Ins & Outs 4.4.12
• May 3, 2012

M&T Bank, which has a branch on Thomas Jefferson Street, will be adding another Georgetown location at 1420 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W., where the clothing store, Commander Salamander, once sold its funky wares.

Never mind: Crave, a sandwich and salad eatery on Potomac Street that opened a couple of weeks ago, was abruptly closed. A dispute between business partners led to the decision. Manager and co-owner Garrett Bauman, also of Annie Creamcheese vintage clothing, told the Georgetowner he hoped to find another location nearby.

The men’s clothier, Gant, is coming to Georgetown in August and moving into 3239 M Street. It could not be more different than its previous tenant, the free-wheeling, live-music bar, the Saloun. The 2,000-square-foot space will sell Gant, Gant Rugger and Gant by Michael Bastian, according to Women’s Wear Daily. Georgetown just got more preppy, as if it needed more help, Gentlemen’s Quarterly opined: “The whole collection is still grounded in the archival, American sportswear Bastin and co. have perfected in the past few seasons but amped up in the flair department, complete with special details like the floral lining on an insanely perfect M-65 jacket or the bold flecks of bright yellow and orange on a Donegal tweed blazer.” As if . . .

Ligne Roset and Natuzzi are setting up shop in Glover Park. The furniture retailers have jointly leased the storefront at 2209 Wisconsin Avenue, said property manager Cynthia Cumbo, who added, “The space should be ready in March.” The space was vacant after Mobili furniture departed more than three years ago.

The clothing store, Riccardi & Sports, have left the Shops at Georgetown Park along with so many others. It can now be found at the main Riccardi at 3213 M Street — 202-625-6687.

Mega and green, too: Swedish fashion giant Hennes and Mauritz — which has its H&M store on M Street at Georgetown Park — plans a separate luxury line for 2013. “We have many different projects in progress and already next year we will be launching a completely new store chain. Like COS, which today is very successful with good profitability, the new chain of stores will be independent and complement the other offerings from the group,” CEO Karl-Johan Persson confirmed.

On April 12, H&M will launch its Exclusive Glamour Conscious Collection, promoted by Amanda Seyfried and Michelle Williams and is made using sustainable materials including organic cotton, hemp and recycled polyester.

Hair stylist Luigi Parasmo is set to open his first namesake salon with fellow stylist Javier Calvo in Georgetown. Luigi Parasmo Salon will be equipped with a staff of 14 hair, make-up and nail stylists and opens its doors to the public on Tuesday, April 10. It will be located on 1510 Wisconsin Avenue.

The Chipotle-spinoff restaurant Shophouse Southeast Asian Kitchen plans to open in the old location of Furin’s Bakery at 2805 M Street. The first Shophouse restaurant in Washington opened in Dupont Circle in September last year. Shophouse aims to serve fast Asian food with high quality. The Georgetown Shophouse will open “later this year,” according to the company.

Tony and Joe’s Seafood Place at Washington Harbour and the Potomac will finally reopen its inside restaurant for business in early May with some changes in both interior and on the menu. Since the April 2011 flood only the outside patio and bar have been open, and a limited menu has served from an outdoor kitchen.

An Alternative Way To Stay Cool This Season
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D.C. is fraught with pools on top of apartment buildings, D.C.-run community pools and the occasional roof deck restaurant, but no where is there a members-only pool social club.

Until now.

The Penthouse Pool Club on U St. opened last weekend with a large turnout despite less-than-stellar weather, drawing their 1,000 members to a 60-foot pool, private sun deck, resort cabanas, communal fire pits and a membership lounge offering full food and beverage service.    
 
The planning for the pool club started almost three years ago with an idea by David von Storch, president of Urban Adventures Companies, the parent company of VIDA Fitness, which has five locations throughout the city. A resident of D.C. for 25 years, he said there was a niche that hadn’t previously been filled, largely in part because ten years ago, there wasn’t the same demand there is now.

“It’s now a true urban center; it’s grown up a lot,” he said in a phone interview. He pointed to the neighborhood of Logan Circle, where he resides. “I can walk to the grocery store, to the gym, the hardware store and to 15 restaurants; that wasn’t possible ten years ago in virtually any neighborhood. People are looking to live in the city, it’s not just convenient for work, it actually fits with how they see themselves living.”

