, who stressed the high stakes of global collaboration.

“Business as usual is a recipe for global disaster,” Sibal said.

The opening address was followed by a roundtable discussion featuring Sibal; Richard Levin, president of Yale University; and Sam Pitroda, advisor to the prime minister on public information. The panel discussed the challenges facing higher education throughout both nations, stressing collaboration as a key to success.

“Nations are defined by boundaries,” Sibal said, “but in the 21st century, nations will have to transcend them.”

These boundaries include the fact that, while 30,000 Indian students come to the U.S. annually to study, only 2,500 American students travel to India to do the same. According to Sibal, American students need India just as much as India needs them.

“Lots of young Americans have skills which are outdated,” Sibal said. “People in India have the resources to help with that.”

The panelists had different ideas as to what some other boundaries are. According to Levin, the study of India in the U.S. is “under-resourced,” and American higher education needs to put as much emphasis on the study of the history and culture of India as it does on Europe.

Pitroda sees the integration of technology and education as the key to productive citizens in the future—and denial of that is a potential obstacle to progress.

“We must realize,” Pitroda said, “that technology plays a very important role—that everything we do is essentially obsolete.”

The panelists agreed that the number one way to maintain U.S.-Indian relations is to simply be there. If you want to understand another place better, your best bet is to simply get on a plane and go, they concurred.

The entire summit is being broadcast live at webcast.georgetown.edu, and will continue until 5:45 p.m.

Georgetown University Showcases Student-Written Plays
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Just outside of the main gates of Georgetown University lies Poulton Hall, and nestled inside that is a small, dark theater. The size of the theater does not match the soaring ambitions of the students set to perform on its stage for the Donn B. Murphy One Acts Festival.

The festival is a showcase for original student works, and is put on by the Georgetown University Mask and Bauble Society. The process begins with a script contest, where students submit scripts and the winner is chosen as the first piece for the festival. This year, the chosen piece was “Peaches and Freon: A Musical,” written by Georgetown seniors Ryan Dull and Michael Franch with music by George Washington University junior Andrew Pendergrast. According to Franch, the musical started as a simple joke.

“We were joking about hilarious moments in musical theater that we all know and love,” Franch said. “We came up with a song about stationary trees; it was completely stupid, but people began to ask what musical it was from, that they had looked it up on YouTube but couldn’t find it. After that, we thought we might as well try it.”

“Peaches and Freon” follows the playwriting duo of David (Greg Brew) and Moonglow (Adrian Prado) as an MC (Betsy Helmer) presents a “greatest hits” presentation of their greatest musicals, which include “The Burnham Wood” (which features stationary trees,) “Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster” and “Abortion Contortion: A Pre-Natal Murder Mystery.” According to Franch, it was difficult to come up with a plot and characters based around a joke.

“The songs don’t push the plot because they’re joke songs,” Franch said. “In order to fit the characters around this problem, we made them obvious and sympathetic. But, given that it is the first play he’s written, Franch said the experience was smooth.

“As we were writing it, it gelled a lot faster than we thought it would,” he said.

The second play, “#Courage,” written and directed by Georgetown junior Swedian Lie, is a much more dramatic and serious affair. According to festival producer Liz Robbins, this juxtaposition was deliberate.

“We wanted to give the full theater experience from one spectrum to the other,” Robbins said.

“#Courage” is a more existential reflection on the Arab Spring, specifically the Egyptian Revolution, and the role that social media continues to play in revolutions around the world. The play begins with a conversation between Facebook (Victoria Glock-Molloy) and Twitter (Katie Mitchell) and weaves through a dramatization of the real-life murder of Kaled Said (Jack Schmitt) and the social revolution it spurred with the help of social media. According to Lie, the play’s complex social themes were rooted in the strength of the individual.

“Facebook and Twitter are tools,” Lie said, “but people have to use them. The real focus is on the human spirit.”

When the lights went up after the first-ever showing of these student works, Dull and Franch, who had never seen their worked performed or even rehearsed, sat in their seats, taking it all in.

“This is absolutely surreal,” Dull said. “This is our first time seeing our material performed. The only emotion we felt is ‘wow, this doesn’t suck.’ I’m absurdly happy with it all.”

Although Lie was more directly involved with his play, he was also pleased to see his creation go off without a hitch in front of an audience.

“It was a lot of fun,” Lie said. “I have some experience with adaptations, but this is my first original work.”

Now in its 160th season, the society is touted as the oldest continually-running student theater troupe in the U.S. Philip Tam, the publicity director for the festival, attributes this longevity to the actors.

