Falls Church News-Press 12-29-2022

by Nicholas F. Benton Falls Church News-Press

As mild temperatures are promised for the onset of the New Year at this Saturday night’s Watch Night festivities in downtown Falls Church, expectations for the 2023 year remain ones of cautious optimism.

For the City of Falls Church, rising residential real estate values and a pause in the receipts of substantial new revenues from the numerous large scale mixed use projects now underway at the West End and the center of the Little City will mean that citizens will not feel significant tax relief at the local level this year. That is, not this year, but as City Manager Wyatt Shields has promised, surely by next year, when another significant cut in the tax rate, of the type that dropped the rate from $1.3555 (per $100 of assessed valuation) two years ago to $1.23 last

For almost 34 years, DC Central Kitchen (DCCK) has been a “nationally recognized” community kitchen that recycles and serves food around the nation’s capital for those who are homeless and/or underserved. Recently, the kitchen’s CEO and Falls Church resident since 1994

Mike Curtin was named “D.C’s Non-profit CEO of the Year” by the Washington Business Journal, partly due to the relocation of DC Central Kitchen on the banks of the Anacostia River.

When first walking into the newly-built, two-floor setup of DC Central Kitchen on First Street Southwest in D.C., it’s hard to imagine that it was once located in a

“decaying” basement of the Federal City Shelter.

What once started in a “decrepit,” windowless 5,000 square-footbasement has transformed into a 36,000-square-foot headquarters full of windows for employees, volunteers and visitors to interact with one another in various ways. The new space will also incorporate a training kitchen for the organiza-

tion’s culinary program, classrooms for teaching and meetings, and office space for those who work for the kitchen from a media/business standpoint.

Curtin, who has been in the restaurant business in D.C. “for a long time,” as well as owning a restaurant in Falls Church — the Broad Street

The City of Falls Church’s Independent, Locally-Owned Newspaper of Record, Serving N. Virginia

CITY OF FALLS CHURCH resident and local businessman Mike Curtin shown with one of the new stainless steel cook-

new D.C. Central Kitchen location that he, as the kitchen’s executive director, secured in Southwest D.C. in

honor

2022’s Non-Profit CEO of the Year by the Washington Business Journal ( Photo: Falls Church News-Press

by Kylee Toland Falls Church News-Press

Homestretch Makes Year End Appeal for Help

Christopher Fay, executive director of the Falls Church-based Homestretch organization that does the education and social skills side of placing homeless families in what usually often turns into permanent housing, issued an appeal to City residents and others this week for some tax-deductible contributions to be made before the end of the year.

Fay’s letter states that “Homestretch works every day to give homeless families in Northern Virginia the tools and resources that they need to work towards becoming self-sufficient members of our communities.

He added, “In Virginia, nearly 6,000 people are experiencing the struggle of homelessness, unable to provide for themselves and their families and being trapped in the cruel cycle of poverty. At Homestretch, we work to address the root causes of homelessness so that our graduates won’t be at risk of ending up in that cycle again.

“Every single life that is touched through our programs would not be possible without the help of generous supporters, and we feel infinitely blessed to be able to do this work for a vulnerable community that needs us.”

It’s not too late to donate to Homestretch before year’s end (and include it as a write-off for your FY 2022 taxes).

F.C.’s Cauldron Sets Lineup For Winter Shows

Falls Church’s Creative Cauldron theater troupe this week announced is “Passport to the World” schedule of performers in January at its 410 S. Maple location. The lineup includes: Seán Heely’s Big Celtic Show: Friday, January 6; Chao Tian’s Unheard Sounds : Saturday, January 7; Shenandoah Run : Sunday, January 8; Griefcat: Sunday, January 8; Washington Women in JazzSOUTH!: Friday, January 13; The Honey Larks: Saturday, January 14; The Songwriters Local Cream South: January 15; Swing Sisters: Sunday, January 15; Trio Caliente: Friday, January 20; Rose Moraes Jobim and Beyond: Saturday, January 21; RAMYI: Sunday, January 22; QuinTango: Sunday, January 22; Bobby Thompson Acoustic Blues Trio: Friday, January 27; Hot Club of Baltimore w. Alexis Tantau: Saturday, January 28; D.C. Guitar Greats: Sunday, January 29; Anthony Pirog With Janel Leppin: Sunday, January 29; Munit Mesfin Sings Roberta Flack: Friday,

February 3;

Saturday, February 4.

Biden Responds to Supreme Court’s Title 42 Ruling

The Biden White House issued a statement on the Supreme Court’s Title 42 ruling Tuesday, and its reads as follows:

“The Supreme Court’s order today keeps the current Title 42 policy in place while the Court reviews the matter in 2023. We will, of course, comply with the order and prepare for the Court’s review.

“At the same time, we are advancing our preparations to manage the border in a secure, orderly, and humane way when Title 42 eventually lifts and will continue expanding legal pathways for immigration. Title 42 is a public health measure, not an immigration enforcement measure, and it should not be extended indefinitely. To truly fix our broken immigration system, we need Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform measures like the ones President Biden proposed on his first day in office.

“Today’s order gives Republicans in Congress plenty of time to move past political finger-pointing and join their Democratic colleagues in solving the challenge at our border by passing the comprehensive reform measures and delivering the additional funds for border security that President Biden has requested.”

Fairfax Agency Issues Notice On Christmas Tree Removal

The Fairfax County Department of Public Works issued an advisory this week around the need for a prompt removal of Christmas trees after this week’s holiday.

“For those of you who decked your halls with a live Christmas tree, it may already be time to dispose of it,” they said in a statement. “Much depends on when you got your tree, what condition the tree was in at the time and if you properly watered the tree throughout.

“Regardless, you should consider getting rid of the tree immediately after Christmas or when it is dry. According to our partners in safety at the National Fire Protection Association, dried-out trees are a fire danger and should not be left in the home or garage, or placed outside against the home.”

Veronneau:

FCCPS School Board Reach Milestone in Work on Equity & Inclusion

Continued from Page 1

spring, can be expected.

The City will be heated up somewhat by protests from some of its better-to-do citizens to adopt “transitional zone” modifications to permit a modicum of affordable housing options. However, this will not be on the scale that is leading to a veritable uprising of citizens in next door Arlington where similar zoning modifications would allow for some duplex or quadruplex projects on turf historically reserved for single family homes.

To the extent the region as a whole may be roiled by efforts of the radical right to bring issues of hate into local politics, at least in the case of Falls Church, even minor, singular incidents are serving to initiate strong countering actions.

For example, Falls Church City Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Peter Noonan issued a letter to parents as the winter break began earlier this month to “make them aware of an incident that transpired on the campus of Meridian High School.”

He reported that “recently, an image of a swastika was found in

an elevator within Meridian High, which was immediately removed upon the notification to administrative staff. It is believed to be an isolated incident, he wrote, and “in reviewing the video footage, we have been able to isolate the timing of the event and believe it to have occurred outside of school hours.”

In response, Noonan stated, “We will be reinforcing our zero-tolerance policy regarding religious and/ or racially hate based messages and images.”

He urged students to “remain vigilant as they monitor the status of these images within the walls of Meridian and the broader Falls Church community.”

The investigation comes as “under the FCCPS policy regarding the Prohibition of Harassment of a Protected Class…developed with guidance from the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.”

The policy, he added, “also prohibits retaliation of any kind towards, by or on behalf of anyone involved in the investigation.” Noonan provided a link to resources including “AntiDefamation League: For Families and Educators” and “Talking Race With Children.”

Noonan told the News-Press this week that student-led initiatives will be forthcoming with the resumption of classes next week.

The School Board reached a milestone in its ongoing work on equity, and inclusion last April with the unanimous approval of the first foundational policy specifically addressing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

The vote codified previous statements and proclamations by the board following the rise nationally of incidents of bigotry, harassment, and intimidation. The previous summer, the board issued a statement condemning violence/

To that end, School Board member Dr. Susan Dimock, Chief Academic Officer William Bates, Director of Equity and Excellence Dr. Jennifer Santiago, a Division Level Equity Team and members of the Mary Ellen Henderson and Meridian Social Justice clubs, have led efforts in the system.

