News & Politics

Gary Tischler • July 26, 2011

People of grace and the graceless: We have nothing but admiration for the Japanese people, especially those who suffered directly from the earthquake and the tsunami. No lootings, stoic bearing, grace under pressure. A nice word, too, for the media reporters who stayed and covered this disaster amid the obvious dangers, as well as those covering the tumultuous and continuing events in the Middle East and North Africa. They too placed themselves at risk and worked in dangerous conditions, and some of them paid the price.

Not so for the home front television newsies who keep thinking that all news is about us. How else to explain the amount of time allotted to a local mother and her son who were in Tokyo at the time of the quake, were scared by the swaying buildings, were ripped off at the airport and had to drive from all the way home from Chicago. No disrespect to the people interviewed, but doesn’t that seem a mite less than devastating when compared to the losses suffered by the victims of the disaster? Get a grip or get a gripe.

The scandal at City Hall…don’t get me started. Have you noticed that the wheels of government seem to be grinding like teeth? Now that Mayor Vincent Gray has hired a high profile lawyer and basically dumped his chief of staff—shortly before she was supposed to testify before the city council on hiring matters—things have not gotten better. They’ve just gotten quieter, except for Sulaimon Brown’s occasional forays on local television.

Brown appeared for a Fox TV News interview last week in which he again accused the mayor of being a crook. “The public needs to know that their mayor is a crook,” he said, more than once. Asked about his own status, he said he could not answer that question, or other questions about proof of his charges that he was paid by Gray aides and promised a job for going after Fenty at candidate forums.

He’s kept his concern about what the public needs to know to himself for quite some time, precisely to the time he was ousted from the $100,000 plus job he did end up getting.

Gray’s reactions to all this, and the furor that his hiring of friends and the children of friends at over-the-limit salaries remain strangely muffled and muted, to friends and foes alike.

In the meantime, there’s a growing power vacuum in city government and on the city council. Chairman Kwame Brown, with his own troubles, is becoming less of a factor in the dealings of the council by all accounts. And we hope Mayor Gray isn’t listening to Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry, who’s an expert on matters like these. According to a Washington Post columnist, he’s arguing that Gray is a victim of Fenty supporters on the council and that hiring friends and their children is no big deal. Maybe in Mayor Daley’s day it wasn’t, but it should be for a candidate who ran as a man whose integrity was above reproach.

Barry’s done this kind of thing before when he’s been under fire, or gotten caught on tape. It’s an old Barry game: we call it divide and con.

What it isn’t, and what Mayor Gray shouldn’t let it become, is a barrier to his most effective campaign slogan which is fast becoming an impossible dream: One City.

Now the city is faced with the possibility of investigation by the house oversight committee, which is licking its chops.

This isn’t one of those tempests in a teapot you can ride out. We’d still like to hear some straight, heartfelt and mindful talk from Mayor Gray. A lot of people who supported him based on his apparent merits are sorely disappointed. Among them appears to be Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh, who, at considerable political cost, supported his candidacy when her constituents were markedly against it.

Where is all this union bashing and anti-collective bargaining coming from? The governor of Wisconsin seems to have touched off both a concerted effort on the part of local governments to punish, debilitate or get rid of public employee unions, which has caused unions (what’s left of them) to rise up. So far the governor insists that he’s a deficit cutter, not a union buster, but he has not shown how busting public employee unions cut the deficit.

But hey, the GOP did manage to pass legislation to cut off funding for Public Broadcasting. Only a trillion and change to go. Way to go, tough guys.

Drawn by the slogan pachyderms and clowns, we ran up to the hill the other day thinking it was a meeting of GOP regulars and their Tea Party additions. Turns out it really was a parade of elephants and clowns. But I repeat myself.

Gary Tischler •

Earlier this week, I was talking to a neighbor of mine in Adams Morgan. The usual stuff—the Mayor, the budget, the at-large election, the government shutdown, the weather—almost everything but Charlie Sheen.

And like a lot of people in my neighborhood and across the city, he’s interested in the Mayor’s budget proposals—as well as the mayor’s perceived and otherwise problems. Or, as one of my other neighbors put it: “He hired the guy, that’s it.” And everyone thinks there’s going to be trouble over the budget.

