falls church news press june 26

Index

Choralis, an energetic volunteer choral program based out of the Falls Church Presbyterian Church since 2000, culminates its seventh annual Summer Festival Week for 36 high school students this Friday night.

That’s when the students will join with more than 70 adults and three professional soloists for a performance of Franz Haydn’s dramatic oratorio, “The Creation,” at

the Schlesinger Hall on the Alexandria campus of the Northern Virginia Community College, beginning at 8 p.m.

Gretchen Kuhrmann founded Choralis in 2000 when a group she formerly directed folded, and over 40 participants begged her to start up something new. Since she was already the music director at the F.C. Presbyterian, she proposed starting a program at the church, and the pastor, the Rev. Thomas Schmid, was eager to welcome it.

The rest is history. The pro-

gram has prospered, even with meager funding mostly in the $20 to $25 range from supporters, and the intergenerational energy of the group has given it a special vitality.

There is no shortage of choral groups in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, Kuhrmann noted in an interview with the News-Press this week. In fact, there are more than 300 around, including four of the nine best-funded programs in the U.S. (Choralis Continued on Page 4

“They might not have gotten what they’d hoped for, but the input of the St. James Church, the St. James School parents and the neighborhood vastly improved the project, and it will be a great benefit for the City and the area.” So stated Falls Church Mayor Robin Gardner to the News-Press following the City Council’s unanimous vote late Monday night to approve the construction of a Hilton Garden Inn Hotel at 706 W. Broad St. It took since the first submission last August by the Jefferson Park, LLC, group to seek required zoning, special exception and other changes for the final approval which came this Monday, despite persisting and angry opposition mostly from parents of students at the St. James School.

“Let the boycott begin!” wrote one opponent to the hotel, writing on the News-Press web site in response to an article reporting the vote.

“I agree totally. I will shop elsewhere and pull my kids out of their doctors’ and dentists’ offices immediately and I will never recommend the Hilton,” replied another.

The threat of a boycott of local Falls Church city businesses was repeated by hotel opponents more than once during the many public hearings, petition periods and special meetings held in recent months, including before the Planning Commission, City Council work sessions and at City Council general business meetings.

Despite the fact that only 37 of the more than 600 students at Continued on Page 5

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June 26 - July 2, 2008

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Vol. XVIII, No. 17 June 26 - July 2, 2008

More Letters on Page 6

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Page 3

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Page 4

is not among them).

But if you ask Nancy McSlarrow, the volunteer chairman of the Choralis board of directors, what makes the Choralis program special, it is Kuhrmann, herself. “No one does what happens here. Every time you come to rehearse, it is like you are getting a free singing lesson,” she said. “She is always working to improve the performance of individual singers. People would pay for such a good singing coach.

She brings such passion and enthusiasm. You don’t come just to sing, but to understand.”

Kurhmann puts emphasis on the vitality that younger people bring, and the intergenerational nature of the chorus. “We have some more than 80 years old, and our youngest is 14,” she said.

It is the annual Summer Festival Week that invigorates the chorus with new young talent.

Every year, about three dozen students from over 16 schools in the region attend the 24/7 immersion in the work that will be performed by the entire chorus at the

June 26 - July 2, 2008

conclusion of the week.

A typical day runs from about 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. Individual voice training, classes on the music and the composer, and specialized interests in conducting and instrumental work make up every day, as well as group rehearsals on the primary work.

Kurhmann led a class on the life of Haydn Tuesday that explained a lot about how his personal life colored his compositions. In the case of “The Creation,” she said the work is being performed in German, even though both German and English versions were provided

by Haydn.

She said it’s because the German version flows much better with the music. There will be a streaming translation on a screen above the stage, as well as some impressive visuals provided by Tom Jackson of Jackson Visual Media.

“The Creation” is a powerful work based on the account of creation in the Biblical Book of Genesis.

A particularly powerful moment in the performance

comes when the choral group sings, “And God said, ‘Let there be light!’” With the word, “light,” or “licht” in German, the entire chorus and orchestra explode at the top of their voices, creating a stunning effect.

That’s why on the purple t-shirt prepared for this year’s Summer Festival Week, the one word that appears on the back is “Licht!”

Not only will the 36 students participating in this week’s immersion be in the chorus Friday, but also former students from past Summer Festival Weeks, coming back from college or their current work.

“The fact that a number always come back is very heartening,” Kuhrmann said.

She said about half the students in this year’s program have plans to go onto music programs at conservatories or universities following their high school days.

Choralis performs four to eight concerts a year, and planning is already well underway for the coming year. A chamber choir concert will be held

on Sept. 13, and the work that will culminate Summer Festival Week this time next year will be Bach’s Mass in D Minor.

Choral music, while popular in Europe, is very underappreciated in the U.S., Kuhrmann noted. “I don’t think it’s unpopular, just underexposed,” she said. “There is something about the human voice that requires engagement by the listener that instrumental

music does not. Choral music does not work as background music. It compels attention.”

She said that when there are funding cuts in academic music programs, choral programs always seem to get cut first.

“That’s why we think our role is so important, to fill a gap for students coming from schools with diminished or non-existent choral programs,” she said.

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their inappropriate behavior.

“There was an undercurrent of a lack of respect for City Council members. Some went down a vindictive, nasty road,” said Hockenberry.

Mayor Gardner said she regretted some “bitterness” that she encountered, “including yelling at me, with my children, at the Memorial Day parade.

I did not appreciate that,” she said.

One leading official of the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce, which was a strong supporter of the hotel project, reported Tuesday that a local businessman said he’d been threatened with a boycott if he did not sign a petition opposing the hotel.

Another Chamber official noted that none of the businesses that hotel opponents said had opposed the hotel appeared at the Council meeting to personally express their opposition.

A petition for a temporary restraining order was filed in the Arlington Circuit Court by St. James parent, and attorney, Pierre Coin, on Thursday, but it was summarily dismissed the same day.

“This is not a black or white issue,” Mayor Gardner said at

St. James ‘A lot’

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the St. James School reside in the City limits, the parents argued that they spend a lot of money in the city, and that could stop if the hotel were approved.

Foremost among many objections to the 110-room hotel was the notion that its proximity to the school would encourage pederasts to reside there to prey on students.

However, City officials said they could find no evidence that this should be a particular concern, and some noted that school parents have never objected to existing, much older motels and hotels in the same area where students often walk after school.

In fact, Jefferson Park, LLC principle Bob Young offered considerable proffers to the City to improve safety in the overall neighborhood, including added lighting, cameras and upgraded sidewalks.

An important step secured the day of the vote this week was an agreement signed by Young, the Rev. Patrick L. Posey, pastor of the St. James Catholic Church, and Mark E. Herrmann, Chancellor of the

Catholic Diocese of Arlington for an array of crime prevention measures, including the erection of an eight-foot fence around the school playground paid for

by Young.

Posey and Herrmann were present at Monday’s Council meeting to affirm their support for the agreement, over the objection of numerous parents who said it did not have enough “teeth” or that it ignored certain dangers.

Angry remarks included one that warned the Council that it could be sued for “negligence and reckless endangerment,” both individually and collectively, for “tempting fate of pedophiles,” by approving the project.

However, Falls Church citizen activist Kathy Kleinman, an attorney, said she accepted the task of exploring the incidents of hotels being located near schools, and found there were “more cases than we could count” across the U.S., and that in no case could reports of any problems be found.

In their comments approving the project, both Mayor Gardner and Vice Mayor Hockenberry chastised some among the opponents for what they called

St. James School

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Continued from Page 1

Page 5

Monday’s meeting. “There are very legitimate concerns regarding the children. But the question should be, ‘If there is a hotel, then can we make the school safer?’ We got the right outcome, because the school will become safer.”

In the last iteration of the project, Young dropped plans for an office building at the back of the hotel, enabling access to both levels of the parking deck from Broad Street. That was aimed at mitigating the traffic impact on Oak Street, separating an entrance to the parking deck from the St. James School.

He also added to his finan-

cial proffer for improvements around the school, although City Manager Wyatt Shields cautioned that that money could not go directly to the school, as a private entity, but to City upgrades.

“When we ask if this hotel will represent a change for the better, the answer is ‘yes,’” said Councilman Hal Lippman. “I do what is in the best interest of the City, overall. That is my overriding rationale.”

Councilman Dan Sze made a similar comment, asking, “Is this a change for the better?,” Continued on Page 8

Page 6

Editor, I was appalled by Joanne Rodman’s anti-Catholic slur in her letter to the Editor in last week’s issue. If the proposed hotel were to be built next to the Falls Church, would she have proffered an antigay insult? Would another location have garnered an aspersion against a minority group? If the hotel were to be built next to Mt. Daniel or TJ, would she still value the convenience of a nearby hotel for her visiting relatives over the safety of children? We have several hundred children K-8 attending St. James School.

Perhaps the reason there is not a lot of statistics on pedophiles operating in hotels located close to schools is that other municipalities have better sense than to allow it.

While convicted pedophiles

June 26 - July 2, 2008

must register their residences, they are at liberty to stay in any hotel.

A Department of Justice expert on pedophiles spoke at a meeting at St. James School. Ms. Rodman might be as stunned as I was to learn that a pedophile “tracks” his intended victims, observing who walks alone, who looks like they need a friend, etc.

Then he sets about becoming part of the neighborhood scenery, just saying “hi” at first and gradually stepping up the conversation and ingratiating himself with the child over the next days. The child is used to seeing him now and the pedophile has become part of the “safe,” expected environment.

What better vantage point than a hotel for these criminals?

It’s a false economy and just plain wrong to allow a hotel to be built in close proximity to a school.

Christine McCarty Fairfax

Editor, We would like to thank the city of Falls Church and the

business sponsors for putting on the Tinner Hill Blues Festival.

Two years ago we “stumbled” on it driving through Falls Church and stopped for it. Last year we were out of town.

I read about this year’s in this newspaper while at Kaiser getting allergy shots. (I have been reading it every week for the last year while getting shotsThanks!)

This year’s festival could not have been nicer- with the location at a large park with trees and tables, vendors of items and great food and wonderful bands. All the bands were really great and put on great shows.

Thanks also to Bangkok Blues and Ireland’s 4 Provinces for extending the festival. Curtis Blues at the Sunday brunch at “the Irish pub” was really great!

Not only is he a one man band, but extremely personable. He truly believes in the gospel of the Blues (for a lack of better wording). He did not just merely put on a great show, but told everyone all about the artists’ lives, the culture that created the Blues, but went around and showed people the instrument and explained about steel bodied guitars.

Thanks again FCNP and City of Falls Church!

James & Marianne Triplett Via the Internet

Editor, My biggest and most consistent complaint is that so many businesses show no “house numbers” on their buildings. It is very hard to locate a business when you are driving and when an entire block or two show no

house numbers.

While driving and looking for a house number, it’s not only frustrating, but can be dangerous. Isn’t there some law that every establishment with frontage on a street should have a visible house number? If there is, why not enforce it, or at least notify the businesses that it is the law and request them to comply? If there isn’t a law, there should be one.

Matilda H. Winkel Falls Church

Calling All Children/Teens Who Love To Sing The World Children’s Choir

invites you to audition for the 2008 / 2009 season,

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photo: Diane Hinson

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Let Us Be United Concert Sunday, June 29, 2008 2:00 pm Center for the Arts Concert Hall

George Mason University • 4400 University Drive • Fairfax, VA The concert includes international folk songs, songs of hope and peace, scenes from

The Magic Flute by Mozart, West African drumming, and show tunes.

Tickets ($15/$10): www.masonfestival.org.

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Page 7

Gardner Poised for Re-Election as F.C. Mayor Tuesday Robin Gardner is poised to be re-elected by her City Council colleagues to a second term as Mayor of the City of Falls Church during a specially-convened Council meeting on Tuesday, July 1, at 8 p.m. She will become only the second person to serve more than a single term as mayor of the city since 1988, following the three-term tenure of Dan Gardner (2000-2006). With the departure of Vice Mayor Lindy Hockenberry, who failed to win a third term on the Council in last month’s election, Council member Hal Lippman is expected to be elected the new vice mayor by the Council Tuesday. The meeting will also include the swearing in of new Council members. Nader Baroukh and Lawrence Webb will be sworn in to begin four-year terms, having won seats on the Council in the City’s biennial municipal election last month, replacing David Chavern, who chose not to run for re-election, and Hockenberry, who narrowly lost in a bid for a third term. Serving at her final Council meeting this Monday, Hockenberry was hailed for her nearly four decades of dedicated service to Falls Church, including more than 30 years as an educator in the Falls Church School System and eight years on the City Council, including two as vice mayor. Hockenberry said she plans further service to the City. Tuesday’s special Council meeting will be preceded by a reception at 6:45 p.m.

Dominion Power to Install ‘Voltage Arresters’ in F.C. Following a June 12 meeting with Falls Church residents, upset over a spate of recent power surges that fried their electronic home appliances, a spokesman for Dominion Power reported that new, highly-effective “voltage arresters” will be installed along their lines in the Virginia Forest and Greenway Downs neighborhoods in Falls Church. Assistant City Manager Cindy Mester attended the June 12 meeting, and City Manager Wyatt Shields, speaking at this Monday’s Council meeting, vowed that City Hall “is committed to serve as an advocate for citizens” in future disputes with the electric utility. The surges were caused by storm winds bending trees onto power lines, causing high voltage lines to touch low voltage lines. “We will install several new arresters in Falls Church over the next six to eight weeks,” Dominion Power’s Le-Ha Anderson told the News-Press. “They will make a big difference, although there is no absolute fix.” She said the arresters are normally used only at power substations.

No Waiver of Fees for Storm Brush Pickup in F.C. Unlike in the aftermath of Hurricane Isabel in 2003, when a federal emergency was declared, there has been no waiver of fees for unbundled tree limb and brush pickup in the City of Falls Church, City Manager Wyatt Shields told the City Council Monday. This is despite recent violent storms, including a report of a tornado, that have been described as the worst since Isabel. Shields said that the $65 fee for pickup of up to two cubic yards of unbundled debris only pays for the “tipping fee” charged by a landfill in Fairfax County. Bundled debris, with no limbs more than six inches in diameter nor more than five feet in length, is routinely picked up at no charge in the City. Shields stressed how efficient it is for City crews to retrieve the debris when it is bundled.

Low-Watt Radio Station On Call for F.C. Power Outages The City of Falls Church has an innovative and novel tool to assist its residents in the event of power outages, City Manager Wyatt Shields reiterated this week.

It is a low-wattage AM radio station, at 1680 AM on the dial, that can be accessed with up-to-date information by any ordinary battery-powered radio. The radio station was enabled by a Federal Communication Commission policy initiated in 2002 allowing issuance of new licenses for very low-watt stations, which it now offers for free to public jurisdictions. The Falls Church station is just powerful enough to cover the City’s 2.2-square mile area, Shields said. It is constantly on the air carrying weather reports, but in the event there is cause, the City’s Acting Public Information Officer, Hyun June Lee, can add special information and updates. The idea for the station came in the wake of Hurricane Isabel in 2003, when some neighborhoods in the City remained without power for more than a week, and had no access to information about efforts to restore power, or other concerns.