Also, in its year-end message, the City’s Tinner Hill Foundation announced that a robust program of events surrounding its annual march will be forthcoming concerning Martin Luther King Jr. Day activities

in the City Monday, January 16.

a 2022’s

In elections in the coming year, a Democratic primary in June will find the incumbent Commonwealth Attorney who represents both Arlington and the City of Falls Church, Parisa Dehghani-Tafti challenged by someone formerly on her staff, Josh Katcher.

In June, there may also be a contested Democratic primary for the state senate seat currently held

by Sen. Dick Saslaw. Saslaw is in a new district that will not include Falls Church once a new person is elected next November and the opening currently held by Sen. Chap Petersen may well be open to a challenge in a Democratic primary this June.

Falls Church City Council and School Board seats, three out of seven of them on each body, will be contested in November.

MEMBERS OF the audience at

final Falls Church City Council meeting looked like paparazzi taking photos of Beth Meadows being honored with the Chet DeLong Award for her service to the Mary Riley Styles Public Library earlier this month. (News-Press Photo)

FALLS CHURCH

Guest Commentary: Waiting Isn’t so Bad After All

by Pastor David Kirkland of Dulin Church

Let’s face it. We don’t like to wait. With the advent of COVID, we endured having to wait. We waited for vaccines, for items missing from store shelves, going back to the office, for appointments to doctors and surgeries in hospitals, and returning to places of worship while having to opt for zoom, virtual and live streaming. We don’t like to wait.

I am reminded of a ketchup commercial in 1979. It was about how some ketchups are thin and just come out of the bottle. There is a picture of a ketchup bottle, with the ketchup slowly, about to come out of the bottle. The song “Anticipation” starts. “Anticipation. Anticipation. It’s making me wait.”

Christians endured 28 days of waiting this year before Christmas arrived. We call this period of waiting, Advent. Advent simply means the arrival of an important person, thing or event. Advent is the time for Christians to prepare for Christ’s birth in Bethlehem long ago as well as prepare for Christ’s return. And we don’t like to wait. We want to sing Christmas carols in late November rather than agonize with Advent carols that no one knows. We would rather hear the nativity story in early December rather than the shocking “in your face” message of the prophets. I like to think of Advent as ANTICIPATION, actively waiting for the birth of Jesus and his coming again. Christmas is almost here!

Many churches use what is called an Advent wreath, a circular wreath of evergreens surrounded by four blue candles (blue is the color for HOPE) each given a name and lit progressively, Sunday by Sunday representing hope, peace, joy, and love. A white Christ candle in the middle is lit on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. These candles represent God’s actions in our world and lives.

HOPE: Christians hope that God will fulfill the prophecies of Old Testament prophets about Jesus born in Bethlehem and for Jesus’ return or second coming. We put our trust in God. Hope waits and endures. Let each of us have HOPE. HOPE for the end of Covid that has affected our lives in different ways. HOPE that our political system endures. HOPE that our economy remains stable with the many challenges it faces.

PEACE: shalom — a gesture of greeting and parting in love and reconciliation. We are at peace in our relationship with God and neighbor. Our lives are filled with worry and

anxiety, especially during the holiday season. We hear daily the news about war and its impact on people’s lives, especially in Ukraine. Acts of violence permeate our lives. We pray for peace.

JOY: Christians are joyful as we hear the words of Mary, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.” We are joyful at the birth of Jesus. During the holiday season, we enjoy lights, songs, and decorations. We have gatherings of family and friends full of food, stories, laughter, and cheer.

LOVE: Advent reminds us that we are loved by God and we are called to follow Jesus’ core commandments, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” and to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Think of the areas in our lives where we need to express love to the stranger, the lost, the isolated, the unloved.

THE CHRIST CANDLE: Finally, the waiting is over. We celebrate “Christ is born.” Christ is the light that shines in the darkness.

All of us are waiting with ANTICIPATION for the beginning of 2023. This gives us the opportunity for optimism, perseverance, and planning. The Falls Church Watch Night is a wonderful way to welcome the new year! Many of us will create resolutions to make our lives better such as losing weight, more exercise, eating healthier, and seeking to change bad habits/ behaviors. Talk about HOPE!

There will always be waiting in our lives. We find ourselves waiting at traffic lights. Be glad traffic lights are there to protect us. We find ourselves with longer wait times at doctor appointments. Be joyful we have medical care. We find ourselves waiting to be seated and served at restaurants. Be thankful we have money to order a meal and are not hungry. We find ourselves waiting due to supply chain issues. Be happy there are people working the best they can to bring goods to store shelves. We wait for election results. It’s part of living in a democracy.

Let’s be hopeful! Let’s be joyful! Let’s be peaceful! Let’s be loving! It will make our world a much better and safer place to live…for all of us. You know, maybe waiting isn’t so bad after all!

May God bless each of us this holiday (holy day) season and New Year!

Our Man in Arlington

By Charlie Clark

Herewith a grown man’s update on his childhood neighborhood of Cherrydale.

Following an astonishing coincidence after mutual friends set us up for a book project, I was pleased to get acquainted with the couple who since the 1980s have owned the house on N. Monroe St. that my family occupied 1955-61. They treated my brother and me to a Proustian tour of the two-toned three-bedroom across from the Cherrydale Bible Church.

Heading south on Monroe, I knocked on the door of what may be Arlington’s smallest house. Owner Barbara Sigler gave me a tour of the cute-as-a-storybook, shotgun-style home with fresh red trim on white gingerbread lattices, complete with picket fence. Amid Christmas decor, she explained how she acquired the jewel box at 1802 N. Monroe in 1972 following the death of her husband in a car accident.

Built in 1900 on a 3250-squarefoot lot, the home was flagged to Sigler by realtor Hubert Burner, who, despite competition from a Georgetown dentist, knew she was low-income and renting on N. Taylor Street. Agreeing to “put up with a small house,” she would raise five children there. They attended Washington-Lee (now Liberty) High. Before even qualifying for a mortgage, Sigler, a teacher’s aide at Arlington Public Schools, moved the family into “my shanty” on Oct. 2, 1972.

With two bedrooms and one bathroom, she packed supplies into a pantry, and her boys slept in the basement

(now used for storage). In the living room is a framed painting of the home. In the narrow backyard sits a stone step—possibly from old slave quarters, Sigler says.

Not surprisingly, she gets regular inquiries from builders who want to buy the place (read: the lot). “You know what would happen,” she confides. Even neighbors are interested. But Sigler will bequeath the asset to her children.

Back up Monroe, I passed the power substation I can recall being constructed circa 1960. On Langston Blvd., I popped in the Philippine Oriental Market & Deli. It was the “Penny Candy Store” in my youth, and I blew enough allowance on atomic fireballs, Lik-M-Aid and Nehi orange pop for many a bellyache.

Filipino proprietors Evelyn Bunoan and Oscar Bunoan have run the deli for 46 years. I sampled the coconut pie, my friend an exotic squash side dish. The lady sells a cookbook titled “Cooking With Master Chef Evelyn S. Bunoan.”

Perhaps the biggest change is afoot next door. Phil Evans, who has run Rod & Reel Repair there since 1993, is retiring. He’s put his entire stock of fishing rodbuilding components (a half a million dollars’ worth) on the market. Current price $2,000.

An 88-year-old widower from Scranton, Pa., Evans plans to read classic books in the apartment upstairs. His for-sale ads consist of a home-made sign in the window and a notice in the Woods and Water newsletter.

Evans is profiled in the current Virginia Wildlife under the title “The Shop Time Forgot.” He has been written up in Washingtonian and Field and Stream as “Northern Virginia’s go-to” fishing gear guy. He still tracks repairs with pen and paper. (Minimum charge: $7.50).

The specialist is reluctant to endorse fishing sites. (No live bait, just lures, fake worms.) But Evans favors Windy Run and Potomac Overlook Park. He likes Roaches Run and Gravelly Point for perch, catfish and carp, mentioning a recent surge in largemouth bass. Those are fish I recall from childhood.

***

Democratic Rep. Don Beyer wasted no time highlighting federal funding for local projects in the $1.7 trillion spending bill President Biden signed Dec. 23.