Over what? The total of $187 million in spending cuts? Well, yeah. Gotta do it. The $18 million in cuts in education as well as public safety? Well, that’s troubling, sure.

How about the $113.4 million cuts in social services. You’d think that might be a little controversial, given that it’s the biggest percentage of cuts in the budget and is bound to hurt a lot of those who have the least already.

Alas, no. The biggest political struggle is going to be over the tax increases for those earning more than $200,000 a year.

That’s the big divider in the budget issue, the big combat zone when it comes to the city council, which has to approve the Mayor’s budget, and now likely to be a big topic on the campaign trail for the at-large city council seat.

It’s a city divider in a way, but maybe it shouldn’t be. The Mayor’s hiring scandal is a potential city divider and continues to be so. Councilwoman Mary Cheh’s hiring hearing commenced into part two this week, with the appearance of former Gray Chief of Staff Gerri Mason Hall, who was fired in the wake of controversy and investigations surrounding the hiring (and then firing) of Sulaimon Brown, the former mayoral candidate who has accused the mayor of “being a crook.”

According to written and television reports, Hall said that she had not spoken to the Mayor about hiring Brown, as she had been asked to do. Brown showed up at the hearing but left after he decided that it was “a witch hunt,” going to what he thinks might be the friendlier atmosphere of a U.S. Attorney’s investigation and a congressional committee.

Yet to be heard from are Brown and Lorraine Green, the Mayor’s close advisor and longtime close friend who ran his campaign, and who appears to be at the center of the controversy. Still not heard from in any definitive way is Gray himself, who has yet to make any aggressive attempts to clear up the unanswered questions surrounding the controversy.

When it comes to the budget, and to the budget battles on the hill which may yet (as of this afternoon) cause a government shutdown: if people with nothing are going to see drastic cuts in safety net services, why shouldn’t people with a little and a lot more than everybody else do a little and a lot more of their share? Of course, President Obama made this a campaign lynchpin and instead ended up having to extend President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy a little while longer. And tax cuts for the wealthy seems to be a core value for the proposed 2012 GOP version of a budget.

What is it about everybody sharing in sacrifice during hard times—you know, state budgets imploding, bankruptcy, high (if declining) unemployment—nobody is appalled about the idea of the rich getting richer and not even paying their fair share.

Why, in short, should General Electric, with profits in the billions for 2010, not pay ANY taxes? Because loopholes exist that allow them to do that? What would happen if you tried to end the loopholes? Stuck pig time, that’s what would happen. It’s all perfectly legal.

Where did we get this notion that raising taxes is a discussion and vote killer?

Why, in short, aren’t people doing Peter Finch’s out their window about this—and about CEO’s who have prospered mightily during the upward surge of the DOW, the fact that the only person going to jail during the economic collapse was Bernie Madoff? They’re angry all right—stoked by the Tea Party. They’re mad at teachers, policemen and firemen, not billionaires who outsource jobs that should have stayed here.

Not only that, but you rarely hear about corporate excesses—no taxes?—because corporations like GE own quite a bit of media outlets, notably NBC. According to a Washington Post story, the GE tax situation has rarely if ever been mentioned on the nightly news with Brian Williams. Shouldn’t Brian Williams say something about Brian Williams not saying something?

I’ve always felt when network news—especially millionaire star reporters, pundits and anchor people—tackles such issues as tax policy, they should first preface anything they might have to say by stating what their yearly income is—how many millions—and how they might profit or lose money from the tax policy under discussion.

Fat chance on that one. But the NFL football players, another group of overpaid millionaires, are on strike for their fair share of billions in television contract revenue, thus making a joke of the collective bargaining process that’s such a combative issue in the national politics.

And speaking of the nightly news on NBC, how about that Donald Trump? Two evenings ago a major segment of the news showed a poll, which showed that Trump, who cast about his usual rumors of a presidential run like pearls before media swine, is second among potential candidates for the GOP nomination, and something of a darling of the Tea Party.

Mind you, this was something like an 8% thing, right up there with such stalwarts as Romney, Palin, Bachman and Huckabee, and for something light years away. But still.

