Fenty's Alter Egos

In the wake of Vincent Gray's victory over Adrian Fenty, we are starting to see blackberries show up on Craig's List for sale, and people are wondering who's going to stay and who's going to go.

The name that comes to most people's mind is Michelle Rhee, the hard-nosed, controversial school chancellor who was the centerpiece of Fenty's reform efforts. Few expect she'll be sticking around, since she pretty much said that as far as Fenty's concerned, she's made out of glue. But anything's possible.

In order to better understand the personalities, I've delved into their alter-egos in the hopes that we might reach some clarity on how these people might fit in with a Gray administration... or not.

Michelle Rhee: Ozzy Osbourne



Michelle Rhee has been about as divisive as a meat cleaver. Some people have lauded her as the second coming of Christ and the savior of a dysfunctional school system. Others think that she's the devil incarnate, and that her reforms are coming at too high a cost. We're not here to debate her effectiveness. We're here to figure out who she really is.

The Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne, fits the bill perfectly. He takes no prisoners, eats his young, and is batshit crazy. The trademark of his career, like Rhee, has been "reform," though in his case, that reform had more to do with the Betty Ford Clinic than the public school institution. Both have been sued and both have legions of ardent fans and rabid foes. Both have been the subject of movies, though I think that "The Decline Of Western Civiliation Part II: The Metal Years" will have a more enduring legacy than "Waiting for Superman."

The verdict for the Princess of Darkness? Leaving on the first crazy train. There's no way Gray would keep around someone who bites the head off bats.

Cathy Lanier: Sarah Connor

Police Chief Cathy Lanier has done pretty well for herself. Of course, that's not too hard when you replace someone like Charles Ramsey, best known for beating up and hog-tying about 400 hippies having a sit-in at Pershing Park.

Lanier's tenure has been marked by some high-profile, if publicity-stunt-like efforts to fight crime, such as All Hands On Deck, and the Trinidad checkpoints, since found unconstitutional. But through it all there's been a dramatic drop in crime. Never mind that it precisely matches the national trend.

Sarah Connor, similarly, tirelessley fights for the future of mankind, even as that effort often requires some rather unfortunate violations of due process and legality to get the job done. After all, the she knows the future that awaits us: the world will be taken over by machines. The lives of a lot of innocent people along the way are of little consequence, since without her heroic efforts, they'll all be dead in a few years anyway.

The verdict: stays on to fight the terminators. The phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range will become the standard issue service weapon in 2012.

Gabe Klein: Curly

"What is this you're doing?" "The elevator dance." "Elevator dance?" "Yeah, there's no steps to it." -- from The Three Stooges, "Soup to Nuts", 1930

The DDOT director's name is probably known to far fewer than the previous two, but he's made a reputation for himself nonetheless. A tireless advocate of cycling and alternative transit, he's been responsible for the bike-laneification of DC, pushed forward on the streetcar project, brought us bike sharing, and also installed a lot of speed bumps. In many ways, he took a conventional city and turned it into something of a 3-ring circus. There are all kinds of crazy parking meter machines everywhere, a new bicycle traffic light that is, er, interesting, and something called a barnes dance in chinatown that lets people walk willy-nilly through a busy intersection, to name a few.

Progress? Well, it's different, anyway. Gabe's nothing if not willing to give stuff a shot. Like Curly, he's got all kinds of wacky ideas, and unbridled enthusiasm. To the outsider, it may look like he doesn't know what he's doing, but still, things seem to work out for him. Mostly.

The verdict? Stays, though may need to buy a new suit. Gray's been a transit advocate, and even though Gabe might look like a hipster on his way to an interactive art show opening, he's not doing an awful job. He's also been smart enough to keep out of the fray, so there's no real public sentiment either for or against him.

And with that, our final contestant.

Peter Nickles: Gollum

You know, this one was just too easy. Little love will be lost on Fenty's much loathed Attorney General. The man, in a role that supposedly represents an oversight of the DC government, has blatantly polticized this role, literally campaigning for the mayor. He's defended corruption, and he's stonewalled Federal courts.

Like Gollum, it's not clear where he lives: is it in a cave in Chinatown, or down near the Great Falls in the Mines of Moria? He always seems to pop up when he's not wanted, and when you really need him, he promises to help you, but ends up screwing you and trying to steal your ring.

Verdict: Will grab a pile of gold, run, cackling, away from DC, and trip and fall into a volcanic vent on his way out.

Electageddon: Can You Eat Sausage?

Vincent Gray, and alter ego Vincent Price. Courtesy of DCist.

Adrian Fenty, and alter egos Frank Capone, and Zorro. I am not
making any kind of statement with these pictures, just sayin'.

The day is upon us, when we must choose our fate. A referendum on our future awaits us at the polls. Few people are voting with unbridled enthusiasm. Indeed, few can forgive the mayor for his many missteps, but well, "the devil you know." People fear that Gray is symoblic of a return to times past.

Fenty: Hero to some, Gangster to others

We like the direction the city has come in recent times, but we don't like the way that Fenty has gotten us there. Some feel that when things reach a breaking point, the ends justify the means. Should we be willing to look the other way, ignore what's behind the curtain, as long as things seem to be on the right track? Should we live with vigilante rule, as long as the girl seems to be getting saved?

So some are choosing to "hold their noses" and vote for Fenty, a phrase that comes up often enough that I'm now starting to understand the stink in my neighborhood. I thought it was the hobos.

Gray: Gray

Others are choosing to wander into a "Gray" area and put their faith in a man who, while by all accounts is intelligent, honest, and inclusive, may not have the cajones to get things done the way Fenty has. We think we like him, but he's a bit of a mystery. He's intriguing yet unknown.

How to resolve this impossible dilemma?

You must ask yourself how much you worry about that soylent green we've been eating. Sure, it tastes pretty good, and it keeps us all going, but what the hell is that stuff made of? Should we be asking more questions, or, is ignorance bliss? Are there terrible truths behind the curtain? Or, is our fear of the unknown, life without soylent green, greater than our fear of the ingredients?

It is an age old question of what cost success. Can we stand by while things that make us cringe keep happening, because we like the results? Or, will we reject that paradigm and demand to see the inside of the sausage factory - knowing full well that we might not be able to stomach sausage any more once we see it being made.

That is the vote before you. Choose your meal. But whatever you choose, go vote, because regardless of what Rush (the band, not the blowhard) might have you believe, if you choose not to decide, you have NOT made a choice: you've let someone else make it for you.

Decision '10: What the Cluck?

Things are starting to heat up in DC with the race to the bottom for mayor. Don Peebles, the great white hope, except he's black, has finally decided not to run. Or has he? Honestly, it's entirely unclear. But despite his waffling over the very issue of his candidacy for going on a year now, he still remains a powerful, alluring figure. He's from DC, he's rich, he's disgusted with Fenty, and unlike Vincent Gray, he has a personality.

Unfortunately, he still lives in Florida and doesn't appear to be running. I'll probably vote for him anyway.

The Actual Candidates

Despite Peeble's irresistable appeal, most people are concentrating on the decision between incumbent Adrian Fenty and Vincent Gray, as Vermin Supreme has not yet announced his candidacy.

Arguments in favor of Fenty include:

• he's not Marion Barry,


• everyone feels safer than they did 3 years ago, except the people who left Arlington and bought their first house in Trinidad,


• has succeeded in having a term coined with his name: "fenty field" (def: a spectacular, fabulously expensive sporting facility made of high-tech, washable turf that is installed outside a decrepit, barely functioning public school, bearing the mayor's name)


• doesn't let arrogant celebrities like Dorothy Height and Maya Angelou bully him into meeting with them, and successfuly outlived Dorothy Height, too.


• successfully appointed close friends to most agency head positions as well as the Attorney General, ensuring that his agenda can be implemented without any pesky obstructions or "checks and balances."