“I really think we owe it all to the dedication of the actors,” Tam said. “They really love what they do.”

The Donn B. Murphy One Act Festival runs through Saturday Oct. 15 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 16 at 2 p.m. General tickets are $7 or $5 for students.

Blooming Georgetown Businesses
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Ledbury is “popping” up on M Street next week. The Richmond, Va.-based high-end mensware line will open for just three days, Oct. 27 through 29, at 2805 M St. NW. The venue will hold a launch party Oct. 27 at 7 p.m. celebrating this whirlwind business venture with a whiskey bar and some old-school funk music. For the rest of the store’s duration, Ledbury will sell its wares, which are fitted shirts in all styles, at a 20 percent discounted rate. Customers who visit the store can also meet the designers and founders of the line, Paul Trible and Paul Watson, who will be on hand throughout the three days.

The anticipated Fleurir Chocolates will also open this weekend on Oct. 22 with a Grand Opening Extravaganza from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., and will hopefully be sticking around for much longer than a weekend. The opening event will provide samples of some of their “hand-grown” chocolates and hot cocoas, as well as a gourmet s’mores station with homemade marshmallows, graham crackers and, naturally, chocolate.

K Street Heating Plant for Sale
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According to a press release issued by the White House Office for Management and Budget on Oct. 20, the Georgetown West Heating Plant is being put up for sale. The sale is a part of President Obamas campaign to cut waste, lead by Vice President Joe Biden.

The Heating Plant located at the northeast corner of 29th and K Streets was designed by architect W.M. Dewey Foster and built from 1946 to 1948. According to the GSA, the plant “generates and supplies fuel to the western group of Federal buildings.” For the last 10 years, the plant has been out of use. The government has kept the property as a security back-up to be used if an emergency occurs, but are now ready to let it go, and as of today it is labeled “excess.” Numbers from the press release show that the plant has been costing the taxpayers $3.5 million in maintenance costs over the last decade, even though it has not been used. Similar cuts leading to sales of federal buildings are being made all across America.

The big question now is who will buy this property. Georgetown real estate agents and developers told the Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe and John O’Sullivan that the building would be an ideal investment due to, among other things, its prime location. According to Georgetown Metropolitan, the building’s art deco design has triggered discussions on whether or not one should tear down the building. They say that while some appreciate the building’s design, others would rather see the building go and the property turned into a park. Developers say that either way, the development of the property will be extensive, whether it will house condos, a park, a museum, retail or anything else.

Athleta Coming to Georgetown
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The purple wall next to True Religion Brand Jeans and Saloun in Georgetown that has made you curious for the past weeks is hiding a brand new athletic store, Athleta, which opens Nov. 10, according to Athleta.Gap.Com. This will be one of four stores Athleta is opening throughout the country this fall, according to the website.

Athleta, a part of Gap Incorporation, sells women’s sportswear. Whether you’re into yoga, swimming, running or hiking, this might be a place for you. “If it’s a matter of performance over beauty, we’ll take both,” the Athleta site says.

‘Occupy DC’ Protesters Rally in Freedom Plaza (photo gallery)
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Inspired by the “Occupy Wall Street” protests in New York City, protesters gathered at Freedom Plaza in Washington to “Occupy DC” on Thursday October 6. View our slideshow from that protest by clicking on the photo icons below. (All photos by Jeff Malet).
View additional photos by clicking here.

Lots of people saw the beginnings of a revolution last week at Freedom Plaza Oct. 6 where well over 2,000 protesters gathered to oppose corporate greed, banks, Wall Street, untaxed millionaires and the American wars in the Middle East, especially Afghanistan, which marked its tenth year last week.

On Thursday, rock bands and rappers sang, and hundreds upon hundreds of signs sprang up, including the demonstration’s theme of “Human Need, Not Corporate Greed.” Many of the signs were freshly painted on site.

The protesters came from all over the country—red-skinned, square jawed Teamsters from Philadelphia, out-of-work-teachers and public employees from Wisconsin, a beaming veteran of the 1960s demonstrations, small business owners “just barely getting by,” artists and writers, veterans of our wars in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan. They were young, they were in their 70s, they were intellectuals, academics, hard hats and hard workers out of work. The sunny day helped the spirit of the occasion which was, while fueled by anger and angry slogans, friendly and welcoming. It was the kind of atmosphere that belied the simmering economic desperation of the times and the causes.

I saw one man throughout the day, holding up a baldly-stated sign reading “I just lost my job.” He was thin, he had a thin beard and his arms would carry the sign straight up, two pieces of wood with a white banner.