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prior to voting for it.

Councilman David Snyder, who was present at the beginning of the meeting but had to leave before the hotel vote to catch a plane for a business trip to Paris, said that if he could, he’d vote for the hotel.

Similarly, Councilman David Chavern, also not present for Monday’s vote, relayed to Mayor Gardner that he favored it.

The hotel will be the first upscale hotel in Falls Church.

Citizens who spoke in favor of it Monday pointed to its positive impact on the City, including as a draw for more

business development, and to its tax revenue impact.

Conservative estimates are that it will bring $380,000 annually in tax revenues into City coffers.

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Arts Council of Fairfax @ GRACE 2008 Through Aug. 1 at Greater Reston Arts Center (12001 Market St., Suite 103, Reston).

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 11 a.m.

— 5 p.m. Artists Talk event Thursday, July 10 at 7:30 p.m.

For further information, call 703-471-9242 or see www.restonarts.org The judge for this year’s Arts Council of Fairfax show picked 45 works by 21 area artists.

Not a bad set of criteria, though we all have our preferences on individual pieces. Personally, I found the photography to be the best over all.

First place this year was John Adams’ oil and acrylic abstract painting on birch panel titled “Specific Gravity.” This, like virtually all of Adams’ paint-

Page 9

ings, features his signature series of horizontal lines. In this case, they are small ridges running across the work, against which Adams has toweled an expansive smear of paint. The overall effect is akin to breaking waves over a series of underwater sandbars.

I’m not a big fan of this series, though this execution seems more acceptable to my eye than the works last seen at Arlington Arts Center last year. Still, I prefer the fine-lined works that he showed at Fisher Gallery in Georgetown several years ago. Those paintings, with their magically disappearing horizontal lines, had a playful intelligence that seems lacking in these later efforts. The newer works seem thuggishly heavy-handed by comparison.

I’m beginning to get the sense that he may be working towards a point where he can capture

the engaging magic of the older works with a less fussy technique.

Mind you, I am in no way panning Adams’ work. His large scale site specific graphite drawing on the 12th floor at this year’s Artomatic was quite nice. That work had a lyrically playful sense of motion about it that was engaging and quite pleasing.

Second place went to Catherine Day for a trio of photographs printed on multi-layered fabric series titled “Ewell’s Funeral.” These look a great deal like errant shot outtakes from some 1960s black and white live television news coverage.

Diane Ramos uses photography in a more traditional manner.

Titled “Experimental Control” (parts 1 and 2), here we find two self portrait grids made up of 25 images each. One of which shows the artist in 25 different blouses, and assorted ways of wearing her hair. The other grid shows 25 images of her in a black blouse. The piece deals with body image, individuality and expectations of conformity.

The series with different manners of dress is quite interesting in that we see her as possessing different qualities, and levels of attractiveness. Where as the uniform presentations show her as nothing so much as a replaceable cog in the social matrix in

which she operates.

Val Proudlii gives us three large-scale photos that are quite amazing in their capturing of the moment at hand. In “Admirers” we see a small child and household cat both eyeing a tropical fish swimming in a fish bowl on a glass-topped table. The collection of eyes and reflections on glass has an endearing and captivating presence. Though seeming to be a single shot of some divine confluence of timing and luck, the work is in fact a compilation of images from the shoot that were then seamlessly Photoshopped together and printed as one. Owing to the flighty attention span of both the child and cat, you’d almost have to do it this way.

Proudlii has in some ways an even more amazing shot in “Rain 4 U.” Here we see a collection of passengers on a train through a side window on a rainy day. The two main protagonists, a man and a woman, sit back to back. Both carry a look of weary solitude.

You want to shout “turn around and say hello.” It seems like an outtake from a sappy Hollywood movie where these two strangers marry and walk off into the sunset hand in hand to raise an assortment of happy children. Alas, it’s the real world, and we know these two will likely leave this train as lonely as they entered.

Note: an on-line slide show of

all the art in the exhibition can be seen at www.artsfairfax.org/ index.php?/programs/grace/.

Clicking on the small images brings up full page views of that piece.

Stifel and Capra (210 Little Falls St., Suite 201, Falls Church) One Year Anniversary show and sale is this Saturday, June 28, from 9 a.m. — 2 p.m. Normal gallery hours are Monday to Saturday 10 a.m. — 2 p.m. See www. stifelandcapra.com Artist Opportunities Glass: Evolving entry deadline July 1. Open to MidAtlantic artists, this contentdriven exhibit will investigate new ideas, concepts, narratives and directions in regional contemporary glass. Entry fee $35 for up to 5 pieces. For more information and entry form, see www.visartscenter. org, or contact: Harriet Lesser, Director of Exhibitions and Programming at 301-315-8200 or gallery@visartscenter.org.  The Northern Virginia Art Beat is compiled by Kevin Mellema. See www.fcnp.com for photos and more. To email submissions, send them to mulsane@aol.com.

Page 10

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Let’s go back and consider how the world looked in the winter of 2006-2007. Iraq was in free fall, with horrific massacres and ethnic cleansing that sent a steady stream of bad news across the world media. The American public delivered a stunning electoral judgment against the Iraq war, the Republican Party and President Bush.

Expert and elite opinion swung behind the B a k e r Hamilton report, which called for handing more of the problems off to the Iraqi military and wooing Iran and Syria. Republicans on Capitol Hill were quietly contemptuous of the president while Democrats were loudly so.

Democratic leaders like Sen. Harry Reid considered the war lost. Barack Obama called for a U.S. withdrawal starting in the spring of 2007, while Reid offered legislation calling for a complete U.S. pullback by March 2008.

The arguments floating around the op-ed pages and seminar rooms were overwhelmingly against the idea of a surge -- a mere 20,000 additional troops would not make a difference. The U.S. presence provoked violence, rather than diminishing it. The more the U.S. did, the less the Iraqis would step up to do. Iraq was in the middle of a civil war, and it was insanity to put American troops in the middle of it.

When President Bush consulted his own generals, the story was much the same. Almost every top general, including Abizaid, Schoomaker and Casey, were against the surge. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was against it, according to recent reports. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki called for a smaller U.S. presence, not a bigger one.

In these circumstances, it’s amazing that George Bush decided on the surge. And looking back, one thing is clear: Every personal trait that led Bush to make a hash of the first years of the war led him to make a successful decision when it came to this crucial call.

Bush is a stubborn man. Well, without that stubbornness, that unwillingness to accept defeat on his watch, he never would have bucked the opposition to the surge.

Bush is an outrageously self-confident man.

Well, without that self-confidence he never would have overruled his generals.

In fact, when it comes to Iraq, Bush was at

his worst when he was humbly deferring to the generals and at his best when he was arrogantly overruling them. During that period in 2006 and 2007, Bush stiffed the brass and sided with a band of dissidents: military officers like David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno, senators like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, and outside strategists like Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute and Jack Keane, a retired general.

Bush is also a secretive man who listens too much to Dick Cheney. Well, the uncomfortable fact is that Cheney played an essential role in promoting the surge. Many of the people who are dubbed bad guys actually got this one right.

The additional fact is that Bush, who made such bad calls early in the war, made a courageous and astute decision in 2006. More than a year on, the surge has produced large, if tenuous, gains. Violence is down sharply. Daily life has improved. Iraqi security forces have been given time to become a more effective fighting force. The Iraqi government is showing signs of strength and even glimmers of impartiality. Iraq has moved from being a failed state to, as Vali Nasr of the Council on Foreign Relations has put it, merely a fragile one.

The whole episode is a reminder that history is a complicated thing. The traits that lead to disaster in certain circumstances are the very ones that come in handy in others. The people who seem so smart at some moments seem incredibly foolish in others.

The cocksure war supporters learned this humbling lesson during the dark days of 2006. And now the cocksure surge opponents, drunk on their own vindication, will get to enjoy their season of humility. They have already gone through the stages of intellectual denial. First, they simply disbelieved that the surge and the Petraeus strategy was doing any good. Then they accused people who noticed progress in Iraq of duplicity and derangement.

Then they acknowledged military, but not political, progress. Lately they have skipped over to the argument that Iraq is progressing so well that the U.S. forces can quickly come home.

But before long, the more honest among the surge opponents will concede that Bush, that supposed dolt, actually got one right. Some brave souls might even concede that if the U.S. had withdrawn in the depths of the chaos, the world would be in worse shape today.

Life is complicated. The reason we have democracy is that no one side is right all the time. The only people who are dangerous are those who can’t admit, even to themselves, that obvious fact.

WASHINGTON -- The United States has been at war for years now, but ordinary Americans have never been asked to step up and make the kind of sacrifices that wars have historically required.

There is no draft. There are no shortages of food, consumer items or gasoline. We’re not even paying for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That multi-trillion-dollar obligation has been shoved off to future generations.

I n c r e d i b l y, taxes have been lowered, not raised, since the wars began.

On the home front, this is as pleasant a wartime environment as one could imagine.

That’s actually an added danger for the young men and women who have volunteered to fight in those far-off lands. It’s too easy for the larger society to put them out of sight and out of mind. I asked a college student in Bridgeport, Conn., the other night if she or her friends ever talked about

the war in Iraq. She said no.

Among the least-noted aspects of these two seemingly endless wars is the psychological toll they are taking on those who have volunteered to fight them. Increasingly, they are being medicated on the battlefield, and many thousands are returning with brain damage and psychological wounds that cause tremendous suffering and have the potential to alter their lives forever.

A recent article that I thought would have gotten much more attention was the cover piece in Time magazine, “The Military’s Secret Weapon,” which disclosed that “for the first time in history, a sizable and growing number of U.S. combat troops are taking daily doses of antidepressants to calm nerves strained by repeated and lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Soldiers and Marines are being sent into the war zones again and again because the pool of young people willing to join up and fight is so small. In addition to the obvious physical danger, repeated tours in combat are blueprints for psyContinued on Page 38

“Owning a home lies at the heart of the American dream.” So declared President Bush in 2002, introducing his “Homeownership Challenge” -- a set of policy initiatives that were supposed to sharply increase homeownership, especially for minority groups.

Oops. While homeownership rose as the housing bubble inflated, temporarily giving Bush something to boast about, it plunged -- especially for African-Americans -- when the bubble popped. Today, the percentage of American families owning their own homes is no higher than it was six years ago, and it’s a good bet that by the time Bush leaves the White House homeownership will be lower than it was when he moved in.

But here’s a question rarely asked, at least in Washington: Why should ever-increasing homeownership be a policy goal?

How many people should own homes, anyway?

Listening to politicians, you’d think that every family should own its home -- in fact, that you’re not a real American unless you’re a homeowner. “If you own something,” Bush once declared, “you have a vital stake in the future of our country.” Presumably, then, citizens who live in rented housing, and therefore lack that “vital stake,” can’t be properly patriotic. Bring back property qualifications for voting!

Even Democrats seem to share the sense that Americans who don’t own houses are second-class citizens. Early last year, just as the mortgage meltdown was beginning, Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist who is one of Barack Obama’s top advisers, warned against a crackdown on subprime lending.

“For be it ever so humble,” he wrote, “there really is no place like home, even if it does come with a balloon payment mortgage.”

And the belief that you’re nothing if you don’t own a home is reflected in U.S. policy. Because the IRS lets you deduct mortgage interest from your taxable income but doesn’t let you deduct rent, the federal tax system provides an enormous subsidy to owner-occupied housing. On top of that, governmentsponsored enterprises provide cheap financing for home buyers; investors who want to provide rental housing are on their own.

In effect, U.S. policy is based on the premise that everyone should be a homeowner. But here’s the thing: There are some real disadvantages to homeownership.

First of all, there’s the financial risk. Although it’s rarely put it this way, borrowing to buy a home is like buying stocks on margin: if the market value of the house falls, the buyer can easily lose his or her entire stake. This isn’t a hypothetical worry. From 2005 through 2007 alone -- that is, at the peak of the housing bubble -- more than 22 million Americans bought either new or existing houses. Now that the bubble has burst, many of those homebuyers have lost heavily on their investment. At this point there are probably around 10 million households with negative home equity -- that is, with mortgages that exceed the value of their houses.

Owning a home also ties workers down. Even in the best of times, the costs and hassle of selling one home and buying another -- one estimate put the average cost of a house move at more than $60,000 -- tend to make workers reluctant to go where the jobs are.

And these are not the best of times. Right now, economic distress is concentrated in the states with the biggest housing busts: Florida and California have experienced much steeper rises in unemployment than the nation as a whole. Yet homeowners in these states are constrained from seeking opportunities elsewhere, because it’s very hard to sell their houses.

Finally, there’s the cost of commuting. Buying a home usually though not always means buying a single-family house in the suburbs, often a long way out, where land is cheap. In an age of $4 gas and concerns about climate change, that’s an increasingly problematic choice.

There are, of course, advantages to homeownership. But homeownership isn’t for everyone. In fact, given the way U.S. policy favors owning over renting, you can make a good case that America already has too many homeowners.

OK, I know how some people will respond: Anyone who questions the ideal of homeownership must want the population “confined to Soviet-style concrete-block high-rises” (as a Bloomberg columnist recently put it). Um, no. All I’m suggesting is that we drop the obsession with ownership, and try to level the playing field that, at the moment, is hugely tilted against renting.

And while we’re at it, let’s try to open our minds to the possibility that those who choose to rent rather than buy can still share in the American dream -- and still have a stake in the nation’s future.

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Sen. John McCain has once against thrust the burden for solving the energy crisis on individual families in the U.S. “It has to start at home,” he said yesterday, ignoring the overwhelming evidence that it is deep ideological opposition to any regulation of speculative investment by leaders in his party which has led not only to the explosive rise in food, oil and gas prices, but to the housing mortgage crisis, as well.

Some congressional Democrats are just beginning to scratch the surface of what could become one of the biggest scandals of a scandal-ridden decade, something Republicans and the media have so far chosen to completely ignore.

The scandal dates to back December 2000, when McCain economic advisor, former Sen. Phil Graham, then chair of the Senate Finance Committee, slipped in a loophole, attached to an 11,000-page appropriations bill in the wee hours of the morning during the Christmas recess.

The loophole deregulated oversight by the Federal Reserve of the commodity indexes and commodity futures markets, and the result led immediately to the worst excesses of the Enron scandal.

But it has now spilled over to the current housing bubble collapse, financed by sub-prime mortgages that were repackaged and marketed by unregulated hedge funds, and onto current exploding oil, gas and food prices.

As reported in this column three weeks ago, at a June 3 Senate Commerce Committee hearing, Michael Greenberger, former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, laid out this entire unraveling of events, and insisted that if new regulations were placed onto the commodities futures markets, oil and gas prices would drop precipitously, virtually overnight.

But the major media and Republicans, alike, ignored the hearing. In ensuing weeks, however, some Democrats have begun to take up the case more aggressively. Last week, the first case of a major political campaign energy policy including reference to reigning in speculation on commodities futures came from Virginia U.S. Senate candidate Mark Warner.

