Yesterday I rolled out my new electric bike for a new regimen of (fair-weather) bike commuting, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  But, what a day to choose.  It turned out that a young cyclist was struck and killed by a garbage truck in a tragic, but textbook, “right-hook” collision.  According to the Post, no charges have yet been filed, but the driver and cyclist were both identified in the paper’s coverage.  The Washington Area Bicyclist Association is having a memorial today, and hopefully the MPD will be following up as well. 

D.C. Assistant Police Chief Patrick Burke said that he used to commute to work on his bike along the street where Swanson was killed. With rising gas prices, he said he expects to see more cyclists and pedestrians in the streets.”It’s imperative that drivers are cognizant of this and that we all share the road,” Burke said.         

I’m thankful that most of my commute is trail-based - nary a garbage truck in sight.

My time with Metblogs has been far shorter and less-prolific than most of the great people on the team. Still, I have enjoyed having this opportunity to talk to you and write about this lovely place.

In keeping with my minimal presence on the site, my sign-off here will be brief. I wish all our MBDC readers and friends well, and hope we will see some of you over at We Love DC.

A scant six months ago, I joined the wild and crazy crew here on MBDC; I was branching out in my blogscapades and wanted to try my hand at writing about the area that I’ve come to love.

Everyone here has been extremely good to me, one of the new kids on the block. The experience has been inspiring and has driven my creativity in approaching this area to new heights. I’ve been driven to explore this town more than I ever have before, in search of new restaurants, new venues, and new entertainment. Much of these experiences I’ve yet to share; sadly, I won’t be doing so on this stage.

Instead, I’m leaving MBDC and moving to We Love DC. My continued excitment over living here remains unabated. With our imminent purchase of a home in northern VA, I look forward to planting our roots deep into the soil and growing old with the District - inside the zone and through the Beltway. And sharing all of this with the great people of the area with more passion and freedom than before.

So thank you, readers, writers, commentors and the MBDC staff for taking a chance on and accepting the missives from one of the small fish in this vast pond. May your futures remain bright and your cameras nearby.

See you on the other side.

Four years ago, I took the reins of a brand new fledgling city blog. In that time, I’ve come to meet a whole host of awesome people, written a whole lot about DC, and gotten to love the city I once was ready to leave, having shaken the dirt from my feet in disgust. I’ve made some incredible friends while blogging here, and learned a lot about how to run a blog, and how not to run one. Where am I going? No, I’m not leaving DC, and I’m not leaving the blogging world either. I’m leaving Metroblogging to strike out on my own. My new project is called We Love DC, and will feature many of the writers you know and love from this site, in a new format.

Thanks also to all those who’ve written here these last four years. Thanks to those who’ve commented here and made it a community all its own. Thanks to all the other captains in all the other cities I’ve gotten to know.

Now, though, it is time to move on from Metroblogging and to let this canvas be writ anew. I have nothing but thanks for Sean Bonner for creating this network, to Jason Defillippo for his incredible coding skills, to Mack Reed for wrangling the Captains and keeping them fed and happy, and to Richard Ault for making the deals that keep the network running smooth. You guys have done amazing things, and I’m sure we’ll continue to see fruits of your work.

Good night, Metblogs DC, and Good Luck.

Fireworks #1 — Originally Uploaded by Camera Slayer

When my parents were here in March we happened to head a little farther west than we normally do, and ended up having a late lunch in Manassas. When we parked there it was hard not to notice the particularly large sign across the street and wonder what its story was. It was notable enough that I took a picture.

So when I saw this story on the front page of the WashingtonPost.com I was curious to read the story behind it. It’s an interesting one - based on the message above I’d wondered if this wasn’t a religious organization, with their message of love and empathy. “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” The sign has changed notably since March 9th - the WaPo story has a small shot of the presumably current sign, though it’s small and they provide no transcription.

Unfortunately WaPo writer Nick Miroff decided to do a little editorializing in the WaPo story, which summarizes the sign’s content thusly:

The sign’s text has changed a few times, but its message has essentially remained the same: Latino immigrants have been exploited by ungrateful, racist white residents who took advantage of their labor and now want them to leave.