Arlingtonians get: $750,000 for Integrated Gray/Green Infrastructure projects for the Gulf Branch watershed downstream of Military Rd., and in the Lower Long Branch Watershed on S. Walter Reed Dr. Corridor; $750,000 via Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing for the Oakwood Senior Residences; $750,000 for the Sanitary Sewer Interceptor Pipe Rehabilitation at the Columbia Pike/ Sparrow Pond section of the Four Mile Run Interceptor; and $750,000 for the Sanitary Sewer Interceptor Pipe Rehabilitation in the Rosslyn Area of Potomac Interceptor.

Benton Communications, Inc.) FOUNDED IN 1991 Vol. XXXII, No. 46

The Impact of ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’

With a primetime slot on NBC last Christmas Eve, millions of Americans were exposed to possibly the best holiday season film of all time, Frank Capra’s 1946 classic “It’s A Wonderful Life.” Jimmy Stewart won the Oscar for his role which he performed so passionately, so it was reported, at least partly due to the stress he encountered personally as one who fought in World War II that had just concluded.

But despite its four Oscars, including for Best Picture, “It’s A Wonderful Life” ran into stiff resistance especially from right-wing forces that proceeded to launch the infamous McCarthy Era witch hunts and blacklists during the 1950s. Not the least of these was FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who recruited rightwing philosopher Ayn Rand, author of “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged,” to write a critique of “It’s A Wonderful Life” as pro-communist propaganda.

That’s why widespread appreciation of the movie did not emerge for almost 30 years after its release, when it was revived as the most worthy darling of movie goers everywhere in the wake of the civil rights and antiwar movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. It speaks volumes to this day.

But as commentator Andrew Tobias observes, “Atlas Shrugged” is longer, at 1,168 pages, than the entire final and full report of the January 6 Committee, out this week at 845 pages. Does America still retain the attention span required to stand up to the implications of Trump’s attempted and very nearly successful coup to overthrow democracy? The jury is still out on that one, but the best thing that many of us can do to play our part in the preservation of democracy is to take on some serious intellectual development, much as we learned this week that our U.S. congressman Don Beyer Jr. is doing, not letting his age stand in the way of taking a serious graduate course at the Arlington campus of George Mason University.

In fact, it comes as no coincidence that “It’s A Wonderful Life” was created in the immediate aftermath of World War II to help affirm and restore the core values that animate our nation’s commitment to democracy that so many had sacrificed their lives to protect during that horrible war. Some of the best of our nation’s cultural contributions similarly were issued in that period in response to that war, and the one before it that, combined, cost the lives of hundreds of millions of persons in the most ostensibly civilized areas of the globe. It came even as promoters of McCarthy’s “Red Scare” sought to blunt that influence.

When we ask how the nation can recover from the last six years of Trumpism and the rise of all sorts of racist and xenophobic movements that it has spawned or revived, the film, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” with its theme of the impact of a good and honest life, gives us the best clue.

Pope Francis’ Christmas Homily

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I am not a Roman Catholic except in the most universal sense, but that includes almost every time the current Pope Francis speaks. The televised homily he delivered on Christmas Eve from Rome this year struck me for its relevance to the world in which we find ourselves today. here are excerpts from what he said that night:

“What then does the Lord tell us through the manger? Three things, at least: closeness, poverty and concreteness.

“Closeness. a world ravenous for money, ravenous for power and ravenous for pleasure does not make room for the little ones. I think above all of the children devoured by war, poverty and injustice. Yet those are the very places to which Jesus comes, a child in the manger of rejection and refusal. In him, the child of Bethlehem, every child is present. And we ourselves are invited to view life, politics and history through the eyes of children.

“In the manger of rejection and discomfort, God makes himself present. He comes there because there we see the problem of our humanity: the indifference produced by the greedy rush to possess and consume. There, in that manger, God is no father who devours his children, but the Father who, in Jesus, makes us his children and feeds us with his tender love. He comes to touch our hearts and to tell us that love alone is the power that changes the course of history. He does not remain distant and mighty, but draws near to us in humility;

“The manger of Bethlehem speaks to us not only of closeness, but also of poverty. Around the manger there is very little: hay and straw, a few animals, little else. People were warm in the inn, but not here in the coldness of a stable. Yet that is where Jesus was born. The manger reminds us that he was surrounded

by nothing but love: Mary, Joseph and the shepherds; all poor people, united by affection and amazement, not by wealth and great expectations. The poverty of the manger thus shows us where the true riches in life are to be found: not in money and power, but in relationships and persons.

“We now come to our last point: the manger speaks to us of concreteness. Indeed, a child lying in a manger presents us with a scene that is striking, even crude. Jesus was born poor, lived poor and died poor; he did not so much talk about poverty as live it, to the very end, for our sake. From the manger to the cross, his love for us was always palpable, concrete. From birth to death, the carpenter’s son embraced the roughness of the wood, the harshness of our existence. He did not love us only in words; he loved us with utter seriousness!

“Consequently, Jesus is not satisfied with appearances. He who took on our flesh wants more than simply good intentions. He who was born in the manger, demands a concrete faith, made up of adoration and charity, not empty words and superficiality.

“He who lay naked in the manger and hung naked on the cross, asks us for truth, he asks us to go to the bare reality of things, and to lay at the foot of the manger all our excuses, our justifications and our hypocrisies. God does not want appearances but concreteness. May we not let this Christmas pass without doing something good, brothers and sisters. Since it is his celebration, his birthday, let us give him the gifts he finds pleasing. At Christmas, God is concrete: in his name let us help a little hope to be born anew in those who feel hopeless!

“We behold Jesus lying in the manger. We see him as close, ever at our side. We see him as poor, in order to teach us that true wealth does not reside in things but in persons, and above all in the poor.”

(Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on Dec. 17, 1936 in Buenos Aires. After earning a secondary school degree as a chemical technician, Bergoglio felt a call to the priesthood as a Jesuit, joining the novitiate in 1958, at the age of 22.)

Grill — from 1998 to 2002, said he became involved with DC Central Kitchen after meeting founder Robert Egger and donating food and kitchen equipment to the organization. After his “run” in Falls Church ended in 2004, Curtin came across an opportunity to work at the kitchen as the chief operating officer. Now, 18 years later, Curtin said working at DCCK has been “an amazing ride.”

“I think the kitchen provided a place for me to use all the experience that I had gained for my entire professional career,” Curtin said.

After his experience owning the Broad Street Grill and moving on to DC Central Kitchen, Curtin said he was able to incorporate what he had learned at the F.C.-based restaurant to his new career. Knowing that food can “bring people together” and the kitchen “has an incredible potential to bring different people together for a common goal or task to make our communities a better, stronger place,” Curtin said he was able to take what he had done at Broad Street Grill in terms of training, marketing and business development to his new position at DC Central Kitchen.

“I was able to really focus on the community aspect of the hospitality business when I opened my restaurant in Falls Church,” Curtin stated, “and all of a sudden [DC Central Kitchen] offered me a place to do all these things in one place, so it was the perfect opportunity for me to just start the next chapter of my life.”

His initial reaction to being named the non-profit leader of the year by The Washington Business Journal, was “surprised” while also acknowledging it being an incredible honor and “very humbling” achievement. However, he said when these kinds of honors are given out, he “always thinks about the other 200 folks” working for DCCK “that make this possible.”

“I’m incredibly lucky that I get to be on the cover of The Washington Business Journal and I get to stand up in front of groups of people and talk about the kitchen,” Curtin said. “But I only get to do that because of the hard work that happens every day that most people don’t see.”

When walking into the new location of the kitchen, a visitor is met with one entrance to enter or exit the restaurant, something that was important for Curtin and his team to have that allows staff, students, vol-

unteers and visitors to come to the headquarters and experience what is all around them. When walking into the entrance, one unique observation is the use of windows both inside and outside the headquarters. Curtin said this allows people to see staff in the kitchen making the food and volunteers distributing the food, a somewhat personal experience one can have when truly understanding how much work goes into the organization.

Starting out as a “social servicestyle organization” rescuing food thrown away or not used from restaurants, hotels and caterers and turning it into “healthy, nutritious meals” sent out to shelters, halfway houses and other nonprofits “for free,” DC Central Kitchen also focuses on training individuals to “get to that place of self-sufficiency” by using food. Over the years, Curtin said the organization has moved into more of a “social enterprise business, generating “about half of our revenue, well over $12 million a year” through businesses, catering and more.

