Join Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

on Wednesday, June 2^nd, at 2:30 p.m.

for the Opening Ceremony of the

FRESHFARM Market at HHS

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and FedStrive are sponsoring a farmers’ market each Wednesday afternoon from 2:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. outside on the Humphrey Building Plaza .

In support of President Obama’s Federal Employee Worksite Wellness Initiative, and following in our First Lady’s lead to emphasize the importance of good nutrition, HHS has brought FRESHFARM Market to our front door!

FRESHFARM Market will offer locally grown:

• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Fish
• Flowers
• Plants

Over 20 farmers from FRESHFARM Markets will sell produce each Wednesday afternoon beginning June 2^nd through October 27^th on the Independence Avenue Plaza of the Humphrey Building .

FRESHFARM Markets is a nonprofit organization that supports our region’s farmers, protects threatened farmlands and connects city dwellers with local farmers.  This farmers’ market guarantees that producers grow, raise, catch, produce and hand-craft what they bring to market.

Invite community members! All are welcome each Wednesday! Food stamps and WIC/Senior coupons will be accepted.  For more information, please visit FRESHFARM Markets at www.freshfarmmarkets.org

The infamous Zack Morris Cell Phone

tell your co-workers, friends, and tenants to do the same: When you bring it in to work tomorrow to recycle during the Golden Triangle’s Flowers for Phones cell phone recycling event you’ll be rewarded for your effort!

Join the Golden Triangle BID at noon tomorrow, Tuesday, Ap

ril 13 in Farragut Square Park, to meet DC Councilmember Jack Evans and we’ll give away $50 BLT Steak gift cards in a drawing to four people who are at the event at 12:00 p.m. sharp (whether they recycle a phone or not)!
Can’t make it at noon tomorrow? The recycling event runs both Tuesday, April 13 and Wednesday, April 14 from 11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. rain or shine at both Farragut Square Park (Connecticut Ave & K Street) and the Triangle Park at the intersection of 21st & M Streets. All old cell phones

, PDAs, pagers, and cords/chargers will be accepted and recycled by Earthworks, a partner organization in the BID.

Regardless of when you come, everyone who drops off a cell phone gets a free potted flower to take home and the chance to win a great prize from one of the following Golden Triangle merchants:
• $100 from Taberna del Alabardero
• Three-course dinner for two from M Street Bar & Grill
• Free massage from Eye Street Massage Therapy
• $50 from Public Bar
• $50 from Green and Blue boutique
• $50 from Bread & Brew
• $50 from Spezie
• $50 from Foundry Gallery
• $50 from Sam & Harry’s

The House of Representatives is currently considering a bill that would give the residents of the District of Columbia voting representation in the House, something they’ve never had.  The legislation has bi-partisan support, but members of Congress need to hear from real people who support this bill. That’s where you come in. Please take a minute and help end the disenfranchisement of over a half-million of your fellow American citizens by visiting http://www.freeandequaldc.com/ and signing the petition, or by calling your Representative and/or Senator’s DC Office.  (To find out who your Representative is, and their contact information, please visit http://www.house.gov/ and enter your zip code in the upper left hand corner.)

The citizens of the District of Columbia have been denied a vote in Congress for over 200 years.  This is the best chance that DC residents have ever had of gaining the right that every other American enjoys.  Please send a message to Congress that 600,000 American citizens should have a vote on issues like the war in Iraq, healthcare, social security, education and any other issue that faces Congress.  Please tell your Representative that you support DC voting rights today.

Your support is particularly needed today, one day after President Bush  threatened to veto the DC Voting rights bill.  Bush has questioned the constitutionality of allowing 600,000 Americans to have a vote in Congress.  If I remember my Civics 101 class correctly, it is the responsibility of the Supreme Court to determine if a law is constitutional, not the President.  But the Court can not rule on a law that has not been passed.  Let’s give the Supreme Court a chance to fulfill its constitutional obligation to interpret the laws by passing this bill on Friday. 

Thank you for your help and support.

I think that its great that YouTube is providing a space for all of these candidates to offer their message, and for voters to visit and have access to that message from one resource.  If most voters are like me, though, (and according to the Washington Post, they are) surfing through YouTube for candidate videos wouldn’t be complete without the parodies and candid videos that make these politicians just a little more human.   My personal favorite is of John Edwards showing just how hard it is to look good in front of the camera for those “official” videos.  Enjoy!