Then this week, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama issued a four-point proposal that called explicitly for rolling back the infamous so-called “Enron loophole” slipped into law by Sen. Gramm.

“There’s too much speculation in the oil markets, and a lot of it flows directly from that particular loophole,” Obama supporter New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine said in a conference call.

But the scandal lies not only in the secretive move to slip the loophole into the 2000 bill, but the knowing resistance to closing the loophole by Republican-led Washington ever since.

Silence, including media complicity, has been the main tactic.

Beyond that, there is the unfounded threat that any re-regulation will drive investors to unregulated markets overseas. They simply won’t. They may bluff, but there’s simply too much that’s preferable in the U.S. markets, and investors know it.

It is symptomatic, in the media case, to the run-up to the war in Iraq. With his retirement announcement this week, Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. was quoted in the Post trying to explain his failure to give more credence to critics of the invasion of Iraq prior to its occurrence. “That antenna I normally had just didn’t function well enough,” he shrugged, despite the fact that reporters “pursued some skeptical reporting about the rationale for invading Iraq.” Right.

Maybe it had more to do with Post Chief Executive Donald Graham being flanked shamelessly by top Bush administration military brass at White House Correspondents Dinners, and ordering pro-invasion editorials.

The same is true for many other crimes and scandals perpetrated by a Republican administration that has treated its tenure more like unlocking the candy store for its elitist friends than serving the public interest.

Allowing speculators to feast off of commodity futures at the expense of the average Joe trying to drive to work, keep his job and feed his family is one of the greatest abuses of power imaginable, and for the press to remain complicit by its silence is equally inexcusable.

Page 11

LONDON -- The French are different from you and me.

Yes, they have Sarkozy.

And they have Carla.

And they have “the Carla effect,” as it’s known in Paris.

If an American first lady, or would-be first lady, described herself as a “tamer of men” and had a “maneating” past filled with naked pictures, Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, sultry prone CD covers, breaking up marriages, bragging that she believes in polygamy and polyandry rather than monogamy, and having a son with a married philosopher whose father she had had an affair with, it would take more than an appearance on “The View” to sweeten her image.

It’s hard to imagine the decibel level on Fox News if Michelle Obama put out a CD this summer, as Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is, with songs featuring lyrics like “I am a child/despite my 40 years/despite my 30 lovers/a child”; and this song, “Ma came”: “You are my junk/more deadly than Afghan heroin/more dangerous than Colombian white. ... /My guy, I roll him up and smoke him.”

Or if Michelle gave an interview, as Carla did in a new book, “La Veritable Histoire de Carla et Nicolas,” revealing that she fell in love with her husband for his many fertile brains.

“I didn’t expect someone so funny and so alive,” she said, recalling their blind date at a dinner party.

“I was seduced by his physical appearance, his charm and his intelligence. He has five or six brains which are remarkably irrigated.

“I didn’t go out with cretins before I met him. That’s not my style. But he is really, really quick.”

One chapter of the book is called “Le Diable s’Habille en Carla,” or “The Devil Wears Carla.” And the most repeated anecdote is the one where Carla slyly teases the French justice minister, Rachida Dati, a Sarko protege, as they pass by a bed in the Elysee: “You would have loved to occupy it, wouldn’t you?”

But somehow the French -- who are “polymorphously perverse,” as Woody Allen admiringly called Diane Keaton in “Annie Hall” -- have become so enamored of their new first lady that they’re starting to like her husband more.

At the funeral of Yves Saint Laurent in Paris, Sarkozy got some catcalls when he got out of his car, while Carla, a former model for the designer, who calls herself “nothing more than a folk singer,” got applause and oohs and

aahs.

“Preceded by a sulfurous reputation,” Le Journal du Dimanche reported, “Carla Bruni has improbably succeeded in a country so traditione ally attached to conventions: In less than six months, the third wife of Sarko has conquered, after that of the president, the heart of the French: 68 percent of them, according to our JDD poll, appreciate their new first lady.”

In a recent survey in Le Figaro, the French president was back up at 37 to 41 percent favorables from a low of 32 percent last month.

“The president is better,” a close adviser to the mercurial Sarko told a reporter.

“There is definitely a serenity in his life now,” the French writer Olivier Royant told me.

“He has stopped behaving like a twit since the marriage,” a veteran observer of European politics agreed. “And unlike Cecilia, who seemed like a self-conscious pill who hated being at the Elysee, Carla is playing her role well. She is bien dans sa peau, happy in her own skin.”

Intuitively aware of the media, she handles both the French and foreign press with a downto-earth aplomb. She has said she will keep her personality “while respecting the dignity of the position” and take her job “seriously.”

She plans to write a diary, adding: “I write in French and dream in Italian.”

The magazine Le Point had a cover with Carla’s gleaming face and the headline “La Presidente,” with a picture inside of Sarko standing docilely behind his wife, as she sat at his desk and offered that assured feline gaze to the camera.

Just as Carla charmed the Queen of England and Princes Charles and Philip with her demure French schoolgirl look, she charmed George and Laura Bush on their visit, inviting Laura 30 minutes early for a girls’ tete-a-tete, and then sitting next to the American president and keeping him entertained with a spirited conversation in English, one of her three languages and sort of his one language.

At a press availability the next day, W. interrupted his own boring observation about “the importance of the Doha Round” to smilingly tell his pal Sarko: “It was a great pleasure to have been able to meet your wife. She’s a really smart, capable woman, and I can see why you married her. And I can see why she married you, too.”

Page 12

It is remarkable that Focus on the Family’s James Dobson would accuse anyone of “distortions” considering his ignoble record. But, that is exactly what the right wing ideologue did this week when he said on his daily radio show that democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama distorted the Bible.

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said.” “... He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”

Why do people still listen to what this serial liar has to say?

In the past two years, at least seven researchers have accused Dobson of manipulating or cherry picking their results to back his anti-gay teachings. Letters and videos documenting the concerns of these respected professors can be viewed at RespectMyResearch.org.

The first researcher to step forward was New York University educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, PhD. On Sept. 14, 2006 Gilligan wrote a letter to Dobson that stated: “I was mortified to learn that you had distorted my work this week in a guest column you wrote in Time Magazine…What you wrote was not truthful and I ask that you refrain from ever quoting me again and that you apologize for twisting my work.”

The most recent scientist to claim Double-Talk Dobson distorted his work was University of Minnesota’s Gary Remafedi, M.D., M.P.H. In a letter to Dobson, dated April 28, 2008, he wrote, “I want to draw your attention to a gross misrepresentation of our research at the website of ‘Focus on the Family.’”

Other leading researchers who have taken issue with Dobson’s use of their work include: Dr. Kyle Pruett, Professor of child psychiatry, the Yale University School of Medicine; Dr. Robert Spitzer, Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University; Angela Phillips, Professor, Goldsmiths College in London; Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc, Associate Professor, school of nursing, University of British Columbia; and Dr. Judith Stacy, Professor of Sociology, New York University.

Never before has such an array of venerated professors courageously stood up and turned the ivory tower into a watchtower to protect scientific integrity. What each doctor has in common is that he or she was shocked and outraged when informed how his or her work was used and abused.

While the sheer number of professors who have already stepped forward is unprecedented, it is clearly the tip of the iceberg. James Dobson’s bastardization of the truth is so immense and complete that one would have to build and staff a laboratory and a library to fully investigate and document his legion of lies.

Yet, the wonderful “liberal media” continues to treat this man as if he is a God-fearing grandfather. What disturbs me, is that the one time Dobson was truly exposed as a kook was when he suggested Sponge Bob Square Pants might be gay. This was worthy of laughs, but when some of the brightest minds in the world take Dobson to task for manipulating years of hard work, the media is largely MIA. Isn’t it time the media paint a full and accurate portrait of a man who has had the ear of many presidents?

The reason Dobson is so facile with the facts and believes he can pick and choose who is a “real Christian” is because he has a God complex. The Associated Press’ Eric Gorski reports that, “A McCain campaign staffer offered Dobson a meeting with McCain recently in Denver. Dobson declined because he prefers that candidates visit the Focus on the Family campus to learn more about the organization.”

Can you believe this egomaniac? He tells John McCain, a possible leader of the free world, that he must take a detour from the campaign trail to Colorado Springs to bow at the feet of King James. What next, McCain has to agree to roll a red carpet and feed Dobson fresh grapes?

What is clear, is that the Democrat’s strategy of more God talk, following John Kerry’s defeat in 2004, is unnerving religious conservatives. Obama can speak the language of Scripture and is comfortable in the walls of a church. His genuine connection to people of faith will likely peel away a portion of churchgoers who are disillusioned by the broken promises and endemic corruption of the Republican party. Dobson’s latest tantrum highlights his fear that the religious right is losing its grip as the face of faith in America.

Dobson is not an ordained minister, nor is he a religious scholar.

His is just a loud mouth, self-righteous manipulator who screams and hollers. Until King James can explain why the world’s top professors keep giving him F’s in religion, ethics and science, the media should stop quoting him. While, I appreciate the need for balance, accuracy is the higher journalistic value – even when it comes to the charlatan of family values.

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Sky-rocketing gas prices threaten to sink our economy and are making life difficult for all Americans, especially those struggling along the margins to get by.

The solution to our energy predicament--a nation that comprises 4 percent of the world’s population yet consumes 25 percent of its energy--requires a comprehensive approach, one that aggressively pursues conservation, promotes the use of clean, renewable fuels, and invests in R&D for the next generation of alternative technologies. We must also use the regulatory process to curb excessive stock market speculation and begin a diplomatic offensive to encourage OPEC and other energy producing nations to increase their production for short term relief.

Congress has begun implementing pieces of a new comprehensive approach. Fuel standards for cars and trucks were raised to 35 mpg by 2020, the first increase in over 30 years. The House has passed tax incentives to encourage the commercial development of renewable wind, solar and geothermal sources of energy.

Increases in funding for basic research on green technologies has also been provided, research that until recently had been cut to less than 20 percent of what was invested during the early 1980s. Those past federal research investments led to today’s hybrid technology and new funding infusions could

lead to tomorrow’s technological discoveries, such as ethanol produced from cellulosic biomass.

One proposal gaining attention, championed by oil companies and the lawmakers aligned with them is to end the federal moratorium on drilling for oil off our coastlines. It’s an idea that seeks to boost oil company assets and future profits while giving no thought to environmental consequences and providing no relief to Americans at the pump for more than a decade.

The problem for the U.S.

remains that we hold approximately 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves yet consume onequarter of the world’s supply.

Our domestic reserves pale in comparison to our consumption and moreover, approximately 80 percent of these reserves are already available for oil and gas development. The oil companies simply do not want to spend the money it would take to access these reserves they already control.

Achieving energy independence is a national priority, both for economic, national security and environmental reasons. Chasing a finite supply of off-shore oil through drilling is not part of the equation. Spurring innovation and investment in clean, renewable fuels through tax incentives for wind, solar and geothermal power sources are the keys to a cleaner, safer and more robust future.

TUNE IN! LIVE Falls Church Cable TV Mondays, 7:15 pm.

Cox Channel 12/ RCN Chanel 2/ Verizon Chanel 35

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Page 13

Foreclosure is not a four-letter word, but it seems to have some of the same implications these days as the impacts of foreclosure continue to grow. Our region which, according to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG or simply COG), was relatively free of major foreclosure problems, now has one of the fastest foreclosure rates in the nation.

COG estimates that more than 15,600 homes in the region went into foreclosure in the past year. That is about the same number of households in Annapolis, Maryland! Prince William County, Virginia, and Prince Georges County, Maryland, have been hit hardest in the region by foreclosures. At the same time, home prices also have fallen precipitously. “Hot spots” identified by a George Mason University study on foreclosures, which was released during a COG and Freddie Mac-sponsored Regional Foreclosure Summit last Thursday, include the City of Manassas, Dale City, and Gainesville/Bristow in Prince William County, and the Accokeek area of Prince Georges County. The same study by Professor John McClain also identified impending “hot spots” in Herndon, Centreville and the Route 1 Corridor, as well as Germantown in Montgomery County, Maryland. Experts suggest that higher gas prices will make close-in housing more attractive to buyers.

Driven by subprime mortgages and speculative activity, the impacts of foreclosure activity are widespread. From a local government perspective, the loss of property tax revenues has a severe effect on the budget for schools, public

Last Saturday, I left the Arlington nest and went to Alexandria to canvass for Mark Warner and the rest of the Democratic ticket.

I canvassed a neighborhood consisting mostly of three-story town houses, with entrances at street level. This is almost perfection for experienced canvassers – very few steps to climb and entrances very close together, requiring a minimum of physical effort.

It was a gorgeous balmy day: good for canvassing, but not so good for finding people at home, particularly in this neighborhood which consisted largely of young professionals whose social life pulls them out of the house as much as possible. Of the 45 houses on my route, thirty had no one at home. I found later that that was about par for the course that day, but the organizers were very happy with the number of people we actually managed to talk with.

The purpose of this canvass, and the dozens of others taking place all over Northern Virginia on Saturday, was not so much to convince people to vote for our candidates but to

safety, human services, and public works projects. Foreclosed properties often remain vacant for long periods, and can fall into disrepair which, in turn, may attract vermin or criminal activity, creating valid concerns for the neighborhood. Foreclosure damages the owner’s credit rating and also hurts the mortgage lender and servicer who cannot collect the valid debts owed to them. Economic and emotional disruptions bring unanticipated consequences, too – job loss, breakup of families who still need housing, children who become rootless when moving from school to school.

Despite the gloomy news, the Washington metropolitan region’s economy is fundamentally strong and is more resilient due to our position as the nation’s capital. High wage jobs, especially in business and professional services, are still being added, although job growth overall is more moderate now. The Regional Foreclosure Summit brought together local government officials, financial experts, and non-profit agencies to better understand the impact of foreclosures and what we can do to help preserve the stability of our neighborhoods and our families. One immediate result is a $175,000 investment by Freddie Mac, which will be pooled with funds from the private sector and other foundations to help repair the safety net for families in foreclosure. Criteria for use of the grants pool will be shaped by outcomes of the summit and presented to the COG Board in July.

Supervisor Penny Gross may be emailed at mason@fairfaxcounty.gov 

identify our voters and use the information to assure they go to the polls next November.

This is highly sophisticated political strategy and is reflective of the fact that Democrats are organizing early for probably the hardest fought national campaign in recent memory, certainly in Virginia.

It would be indiscrete for me to reveal the results of my canvass. Suffice it to say that on the basis of this admittedly unscientific sample I predict that Barack Obama will carry Arlington and Alexandria by at least 70 percent of the vote.

Mark Warner and Jim Moran will do even better than that, with Warner leading the ticket.

McCain and Gilmore barely registered on the meter and most were unaware that Moran had any opposition at all.