The 12,000 square foot rooftop was previously just that, a rooftop with an unattractive air conditioning system. But in the three years of planning, they modified the space for the pool, and moved the A.C. system underneath it. With plans to stay open until late October, the pool is heated by the rejection energy put out by the FIDA fitness gym. The A.C. system already takes this heat out to put in cool air, so they’re simply re-routing where it goes, which in the end, von Storch says, will be a huge cost saver and an environmentally friendly decision.

With a lounge and pool capacity of 299 and 25 staffers, members and guests will be able to see panoramic capital views. The membership roster to the Penthouse Pool Club is now filled, however Urban Adventures Companies has established a waiting list for those wishing to become future members. Membership to the pool club also includes full access to all five D.C.-area VIDA Fitness locations.

Designed by Stoneking von Storch Architects of other clubs like the Soho House in New York City and Miami, he noted that the Poolhouse Club is unique in that it’ll not only have the fitness component downstairs, but Aura Spa on the first floor, due to open later this summer.

With an exclusive and an above-18 membership, the club is sure to draw crowds as the weather gets warmer.

“The fact that you have to be 18, be a member of VIDA, creates an environment where it will be more relaxing, whereas other pools there are lots of kids jumping around. This is an alternative to that on the weekends, and not have to go out of town.” [gallery ids="100715,120504,120497" nav="thumbs"]

Afghanistan: Hanging in the Balance
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For more than a decade, the Afghan War has been a costly and difficult campaign for the United States and its NATO allies.  As the United States begins to downsize its force in Afghanistan and turn combat operations over to the Afghan police and army, a persistent question is whether the U.S. strategy will be effective in preventing Afghanistan from slipping back to Taliban control over the long term.  U.S. strategy in Afghanistan has evolved over the past 11 years, and conditions have changed. As the U.S. drawdown picks up pace, success of the entire operation will be dependent on a series of complex variables over which the U.S. and NATO will have little control.  Without continued heavy, long-term support from the United States, it is likely that the current government of Afghanistan will not be sustainable in its current form.

In his remarks at West Point outlining his administration’s strategy, President Barack Obama said, “Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.”  Effectively establishing Afghanistan and Pakistan as the theater of war in which to defeat Al Qaida and the Taliban, Obama set a timetable of 18 months to accomplish a series of ambitious and broadly defined objectives:  “We must deny al Qaida a safe haven.  We must reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government.  And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan’s security forces and government so that they can take lead responsibility . . .”

Assessing the Obama Strategy.  Now, more than two years later, it is clear that even as the drawdown of forces in Afghanistan is set to begin, and while some headway has been made in some areas, those overarching objectives articulated by Obama have not been met.  Director of National Intelligence James Clapper reported the intelligence community’s assessment that “[the Taliban] remains resilient and capable of challenging U.S. and international goals; and Taliban senior leaders continue to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan, which enables them to provide strategic direction to the insurgency and not fear for their safety.”

A leaked U.S. military report on the “State of the Taliban 2012,” confirms that Pakistan’s ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence agency) is encouraging the Taliban to continue fighting.  It goes on to confirm that, “Though the Taliban suffered severely in 2011, its strength, motivation, funding and tactical proficiency remain intact.” 

Negotiating the Retrograde.  Ostensibly in recognition of these shortfalls, the president has announced a “new” way forward in Afghanistan that looks remarkably similar to the counter-terror strategy originally proposed by Vice President Joe Biden. It advocated an escalation of the drone war in Pakistan and direct negotiations with the Taliban.  Broadly stated, the ultimate goal of the strategy — which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has described as “fight, talk and build” — is to prevent civil war and the reestablishment of terrorist bases in the region.  A key element that has emerged for that strategy is to give the Pakistanis a prominent seat at the table in exchange for their leverage on the Taliban to negotiate in kind.  

The Obama Administration has announced the start of direct trilateral talks between the U.S., the Karzai government and the Taliban’s political front organization, headed by Mullah Mohammed Omar and the Haqqani network.  Under U.S. encouragement, the Taliban has set up an office in Doha, Qatar, explicitly for the purpose of dealing with Washington. 