Alan Risinger, a small business owner with five employees, came from West Virginia with his four-year old blonde son Baraka. “I wanted him to see this,” he said. “It’s important. We’re barely getting by. We have a house cleaning business, and I pay my people just above minimum wage. That’s all we can do, and we can barely do that. It’s scary. When you see millionaires barely paying taxes, it just gets to you. We gotta do something.”

His son was holding up a sign: “I know How to Share.”

“He likes that one,” Risinger said.

Some signs were more prevalent than others. The aforementioned “Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed” and a huge sign modeled after the Declaration of Independence seemed to be the protest’s signifier, “We the Corporations.”

Dick Gregory, the legendary Civil Rights activist and one-time stand-up comedian was there, looking as he has of late like a biblical prophet.

If the “Occupy Wall Street” rallies, which are still going on, seem directly focused on the economy, the “Occupy DC” rally is more of a hodge-podge, somewhere between pungent economic protest and an anti-war rally, along with other concerns. It was altogether human without some of the dramatics—zombies on Wall Street!—and street theater of the other rallies. And it was one of many—“Let’s Have an American Spring,” one sign read, and indeed rallies had spread all over the country, referencing of course the demonstrations and revolutions which were threatening to topple numerous Middle Eastern regimes.

Republican congressman Eric Cantor called the demonstrators “mobs” but other politicians had praise for the spirit of the rallies, or stayed criticism. As many pundits pointed out, these rallies might have staying power, and besides, didn’t the Tea Party start this way?

The signs told a rich, diverse story, which may be the biggest virtue and problem with the movement(s), which so far have failed to coalesce around any leaders or single umbrella. “I will believe that corporations are people when Texas (or Georgia) executes one,” one sign read. Others ran a chaotic gamut: “Welfare not Warfare,” “Support our Troops, Bring Them Home,” “We see Something So We are Saying Something,” “We are the Rebel Alliance,” “We Need Jobs,” “Confess Your Sins,” “We are the 99%.”

During a sit-in, a blonde woman smiled beatifically and made the peace sign. “Berkeley, ‘68” she said. “I remember the tear gas.”

The marchers got organized mid-afternoon and went down 14th Street to the White House, stopped and loitered, more or less, briefly flashing signs and saying hello to Concepcion Picciotto, who has been holding her lone demonstration against war and war-makers since 1981. Today, she had a stack of free copies of an anti-George Bush tome to hand out.

One woman flashed a bitter sign: “Another single mother facing foreclosure.” A man from Wisconsin, here to help his son in Virginia with his business, said he had retired from a government job in Wisconsin. “You can’t believe what it was like there, cops, teachers public employees getting fired,” he said. “I’m trying to substitute teach, but there’s so many out-of-work teachers that it’s hard.”

The demonstrators massed and moved to the Chamber of Commerce building where a huge JOBS sign was in evidence, which must have seemed brashly ironic to the protesters. They brought their own jobs signs. They blocked the entrance to the building doors, made speeches and marched on down back to McPherson Square where the “Occupy DC” group was camped.

On Saturday, they were still there with tents, sleeping bags, some of them marching off to special focus demonstrations elsewhere. One group was gifted with a slew of Parliament cigarettes.

“God Bless you,” one marcher said. “Them’s classy cigs. Parliament, don’t you know.”

There was a man who had also come from West Virginia. He ran a green “Panhandle Horticulture” business in Martinsburg and had brought the sweet-tempered pit pull Hazel with him. “Exactly so,” he said. “It’s about time. Let’s hope we can get it together.”

On Sunday, protesters went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and caused it to close after trying to get in with signs and banners opposing the use of drone missiles. Museum guards sprayed them with pepper spray.

For the most part, though, the peace signs prevailed. Even now, you can still hear the drums, the bells, the chants and the hum of people marching.
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Al Sharpton’s Rally for Jobs and Justice (photos)
• October 27, 2011

Thousands of Americans led by the Rev. Al Sharpton rallied Saturday against the backdrop of the Washington Monument, calling for easier job access and decrying the gulf between rich and poor before marching to the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. (Saturday, October 15, 2011). Click on the icons below for our photo slideshow. (All photos by Jeff Malet)
View additional photos by clicking here.
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Patrick Hewes Stewart and Michael Kahn Draw Crowd
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They roped off the street in front of the Verizon Center as thousands of Washington Capitals fans streaked into the building to see Ovie, Semin and other Russians at a hockey game. But for some people—hundreds in fact—that wasn’t the big deal on the street.