Arguments in favor of Vincent Gray include:

• he's not Marion Barry, and


• he's not Adrian Fenty.

Beak It Down For Me

For me, this is a difficult decision, because one crucial piece of information on the candidates' platforms remains a mystery.

Where do Fenty and Gray stand on chicken ownership?

Councilmember Tommy Wells forever endeared himself to me by coming forth last year in favor of easing restrictions on chicken ownership in DC. Neither Fenty nor Gray has distinguished themselves in any meaningful way on this issue.

Fenty is running almost entirely on a platform of taking credit for all the development projects conceived and begun during the Anthony Williams administration, as well as the reduction in crime that nearly every American city has seen.

Meanwhile, Gray has countered by clearly identifying himself as a man who is absolutely, positively not Adrian Fenty. Though we still have not seen the birth certificate... could it be that Gray is Kenyan? Wait... Fenty grew up on Kenyon Street... which sounds like Kenyan Street... could Fenty also be Kenyan? Hmmm....

I, for one, will support the candidate that pledges to ease the unconstitutional restrictions on chicken ownership. And is not a Kenyan citizen. Though this may make me a single-issue voter, it could be the only substantive difference between Fenty and Gray's platforms. Without this distinction, their campaigns are a yolk. Should either candidate decide to take a stand... or even a roost, we will have a race. Until then, things look pretty beak.

Don't chicken out. Don't lower your eggspectations. Demand a farm-fresh perspective. Vote chicken rights!

Big Business, Soda & Corn Subsidies

Someone posted and deleted a comment to my last post about the soda tax. I won't identify them, because obviously they chose to retract their comment, but I did want to respond to it because I don't think it's an uncommon reaction to this kind of position:

"The American Beverage Association, and its simulated grassroots spinoffs that have been set up to oppose this, thank you for your time and effort on their behalf. "

In opposing the beverage tax, I want to make a couple things clear.

I realize that the soda industry, like almost every other industry (such as the snack food, alcohol, automobile, oil, hemp, solar power, and gastroenterology industries) has an association and a lobby, and spends lots of money to promote its agenda. Of course, the bigger the industry, the bigger their lobby. But if we were proposing a tax on something that hardly anyone ever bought, would anyone really care?

If I based my positions simply in opposition to those of big business, would I be any more a thinking person? The fact that a big company happens to have financial incentives to take a particular position, is not a good enough reason to oppose it.

I also realize that corn production is subsidized in this country. Actually, it is the most heavily subsidized agribusiness by far, to the tune of something like $4 billion a year.

I am not in favor of this. While the DC government is not the Federal Government, I hope that the irony of a country that subsidizes production of corn syrup, and then at a local level taxes the same, is not lost.

Oh, the humanity.

This blog discusses this irony, noting that President Obama himself has suggested exploring a soda tax. Wait, the president wants a soda tax, even though we subsidize high-fructose corn syrup? *shakes head* Something is wrong here.

Even if I thought that the best way to deal with a ridiculous situation where our Federal government is complicit in the production of cheap soda was to tax it at the other end, which I do not, the tax being proposed is far higher than the subsidy. From the blog above, the Joint Committee on Taxation calculated that a 3-cent tax on each 12-ounce sugared soda would raise $51.6 billion over a decade, about $5 billion a year.

That means that a tax of 1/4 of a penny per ounce would raise about the same amount of money that is spent annually on corn subsidies. From grist, we learn that only 3.5% of all corn in this country ends up as corn syrup. Multiplying that 4 billion annual subsidy by 3.5 percent, we get a figure out about $140 million a year going to subsidize soda production - assuming that every single drop of corn syrup ends up in a can of soda. Which obviously it does not.

This means that a tax of a penny per ounce equates to about 142 times the amount of the Federal subsidy on high-fructose corn syrup.

I am against taxing soda (or any non-"sin" item) at an excessively high rate.

Soda, unlike cigarettes and alcohol, does not have any inherently illness-causing ingredients. Ironically, the only soda ingredient that has been proven to cause cancer, like both cigarettes and alcohol can, is artificial sweeteners, yet diet sodas are excluded specifically from this tax.

If you think sugar is a luxury, inherently bad, and not necessary for human survival, such as alochol and cigarettes are, then tax all sugar. Or tax all food, since soda only accounts for 11% of the calories estimated to be consumed by most people.

My positions today, as always, are based on my own opinion. Because almost every industry has a lobby, if that position happens to be against taxing something that I also am against taxing, then by gosh I guess I'm going to be on the same side as whatever industry it is being taxed.

Mary Cheh's Soda Myth

Counclimember Mary Cheh's web site touts 10 myths about DC's proposed soda tax.

Unfortunately, all she does is what politicians do best: spin. Let's take on a few of her myths. But before we begin, let's address the big white elephant in the room that the soda-tax proponents never seem to remember.

DC is proposing a soda tax more than ten times higher than our beer tax, more than four times higher than our wine tax, and barely lower than our hard liquor tax.

DC's alcohol tax rates are 9 cents per gallon of beer (or 7/100 of a cent per ounce), 30 cents per gallon of wine, and $1.50 per gallon of liquor. The soda tax of 1 cent per ounce is equivalent to $1.28 per gallon.

If this tax passes, it will really mean just one thing: the liquor lobby is stronger than the soda lobby. I can think of no greater irony in a city with a massive alcohol abuse problem than taxing soda at a rate over ten times higher than beer.

But on to Mary's Myths.

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Supposed Myth: The soda tax would tax ALL beverages.
Mary's Myth: Only sugar-sweetened bottled beverages would be taxed. Diet soda, non-caloric beverages, milk, juice, and water would be excluded.

---

Remember back in 1776 where we got fed up
with them stupid kings taxing our cup of tea?
I guess those who forget their history
are doomed to repeat it.

First of all, that's incorrect from the outset, since most beverages are sweetened with corn syrup, not sugar.

Second, the legislation only excludes drinks that are more than 70% juice by volume. Have you ever looked at the actual juice content of a bottle of fruit juice? Unless you're buying orange or apple juice, it's probably under 30%. Many juices are way too strong to drink straight. Ironically, those that are frequently considered the most healthful (like pomegranate and cranberry) are in this category.

Finally, this tax (draft legislation) covers all beverages except those specifically excluded. It includes coffee and tea if a sweetener is added at the point of sale.

That's right. They finally did it.

They taxed our cup of tea.

Think about that last one for a minute, by the way. Coffee and tea are taxed if sweetener is added at the point of sale. Do any coffee shops actually ask you if you want sugar in it, rather than you putting it in yourself? So basically Starbucks will start charging you 20 cents for a pack of sugar, possibly making DC the only place in America where a cup of drip coffee could cost you over $3.00.

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Supposed Myth: A soda tax would send grocery sales to Maryland and Virginia.
Mary's Myth: Because soda taxes cause consumers to substitute goods, residents would continue to purchase groceries in the District. Funds raised by the soda tax would build more grocery stores and bring more business to the District.

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Well, that is really quite an astounding presumption. Unlike "plastic bags," where you can easily substiute something just as functional, most people won't suddenly decide they prefer Diet Coke or seltzer water to Coke because of a tax.

Personally, I think sugar is a lot better for you than artifical sweeteners that have been proven to cause cancer, too, but that's just me.

Luckily, we just had a test case for this exact situation, involving a product with no substitute. DC raised it's cigarette tax by 50 cents per pack in October, making it the highest in the region. In FY2009, DC earned $37.6 million in revenues from smoke tax. They projected $45M when they raised the tax, obviously unaware that consumers tend to buy things where they are cheaper when it's just as easy to do that.

On Feb. 24, the CFO announced that cigarette tax revenues were (shocker) significantly off and they were revising the revenue projection to $30M, $7 million less than before the tax.