Gray skies are already starting to clear up…

I’m sure that half the country was holding their breath last night as Al Gore pulled that folded sheaf of papers out of his tuxedo and started into his “My fellow Americans…” bit.  With one more sentence, Mr. Gore could have changed the entire presidential primary race for the 2008 election, by stating that he would throw his hat into the ring and make it a 3 person primary race.  Gore is certainly capitalizing on the success of the Academy Award winning movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” with a number of public appearances scheduled over the next several months, including testifying before 3 Congressional hearings on climate change issues.  Gore will also be releasing his new political book, The Assault on Reason, on May 22 in his most recent foray into political punditry.  The question on everyone’s mind in Washington, DC this morning is whether Gore is positioning himself for a major comeback to the national political scene. 

Former Gore campaign Director Donna Brazile has expressed what many pundits have known for many months but been afraid to say aloud, that “Gore’s political stock is hot right now. “ The former VP is certainly riding a huge wave of popularity for his work on “An Inconvenient Truth,” but whether that popularity can be efficiently translated into political support for a candidate that has painted himself as a single issue crusader, remains to be seen.  Gore has no doubt been successful at making the climate change issue a huge component of the political debate.  However, the galvanizing issue for the majority of American voters in 2006 was, and continues to be, the Iraq War, which Mr. Gore has remained relatively silent about.   The release of “The Assault on Reason” may be Gore’s attempt to submit for public record his positions on a variety of important issues that will shape the 2008 election, including condemnation of the Iraq war, and thus set the stage for Gore to enter into a three way primary race against Clinton & Obama in early 2008. 

Somewhere in this decision process lies Gore’s true motivation, either seeing actual results and success on the climate change issue, or furthering his personal political position.  I have no doubt that Al Gore is “super serial” about the importance of climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emmisions.  Riding his wave of popularity along the sidelines of presidential politics could create a unique opportunity for Mr. Gore to raise the climate change issue to cabinet level importance in a new administration by asserting his influence over a Democratic primary candidate’s platform, without dilluting his own energy and drive on the issue. 

Mr. Gore’s dedication to the climate change issue is far too compelling to expect him (or want to ask him) to diversify his attention towards a wide range of domestic and international policy issues.  With the current wave of support Mr. Gore is receiving, he will be a formidable player in the 2008 election, whether as a candidate or an influencer.  However, I would prefer to see Mr. Gore assert his influence through the early backing of a key democratic candidate, thereby securing a cabinet position for himself as “Climate Change Czar,” than to see any of his efforts and recent successes tainted with a re-entry into the political campaign world as a candidate himself.   Gore has come too far and grown too successful after his 2000 election defeat, to lower himself into a political maelstrom.  Mr. Gore said it best during his Oscar acceptance speech when he pointed out that climate change is not a political issue, but rather a moral issue.  I’m sure I’m not the only one that cringes at the idea of America’s new moral champion being dragged down into the mud of a modern presidential campaign.

At the same time, the transcripts of students coming out of high schools make these kids look like the smartest generation in years.  The national average GPA for students is a 2.98, about a B+.  So why the discrepancy?  Shouldn’t these little savant’s be aceing the test like it’s just another Teen Beat Poll? (By the way, in case you were wondering, 35.6% of Teen Beat readers LOVE Justin Timberlake’s new “Future Sex/Love Sounds” album.  Come on, you you know you were curious.)  The problem seems to be that the questions on the National Assessment don’t ask about Britney’s new hair style or how many shades of lipstick Paris carries in her Gucci purse, but real questions that should be covered in the classroom and these “high performing students” with B+ averages would be expected to know. 

The discrepancy comes from an issue that has been creeping up in academia for a number of years now, performance blind grade inflation.  Teachers seem to be in an ever increasing predicament with expectations of the performance of their students tied to their career ambitions, as well as to their personal connection with the kids. 

The cycle goes something like this:

Johnny is a great kid, he’s captain of the Varsity track and soccer teams, president of the Student Body, and volunteers at the local retirement home on the weekends making paper hats and popsicle stick houses with the over 80 crowd.  Johnny is extremely popular with the school’s students and teachers, and is always polite and courteous with something interesting to say in class.    Now Johnny has his eyes set on college and he wants to go to Big Name University, because it is the best school around.  The high school administration and all of the teachers at Johnny’s school are excited about Johnny’s choice; having such a high profile student attending such a high profile college would be prestigious for the high school. 