Turns out, as NBC political expert Chuck Todd pointed out, that Trump, who managed to go broke in Atlantic City just like all the other suckers, had a taped interview with Meredith Vierra set to air the next day on the Today Show (on NBC), in which he revealed himself to be something of a birther, asking the president to produce a birth certificate and expressing his doubts about Obama’s citizenship. This plays well with the tea party, but it’s not news. What it was was a plug for the Today Show disguised as news. I expect Billy Bush to someday become the anchor of the nightly news, because he’s really good at this sort of thing, with the added gift of having no shame whatsoever.

As I write this with one eye on the Internet, there’s still no word on a settlement on the hill. But they’re close. The only hitch: that dratted Planned Parenthood thing which is not about cutting spending and, of course, who gets the most blame if a shutdown occurs, which is not about spending either. It’s about politics and politicians. Only lawyers are detested more than politician, and on the hill, that’s a twofer.

Where is H.L. Mencken when we need him? Dead, still. And sit down, Bill Maher. You’re not it.

Gary Tischler •

Has President Obama, in the hot political jargon of the day, regained his mojo? In other words: is the Barack Obama of the presidential election campaign back in full view?

I write this not knowing what has been said in the State of the Union Address scheduled to be given by the President tonight (I wrote this on Tuesday morning, January 25), an address that is to be given in a new atmosphere of politeness. If the Dems and the GOPs haven’t been speaking with each other, they will at least be forced to sit with each other for the duration of the speech, which could get awkward.

The President’s long-standing unwillingness—some have said inability—to fight with the GOP toe-to-toe seems to have paid some dividends. The new age of cooperation, and a growing political assurance on his part, let the President come out of the ashes with some momentum after the Republican’s spectacular victories in the mid-term elections, which saw them regain control of the House of Representatives. Eager to extend the Bush tax cuts—largely benefiting the wealthy—the GOP bartered away opposition to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, went along with the nuclear arms reduction treaty extension, and extended unemployment payments and allowed benefits for 9/11 survivors.

As they say in politics, you never know what can happen; things can change on a dime. And the shocking, tragic shootings in a Tucson, Arizona Safeway parking lot gave President Obama the opportunity, and perhaps the responsibility, to reemerge as the inspirational leader of the country, the great uniter.

While liberals and conservatives were shouting at each other, the President rose above us all with great heart and inspiring rhetoric, asking us to look to our better selves. He was moving and convincing; he eulogized the victims and placed no blame on the National Rifle Association or anyone else for the tragedy.

He was the President many of us have wanted him to be for some time, and the State of the Union address is another opportunity for him to rise to the occasion. It is an opportunity to test and be tested by the new Republicans in Congress. There are some, like Mitch McConnell of the Senate, who insist that the main GOP business is to make sure that Obama doesn’t get reelected, a purely political goal not appreciated that much in troubled times.

Obama showed his statesman-like qualities during the State visit of the Chinese President who, when pressed by Obama, admitted that China might improve its human rights policies. When is the last time a President has been able to negotiate with China on human rights?

More than that, Obama is looking to the future of foreign and national investments to put large dents into the deficit, as opposed to wholesale cuts in spending programs.

Here the GOP has to deal with its Tea Party firebrands, some of whom wouldn’t mind cutting out the Department of Education, slashing social security, and burning the health care legislation on the steps of the Capitol.

We’d like to think that the President has found a way to use his special gifts: his ability to inspire the people, to negotiate and work with opponents, and persuade those remnants of moderation in the GOP ranks to resist the slash and burn tactics that come from the Cantors andthe Tea Party maximalists. Can he do it?
Stay tuned. In fact, tune in, and let me know what happened.

Veena Trehan •

A teenage George Washington quickly abandoned an infested bed in the Shenandoahs more than 250 years ago. Today, area residents of all ages are jumping in their jammies. This region is already among the top ten areas hit by the recent bed bug infestation, and it’s predicted by an exterminator president to approach the notoriously overrun New York City in a year or two. Denizens disturbed by the news, a.k.a. “Attack of the Blood Sucking Bugs,” should take something FROM the creatures for a change.