Given my political leanings, I hope things stay that way. *** Sunday, we went to a wonderful reception at the Barcroft Community center honoring Karen Darner upon her retirement from the Arlington school system. A distinguished speech pathologist in the school system, Karen defines the very

essence of civic leadership in Arlington. She was a long time member of Virginia’s House of Delegates, just as a starter. She has played major leadership roles in an almost dizzying array of civic organizations and activities including fair housing, the Arlington Street People Assistance Network (ASPAN), Arlington’s Committee of 100, American Association of University Women, the League of Women Voters, to name just a few. More than fifty stars, each containing a civic activity or award, covered the walls of the community center.

And of course, everyone was there. I have seldom attended an event with such a diverse group of leaders from all segments of Arlington’s political and civic life.

Karen’s “retirement” does not mean that she will fade away.

She isn’t the type. She will be front and center in Arlington for the foreseeable future. But it was good to celebrate a great community leader and a thoroughly nice person just the same.

Richard Barton may be emailed at rbarton@towervillas.com 

Special In What Way? While most Virginians are probably enjoying the summer in a leisurely way, their state legislature is back in session.

Some may not realize that this is a citizen legislature that is only active for a couple of months each winter. We spend most of the year in our own homes living under the laws that we have approved, just like everyone else.

But, occasionally, we are called back to the capitol building in Richmond to handle things of an exceptional nature.

These special sessions, while once rare, have occurred with more frequency over the past decade.

Transportation Again Invariably, these have been due to fiscal questions relating to transportation spending.

That is why we are here now.

In May, Governor Tim Kaine called this special session to start on June 23 specifically to address transportation.

He asked the General Assembly to deal with two main problems: First, there is a mounting statewide road maintenance deficit of $375 million.

Next is a $500 million loss of revenue approved last year for Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads regional transportation plans.

That was caused when the Virginia Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the taxing powers of unelected regional transportation authorities.

The Governor has proposed a plan to raise an additional $1 billion in taxes to cover these problems and add new transit funding. His plan would raise vehicle registration fees by $10 and add 1-percent to the sales tax here and in Hampton Roads.

It would also increase the motor vehicle sales tax by 1percent and raise the grantor’s tax paid by home sellers by $0.25 per $100 of value.

No Consensus These latter two taxes are problematic because they hit two sectors of the economy that are facing severe problems: auto sales and real estate.

General Assembly Republicans also oppose, by and large, any statewide increase in taxes for transportation.

Some in the GOP would vote against any tax increases, while those in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads

seem open to new taxes only in their regions.

Some House Republicans have proposed using tolls, particularly on bridges and tunnels in Hampton Roads, to finance new construction.

S e n a t e Democrats, now in the majority, generally support a proposal championed by their leader, Senator Saslaw.

To pay for maintenance needs, his plan would raise fuel taxes by 1-cent a year for the next six years, increase the sales tax by ¼-cent, and the motor vehicle sales tax by ½-cent.

For Northern Virginia road and rail projects, his plan increase sales taxes by ½-cent, establishes a $5 per night lodging tax, and raises the grantor’s tax by $0.40 per $100.

House Democrats, facing reelection next year, are generally leery of any gas tax increase, as is Governor Kaine.

Rigid or Flexible?

The Democratic House leader introduced the Governor’s bill in the House with 26 other Democratic co-sponsors. He also had nine Democratic Senate cosponsors. Yet, no Senator has agreed to sponsor the Governor’s bill in that chamber.

Governor Kaine stated that he is open to signing any bill that addresses the transportation revenue shortfalls, whether it is his plan or not.

Speaker Bill Howell and other GOP House leaders say that they will not even consider the Governor’s bill until the Democratic controlled Senate passes a plan.

The Speaker also increased the rural membership of the House Finance Committee before the special session.

The makes that committee more hostile to any tax increase and he assigned the Governor’s bill to the Rules Committee, which he chairs.

When I look at everything that has happened in this special session so far, I’m reminded of the silent movie scene of the two steam locomotives running head-on into each other on a railroad trestle.

Yes, this looks more and more like a train wreck. The real questions are: who picks up the pieces and will there be anything left to put together?

Delegate Bob Hull may be emailed at delrhull@state. house.va.us 

Page 14

City Implements Holiday Schedule for July 4 The following City of Falls Church services will be closed on July 4: City Hall, Community Center, Courts, DMV Select Office, Mary Riley Styles Public Library, Schools, Senior Center and Sheriff’s Office. The George Local Transit Service will not run, and there will be no Friday trash and recycling pickup. Friday’s pickup area will be collected on Thursday with the regular Thursday collection area. For more information, call 703-248-5081.

Marshall HS Baseball Coach Retires Baseball Head Coach Jim Jullien of George C. Marshall HS has recently announced his retirement after four years with the Statesmen. The Athletics Department at Marshall is look-

June 26 - July 2, 2008

ing for an immediate replacement, and résumés may be sent to Joe Swarm, the Director of Student Activities and Athletics.

Don Beyer Volvo Trades Oil for Blood Don Beyer Volvo held a blood donation on June 20 in honor of World Blood Donor Day and in response to a blood shortage across the country. A total of 46 employees and customers donated blood in the dealership’s new car showroom, for which they received a free oil change or free gasoline. Approximately 40 pints of blood were given to the American Red Cross.

Parent Allies Holds First Graduation The graduation for the first class of Parent Allies for Student Success (PASS) will be held June 27 at the Holiday

Inn Ballston (4610 N. Fairfax Dr., Arlington) at 2 p.m. PASS is an outreach program of the NAACP-Arlington that helps parents to advocate for their children’s education. This class of PASS was trained by George Mason University professors Dr. Sylvia Sanchez and Dr. Eva Thorp. For more information on PASS or the graduation ceremony, contact Tony Camp at 703-979-3200 or tcamp@ gmu.edu.

McLean Businesses Receive Blue Diamond At the 2008 Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Chairman’s Luncheon on June 19, two of the four Annual Business Awards were presented to members of the Greater McLean Chamber of Commerce: Wheat’s Landscape and Jim Wordsworth of J.R.

THE 2ND ANNUAL “Power of Pink” Open House to increase early detection and treatment of breast cancer was held at Kaiser Permanente’s Falls Church Medical Center last week. Kaiser officials said the initiative “helps patients to understand the importance of yearly screening and the effect of early diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer.” (NEWS-PRESS PHOTO)

Stockyard’s Inn. Wheat’s Landscape, which was founded by Mike and Mary Wheat in 1978, is the largest full-service residential lawn and landscape company in Northern Virginia. Wheat’s Landscape was awarded the Spirit Award by the Greater McLean Chamber of Commerce in March and received a Blue Diamond Award from the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce.

J.R. Stockyard’s Inn in Tysons Corner is a restaurant owned by Jim and Karen Wordsworth. Jim Wordsworth represents Virginia on the Board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and was recently elected Vice Chairman of the Board for the Southeast Region.

The Greater McLean Chamber of Commerce announced him as Outstanding Business Person of the Year in March, and he also received a Blue Diamond

Award from the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce.

Broadway Actor Visits Local Church Singer and storyteller Charles Holt, who has appeared on Broadway in The Lion King, will perform at the Celebration Center of Religious Science (2840 Graham Rd., Falls Church) on June 29 at 1:30 p.m. He will also provide the music at their 11 a.m. service. Registration for the event is online at www.celebrationcenter.org. Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 at the door.

Traditional Bastille Day Celebration on July 14 Ici Urban Bistro (806 15th St. NW, D.C.) will celebrate Bastille Day with the first annual Servers Race and Wine Tasting, which will be

THE WEST GROUP unveiled its project to create the midAtlantic region’s first “carbon neutral” house in McLean.

Above are Fairfax County Chair Gerry Connolly, Virginia Delegate Margi Vanderhye, Dranesville Supervisor John Foust and West Group Chairman Jerry Halpin. (NEWS-PRESS PHOTO)

June 26 - July 2, 2008

provided by the French Wine Society. At 6:30 p.m. on July 14, servers will participate in a traditional race in which they stack wine glasses on their trays and run toward the finish line. Ici Urban Bistro’s Bastille Day celebration is free and open to the public. For more information or to make reservations, contact the restaurant at 202-730-8700 or visit www. iciurbanbistro.com.

Colonial Personality Workshop The Claude Moore Colonial Farm will present a Colonial Workshop on First Person Interpretation in which they will show how to speak and act like an 18th-century colonist. The workshop will be led by the Farm’s interpreters and will cover training, practice and improvisation skills.

It will be held July 8 at 6 p.m. at the Claude Moore Colonial Farm (6310 Georgetown Pke., McLean). The workshop is $5 ($3 for current members and volunteers), and reservations can be made by contacting Katie Jackson at kjackson@1771.org

Page 15

Seminar on Cognitive Rehabilitation The Northern Virginia Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and Fibromyagia (FM) Support Group will present a lecture by speech language pathologist Joan Green on July 19 from 2 – 4:30 p.m. at the George Mason Government Center (6507 Columbia Pke., Annandale).

She will discuss technology, resources and strategies that stimulate cognition, such as computer softwares and tools that help with organization and memory. The event is free.

For more information, contact 703-968-9818 or visit www. geocities.com/cfsnova.

Falls Church Police Seek Information Falls Church City Police are looking for assistance in identifying suspects responsible for stealing two skate ramps from the City’s skate park, in the 200 block of Little Falls St. The ramps were stolen between June 9 and June 11, and the two ramps have a total value of over $1.2 million.

STUDENT INTERNS at the National Journalism Center’s are shown engaged by a discussion on the future of journalism last week led by Falls Church News-Press owner Nicholas F. Benton and Drew Clark, executive director of BroadbandCensus.Com. (News-Press Photo)

Crime Solvers will pay up to $1,000 for information on this case. Anyone with information is asked to call Falls Church City Police at 703-241-5053 or Crime Solvers at 703-534-7867 for anyone wishing to remain anonymous.

NOVA Toastmasters Hold Elections

will present a volunteer management workshop entitled “Attitude is Everything” on July 17. The workshop will feature a talk by Rita Gworek, a certified image consultant, who will discuss the message one’s image conveys. The program will be held at the Fairfax County Government Center

(12000 Government Center Pkwy., Fairfax) at 10 a.m. Reply

by July 10 to Emily Gibbs at 703-246-3809 or egibbs@ volunteerfairfax.org. It is open to all who manage volunteers and is $15 at the door (free for current members). For more information about NVAVA, visit www.nvava.org.

The NOVA Toastmasters International Club held their last meeting of the year earlier in June. The club held elections for the 2008-09 Executive Committee, electing Joe Ligaya to President.

The rest of the committee is comprised of Vice President of Education Amjad Hossain, Vice President of Membership Peter Nee, Vice President of Public Relations Ramesh Purohit, Secretary John Nusen, Treasurer Chang Ki Hong and Sergeant-at-Arms Cris Birch.

Volunteer Management Workshop The Northern Virginia Association for Volunteer Administration (NVAVA)

LONG-TIME Falls Church resident and affordable housing advocate Fran Richardson celebrated her 91st birthday at the home of her son, Raj, and wife Lily last Saturday. Here, Richardson (center), with a long career in foreign service and journalism, is shown with some of her Falls Church friends at the celebration. (News-Press Photo)

NO SOONER DID SCHOOL let out, than a new entrepreneurial effort showed up on a sidewalk in Falls Church last weekend, the lemonade stand commandeered by Jeffrey Nugara, Abjijit Narain, Arjun Narain and Joshua Mann in the Winter Hill neighborhood. (News-Press Photo)

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June 26 - July 2, 2008

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Business leaders with young children looking for a night out will be pleased to learn that Monkey Business is hosting a “Parents’ Night Out� from 5:30 to 8 p.m. on Friday, June 27. Parents can drop off potty-trained children aged 3 to 6 for a pizza dinner, music, games, arts and crafts and other activities for $25 for the first child, $20 for siblings. Advance reservations are required as space is limited. Monkey Business is located at 442 South Washington Street in Falls Church. For more information about Parents Night Out or Monkey Business’s new Music & Movement classes, call 703-241-PLAY or visit www.monkeybiz4kids.com.

Stifel & Capra is celebrating its first birthday on Saturday, June 28, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The “Backyard Birthday Bash� will feature a show and sale of art from their best selling local artists, artisan jewelers, juried handcrafters, and vintage treasure dealers. The public is cordially invited. Stifel and Capra, which opened July 2, 2007, represents more than 50 local artists and vintage treasure dealers. Stifel and Capra is located at 210 Little Falls Street across from the Falls Church Community Center.

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The Unity Club is asking businesses and residents to donate items to its Yard Sale on Saturday, June 28 from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. at Two Sisters Coffee.

Donations can be dropped off on site the day of the event. All proceeds benefit the Unity Club. Contact Dan Greenwood at 703-477-9242 or email at manager@ unityclub.com.

The Northern Virginia Tutoring Service, Hughes Financial Solutions and Admissions Consultants are hosting a free seminar for parents of college bound students. “Preparing, Applying and Funding� will be presented on Saturday, June 28 from 3 -5 p.m. and Wednesday, July 16 from 7 -9 p.m. for parents of students who are planning to attend college in the next several years. This workshop will be held at the Falls Church Community Center. Dr. Ralph Perrino (Northern Virginia Tutoring Service), Todd Hughes (Hughes Financial Solutions), and David Petersam (Admissions Consultants) will discuss issues that are on the minds of all parents of prospective college students. Registration is free but seating is limited. To register, please call 877-855-1708.

The Center for Spiritual Enlightenment will officially become the owner of the Washington House on Sunday, June 29 when a check for the final payment is made to the Falls Church Women’s Club. A celebration will take place from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. that day with music from the MSJ Project and ice cream. All are welcome. For more information email thecse@TheCSE.org.

Black and white photographs of Falls Church businesses and landmarks are now on exhibit at Shreve McGonegal. “Falls Church Memories�, a collection of current photos of the businesses, historic buildings, monuments and parks that define Falls Church, are by photographer Dede Haas (www.ReflectionsWithin.com). Ms. Haas, a film photographer, is focusing on small town life for her Memories Project. The show, which runs through the summer, also includes black and white watercolors

by Gretchen Thompson. Shreve McGonegal is located at 212 N. West Street, Falls Church, 703-532-4440. Hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The Medicine Shoppe in Falls Church is now carrying a variety of antiques in addition to over the counter medications, medical equipment, incidentals and prescription medications. Wedgwood, antique candle holders, table wear and other items from a recently closed antique shop are on display and available for purchase.

The Medicine Shoppe, owned and operated by pharmacist Joe Smith for more than 25 years, is located at 107 Park Avenue. For more information call 703-536-4042 or email 0444@medicineshoppe.com.

