The Republic of T.

Crack. Back.

Well, now it's out, and all over the world at that.

Marion Barry, the former Washington mayor infamous for being caught smoking crack on an FBI videotape, staged another political comeback Tuesday, ousting an incumbent city councilwoman.

The man once dubbed ``Mayor For Life'' appeared to have won the Democratic nomination for the Ward 8 council seat - the same post he won in 1992 after serving six months in prison for his drug conviction. He used that as a springboard to a fourth term as mayor in 1994.

With little money and few volunteers, Barry, 68, ran a low-key campaign against Councilwoman Sandy Allen, who once served as his campaign manager. He spent primary election day visiting with voters at the 16 precinct polling places in the predominantly black, working class district.

``Money can't buy service and can't buy love. And I've given service to this community,'' Barry told the election night crowd.

Allen conceded defeat to reporters. ``There are people out there who only vote when Marion Barry runs. You can't figure them into your projections,'' she said. ``I will always work with whoever the council member is, whoever is the people's choice.''

Utterly unbelievable. I voted in the D.C. primaries yesterday, but I studiously avoided looking at news of the results today. I was hoping against hope that perhaps Marion Barry wouldn't be foisted back upon the city. Now that it's come to pass, I'll have fewer regrets about heading to the Maryland suburbs next year.

Shooting Down the Gun Ban

Update: An attentive reader alerted me to a typo on my part. Towards the end of this post I meant to say the measure has little chance of passing in the Senate. Instead I typed "house." It has every chance of passing in the House.

Will someone please explain to me why the majority Republican House of Representatives thinks my family will be safer—in a city where 13 children have been killed by gunfire in the past year—with with more guns on the street, including assault rifles?

A majority of the U.S. House of Representatives is supporting legislation that would repeal virtually all of the District's gun restrictions, targeting one of the nation's most stringent handgun bans while the presidential candidates are battling over gun limits.

Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.) said House Republican leaders have promised him a vote before the Nov. 2 election on his proposed D.C. Personal Protection Act, which would end a ban on handguns in the nation's capital; remove a prohibition against semiautomatic weapons; lift registration requirements for ammunition and other firearms; and cancel criminal penalties for possessing unregistered firearms and carrying a handgun in one's home or workplace.

Once again, the Republican congress rides roughshod over the wishes of D.C. residents, barring even our elected officials from doing what citizens want.

Souder's bill also would deny the District's elected officials "authority to enact laws or regulations that discourage or eliminate the private ownership or use of firearms." The legislation has 228 co-sponsors, more than enough to clear the 435-member House.

Granted, D.C. already has more than its fair share of gun violence, but I don't understand just how making it easier to get more guns on the streets is going to drive the level of gun violence down. Isn't that like using gasoline to put out a fire?

Fortunately, the measure has little chance of passing the Senate. But just seeing that headline in the Post on my way to work this morning was enough to make me start grinding my teeth.

I will never understand conservatives.

My Civic Duty

There it was, mixed in with the two movies I got from Netflix yesterday: a summons for jury duty.

I guess it's not so bad. It's for later in August, for one day or one trial, but I'd really rather not be in on a trial right now.

I guess this is what I get for voting.

Eating Up, Taken Down

I admit it. I've eaten on the Metro. Usually a bit of candy I has secreted away in my bag or my pocket. I know it's wrong, but I didn't see the harm done.

Don't get me wrong. I know what would happen if everyone was allowed to eat on the Metro: McDonald's bags strewn on the floor, sticky floors and seats from spilled softdrinks, half-eaten food sliding from one end of the Metro car to the other. It would be a mess. So I understand the rules. Really, I do. But sometimes I think they're a little overzealously enforced.

Stephanie Willett is a 45-year-old scientist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from Bowie whose skirmishes with the law had largely been limited to a couple of speeding tickets.

Until she was caught chewing inside a Metro station.

About 6:30 p.m. July 16, Willett was eating a PayDay candy bar while riding the escalator from 11th Street NW into the Metro Center Station. Metro Transit Police Officer Cherrail Curry-Hagler was riding up.

The police officer warned Willett to finish the candy before entering the station because eating or drinking in the Metro system is illegal.

Willett nodded, kept chewing the peanut-and-caramel bar and stuffed the last bit into her mouth before throwing the wrapper into the trash can near the station manager's kiosk, according to both Willett and Curry-Hagler.

Curry-Hagler turned around and followed Willett into the station. Moments after making a remark to the officer, Willett said, she was searched, handcuffed and arrested for chewing the last bite of her candy bar after she passed through the fare gates. She was released several hours later after paying a $10 fine, pending a hearing.

"We've been doing our best to crack down on people who are consuming food and beverages in our stations because we get so many complaints about it," said Lisa Farbstein, a Metro spokeswoman. "In this instance, the woman was given a warning, which she ignored, and she jammed the rest of the candy bar into her mouth and continued to chew."