DC is 65 square miles, and has a border about 30 miles long. This means that probably about half of all DC residents even live within a mile of the border of VA or MD, and tons of them work there too. Now I'm no rocket scientist, but I'm guessing it's pretty damn easy for a large part of DC residents to choose to shop in Maryland or Virgina.

I'm guessing that the 50 cent tax didn't actually cause a 50 percent drop in smoking in DC, and that the money's just going to our neighbors instead.

Given that the soda tax is pretty substantial, I mean, we're talking 64 cents for a single 2-liter bottle of soda, or $2.88 for a case of cans, you don't think there's any reason this would drive business out of DC?

But Maryland and Virginia also tax soda don't they?

Yes, they do.


Maryland taxes soda at a rate of 6%.
Virginia’s rate is 1.5%

For a 99-cent bottle of Rock Creek Soda, DC's proposed tax rate is about 65 percent.

Say that again.

Sixty Five Per Cent.

I will leave you now, and return to some more of Mary's Myths later.

At Least We've Got The "Taxation" Part Down

The District of Columbia is the only place in the United States where U.S. citizens are expected to pay Federal taxes, yet have no congressional representation. That this is bad, is something that I think every D.C. resident can agree upon.

Life is nothing if not filled with ironies. D.C. is also one of the most heavily-taxed places to live in the United States. In 2008, DC ranked 8th among all U.S. "states" in overall local tax burden, according to the Tax Foundation.

Not satistfied with that rank, though, DC is pondering the list of things that currently are not taxed. The first one is a tax on soda, with the idea being that we can make money at the same time as discouraging unhealthy beverage drinking habits.

Ironically, this is at the same time as a tax on yoga and health club memberships is being considered.

The soda tax being proposed is 1 cent per ounce of soda.

Let me put that in perspective.

Two-liter bottle of soda: 65 cents.
Six pack of coke: 72 cents.
Case of coke: $2.88

How much does a two-liter bottle of soda usually cost? Maybe $1.69 if it's a brand-name. $0.99 if it's Rock Creek or whatever. This will nearly double the cost of a bottle of cheap soda.

A case of cheap soda, or even name-brand soda on sale or at a place like Costco, is usually around $6 or $7. This will add 50 percent to that cost in DC.

Our tax on beer is 9 cents per gallon, or .07 cents per ounce. 7/100 of one cent per ounce! We're going to tax soda at more than ten times the rate of BEER?

Each new tax we add, especially those that directly affect your grocery bill, increases the chance that people will say "enough is enough" and, at the margin, choose to shop outside DC. In the long run, these insults affect people's decisions about where to live. And in DC, you have two other easy choices.

What is healthy living?

Anyone who hasn't lived under a rock knows that just about every single food product on Earth has been both praised and vilified over the years. Carbohydrates? Bad. Let's tax flour. Fish? Lots of mercury, bad. Fat? Bad. Let's tax butter. Oil? Bad. Salt? Bad. Potatoes? Bad.

Food choices are a lifestyle decision. You know what other things affect your overall health?

How much you exercise. Where you live. What kind of job you have. What your recreational activities are. Who your parents are.

Everything IS BAD. There is nothing that won't kill you. But the impact that anything has on you is not directly related to that product -- it's related to your lifestyle. When I was running marathons, I ate unbelievable amounts of sugar, carbohytrates, and greasy food. And my cholesterol and body fat counts were enviable. Probably not so much any more... but I blame my broken foot for that. Of course, that injury is also related to running, so obviously we should tax exercise! Oh yeah... we're thinking about that, with the yoga and health club taxes.

You can't make everyone pay back society in the exact propotions to the risks of their activities. Besides which, your genetics may have a lot more to do with your overall risk than anything else.

We are on a dangerous path towards taxing things that the current fad says is bad for you. Are we really ready to put a tax on flour? Because this doctor says that "full elimination of grains" is the only way to ensure heart health.

Obviously, it's time to start taxing dirt, because everything that grows from it will kill you.

Fenty Gives The Finger to The Anacostia

Adrian Fenty, our esteemed mayor, is trying to appropriate the revenue from the bag tax to go to the general fund.

Shocker.

To quote myself, July 8, 2009:

"The chances of the revenue from this actually going to clean up the Anacostia river, instead of paying for trips to Dubai and fur coats for OTR employees, is probably about zero. Do you really think that this "fund" will go to pick up trash in the river when we can't make the annual budget ends meet? Yeah, right."

As my numerous rants on the subject should make painfully clear, getting rid of bags might help a little, but what the river really needs is money. Goodbye, money.

How come if we have a bag tax, we're still left holding the bag?

DC Clarifies Bag Tax, Saves Planet

In response to confusion about the bag tax, DC has posted this "notice of proposed rulemaking."

It is 9 pages of single-spaced type which supposedly clarifies exactly who is subject to the bag tax. I couldn't make head or tails of it. And beyond that, I am completely unclear on what this thing even is. Didn't we already pass a law?

Yes, we did. Apparently, though, nobody could understand it, so we need to pass another law to clarify the orignal law. This "notice of proposed rulemaking" is open for comments until March 5, 2010. Comments can be emailed to Marylynn Wilhere. I plan to do so, if I can figure out what exactly is being proposed.

So now that we have the bag tax, has the apocalypse come?

Where the hell have you been? Yes, it has! Obviously the bag tax is responsible for the two weeks of hell we've endured under the yoke of endless snow. The nation's first plastic bag tax just happens to coincide with the worst snowstorm in DC history. Coincidence? I think not.

Okay, well, maybe it is just a coincidence. But the bag tax has certainly generated a lot of attention. Not just in DC, but from outside. Attention from other cities who are wondering if this is an easy, politically correct way for them to make some cash. Attention from economists who are marveling at the social experiment that this tax represents. In many ways, even though I oppose the tax, I think I've actually been enjoying it from this perspective. How will the reality of its effects match my predictions? How much will people cut of their own noses to spite their face over this tax?

The Post did an online poll last month asking people how they felt about the tax. There were three choices: strongly oppose, strongly favor, or mostly indifferent. Only one percent of the 2,200 respondents chose the "indifferent" option. And everyone else was pretty much evenly split among loving and hating it.

This is really remarkable. I can think of very few social issues which generate such strong opinions. I mean, this is like abortion or gay rights as far as the conviction with which people choose a side. And over a freakin' 5 cent tax on plastic bags! How could this possibly inspire people to drive miles out of their way to avoid it? This interesting article discusses some of these quite unexpected effects and describes the tax as a "behavioral economist's dream."

The other thing that I think is worth noting about the very unscientific Washington Post poll is that it more or less proves that the tax is unpopular. That is - even though the poll respondents were evenly split, the demographics of someone who reads the Post online and responds to a poll like this is very different than the demographics of DC overall. The average online WaPo reader is almost certainly more tech-savvy and "green" than the average DC resident overall. Poorer people are much less likely to have internet access or to participate in this sort of online community. I think it's safe to say that the strongest support for this tax is among young, progressive, people -- a demographic that is almost certainly overrerpresented by an online poll.

With Every Challenge Comes An Opportunity

As soon as my foot is better, I plan to take advantage of the obvious loophole afforded by this law. While it prevents stores from giving away bags at checkout, obviously, you can't make it illegal to sell bags. You will see me, or one of my army of minions, selling "go-packs" of 10 plastic bags outside Giant for 25 cents.

I'm only half kidding. I'm kind of surprised that the supermarket chains don't just give DC the finger by offering for sale 10 or 20 packs of bags at the checkout. It would be perfectly legal, and any effort to prevent such sales would be pretty tough to legislate, unless you were planning to ban plastic bags from being sold, period. Good luck with that.

