image courtesy of B Tal

We’ve now discussed the Tistadt Audio Meltdown (sounds like the successor to Big Audio Dynamite, don’t it? (oops I think that dates me somewhat)) a few times and I was inclined to let it go.

Till I read Marc Fisher’s column about it in the print edition today.

And now I feel like maybe I’m not ready to let it go, primarily because this tweaks one of my hot button points: people confusing technology issues with societal ones. It perturbs me that Fischer claims that student Devraj Kori “knows no boundaries” because he dared to share an abusive and rude message from a school employee with others, but that’s not what sets me off. What makes me nuts is the quotes from another school employee, Ron McClain, director of the Parkmont School in the District.

It used to be you could have an inappropriate or rude conversation with someone, and it would stay private. There’s a much fuzzier line between public and private now. This is a case where the technology has outpaced our ability to cope with its effects. As parents, we’re way behind.

If there’s an age gap here it’s not the one Fisher and McClain seem to think. I don’t know Fisher’s age but McClain’s bio says he graduated from Harvard a year after I was born, probably putting him about 20-25 years older than me. So here’s your proof this has nothing to do with a “wired age,” folks, since my mom told me very clearly how to deal with the effects of a technology that prevents you from having an “inappropriate or rude conversation with someone” without other people finding out and hearing it:

Don’t say things that you’re not willing to have other people hear.

If Mr or Mrs Tistadt, Marc Fisher, Ron McClain, or any of the rest of you have a concern that something impolite you say to someone else – no matter how much “above” that person you might think you are – then you can exert complete and total control over that disbursal by not saying it at all.
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Sangria

Originally uploaded by rabataller.

It came as rather a surprise to the Alexandria location of La Tasca when they were cited last year for serving… sangria. Virginia outlawed the serving of beverages that mix beer or wine with spirits 75 years ago, and upon being informed of the La Tasca citation, Jaleo changed its sangria recipe as well for their Virginia location.

Always with thorough coverage of all things alcohol-related, the City Paper has more details on the particular obscurity of Virginia’s ABC laws.

The most amusing detail in all of this, though, is not that a bunch of old fogeys decided to clamp down on liquor sales right after the repeal of Prohibition, but that the bill introduced by state Representative Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) would introduce an exemption for sangria only, rather than repealing the ban completely. So maybe you’ll get your sangria, but your Kir Royale is totally out of the question.

Who knew I was practicing civil disobedience with all that sangria I made this summer?

I don’t know about you, but I get nervous as hell when traversing grates like this. What’s strange, though, is that my fear has nothing to do with dying. I figure that if I fall 25 feet and am impaled on a piece of pipe or maybe fall even farther and have my femurs splinter and lodge in my skull, that’s okay. I don’t fear the prospect of the afterlife, whatever form it takes.

What I really fear about grates is the idea that I might drop my keys or cell phone and lose them forever. How would I get home? How could I call for someone to help me retrieve my phone if it were lost 50 feet down?

Do you get nervous when walking on grates like this? What are your fears? Please share with the group.

the booby dance

Originally uploaded by matt duke.

Mayor Fenty announced this afternoon that the District Government fired 9 people today for extensive porn viewing at the workplace. But, that’s not the fun part. The fun part is this: “Each of the nine employees clicked on porn sites more than 19,000 times last year, according to the results of an internal investigation of 10,000 government computers, officials said. Three visited such sites more than 39,000 times apiece last year, the investigation found.”

Good fucking God, people. That’s a LOT of porn. The top offender was over 50,000 times in a year.

Something’s wrong here. 50,000 times in 250 day year is 200 times a day. Or, about once every two minutes for an eight hour work day. This can’t be pageviews. This has to be something on the order of the difference between hits and pageviews when it comes to measuring web statistics. At a bare minimum. Otherwise, that’s just insane.

Anyhow, they’re filtering the internet in DC offices now, so you don’t have to worry about needing to hose the desks down with Lysol. Well. Maybe you should anyway. Because they still kept a bunch of people who had less than 10,000 viewings in a year. Which is still 40 times in a working day.

I’ve never been so skeeved out than when I heard one of my old coworkers tell the story about the VP who liked gay porn on in the background while he worked in a shared office. Seriously. Keep it at home.

The Eagle View Elementary staff listing

A commenter in the WaPo story pointed out that Candy Tistadt is listed as a Fairfax County School Systems employee! So as if it wasn’t bad enough that she, as a spouse, picked up the phone and castigated a student who left a (by all accounts) polite message at their home – she is an employee and therefor a representative of FCPS!

Wonder if her husband will do the right thing and fire her? I can only imagine what a delight she is in the office.

If, like me, you read the article Tom mentioned and though “but where’s the audio?!” well, here you go. Because I don’t want you to have to spend the sixty seconds on Google that I did.