Maybe I'm wrong here, but to me it seems a bit excessive to handcuff the woman and drag her off to the police station. Willett shoved the rest of the candy bar into her mouth. She was chewing, which I guess qualifies as "eating" in the Metro station, but the Payday bar was basically finished. One swallow, and it would be sent shuttling down to her digestive tract, where it wouldn't have bothered anyone but Willett.

Still, I guess I'll take heed and curtail my snacking until after I've emerged from the Metro station. It just seems to me that in a city where kids are still getting shot in drive-by shootings, it seems like there ought to be other priorities.

Blogger Gathering in DC

It was only a week or so ago that I met my first blogger who wasn't already a friend of mine before becoming a blogger. But now I'm thinking I may attend a blogger gathering in DC on Thursday, just to meet a few more of the people behind the blogs. Should be interesting, because it's the same day I start the new job. What better way to wrap up my first day as a "professional blogger" (is that a real term yet?) than to meet up with other local bloggers?

Representin', Part II

File this under "For What It's Worth." D.C. Democrats attending the Democratic Convention in Boston are planning to push for D.C. to have a vote in Congress.

Hours after District Democrats threatened to nominate Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) for vice president at the party's national convention in Boston next week to draw attention to the District's case for voting rights, organizers yesterday awarded Norton a prized evening speaking slot.

Norton will address fellow delegates sometime between 7 and 11 p.m. July 29, the night that Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) will accept his party's nomination for president, according to a preliminary list of speakers released by convention planners.

D.C. officials called the speech a unique opportunity to address the nation on the most dramatic night of the convention about the District's long quest for voting representation in Congress.

"We are speaking to educate an almost completely ignorant public about the denial of our voting rights," Norton said last night, crediting her speaking slot to discussions with DNC Chairman Terence R. McAuliffe, party officials and the Kerry campaign.

Part of me would have loved to see Norton nominated for V.P., knowing she wouldn't actually get the slot, but facing another four years of the Bush administration makes this seem like the wrong time for that. So I'm relieved in that regard.

I'm not sure how much Norton's speech will simply be preaching to the choir at the convention. My guess is that at least a fair number of those in attendance would favor giving D.C. a vote in Congress (at least the House, if not the Senate). I do think it's a great opportunity to reach out to a broader spectrum of Americans who may be watching the convention on television, and who don't know that D.C. residents do not have voting representation in Congress. I've been surprised to find how many people don't know this until I mention it to them.

I doubt D.C. will win voting representation anytime soon. It's too black and too Democratic for the folks on Capitol Hill to allow that to happen, and the odds against getting a critical mass of voters across the country to put the issue near the top of their list of priorities are slim to none.

What a Long, Strange Trip

An anniversary slipped by me yesterday. I was so busy with the business of living my life that I completely forgot about it until someone asked me today's date.

Ten years ago yesterday, I packed my clothes and my cat into my car and moved to D.C. I was living in Athens, GA, where I went to college. I'd finished my degree the previous year, and had taken a job in the University's science library. I had a job I hated, and a boss I hated—who seemed to hate me too—I was miserable.

Many of my friends had long since left for grad school, law school, jobs, etc. I was feeling stuck. I started looking for work in Atlanta, and was there one weekend to interview for a job as a flight attendant when I ran into an acquaintance who was living in D.C. and working for a gay & lesbian political organization. She gave me her card, told me to fax her my resume and said she'd let me know if something came up. I sent her my resume and a couple of weeks later I got a call. They wanted to interview me for a temporary position involved with the 1994 election.

Two weeks later, they called back and offered me the job. I turned it down because it was a temporary position. Two week after that they called and made the offer again. At that point, I was two weeks more miserable than I was the last time. I put them on hold for a minute, and reasoned that I really didn't have anything to lose other than a job I hated. If it didn't work out, I could move back to Georgia and regroup afterwards. Sometimes opportunity knocks twice. I took the job.

I didn't know anyone in D.C., and I'd only been to the city once, for the 1993 GLBT March on Washington. I didn't have a place to stay in D.C. The folks at my job were nice enough to clip the housing-to-share ads from the Washington Blade and send them to me. Nothing really panned out there, so I turned to the internet. I joined a listserve for gay men living in D.C. and sent out a mass email explaining that I was moving there for a job and needed a place to stay temporarily, until I could find a permanent place. In retrospect that was a risky move, as I could have ended up uknowling bunking with an axe murderer or some other psychotic. Fortunately, a guy who lived in SW answered and offered me his guest room for a couple of weeks. He was no more psychotic than the next person.

Two weeks later, I was on the road to D.C. It seemed appropriate that the last place I lived in Athens was right off the highway I would take for the first leg of my journey to D.C. I put Annie Lennox's "Little Bird" (my theme song for the move to D.C.), and hit the road.

