Remember my analysis and prediction, yesterday? Which made me feel kinda dumb, since I said I figured we’d see some licensing movement in two months, but then Fenty made statements about 21 days. I wasn’t quite as wrong as I thought - the 21 days aren’t necessarily when they’ll start, but is when the police will release the requirements and processes. When they’ll then start accepting applications is not so concrete.

My disappointment, though, is that I was so silly as to think that the D.C. government, faced with the obvious and inevitable, would decide to just do what they have to do. No, instead Mayor Fenty et all have decided they haven’t pissed away enough of the city’s money on this battle, and rather than focus on writing gun licensing regulations that might make all of us safer and survive the inevitable legal challenges, they’re going to attempt to enforce other gun laws on the books that obviously are out of line with yesterday’s decision.

[interim D.C. Attorney General Peter] Nickles said the District will continue to enforce a separate decades-old D.C. ban on the possession of most clip-loaded semiautomatic handguns, which are popular with gun enthusiasts.

That regulation, which outlaws machine guns and was not part of the Supreme Court case, defines a machine gun in broad terms, encompassing semiautomatic weapons that can shoot, or be converted to shoot, more than 12 rounds without reloading, officials said. Nickles said that law remains on the books and will be enforced.

I can only hope that (a) the Washington Post will prod article writers Paul Duggan and David Nakamurato be a little more precise with their language in the future, since a ban on “semiautomatic weapons that can shoot, or be converted to shoot, more than 12 rounds without reloading” isn’t a limit on machine guns, it’s a limit on almost any self-loading type of pistol and (b) Nickles will read the opinion issued by the court and notice how often Scalia talks about “common” weapons. Self-loading handguns outsell revolvers 3 to 1, which pretty well fits into the definition of common.

So like it or not, enforcing this other law is just an expensive guaranteed return trip to the court in order to lose. It’s unlikely it will get far; this is so obvious on its face that the lower courts are going to rule against the city and appeals likely won’t get far. However that doesn’t mean it’s not a waste of resources we can’t afford. Let’s accept reality and work within it, and be ready for the inevitable other lawsuits that are going to come up over license restrictions. The universe - and the NRA - give away trouble for free. There’s no need to go looking for it.

UPDATE: Just noticed that Ben Winograd over on SCOTUSBlog addresses this idiocy, provides a salient example, and suggests that DC should fix this statute before the courts or the congress fixes it for them. Starts on paragraph 6.

April fool, courtesy of Djuliet

It seems like we just got past Easter and now we are heading into the next big commercial season - Mother’s Day. I was greeted by this chalk reminder in front of a florist’s shop in Bethesda this morning.

Are flowers the thing Mom wants? I don’t know. What I do know is that they slowly wilt and die, which is not a good expression of the love we tend to feel for our parents, or the love that florists and card stores tell us we should feel.

This year Mom gets no flowers. I will give her the same thing I always give her - a gift certificate to her favorite bookstore. Mom, if you are reading this, sorry to give away the surprise, but remember that knowledge is the best of companions and books the best of friends.

What are you getting your mother this year? Flowers? Candy? Anybody going for the ever-popular Bacon of the Month Club?

Photo: Remember Mom with Flowers Originally uploaded by carlweaver

To my surprise, DC has an extant, long lasting infoshop!

That may not ring any bells among those of you who didn’t go to college with a bunch of radical anarchists who shouted “fuck the police!” and “smash the state!” Frankly, it’s not part of my world anymore either–once I left college, I slowly drifted away from punks and DIYers who created their own zines and would wheat-paste fliers on walls around town after dark.

I’m not sure what an infoshop is technically meant to be, but the one I hung around in Berkeley, CA was a place where you could stay all day, reading books about ending speciesism or acting up against the military-industrial complex, and then have a meal of second-hand brown bread and vegan soup. And where the shelves were packed with homemade zines about folks’ adventures and thoughts. Kinda like paper blogs. No, make that just like paper blogs.

I’m not making fun of these places. It’s the greatest thing when people’s ideals push them to actually do something rather than just talk about it. It’s just such a walk down memory lane for me, though, that I have to laugh.

So DC’s infoshop is exactly like the one in Berkelely, only smaller. And the people are friendlier! And there are signs on the wall urging support for activists who are now in jail. I don’t remember that from my college years.

Technically this infoshop is called the Brian Mackenzie Infoshop, after a local activist who died while trying to make the place a reality.