Captain Jean Luc Picard was in the house. Like, “make it so.”

That would be Patrick Hewes Stewart, Shakespearean actor of considerable renown, movie star, and knight of the realm. Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart to you.

Stewart was at Harman Hall across the street for the first installment of this year’s Classic Conversation series with Shakespeare Theatre Artistic Director Michael Kahn. To the folks here for the dialogue, which surely must have included more than a few Trekkies, this was the main event. Think about it—a full, lively, laughing, into-it crowd at Harman Hall to hear a couple of middle-aged bald guys exchanging theater stories.

“I know they have lots of people across the street,” Kahn said, “but as far as I’m concerned, this is the best bunch of people to be with.”

Stewart was one of a large number of theater and movie stars in town for a gala honoring Kahn’s 25th anniversary with the Shakespeare Theatre the previous night.

As first, as Kahn and Stewart walk on stage, you thought: they could be brothers. Both were instantly recognizable by their hairless domes, with a cut of grey and white on the side. Both were blessed with story-telling abilities. Both were now legends in the world they shared. Finally, both had been doing this long enough to have accumulated more than enough stories to dine out on.

When Kahn asked Stewart what, if any, difference his knighthood had made in his life, Stewart allowed that it was “very easy to get a table in a good restaurant in London. And the people at British Airways treat me very well.”

Stewart has straddled both a life-long theater career and the kind of iconic fame among fans of science fiction and comic books—he is also the mind-bending Charles Xavier in the X-Men movie series. He turned out to be a charming, low-key, quite modest and serious man, who’s accepted his fame—money, lots of it, knighthood and that Star Trek thing—with grace.

“There is nothing to complain about,” he said. “I mean, my goodness, its remarkable when you think about it. The Star Trek and Enterprise thing has been long done, but it’s still going on all over the world. I can go thru customs in Taiwan, and they look at me, and somebody whispers: ‘Picard’ or ‘Enterprise’ or some such thing. It’s rewarding but unnerving.”

After a difficult upbringing in a small town near Yorkshire, Stewart’s career began when an English teacher named Cecil Dormand gave him a copy of Shakespeare’s plays. “He told me to read it, so I opened the book and started reading, and he said ‘no, no, OUT LOUD, read it out loud. Perform it.”

In 1966, he made it to the Royal Shakespeare Company and performed in many plays, including Peter Brooks’ famous “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” “I wanted to be in films, too, of course,” he said. “And when I came to Hollywood, I decided I wanted to marry Doris Day and failing that, Debbie Reynolds. I’m sure that says something.”

In the 1980s, he auditioned for Picard “wearing a toupee and speaking in a French accent.” He claims it’s in the vaults somewhere at Paramount Studios. Nevertheless, he got the job in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Seven years and a number of films later, he was forever famous.

“Gene Roddenbery had made it clear he didn’t want me for the part,” he said. “But there you are.”

He continued to work in theater, including a part in a Mamet play, in which “every other word was a curse word and my aunt saw it, and I swear, I could hear her in the audience, saying ‘that’s not our Patrick, he wouldn’t say things like that.'”

In somewhat muted terms, he talked about his childhood, living in a house with a quiet mother and a violent Sergeant Major father. “He never physically abused us kids, but always my mother took the brunt on weekends when he would drink.”

Today, Stewart is a patron of Refuge, a British charity for abused women.

Stewart came to the Shakespeare Theatre several years ago to play the title role in a “photo negative” version of “Othello.” “We were very proud of that production, and it was so stirring especially here in Washington,” Kahn said. All the characters except Othello were played by black actors. “It was very tense at times,” he said. “I remember Othello talking about his race, and you could hear people hiss in the audience.” And when it came time to take our bows, Ron Canada, a very fine actor who played Iago, came out and some people shouted ‘you the man, you the man.’ I hesitated but I came out and the actors said ‘YOU the man.’ And here I am, and I have to say, Michael, that, well, YOU the man.”

It went like that—talking about touring in “Waiting for Godot” with Sir Ian McKellen, starring in “Virginia Woolf”, his days in Hollywood, and performing as Shylock recently in a “Merchant of Venice,” set in Las Vegas.

Listening to Stewart and Kahn, you realized once again that all theater lives in stories (and the retelling of stories) like Stewart meeting Eva Marie Saint, whom he had admired since seeing “On The Waterfront.”

He sounded then like a star-struck young man remembering his own icons.

The Caps won, 3-0. And Stewart and Kahn swept all before them.