A Little Perspective: Tell a formerly infested acquaintance that you might have bed bugs. She’ll gasp in horror and drop urgent work and needy kids for you, her new top priority. Bed bug crises were likely atop her and many others’ list of the year’s “Ten Worst” as they lost time, health and sleep in taxing bug battles.

In the past, those pests were more common. But they were less commented upon. Poverty, war and acute hunger relegated bed bugs to a smaller part of the daily struggle for those in World War II concentration camps, Toronto homeless shelters and Freetown refugee camps in Sierra Leone.

Even now bed bugs strike everyone, but they have a penchant for the poor despite their infrequent travel. So, for many of us, appreciation is in order.

Commitment to Fight for Freedom: As horrifying as the experience is, the bugs disappear from many Washingtonians’ homes in just weeks with proper treatment. For many, the hundreds to thousands of dollars – explicitly excluded in home insurance policies – is costly but affordable.

Not so for others. One third of DC children live in poverty (defined by a family of four earning
less than $22,000 a year). Sixteen percent of kids live in families earning half that, leaving no money to spare, according to Children’s Law Center Executive Director Judith Sandalow. The DC government and private landlords are usually responsible for vermin issues, but often unresponsive. Many of those families devoutly scour and clean – an approach woefully ineffective in wiping out rodents, rats, and roaches from multi-unit housing.

Ridding bed bugs may pose an even tougher challenge. Given the cost and complexity of eliminating them from apartment buildings, two kinds of property managers could emerge, says American Pest President Matt Nixon: “People who knock bed bugs back enough to rent the unit and those people who want to completely eliminate the problem.”

Legislation pending in New York, like requiring landlord disclosure and mandating home insurance options, seems to solve only part of the problem. So stay informed and active on the issue.

Save Your Stigma – The intense secrecy surrounding bed bugs may be true to the city’s huge defense presence.

Tenants don’t disclose to landlords fearing reprisal, and infested individuals are silent with schools, offices and friends for fear of the stigma. Landlords sign confidentiality agreements with exterminators and may not confide in their tenants and shoppers, fearing lost revenue and liability.

But such secrecy might speed the spread and deepen the shame.

Destigmatization comes from awareness, education and time. The DC government has launched a public service announcement and held training. More effective than such campaigns is often the coming out and commitment of a celebrity, like Magic Johnson with AIDS.

The infestation affects places more than people, so maybe the insect icon will be a building. Victoria’s Secret temporarily shuttered a Manhattan store, and high-end Bergdorf Goodman is being patrolled by bed bug-sniffing beagles. Until then (and after), be open and accepting.

Plan to Declutter: Bed bugs – and all vermin – love the dirtier living conditions and hiding places that come with clutter. While cleaning up won’t prevent or reduce an infestation, it could slow the spread and facilitate treatment.

Americans accumulate piles of paper and mounds of mish-mash. Adorable tchotchkes and a “really great deal” make them weak in the knees.

Abroad, a more minimalist aesthetic often prevails despite less space. And in Europe, biking and walking to stores often eliminates overloading as an option.

Shopping and splurging makes sense, of course, but be smart about it. Professional organizers
would advise such strategies as ditching one clothing item for each purchased, and cleaning different home areas periodically.

Avoid the graphic pictures of teeming bed bugs. But think about the how we can protect our sanity and our community to create constructive change from the critter crisis.

Veena Trehan •

“Ask not what your city can do for you,” said DC Mayor Vincent Gray at his inauguration two weeks ago. “Ask what you can do for your city.”

Gray’s reiterating of President Kennedy’s famous speech reminds us that 2011 cannot only motivate personal improvement, but also inspire contributions to our community. Adopt five New Year’s resolutions to do just that:

Donate Food – Hunger is a huge problem in Washington. A down economy and high unemployment have left over 600,000 DC residents hungry, including an estimated 200,000 kids. The Capital Area Food Bank collects and delivers food to 700 partner agencies. “It’s life’s most basic need,” says communications manager Shamia Holloway.