The new building displays two floors, with the bottom floor holding the kitchen, classrooms and volunteer area, and the top floor hosting

office space for media and business work. The kitchen area has five times the kitchen space as the old location’s with all-digital appliances that make it “more efficient and safer” in the workplace.

The organization’s former location in the Federal City Kitchen’s basement not only outgrew the facility “physically,” but Curtin also said the location was “not respectful for a dignified place that recognizes the incredible life-changing decisions” for the men and women working for DCCK, as well as students in DCCK’s culinary job training program that works with individuals who have faced “significant barriers” in employment.

“We just needed something different that was out of the margins [and] out of the shadows,” Curtin said. “[A place] very much in the middle of a developing community and a space that really embodied our values and transparency.”

After 12 years of looking for a new headquarters and convincing the building now holding the new facility that DCCK is not only a “viable tenant but a transformational partner,” the organization is now able to distribute 25,000 meals a day, graduate 250 students a year and “hopefully” have

20,000 volunteers. Curtin said the new location will hopefully be finished sometime in January of 2023.

Other areas put on display in DCCK’s new headquarters include a training kitchen designed for students and non-profit organizations, a dishwasher room named after a 21-year veteran staff member, and a maingathering space called the “Hub” that can be used for meetings, staff lunches and fun events for staff and their families. Phone and study rooms are also placed around the building for those who may want to make private phone calls or need quiet time to work.

When walking back to the entrance/exit to leave DC Central Kitchen, one will notice a pillar signed with the names of numerous people. Curtin said these names are nonprofit leaders, supportive chefs, D.C. government officials, longtime volunteers, former or deceased staff members and present staff members.

“About half of our staff, including myself, have been down there in that basement shelter everyday slugging it out,” Curtin said. “I think it’s really gratifying for those men and women [who work for DC Central Kitchen] to be recognized in that way.”

COMMENT

Thoughts News of Greater Falls Church

By Supervisor Penny Gross

Happy New Year! A new year brings renewed hope for the future but doesn’t leave the past completely behind. If the past is prologue, as Shakespeare wrote in “The Tempest,” we have a lot to build on, and not necessarily all good. But perhaps that’s why New Year’s resolutions were created – an opportunity to accomplish goals that were set in the past, but never achieved, and establish new goals that might, but probably won’t, be achieved in full measure. Nonetheless, it is the nature of humankind to reach farther and further in whatever quest is identified, whether space travel or world peace.

Since most of us are not involved in space travel or world peace (although you could say that, living in the National Capital Region, some of our neighbors may be active participants in those arenas), resolutions frequently are more mundane, and achievable – lose weight, learn another language, get a new job or a dog, be nicer to so-and-so, etc. The slate is clean and ready for new lists of activities and challenges for 2023.

For Fairfax County, I hope that everyone will make a New Year’s resolution to travel more safely, whether driving, walking, bicycling, or even scootering. Drivers, slow down and pay attention to your peripheral vision. Remember to turn on your headlights at dusk or earlier. Sometimes you are closer to that pedestrian than you realize. Drivers and pedestrians alike need to stay off their devices. It’s a state law in Virginia for drivers, not for those walking, but we probably all have seen pedestrians talking on their phones or reading something on their screens at the same time they are crossing the street, totally oblivious to traffic. Use the crosswalk, wear something white or light at night (a scarf or cap works fine)

so that drivers can see you, and pay attention to your surroundings. Even with headlights on, a driver may not see you until it’s too late. In all of 2021, there were 12 pedestrian deaths recorded in Fairfax County; as of last week, there were 23 pedestrian deaths in 2022, a statistic headed in the wrong direction. Death did not discriminate: the victims were male and female, of many ethnicities, and ranged in age from teen-aged students to long-retired senior citizens – almost a textbook cross-section of Fairfax County. Another resolution may be easy to achieve, with many options to fit individual preferences. Use 2023 as an opportunity to explore the many parks in Fairfax County, as well as other parks in the region, including many national park facilities – we have a surfeit of great parks, and most are free. The newest Fairfax County Park is in the Bailey’s Crossroads area. The Boyd and Charlotte Hogge Park opened this fall after years of planning. The park is located at 3139 Glen Carlyn Road, just east of St. Katharine’s Greek Orthodox Church, with access to the parking area on Magnolia Avenue. The park construction, funded by the 2016 Park bond, features multiple play courts, including pickleball, a picnic shelter, playground, community garden plots, and an open activity area. A formal dedication is planned for the spring. Hogge Park is the 60th park in Mason District. Walking, hiking, team sports for all ages, golf, concerts, fishing, star-gazing –you can do it all at a Fairfax County Park in 2023!

 Penny Gross is the Mason District Supervisor, in the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. She may be emailed at mason@ fairfaxcounty.gov.

Larceny from Vehicle, Poplar Dr, December 20, 5:40 PM, between 7 PM, December 10 and 10 AM, December 11, items of value were taken from an unsecured vehicle.

Drunk in Public/Carrying Concealed While Intoxicated, Wilson Blvd, December 21, 4:20 AM, a male, 59, of Chantilly, VA, was arrested for Drunk in Public and for Carrying a Concealed Weapon While Intoxicated.

Larceny of Vehicle Parts, N Washington St, between 7 PM, December 14 and 8:50 AM, December 23, unknown suspect(s) entered a parking garage and removed all four wheels from a 2020 Lexus.

Larceny from Vehicle, N Washington St, December 23, between 6:30 AM and 1 PM, unknown suspect(s) broke the passenger side window of a Honda Odyssey and removed items of value.

Motor Vehicle Theft, N Washington St, December

23, between 9 AM and 1:30 PM, unknown suspect(s) took a 2015 brown Toyota Rav 4 which had been left unsecured in a parking garage.

Larceny from Vehicle, W Broad St, December 23, 2:09 PM, unknown suspect broke the window of a 2021 Mercedes and removed items of value. Suspect described as a male wearing a gray hat, black jacket, blue jeans and white shoes. Last seen leaving in a red Ford vehicle.

Larceny from Building, S Washington St, December 24, 3:45 AM, unknown suspect entered an open business and after distracting the employee broke into a secured area and removed items of value. Suspect described as a male, 35-45 years old, black hair, brown eyes, a goatee, wearing a blue and black ski jacket, with blue jeans, a white beanie, a white face mask, that had been pulled down, and white flip flops with black socks. Suspect left the area in a light colored sedan.

Dominion Wine & Beer Suffers Damages

Local business, Dominion Wine & Beer, had a pipe burst in the attic causing extensive damage to all three levels of the building on Christmas Eve. The staff has been hands-on in the cleanup process and the business is closed for repairs. They hope to reopen for business in time for the upcoming New Year’s holiday. Updates will be shared on social media and by the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce in support of the reopening.

Space Solar Power

Northrop Grumman’s Space Solar Power Incremental Demonstrations and Research (SSPIDR) project team is making steady progress towards transmitting solar energy from space to any location on Earth. This technology will be especially useful where warfighters need reliable power to maintain mission operations when needed. This is a big step to making science fiction a reality, putting the energy technology in orbit.

Food Expert Favors Local Restaurants

Eater DC’s food writers and industry pros named some of their favorite local restaurants in 2022 and Missy Frederick, Eater cities director, just happens to be in Falls Church. Among the notables, she included several local restaurants. She picks Pizzeria Orso for pizzas and pastas, Celebrity Delly for matzo ball soup, Takumi for sushi and tempura, and Plaka Grill for Greek salad and gyro meat.

Annual Employer Recognition Awards

Commuter Connections, a program of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, is currently seeking nominations from employers in the Washington, DC metropolitan region for its annual Employer Recognition Awards who offer outstanding commuter and/or telework programs. Commuter Connections encourages and assists area businesses and their employees with the adoption of alternative commuting methods such as transit, teleworking, carpooling/ vanpooling, and bicycling/walking. These methods help to mitigate traffic congestion and provide for cleaner air through reduced auto emissions. Awards nominations are open to all private sector companies, non-profit organizations, and government agencies within the District of Columbia, Suburban Maryland, and Northern Virginia. Nominations are due by January 31. To learn more, visit https://www.commuterconnections.org/employer-recognition-awards/.