Seriously, what’s wrong with this woman? You call a teenager to castigate them for leaving a phone message, and you behave worse in your message than he did in his?

UPDATE: Gone from YouTube but still over here being used *snort* to shill a voice to mp3 service.

Just in case they take it down, here’s the transcript from the above page.

“This is Candy Tistadt, Dean Tistadt’s wife. This message is for Dave Kori. How dare you call us at home?! If you’ve got a problem with going to school, you do not call somebody’s house and complain about it. My husband was up at 4 o’clock this morning, trying to decide the best thing to do, to send you to school, on a day when the weather man is calling for one thing and another thing happens. You don’t begin to know what you are talking about, and don’t you ever call here again! My husband has been at the office since 6:30 this morning, so don’t you even suggest that he purposely didn’t answer his phone. He is out almost every single night of the week at meetings for snotty-nosed little brats, and he may not have called you but it is not because he’s home because it snowed. Get over it kid, and go to school. Get an education, that’s what you’re there for.”

UPDATE 2: Here’s another audio recording.

Virginia House Repeals Driver Fees

The Virginia House of Delegates voted 95-2 yesterday to repeal Virginia’s Bad Driver Fees. Smart, boys, smart. Get on it, Virginia Senate!

Supreme Court to Hear Gun Ban Oral Arguments on 18 March

Mark your calendars, in about 8 weeks, the Supreme Court will hear the Oral Arguments in D.C. vs. Heller. It’ll be good to hear Nina Totenberg’s dulcet tones tell us exactly what happens during this particular case.

Students Get in Fight on Metro, Put it on YouTube

Gotta love it when breaking news like this happens on YouTube. How dumb do you really have to be to post a video of your friends beating up a kid on the Metro and not expect to get caught? Really?

Angry Phone Call Takes on New Life

Yeah, this one’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s worth a look. A local student called an administrator at home and asked why school hadn’t been cancelled due to inclement weather. The administrator’s wife responded. It wasn’t pretty. Then the response got posted to the web. Then it got really, really ugly.

Check out what local Internet video revolutionary Jonny Goldstein has in store for us this week:

This week, we’re proud to Par-tay with whygosolo.com and thedcconcierge.com.

whygosolo.com is an area startup which helps people “use the web to enable the finding of exciting and new things and people but, get OFF the web and go enjoy them.”

Our second guest is The DC Concierge, who runs thedcconierge.com, “a guide to Washington, DC, after the name badge comes off… You ask. I answer.”

What: Jonny’s Par-tay, the live interactive web video talk show
Who: Jonny Goldstein, Scott Stead, with Featured Guests Ann Bernard, CEO of whygosolo.com, and The DC Concierge.
How to watch: Just go to jonnygoldstein.com.
Interactivity: Interact via the live chatroom and if you have a webcam and a blogtv.com account, we can even put you on via video.
When: 9PM EST, Weds, Jan 23

This started with me looking for pictures of Dupont Circle rats on Flickr. You know how the web is. One thing leads to another and before long you are reading about John McCain giving a five-year-old a cigarette while a student at Episcopal High School in Alexandria.

At first I just chuckled but read on. The brief article is about the author’s father, who was McCain’s football coach and a very good role model during his formative years, even if they were mostly spent sneaking into the Gayety Burlesque Theatre in DC. Read a little snippet here and then go read the entire piece. It’s certainly a great tribute to a great man.

My own memories of John McCain are limited mostly to the occasions when he’d be assigned to our house to work off demerits–raking leaves, mowing our backyard, etc. One day I was innocently wandering around the campus and stopped to talk to some of the students at “Egypt”, the school’s designated outdoor student smoking area on the south wall of Stewart Gym, the school’s wrestling gymnasium. McCain was there with Rives Richie, another student and frequent guest at our house. The evil McCain asked me if I wanted to smoke a cigarette and handed me his. I took a puff, inhaling, choked on it and ran home. I could hear McCain laughing.

Best varmint hunter ever

My next door neighbour, Joe Martin, was up early last week and noticed Petworth’s newest resident; an urban coyote:

If you were up early this morning as I was, you would have had the opportunity to see a coyote walking down Varnum Street NW towards Grant Circle…

The coyote was gallantly walking in the middle of the street, coming down from the 300 block, heading west after crossing 4th Street NW. It stopped by the side of a home across Varnum, probably looking for their Christmas decorations.

Now before you go thinking he saw a fox or a mangy dog, let Joe set you straight:

Absolutely not a fox. My windows were within 30 feet of the coyote, well lit on my street. After it crossed into Grant Circle, I went to my computer and looked at photos of coyote to verify what I saw. The ears stood up, busy, full tail. I had no doubts whatsoever. I also looked at the animal with binoculars.

Personally, I say “welcome” to this Wile E. Coyote and wonder what wild animals you’ve seen in our fair city.

Oh and deer don’t count – they’re everywhere.