But what's interesting is that, actually, five cents for a plastic bag is not a terrible deal. In quantities of 1,000, these bags are around 3.5 cents each. Biodegradable plastic bags are 7 cents each! While I am sure someone like Giant who buys millions of these things is getting a better deal, at the end of the day, 5 cents is actually a pretty reasonable retail price for a supermarket bag. In order to have any kind of decent profit margin selling these things on the street to undercut the tax, you'd have to buy them in vast quantities. I must admit that I assumed they would be a lot less expensive, like on the order of a penny each.

Okay, so maybe I'm not quite ready to put the folding table up and fight for space with the shady guys selling incense and handheld-video copies of "Avatar 3D." But I really, honestly do use these bags all the time for picking up trash. The tax has already created a serious dearth of these things in my household.

But luckily, I have someone looking out for me. Someone who the architects of the law will despise, because barely six weeks into the law, she has reacted to it in the most obivous, yet despicable way.

For Valentine's Day, N. gave me a 1,000 pack of disposable supermarket bags.

2010: Bagging Plastic To Spite Our Face

We implemented the bag tax in DC. As expected, it's resulted in a dramatic dropoff in the number of plastic bags people use at the supermarket. Supposedly this is going to help the Anacostia.

The great irony of this tax is that the more effective it is at changing consumer behavaior regarding supermarket bags, the less effective it will be at cleaning up the Anacostia.

DC projected $3.55 million from this tax in 2010, and slightly less ($3 million) in 2011. The figured drops off dramatically from there. I am not sure how they came up with this math - e.g. why people would suddely, two years into the tax, start paying for the bags half as often. Almost everyone I know changed their behavior pretty much immediately.

But lets look at a few other figures too.

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Supermarket plastic bags used annually in the U.S.: 100 billion.*
Population of the U.S.: 305 million
Bags used per person per year (est): 327

---

Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Well...

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Gallons of oil consumed annually in the U.S.: 318 billion
Gallons of oil needed to make 100 billion bags: 500 million
Percentage of U.S.'s oil consumption used on supermarket bags: 1.57%
Gallons of oil used per person per year on plastic bags: 1.6 gallons

---

That's right. 1.6 gallons.

Let's assume that the numbers I got are low estimates, since they were from the Wall Street Journal (even though they were cited by a bag-recycling web site.)

Let's quadruple them. Now you have 6.4 gallons per year.

How many gallons of gas do you use every week? How much energy do you use to heat and cool your house, and power your TV so you can watch "Real World DC?" Trust me. It's far more than that every week.

Okay, well we need money to clean up the Anacostia. What about the revenue?

Let's look at some basic figures for a minute.

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Population of DC: 600,000
Bags used per year in DC @ 327 per person: 196 million
Total potential annual revenue from the bag tax, if nobody stopped using plastic bags: @ 3.5 cents per bag**: 6.8 million
DC's estimate for years 1 and 2: 3.5 million and $3 million

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Does anyone else think that DC's estimates are, er, a bit optimistic? Like absolute fantasy? That would mean that the tax resulted in only a 50% reduction in bag use.

Have you guys been to a supermarket since January 1st? Nobody's paying the tax.

I see a lot of bottles and cans. Not so many bags.

Further, the "per person per year" estimates of carryout bag use include all the bags that are not subject to the tax, that is, from establishments that don't sell food. Like Home Depot and Marshall's. And any place that doesn't have sitdown seating is also not subject, like crappy chinese carryout places.

My estimate is that bag use is reduced by 80-85% in the first year. My estimate for the revenue from this tax is under $1 million in the first year.

OK, so we're not going to save the planet by banning bags, and there probably won't be a lot of cash coming in either. But woo hoo, 80% less trash, right?

As readers of my blog know, I hate trash. I pick it up from my street every day when I walk my dog. I am an environmentalist. I would like nothing more than to see some kind of useful legislation passed to help trash and the environment - like a bottle bill. I am personally, intimately familiar with exactly what kind of trash ends up on the streets of DC, and consequently, in the river.

So what I can't help wondering is, have these people who want to save the river ever looked at it? Do they live in DC? Do they have any concept of the kinds of trash that are produced in this town?

This NRDC blog post which is, ironically, a love-fest for the DC bag tax, has several choice pictures of the Anacostia. One of them is reproduced above.

Please take a look at those pictures and tell me, honestly, what difference you think there will be because there are 80% fewer plastic bags being handed out at Safeway. Mind you, Eddie Leonard's Chinese Carryout will still be giving plastic bags, and certainly everyone drinking their Schlitz Malt Liqour on the sidewalk will still be buying one for 5 cents. I am pretty sure that the segment of the population that tosses their 24 ounce can-in-bag on the sidewalk after conusmption will not be bringing their own canvas bag to the liquor store.

I can see, I am pretty sure, a single plastic bag in all four of the pictures on that blog post. On the other hand, I see an unbelievable number of bottles, cans, paper, tires, whatever. Basically, everything BUT plastic bags.

That's because plastic bags are a tiny portion of the trash we produce.

The people who want to clean up the Anacostia know this. But their goal was to get an appropriation of money that went directly to their cause, not to reduce trash. Unfortunately, it is almost certain that they will get neither, but the residents of DC will get a really inconvenient and regressive tax.

I want to clean up the Anacostia. The right way to do this is to figure out how much it would cost to clean and maintain the river, and appropriate it from the general fund. This means we all pay our fair share, and it gets done.

I also want to improve the overall trash situation in DC. I want nothing more. I am an anti-trash crusader. But every day, when I pick up trash, you know what I see? Bottles and cans. The only plastic bags I ever see contain carryout restaurant trash, which won't be taxed, and liquor bottles, which certainly won't go away.

If we want to solve trash in this city, and the Anacsotia, we need a bottle bill. It has worked almost overnight in every place it's been implemented. Even as some people don't change their habits, others are happy to clean up the world for 5 or 10 cents a bottle. It's such a no-brainer.

But it takes more work than a bag tax. On the other hand, it will also do something. But around here everyone is so selfishly focused on their cause that they are willing sacrifice the greater good for a short-term benefit to their single cause. The so-called environmentalists who got this thing passed should be ashamed of themselves. There is already a great deal of backlash in the blog and media from people who think the tax is stupid, and complain because now they have to buy bags to replace the ones that used to be free. The ones we used for dog crap and trash and so on. Oh yeah - and trash bags you buy are made with about 5 to 10 times as much oil as a typical supermarket bag. How awesome for the environment is that?

So at the end of the day, we have a tax that will almost certainly raise very little money, inconvenience and annoy many, and have little or no impact on trash.

But we also lost something very valuable: goodwill. If we ever had a chance of passing a bottle bill in the near future, we wasted that political capital on this bag tax. Imagine what all those people who hate the bag tax will say when you try to convince them to return their bottles? Probably, "enough is enough."

So thanks, so-called environmentalists, for selfishly taking an opportunity to make some real change, and squandering it for your narrowly focused cause.

Myself, I'll still be picking up trash every day just as always, except I'll be paying for the bags to pick it up with now. The Anaocostia will probably look pretty much the same, and we've lost any chance at a bottle bill.





*Source: The Wall Street Journal (via reusablebags.com)

** The bag tax is 4 cents per bag, or 3 cents per bag if a business offers a reusable bag credit. 1 cent of the 5 cent tax goes directly to the business and is not paid to DC. I split the difference for this estimate.

... and the "pre-teens" are here.

That's our new word for the era. Yes, it's almost as bad as the "naughties," but I like it a little better than the "tweens." It's only for three years, or even less, if the world ends in 2012 as expected, so deal with it.

It's now 13 days into the pre-teens, and so far, 2010 reminds me very little of the sequel to "2001: A Space Odyssey," and very much of riding in the back of a pickup truck in Alaska. The thermometer has barely nudged above 30 since the new year. As I've become accustomed to a week of 60 or 70 degree weather in the middle of winter every year in DC, this is quite disturbing.

In the last thirteen days, some important things have taken place.

