I read in the Post this afternoon that a 13-year-old Germantown girl was punished and ridiculed for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance Predictably, there have been accusations of anti-Americanism, Liberalism, and the Mohammedan heresy, among other things.
With all that puffing in mind, it’s worth bringing up the origins of the pledge. It was written by a Francis Bellamy, a Massachusetts socialist and flag salesman in the 1890s who was aiming to instill national pride. A product of the Civil War generation, he also wanted to emphasize the permanent national unity of the United States, which was much looser in concept before Appomattox. The pledge was meant to be accompanied by a salute, pictured above, and it was a major component of a national pride celebration held on – of all days – Columbus Day.
So, it might not quiet any shriekers, but the next time someone tells you we should force children to pledge their loyalty to the state, please kindly do remind them of what the Bellamy salute looks like.
Last Thursday, neighbors from all over Tenleytown worked together open up paths and make walking safe and easy again.
We ended up focusing on the streetcorners, which had become less passable with every visit by the plows. The delay of one day had allowed most owners and businesses to clear their sidewalks, but the hardening slush in the streets was still tripping people up. So, at Albemarle and Wisconsin, we cleared and widened the busy crosswalks with shovels and a garden edger. We spread out along Wisconsin Avenue, clearing sidewalks to the south and opening up more crosswalks in the north. We even put down some salt and sand provided by the local Ace hardware store. After a few hours, we ended by clearing a few spots on River Road and bypassing a monumental pile at Albemarle and Fort Drive.
We capped the afternoon’s work at the local Mexican restaurant, where, as one participant described it, “Guapo’s cleaned up.” The snowball fight never went down, due to low interest from participants. However, the news media were interested in us. The Northwest Current sent out a reporter, who stopped by WAMU to pick up audio equipment. You can hear her handiwork here, or read it on Page 1 of the February 17th issue of the current. I think everyone was glad to get the recognition. Residents for the most part expressed gratefulness – and a little delight – at the gumption of my co-shovelers.
Side-shoveling around ice.
I got a lot of credit for proposing the idea, but the whole event would have been ineffectual without the work of the dozen-or-so people who came out: Ben Nieva, Mike Sires, Steve Kelley, Athan Manuel, Angie Das, Hedda Garland, Felix Garland, Jenny McCarthy and Chris Frantz. ANC 3E Chairman Jon Bender deserves special thanks for his work organizing the group. I know there are a few individuals who aren’t listed above, but deserve attention. If you are or know one, please post the name in the comments.
Of course, some other people deserve attention for their lack of effort. Snow on most sidewalks that were busy simply condensed into packs of ice, so we ended up not clearing most. But some businesses, perhaps abandoned by their landlords, did not do their duty. Neisha Thai and several other establishments south of the Metro stood out. Circle Management left their construction site next to the metro uncleared, while they or their tenants fulfilled the responsibility on the rest of their properties. The Georgetown Day School shoveled its 42nd Street Sidewalks well enough, but its long stretch of sidewalk on River Road was left completely untouched. Finally, the National Park Service proved the worst offender, shoveling none of their many properties around Tenleytown.
But while other people let down their neighbors, it was reassuring to see so many people out on a snow day, helping each other out. Everyone came away knowing the others a little better as well.
I just thought I’d share this time-lapse video of Tenleytown getting caked in snow. The Kojo Nnamdi Show put it up, but I’m not sure who filmed it, since it appears to have been filmed at the CityLine condos.
I promise I’ll get back to writing about architecture someday.
Fun fact: February 14th is also the feast of Saints Cyrill and Methodius. Apropos of that, let me mention that the New York Times ran an article today about the amused reaction of some Russian journalists at Snowmageddon. I can’t find the clip mentioned therein, but here’s NTV’s coverage of the whole event. I’m really amused at their calque of the term “snowmageddon,” but if it’s good enough for Obama, it’s good enough for Zakharov. I wonder how they’d do “SnoMas?”
I apologize that it’s not in English, capitalist pig-dog readers, but just I can’t bring myself to link to Russia Today. It’s really not my goal to promulgate the skeezy propaganda of Russia’s delusional statist-right, so you may have to Google that yourselves.
I cannot decide which instance of anecdotal information to base my view of global warming on: DC’s blizzards or the lack of snow in Vancouver? I guess it’s DC this week, Vancouver the next. Why is being unscientific so hard?