But with all of the activities that Johnny does, he doesn’t have a whole lot of time for homework and studying, so his academic performance doesn’t seem to match the rest of his profile.  So because Johnny is such a good kid, and this is so important to Johnny, the school and community, teachers tweak the grades a little bit because they understand that Johnny tries really hard and that its tough to balance all of these activities and school work.  And who really uses square roots and the chemical composition of carbon molecules in the real world anyway?  Plus, the better that the students in a teacher’s class perform, the more likely she is to get that 5% pay bump at the end of the year. 

So Johnny’s grades go up and so do all the other students because their situation is similar and all the teachers are facing the same promise of a 5% pay bump that is tied to the performance of their students (Please note, tied to the STUDENTS performance, not the TEACHERS performance.).  And with that little helping hand, most of these kids are able to get past the tests and the transcript wars and into the college of their choice.

Once Johnny is at Big Name University, he goes from being a big fish in a small pond to a guppy in the ocean.  But Johnny is stubborn and he isn’t used to getting poor grades on his exams and quizzes so he takes his case up to his professors asking them to reconsider his performance.  The professors understand Johnny is a freshman at Big Name University and he might be having trouble adjusting to the thrills of life on the Big Name University campus, so they help him out a little by offering a little bump in each test grade.  They’ll do the same for everyone in their class, just to be fair.  And anyway, they are up for tenure review sometime in the next year, and they don’t really want to invite 20 students to file a challenge to their grade the semester before the review process.  So its a win-win really. 

Then the next year, things escalate when Big Name University gets a wider pool of applicants, all with the same inflated GPA, test scores and activity points.  So to limit the pool, they up the standards on GPA, test scores and activity points.  In order to compete with all the other applicants, high school seniors are stuck pressing teachers for even more grade inflations, etc. etc.  This is a slippery slope towards letting dolphins major in electrical engineering at VA Tech.  Sure they can’t get their flippers around the screw driver, and they can’t actually touch the electrical conduit, but dang it, they try hard. 

So where do we draw the line in the sand?  At what point do we say “You just need to know this stuff and get it and focus on your school work and academic performance?”  I dealt with this issue on a limited scale while serving on Marist College‘s Academic Integrity Committee.  Grade inflation was starting to become a problem, but no one really seemed to know what to do about it without changing the entire system.  A few ideas were discussed and it was agreed that this was a big problem with the potential to become a HUGE problem, but ultimately, nothing was done to curb any of the effects. 

One thing that we should really remember is that this is not the student’s fault.  I’m going to be a little daring here and assign the blame to the teachers and administrators – at all levels.  Remember, Johnny’s teachers went through the same process and got the same breaks as Johnny did.  This isn’t new, it’s been going on for generations and its why most older generations get frustrated at whatever the younger generations are learning (or not learning) in schools today. 

The main driver of grade inflation is tying the performance rating of teachers to the success of their students.  This is an antiquated and torpid approach to evaluations that presumes that the students are invested in performing as much as the teacher is invested in students performance.  We need to take a more holistic approach for evaluating teachers, including mandatory periodic re-certification by both CPE credits and institutional testing, increased in-classroom evaluations, school leadership, and yes, student performance.  The main (and radical) concept here is to begin testing teachers’ knowledge and capabilities and shifting the burden of teacher performance off of the students.  Educating the next generation is one of the most important tasks that one can have in society.  These educators are professionals and need to (and are demanding to) be treated as such.  That professional designation should include periodic testing and re-certification, the same as is required for doctors, nurses, first responders, CPAs, investment brokers or insurance agents. 

Once these professionals are able to control their own careers based on their own performance, the pressure to take the easy way out and simply inflate students’s grades will make the students work harder to perform better also.  And as the schools in a particular district begin to ACTUALLY perform better, the community will grow larger with more families moving in to take advantage of the great school system, thereby increasing the tax base and making it easier for school districts to attract better educators.  And so on, and so on.

Its time to start creating a different type of “win-win” in our education system.  Now, who’s going to take the first step?

No one seems to know where this guy stands or what he stands for, not even Joe Lieberman himself.  His only loyalty seems to be to his own advancement, not to a party, an ideology, and one would surmise, not even to his own state.  This is exactly the kind of self fulfilling behavior that voters all around the country rejected in November 2006 when they dumped a number of crooked, self motivated politicians.  Regardless of what party Joe decides to stay loyal to, it’s time for the people of Connecticut to recall this self-interested politician out of office and into permanent retirement.

