Yesterday morning bright and early, the Park Service closed the park at Fort Reno citing massive arsenic toxicity in the soil on the site. The soil samples reported to the press were between 500 and 1,100 parts per million, or roughly 10 to 25 times the legal “safe” limit.

If you’re wondering what’s to become of the awesome concert series at Fort Reno, you’re not alone. The organizing group is looking for an alternate site if the park can’t be decontaminated quickly, as well as donations to cover the sound system and stage personnel for the concert series. If you can chip in, please do so. The Fort Reno concert series is definitely one of those awesome local events that makes DC such a great place to live.

The causes of the arsenic levels is unclear, but the Post posits a theory that it may have to do with the Civil War dead buried on the Park’s grounds, as they were likely embalmed with an arsenic-based embalming method.

If you’re concerned about arsenic poisoning, please contact poison control or go to the ER, pronto.

Arsenic — Originally uploaded by Dave Ward Photography

Are you the type of person who starts thinking about weekend plans around 4:30 on Friday or do you start planning Monday morning when you say hi to your homies and play catch-up at the water cooler? Me, I like to keep an open mind all week and see what develops, but this weekend is a bit special because I am donating blood on Saturday, which I am a bit embarrassed to say is something I have not done before, and then on Sunday I am leading a photography class, something I look forward to and have not done in a while. It’s good to get back in the groove with teaching and sharing and hope to do many future classes.

How much of your weekend is planned this early in the week? What’s going on in your neck of the woods that we should all know about?

Photo of Orange by Carl Weaver Photography

I haven’t written about a photo in quite some time, and while I could try to explain to you my lack of photography related posts, in the end you probably just don’t care. But as I was perusing through Flickr yesterday my eyes stopped on gattoraffa’s black and white shot of the Lincoln Memorial. The lighting on this shot is amazing and it almost looks to me as if the crowd is being sucked into a spaceship’s tractor beam for a good old fashioned alien abduction. Having spent a lot of time lately with studio lights, it’s refreshing to see photos like this that use the tried and true, ultimate source of light, Mr. Sun. One other thing to note about this shot is that you don’t need a big fancy SLR to capture an amazing photograph - this was taken with a Canon PowerShot SD1000. Great job!

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?

There’s just a few weeks remaining of a photo exhibit at the Mexican Cultural Institute here in Washington, and there’s a special event at the Institute on Monday night, welcoming photographer Rick Nahmias who captured the images of those migrant farmers who probably helped pick what you’re having for dinner tonight.

From the exhibit text:

Though images of migrant farm workers of the 1930s and 40s are now iconic to many, rarely seen are their contemporaries - one of America’s largest invisible and cast-off populations. “The Migrant Project,” an in-depth photo-documentary (with bilingual text), proudly places the faces and stories of those currently working our fields front and center, providing a present day microcosm for numerous issues surrounding the human cost of feeding America.

DC has a fairly large migrant population, as well, and I suspect their roles in our lives are not quite so different: they’re a part of a society we don’t like to talk about, but carry tremendous value for us.

Maybe go check out the exhibit, think a bit more on it.

Photo courtesy of University of New Mexico Press

Mexican Cultural Institute
2829 16th St NW
Washington, DC 20009

If you have not read this week’s Washington City Paper, I encourage you to do so. Especially, there is an article called Hire Education that really sums up the frustrations of tutoring rich kids with entitlement issues and dealing with their parents, who often have entitlement issues. The article takes a hard look at these kids and paints them with a very negative brush, but not all is as bad as it seems in the article.

As a tutor myself, I can vouch for many of the experiences the author relates and found it reassuring that I am not the only one with clients who sometimes seem like they recently came off their meds. However, the difficult kids and parents are the exception, in my experience. Most kids are okay, regardless of why they seek out tutoring, and most parents are understanding when I assure them that I am an expert and know what I am doing.