DC's 5 cent bag tax has taken effect. This has caused a few nut jobs to swear they will drive 3,000 miles through rebel-controlled Nicaragua in their hummer armed with nothing but a fly-swatter to obtain mangoes before they will pay one red cent in tax for a bag. Personally, I think that tax is stupid and won't ultimately make much difference in terms of trash and environmental harm, but at the same time I really doubt it's going to seriously affect business. That guy notwithstanding.

I can't believe Andrew couldn't
even score with this Herpes Triangle
skank. He is definitely gay.

The Real World DC hits the airwaves. While this show has about as much in common with the real world as elephants do with jellyfish, the DC setting, even if narrowly focused on Dupont Circle and Georgetown, makes it kind of entertaining. I've never been a huge fan of reality shows. Actually, that's an understatement. I loathe them with a passion. Yet in the last week I've watched both RWDC and the American Idol tryouts. I expect I'll be watching Teen Mom and Hoarders soon. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, I guess.

Sarah Palin gets a gig on Fox News! In a bid to improve their credibility, Fox has retained Sarah Palin in a mushy kind of contract to appear as a political commentator. In her first public appearance since this announcement, we get a taste of what's to come as Bill O'Reilly asked her if she'd seen the lastest "60 Minutes" in which former McCain strategist talked about her shenanigans on the campaign trail. Palin's response?

"Yes, that surprised me," Palin said tonight. "I hadn't seen the '60 Minutes" thing.' I had been warned, you know, don't watch. It's a bunch of B.S. from [Steve] Schmidt and from some of those."

We've got a lot to look forward to, folks. The only question is, will The Daily Show need to be extended to a full hour to allow for enough time to fully mock Palin's performances?

Petunias and Potatoes are "murderous meat-eaters." Add spuds to the list of things that PETA will be boycotting, as it has been demonstrated that these nefarious tubers are carniverous. I am not kidding. They eat flies.

That last one actually happened in December 2009. But it was important enough that I felt everyone should know.

Columbia Heights has come a long way, but...

Last Friday, Petula Dvorak, the metro columnist for the Washington Post, published this article entitled "Columbia Heights still has far to go." The piece is a dismal portrayal of the neighborhood that is my home from the perspective of two poor neighborhood residents.

The article left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Because I am really not sure what the point is. It seemed to say that despite the incredible changes that we've seen in the last few years, for the "have nots" in Columbia Heights, life is just as bad, and there's no hope. It casts Columbia Heights as a place where the gentrifiers gleefuly dance around in our new parks and malls while the long-time poor residents are still just poor and desperate.

Today, a new resident responded with a letter to the editor rebutting her characterization of the neighborhood. I wish that I had taken the time to write to The Post, because unfortunately, this response is in many ways just as bad as the original piece.

The author writes:

...As for criminals lurking in the shadows waiting to prey on immigrants carrying wads of cash, I could not help but chuckle as I thought about my own experience. I am often out after dark in professional attire or jeans and shirts appropriate for someone in their mid-20s going to a bar. To anyone looking, it is clear that I carry a Blackberry and an iPod, not to mention a wallet and a rather unthreatening stature. Yet, I have never felt uncomfortable or at risk of being accosted.

To this, I can only say, are you out of your mind? I am, frankly, dumbfounded that anyone would choose to move to Columbia Heights without so much as looking at a crime report. As much as Ms. Dvorak's portrayal of the neighborhood is absurdly one-sided and bleak, this response is just as idiotic in its ignorance of the reality of life in the city.

Crime exists in Columbia Heights. When Target/DCUSA opened, the poor did not magically become wealthy. Nor did they disappear. Their lives went on, just like everyone else's. And with poverty comes crime.

Ms. Dvorak paints an absurdly dismal picture of the effects of the development on the most desperate. Without a doubt, the availability of Target, Giant, and many other stores and services that did not exist a few years ago has benefitted everyone -- especially the poorest, who probably do not own cars. Shopping for basic necessities of life would have meant a trip on public transit to who knows where. I seriously doubt that anyone would say they preferred NOT being able to walk to Target and Giant. This has brought convenience, basic services, and jobs to the neighborhood.

But the author of the letter I quote above seems equally ignorant of the reality of life in an inner-city neighborhood. Crime happens. You can never forget that.

I love Columbia Heights. I can think of nowhere else I'd rather live in DC. But I never forget that safety cannot be taken for granted. I don't think it's unsafe here, but I certainly wouldn't walk around late at night advertising my iPod to anyone who happened to see me. At least, if I wanted to keep my iPod. I wouldn't do that anywhere in DC, frankly, becase that's just plain stupid.

Ms. Dvorak's piece is, at best, a misleading and badly-researched article with a hyper-narrow focus, and at worst, gentrification-hating and fear-mongering. While her point still eludes me despite discussing and thinking about it several days later, she's right about one thing: there are, apparently, some people in the nieghborhood who are totally unaware that all is not completely right here. At the same time, the vast majority of people who live here do not live in fear. We love our home and community, and there is certainly hope for the future.

The development has brought many positive changes to the neighborhood, especially for the poorest residents. But it's still new. This place is truly a grand experiment. I can think of nowhere else that's had such a dramatic transformation in such a short time. The fact that there are still many problems is hardly a surprise. But so far, there are many positive signs. The Target is the first-of-its-kind store: a big-box plunked in the middle of a walking community. You know what? It works. It offers amazing convenience without requiring a drive to the suburbs. It keeps people in the neighborhood and out of cars. It saves time and money.

But social problems don't disappear overnight. No amount of development, no matter how big and shiny and new, can make poverty magically vanish. We have a long way to go, sure. But we've come a very long way, too. Just because our problems haven't gone away completely doesn't mean we shouldn't recognize the positive things that we have accomplished and keep working to make things even better.

Teachers: You Could Learn A Thing Or Two

"Old teachers are the ones who stuck around when the buildings were falling down. When there wasn't no money."

-- Speaker (presumably, a teacher) at last night's protest against Michelle Rhee's proposed DCPS layoffs

Let me state unequivocally that I do not agree with Michelle Rhee's policy. She hired approximately 900 new teachers over the summer, and recently announced plans to lay off hundreds more by September 30th. This action is supposedly predicated on budget shortfalls. The assumption is that she will not be letting go the young, inexpensive new hires, but rather veteran, higher-paid employees -- so the move in many ways amounts to union busting. Hire a bunch of new people, then use the economy as an excuse to get rid of the old ones.

This stinks for a lot of reasons. Dan Brown at Huffington Post makes the case against Rhee's methods very well here, and I generally agree with his points. Experience matters. You can't just flush out a quarter of the teachers and replace them with rookies and expect things to work.

And it's obvious that the problems with the system don't rest squarely on the shoulders of the teachers. You could have 3,800 of the best teachers in the world, but that doesn't change the fact that you're trying to educate tens of thousands of kids who don't care, may be growing up in poverty among other home life problems, and won't graduate more than half the time. The best cadre of teachers on the planet could not solve that problem.

But at the same time, when I hear something like what I heard on NPR this morning, I just cringe. In front of a microphone, at a rally, protesting the unfairness of veteran teachers being dismissed in favor of new hires, the speaker can't even find it within herself to use proper English?

This is a pretty sad statement. I don't care about the differences between cultures. I don't care about urban dialects. While I personally don't speak that way, I do say all kinds of other crap that is not proper English when I'm hanging out with my friends. I'm fine with people speaking any way they please when they're in casual company.

But I would never speak like that to an audience, or around kids, and if any teacher of my child ever spoke that way, I'd be shedding no tears to hear about their pink slip. At the bare minimum, our teachers should be able to form a sentence with some basic semblance of proper grammar.