The rough stuff for Fenty started when his Inauguration was delayed as a result of Former President Gerald Ford’s State Funeral in the first week of January.  The Big kickoff event for this “constituent Mayor” was to be the Inaugural Ball held at the Downtown DC Convention Center, free to anyone who could make the hike to the Reeves Center at the corner of 14th and U Streets, NW to pick up tickets in person.  I was able to gather a reasonable size group to come with me to the Inaugural Ball and was excited as anyone else to celebrate the start of a new and prosperous time for our great city.  I never realized what a challenge simply getting INTO the party would be. 

Our group spent roughly 30 minutes being crushed by a crowd of a few hundred people attempting to enter the main hall of the convention center because of the failure of multiple metal detectors at the entrance points.  After 30 minutes of stagnation, the entry personnel opted to simply let people walk right in, straight through the beeping metal detectors, without having to stop or even so much as have their bag or ID checked.  I understand that the logistics of moving a large group of people through a building can be daunting, but I have less sympathy when I think that this whole debacle was orchestrated by the person, or team of people, that we have just recently ordained to handle the operations and logistics of our bustling metropolis. 

After my experience during the Inaugural ball, I probably should not have been surprised at the District’s poor response to the winter storm last week.  Amongst friends, I’ve always joked that the Mayor’s snow removal plan was code named S.P.R.I.N.G. Over the past few years, though, I’ve been decently satisfied with DC’s ability to get the streets and sidewalks cleared enough to make it out to pick up the staples (milk, bread, bad movies you’ve been putting off watching for 2 years because you were embarrassed to be going to the store to rent it but you figure no one else will be there to witness. What,that’s just me?) or to head to the office without skidding off the road or through an intersection.  Maybe I’ve come to expect too much from the snow removal strategies of DC after the anomaly that was the Williams years, and seeing the efficiency of clearing the major thoroughfares in my native NJ, but the District’s response to last week’s winter storm hearkened back to the Marion Barry days of city management.  (I have to be fair here, because Marion Barry often gets a bad wrap.  In his defense, Barry actually thought that the white stuff outside his window was crack and didn’t understand why people were asking him to get rid of it.)  I found it appalling that 2 days after the storm, on a bright and sunny Thursday morning, our best tactic for keeping Roja’s rear wheel drive sports car on the road and through the streets was to follow in the tracks of some giant SUV that had decided to blaze a trail down 14th Street.  Throughout my entire commute, I couldn’t help but wonder why the streets hadn’t been plowed.  It seemed simple enough, it wasn’t like this storm took us by surprise – the weather folks on every news channel were calling for 3 feet of snow and saying that the sky was going to fall in on us, for about 5 days prior to the actual storm. 

The answer is really quite simple.  This past year, the District purchased some magic salt that was intended to melt the 3 inches of snow that fell, and so opted to NOT plow any of the streets until well after the snow stopped.  “The idea, said DC City Administrator Dan Tangherlini to the Washington Post, was to give the salt a chance to do its work.  If plowing began immediately, the city risked removing the salt with the first layer of snow and allowing subsequent snow and rain to freeze, making streets slick and dangerous. ‘You only get one shot at this stuff,’ according to Tangherlini.” I think the answer to this problem lies, rather, in the design of the DDOT snow plow.  Every “snow removal vehicle” that I’ve ever seen is set up very logically with the plow on the front (presumably to remove the snow, salted or unsalted) and the magic salt spreader on the back.  This might provide a logical solution to our choice of “salt or shovel” by granting DDOT the ability to do both.  I suggest that if DDOT doesn’t currently have this capability, that the budget for next winter look into that option.

Hopefully these are just the few initial rough patches of a new term.  The snow is now melted and feeding the evil Cherry Blossoms (more on that in April) and the greens of my beloved East Potomac Golf Course and spring is in the air.  I’m just hoping that March brings a new beginning to ALL parts of the city, including City Hall.

 Last night around 10 as Roja and I are sitting in the living room and deliberating on the urgency of bedtime, there was a substantial explosion from just outside of the front door to the condo.  The first “pop” was followed by a second and third and as I turned towards the (glass) door, there were sparks and fire shooting out of the electrical meter closet that services our’s and our neighbor’s condo units.  Smoke and the smell of burning plastic filled the foyer and we immediately started shutting off lights and appliances thinking that something was draining too much power from the closet. 