VIPC Offers Virginia Businesses Financial Opportunities

The Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation (VIPC) offers grant, investment, and pilot program opportunities to support Virginia innovators, entrepreneurs, and start-ups. VIPC is in the business of connecting innovators with opportunities and the website has information about new and ongoing initiatives and offers opportunities to apply for grants and funding online. To learn more about opportunities offered to Virginia businesses, visit https://www. virginiaipc.org/.

New Community Park Opened

The Boyd A. and Charlotte M. Hogge Park in Falls Church is near completion by the Fairfax County Park Authority. The 6.1-acre site purchased in 2006 is ADA-accessible with a picnic pavilion, open play area, community gardens, multi-sport courts for pickleball and basketball, trails and parking. The park is open for public use and the remaining asphalt work will be completed in spring 2023. The $2 million project is located at 3139 Glen Carlyn Road.

 Business News & Notes is compiled by Elise Neil Bengtson, Executive Director of the Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce. She may be emailed at elise@ fallschurchchamber.org.

AREA EVENTS

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29

HARRY POTTER TRIVIA

Calling all wizards, wizardsin-training, and those with a general interest in the wizarding hobby. Come test

This is for ages 8 and up, please arrive 30 minutes early for tickets. TysonsPimmit Regional Library, 3:00 p.m. — 4:00 p.m.

HECKLER'S BALL

Coordinated heckling from comics and audience, prizes given to best individuals in the crowd and

CALENDAR

ets ($15) before they sell out. O’Sullivan’s Irish Pub, 3207 Washington Blvd, Arlington. 7:30 p.m.

FREE MOVIE NIGHT

Bring the entire family to the Eden Center for a free showing of the holiday classic movie "Elf" on a 40-foot screen in the parking lot. Watch the movie from the warmth of a car and listen through the car radio. Eden Center, 6751-6799 Wilson Blvd, Falls Church, VA, 22044. 6:30 p.m.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30

WINTER WALK OF LIGHTS

Open nightly through Sunday, January 8, 2023, including all holidays. Enjoy even more lights this year as Meadowlark Botanica l Gardens sparkles with displays of flowers, animals,

illuminated trees, and winter/holiday scenes. 9750 Meadowlark Gardens Ct, Vienna. $5-$18

ZOOLIGHTS

Until December 30th, one can enjoy a family trip to the zoo at night with paid admission to Zoolights at the National Zoo. 3001 Connecticut Ave. NW, Rock Creek Park, Washington D.C.

HOLIDAY CONCERT

One of the top-rated panCeltic groups in the world treats its audience to high energy entertainment featuring Scottish fiddling, percussion, and vocals. Performances at 1 p.m. and 2:15 p.m. 3650 Historic Sully Way, Chantilly.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31

CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHT SHOW

The National Harbor

Christmas Tree Light Show will take place nightly this year through December 31st. The show at the epic 56-foot Christmas tree will occur every 30 minutes from sundown until 9 p.m.

ICE! AT GAYLORD NATIONAL RESORT

Gaylord National Resort will celebrate the Christmas season with the return of the hotel’s longtime beloved holiday tradition ICE! will run through December 31 after a two-year hiatus. 201 Waterfront St., Oxon Hill, Maryland.

WATCH NIGHT

Ring in the New Year FallsChurch style, with free, family-friendly entertainment for all ages! 7:00 p.m. – 1:00 a.m. Welcome Tent entrance at 100 W Broad St. Visit watchnightfallschurch.com for more information.

ONE OF THE TOP-RATED P an-Celtic groups in the world treats its audience to high energy entertainment featuring Scottish fiddling, percussion, and vocals. Showing at 3650 Historic Sully Way in Chantilly at 1:00 p.m. and 2:15 p.m. (Photo: Bethany Candalor)

Creek Park, Washington D.C. While going to the zoo during the day is fun and exciting, seeing it at night lit up with Christmas lights is a great way to add some magic to the trip. (Photo: Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute)

LIVE MUSIC THEATER & ARTS

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29

HAMBONE WILSON SHOW

JV’s Restaurant

6666 Arlington Blvd. • 8:00 p.m. (703) 241-9504

WILLEM DICKE

Dogwood Tavern

132 W. Broad St. • 9:30 p.m. (703) 237-8333

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30

LOST HIGHWAY BAND

JV’s Restaurant

6666 Arlington Blvd. • 8:30 p.m. (703) 241-9504

HANK WILLIAMS TRIBUTE BAND

Birchmere Hall

3701 Mount Vernon Avenue 7:30 p.m. (703) 549-7500)

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31

LEGWARMERS

NYE DANCE PARTY

The State Theatre 220 N. Washington St. • 8:00 p.m. (703) 237-0300

WICKED JEZABEL BAND

JV’s Restaurant

6666 Arlington Blvd. (703) 241-9504

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29

The Nutcracker

Enjoy the opulent festivities of Clara’s party as she & her guests encounter wondrous surprises while dancing the night away to merry melodies. Travel along with Clara through a moonlit snowy forest filled with dancing snowflakes to the Land of Sweets where the Sugar Plum Fairy reigns over delightful dances from around the world. Ernst Community Center, 8333 Little River Turnpike, Annandale. 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30

Women Playing Hamlet

Hamlet's a challenge for any actor, but when Jessica is cast as the titular character in a New York production, it sends

her into an existential tailspin. It doesn't help that her acting coach is borderline abusive, or that every Starbucks barista with an MFA tells her she's too young for the role. Featuring an all-female cast performing multiple roles, Woman Playing Hamlet is rip-roaring fun for Shakespeare fans and haters alike. Workhouse Arts Center, 9517 Workhouse Way, Lorton. 8:00 p.m.

COME PARTY WITH THE LEGWARMERS and the State Theatre as they bid 2022 a gleeful adieu. Washington DC's Premier 80's Tribute Band The Legwarmers will be performing on New Years Eve at the State Theatre at 8:00 p.m. The State Theatre will be providing an open buffet starting at door time until supplies last. (Photo: Todd Harris)

"THE NUTCRACKER" performed by the Virginia Ballet Company in Annandale tells the story of Clara and her festive journey to the Land of Sweets. (Photo: Ruth Judson)

Community News & Notes

Winner Named at People’s Choice at F.C. Arts Show

Astrid De Vachon’s mobile “Good Mood Diamond Suspension” has received the Falls Church Arts’ People’s Choice Award. The prize is sponsored by DuBro Architects + Builders, 429 S. Maple Avenue, Falls Church, VA 22046.

De Vachon’s piece, available at Falls Church Arts for $300, is a 24” x 24” work created with wood, washi paper and paper. The piece was chosen by the visitors to Falls Church Arts as the People’s Choice award winner. The theme for this exhibit is Bits & Pieces. The show runs through January 8.

City of Falls Church Holiday Closures Happening Soon

City of Falls Church government programs and services will be closed for the upcoming holidays, except for the Farmers Market, as listed below:

City Hall (300 Park Ave.): Closed Monday, January 2, 2023. Community Center (223 Little Falls St.): Closed Saturday, December 31, 2022, and Sunday, January 1, 2023. Building available for Farmers Market patrons on Saturday.

The Mary Riley Styles Public Library (120 N. Virginia Ave.): Closed Sunday and Monday,

January 1-2, 2023.

Weekly Farmers Market (City Hall Parking Lot, 300 Park Ave.): Open Saturday, December 31.

Keegan Theatre Announces Cast of “The Lifespan of a Fact”

The Keegan Theatre is pleased to announce the cast and creative team of the acclaimed serio-comedic play “The Lifespan of a Fact,” written by Jeremy Kareken & David Murrell and Gordon Farrell, making its DC Premiere at Keegan January 28 — February 25, 2023.

About the play: Jim Fingal is a fresh-out-of-Harvard fact checker for a prominent but sinking New York magazine. John D’Agata is a talented writer with a transcendent essay about the suicide of a teenage boy — an essay that could save the magazine from collapse. When Jim is assigned to fact check D’Agata’s essay, the two come head to head in a comedic yet gripping battle over facts versus truth.

The cast of “Lifespan” includes Colin Smith as John D’Agata, Sheri Herren as Emily Penrose, and Iván Carlo as Jim Fingal.