Yet, with the NATO drawdown in Afghanistan imminent, the Taliban has little incentive to negotiate, believing that it can just wait NATO out.   Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta recently announced that combat operations would be turned over to the Afghan Army in 2013.  By the end of 2014, all American combat forces are scheduled to be out of the country, with the exception of a small number of Special Operations Forces and trainers.  

The Lessons of History and the Way Ahead.  As the U.S. and NATO retrograde gains momentum, Washington will unquestionably apply billions in military foreign sales, aid, inter-agency coordination, as well as air and military contract support to Afghan security forces to support the current Afghan government.  While the peace negotiations with the Taliban are intended to inject some measure of stability as western troops leave Afghanistan, they are also an implicit recognition that that the Taliban will regain some measure of political power in the country. 

Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, Moscow also did its best to prop up the Communist government. However, when the aid vanished in 1992 following the Soviet Union’s downfall, Kabul became engulfed in a violent war that placed the reins of power for Afghanistan firmly in the hands of the Taliban.  More than two decades later, Washington is hoping to avoid the same fate for Afghanistan.

Steve Delonga is the president of Prometheus Security International, LLC.

Letter to the Editor: True Debate of the Issues Requires an Independence Party
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This letter is in response to the articles covering Rush Limbaugh’s comments about Sandra Fluke.

Well, Mr. Limbaugh, you have certainly done it again. Although this is not the first time your mouth has spewed such hateful language perhaps it should be the last time you say anything more on your corporate sponsored program.?

Yes, that’s right. It is time for you to resign or be put out to pasture. You didn’t “apologize” for your remarks about Ms. Fluke until after it became apparent that your political torpedo missed its target completely and headed back to where it came from. Once you realized that your paycheck may be affected you conveniently switched on the damage control to avoid further embarrassment and save your own miserable ass. I write this because it is evident you do not represent the views of Republicans, Conservatives and Evangelicals nor do you really believe in the venom you spit out at Democrats, Liberals and Reformers. Your show is all about you and to hell with everybody else.??

This country was founded on the principle of free speech. Like it or not, we need to be open to the countervailing opinions of both sides. I am as much interested in the opinion of one side as I am the other. That is why I am longer a member of the Democratic Party but rather voted Non-Partisan in the Ohio primary on Super Tuesday. The “debates” have disintegrated into which side promotes the better rhetoric rather than which side can offer a better plan to help improve upon the quality of life for all?citizens across this once great country. There appears to be no end in sight for the gridlock plaguing all governments at the federal, state and local levels.

Perhaps the emergence of the Independence Party would cause more than a stir down the corridors of power. Maybe if such a party existed with members that could truly call themselves Independents the gridlock could slowly be chipped away. Candidates could run for office on the issues affecting their potential constituents rather than holding fast to their party platform. A Independence Party would not be hamstrung like the two major political parties are today. The will of the people tempered by the conscience of their representative would be a start to the long road to recovery of what the Founding Fathers intended. ?

An Extra Welcome Home Win for the Nationals
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The Washington Nationals won their home opener, 3-2, in the 10th inning with Ryan Zimmerman, face of the franchise, running to home and getting out of a jam with visiting team, the Cincinnati Reds, thanks to a wild pitch. Before the game, the Nationals put on a patriotic show with Army veteran, actor and “Dancing with the Stars” champion J.R. Martinez, who threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Several VIPs, such as Wolf Blitzer, Charlie Brotman and Jim Kimsey as well as members of the Lerner family, watched the ceremonies from the field. With a sell-out crowd of 40,907 and their inaugural home win this season, the Nationals are in first place in the National League East. [gallery ids="100732,121374,121321,121368,121331,121363,121340,121357,121349" nav="thumbs"]

With All Votes Counted, Orange Will Keep Council Seat
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It’s official. Vincent Orange will keep his at-large seat on the city council after a count of absentee and provisional ballots from the April 3 elections.

Orange initially had a very narrow lead of 543 votes over his main challenger, Sekou Biddle, who was making his second bid for the seat he had held on an interim basis after being appointed to the seat held by council chairman Kwame Brown.