Anyone see any assertions of racism or ingratitude in the sign above?  This is why you should report facts and not interpret them, Mr Miroff.

Transcriptions of old and new sign after the jump. Read more

A few weeks ago the Washington Post ran an editorial by Patrick Smith, a pilot and writer whose work I have been enjoying on Salon for several years now. I missed it at the time, but caught some of the letters to the editor in response, and honestly was kind of surprised by the vitrol. What are these people angry about, I wondered? This is the guy who has never failed to rail against airline stupidity and TSA uselessness and these folks are responding as if he’s some sort of apologist?

How do you go from a writer who writes this:

I don’t know about you, but each time I settle into one of those blasted seats, the first thing I wonder is what malformed extraterrestrial creature it could possibly have been designed for. Clearly it was not intended for a human being

to a reaction like “Nice try, Mr. Smith,” implying that he’s a co-conspirator?

It’s a fair reaction, I suppose, to someone not familiar with his work and previously stated opinion. Smith is no more a passenger advocate than industry apologist - he’s a writer about the flying experience and not afraid to give a moronic passenger their lumps either. It’s to his credit that in his followup on Salon this week he takes his lumps - which he, rightly I think, identifies as partly caused by the headline WaPo stuck on his piece for him - and uses it as a jumping off point for some interesting facts about pilot careers. The swipes he takes at poor industry service on page 2 would probably come as a significant surprise to the people who think he’s an airline shill.

I highly recommend his work. He’s an entertaining writer and full of neat facts about the flying life. Some of it I knew by virtue of my amateur pilot dad, but there’s plenty more in there that’s new to anyone who’s never been behind the throttle of some big iron. Check it out.

pilots in motion, courtesy of pbo31

That’s assuming that ‘you’ are a Marylander - or sometimes drink in Maryland - and like those fruity near-beers. No, when the WaPo ran this annoying editorial last week they called them ‘alcopops,’ which is evocative of popsicle to me, but presumably they mean it in the sense of ’soda pop.’ “But the truth is that the beverages — Smirnoff Ice, Mike’s Hard Lemonade and the like — are not beer by any reasonable definition,” said the editorial.

Unfortunately they don’t explain exactly what “by any reasonable definition” means. I’ve always known them to be called “near-beer,” a description that hinges on the fact that these products are sold in single-serving containers like beer and have similar alcohol content to regular beer, and are malted beverages, like - wait for it - beer. When Marc Fisher picked up the banner for this anti-adult effort yesterday he claimed that Attorney General Doug Gansler based his decision on a federal study claiming most of the alcohol in these drinks came from distilled spirits, not malted grain. Too bad that’s a 2003 study and in late 2004 the ATTB published a ruling that going forward these drinks would get the majority of their alcohol content from malting. Not to call any of these lobbying groups or editorialists liars - that would imply they’re making these statements out of malice and with full knowledge it’s not true, rather than just ignorance,willful or otherwise.

That aside, most importantly to almost any rational person, the same report makes it clear that the total alcohol content is roughly the same as in beer: 4 to 6%. Unless we’re regulating beer and hard liquor differently for some other reason that nobody’s told me? If it’s all about taste, then I propose we put in place a proper taste tax and bring Guinness and Sam Adams’ Summer Wheat down to 0.01% and mark Coors and Zima up to 150%. Or maybe 1500%, though drinking them is really its own punishment.

Barring that, WaPo and Fisher would both do well to back off from trying to beat up adults who like this swill near-beer and stop penalizing them for having similar tastebuds to the pimple-faced crowd. The morals brigade leading this fight likes to harp on the fact that the alcohol industry’s own data shows that over 40% of the stuff is drunk by the 21 to 27 crowd, the implication being that under 21 folk will like it too. However they seem to be ignoring the fact that those 21 to 27 year olds are of a perfectly legal age to drink and probably lower earners, therefor similarly impacted by this foolish tax proposal.

Fisher and others don’t seem to think that you voting-aged legal drinkers matter in this. “Will the lovers of Smirnoff Ice and its competitors rally to the governor’s side to thank him for keeping their favorite beverages cheap? Hardly likely.” So prove him wrong and make some noise. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be marginally embarrassed to publicly admit you drink this crap, but myself and other people who believe in freedom will stand behind you. With our better drinks.