Sure, I have had parents call and fuss at me, send nasty emails and even had one jerk of a father try to physically intimidate me. If I weren’t twice his size with greater strength and a longer reach, it may have bothered me. As it worked out, I let him know he should back off and I resumed tutoring his son.

Student issues include being inattentive, sometimes even snotty, feeling entitled to high grades or high SAT scores and generally not wanting to work. Another problem is having little unstructured time, with too much emphasis on academics and other school activities and not enough on enjoying being a kid. Helicopter parents shuttle them around from school to soccer to tutoring to study groups and in the end the high school graduates have no idea how to manage their own time or actually study in college, instead of having tutors tell them what to do.

I have also had parents who were very gracious, students who were polite and attentive and with those families it is a lovely time. To me what makes the difference when working with students is having kids who want to learn or are interested in the subject material. Whether they like the material or not, they should have a good attitude about it and at least be open-minded to learning it.

If you were ever curious about tutoring, I highly recommend it. Seeing kids absorb and integrate information is a blast. Take that article and my own complaints with a grain of salt. Most kids are good and most parents, when the rubber meets the road, simply want to help their kids. However, I can tell you with all certainty that helping kids get A’s instead of B’s or helping them get higher SAT scores is far less worthwhile or rewarding than helping kids with bigger issues, like literacy or their GED.

Having prepared many kids for both the SAT and GED, I will take an interested GED student any day over an interested SAT student. The pay is lower and the barriers higher, but getting someone over that hump means so much more opportunity that the trade-off is worth it.

So who wants to join me in shaping the minds of our future leaders? Before you answer, let me assure you that there is work to be had in this market because I have had enough of it for now and will be focusing more of my time and attention on my photography business. The kids? The parents? The last-minute test preparation? You can have it all.

As a good photographer, I sought out the rally at the Chinese embassy on Connecticut Avenue today. In case you were driving by and were curious what all those people just south of the Woodley Park Metro were hollering about, it has to do with the rights and freedom of the Tibetan people. Tibet has been occupied by China since 1959 and has been subject to many violent instances, including what you have been reading about in the news recently.

Like I said, I figured there would be a big rally there, so I made my way down there and was snapping pictures of the crowd when I noticed that someone had thrown red paint at the embassy earlier. I crossed the street to get a few pictures of that and was approached by two uniformed Secret Service officers who informed me that I was not allowed to photograph the embassy or even be on that side of the street.

I have been through this before with other law enforcement officers. The difference this time was that the lady and her male partner were polite when they stopped me, even if they did lie about my rights.

I explained that I was on public property, it being a sidewalk, and that I was within my rights to be there and photograph the building. After about a minute of back-and-forth, they could see that I was not budging and after examining my press credentials, they determined that I really was a journalist, or perhaps that I simply knew my rights, and left me alone, but not without some huffing and puffing about crowd control. They were determined to have the last word, even if the words were ultimately empty.

Okay, I get that the police need to keep order and make sure that nobody does stupid stuff and to ensure that a peaceful rally like this does not turn violent, but to me, photography is not a very threatening activity. If there had been a “do not cross” tape set up, that would be different.

When are we going to learn that photographers are not the problem? When is the last time you were told by police that you weren’t allowed to take pictures of something or walk on a public sidewalk?

Photo: Secret Service Officer, Tibetan Independence Rally
Originally uploaded by carlweaver
See more photos of this event here.

