Category Archives: politics

my 30s: a look back

I turn 40 today. Frankly, it’s not a birthday that’s weighing on me like my 30th did – it’s just another day to me, this time around. But a lot has happened to me over the past decade, and since I’m feeling a bit put out by other things in life right now, I figured

choices & the fiscal cliff

I’m totally baffled by the tempest in a teapot that’s being stirred up by the media over the so-called “fiscal cliff.” Fueled mostly by conservative pundits and Tea Party sycophants, and aided by a complacent media, it seems that the average U.S. taxpayer should be in a state of panic. The thing is: yes, taxes

vote yes on no! (election 2012 live[ish]blog)

7:35pm Polls are closed in Virginia. Results from there are… forming. But I vote in DC. I arrived at my polling place at 7:02am ad found a queue of over 100 people waiting to cast ballots. And by 7:30am, I was done and out. Many ovals were filled with the standard golf pencil: Obama/Biden, Grosso,

random thursday rant

A few random thoughts about recent happenings in DC: I’m dismayed that the DC Council’s monthly breakfasts tend to be lavish affairs, especially when the Council is dealing with high levels of unemployment, corruption, and whatnot. Yesterday’s breakfast had a rather flashy spread, complete with individual glass bottles of Voss sparkling mineral water. This water

ten on tuesday: headlines from the year you were born

I’m not a regular player in the “Ten on Tuesday” game, but this week’s topic is a good one. So, just like Sarah, I plundered the Internet to find some tidbits of intrigue from my birth year. And, just like Sarah said, I don’t remember any of these things actually happening, though many of them

another angle on the tommy wells demotion

A quick thought about the whole, ill-advised shakeup within the DC Council that found Tommy Wells suddenly on the outs with Chairman Kwame Brown: Wells, in his role as Chair of the Transportation Committee on the Council, worked hard to improve transit infrastructure throughout DC. In particular, he worked had via his (now former) position

things i used to love

A post on NPR’s All Songs Considered blog has me thinking about things I used to love (or, at the very least, like) but don’t anymore. The NPR post speaks specifically of bands, and I’ll start with that. U2. This is a tough one for me, because I really like U2′s music. But I have

why dc doesn’t need udc

On today’s Kojo Nnamdi Show, Tom Sherwood called the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) a “backwater school.” This didn’t go over well with some of DC’s old guard politicos. One of them, Eugene Kinlow, demanded (via Twitter) that Sherwood apologize and then said the following: “Educating people who might be the first in

can we just send the committee of 100 out to sea?

Seriously, that the Committee of 100 has influence on DC politics is frightening. They wield power over old-school DC politicians in a way that drags the District and its citizens down by the balls, advocating governmental moves that would hurt the city and its potential for future growth and livability. Here’s how they describe themselves:

“Socialist!”

That’s what was yelled at me as I sat at a traffic light near Union Station last Friday. I’d just dropped off sprite an an hour too early for either of us. Our car bears only one bumper sticker: a circa 2004 “Dean for America” badge. And one recently-arrived member of Glenn Beck’s idiot zombie