Ten years later, here I sit, across the room from my partner of four years, and a few feet away from our son; about to return to the realm of politics, and still discovering new possibilities in life. All in all, today I have I life I couldn't have dreamed up ten years ago, and—no matter what minor complaints I may have—I can honestly say it keep getting better.

No! In the Name of All that is Decent, No!

The Washington Oculus reports that tourists on segways will soon be descending upon D.C.

City Segway Tours is looking tour guides in D.C. Only in America, folks.

Representin'

For the first three or four years after moving to D.C., I kept my voter registration in Georgia, mainly because I didn't want to give up having representation in Congress. But then, via my college address, my representative was Republican Charlie Norwood. Now, using my parents' address, my representative would be Republican Max Burns. Basically, from where I stand on most issues, it would be like having no representative at all. Finally, I decided to commit. I moved my voter registration to DC to vote in the local elections, thus surrendering any hope of having voting representation in Congress. Don't get me wrong. I love Eleanor Holmes Norton. She squares with me on most issues and never fails to fight the good fight for the people she represents. But she doesn't have a vote. From where I sit, if she doesn't have a vote, she can't do the residents of D.C. much good. Now I hear there's a bill that might change that.

A bill to grant more than 500,000 District citizens a voting member in the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time was introduced last night by House Government Reform Committee Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.).

Staking out uncharted constitutional and political terrain, the D.C. Fairness in Representation Act would temporarily expand the House by two members to 437 seats, adding one seat for a representative from the District and a fourth member from Utah. The change would be effective Jan. 3. The House would revert to its present size after the 2010 U.S. Census. The District would keep a vote, and the remaining 434 seats would be divided among the states.

Introduced by a key Republican chairman in the GOP-controlled House and endorsed by Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) and the D.C. Council, the long-awaited bill marks the best opportunity for the nation's capital to mount its case for the franchise in Congress, advocates said. It also faces steep odds, critics noted.

Try as I might, I can't understand the reason for denying D.C. residents a voting representative in Congress. Perhaps someone can explain it to me. On it's face, it seems a simple matter of taxation without representation. Residents of Washington, D.C. pay taxes, but do not have voting representation in Congress. Unless I'm remembering my American history incorrectly, this country fought a war for independence over that. So now it turns around and defranchises 500,000 residents? Is there a logical, constitutional argument for doing that?

Of course, there are political reasons. D.C. voters overwhelmingly vote Democratic. (D.C. is also predominantly black, I think.) So, giving them voting representation in Congress means allowing another Democratic vote in Congress—something I'm sure congressional Republican are loathe to do. I suspect that the inclusion of a congressional vote for Utah in the same bill is meant balance that out, but I'm basing that on the assumption the voter's in Utah will most likely vote Republican. I imagine that the Senate was left out because of political considerations about adding two more likely Democratic votes in the Senate.

Anyway, it's sounds as if this bill faces an uphill battle on both sides of the aisle.

The bill's greatest hurdle may be partisanship, with a GOP House majority hanging on by just 11 votes and both parties fighting over every seat.

…Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the Davis proposal "not realistic" because it could enable the GOP to redraw a Utah House district held by Rep. Jim Matheson (D). Pelosi added that the District should not settle for less than two senators and one representative.

Oh well, at least we'll have a voting representative when we move to the 'burbs.

Gone, But Not Forgotten

No, not Ronald Reagan. Not Ray Charles either. I'm speaking of the cicadas.
Those insects whose arrival, anticipated for 17 years, sent the Washington area into its usual tizzy over any natural phenomenon (snow, high winds, etc.).

I didn't know much about cicadas before they burst upon the scene in D.C. not long ago. But in the build-up to their arrival, I had the opportunity to learn more than I ever wanted to know. Based on the descriptions, I expected swarms. I expected the sky above D.C. to be darkened with clouds of flying insects.

But when their emergence from the earth and their exoskeletons was announced, I didn't see any for days. Then I started seeing the tiny holes in the ground, and their dried husks littering the sidewalk on my way to work. Once, while out in the suburbs for a John Kerry house party, I heard their singing. I think if I lived further out in the suburbs, it would have driven me mad.

In most ways, the cicada's didn't make a huge impact on me, except for the knowledge that it will be 17 years before they come back around again. That's around 2021. I'll be 52 by then. It' hard for me to imagine, really. What's even harder to comprehend is that my son will be 18 years old, and probably heading off to college, the next time the cicadas emerge again. And after that, the next time they appear, he'll be 35; the age I am now. I'll be 69, and crowding 70. If I live that long, I'll see them again when I'm 87, and my son is 52.

So, perhaps the most biggest effect the cicada's had on me is how their appearance marks the passage of time, and reminds me of my own mortality and how quickly time passess.

My son is up from his nap now. And considering what I've just written, I'm not going to let another waking moment pass without spending some of this fleeting, important time with him.