I suppose we will find out soon enough what Rhee has planned for the schools. I can't agree with her approach, nor do I think it will solve any problems. It's so typical of the Fenty administration -- rule with a heavy hand, damn the consequences. Just about every significant action that the administration has taken is dramatic and untested. It's out with the old and in with the new. While there's nothing wrong with infusing a lumbering institution with some new blood, when you get rid of all the old blood, suddenly, the system doesn't just change, it breaks. You can't change city hall overnight.

At the same time, hearing that made me put myself in Michelle Rhee's shoes for a minute. I wonder what she sees going on in the schools every day. Those are some pretty uncomfortable shoes. I wouldn't want to wear them.

PETA: Hoax, or You Can't Make This Stuff Up?

I am really not obsessed with PETA, athough I have mocked them here or on facebook many times in the past. It's just that they're so darn craaaaazy, those PETA people. The reason for my post today is to pose a very important question, and try to answer it through the preponderance of evidence.

PETA: Bullshit or Not?

There are an ever-increasing number of clues that PETA is, in fact, an elaborate hoax perpetrated by some very clever pranksters. Over the years, PETA has become near and dear to tofu-toasters everywhere, and indeed, they have become very comfortable with their acceptance as a quasi-legitimate operation. But the jokesters are getting cocky, going a little too far, as we will demonstrate through an analysis of some of PETA's recent actions. Today, I will set out to prove that PETA is, in fact, one of the biggest public hoaxes ever perpetrated on American society.

All Lives Are Equal

This June, PETA took a stand against the swatting of flies, arguing in favor of "compassion for all animals, even the most curious, smallest, and least sympathetic ones." Or, the most pestilential. I blogged about this, and wondered publically about their position regarding life forms such as the H1N1 virus or chalmydia. I have not heard back on that one.

Chickens Have Feelings Too

Next, PETA announces plans for the Chicken Empathy Museum. The goal would be to help everyone understand the truth about chickens. Not that they are delicious when spiced and deep-fried, but that

"Chickens are sensitive, smart animals who have feelings just as we do"

I sincerely apologize if, with this mocking of the plans for the Chicken Empathy Museum, I have hurt the feelings of any particularly sensitive chickens. But the kicker is that they would also serve

"delicious faux-chicken drumsticks and chickenless pot pie."

Now that strikes me as pretty odd. So, PETA is operating on the assumption that chickens are as sensitive as human beings, and the entire purpose of this museum is to promote empathy towards chickens.

Let me ask you, PETA. How do you think someone of Native American descent, or, indeed, any sane person, would feel about the National Museum of the American Indian offering delicious treats that looked like the skinned, severed heads of American Indians?

Yeah, not so much. Clearly, PETA is starting to show their hand.

PETA's CEO, hard at work.

Peta-philes? Oh no. You really didn't.

Finally, it has come to my attention that PETA decided it would be a funny idea to name their blog The PETA Files.

This time, they didn't just tip their hand. They threw it down on the table, and it's full of jokers. Unless they have literally gone so far off the deep end that they think empathy towards chickens takes a front seat to emapthy towards victims of child abuse, this is the clincher: PETA's a joke. And I don't mean the kind of joke that we all always thought they were, I mean a REAL joke, and they got us GOOD.

Go I gotta hand it to you PETA. You put one over on all of us. And I, for one, can't wait to see what the punch line is when the curtain drops!

The DC Police State

In a recent issue of The Mail Gary Imhoff discusses DC's automated traffic enforcement of speeding and red-light running. While this is nothing new, the situation is about to take a turn for the gestapo with the recent announcement that the city plans to triple the number of automated speed traps. And this is on top of the 104% increase in revenue that DC has gotten from these bad boys in the last two years - $46 million from 620,000 citations issued this year alone. That's more than one citation per resident of DC. In the current issue of The Mail, one commenter makes the classic argument that there is no possible reason to be upset about this because, hey, speeding is against the law:

But it seems to me that in the recent discussion, people are not questioning the legitimacy of the law; they are questioning the legitimacy of enforcing a good law, if that pursuit means that a private entity or the government profits from the pursuit. If a person is breaking the law, isn’t this really just “sour grapes” about being caught?

Amazingly I have never written about red light and speed cameras before on this blog, but there are two primary components to the arguments against them. On the one side, there is ample evidence that red-light cameras in particular may not actually increase safety. At intersections where red-light cameras are present, while there may be a minor decrease in T-bone type collisions, it is generally offset by an increase in rear-end collisions, as people slam on their brakes at the first sign of a yellow light to avoid a possible ticket, when in fact the correct course of action at that speed would have been to proceed through the intersection. The other side is the precedent set by pervasive automated law enforcement.

Apart from the general arguments against these devices, they are rarely installed in response to safety concerns. It is a documented fact that in most jurisdictions, DC included, red light cameras are installed at intersections where the most red-light running occurs - not intersections where the most accidents occur. The same for speed cameras - they are installed not in response to safety concerns, but in response to areas where speeding is prevalent. The obvious conclusion is that the primary purpose of these devices is revenue generation, rather than safety.

It may come as a surprise, but there isn't actually a very strong relationship between unsafe intersections, and intersections where people run red lights. More often than not, analysis has shown that intersections with high incidences of red-light running have design problems. Either it is difficult for traffic to make turns legally, or the yellow light is timed too short for the speed limit, or it has physical design problems. Wouldn't a good government try to figure out and correct problems with such intersections, improving safety and traffic flow, rather than just trying to profit from them?

The same is usually true of areas where people routinely speed. Studies have shown that most people drive at a speed that is comfortable given the conditions, regardless of the speed limit - the size and type of the road, traffic conditions, proximity to pedestrian and other traffic, and so on. Most places where people speed frequently are not at all unsafe and have few accidents. Rather, the speed limit is set artifically low. But instead of trying to understand why people routinely speed in certain places and adjusting the speed limit to reflect the conditions, the government profits from it.

If You Have Nothing To Hide You Have Nothing To Fear

But back to the time-honored argument in favor of any kind of zealous law enforcement. "If you aren't breaking the law, then you don't have anything to worry about." The problem with this argument is that it can be used to defend any kind of government intrusion and law enforcement, all the way to up and including McCarthyism and Nazi Germany. It can be used to defend any kind of wiretapping, surveillance, or police searches.

I realize that by even mentioning Nazi Germany in the context of speed cameras I risk being laughed off the podium, because there is no comparison. I agree. I am absolutely not comparing the two. So I will say it again so there is no misunderstanding.

The argument that is almost always used to defend automated law enforcement, can also be used to defend any form of government monitoring or law enforcement techniques.

So unless you would also be in favor of the extreme scenario, equally defensible with this argument, it a bad argument.

Imagine the most efficient form of traffic enforcement possible. An automated system, perhaps built into your car or into the roads, monitored your actions at all times. If you roll through a stop sign, or exceed the speed limit for even a second, or pull away from the curb without fastening your seatbelt, a buzzer would go off in your car and deduct a fine from your bank account. George Orwell's "1984" is the quintessential vision of this future. But that's a little too extreme for the purpose of this discussion. However, a couple other movies come to mind that show a slightly more realistic version of where this could end up. In Demolition Man, violating any law (including uttering a curse word) resulted in a piece of paper being spit out from a nearby kiosk with your fine. In The Fifth Element Bruce Willis' taxicab rattles off the number of violations he has remaining until he loses his licence each time he gets in a fender bender or breaks a traffic law.

Eight years of the Bush administration notwithstanding, I think that the vast majority of the people in this country would have a problem with constant government monitoring and absolute law enforcement of this sort.

So I submit to those who think that there is no problem with the proliferation of automated traffic enforcement devices: why is this OK with you, but not the extreme scenario, which is equally defensible with the same argument? Where would you draw a line, and why would you draw it there?