Go check it out; smile and the folks there will smile back. It’s in the middle of nowhere, 1426 9th st NW (by P, I think) and it’s generally open noon-9pm Weds-Sun. Call at 202-986-0681 if you want to be sure they’re there before you come.

I’m sure some of you have come to the conclusion that I like beating up on WaPo. Really, nothing is farther from the truth and overall I have a positive opinion of the paper, particularly compared to the yellow rag that the Miami Herald had become by the time I moved here six years ago.

Unfortunately today I find myself annoyed with one of the sections that normally I find above average - Health. I was a little perturbed that the story on the debate about plastics made no mention of the tremendous impact plastic has had on the safety of health care, but the real offense in the section was about a plastic surgery.

Well, it would have been a story about that if WaPo writer Sandra G. Boodman hasn’t just vomited Newsweek’s original bit of scandal manufacturing back up without a hint of journalistic rigor or effort. The reality of this story - not presented anywhere in the original Newsweek piece or Boodman’s uncredited paraphrasing - is that this is a book published by a vanity press and authored by a Florida plastic surgeon for his own clients. This plastic surgeon actually does some good outreach to the public on plastic surgery, though somehow that link didn’t make it into the story: I guess talking about articles covering sun damage and porta-cath scars doesn’t sell papers.

Personally I think we have some… interesting attitudes about beauty and aging in the US, and it’s a subject that could do with some quality discussion. This isn’t it. If you’re interested in more detail about why this is a non-story, Teresa Neilsen Hayden spells out the situation in great detail here… in a post from about a week ago, which Boodman could probably have found if she’d taken longer than 4 minutes to re-use Newsweek’s story. The meat of the matter:

Big Tent Books … is a vanity press and marketing and fulfillment operation. It pretends it’s separate from another company called Dragonpencil—in theory, Big Tent is a marketing and distribution firm, and Dragonpencil is a publisher—but they’re really a single organization run by Jerry and Samantha Setzer. The two companies have the same address and phone number. Big Tent’s award-winning books get all their awards from Dragonpencil. Dragonpencil’s deluxe publishing package includes marketing and distribution by Big Tent. And if you poke around their sites long enough, you can find the page where they admit it.

Big Tent/Dragonpencil has the usual problem of vanity presses: zero to lousy sales and distribution. They’re a lot better at making books than they are at promoting them. Only a few of their titles are even listed at Amazon, and those are listed badly—half the normal publisher-furnished information is missing. Sales are minimal.

My Beautiful Mommy is not one of the books Big Tent lists on Amazon.

In other words, this story about shilling to children isn’t at all a case where anyone was shilling to chilren. Dr Michael Salzhauer’s book - which includes a surgeon named Dr Michael, in case you were wondering whether he really meant it for his patients - is for people who already have made the decision to have plastic surgery.

Or maybe Newsweek and Boodman think that books written about death for a child’s perspective are promoting kids being accepting of dying?

So you just finished reading the latest Grisham thriller, or stayed up all night because you couldn’t put down Amy Tan’s newest, and now you’re just itching to tell everyone about how awesome it was. Or what a terrible read it was, so don’t even bother. What options do you have?

Well, a lot, actually. You can find a forum or review site pretty much all over the web these days….except at the library.

Those days are over, at least in Alexandria.

The Alexandria Library now offers patrons and residents a chance to put down their own reviews and thoughts on nearly all of the library’s holdings, which includes books, movies, music, and other material found on the online catalog. The Library has included this functionality as another resource for people to get recommendations and reviews from other patrons on materials to check out.

“Our Library now has a truly interactive mechanism, completely integrated into our catalog,” said Rose Dawson, Director of Libraries. “We know that our patrons are already used to such interaction on many commercial Web sites, but our Library affords its patrons the ability to reserve materials online—and to get those materials at no charge.”

Accessing the catalog is easy. Go to the website and click on “Library Catalog” and start browsing. When you find something you’d like to offer a review on, just type it in. Keep in mind that you’ll need to register to the website in order to do so.

The interactivity of the online catalog is just one more step in building the community, and one that is appreciated from its patrons.