But for the primarily “working poor” population who struggle with child care, transportation and rent expenses, “it’s the easiest budget item to cut.” Ironically Americans waste, on average, a half a pound of food daily. So donate produce or nonperishable items to the Capital Area Food Bank, Martha’s Table, or another worthy organization that serves the city’s hungry.

Volunteer in the Schools – More than half of DC public schools’ third graders read below grade level. Mount Pleasant resident and Obama canvasser Mark D’Agostino saw this as a challenge. After the 2008 election, he and a few friends used their volunteer list and free weekends to start the Grassroots Education Project. About 60 volunteers help Tubman Elementary School students learn to read on Saturday mornings, often searching for books that target kids’ interests. “It’s really inspiring to see the initiative they show and how much they enjoy working with the kids,” says D’Agostino. It’s effective too; twice as many children in the program achieve grade-level reading compared to those not in it. DCPS certifies volunteers who want to work with kids and e-mails them opportunities, suggesting they then coordinate with local schools.

Green It Up – Exposure to nature has been linked to stress reduction, a longer attention span and more creativity. But many in the US are getting out less. Residents in one of America’s greenest cities have no excuse not to visit and live off the land. Bike on the Rock Creek Park or go hiking at Great Falls. Sign up for a plot in one of over 50 community gardens in DC or the suburbs, or build a backyard vegetable garden. Compost. The benefits? Relaxation, fresh vegetables, camaraderie and, of course, keeping DC beautiful.

Appreciate the Arts – DC’s cultural scene is thriving on the whole, but some organizations are struggling. Fortunately, Washington will have especially compelling historical, political, cultural and literary offerings in 2011. Bring a friend to enjoy the city’s many scenes. Glance at Richard Avedon’s pictures of President Kennedy or immerse yourself in India during The Kennedy Center’s March festival. Watch the civil rights movement unfold at the National Museum of American History, or listen to indigenous voices speak about climate change at the National Museum of the American Indian. Laugh through the Folger’s “The Comedy of Errors,” or contemplate the cost of your iPhone at Woolly Mammoth’s upcoming production of Mike Daisey’s “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs”. The result is a spiritual yet paradoxical reward: “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time,” said monk Thomas Merton.

Tip Well – DC had the greatest income inequality of large cities, according to a DC Fiscal Policy Institute study that analyzed census data from 2000. Since then, the city has seen stock of low income housing drop and a tremendous influx of high-income neighborhoods, says DCFPI Director Ed Lazere. Help out by emulating New York, which has a culture of extensive and generous tipping. Tip staff members who keep you glamorous, fed, healthy and safe – and don’t forget the workers mostly behind the scenes. The benefits will accrue to overqualified staff, underemployed citizens and those otherwise struggling.

Enrich others as well as our schools, theaters, museums and parks in 2011. Keeping DC growing and green will benefit both Washington and Washingtonians.
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William E. Cooke •

What a breathtakingly beautiful photograph by Jeff Kouri, which graced the cover of the January 12-25 edition of your newspaper! Having rowed for the Georgetown University crew for four years as an undergraduate, the image stirred wonderful memories for me.

Unfortunately, the boathouse featured in the image was misidentified as belonging to Georgetown University. In fact, Georgetown’s crews do not have a boathouse. The more than 200 men and women rowers associated with crew—the largest athletic organization on campus—tow out of Thompson’s Boathouse, a fine but seriously overcrowded structure, which is home to several other college and high school programs.

Astonishing as it may sound, for nearly forty years Georgetown University has patiently, sensitively, legally and expensively sought to acquire the land and proper permits to build its own boathouse, upstream from the boathouse pictured. These good faith efforts have been denied at every turn by a small but effective group of “concerned citizens” hereabouts.

It is my prayer that this injustice be redressed sometime in my lifetime.

We always appreciate the voice of the community here at the paper. Questions or comments? Email us at: Editorial@Georgetowner.com

Jeff Malet •

These photos provide a sampling of the estimated 215,000 people that attended a rally organized by Comedy Central talk show hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, Saturday October 30, 2010 on the Washington Mall. (All photos by Jeff Malet www.maletphoto.com) [gallery ids="99379,99395,99396,99397,99398,99399,99400,99401,99402,99403,99404,99405,99406,99394,99393,99392,99380,99381,99382,99383,99384,99385,99386,99387,99388,99389,99390,99391,99407" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

Mayor Vincent Gray, who has presented himself as a big supporter of the arts, has nonetheless seen fit to include a six percent ticket tax on all ticketed arts events in the District of Columbia as part of his 2012 District of Columbia budget proposal he sent to the city council.