I just got the most recent newsletter (PDF) from Derek Terrell at myLHBS and was thrilled to see that this month’s recipe was a Belgian Triple. This is a type of beer I have had on rare occasions and always enjoyed. Now that I know a recipe, I can darken the doorway of my favorite homebrew shop again to get some ingredients.The newsletter came just in time. I am going to bottle my current brew tomorrow morning and will soon have empty equipment. This is another Derek Terrell recipe - a hefeweizen similar to Blue Moon, if I did it right. I wasn’t sure how much orange peel and coriander to add to the boil, so I added the minimum Derek suggested, since he had given me a range. I wanted to avoid an overpowering flavor but definitely wanted hints of these flaovrs. I can’t wait to try it tomorrow, fresh from the fermenter.Are you a homebrewer? What do you like to make? Interested in homebrewing? There’s no better way to get beer than from your own stovetop, so go see Derek to learn about it or send me an email and maybe you can come by next time I brew a batch. Beer and photography really do go together well!Here is this month’s recipe, from Derek’s newsletter:

Triple ThreatOne of the really nice things about Belgian ales is their simplicity and the degree to which they can be altered by even minor changes to basic recipes such as this one. Triple Threat is one I brew when I’m in the mood for something Belgian yet also can’t settle on exactly what I want to make. Choose Clear Candi syrup for a Strong Golden, or opt for Amber for something akin to Ommegang’s Rare Vos (and maybe even spice it lightly for a Grand Cru). Either of the Dark syrups will brew up a rich Strong Dark Ale.

Read more

It’s a blog-eat-blog world out there, but we here at Metblogs love DCist and hope that they love us too (or at least really like us a lot).  To show our love for them and to help promote what is turning out to be a great showcase of local talent, I highly recommend that you join me in attending the opening of their 2nd Annual DCist Exposed Photography Show. From their press release:

The exhibit will showcase new talent as they reveal the city to us through the eyes of people who live and work in the D.C. metro area. In a city too often seen purely as a collection of federal government buildings or a destination for tourists, these photographers capture the local music, art, architecture, and urban surroundings that give Washington, D.C. its unique cultural vibrancy.

If you’re looking for a way to get into the local art scene and perhaps even start your very own collection, I can’t think of a better way to begin. Over 40 photographs will be on display and, dare I say, for sale at prices that may be a bargain one day when these photographers hit the big leagues. Regardless, this should be a fun, free event that should not be missed.

Friday March 7th, 7PM to 9PM
Civilian Art Projects
406 7th St NW (THIRD FLOOR)
Washington, DC 20004

Many of you know that I’m not one to toot my own horn (I’m sure Carl will leave a joke in the comments about that one), but I wanted to let you all know about an incredible photography show going on now at H&F Fine Arts. Curated by J.T. Kirkland, “black and white and…all over” features an eclectic mix of over 100 black and white photographs from experienced veterans as well as up and coming local photographers. From the press release (PDF):

To highlight the joint articulation of the various works, the identities
of individual artists will be subordinated; the price of each piece and the initials of its creator will be
presented on a brightly colored sticker meant to contrast with the dominant black and white palette.
With the names and reputations of the artists subtracted from the exhibition, the work of seasoned
veterans will hang alongside that of newcomers just finding their footing in the art world. The curator
challenges viewers to try and tell the difference while posing the question of whether the distinction is
even significant.

I took part in hanging the photos last weekend and was amazed by how different each artist is from one another and how amazing each piece is. In fact, if I was independently loaded, I would probably buy half of the photographs hanging in the exhibit. This show hosts quite a line up of photographers:

Erin Antognoli, James W. Bailey, Danny Conant, Max Cook, Stephen Crowley, Justin Hoffmann, Michael Dax Iacovone, Nick Jbara, Jane Jeffers, J.T. Kirkland, Angela Kleis, Prescott Lassman, Thomas Paradis, Aleksei Pechnikov, Susana Raab, Alexandra Silverthorne, Jim Tetro, Bryan Whitson, Lloyd Wolf

I invite you all to join me at the Artist’s Reception tomorrow, Saturday March 1st, from 5 to 8PM. The exhibit runs until March 29th, and please note that the gallery will be closed between March 21-25.

H&F Fine Arts
3311 Rhode Island Avenue
Mount Rainier, MD 20712

(Don’t let the Maryland address scare you - it’s about one block across the DC/MD border)