Inaugural Wreaths Across America Event Successful

On December 17th, Mayor David Tarter, city officials, and civic groups participated in the inaugural Wreaths Across

America (WAA) Day at historic Oakwood Cemetery. The Falls Church Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) hosted the event, having initiated the WAA application with the support of the Oakwood Cemetery Manager and Board of Trustees. The local Girl and Boy Scouts of America, Children of the American Revolution, and the Falls Church Veterans Council joined the DAR and city officials in laying the more than 100 wreaths donated via the national WAA site. Oakwood Cemetery is now among more than 3,700 sites in all 50 states to honor military Veterans every December.

VA DMV Connect Coming to the American Legion Building

The Falls Church City DMV Connect visit is held twice a month, usually for 10 days, on 5 consecutive days of one week, and then 5 days of the next week (frequently it’s the 2nd and 3rd weeks of the month) at the American Legion Building, Post 130, located next to the W & OD Bike Trail, at 400 N Oak St, Falls Church, VA 22046. The Connect’s hours are from 9:30 a.m. — 3:30 p.m. They close for lunch for 1 hour from 12:30 to 1:30. It is mostly by appointment, through the DMV’s website under “DMV2Go or DMV Connect” and then under “Falls Church American Legion,” but the DMV Connect

staff can usually accommodate walk-ins, so please do come by. Walk-in opportunities can occur when there are cancellations, noshows, and overbookings. The wait time is usually very short.

The DMV Connect hosts Remote Knowledge Testing Services, in addition to regular DMV services, this can occur during any day of the visit, if it is reserved 24 hours in advance through the DMV’s 3 rd party vendor, for the Learner’s Permit Test and CDL Test, e-mail: testconnect@dmv.virginia.gov for info and an appointment. Tom Clinton’s

COR office number is: (703) 2485450, the office email is: commissioner@fallschurchva.gov if one has questions, or if one would like the latest monthly Connect schedule e- mailed to one. One can just try a walk-in as they are usually accommodated, the Connect has shorter wait times and is calmer and quieter than the big DMV Customer Service Center (CSC) offices like the Tysons or the Arlington Office. The Falls Church American Legion next dates are January 10 & 11 with new hours again 9:30-3:30 and closed for lunch from 12:30-1:30

ON DECEMBER 17TH, MAYOR DAVID TARTER, city officials, and civic groups participated in the inaugural Wreaths Across America (WAA) Day at historic Oakwood Cemetery. The Falls Church Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) hosted the event, having initiated the WAA application with the support of the Oakwood Cemetery Manager and Board of Trustees. (Photo: Jim Inskeep)

FOR THE SECOND YEAR IN A ROW, SkyPoint Federal Credit Union championed an annual holiday angel tree drive to help support families in our community who need it most. This year’s beneficiaries have been selected from Clopper Mill Elementary School in Germantown, MD. (Photo: Lana Sansur)

ASTRID DE VACHON’S MOBILE “Good Mood Diamond Suspension” has received the Falls Church Arts’ People’s Choice Award. De Vachon’s piece, available at Falls Church Arts for $300, is a 24” x 24” work created with wood, washi paper and paper. (Photo: Astrid De Vachon)

Protect Our Democracy. Support Local News Why Dickens Haunts Us Maureen Dowd

gations like the ones he deftly shepherded over his career.

Like a lot of folks, I have been thinking quite a bit lately about how to shore up our democracy. We voted in November, and that seems to have gone pretty well. Election deniers and conspiracy-mongers running in swing states lost. Common-sense candidates focused on kitchen table issues won. But after voting, what’s next? In this season of giving I have a modest suggestion: Support your local news organization.

I have spent most of my career focused on international news, covering stories such as the civil war in Congo and ethnic cleansing in Darfur. This kind of journalism is, of course, important. But like a lot of journalists of my generation, I started my career in local news, in my case as a reporter at The Times Union, assigned to cover a handful of communities along the Hudson River near Albany, New York. It was there that I first learned to overcome my fear of knocking on strangers’ doors, to make cold calls to politicians and business leaders, to talk to people living through the worst day of their lives.

The Times Union, which is owned by the Hearst Corp., has been through employee buyouts, as have many local papers, though it continues to break news, publish ambitious investigations and win awards. But the bigger picture for local journalism is catastrophic. Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative put out a report in June on the state of local news, and its findings were grim. Since 2005, more than a quarter of the country’s newspapers have closed. Those that survive have shed journalists at an alarming rate: There are roughly 60 percent fewer journalists working in newspapers today than in 2005.

There is significant evidence that the erosion of local journalism has accelerated some of the worst trends in our civic life. “In communities without a credible source of local news, voter participation declines, corruption in both government and business increases, and local residents end up paying more in taxes and at checkout,” the Northwestern report said.

As local news gathering shrinks, people spend more time in places likely to deepen partisan divides: on social media, on platforms such as Nextdoor, or watching national cable television. A 2019 study in Scientific American found that voters in areas where local news outlets closed were less likely to vote a split ticket, a signal that points to deepening polarization in those communities.

“Local newspapers,” wrote the report’s authors, “serve as a central source of shared information, setting a common agenda. Readers of local newspapers feel more attached to their communities.”

Local reporting matters so much that one of my journalism heroes and the former editor of The New York Times, Dean Baquet, created and will lead a New York Times fellowship to help local reporters take on big, challenging investi-

Some of the most important and powerful examples of accountability journalism started as local stories. Watergate wasn’t a scoop by political reporters; it came from a couple of hungry metro beat reporters at The Washington Post Local reporters at The Boston Globe broke wide open the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.

These became national and global stories, immortalized by Hollywood movies. But every day, local journalists uncover news that really matters to their communities.

Take Greg Smith, a reporter for a local nonprofit news organization in New York called The City, which I have donated to. At 5 p.m. on the Friday before Labor Day, he got a text from a source at New York’s public housing authority. The drinking water in a large public housing complex in Manhattan had tested positive for arsenic, and city officials had known about it for two weeks. It was only after Smith asked the housing authority and City Hall for comment on his scoop that the city hustled to provide bottled water to the thousands of tenants living in the complex.

Getting immediate results like this is part of what drew Richard Kim to leave the highpowered world of national media to become editor-in-chief of The City. He had been the executive editor of HuffPost, and before that, of The Nation. He and I worked together when I was editor-in-chief of HuffPost, and we often bemoaned how hard it was to make a real and direct difference with our reporting.

“It has been particularly gratifying for me to do journalism every day where you put a story up and the outcome is produced, by that story, that day,” Richard told me. “We write about a subway station that is disgusting and hasn’t been cleaned, and it gets cleaned. We write about neighborhood playgrounds that are closed and then the mayor comes and opens them the next day.”

In my other hometown, St. Paul, Minnesota, a different kind of local news nonprofit has been making waves. Mukhtar Ibrahim, an immigrant from Somalia, founded Sahan Journal after working as a local journalist in the Twin Cities. In 2014, nine young men from the Somali community were charged with plotting to fight in Syria for the Islamic State group. Ibrahim was proud of his coverage of their trial, but wanted to go deeper.

“Newsrooms really invest in covering terrorism cases involving communities, but when things wrap up they just move on,” he said. That’s why he started Sahan Journal. “The idea is to provide real, comprehensive coverage of these communities so they feel seen and feel engaged in the civic process in Minnesota,” Ibrahim told me. “We’re trying to make these communities more informed and included.”

Minnesota is home to the largest Somali community in the United States, as well as large numbers of Hmong, Libe -

NEW YORK TIMES

I had always been a bah humbug sort of person about Christmas.

It seemed like a season of stress, as my parents scrambled to find the money to buy presents for five kids and have a big feast. I didn’t like the materialism or the mawkishness. Why should there be one week of the year when we were all supposed to be Hallmark happy?

“You’re weird,” my mother told me. Then I took a course on Charles Dickens at Columbia University with the estimable Prof. James Eli Adams, and I began to fathom the magic. As Dickens said in his sketch, “A Christmas Tree,” published in his journal “Household Words” in 1850, “Oh, now all common things become uncommon and enchanted to me.” His biographer Peter Ackroyd wrote that “Dickens can be said to have almost single-handedly created the modern idea of Christmas.”

Christmas morally radicalized Dickens. The disparity between the circumstances and fates of different people offended Dickens in the Christmas season. For him, it was a time to think about what we owe one another, how we live with one another; a time to have a proper sense of outrage about inequality and injustice, and to think about the past, present and future and how much they have to do with each other; a time to consider the good values we’ve thrown away and the bad values — selfishness, egotism, social snobbery, condescension and the worship of money — that infiltrate the heart.

Dickens became an outsider looking in when his middle-class life got disrupted by cold, grinding reality: His father went to debtors’ prison and, at 12, Dickens had to leave school to work in a boot-blacking factory in London.

During a childhood in which he sometimes felt deprived and isolated, he put his faith in fairies. He found a portal to an ensorcelling invisible world, an Ali Baba’s cave of magical transformations and mythical kingdoms and became a Victorian Scheherazade. He was one of England’s greatest defenders of fairy tales because he believed these “nurseries of fancy” could teach positive values and imbue life, for children and adults, with transcendence; he also felt the macabre side of fairy tales — evil stepmothers, menacing monsters and big, bad wolves — was just as valuable for socialization as the reassuring side. His obsessions were the things at the core of fairy tales: clear-cut heroes and villains, defenseless children and hyper-dysfunctional families.

“I always think of make-believe as a way of making beliefs,” Maria Tatar, a

folklore and mythology expert at Harvard, told me. “He understood the deep human need for myth, fantasy, imagination.”

In “A Christmas Tree,” Dickens wrote, “I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood, I should have known perfect bliss.” As Tatar explained: “She is the child in the woods who is the ultimate victim of the predatory. She is an innocent, powerless girl preyed upon by the rich and powerful. So you can think of Dickens as the first charter member of the MeToo movement.”

Ebenezer Scrooge resonates just as strongly now because we remain absorbed with the comeuppance of the 1 percent. Elda Rotor, a vice president and publisher for Penguin Classics, said that Dickens is a steady seller and that “A Christmas Carol” perfectly fits the definition of a classic book, acting as a bridge from how you relate to the past to how you forge forward.

Paul Giamatti played Scrooge in a Verizon ad this month; Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell starred in “Spirited,” a new rendition of the novella, first published on Dec. 19, 1843, now on AppleTV+; Steve Martin and Martin Short did a takeoff on the tale for a recent “SNL”; The New Yorker offered a humorous take on Scrooge’s Instagram; and Jefferson Mays has gotten raves for his one-man version of “A Christmas Carol” on Broadway, in which he plays all 50 characters, as well as a boiling potato. Dickens is also a fairy godfather hovering over the Hallmark Christmas movies: There are Dickens festivals; the characters quote Dickens to each other; and one movie’s heroine has a dog named “Charles” after the writer.

I asked Mays why Dickens endures. “His sense of social outrage, his descriptions of misery are balanced by a celebration of the zest, the fun of life,” he replied. “Eating, drinking, dancing, loving. And that’s as important today as it has always been.”

As Mitch Glazer, who co-wrote “Scrooged,” the hilarious 1988 movie with Bill Murray, put it: “Dickens hits us with the setup: regret, loss, mistakes, missed love, wasted life, and the punchline: ‘It’s not too late!’ In every version from his novella to Mr. Magoo to ours, I get emotional when Scrooge is reborn.”

Dickens has taught me that it’s not too late to focus on the sweet memories, like the time my mom somehow bought me a doll’s kitchen I longed for that my parents couldn’t afford, or the way she would be aghast if we didn’t wear red and green.

The magic is there, if you look. So on this Christmas, as Tiny Tim said, God bless us, everyone!

By Maureen Dowd © 2022 The New York Times

Governor Abbott’s War On Christmas

BY BRIAN REACH FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS

“’This is my command: Love each other. If the world hates you, keep in mind it hated me first’” (15 John 17:18)

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (11 Matthew 28)

“If I had a cat, I’d buy another one so I could kick one and then the other.”

– Republican Governor of Texas Greg Abbott

The underlying theme of every holiday season is giving: taking time to sit with loved ones, exchange gifts, acts of kindness, supporting charity, providing refuge, gathering as a community... it is a time when selflessness and introspection is in rare form. During this time, those of us who celebrate often congregate on Christmas Eve, retelling the two-thousand year old story of a couple who couldn’t find a room in a busy town even for a woman in labor; traditionally praying in unison for food for those who are hungry, shelter for those who seek, and peace and justice in all the world.

While many of us were at Christmas Eve services, visiting loved ones, or wrapped up in a blanket avoiding the polar vortex, three charter buses arrived unexpectedly in DC (a day before they were supposed to arrive in New York City before the weather changed the plan). The buses unloaded 139 asylumseeking families, including children, who had crossed the US-Mexico border in Texas seeking asylum. Dropped off in front of the Naval Observatory, where the Vice President resides, with no winter clothes and unprepared for the artic blast they encountered, they wrapped in blankets as best they could as organizations scrambled to transport them to a nearby church. Finally. After a twoday, two-thousand mile journey (during which DC temperatures dropped fifty degrees to near record lows).

On December 20th, in a pompous and insulting letter addressed to President Biden but clearly designed for a conservative media parade, Abbott expressed pious concern for the well-being of migrants in the face of oncoming “perilous temperatures” (but failed to mention he was about to dump a bunch of them into even colder temperatures as pawns in a cruel stunt). This shouldn’t come as a surprise, given Abbott’s track record. In 2015, after the terrorist attacks on Paris,

Abbott incorrectly attributed the attack to Syrian refugees and vilified all Syrian refugees, stating “any one of [them] could be connected to terrorism.” The attackers were French, Belgian and Iraqi; although some had snuck back into France with Syrian refugees, none were Syrian.

“…Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come.” (17 Luke 1)

So far Abbott has sent over ten thousand legal asylum seekers, primarily to DC and New York City over the past eight months, in response to the Biden administration not engaging in the extreme “deterrent” approaches of the previous administration (which included separating infants from their mothers and losing them in foster care systems throughout the country).

“Woe to you… you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’” (23 Matthew 29:30)

Abbott’s willingness to weaponize human beings for attention is not surprising; the Trump-era right is almost constantly claiming killers are inherently among groups of non-white asylumseekers. Given the staggering number of people that have crossed the southern border over the last thirty years, one must wonder if perhaps criminals have decided the bureaucratic process of asylum-seeking isn’t a terribly attractive or efficient way to do terrorism. If it were, what would be left?

“Woe to you… you hypocrites! … You have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy, and faithfulness… You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (23 Matthew 23:24)

A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. (6 Luke 45)

One might wonder how Abbott felt sitting in the pews on Christmas Eve, knowing the buses were arriving. Given he’s recently been doubling down one should probably conclude no ghosts visited him that evening to give him a change of heart or, if so, did to no avail.

Is the In�lation Storm Letting Up?

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NEW YORK TIMES

The average national price of regular gasoline this Christmas was almost 20 cents a gallon lower than it was a year earlier. Prices at the pump are still higher than they were during the pandemic slump, when economic shutdowns depressed world oil prices, but the affordability of fuel — as measured by the ratio of the average wage to gas prices — is most of the way back to pre-Covid levels.

Now, gas prices aren’t a good measure either of economic health or of successful economic policy — although if you listened to Republican ads during the midterms, you might have thought otherwise. But subsiding prices at the pump are only one of many indicators that the inflationary storm of 2021 to ’22 is letting up. Remember the supply-chain crisis, with shipping rates soaring to many times their normal level? It’s over.

More broadly, recent reports on the inflation measures the Federal Reserve traditionally uses to guide its interest rate policy have been really, really good.

So is this going to be the winter of our diminishing discontent?

After the nasty shocks of the past two years, nobody wants to get too excited by positive news. Having greatly underestimated past inflation risks myself, I’m working hard on curbing my enthusiasm, and the Fed, which is worried about its credibility, is even more inclined to look for clouds in the silver lining. And those clouds are there, as I’ll explain in a minute. It’s much too soon to declare all clear on the inflation front.

But there has been a big role reversal in the inflation debate. Last year optimists like me were trying to explain away the bad news. Now pessimists are trying to explain away the good news.

What’s really striking about the improvement in inflation numbers is that so far, at least, it hasn’t followed the pessimists’ script. Disinflation, many commentators insisted, would require a sustained period of high unemployment — say, at least a 5 percent unemployment rate for five years. And to be fair, this prediction could still be vindicated if recent progress against inflation turns out to be a false dawn. However, inflation has declined rapidly, even with unemployment still near record lows.

What explains falling inflation? It now looks as if much, although not all, of the big inflation surge reflected one-time events associated with the pandemic and its aftermath — which was what Team Transitory (including me) claimed all along, except that transitory effects were both bigger and longer lasting than any of us imagined.

First came those supply-chain issues.

As consumers, fearing risks of infection, avoided in-person services — such as dining out — and purchased physical goods instead, the world faced a sudden shortage of shipping containers, port capacity and more. Prices of many goods soared as the logistics of globalization proved less robust and flexible than we realized.

Then came a surge in demand for housing, probably caused largely by the pandemic-driven rise in remote work. The result was a spike in rental rates. Since official statistics use market rents to estimate the overall cost of shelter, and shelter, in turn, is a large part of measured inflation, this sent inflation higher even as supply-chain problems eased.

But new data from the Cleveland Fed confirms what private firms have been telling us for several months: Rapid rent increases for new tenants have stopped, and rents may well be falling. Because most renters are on one-year leases, official measures of housing costs — and overall inflation numbers that fail to account for the lag — don’t yet reflect this slowdown. But housing has gone from a major driver of inflation to a stabilizing force.

So why shouldn’t we be celebrating? You can pick over the entrails of the inflation numbers looking for bad omens, but I’m ever less convinced that anybody, myself included, understands inflation well enough to do this in a useful way. Basically, as you exclude more and more items from your measure in search of “underlying” inflation, what you’re left with becomes increasingly strange and unreliable.

Instead, my concern (and, I believe, the Fed’s) comes down to the fact that the job market still looks very hot, with wages rising too fast to be consistent with acceptably low inflation.

What I would point out, however, is that many workers’ salaries are like apartment rents, in the sense that they get reset only once a year, so official numbers on wages will lag a cooling market, and there is some evidence that labor markets are, in fact, cooling. Official reports in January — especially on job openings early in the month and on employment costs at the end — may (or may not) give us more clarity on whether this cooling is real or sufficient.

Oh, and with visible inflation slowing, the risks of a wage-price spiral, which I never thought were very large, are receding even further.

So we’ve had some seriously encouraging inflation news. There are still reasons to worry, and the news isn’t solid enough to justify breaking out the Champagne. But given the season, I am going to indulge at least in a glass or two of eggnog.

By PAUL KRUGMAN © 2022 The New York Times

PUBLIC NOTICE

The Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) of the City of Falls Church, Virginia will hold a public hearing on January 12, 2023 at 7:30 PM in the Council Chambers, located at 300 Park Avenue, for consideration of the following items:

1. Variance application V1635-22 by Maribel and Edwin Najera, applicants and owners, for a variance to Section 48-263(3) a. to allow side setbacks of 8.3 feet instead of 10 feet for the purpose of constructing a 2nd story addition at premises known as 113 West Cameron Road, RPC #52-402-055 of the Falls Church Real Property Records, zoned R-1B, Medium Density Residential.

2. Variance application V1636-22 by John Tokizawa, applicant and owner, for a variance to Section 48-238(3) a. to allow 1) front setback of 24.5 feet instead of 30 feet for the purpose of constructing a two-story front addition, and 2) side setback of 9.8 feet instead of 13 feet for the purpose of constructing a onestory rear addition at premises known as 514 Timber Lane, RPC #52-601-026 of the Falls Church Real Property Records, zoned R-1A, Low Density Residential.

Public comment and questions may be submitted to zoning@fallschurchva.gov until 4:30 pm on January 12, 2023. Agenda and application materials will be available the week prior to the scheduled hearing at: http://www.fallschurchva. gov/BZA

Information on the above application is also available for review upon request to staff at zoning@fallschurchva.gov.

ABC NOTICE

Musicbox Entertainment LLC. Trading as Musicbox Karaoke Lounge, 2980 Gallows Rd., Falls Church, VA 22042. The above establishment is applying to the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Authority for a Mixed beverage Restaurant, Retail business on and off premises Wine and Beer. Tianhui Wang , Authorized Signatory Musicbox Entertainment LLC.

Objections to the issuance of this license must be submitted to ABC no later than 30 days from the publishing date of the first of two required newspaper legal notices. Objections should be registered at www.abc. virginia.gov or 800-552-3200

FOR SALE

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We are pledged to the letter and spirit of Virginia’s policy for achieving equal housing opportunity throughout the Commonwealth. We encourage and support advertising and marketing programs in which there are no barriers to obtaining housing because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, elderliness, familial status or handicap. All real estate advertised herein is subject to Virginia’s fair housing law which makes it illegal to advertise “any preference, limitation, or discrimination because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, elderliness, familial status or handicap or intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination.” This newspaper will not knowingly accept advertising for real estate that violates the fair housing law. Our readers are hereby informed that all dwellings advertised in this newspaper are available on an equal opportunity basis. For more information or to file a housing complaint call the Virginia Fair Housing Office at (804) 3678530. Toll free call (888) 5513247. For the hearing impaired call (804) 367-9753.

29, 2022 - JANUARY 04, 2023

25 & 10 Years Ago in the News-Press

Falls Church News-Press Vol. VII, No. 41 • December 25, 1997

Loud Public Outcry Puts City Charter Changes on Hold

A large and vocal parade of Falls Church citizens stepped up to the microphone in front of the City Council Monday night to speak out against nine proposed City Charter changes.

Falls Church News-Press Vol. XXII, No. 44 • December 27, 2012

Big Turnout Expected in F.C. Again For ‘Watch Night’ on New Year’s Eve Volunteer coordinator Barb Cram has been fielding a familiar question recently. Is Watch Night happening again this New Year’s Eve? The answer is this, says Cram: Watch Night, now in its 15th year, is coming to The Little City.

Support Local News to Protect Democracy

rian and Ethiopian immigrants and refugees. Ibrahim saw a need for journalism for, by and about those communities.

Sahan Journal began publishing in the summer of 2019 and proved to be a vital source of news and information through not just the Covid crisis but also in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. That’s one reason I’ve donated to the project.

Ibrahim said he often hears

news organizations complain that they can’t find reporters from diverse backgrounds, yet he never struggles to find talent drawn from the communities his newsroom serves.

“Our mission at Sahan Journal is to create a pipeline for young journalists of color and to be a place that has the resources that will allow them to grow and succeed,” he said.

Those are two organizations in two places I’ve called home, and both would welcome your support. But I encourage you

also to support the local organization that is doing great journalism in your community. There has been a tremendous flowering of innovation in local news nonprofits. New outlets are opening all the time. They rely on their communities to support them. The future of our democracy and the long-term health of our citizenry may well depend on it.

By L ydia P o L green © 2022 The New York Times

Memorial Mass for Marge Castorina

Marge Castorina, November 30, 1938 – January 5, 2022.

There will be a Memorial Mass for Marge Castorina on January 5, 2023, 10:00 a.m., at Saint James Catholic Church. Marge passed quietly on January 5, 2022, with friends and family at her side. She is survived by her children Michael, Teresa, Alicia, John, and her granddaughter Mia. Marge made her home on Shadow Walk, in the City of Falls Church for 32 years. She was a true leader who worked with passion and distinction for Saint James Catholic School and Parish for twenty years. She dedi-

cated her life to serving her fellow man in their time of need. She worked for Meals on Wheels and received an award from the City of Falls Church for work with Senior Citizens. Marge was known as a selfless, courageous person who spent her life tirelessly helping and fighting for people who couldn’t do it for themselves. She was incredibly generous and supported many charities throughout her lifetime. She was friendly, caring, supportive, and made many lifelong friends. Life was a celebration to her, and she gave much more than she received. She was a devoted wife, great mother,

and a respected and loved member of the community. Above all and everything else she was Irish. Margaret Mary Kavanagh Castorina was Fighting Irish.

C ritter C orner

card to everyone. Happy Holidays!