That includes, we presume, all live performances and arts events throughout the District at any venue holding ticketed arts events and performances. While it’s as yet unclear as to what this includes, it likely encompasses major venues like the Kennedy Center, all of the District’s theater groups (Arena Stage, Source Theater, etc.), its dance groups and any ticketed music. Does it include theater and performance events held in schools, museums and churches?

But in short: If you’re buying, you’re paying the 6% tax.

Washington’s arts and theater community such as the Helen Hayes Awards, Cultural Tourism DC and the Cultural Development Corporation have mounted campaigns to stop this from happening.

The proposal, which becomes part of the Fiscal Year 2012 budget unless the council disapproves or eliminates it, comes in a climate that’s been difficult for the nonprofit arts and cultural community, which has seen corporate giving decline and grants from state and federal government sources cut heavily. Especially at the federal government level, tea party mania to reduce government size and spending has hurt the arts throughout the country.

The Helen Hayes Awards has argued against the proposal, arguing it would reduce the number of theater patrons facing choices on spending, which in turn would endanger arts organizations heavily dependent on ticket income.

Fewer theater and performance patrons means fewer patrons for Washington’s large restaurant community, which has drawn heavily from those patrons. If people stop eating out, the District would actually lose money from the loss of anticipated restaurant tax income.

We could not disagree more with the proposed tax, of which the income generated to aid the District’s budget deficit would be negligible. This proposal could indeed damage the performing arts in Washington, and especially its smaller theater and dance groups—not to mention arts education in the schools.

Mayor Gray probably cares about the arts in the District, but this tough love for the arts community, which generates positive tourist income and a highly respected reputation, is not the right cut to make.

While cultural institutions have benefited mightily from the Meads, the Kogods and the Harmans of our community, this sort of thing from the local government seems to be part of a prevailing national mood: When times are tough and the economy is bad, why miss an opportunity to make the arts community take a hit?

I’m sure its not the intention of DC government to do such a thing, but the tax proposal echoes more sinister cuts and outcries from the conservative GOP stalwarts who would like nothing better than to see the government out of the grant business for the arts, and would love nothing more than to eliminate Public Broadcasting, NPR and support for art exhibitions and performance pieces they detest or don’t understand.

This kind of anti-intellectualism has always been a part of the American cultural mosaic in some way or another. What do the arts do here in DC besides bring in tons of tourists?

In hard times like these, they lift our spirits. They provoke us to think and imagine when we most need to, reminding us of the lofty flights of achievement of which we are capable. In the arts, both high and popular, we find reflections of our better angels and our inner selves. We find beauty amid economic struggle. We find created beauty and poetry.

In the 1930s, in the worst times this country had experienced, the government, far from cutting support for the arts, created programs that enlisted poets, playwrights, actors, painters, sculptors and educators to create works of art that became shared experiences for We The People. Evidence of that national spirit, presided over by President Roosevelt, can be found in memoirs, in collective memories, stories, novels, paintings, films, compositions and plays from that era that amount to a kind of golden age. Governments did not hike taxes on ticket prices to movies, to plays or to concerts. You could make a fair argument that because the arts were so accessible to even the poorest, the national psyche weathered the debilitating effects of daily life in hard times.

If you want to voice your opposition directly to the ticket sales tax, you can go to the Helen Hayes Awards website, which includes a petition, an opposition letter template and information on the tax and its effects. Visit HelenHayes.org.

The council is slated to hold final votes on the budget May 26.

Christina Miller •

In its third year, FotoWeek DC has already proven to be one of the most comprehensive and innovative photography festivals, not only in Washington but the world. The week-long festival takes place November 5 – November 13 and is comprised of programs that include monumental photo projections on the façades of DC’s famed architecture, all-night photo experiences, evocative exhibitions of award-winning images, as well as lectures and workshops led by internationally renowned photographers.