CommuniKids, the DC Metro area’s premier language school for children, has opened a Falls Church location. CommuniKids, which was founded by RaĂşl EchevarrĂ­a, Jeannine Piacenza and Mariana Tarre, offers a totalimmersion language program for children ages 1-8 in the following languages: Spanish, French, Mandarin Chinese, Italian, Arabic, Korean, and Portuguese with German and Japanese to be added in the near future. Classes are taught by experienced native speakers and designed by experts in second language acquisition theory and early childhood education. Maria Walker, a former George Mason High School Spanish teacher, was recently hired as the Director of the Falls Church office located at 510 N. Washington Street, Suite 400. For more information call 703-534-2221, email fc@communikids.com or visit www. communikids.com. ď ľ The Business News & Notes section is compiled by Sally Cole, Executive Director of Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce. She may be emailed at sally@ fallschurchchamber.org

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Page 17

For Week of June 17 - 23 Destruction of Property, 500 blk. Roosevelt Blvd., between June 16, 9:00 p.m. and June 17, 8:35 a.m., unknown person(s) destroyed a window with an unknown object.

Larceny, 900 blk. Parker Ave., June 17, 6:34 p.m., unknown person(s) stole a 45-gallon trash container.

Simple Assault, Post Office, 301 W Broad St., June 18, 10:29 a.m., police arrested a female, 38, of Arlington, VA for two counts of Assault and Battery and Assault on a family member.

Prescription Fraud, Giant Pharmacy, 1230 W Broad St., June 18, 1:11 p.m., police arrested a male, 37, of Arlington, VA for Prescription Forgery.

Destruction of Property, 200 blk. E Fairfax St., between June 13, 8:00 p.m., and June 14, 7:00 p.m., unknown person(s) scratched and dented a vehicle.

Larceny from Vehicle, 200 blk. S Virginia Ave., between June 9, 8:00 p.m., and June 10, 8:00 a.m., unknown person(s) entered

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Destruction of Property, 100 blk. Rolling Trace, June 19, between 10:31 a.m. and 2:09 p.m., unknown person(s) smashed out the front driver side window on a vehicle.

Drug/Narcotic Violation, 600 blk. S Oak St., June 19, 4:28 p.m., police arrested a male, 19, of Falls Church, VA for Possession of Marijuana.

Destruction of Property, Starbucks, 344 W Broad St., June 19, 7:45 p.m., unknown person(s) scratched the rear passenger door of a vehicle.

Larceny, Shoplifting, 7Eleven, 804 S Washington St., June 19, 2:20 p.m., unknown person(s) entered the establishment and stole (2) burritos, chicken quesadilla and potato skins from the establishment.

Drinking in Public, 300 blk. W Broad St., June 20, 1:57 p.m., police arrested a male, 49, of NO FIXED ADDRESS and William New, 69, of

311 Virginia Ave., Falls Church, VA for Drinking in Public.

Driving under the Influence, 400 blk. Lincoln Ave., June 20, 4:28 p.m., police arrested a male, 25, of Silver Spring, MD for DUI. Driving under the Influence, 1000 blk. Birch St., June 20, 11:58 p.m., police arrested a male, 21, of Falls Church, VA for DUI. Larceny, 900 blk. Park Ave., between June 20, 11:00 p.m. and June 21, 6:45 a.m., unknown person(s) stole 12 rocks from the curbside of a property.

Drunkenness, 6700 blk. Wilson Blvd., June 22, 12:52 a.m., police arrested a male, 38, of Keller, VA for DIP and Urinating in Public.

Driving under the Influence, 400 blk. E Broad St., June 22, 3:31 a.m., police arrested a male, 27, of Potomac, MD for DUI. Simple Assault, 6700 blk.

Wilson Blvd., June 22, 3:32 p.m., police arrested a female, 35, of Centreville, VA and a female, 37, of Roanoke, VA for Assault and Battery.

Burglary, Commercial, Jennings Property, 407 N Washington St., between June 20 and June 22, unknown person(s) entered the establishment and stole (6) Laptop Computers.

Drunkenness, 6700 blk.

Wilson Blvd., June 22, 11:18 p.m., police arrested JOHN DOE, 25, of UNKNOWN ADDRESS, for DIP. Larceny, Cars International, 624 S Washington St., between June 21, 6:30 p.m. and June 22, 10:30 p.m., unknown person(s) stole two Virginia dealer tags from the establishment.

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June 26 - July 2, 2008

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June 26 - July 2, 2008

McLean HS Students to Travel to Scotland The McLean HS Theatre Department has been selected to perform in the world’s largest arts festival as part of the American High School Theatre Festival. McLean students will travel to Edinburgh for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August of 2009.

There will be over 1,800 different performances over the course of the three-week festival. Over the next year, these students will be involved in various fundraising activities.

For more information or to make a contribution, contact Denise Perrino at denise.perrino@fcps.edu.

Local Graduates from Lehigh University Michael Ghali of Fairfax graduated from Lehigh University with a Bachelorof

Page 19

Arts in behavioral neuroscience. Lehigh University is located in Bethlehem, Penn.

American Soccer Academy Hosts Camp The American Soccer Academy will host a community soccer camp from Aug. 18 – 22 at Idylwood Park (7713 Virginia La., Falls Church). The camp is open to both boys and girls ages 3 – 14, and it will be held from 9 a.m. — 4 p.m. every day that week. To register for the camp, visit www. americansocceracademy.net or contact 301-695-GOAL (4625) or camps@americansocceracademy.net.

Resident Graduates from James Madison University Falls Church resident Kristin Gale Sommers graduated from James Madison University in May

with a degree in Business Administration. Sommers gradated from George Mason HS in 2003.

Falls Church HS Hosts Basketball Camp Falls Church HS basketball head coach T.C. Papageorge, his coaching staff and current and former players will host a basketball skills camp for rising 4th – 9th grade boys this summer. The first session will be July 14-18 and the second session will run July 28August 1. Both sessions will take place at Falls Church HS (7521 Jaguar Trail, Falls Church). The camp will feature a slam dunk contest on the Friday of each session with categories for campers, counselors and coaches, as well as “regular season” and “postseason tournament” games.

Spaces are still available for registration. For more information on the camp or to register, contact Ryan Healy at healy36@hotmail.com.

Local Named to Dean’s List at College of Wooster Nicholas Knodt, a resident of Falls Church, was named to the Dean’s List for the spring semester at The College of Wooster in Ohio. Knodt is a sophomore studio art major, and he achieved a grade point average of 3.5 or above.

Falls Church Student Receives Scholarship

KATE POTRYKUS AND JACKIE PACELLA, rising seniors at GMHS, prepare to leave for China. Ten students and 11 chaperones departed on June 24 and will return July 2, during which they will visit Beijing, Xian and Shanghai. GMHS Chinese teacher Tina Kao is hopeful this trip will create an exchange program for Chinese students. (Photo: Courtesy Shelbi Taylor)

Eric D. Brooks of Falls Church received a scholarship from the Worldwide Assurance for Employees of Public Agencies (WAEPA).

This is the second year of the WAEPA Scholarship Program, which awarded 65 scholar-

WESTLAWN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL students perform in “Westlawn Presents.” (Photo: Courtesy Catherine Keefe) ships for between $1000 and $4000. WAEPA is a Virginiabased association that provides life insurance to government employees and their families.

Arlington Residents Graduate from UArts Henry Jessup of Arlington graduated from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia with a Master of Teaching in music education. Stephanie Chang, also of Arlington, graduated with a Master of Teaching in visual arts.

Locals Named to SCAD Dean’s List Three local students were named to the Dean’s List at the Savannah College of Art and Design for maintaining a 3.5 grade point average or above during the spring 2008 quarter. Lisa Lorang of Fairfax is an historic preservation major, Carl Anderson of Falls Church is an industrial design major and Eric Willenson of Falls Church is a graphic design major.

New GMHS IB Coordinator Begins in July Earlier this month, Asheesh

Misra was announced as the new International Baccalaureate (IB) Coordinator at George Mason HS. Misra is currently in a similar role at George C. Marshall HS in Fairfax County. Misra was an IB history teacher at the International School of Curitiba in Brazil from 2000-2003. He was an IB history teacher at Marshall before becoming the co-coordinator of their program last year.

Misra has a Bachelor’s degree in religious studies and a Master’s degree in secondary education from Indiana University. He will begin at GMHS in July.

GMHS Becomes Solar Powered Eighteen solar panels were installed on the roof of George Mason HS earlier this month, which will deliver nearly three kilowatts of power directly to the school. The project was led by recent graduate James Peterson. The project also includes a computer system that tracks power production data.

Teachers will incorporate the data into the school’s science and math programs. The project was funded by donations from local businesses, organizations and citizens.

Page 20

The ball shot off the driving range mat like a Formula 1 racecar. That was good. The only problem was that the Formula 1 racecar seemed to be in the midst of a 90-degree left turn.

That was bad. Very bad.

What have I gotten myself into?

This week I will be teeing it up on the first hole at the Old Course in St. Andrews, universally regarded as golf’s birthplace.

The privilege, at least it seemed such at the time, was part of my and my mother’s plan to celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday in Scotland. As he is the consummate golfer, this ranks somewhere between heaven and playing shortstop for the Yankees and batting in front of Mickey Mantle. He is going to love this. When we gave him the tickets and the tee-time stub, wrapped in an argyle kilt at that, he squeezed out more than a few man-tears.

This is going to be the experience of a lifetime for him. For me, it’s the source of more than a little anxiety.

I didn’t want to embarrass my dad on his day of glory.

This worry is particularly acute because embarrassment was not a stranger to some of our previous family vacations. When I was younger, we tried cross country skiing for the first time at a resort in the Catskills. Our Nordic debut just happened to coincide with a Special Olympics race. When we were viewed side by side with said competitors it was quite easy to tell we did not belong in their class. They were Olympians, we were just special.

After the 54th time we all simultaneously plunged sideways into a snow bank, we gave up. I would say we swallowed our dignity, but by that time our dignity was well on its way through our digestive track.

Now, as yet another shot veered widely to the left, I feared that the ignominy of our past would return on the links of St. Andrews.

My father will be fine. He’s an excellent golfer, usually competing for his club’s championship in Connecticut. He’ll be birdie-ing every other hole and buddying up to his caddie, who will tell him long-lost stories of golfing lore, and later invite him over to meet his brother, Sir Sean Connery. I, however, was foreseeing a future in which I would drive my caddie to the brink with every stroke.

June 26 - July 2, 2008

By the end of the round he would probably stab out his eyes so he could stop watching the horror of my swing. Then he’d return to the pub and tell everyone he had removed his eyes to save himself from the shameful sight of Snap Hook McGee. I shouldn’t be this bad. I’ve been playing a lot this summer and I was halfway decent to begin with. Yet here I am sending out shots like boomerangs at the East Potomac Park driving range.

How am I supposed to deal with this? How am I supposed to concentrate when I’m feeling like I’m going to play so bad that the end of my round may resemble that scene in Germany from “National Lampoon’s European Vacation?” And after we’ve been run down by riotus Scots, angry that we’ve sullied their great tradition with my swing, I will finally find out what all gets stuffed into haggis because I will be stuffed into haggis.

This is such a big deal for my dad that I just want it to be perfect, which is why I wince whenever one of these shots puts its left turn signal on. But I also know that my dad would not approve of my current line of thinking. You shouldn’t focus on the negative, he would say.

Visualize success. He’s big on visualization — see the TV room practice swings mentioned in last week’s column.

My motivation should be success, not an irrational fear of crazed Scots and local delicacies. My dad will understand, my caddie will be supportive — especially since condescension will be reflected in the tip — and I know the charming people of Scotland won’t cast me into the sea. But for all my reasoning that I should relax, I am still concerned I won’t play well.

I’m concerned because, despite all my rationalization, there is a rather large gap between “thinking” and “doing.” In this case, that gap just happens to be the size of the Atlantic. So I’ll spend this week trying to think positive. But I won’t know if those thoughts have done a lick of good until I take my first swing from the tee box.

So what will it be? Hero?

Or haggis? We’ll find out next week.  Mike Hume may be emailed at mhume@fcnp.com.

On Saturday, the Falls Church Colts 18U AAU team remained sharp on their summer campaign, splitting a doubleheader with the Potomac Vandals at George Mason High School (GMHS). The Colts won the first game 4-3 before dropping the latter contest, 117.

Zach Glenn and Carl Hollinger, both rising juniors at Langley High School, were facing many of their teammates from the spring season who now play on the Vandals. For six innings, the pair held the familiar foes in check, limiting Potomac to just two runs.

After the leadoff batter for Potomac reached, singled and scored three batters later, Hollinger settled down for the four innings that he was on the hill, allowing one unearned run on three hits, striking out one Vandal, and stranding three runners on base. The righty was then lifted in the fifth due to a high pitch count in favor of Glenn.

The following inning, Glenn induced a perfect 6-4-3 double play to kill a Potomac rally which threatened to take the lead. However in the bottom of the sixth, the Vandals tied up the game at two off a double to the left field wall. Glenn then ran into more trouble but, after loading the bases with two outs, promptly blew a high

fastball past the next Vandal to quell the threat.

Although the unusually quiet Colts’ bats failed to muster runs through six frames, timely runs propelled them to victory. With the score knotted at two in the top of the eighth inning, GMHS senior Andrew Lieber drove a two-out, seeing-eye single through the left side.

With Stephen Razzi pinch running for the first baseman, the Vandal pitcher balked, sending Razzi to second. A double to right-center by Marshall High’s Jake Bennett brought in Razzi for the go-ahead run.

Insurance was added when Kyle Barrand singled past the shortstop, giving the Colts a two-run lead entering the bottom of the frame.

After a bloop single scored a Potomac runner, Barrand induced a fly ball to Ben Taylor in right field, sending the Colts to a 4-3 win. In addition to receiving the win on the mound, Barrand went 3-3 with a walk on the afternoon. Tyler Roth and Mike Wolfe, both rising juniors at George Mason, each went 1-3.

In the second game of the doubleheader, the Colts found no shortage of runs, but the Vandals were just a little bit sharper at the plate, producing timely runs to edge out the victory, 11-7.

The south-paw Bennett was tagged for three runs on three hits in the top of the first

inning, but the Colts answered right back in the bottom half of the frame. Quinn Casteel, Brian Lubnow and Barrand all scored, evening up the contest.

Two sacrifice flies in the top of the third put the Vandals up 5-4, and scored three more in the fourth to chase Bennett after 3.2 innings on the hill.

Potomac tacked on insurance against sophomore Jimmy Bumgarner in the seventh before Lubnow came on to stifle the outburst, striking out the two batters he faced.

Down 11-5 with just three outs remaining, the Colts mounted a small rally.

Lubnow singled to start the inning and was plated by a Lieber double. Taking advantage of a seemingly unaware pitcher, Lieber swiped third base, and was promptly plated by Bennett.

Lubnow continued his hot hitting in the second game, rebounding from a hitless first outing with a 4-4 contest. Lieber, likewise, remained timely at the plate, driving in two runs on three hits. Even though Bennett received the loss on the mound, he smacked two doubles, plating two Colts.

With the split, the Colts’ record now stands at 5-2-1 on the summer season in the NVTBL Varsity League. They return to action on Thursday at Langley High School before returning home to George Mason on Saturday for another doubleheader.

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Sitting in a chair on an ordinary Saturday night, you scan the room, quickly observing the faces squarely fixed on the television screen. A couple of scrawny high school students are sprawled out on the couch, but then your eyes are instantly drawn to him. The 6’1”, 270 pound behemoth is whooping and hollering with the rest of them as his deft hands, glued to an Xbox controller, are efficiently downing any player’s offensive in, of all things, Halo 3.