The count of the absentee ballots and provisional votes gave Orange—who had gotten peripherally caught up in the scandal surrounding donations given by contractor Jeffrey Thompson to various council members as well as Mayor Vincent Gray—a final 1,746 margin, beyond the one-percent advantage required.

That means Orange should be secure in the seat, barring a formidable Republican candidate in November.

It also means there were no upsets or changes on the council in the elections. All Democratic incumbents running—Orange, Muriel Bowser in Ward 4, Jack Evans in Ward 2, Marion Barry in Ward 8 and Yvonne Alexander in Ward 7 won their primary races.

There will be at least one new member on the council after a special election in May to fill the seat left empty by the departure Harry Thomas, Jr.

The election results mirrored an earlier special election result in which Orange won big in Ward 8 and 7 but polled badly in the primarily more affluent and white Wards 3 and 2.

In the Nov. 6 general election, which puts up two at large seats of which one must be a non-Democratic seat, Orange will be on the ballot with independent Michael Brown, Republican Mary Brooks Beatty, independent David Grosso and D.C. Statehood-Green Party nominee Ann Wilcox.

Georgetown Students, Jack the Bulldog Welcome J.J., Puppy Mascot-in-Training
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It is a feel-good story the local media could not ignore.

J.J., or Jack Jr., the bulldog puppy in training to Georgetown University’s Jack the Bulldog, arrived at the university’s Healy Circle April 13 after his cross-country journey. Amid fanfare, TV news cameras and phone cameras, students applauded the puppy from San Diego, a gift from Janice and Marcus Hochstetler, bulldog breeders in California, who have two children at Georgetown.

Jack the Bulldog recently injured his left rear leg and is expected to have surgery soon. He will be returning this fall to continue rooting on the athletes and begin teaching J.J. what it means to be a Hoya. “Jack’s presence will provide important support to J.J. since the older dog is already comfortable with his life as a mascot at Georgetown,” said his handler, Rev. Christopher Steck, S.J., associate professor in theology. “J.J. will be looking for signals from Jack, and Jack’s enthusiasm in different environments will encourage J.J.’s own.”

The crowd sang a song, “Hey, J.J.,” in tune to Bruce Channel’s 1950s song, “Hey, Baby,” which went like this:

Hey, hey, J.J.
We wanna know if you’ll be our dog
Hey, hey, J.J.
We wanna know if you’ll be our dog
When I saw you walking down the street
I said oh, he’s the kind of dog I want to meet
He’s so fierce, oh, he’s fine
I’m gonna make him mine, oh, mine …

‘Let’s Go, Caps,’ Inflatable Hockey Player on Georgetown Skyline
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Jack Davies of Prospect Street is at it again. This time, his rooftop is occupied by an inflatable of a generic Washington Capitals hockey player with the numbers, “00,” and the name, “Let’s Go, Caps,” according to Davies, founder of AOL International, philanthropist-businessman and part owner of the Washington Capitals.

His 20-feet-tall, inflated Caps player dominates the skyline, seen from Key Bridge, Canal Road and M Street. Davies is cheering on his team, now tied 1-1, with the Boston Bruins. They play Game 3 of a best-of-seven tonight at the Verizon Center.

In December, Davies’s inflatable Santa Claus waved “Merry Christmas” to everyone coming into Georgetown. [gallery ids="100734,121373" nav="thumbs"]

Shakespeare’s Birthday Open House at the Folger (photos)
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Shakespeare’s Birthday Open House at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. took place on Sunday April 22, 2012. Young and old alike were on hand to enjoy jugglers & jesters, music, song & dance, and stage combat workshops. It was also the one day of the year when the Folger reading rooms would be open to all. The highlight of the day was a cake-cutting ceremony in honor of Shakespeare’s birthday presided over by Queen Elizabeth I.

View our photos of the event by clicking on the icons below. [gallery ids="100752,122355,122346,122338,122331,122323,122314,122305,122297,122289,122373,122280,122380,122270,122387,122261,122393,122364" nav="thumbs"]

Stem and Our Planet
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