During the festival’s inaugural year, its awards competition was limited to the metro area. Theo Adamstein, President and Founder of FotoWeek DC, quickly realized that, in order for the festival to reach its full potential, they needed to think on a larger scale. “Photography is a universal language,” Adamstein said. “No matter where you are, how you grew up, if you can snap a photo, you can communicate.” The competition’s international appeal is evident, as this year FotoWeek DC received over 6,500 submissions from 34 countries. The International Awards Ceremony will kick off the festival on November 5, preceding the much anticipated launch party at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art & Design, the festival’s official partner.

Taking into account the broad, global scope of entries, the events this year will highlight the shifting growth of FotoWeek DC as a hallmark for the photography industry. It is clear there is a greater emphasis being placed on key genres such as social justice causes and environmental issues, as well as fine art. NightGallery, an exhibition which projects colossal images onto the façades of significant local architecture, will be showcasing these themes. “NightGallery is a visually dynamic theater, presenting large-scale projections of powerful photography that address important issues and themes from around the world,” said James Wellford, Senior Photo Editor of Newsweek Magazine and curator of the show “Projections of Reality,” which will be featured in NightGallery. “The images offer the opportunity to experience a series of visual stories that poignantly reflect upon our shared human condition.”

Wellford is accompanied in the NightGallery exhibition by three other distinguished photographers: Cristina Mittermeier, Executive Director and a Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers and curator of the environmental program “Life Live Here”; Andy Adams, Editor & Publisher of FlakPhoto.com; and Larissa Leclair, photography writer and curator, whose fine arts show will feature work published on FlakPhoto.com over the past four years, entitled 100 Portraits — 100 Photographers: Selections from the FlakPhoto.com Archive. The NightGallery exhibition will be on display at eight Washington locations, including the Corcoran, whose programs will include “The City Unseen,” and “Literary Adaptation: 1920 – Contemporary Times,” both produced by nineteen students from the school’s BFA program. Along with the Corcoran, NightGallery can be seen on the Newseum, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, American Red Cross, National Museum of the American Indian, Satellite Central (3333 M Street NW), the Human Rights Campaign building, the House of Sweden, and Dupont Circle, located right in the heart of the hustle and bustle of the city. NightGallery literally turns an entire city into a massive canvas of work.

By partnering with FotoWeek DC, the Corcoran will serve as FotoWeek Central. It will be open to the public at no cost during FotoWeek, including Monday, November 8 and Tuesday, November 9 — days when the gallery is typically closed. Visitors will be able to view the award winning work from the International Awards Competition, listen to lectures by renowned photojournalists, and participate in workshops or portfolio reviews, where amateur and professional photographers can register to have their work critiqued by some of the best in the business.

A second location, the aforementioned Satellite Central, will feature FotoWeek DC programs as well. The 7,000 sq. ft. building will house a series of events to complement those taking place at the Corcoran. Satellite Central will showcase projection theatres, exhibitions, lectures, FotoBooks, special events, a thumbnail display including every photo submission to the International Awards Competition, and the 10-hour photo marathon known as NightVisions.

Photographers from any background can burn the midnight oil from 8pm on Saturday, November 6, to 6am on Sunday, November 7, for NightVisions. Participants will literally create a photo exhibition from start to finish overnight by taking photos, editing, having them judged, and printing by the next morning. The purpose of the NightVisions program is to recreate the adrenalin rush of a photo student’s end-of-term all-nighter or a professional’s laser-focused intensity against a drop-dead deadline. “It’s all about sucking it up, creating an image, meeting the deadline, and doing something great,” declared Washington photographer Peter Garfield, one of NightVisions’ originators.

With the plethora of programming and partners involved with FotoWeek DC, this festival has evolved into something larger than life. Whether you are a photographer trying to make it big, a professional hoping to learn from the best, or just a casual passerby who is moved by a giant image you see on a building, the beauty of this festival is its accessibility, connection to people, and the power of telling a story without words. [gallery ids="99428,99438,99437,99436,99435,99434,99433,99432,99431,99430,99429,99439" nav="thumbs"]