The past few days, I’ve been bothered by the failure of this Gold’s Gym at 4310 Connecticut Avenue. Although they shoveled a path from the Van Ness metro to their door, they decided to not shovel any further. The path is used heavily by pedestrians of all age groups. Lingering there for about five minutes, I saw around ten people falter and otherwise walk delicately.They were lazy during the first SnOMG, and they’ll probably be lazy and negligent this time around. UPDATED BELOW
Perhaps what is most infuriating is that the building exclusively employs fit and strong people, who can clearly see the havoc they’re wreaking right out of the huge plate glass window in front. Hell, all the people trying to get fit through absolutely non-productive activities could be getting exercise and simultaneously preventing negligence. It is, after all, illegal to not shovel your walk:
“It shall be the duty of every person, partnership, corporation, joint-stock company, or syndicate in charge or control of any building or lot of land within the fire limits of the District of Columbia, fronting or abutting on a paved sidewalk, whether as owner, tenant, occupant, lessee, or otherwise, within the first 8 hours of daylight after the ceasing to fall of any snow or sleet, to remove and clear away, or cause to be removed and cleared away, such snow or sleet from so much of said sidewalk as is in front of or abuts on said building or lot of land.” (D.C. Code § 9-601)
But that’s not good enough if scofflaws just get fined weeks from now. People could get injured, and people sure are getting inconvenienced. But residents should have recourse besides whining to the government or bitching on listservs. I think we can take the cleanup and retribution into our own hands.
So, I’m organizing the First Tenleytown Volunteer Snow Removal Battalion.The plan is to form a band of husky citizens to clear off snow from spaces that suffer from negligence or the tragedy of the commons. We’ll counter common neglect with community action. We will primarily clear the mounds of plowed snow at street corners and bus stops, but we will also remediate careless private plowing and people who don’t plow at all. Call me altruistic if you want but I intend to share the businesses that don’t shovel or plow right into pedestrian areas on this blog. I hope to punish them with a boycott, which could cost more than any fine ever would.
We’re going to meet up tomorrow afternoon at 4PM at the Tenleytown Metro station. ANC overlord Jon Bender has made it into a snowball fight as well, so uh, come for the fun and stay for the hard labor. Bring a shovel and a flask if you care. There’s no reason fun can’t have a good social outcome.
If you want more details, my rant and the followup posts are linked here.
Update: Tuesday afternoon, Gold’s Gym finally cleared their snow, sources say, after a neighborhood woman tore the manager a new one. Because the snow had been compacted, a bevy of strapping young men were witnessed chiseling the brownish ice apart. Sources report that they “felt the burn.” Many thanks to the woman. Hopefully Gold’s will not let this happen again.
The transit-oriented-denialist group the Alliance for Rational Development published a poll regarding the Tenleytown Safeway a few days ago. Not content to only use sockpuppets to create the appearance of debate, they have gotten into push-polling. Yes, they created a voluntary internet poll, one that suffers badly from both self-selection bias and leading questions. For example:
I would prefer a mixed-use development on the site that would include five or six floors of residential housing along with a new Safeway. (Safeway at present, has indicated that it has no interest in building such a development.)
Out of 95 voters, 72 said yes to the question anyway. Then there’s this:
If you expressed a preference for a mixed-use development, would you still oppose Safeway’s current proposal if the result were that Safeway decided against any redevelopment of the current store?
81% of respondents still said yes. But all this poll indicates is that activists overwhelmingly support a Safeway mixed-use project. A self-selected poll is never accurate for representing a general population, as it attracts only the most interested individuals. This survey does not, and never could have represented neighborhood opinion, even more so than the Safeway postcards.
So, I guess my point is that ARD doesn’t represent the silent majority, and they don’t even represent a significant minority. The secretive organization is nothing but sound and fury crippled by ineptitude and a lack of web savvy. I don’t think they represent even a credible opposition – and they certainly don’t support anything on their own. Hopefully, people will see through their bluster and realize that they are done.
Alas, maybe more radical action is needed. MaKrel, who may or may not be my friends at ASR, suggests something more radical:
We could demolish the Safeway and return the land to agricultural production in a cooperatively owned CSA farm. Then we wouldn’t have to eat the GM cr*p that corporate supermarket chains shove down our throats; a good example: http://www.intervalecommunityfarm.com/
God Bless Anarcho-Syndicalism. I’ve taken a screencap of the poll just in case it goes down, after the break.
I’m going to recap some of the analyses I did for Reno Park within the next week or so. After that, I will be getting into a historical analysis of the geography. For now, here is a broad map of historical names no longer used at the site. Names in red were designated organically or based on the farm tracts’ names, while names in blue were attempts to brand new developments.
I looked up from my desk this evening to see a handful of blue lights in the neatly stacked windows of the apartment building that sits across the street. Deep blue, as though the world was experiencing a collective computer crash. The color changed and I realized it was the Grammies. For a few hours, the building changed colors to reflect the shared culture of this consumerist happening.
I’m reminded of Toyo Ito’s Tower of Winds and its synesthetic translation of Tokyo’s Hubbub. And I’m reminded of my external hard drives. They have a large blue light on the front that signifies that they are on. So too do blue flickers in windows; they indicate that the households are turned on as well.
A lot of architectural design deals with modifying light and shadows to make an interesting form. For example, the moulding on a neoclassical building is designed to create a specific shadow profile. Meanwhile, glass buildings tend to play with reflections. But you don’t see much of them together, like you do here.