Austin Lucas, a 2008 graduate from George Mason High School, is the Atlas-sized teenager reigning over this video game kingdom. Players confidently thumb the analog sticks, positive that they can sneak past the giant’s perch on top of the tower and maybe, just maybe, get a kill. Very rarely, though, does he let someone slip through his field of vision, as you’re downed with one quick shot. A friend recalls his first encounter with the Halo master, when he walked into a house and thought, “Hey, who’s the huge guy?” After about five minutes, he began thinking, “Hey, this huge guy is kicking my butt.”

Afterwards, however, the gentle giant is the first one to help you rebound from the loss, offering you a brownie or a soda in truce. A philosophical and docile man, his amiable spirit illuminates the room, while his soft-spoken nature garners the respect of teammates and foes alike. He is described by his buddies as “better than probably everyone in the room [at Halo],” but with an innate sense of “fairness and modesty that always makes sure that everyone has a good time.”

One would be hard-pressed to combine the sniper rifle-toting,

Page 21

energy sword-wielding gamer with the hauntingly-massive football player who toed the football field at Moore Cadillac Stadium just one night prior. In fact, these talented individuals are one and the same.

The Virginia chapter of Lucas’ story began in 2005 when he moved to Falls Church from San Antonio in the summer before his sophomore year at Mason, bringing with him an incredibly efficient work ethic and unmatched competitive drive which, combined with his knack for humility, has made him a standout both on the gridiron and in the community.

“I just think that I’ve been humbled by all my experiences,” said Lucas, who has lived in four different countries and five states. “There’s just someone out there who’s always better, so I figure that I don’t really need to tell people that I can do things, I just go out there and do it.”

In the August leading up to his sophomore year, Lucas entered Coach Tom Horn’s football program at George Mason, and was voted to the Leadership Council for the Mustangs after only two weeks with his new brethren.

Last fall, Lucas was an anchor on the offensive line for the 7-3 Mustang football team, carving pathways for one of the most successful Mustang rushing seasons in recent memory.

Just like it is next to impossible to sneak by him in a friendly game of Halo, Lucas’ size and surprising agility makes him a double-team all by himself to opposing linemen.

On the opposite end of the football, Lucas takes his stance at the nose tackle position, bullying his way past opposing centers for easy sacks on a defense which recorded three shutouts and allowed 20 or fewer points in eight out of their ten games.

For his efforts, Lucas garnered

Falls Church Post 130 exploded for 41 runs in just two games early this week, crushing teams from Springfield and Lorton.

Post 130 beat Springfield Post 176 in a marathon of a game on Sunday afternoon. The three and a half hour contest featured a total of nine pitchers who gave up a combined 37 runs. Falls Church rallied from a two run deficit in the top of the ninth putting up eleven runs in the single frame, and went on to win the game 23-14 after trailing for most of the afternoon.

David Acosta and Trey Thomas sparked the offense combining for 8 RBI’s and 3 home runs. The rest of

first-team All-Bull Run, AllRegion B, and All-State honors for group A. In the spring, Lucas was a member of the boys’ track & field team, finishing with AllDistrict honors in the shot put and discus, and posting career best distances in both events at the Region B meet.

For the standout Mustang, the accolades did not stop there. At the spring sports banquet in early June, Lucas was awarded the Jack Gambill Scholarship by the Mason Athletic Boosters, given to one of the best male athletes at George Mason.

Lucas’ extracurricular passion goes beyond the field, where he recently earned an Advanced Studies Diploma for George Mason and an Eagle Scout badge earlier this year — which he marks as his proudest accomplishment. Simply put, as the “About Me” section on Lucas’ Facebook states, “Yes, I’m a huge geek.”

In the midst of all garnered titles, Lucas remains humbled.

With gaming and football being

the “more superficial part” of Lucas’ friendships, his friends describe his presence as “lighthearted” and “fun,” recalling more notably, discussions about character and life integrity at a moment’s notice.

“I find that it’s so important to not take it too seriously. You know that you have to get stuff done, so you work hard, but it’s still important to take in the experience. I just want to be focused, not narrow-minded.”

Drawing away from the typical jock stereotype of football players, Lucas prefers to spend his weekends “owning noobs”— from what he simplified, means dominating in a video game and making the opposing players look foolish—and studying for upcoming exams.

By no means, though, does this detract from his skills on the gridiron. A quiet and focused leader, Lucas generally lets his standout play do all the talking. Former teammate Ryan Larcamp, a linebacker at Salisbury University, once said that Lucas was “the best offen-

Post 130 also feasted on the weak Springfield pitching, scoring in seven of the nine innings.

“Their pitchers struggled and once we started scoring, the runs just came in bunches,” said Acosta.

Starting pitcher Daniel Medric was unable to settle in, giving up nine runs in under four innings.

Medric gave way to CJ Bowie in the middle of the fourth inning, and from there the Springfield offense slowed down dramatically. Bowie got out of a jam in the fourth, and gave up three runs in the fifth before Jimmy Piscopo took over. Piscopo overcame some clumsy defense by the infield, and gave up only two runs in the final 4 1/3 innings, earning his first win of the season.

“We’re pitching with a platoon right now” noted head coach Frank Solomon. “We’ve got three good starters, but we’re going to need Jimmy.”

The solid pitching and explosive offense carried into Tuesday evening when Post 130 took on Lorton Post 162. Falls Church put up 8 runs in the first inning and never looked back, crushing Lorton 18-3.

sive lineman I’ve ever seen at George Mason.”

In just a few days, Lucas will pack up all of his athleticism, his affability and his scholarly nature and ship them across the country, where he will attend the University of San Diego next year to play football. The Division I-AA Toreros compete in the Pioneer Football League, where they have won two of the last three league titles.

“It’s an overwhelming opportunity, being able to play college football,” Lucas softly quipped. “When I think about it, it’s just incredible. San Diego is such a great city and everyone there was so welcoming.”

Whether he is remembered for the way he threw blocks on “99-Super Power” or the way he set up four televisions in one room for a 12-person Halo Party, Lucas should continue “owning noobs” throughout his four-year tenure at the University of San Diego, racking up multi-kills on Coagulation and paving the way for 1,000-yard rushers.

Trey Thomas blasted two home runs and nearly had a third when he hit a long fly ball off the fence.

Mike Straub stayed hot at the plate collecting three hits, and Lonnie Millard led the team with four runs scored.

Tom Warner and Danny Morris shut down the Lorton bats, scattering just three runs throughout the game.

Post 130 is in the midst of their first winning streak of the summer, and seems to have found some offensive swagger. Coach Solomon credits the recent surge to having close to a full crop of the line up on a consistent basis.

“We have been much more aggressive at the plate lately, and the combination of Trey [Thomas] and [David] Acosta are very productive in the 3 and 4 spots in the lineup,” said Mike Straub on the recent offensive outburst.

Falls Church Post 130 finished Saturday’s game which was suspended in the seventh inning tied at 4 on Wednesday night, but results were not available at press time.

Page 22

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Send community event submissions to the News-Press by e-mail at calendar@fcnp.com; fax 703-532-3396; or by regular mail to 450 West Broad Street #321, Falls Church, VA 22046. Please include any photos or artwork with submissions. Deadline is Monday at noon for each week’s edition.

Community Events THURSDAY, JUNE 26 Story Hour. Ages 5 and up. Mary Riley Styles Public Library (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). 10:30 a.m.

Falls Church Rotary Meeting.

New officers will be honored at annual dinner. Harvest Moon Restaurant (7260 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). Visitors welcomed.

6:30 p.m. 202-268-5089.

Concerts in the Park. Falls Church Concert Band with artists Christy Gavitt and Gloria Freund. Cherry Hill Park (312 Park Ave., Falls Church). Free. 7 p.m. 703-2485077.

FRIDAY, JUNE 27 “Kiwomera Emmeeme” Performance. Showcase and signing by Omega Bugembe Okello. Borders (1801 K St. NW, D.C.). Free. 12:30 p.m. 202-4664999.

Ayr Hill Gallery Grand Opening Celebration. To be included on the guest list, send name and address to info@ ayrhillgallery.com. Ayr Hill Gallery (141 Church St., Vienna). Free. 5 p.m. 703-9383880.

Austin Girls’ Choir. The Tour Ensemble of Texas-based Austin Girls’ Choir performs. Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (3022 Woodlawn Ave., Falls Church).

Free. 7:30 p.m. 703-532-6617.

and guitarist Marlena Thompson tells stories about vacations.

Aladdin’s Lamp Children’s Bookstore (2499 N. Harrison St., Arlington). Free. 11 a.m. 703-2418281.

Choralis Sings Haydn’s Selections.

The mixed chorus Choralis will sing Haydn’s masterful interpretation of “Creation.” Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall (3001 N. Beauregard St., Alexandria). $35 premium seating, $25 general admission, $5 students. Children under 12 admitted for free. 8 p.m. 703-2372499.

Smoke Free Bingo. Enjoy free food and a friendly atmosphere as proceeds benefit the Fairfax Volunteer Fire Department. Fire Station 3 (4081 University Dr., Fairfax). 7:15 p.m. 703-273-3638.

SATURDAY, JUNE 28 Farmer’s Market. Falls Church City Hall (300 Park Ave., Falls Church). 8 a.m.

Backyard Birthday Bash. Stifel & Capra celebrates its one year anniversary with a show & sale.

Stifel and Capra (210 Little Falls St., Ste. 201, Falls Church). Free.

9 a.m.-2 p.m. 703-533-3557.

It’s Time for Vacation! Storyteller

SUNDAY, JUNE 29 Gala Ice Cream Social. The Washington House will change ownership at a gala featuring live music and ice cream. The Center for Spiritual Enlightenment (222 N. Washington St., Falls Church).

Free. 12:30 p.m. 703 645-8060.

Author Valerie Tripp Book Signing.

Author of American Girl books introduces her newest book.

Aladdin’s Lamp Children’s Bookstore (2499 N. Harrison St., Arlington). Free. 1:30 p.m. 703241-8281.

Broadway Star Charles Holt.

Singer and storyteller Charles Holt will perform in concert.

Celebration Center (2840 Graham Rd., Falls Church). $25 in advance and $30 at the door. Register online at, www. celebrationcenter.org. 1:30 p.m.

703-560-2030.

The Mystery of Irma Vep. With lightning-fast costume changes, two actors portray all characters in a riotously absurd tour-de-farce. Arena Stage (1800 S. Bell St., Arlington). $53-58. 8 p.m. 202-488-3300.

National Symphony Orchestra.

Leonard Slatkin conducts his final concert as NSO music director. The Kennedy Center (2700 F St. NW, D.C.). $20-80. 7 p.m. 202-467-4600.

FRIDAY, JUNE 27 ‘Body Piercing.’ Exhibit features abstract figure paintings. The Art League Gallery (105 N. Union St., Alexandria). Free. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. 703-683-1780.

The Potomac Academy Jazz Orchestra. Center for the Arts Concert Hall (4400 University Dr., Fairfax). Free. 1:30 p.m.

703-883-0920.

SATURDAY, JUNE 28 National Symphony Orchestra Prelude. NSO violinists Natasha Bogachek and Zino Bogachek perform. The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage (2700 F St. NW, D.C.). Free. 6 p.m. 202467-4600.

Arlington Firefighter Presents Book. Firefighter Pat Creed presents “Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11.” Arlington Central Library (1015 N. Quincy St., Arlington).

Free. 7 p.m. 703-228-6321.

TUESDAY, JULY 1 “Bull Durham” Screening. Part of the “Unscripted” film series on baseball movies. Shirlington Branch Library (4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington). Free. 7 p.m.

703-228-6545.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 2 ‘Doo-Wop: From the Street Corner to the Stage.’ An exhibit documenting the history of early Rhythm and Blues from the 1950s and early 1960s. Falls Church Art Gallery (111 Park Ave., Falls Church). 10 a.m.-6 p.m. 703-534-4202.

T

&

The John Luskey Band. Performs country music with dance lessons offered. The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage (2700 F St. NW, D.C.). Free. 5:30 p.m.

202-467-4600.

MONDAY, JUNE 30

World Children’s Choir Concert.

Features international folk songs, highlights from “The

Theater Fine Arts THURSDAY, JUNE 26

Magic Flute” by Mozart, African drumming and show tunes.

Center for the Arts Concert Hall (4400 University Dr., Fairfax). $10-15. 2 p.m. 703-883-0920.

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Choral Performances

Friday-Sunday, June 27-29 NOVA-Alexandria and Other Fairfax County Venues Washington Balalaika Society.

Music of Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe on traditional folk instruments. Lubber Run Amphitheatre (200 N. Columbus St., Arlington). Free.

8 p.m. 703-228-1850.

MONDAY, JUNE 30 The Golden State Boys Choir and Bell Ringers. San Francisco Bay area ensemble of boys performs.

The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage (2700 F St. NW, D.C.). Free.

6 p.m. 202-467-4600.

TUESDAY, JULY 1 DEA Museum. “Good Medicine, Bad Behavior: Drug Diversion in America.” Drug Enforcement Administration Museum (700 Army Navy Dr., Arlington). Free.

10 a.m. – 4 p.m. 202-307-3463.

Y

ou’ll have to go to the Great Barrier Reef to find more choral than you will in Northern Virginia this weekend! Pardon the pun, but some great vocal works are on tab Friday, Saturday and Sunday this weekend, beginning with the Falls Church-based Choralis’ performance of one of the great choral works of all time, Haydn’s “The Creation” Friday night at 8 p.m. at the NOVA-Alexandria campus’ Schlesinger Hall, 3001 N. Beauregard. When the passage from Genesis, “Let there be light!” is sung, it is a guaranteed goose-bumpifying experience. On Saturday at 8 p.m., Fairfax Choral Society performs at the George Mason University Center for the Arts Concert Hall, Arch Campbell narrates a concert of Hollywood favorites, from Harry Potter, Titanic, Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List. Sunday at 2 p.m. at the same location, the World Children’s Choir performs.

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Page 23

live_music&nightlife THURSDAY, JUNE 26 J���� S����. Singer, songwriter and pianist performs. Iota Club & Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $12. 9 p.m. 703-5228340.

E�������� S�������. Bassist and vocalist performs interpretive dance while singing. Birchmere Music Hall (3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria). $25. 7:30 p.m.

703-549-7500.

B������� S������. Punk band performs, along with The Apes.

9:30 Club (815 V St. NW, D.C.). $25. 7 p.m. 202-393-0930.

G��� D�S����� ��� T�� M������. Performs blues and acoustic melodies. Bangkok Blues (926 W. Broad St., Falls Church).

7:30 p.m. For more information call, 703-534-0095.

T�� H��� F��� B���. Performs classic rock and roll. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). No cover charge. 9 p.m. 703-241-9504.

B������� S�����. Performs blues and rock tunes. Pentagon Row (1201 S. Joyce St., Arlington).