After a few more ”explosions” and the hiss and sizzle of an electrical fire, I called the DC Fire Department who came amazingly quickly.  They came down, took a look at the closet and proceeded to tell me that “yup, it looks like an electrical fire.  Something got burned up in there,” and that it was all up to Pepco at that point.  Pepco’s emergency team arrived within 20 minutes and started poking around in the closet to confirm that “yup, it looks like an electrical fire.  Something got burned up in there.  Looks like your breakers are on fire.”  “You mean, like, right now?”  “Yup! Hey, if you wouldn’t mind, can I take a look at your fuse panel, you know, if its not too inconvenient.”  Now, luckily I had just vacuumed and cleaned the other day and felt totally comfortable with some stranger walking into the house to prevent it from burning down.  There’s nothing more embarrassing than someone coming to service your flaming breakers and to see tumbleweeds of cat hair rolling across the living room floor like it is a barren waste land. 

The Pep(co) Boys determined that it wasn’t OUR breakers that were on fire, but our neighbors’ and that they would need to cut the power to service it.   I’m guessing that they went up to tell our neighbors that before they cut their power and that the next explosion that followed (while I was staring at the box moving some of the more flammable items out of the vicinity, mind you) was the result of an angry consumer jumping out of bed and flipping on a light switch to yell at whatever creep was at his door at 12 at night. 

Hi-jinks ensue as the Pep(co) Boys attempt to cut the power:

PB1: Did that do it?

PB2: Nope, not yet.

PB1: How ’bout now?

PB2: Well, it looks a little dimmer, but I think the line’s still hot.

PB1: ‘K, what happens if I throw this switch?

DCCT: Hey, uh, guys?  Just so you know….the closet just exploded again.

PB2: It did?  Huh.  Well, okay, thanks.  Hmm, didn’t think it would do that.

PB1: What’d he say?

PB2: He said the closet exploded, again.

Pb1: Hmm, I didn’t think it would do that.

PB2: Me neither.

PB1: Well, why don’t I just flip ‘em all off.

PB2: Yeah, I guess…  Hey, that seemed to do it!

I only mention this little dialogue because it brings me back to a quandary about our current society and the level of expectation that we have as fairly connected people (and by that I mean being constantly “plugged in” by Blackberry, phone, Internet, google, etc. not in the “He’s got ‘connections’” kinda way).  My paradigm is that when something is wrong with your computer, phone, etc. you simply call an expert that can plug in their little magic diagnostic tool and tell you exactly what’s wrong and how to fix it.  I am constantly surprised by the level of improvisation that goes on in some of the oldest service industries.  We’ve had electricity for a little while now, and yet we’re still relying on the old “how ’bout now” method of diagnosis.  I’ve also noticed this to be true of a number of professions that I would like to have faith in when I call.  Yet we’re still relegated to having the plumber come over at 5 in the morning to hear the pipes rattle or having an electrician sit at the dining room table for six hours sipping coffee and playing cards with the money that he is making off you for the hours he’s sitting there, just to have the lights NOT dim a bit for 5 minutes and come back on at normal for no explicable reason. 

Perhaps this is simply my naivete, but I like to believe that when I drop my car off at the mechanic, he knows how to fix the problem that I tell him about, and isn’t driving my car around the city trying to hear the loud thumping noise that I hear when I step on the gas.  And then I get to wondering – how many OTHER “professionals” are utilizing this “hey, how ’bout know” diagnostic technique and is it really so bad?  Isn’t this the same as the old, “take two of these and call me in the morning” advice I get from my HMO doctor?  Why are we calling the doc in the morning? Simple, so that he can ask “hey, how ’bout now? You feel any better?”.   I’m starting to see a pattern here…

 But we often don’t treat our car mechanics or plumbers or first responders or even the Pep(co) Boys like we do our doctors and IT technicians.  Yet, they’re all working from the same basic blueprint – the time-tested, tried and true “how ’bout now” method of diagnosing the problems that effect our daily lives.  After all, if it weren’t for the Pep(co) Boys coming out in the rain and the dead of night to work hard at figuring out the best way around our little exploding electrical panel issue, I wouldn’t be able to write this blog entry today. 

So to all the DCFD folks, the Pep(co) Boys, my mechanic and plumber, I raise my coffee cup to you and say “Thank you!”