I love libraries, courtesy of mj*laflaca

Third Fridays at The Rock and Roll Hotel have been a nightlife staple of mine for the past year, as Metblogs own Michael Darpino (he of the perpetual tower of books) has been onboard as one half of Room 429’s Re:sonance DJs, along with Chris Diamond. These two tirelessly spin a relentless onslaught of shoegazer, brit-pop, 80’s/90’s underground, and whatever else the eclectic and diverse crowd cries out for…

My favorite thing about the Hotel is the unexpectedness of any given night’s events - one minute everyone’s chill, the next minute a girl is rocking out on the pool table, and then suddenly there’s a hula hoop dancer going wild in the corner. And yet it all manages to happen without any of the attitude that can plague other nightlife spots in the city - people are just happy, mingling and having a crazy fun time.

So join us this Friday, April 18th for the one year anniversary of Room 429, free upstairs from 9:30pm on. They’ll be giving away Screen Vinyl Image and Soundpool CDs. And don’t forget to say cheers to Darpino and Diamond for a job well done!

Every week I get together with a couple of friends for dinner to try out new restaurants, talk about our personal lives, drink alcohol. You know, it’s your basic bonding night. We even try to throw in “an activity” every now and then to try to experience new things in the city and broaden our horizons a bit. Sometimes we’ll go to a gallery to view some art, listen to panel discussions, and once we decided to check out Camelot since none of us had been there before. Meh. I’ve seen better.

Well last night we decided to go in for a tour of the Church of Scientology in Dupont. We all live in the neighborhood and walk by it nearly every day, but none of us really knew what it was all about. Sure, we’d heard about the protests, how people think Tom Cruise is crazy for jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch, and how an alien is supposed to show up one day and save them all, but that’s a pretty naive way of evaluating a “religion” if you ask me, so we decided to hear all about it from the horse’s mouth.

As soon as we walked through the front door we were greeted by a friendly looking fellow who said, “Hi, would you like a tour?” Why yes, as a matter of fact we would. Coincidently enough, his name was Tom, and he was probably the nicest person I’ve met in a long time. Never at any time did he try to sit us down or sign us up for anything. He repeatedly said, “If you have any questions about anything, anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Our 30 minute tour began inside their main lobby where numerous pictures of their founder, L. Ron Hubbard, are hanging. Tom explained to us that Hubbard was an engineer and was therefore very logical and thorough in his thinking. He was a pilot, was in World War II, and had even written some movie scripts. This didn’t sound like the founder of a religion to me. One interesting fact that Tom brought up was the meaning of the word “Scientology”. He said that most people see the word and think “science”, but rather (and I quote from their website) “it comes from the Latin word ’scio’ meaning ‘knowing in the fullest sense of the word’ and the Greek word ‘logos’ meaning ’study of’”, in other words, “the study of truth”.

Our tour continued as we walked down into the basement. “Oh sweet,” we were thinking. “Now we get to see where they keep the alien.” Not quite. This is where they have a “cleansing room” where members of the church can go to rid their body of drugs and alcohol by sweating it out. Evidently Hubbard figured out that when one takes drugs, the toxins get trapped in the our fatty tissue, so by going into a room and exercising you can sweat out the toxins and life is good again. That sounds too simple to be true, but Tom didn’t go into much detail as to what really goes on behind that closed door. Also in the basement was what appeared to be their welcome center. This is where you can go for your “free stress test” (which we didn’t partake in) and involves using an E-meter. This device is used to measure the electrical resistance in your body and is what they use when they do something called “auditing”, a way to clear your mind of something that is blocking you from reaching your full potential. Or something. Also in this room was a table stacked high with copies of Dianetics, the bible of Scientology written by Hubbard himself. Tom recommended that we read it to understand what Scientology was all about, much like you would read the bible to understand what Christianity had to offer. Or something. He gave us all free informational DVD’s to watch and then we headed back up to the main floor.

Next up was a tour of an air conditioned room that was basically a replica of Hubbard’s office back in the day. They keep the room at a lower temperature (and what felt like a high humidity) to preserve the shrink wrapped books that are on the shelves, books that actually belonged to L. Ron Hubbard. I know this is bad, but I thought to myself, “I wonder how much one of these would fetch on eBay?” It’d probably fetch me the rest of my life in the cleansing room in the basement. No thanks. The office has a signed original copy of Battlefield Earth, a science fiction book written by Hubbard (and terribly acted out by John Travolta). It also had one of the sweetest globes I’ve ever seen and a framed photo of the Jefferson Memorial surrounded by cherry blossoms. How apropos. Tom pointed out another book which is about a quarter of the size of Dianetics and is more like a Scientology primer or Scientology for Dummies. He recommended that we buy a copy online or even go check it out at our local library. Little did he know that I only like to read photography magazines and James Patterson novels. I asked him why they didn’t just put their books online for everyone to read, but he inferred that they had to make money somehow, just as other religions pass a collection plate or hold bake sales.