Free. 7 p.m. 703-413-6691.

FRIDAY, JUNE 27 J��� T�����. Performs her zany style of comedy as seen on HBO,

Showtime and Entertainment Tonight. The Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse (2903 Columbia Pke., Arlington). $18. 9:45 p.m. 703486-2345.

P����� P�����. Songwriter performs songs, while drawing on the humor and trials in daily life.

Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave., Vienna). $15. 7:30 p.m. 703-2551566.

T������ S����� B���. Birchmere Music Hall (3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria). $27.50. 7:30 p.m.

703-549-7500. ���. Radio rock artist performs heavy, driving and melodic tunes.

Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave., Vienna). $10 in advance, $12 at the door. 10 p.m. 703-255-1566.

D��� B���. Five-piece blues band performs blues and rock of the 60s. Bangkok Blues (926 W. Broad St., Falls Church). 10 p.m.

For more information call, 703534-0095.

J��� J��������. From Comedy Central, “The Late Show” and

����� ��������. Reunion show with ebo performing live, along with Hypersonic Secret. 9:30 Club (815 V St. NW, D.C.). $15. 8 p.m. 202-393-0930.

M������� M���� Q������. Local musicians will perform pop, rock and jazz standards. Palladium Civic Green (1445 Laughlin Ave., McLean). Free. 6 p.m. 703-2889505.

L��� T�����. Blues singer performs.

Bangkok Blues (926 W. Broad St., Falls Church). 7 p.m. For more information call, 703-534-0095.

R�� M����. Female trio plays fun, infectious Americana. Iota Club & Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $12. 9 p.m. 703-5228340.

SUNDAY, JUNE 29

S������ CD R������ P����.

Performances by NUMA, Everyone But Pete and Blind Rhetoric. The State Theater (220 N. Washington St., Falls Church). $11. 7 p.m. 703-237-0300.

SATURDAY, JUNE 28

“The Tonight Show.” DC Improv (1140 Connecticut Ave. NW, D.C.). $17 for full menu. 8 p.m. 202296-7008.

‘O B������ B�����.’ Featuring bluegrass group Dead Men’s Hollow. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave., Vienna). $8. 2 p.m. 703255-1566.

R��� ‘� R��� S���������� C�����.

Some of the area’s best rock bands take the stage in an intimate and stripped-down setting. Jammin’ Java (227

Maple Ave., Vienna). $10. 7 p.m. 703-255-1566.

B���� J�� ���� T�� M������.

Bangkok Blues (926 W. Broad St., Falls Church). 7 p.m. For more information call, 703-534-0095.

L�� T���������. Texas rock, and well-cure blues and R&B riffs.

The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage (2700 F St. NW, D.C.). Free.

6 p.m. 202-467-4600.

MONDAY, JUNE 30 K������ P���� ���� S����� S��������. Iota Club & Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $10. 8:30 p.m. 703-522-8340.

P��� T����. Storyteller discusses his life with great stories, and blues and rock melodies.

Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave., Vienna). $20. 8 p.m. 703-2551566.

TUESDAY, JULY 1 LULU. Performing with R&B vocals.

Blues Alley (1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW, D.C.). $18. 8 p.m. 202-3374141.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 2 Q���� S������ B���. Western swing and traditional Texas style fiddle tunes. The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage (2700 F St. NW, D.C.). Free. 6 p.m. 202-467-4600.

P������� A����...

It’s common knowledge the Arlington Cinema ‘N’ Drafthouse is the perfect spot to knock back some beers while watching a flick, but what about those who prefer to sip a little white or red with their movies? That’s what Wine Night is for! Every Friday at the Drafthouse, doors open at 6:15 p.m. and customers can opt to purchase wine tickets to accompany the regular food and bar fare. In addition, experts from the Washington Wine Academy will be present to discuss the wines being served or to just chat about wines in general. After you get boned up on the wine, settle in for the movie (admission is only $5.50).

This Friday’s showing is “Baby Momma” — for upcoming weeks, check the calendar at www.arlingtondrafthouse. com.

What: Arlington Cinema ‘N’ Drafthouse Wine Night When: Fridays at 6:15 p.m.

Where: Arlington Cinema ‘N’ Draft House 2903 Columbia Pike, Arlington, VA See arlingtondrafthosue.com for schedule and more info

Friday, July 4 - Independence Day Celebration. The City of Falls Church Recreation & Parks Division presents its annual celebration with musical entertainment and fireworks. George Mason High School (7124 Leesburg Pke., Falls Church). Free. 7 p.m.

703-248-5178.

Saturday, July 11 - Culkin School of Traditional Irish Dance.

Performers between the ages of 5 and 45 will demonstrate the different styles of Irish dance to live musical accompaniment. Wolf Trap Theatre in the Woods (1645 Trap Rd., Vienna). $5. 10 a.m. 703-255-1868.

C������� S���������� Be sure to include time, location, cost of admission, contact person and any other pertinent information. Event listings will be edited for content and space limitations.

Please include any photos or artwork with submissions. Deadline is Monday at noon for the current week’s edition.

Email: calendar@fcnp.com Fax: 703-532-3396; Attn: FCNP Calendar Mail: 450 West Broad Street, #321, Falls Church, VA 22046

Page 24

June 26 - July 2, 2008

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Karim Hesham Sami Abdel Khalek Zeynab Jamal Abdulqadir Deema Imad Abu-Baker Rabah Nasser Aburish Zamir Ahadzada Andrea Nicole Dacanay Akol Waleed Rabah Al-Kakhan Nohemy Stephanie Amaya Reina Catherine Andrade Julian David Asbury Charles Joseph Ashley Yoseph Z. Atkilt Ashley Ann Attiliis Andy Ayala Leslie Yolanda Bacarreza Jimenez Maryam Fatemeh Badakhsh William Walter Bainbridge IV Natalya Yuryevna Bakay Jennifer Amy Ballard Christopher Robert Barles Emily Newell Barrow Arlene Chavenia Basilio Michael Curtis Beaman Corey J. V. Beck Tarik Bellaachia Clare Marie Bennett Kimberlee Elizabeth Bennett Isaac Akeem Beverly Brooke A. Blackwell Lauren Marie Blakeley Daniel Edward Blakely Andrew Nathaniel Blandin Sheila Anne Blocker Michael Lee Born Christin Lauren Borucke Laura Parker Bowman Kevin Michael Brause Kristina ShaQuay Brewer Justin Keith Britt Scott Andrew Bugby Van Khanh Bui Natalie Lauren Butz Fabiola Grisel Calero Terceros John Alexander Carmichael Franco Enrique Castro Medina Kenneth Cerda Luke Arlen Cerutti Aaron Henry Chafetz Matthew Preston Chamberlin Jonathan Michael Chambers Robert Westcott Chase Jennifer Thanh Chau Renato A. Chavez Gregory Adam Cheatle Jason Saiying Cheng Lance C. Cheng Sunjit Singh Chhatwal Daniel Alejandro Chique Canache Shih-Yun Chiu Sara Jeasmeen Chowdhury Sebastien William Christie Jeanette Claure Taylor Reynolds H. Cohan

Page 25

Rachel Miriam Cohen Amy Beth Cooper Cassandra Aracelli Copello Ryan Joseph Copland Richard Marcelo Coro Santi Claire David Cororaton Benjamin Enders Coyle Emily Sullivan Craig Mohammed Zuhdi Dajani Anna Carmella Dausman Jennifer Leigh Daum Christopher Dawson James Lee Day Kelly Marie Dean Taylor James Delean Joshua Alexander Diamanti Lauren K. Dias Glenda N. Diaz Jamal Di Andrae Diggs Philip Luna Dimailig Kevin Farrell Donahue Steven Roberts Dungan Joshua Lamont Earl Gina Jamil El-Reedy Sherief Magdy El-Sibaie Hannah Assem Elansary Loubna K. Elhelu Mazin Ahmed Elmubarak-Imam Dawnavan Noelani Emerson Westley London Fallavollita Brittany Cherie Fletcher Tyler Brittan Ford Elizabeth Alexis Forero Jonathan Whayne Forshee Matthew Alan Freedman Amanda Lynn Gaston Selam Tesfai Gebregziabher Daniel Blair Gentile Timothy Eric Ghazzawi Michael Christian Gieseler Octavia Fadia Gilmore Gregory Santos Goldbach Dumitry Gorgan Anita Dimitrova Gougleva Christopher Magee Greenwood Emilija Karina Grinvalds Daniela A. Gutierrez Guerrero Bernardo Jose Guzman Paul Ryan Hackett Scott Michael Hall Anna Theresa Hallahan Jung Won Han Kaley Nicole Hanson Julia Fern Hardcastle Brian Christopher Hardison Hind Omer Hassan Daniel Frederick Haugh William Alexander Haugh Katherine Yoonyoung Heffelmire Aeneas Sagar Hemphill Keith Campbell Henning Bryan Thomas Herbert Maria Yesenia Hernandez

Roxana Annel Hernandez Scott Patrick Hoffman Minami Windy Hofmann Elisabeth Katherine Hogeman Kaitlyn Lomont Houk Douglas Leander Howell Karin Thong Hung Christopher Michael Hurlburt Serena Sanga Ide Noumy Alison Theresa Johnson Elizabeth Ann Johnson Grant Erik Johnson Lindsay Michelle Johnson Matthew Robert Johnson Elsy Patricia Joya Leslie Elizabeth Juarez-Milera Jui-Yu Kao Rajwinder Kaur Madhavi KC John Kim Leah Kathryn King Chelsea Marie Kirk Christopher Sean Kirwan Carolyn Anne Klingelhofer Kara Mai Kolbe Kevin Toshiro Kuwahara Anthony Christopher LaBarbera Shefali Lamba Charlotte Yoon Lee Keun Soo Lee Stella Sue Jin Lee Taesung Theodore Lee Lusine Gurgenovna Lisyanova Travis Grant Lyle William Robert Lyle Casey Makiesha Mark Samantha Ann Marsengill Danielle Nichole Martin Cenia Concepcion Mata Brendan Daniel McAloon Timothy Sheard McCarthy Sarah Elizabeth McClain Alexander George McFarland Austin Garrett McNabb Daniel Lawrence Medric Jason Philip Merlino Thomas Alfred Miossi Ana Guadalupe Molina Canizales Alexandra Maria Monge Ronald S. Mosser III Matthew Aaron Muise Antoine Kalman Muller Rebecca Elizabeth Mullison Craig Thomas Murphy Rebecca Ann Nathanson Alexandra Nicole Newman Daniel Phung Nguyen Ngoc Anh Thuy Nguyen Nicholas V. K. Nguyen Stephanie Thien Hang Nguyen Steven Thien Phong Nguyen Rebecca Emilia Nickson Mina Noorbakhsh Emily Anne Noordhuizen Tenzin Norzom Abiel Mebrahtu Nugusse Margaret Murphy O’Brien Christina Jacquelyn Officer-Platt Jae Sung Oh Oscar Enrique Olazo Nostades Valeria Ortiz Morales Daniel Min Pak Michael John Pak Karina Estefanny Palacios Lauren Elise Parkhurst Alessondra Alina Parra Cameron Keith Parsons Tynetta Marie Pearson Connor Brian Phillips Andres Antonio Pinedo Gabriella Maria Pinto-Coelho Roman Boris Polyakov

Caitlin Maura Quinn Siddharth Rajagopalan Senal Ranatunga Matthew Albert Regets Joshua Alexander Rennert Josef Yosry Riad Samuel Waite Richards Brittany Helena Riden Sondra Kathleen Ridley Sameera Shankar Ripley Patrick Cervantes Roddy Aaron Jeffrey Rogers Jorge Luis Romero Moya Austin Matthias Rooney Remy Saad Imran Salman Priyanka Salona Justin Albert Samson Juan Carlos Sanchez Membreno Sarah Marie Sanders Andrea Camille Valmonte Santos Kush Sareen Ahmed Alaa Sarhan Katherine Patricia Sayer Katie Marie Schmuff Andrew William Schroth Eric Matthew Schultz Andrew Lee Scruggs Cassidy Lee Self Jong Won Shin Ashley Nicole Smith Matthew Anderson Smith Naomi Isabelle Smith Pamelia Kirana Soelistyo Amanda Lee Spoden James Alexander Sticinski Buddy Charles Stolze Brendan Gates Stringer Matthew James Stripe Darice Bava Sulemane Samantha Lorraine Sulser Camron Ali Tabatabai Zohal Tahir Tania Patricia Tajzad Christine Michelle Taylor Catherine May Teague Michelle Wei Thornton Kelsey Lee Tilson David Kewui Tran Thai Hien Thuy Tran Trung Quoc Tran Anders Tranum Bethany Lee Turner Robert Roel Tynes Kristen Nicole Udy Liam Jacob Umek Jale Uncu Kirsten van der Noordaa Ronald Gueisbor Veizaga Kelly Renee Villard Ranbir Virdi Amandeep Kaur Virk Lisa Anh Vo Kathleen Theresa Watt Sean Michael Webb Nina Elisabeth Wester Kristina Marie Westernik Dana Lauren Whitman Nathan Robert Whittington Panupong Wichitphant Mary Kathryn Wise Benjamin Elliott Witman Scott Lee Witt Jennifer Lynn Wolfe Elizabeth Jamila Wright Anna Yayloyan Tenzin Yewong Christopher John Yuastella Ahmed Nabil Zahr Leticia Abigail Zelaya Ramy Hany Zohdy *In Memoriam: Ata Mehran-Nejad

Page 26

June 26 - July 2, 2008

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THE MOST FUN YOU’LL HAVE AT THE MOVIES THIS SUMMER!

Pixar’s “WALL-E” succeeds at being three things at once: An enthralling animated film, a visual wonderment and a decent science-fiction story. After “Kung Fu Panda,” I thought I had just about exhausted my emergency supply of childlike credulity, but here is a film, like “Finding Nemo,” that you can enjoy even if you’ve grown up.

That it works largely without spoken dialog is all the more astonishing; it can easily cross language barriers, which is all the better, considering that it tells a planetary story.

It is the relatively near future.

A city of skyscrapers rises up from the land. A closer view reveals that the skyscrapers are

all constructed out of garbage, neatly compacted into squares or bales and piled on top of one another. In all the land, only one creature stirs. This is WALL-E, the last of the functioning solarpowered robots. He (the story leaves no doubt about gender) scoops up trash, shovels it into his belly, compresses it into a square, and climbs on his tractor

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STARTS FRIDAY, JUNE 27 For Theatres and Showtimes: Check local listings or Text WALLE with you ZIP CODE to 43 KIX (43549) or visit disney.com/Wall-E VISIT SORRY, NO PASSES

MOBILE USERS: For Showtimes, Text Message SMART and your ZIP CODE to 43KIX (43549)

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treads up a winding road to the top of his latest skyscraper, to place it neatly on the pile.