This is not about "sour grapes" and wanting to break the law without getting caught. It's about the purpose of our laws, and how we enforce them. When you identify a stretch of road where people routinely drive 10 miles per hour over the speed limit, but isn't especially accident prone, that should be a sign that perhaps the speed limit is too low -- not your cue to start shaking down everyone who drives through there. If you have an intersection that has frequent red light running, instead of profiting from it, figure out what makes this intersection different from similar ones where people don't run the lights all the time.

A good government does not make arbitrary laws, and then use them as an opportunity to tax its citizens more. Situations constantly change, and laws are obviously much slower to do so. We should not aggressively enforce laws like these simply because we can, without trying to understand why people are breaking these laws. This notion is hardly without precedent. When I lived in Mount Pleasant, street parking became extremely difficult, and Jim Graham successfully got the police to agree to cease enforcement of parking restrictions that limited you to 25 feet from an intersection. The vast majority of the citizens favored this, and the citywide law was not changed, obviously, but the police agreed to cease enforcement. Over time, perhaps that law will change so it can accommodate the needs of a given community. This same notion can be applied here - while it may take a while to figure out why people are speeding or running red lights somewhere, unless there is a documented safety problem, zealous enforcement does not serve the community.

In DC, our government has embraced the notion that there's nothing wrong with the roads, the intersections, and the speed limits - there's just something wrong with all the people who use them and they should pay for that. That is an absurd notion. And even more offensive is that this approach places money before safety -- since these automated enforcement devices are placed with maximum revenue in mind, while unsafe intersections and stretches of road remain unsafe.

How To Lose Friends And Entrench Enemies

The title of today's post is the entirety of a short comment on Greater Greater Washington by crin. I thought it was particularly fitting because of two things that happened in the last 24 hours. One is the subject of the blog post that inspired that comment, and the other is last night's Presidential address to congress on health care.

First, the local news. Alice Swanson was killed last summer while cycling near Dupont Circle. There was much controversy surrounding this tragic accident, in part because the driver of the truck that hit her was not found to be negligent and not charged. I don't want to debate this here, but rather discuss the events of yesterday related to this.

Picture from Greater Greater Washington post above

Following her death a "ghost bike" was erected at the spot of the accident to memorialize her. The memorial remained in place for more than a year, and was removed recently (probably by the Department of Public Works). Those responsible for the memorial were outraged because they were not notified of its removal. My personal opinion is that while it would have been nice for DC to somehow let them know, this isn't exactly cause for outrage. The memorial was on public space, it was not permitted, and not legal. It was allowed to remain for more than a year, far longer than any other such citizen-installed memorial I've heard of. It served its purpose, and DPW even installed a sign at the intersection warning drivers to watch for cyclists.

Last night, 22 (that's right, twenty-two) ghost bikes were installed around the location in an act of civil disobedience in response to the removal. From Alice Swanson Rides Again:

Twenty-two bicycles have been placed around the intersection of Connecticut Avenue, 20th Street, and R Street (the original site of the ghost bike), one for each year of Alice’s life. Hopefully, this will get Mayor Fenty’s attention...

We hope this forces the city government to see public space as something for public use. But the one thing we’re not hoping for is for the Mayor’s office to put the bike back. We put it back. And if it leaves again, we’ll put it back again. And again. And again. And this time, the ghost bike stays.

So basically, they are retaliating against the city for what amounts to them doing their job. The problem is, this no longer has anything to do with Alice Swanson's memory. It has to do with revenge, and spite, and an eye for an eye. And more likely than not, publicity for the self-described anarchist who did this. This kind of behavior has no place when it comes to the whole point of the original ghost bike: to memorialize a tragic death.

This has gone too far. If all the time and energy being put into this act of civil disobedience went into having a permanent, tasteful, non-sidewalk-obstructing memorial, we'd probably have one by now. But instead, we have what amounts to junk tied to every other light post in Dupont Circle. But worse, it creates a rift between the ones who care most about this memorial, and the very people whom they need on their side to get a legitimate, permanent one: the city government.

What makes this all the more hypocritical is that this is a very heavily traveled area by pedestrians. In the picture above, the very first bike you see is blocking almost half of the entrance to the crosswalk. This is at a minimum a nuisance - I am sure everyone's been waiting to cross a street at busy times and had difficulty not bumping into people under normal circumstances. This makes it that much worse. In the worst case it could even be a safety problem if someone walked into it because they weren't looking down. I'm not trying to say that it's a hazard akin to an open manhole, but considering the other kinds of things that people walk into regularly, it's unquestionably a possible hazard.

Enough is enough. If you want a real memorial, do it legitimately. If the effort that went into this project -- "weeks Dumpster-diving, as well as wailing on Freecycle and Craigslist" -- had been put towards a productive purpose such as working with the government on a permanent memorial, we might very well have had one by now.

This is public space, remember? Like the road - we all must share it. And it is clear that this action will not help your cause. This will certainly serve to annoy DPW who must now deal with all the new ghost bikes, and it has clearly annoyed the majority of people commenting on the story.


... And, the national news. Last night, during President Obama's speech, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) yelled out "You lie!" while the President was speaking, in regard to his statement that illegal aliens would not be covered by his proposal. Let us forget for a moment the incredible hypocrisy in one politician calling another one a liar. The pot and the kettle immediately come to mind. There is not a single politican on earth who can say they've never bent the truth. And while it may be hard to quantify who's worse, anyone who's listened to Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh for more than 8 seconds should know that Republicans wrote the book on bending the truth. But I'll be the first to admit that every Democrat probably owns a signed copy of the same book.

It's not about lies. There are plenty to go around. It's about respect. To stand up in a congressional address and interrupt the President of The United States in the middle of a speech to the entire free world on the most important issue facing us today and call him a liar?

That is unforgivable. John McCain said it best when asked by Larry King afterwards what he thought:

"Totally disrespectful, no place for it in that setting or any other and he should apologize immediately."

This was the act of a single individual, but what he said reflects upon all Republicans. Sadly, it a bellweather that Obama will have a really hard time getting everyone to move beyond the rhetoric, the name calling, the bickering, and work to create legislation instead of continuing to do nothing. He'd barely been on the stage for 15 minutes, imploring the lawmakers of this country to find a way to stop using this legislation as a political tool while the goal becomes ever more elusive, to work together, and he's called a liar in the rudest possible fashion.

Joe Wilson is symbolic of the problem. He's not the only one, he's just the one who couldn't even keep his composure long enough to listen to the leader of the free world tell him what he was trying to achieve. Unfortunately, he didn't just embarass himself. He embarassed our entire leadership. It's hard to have a lot of faith in a governing body that can't even be nice for a half-hour when the President is speaking.

Seattle Bags Bag Tax

Seattle, Washington was set to be the first major city in the country to implement a plastic bag tax like the one Washington, DC recently passed, and I oppose. In a referendum yesterday, 60% of Seattle voters opposed it. And so it's done: No bag tax in Seattle. That leaves DC as the petri dish in this country for the effects of a tax on shopping bags.

Seattle is without question one of the most environmentally progressive cities in the country. These guys have been recycling since before there were landfills. They have biodeisel fueling stations. There's so much hemp clothing there, you can get a contact high in a laundromat.

And the voters rejected a bag tax.

An independent group of economists has opposed the Seattle tax since the beginning, arguing that there will be significant economic impact and very little if any benefit to the environment.

The opposition to the bag tax was well-funded by the petroleum industry. They spent over a million dollars on PR. The proponents of the law, in comparison, raised less than $70,000.

Of course, the losers here will argue that big-business interests won the day. I don't see it that way at all. If there was any kind of significant community support for the tax, don't you think they could have come up with more than 70 grand for something important? Maybe, just maybe, there wasn't a very strong sentiment in favor of the tax. And at the end of the day, this was won by a vote. Maybe the Seattle voters aren't that stupid after all.

Too bad in DC, the law prevents any referendum that will have a fiscal impact. We don't have the chance to vote on our bag tax. We just had it shoved down our throats by people who really have no idea what the impact will be, who seem to know what's best for us, consequences be damned. So much for home rule.

If there could be a referendum here, there is no doubt in my mind that the tax would be trounced. If 60% of hippie-crunchy voters in Seattle don't favor it, imagine what the vote would look like in DC.

Citizens to Mayor's Summer Jobs Program: Please Stop. We Got It. Really.

It began with the flyers about the Mayor's Green Summer Jobs Corp. I got one in the mail. That's interesting, I thought. Then, a few days later, I got three on my front porch. And the sidewalk got about sixty of them blowing around. That's ironic, I thought. Especially considering that everyone already got one in the mail, now we're wasting paper to announce a "green" initiative and creating litter. Oh well, there are worse problems in the world.

Then the terror was unleashed. Twice this week we have read on the Prince of Petworth about healthy trees in treeboxes being cut down by the Mayor's Summer Jobs Corp participants.

Now all the fireboxes in my neighborhood have been repainted. Actually, my girlfriend thought that they had been vandalized. The one pictured here at the end of my block is far from the worst, too. If you can't tell what an awful paint job it is, please click for a close-up.

While I have no proof that the Job Corps people are responsible, it seems highly likely. The problem is, they didn't need repainting. Actually, they were beautiful. Operative word being were. They had all been painted in the last year or two, presumably by citizens who put time, effort and expense into making their own streets nicer. Much like the people who plant trees and maintain their treeboxes. Actually, all around my neighborhood, most people do a pretty good job of that. The treeboxes that have anything growing in them at all usually look pretty nice.

All I can say is, thank the stars the summer is almost over and these kids will be going back to school. Or at least not being paid to wreak havoc on the public spaces in this city. Hopefully by next year, we will all be able to undo the damage they've caused.

I appreciate the point of this program. In theory, it's a great idea to give kids something productive to do. I support programs that will teach people useful skills, and give them pride in their community.

So what the hell kind of values do they learn when they cut down new trees and mess up nice things? How are we going to instill pride if we let them slather paint all over something that was previously nicely painted? Would anyone really look at the 3-minute bull-in-a-china shop paint job they did on something that did not need to be painted and say "nice work, kids?"

Part of teaching people to do a job is teaching them how to do it, and teaching them to judge when it needs doing. You can't give kids a set of pruners and a can of paint and say "go at it." I'm not blaming the kids, I'm blaming the program, because it's obvious that there is little or no supervision. Or maybe the supervisors don't give a crap either. But all I can say is I've got three examples of things they've done being more harm than good. Actually, let me be more specific. Each of the three things I've mentioned are all harm and no good. The world would have been better off if they had stayed home.

So please take note, Mayor's Summer Job Corps. We can take care of the sidewalks just fine. We've been doing it for decades, since the city has never bothered before. We got it.

There are a million things that need doing in this city that are a lot harder to mess up. Why doesn't the jobs program tackle things like, picking up trash in the alleys and on the sidewalks? Are you too good for that? Because we all have to do that too. Oh yeah and we have to deal with throwing away the nice trees you cut down and left on the sidewalk also. Thanks. Or how about watering young street trees that desperately need it when it doesn't rain for a month? Oh right - much easier to cut them down. Silly me.

Please. A good idea can quickly turn into a debacle if you don't give a hoot how it's implemented. Considering that every single thing I've read about the impact of this program and the activities of its participants has been negative, I'm sure this isn't just perception. This program is making people angry. We all want to do things to provide opportunities to the youth in this city, but this is not productive.

Yes, I know, a sloppy paint job on a firebox is not exactly a national crisis. But the point is simple. We have a program that is supposed to teach kids something. But all I see them being taught is to not give a crap about what they are doing, and being paid to not give a crap. I guess we're training them to be future DC Government employees.

Below - the best picture of the fire box I could find before it was painted. But it's apparent it was well maintained and nicely painted. The nice gold trim was there before. The sloppy red paint is the "improvement" from this week.

Gates' Arrest Inspires Other Cops To Be Jerks

Professor Skip Gates' arrest in Boston, the "clink heard round the world," has had the curious effect of causing other police to step up and act like even bigger jerks than the cop in the original incident.

While the details of the Gates case are still not clear - we don't know exactly what transpired between the two men - what is clear is that police arrested someone who was trying to get into his own house. He may have acted like a pompous jerk when confronted by the Boston cop, but at the end of the day, the constitution generally permits us to act like pompous jerks.

Additionally, Gates was arrested while trying to get into his own house after returning from a trip. To China. He's probably been sandwiched between two fat smelly people for the last 16 hours. Most likely with a screaming baby two rows behind him. I would probably be pretty irritated already. Then he found he'd locked himself out of his house. If it was me, actually, I'd probably have started crying at that point, or running up and down the street gibbering incoherently.

So I'm sure the last thing I'd want is to have a cop approach me with the assumption that I was a burglar, despite obvious signs to the contrary. Namely, his baggage from his trip. Oh yeah, and his driver's licence with his home address on it. So no matter how much of a race-card-pulling, holier-than thou, smug, pretentious jackass Gates may have acted like during the course of this incident, it is very hard to imagine a set of circumstances that would be reasonable grounds for arrest.

Quite simply, he pissed off a cop. While anyone who doesn't want to spend half a day at the police station knows that you should avoid pissing off cops whenever possible, it's not against the law, and he should not have been arrested.

So, in the wake this incident which is certainly nothing less than supremely embarrasing for the Boston police department -- I mean really, they got bitch slapped by the President -- other policemen have decided to show their solidarity for the rights of policemen to use their power to arrest anyone who pisses them off.

First, another Boston Cop decided to speak out with apparently a letter to the editor of the Boston Globe defending the original, highly controversial, racially-charged incident by referring to Gates as a banana-eating jungle monkey. Wow. That's a brilliant move. Right when most of the free world thinks that the Boston police department is a bunch of racist assholes, you go and... er... confirm that. You, sir, are not afraid to proudly represent the lowest common denominator.

The best part? He used the classic "some of my best friends are [insert race or culture that you've offended]" defense when called out on his obvious bigotry. I am not joking. From CNN:

I regret that I used such words,” Barrett told CNN affiliate WCVB. "I have so many friends of every type of culture and race you can name. I am not a racist."

So moving on to this weekend, now here in DC. A gay man is on U Street with a couple friends, actually talking about the Gates incident. In the course of his conversation, he says "I hate the police." It was late. He was probably loud. Based on some of the comments I read about this story, he is probably an obnoxious jerk.

But all he did was say "I hate the police." A cop overheard him from across the street and ran over and started hassling him because of his statement. Which I am pretty sure everyone would agree is not only constitutionally protected, but something the vast majority of us have said at some point. If not weekly.

Yo. Cops. Why do you think people hate you? Because you act like the goddamn lunch-money stealing bully in fifth grade! If you don't want to be despised then start acting like a professional and stop acting like a testosterone-soaked power-tripping asshole. Maybe people wouldn't say crap like that if you didn't give us so many reasons to do so.

So anyway, to make a long story short, the cop calls him a faggot, roughs him up and finally arrests him on "disorderly conduct" charges. Which is basically the "one size fits all" charge for the cops to use anytime they get pissed off at someone, and feel like throwing their weight around.

Congratulations, DC police. In the most supremely ironic display of jackassery yet, you actually arrested someone on the same charge as Gates, for expressing their distaste of the police over their handling of the Gates incident.

Wow. Just. Wow. Way to one up the Boston cops, who pretty much had locked the prize for village idiot down. But not content to just be bad at being police in general, you had to sweep in and manage to make DC cops look even worse than those fools in Boston.

Nice going. Well, I guess "policing" fits nicely next to "baseball" and "schools" in the list of things that we do worse than everyone else.