At this point, my friend decided to step it up a notch by asking Tom some tougher questions involving celebrities and aliens. Tom just sort of smiled and said that a few bad apples had decided to spread rumors about the church and that none of it was true. Oh and again - read the book because it explains everything in there.

So that was it. No pressure to join, no pressure to give them money, no pressure to stay and talk, no pressure to leave, although I couldn’t help but notice that everyone inside the church kept looking at us with a cautious eye as if to say, “Why are you people in here?” or “How long do you plan to stay?” Clearly we didn’t look like we belonged there. Could it have had something to do with the fact that I was wearing a baseball cap and drinking a Red Bull? Maybe. It could have also been that they thought we were snooping around and trying to uncover the secrets of their church.

I have to say that it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in a church, although I still left with a funny feeling in the back of my mind as if maybe Tom was trained to say certain things and hold back on others. Either way, I don’t see what all of the Hubb-ub is about. Do you?

Image liberated from the
Lincoln County Election Authority

My darling girlfriend and I got to our polling place around 8:15 this morning (what’s the point of white collar work if you can’t use voting as an excuse to come in late?) and got in the not-too-horrid line. At least it started just inside the door, a big improvement on the line that snaked around the building when she voted there for President in 2004. The “about 20 minutes” someone mentioned when we got there was more like 40, in no small part because the roster table had two people… with books they were keeping in sync.

If you want to find a problem with the open primary system, this might be it. Although these two fellows divided the handing out of Democratic and Republican “ballots”¹ between them, they never the less were marking people off as having shown up in both books - presumably to keep someone from coming back later and asking for the other party’s ballot. So no speed advantage there, though it did mean I could easily see the two tally sheets. At the time of my arrival they’d handed out 211 Democratic slips and 53 Republican ones.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but the wait was well worth it for me. Not so I could pick the MUP candidate I did, but because at the age of 37 this makes my first-ever primary vote. I’ve been a registered independent all through my voting life and I came here from a closed primary state, Florida. So this was my first pull of the lever unverifiable button push in a primary.

Which my darling girlfriend promptly canceled out. Teamwork, I tell you!

¹ Actually just printed slips of paper that told the kiosk worker which button to press when activating the tools of Satan electronic voting machines.

Into the gym at last

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

This was the very front of the line at Arlington Precinct 22 at the Abingdon Elementary School this morning. The line was about 100 people when I walked in, and about the same length when I left. I was voter number 281 (split 230:51, D:R) at 8:37am. The line was pleasant and kept moving the whole way through, snaking its way through the foyer in front of the gymnasium. The hold-up point was at Registration this morning, due to the fact that they were double-checking their poll books. They also hadn’t separated the line for Rep/Dem, but I think that’s standard operating procedure.

Overall, took 40 minutes to vote, there were no problems, and everyone was pleased to be there, except for the young couple with two children who should’ve voted a block up at the community center instead of at the school, but even they were good natured about the whole thing.

How was your vote this morning? I’ve heard reports of lines upward of an hour in some precincts, and reports of voting times at less than 15 minutes in others. I’ve also heard that there are some crazy people waving signs on the median of Route 50, which may or may not be the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day.

It seems that a deal has been reached on an economic stimulus package (heh, I said stimulus package) that would put a bunch of fluid dollars into the hands of Americans everywhere. If you make less than $75k, look for a check around $600. Married couple? $1200.

So, if this is truly to be economic stimulus, how can we best spend it in the DC area? I don’t think big chains need any more of our money, so maybe it’s time to look at local businesses that could use a few extra bucks, so that takes out a whole bunch of stores. So, for the best local effect, maybe shops like Belmont TV might be the place to go for electronics and whatnot. Shops like Kramers and Politics & Prose for books. DC is blessed with an abundance of non-chain restaurants, so maybe a night out with your hubby/sweetie would be a good idea, as well.

If you’re going to get stimulated, you might as well help out some of the local businesses, yeah? Where are you going to spend your rebate?