It is lonely being WALL-E. But does WALL-E even know that? He comes home at night to a big storage area, where he has gathered a few treasures from his scavengings of the garbage, and festooned them with Christmas lights. He wheels into his rest position, takes off his treads from his tired wheels and goes into sleep mode. Tomorrow is another day. One of thousands since the last humans left Earth and settled into orbit aboard gigantic spaceships that resemble spas for the fat and lazy.

One day WALL-E’s age-old routine is shattered. Something new appears in his world, which otherwise has consisted only of old things left behind. This is, to our eye, a sleek spaceship. To WALL-E’s eyes, who knows?

What with one thing and another, WALL-E is scooped up by the ship and returned to the orbiting spaceship Axiom, along with his most recent precious discovery: a tiny, perfect green plant, which he found growing in the rubble and transplanted to an old shoe.

Have you heard enough to be intrigued, or do you want more?

Speaking voices are now heard for the first time in the movie, although all on his own WALLE has a vocabulary (or repertory?) of squeaks, rattles and electronic purrs, and a couple of pivoting eyes that make him look downright anthropomorphic.

We meet a Hoverchair family, so known because aboard ship they get around in comfy chairs that hover over surfaces and whisk them about effortlessly.

They’re all as fat as Susie’s aunt. This is not entirely their fault, since generations in the low-gravity world aboard the Axiom have evolved humanity into a race whose members generally resemble those folks you see whizzing around Wal-Mart in their electric shopping carts.

There is now a plot involving WALL-E, the ship’s captain, several Hover people, and the fate of the green living thing.

And in a development that would have made Sir Arthur

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Page 27

spy movie where the spies fight by throwing dead chickens at each other. Rating: Three stars.

W Opening in Theaters

B

tory documentary about his hometown by Guy Maddin, “the mad poet of Manitoba.” The facts may not all be true, but they’re not boring. Starring Ann Savage, the star of the noir classic “Detour,” in the thankless role of mother. A film like no other -- even itself. Rating: Four stars.

rick Lane (Drama, PG-13, 101 minutes). Monica Ali’s best-seller about a 17-yearold Bangladeshi woman (Tannishtha Chatterjee) who leaves her village for an arranged marriage to a fat, balding man at least 20 years older (Satish Kaushik). After another 17 years, true love enters her life through SS 117: Cairo, Nest of an affair with a younger man, but Spies (Comedy, not rated, the usual formulas don’t apply, and 99 minutes). Secret agent the husband is not the conventional parody that tries to top Austin oppressive beast. Dreamy photogPowers and succeeds to some raphy, carefully thought dialogue, a Roland (Macaulay Culkin) (left), Mary (Jena Malone), French secret CassandraThe (Eva hero Amurri)isin aUnited Artists ' comedy political kick near the end. Rating: anddegree.

"Sagent aved!" © 2004 - United Artists - All Rights Reserved in Cairo in 1955, assigned to Three and a half stars . deflect the impending Suez crisis, bring peace among the Americans, y W i n n i p e g Russians and Egyptians, and settle (Documentary, not rated, the problems of the Arab world.

80 minutes). A hallucina- No problem-o. And it’s not every

O

M

anted (Action, R, 110 minutes). Slams the pedal to the metal and never slows down. Here’s an action picture that’s exhausting in its relentless violence and its ingenuity in inventing new ways to attack, defend, ambush and annihilate.

Stars James McAvoy a meek office worker initiated into The Fraternity, a secret society of assassins.

Mindless, heartless, preposterous, and very well done as a high-tech action thriller. With Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Terence Stamp.

Rating: Three stars.

V

ANTAGE POINT (Thriller, PG-13, 90 m., 2008). An edgy, action-packed reprising of an attempted presidential assassination that not only gives us glimpses into an innocent bystander’s recollections, but reveals the viewpoints of the participants -- on both sides of the attack. Starring Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, William Hurt, Forest Whitaker and Sigourney Weaver.

Rating: Two and a half stars. (Bill Zwecker)

M

Y BLUEBERRY NIGHTS (Romance, PG-13, 90 m., 2008). An extra-sweet romantic fable from Wong Kar-Wai about love and desserts. You taste “My Blueberry Nights” with your retinas. There are less appetizing things to look at for 90 minutes than this pretty pie-cart of a movie, its glazed slices topped with the faces of Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz and David Strathairn instead of chocolate-dipped strawberries, dollops of whipped cream or frosting rosebuds.

Empty calories. Rating: Two and a half stars. (Jim Emerson)

Continued on Page 27

Clarke’s heart beat with joy, humanity returns home once again -- or is that a spoiler?

The movie has a wonderful visual look. Like so many of the Pixar animated features, it finds a color palette that’s bright and cheerful, but not too pushy and a tiny bit realistic at the same time. The drawing style is comic-book cool, as perfected in the funny comics more than the superhero books: Everything has a stylistic twist to give it flair. And a lot of thought must have gone into the design of WALL-E, for whom I felt a curious affection. Consider this hunk of tin beside the Kung Fu Panda. The panda was all but special-ordered to be lovable, but on reflection I think he was so fat, it wasn’t funny anymore.

WALL-E, on the other hand, looks rusty and hardworking and plucky, and expresses his personality with body language and (mostly) with the binocular video cameras that serve as his eyes. The movie draws on a

tradition going back to the earliest days of Walt Disney, who reduced human expressions to their broadest components and found ways to translate them to animals, birds, bees, flowers, trains and everything else.

What’s more, I don’t think I’ve quite captured the enchanting storytelling of the film. Directed

by Andrew Stanton, who wrote and directed “Finding Nemo,” it involves ideas, not simply mindless scenarios involving characters karate-kicking each other into high-angle shots. It involves a little work on the part of the audience, and a little thought, and might be especially stimulating to younger viewers.

This story told in a different style and with a realistic look, could have been a great sciencefiction film. For that matter, maybe it is.

The movie is preceded by “Presto Chango,” a new Pixar animated short about a disagreement about a carrot between a magician and his rabbit.

COLUMBIA PICTURES PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH RELATIVITY MEDIA A BLUE LIGHT/WEED ROAD PICTURES/OVERBROOK ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCTION A FILM BY PETER BERG

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STARTS WEDNESDAY, JULY2 CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THEATERS AND SHOWTIMES SORRY, NO PASSES ACCEPTED FOR THIS ENGAGEMENT

Page 28

June 26 - July 2, 2008

JUNE 27

JUNE 27 Text WALLE to DISNEY (347639)

Text WALLE to DISNEY (347639)

x 1"

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JUNE 27 Text WALLE to DISNEY (347639)

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TH

JUNE 27

GH ART IN OUR S NOT ENOU CHOO E R E’S L

NOTE TO PUB: DO NOT PRINT INFO BELOW, FOR I.D. ONLY. NO ALTERING AD COUNCIL PSA Earth Share - Newspaper 4 1/4 x 7 B&W EFARXN-N-09902-C : “Girl in Tree” 72 screen (Film at Horan Imaging 212-689-8585) Ref#: 115084 S.

NO WONDER PEOPLE THINK

x 3"

1

*127093* GRAHAM MARTHA

22:03 1/15/02 WV

B/W DOLEV

I S A S N A C K C R A C K E R.

JUNE 27 Text WALLE to DISNEY (347639)

4.75" x 2.812"

JUNE 27

Text WALLE to DISNEY (347639)

WHAT A CHILD LEARNS ABOUT VIOLENCE A CHILD LEARNS FOR LIFE. Teach carefully. We can show you how.

Call 877-ACT-WISE for a free brochure or visit www.actagainstviolence.org.

A R T. A S K F O R M O R E .

©Barbara Morgan, from “Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs” by Barbara Morgan.

For more information about the importance of arts education, please contact

www.AmericansForTheArts.org.

(For Official Campaign Partner or Sponsor Use Only: Insert logo and/or organization name here.)

NOTE TO PUB: DO NOT PRINT INFO BELOW, FOR I.D. ONLY. NO ALTERING OF AD COUNCIL PSAS. Act Against Violence - Magazine & Newspaper (2 1/1 6 x 2) B&W APARD2-N-05130-D “What a Child Learns” Line Work

Film at Horan Imaging 212-689-8585 Reference #: 127093

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(ad contains non-repro blue copy indicating where localization info can be placed) Film at Schawk: 212-689-8585 Reference #: 127605

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Page 29

Page 30

June 26 - July 2, 2008

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Page 31

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SAN ANTONIO -- It takes more money than ever to make a bottle of wine these days. The cost of the bottle itself has gone up, as have the prices of corks and even foil caps.

But few elements of winemaking have risen quite as drastically as the cost of oak, especially French oak barrels.

The declining value of the dollar has seen prices of French oak barrels skyrocket in the past year, leaving winemakers wondering if they’re going to change courses in how they make wine.

The cost of one French oak barrel is now around $800, up from around $600 just two years ago, says Sean Minor, owner of Four Bears Wines in California.

“I think a good chunk of it is the dollar,” he says of the increase.

An American oak barrel costs about $250. Does oak matter?

Karen MacNeil addresses the subject in “The Wine Bible”: “Without oak, many wines as we know them would not exist. They would not taste the same, smell the same, or have the same texture. Nor are there substitutes for oak. Cherry, walnut, chestnut, pine and many other woods can all be made into barrels; none, however, enhances wine the way oak does. Nor has technology devised an oak alternative. In short, wine and oak -- inseparable for the last two millennia of winemaking -- show every sign of remaining married.”

She goes on to say that “oak has the ability to transform wine, to coax it out of the genre of simple fermented fruit juice and give it depth, complexity and intensity.”

In other words, oak is important, unless you want to spend your life drinking lean sauvignon blanc.

But why favor French oak over American?

The flavor each imparts to wine is different, and many wine lovers swear they can tell which is which.

In simple terms, American oak is generally bolder and imparts more pronounced flavors of vanilla, butter, spice and oak. That’s because the wood has a looser grain, so it gives up its flavors more freely. Think about the bold flavor of Silver Oak’s two cabernet sauvignons and how well it goes with a thick, juicy steak. That’s American oak.

French oak is said to be more subtle. It integrates itself into the fruit, the earth, the acid, the depth of the wine more slowly.

That’s because French oak traditionally has a tighter grain.

So, winemakers searching for more elusive, elegant qualities in their wines often say they prefer the effect French oak offers. And many are willing to pay the difference.

Richard Becker of Becker Vineyards uses American oak for his reds, but he favors oak from Allier, France, for his chardonnay, viognier and sauvignon blanc.

“There is a vanilla flavor that is singular in the oak from Allier,” he says. “American oak doesn’t kill (the fruit in white wine), but it doesn’t give it that subtle nuance of vanilla” that Allier oak has.

Not every winemaker, however, adheres to the broad, long-held opinions about American and French oak.

Michael Eckstein, senior winemaker for Franciscan and Mount Veeder, says, “American oak has come a long way in the last 10-12 years.”

Part of that is an ever-growing appreciation on the barrel makers’ part to craft barrels for wine, not whiskey, as has long been done in the past.

So, Eckstein says, his job has become one of taking the grapes he has each harvest and using the best oak to match.

Some lots will lend themselves to French oak, others to American.

“We need to leave preconceived notions behind,” Eckstein says. “The synergistic effect of grapes and the right oak is what’s important.”

And the price of wine is what is important to many consumers.

At the moment, prices have remained relatively stable, even while all the components in producing each bottle have increased.

“There’s so much competition out there,” Becker says. “I can’t raise my prices over what they are now.”

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Take a deep breath and relax.

You don’t need a PhD in mathematics to be a successful poker player. All you need to do is learn a few simple math tricks that will enable you to play fundamentally sound poker.

For example, in No Limit Texas Hold’em, you need to learn how to calculate pot odds.

Pot odds is a term that defines the odds being laid for you to call a bet. For example, if there’s $400 in the pot and your opponent bets $100, your pot odds are 5-to-1 since it will cost you $100 to win $500 (the $400 already in the pot plus the $100 bet made by your opponent). That’s pretty easy, right?

The next step is to determine the odds of catching a card that could win you the pot. You do that by counting the number of outs – cards that will improve your hand.

Okay, here we go.

With nine outs on the flop, you’ll be about a 2-to-1 underdog to win the pot. This rule is helpful in situations where you flop a flush draw. Say you played 6h-7h and the flop came Kh-Jh-3d. If your opponent bets, you’ll be about a 2-to-1 underdog to make the flush. The odds are definitely against you.

Proceed accordingly.

With 13 outs on the flop, you’ll only be a very slight underdog against even a powerful hand like pocket aces. Say you have a pair and a straight draw, holding 8d-7s with a flop of 5c-6d-7h. You’ll need to catch a 4 or a 9 to make a straight, a 7 for three of a kind, or an 8 to make two pair.

With 14 outs on the flop, you’ll be about 50-50 to win the pot. An open-ended straight draw will give you eight outs and a flush draw will give you nine outs but you need even more. A hand with fourteen outs might look like this: You hold 4h-5h and the flop is 5d-7h-Qh. To improve your hand, you’ll need to catch a heart (nine outs), a 4 (three outs), or a 5 (two outs).

With 15 outs on the flop, you’ll actually be a small favorite against almost any other hand. A hand with fifteen outs might look like this: You hold 6c-8c and the flop is 7d-9c-Ac. You’ll need to catch one of nine clubs to make a flush or one of six cards to make a straight.

Don’t count the 5c and 10c twice!

Poker math gets much easier on the turn because only one card is left to come. Start by counting your outs and then use this next little trick.

For every three outs you have on the turn, add 7% to determine the likelihood of winning the pot. Let’s say you only have a flush draw.

In that case, you’d have nine outs. Simply add seven plus seven plus seven to get to 21%.

Your odds of making the flush are about 21%.

Another example: Let’s say you’re all-in with A-Q and your opponent has A-K. With only one card left to come, you’ll need to catch one of the three remaining queens to stay alive.

So, with only three outs, you’ll only have about a 7% chance to win the pot.

Here’s another similar math trick. If you have an odd number

of outs, just add about 2% for each out. A hand with five outs means you’ll only have about an 11% chance to hit the card you need.

It’s really that simple. No need to worry if math isn’t your best subject!  Visit www.cardsharkmedia. com/book.html for information about Daniel Negreanu’s new book, Hold’em Wisdom for All Players. © 2008 Card Shark Media. All rights reserved.

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Page 33

Level: 1 3

2 4

SOLUTION TO LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE

6/29/08

© 2008 The Mepham Group. Distributed by Tribune Media Services. All rights reserved.

ACROSS 1. Study of the stars: Abbr.

5. Hamill or Harmon 9. Gone by 12. ____ averages 14. “____ Almighty” (2007 comedy) 15. Babe’s teammate 16. 1950 Isaac Asimov classic 18. Hang open 19. Auction unit 20. Choice between one of the Kennedys and a letter in the English alphabet?

22. Authors Bagnold & Blyton 24. Ristorante suffix 25. Choice between a theater award & a “Star Wars” character?

28. Bilko and York: Abbr.

30. Clearance event 31. Food critic Greene 32. Yokohama “yes” 35. Arranged carefully 37. Schoolboy 38. With 41-Across, choice between a “Seinfeld” character and a water source?

41. See 38-Across 43. Lenient 44. