Barry Dunham for President! A name all Americans could get behind. A name you can trust. It would be so much easier for Senator Barack Obama today if he used his childhood nickname and his mother’s maiden name.
He didn’t, of course. He couldn’t. Why? Read his book.
NotionsCapital presents this week’s Roll of Shame, Washington, DC area music venues that advertise “Live Music” but do not include the names of bands in their ads. You may think this is a mere quibble. Think again.
Kay Ryan creates ”. . . compact poems . . . charged with sly wit and off-beat wisdom,” says the Poetry Foundation. Poet J. D. McClatchy says:
Her poems are compact, exhilarating, strange affairs, like Erik Satie miniatures or Joseph Cornell boxes. She is an anomaly in today’s literary culture: as intense and elliptical as Dickinson, as buoyant and rueful as Frost.
See for yourself. Sample a few of her poems. Kay Ryan has just been named Poet Laureate of the United States for 2008-2009 by James Billington, Librarian of Congress.
News stories about Washington’s Eastern Market filled the DC media yesterday, describing the restoration of the South Hall of the historic building, gutted by fire last year. Coverage noted that exterior work is largely complete, and renovation of the interior of the building has begun.
Except for an excellent report by NBC4’s Tom Sherwood and perfunctory throw-away lines by ABC7 news and the Examiner, though, stories omitted the fact that the market itself has been open for business and functioning for over a year, across 7th Street, SE, in the “East Hall.” Even a WAMU-FM radio story that included an interview with one of the merchants– Melvin Inman of Market Poultry — omitted this fact.
Handgun registration begins at 7AM this morning in Washington, DC, at Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters, 300 Indiana Avenue NW. This is the start of a 180-day amnesty period allowing DC residents to register handguns they illegally possess.
The Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia distributes a pamphlet about the new handgun registration laws passed in the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling. Those pamphlets display the logo of Project ChildSafe, “the Nation’s largest Firearm Safety Education Program,” which is:
. . . a component of the Bush administration’s “Project Safe Neighborhoods” gun violence prevention initiative . . . supported by the firearms industry, U.S. Dept. of Justice (DOJ) grants, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), administrators of the program.
Project Childsafe has distributed 35 million free gun locking devices to American households, a much-needed service in a country where 3,000 children and teens are killed by handguns every year.
But– as if there were not enough misconceptions about handguns in Washington — the Project ChildSafe logo displayed on the DC government pamphlet depicts a semiautomatic pistol, a type of firearm that civilians are specifically prohibited from owning under DC law. In Washington, revolvers rule.
District of Columbia citizens, whether they wish to own handguns or not, should have the rudimentary knowledge needed to understand the new Firearms Control Emergency Amendment Act of 2008. That law is about guns, so you should know a few things about them.
The DC gun law allows qualified adults to register and own revolvers. DC handgun law continues to forbid semiautomatic (auto-loading) pistols.
Let the Firearms Follies begin.
No one will be happy with the new District of Columbia handgun law. It is not stringent enough for handgun opponents, and will be abused. It will not please handgun enthusiasts: the registration process does not even have a drive-through window or one-hour service.
A truly radical notion: bloggers talking face to face, over beer. That’s the Washington DC Blogger Meetup (founded 2002). 7PM tomorrow, Wednesday, July 16th, at RFD (a/k/a Regional Food and Drink), 810 7th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001 (202-289-2030). That’s near the MCI Center, Half a block from the Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro Red Line.
RSVP or contact organizer Nikolas ‘Atrus’ Coukouma with any questions. Not registered with Meetup? Do it here, quick and easy.
Top Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