Hard Times, courtesy of furryscaly

The Washington Post has indicated that the Tarpon Springs authorities have ruled her death a suicide and released her suicide note. The Smoking Gun has included actual images of her suicide notes, and they’re heartbreaking. Particularly sad is a part WaPo didn’t comment on, a paragraph in the letter to her mother that says “There is a little surprise waiting for you in the BOA account. Please use the monies for final arrangement & various account settlement.” Before some cursory Googling I’d have wagered good money that there’s no way the people who prosecuted her for racketeering and money laundering will fail to seize those assets. Over at Justice League, however, blogger SP Biloxi has posted that the defense and has already filed motions to abate and the prosecution had no objection. After all that’s gone on, including the death of Brandy Britton, everything has just been wiped away like it never happened.

Unless you’re Randall L. Tobias, former AIDS czar, Senator David Vitter or think-tank guru Harlan K. Ullman, named as clients. Or Lt. Commander Rebecca C. Dickinson, identified as an employee of Palfrey’s and compelled to testify… and suspended by the Navy, despite the immunity the prosecution granted all the women called to the stand, preventing them from exercising their 5th amendment rights and staying silent. Or Rhona Reiss, 63, also publicly identified as a former escort. Or any of the other 11 women called to testify by the prosecution. The other 119 women identified in Palfrey’s records may be safe, since the judge ordered those portions of the records sealed, and thankfully we all know that information mandated as private never leaks out.

What a waste of money and life, all to prosecute a woman who paid all her taxes on the money she made connecting two consenting adults with each other.

If she’d been running a ItsJustLunch franchise and collecting thousands of dollars from both parties she was connecting up, she’d still be alive and doing business.

If she’d been Craigslist, connecting people who want to have sex. then the shitbags at rightwingpundits.com, who I will not dignify with a link and the search engine credibility that conveys, wouldn’t have a page up about one of the case’s identified escorts, along with a picture of her and details about her academic history and family life. Oh, and a swipe at how attractive she is.

But hey, she had it all coming and nobody to blame but herself, right? After all, if it’s illegal then it must be wrong, right Mrs. Loving?

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?

It’s that time of year again. Our area’s arguably largest tourist pull, the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

Yes, yes, everyone’s covering it, from Express to DCist. I won’t bore you with a rehash.

Actually, I come with a few questions.

My lovely wife and I have been down every year since we relocated here and frankly, I love it not so much for the blossoms (they’re gorgeous), but moreso to watch and photograph the people. I pick up a lot of great observation vignettes for my own writing; it’s like hitting the writer’s lotto.

This year, we’ve got a couple of good friends headed down from New York City. They’ve never been to the District and will only be here the first weekend of April. So naturally, I got them all excited about the Festival. It helps they’re both photogs, too, so if you see four people (three girls ignoring the one guy with them) wandering around with extensive camera gear, that’d be us. Picture-taking is pretty much a given. So is taking Metro.

Thing is, I’m trying to figure out what else to do on that Saturday before we head over to Old Towne for dinner and staking out a nice patch of marina rail for the fireworks. There’s the photo safaris, but those cost money and we’re decent photo people. So I think that’s out.

I was also considering the Edo Master’s collection at the Sackler. Or possibly the Japanese Cultural Fair, which promises a tea ceremony, origami and calligraphy demonstrations.

So what should I do? Any readers attended these in years prior? Or should I shy away from other Festival events and take them to the standard DC sites we always funnel tourists to? If so, what would you suggest?

Frankly, I’m stumped. It’s the first time we’ve had friends visit who could only stay two days; normally, we have practically a week to show them around or point them somewhere - this is a bit harder.

Oh, and even worse? They’re amateur foodies, like us. So figuring out good spots to eat is also on tap - suggestions for lunch would be appreciated, since none of the ladies have my appreciating taste for the curbside vendors and their cuisine. Dinner’s already planned, so fortunately I don’t look like a total incompetant to our jet-setting New York socialites.

So, anyone have some great suggestions to help a guy out?

Tidal Cherries, uploaded by bhrome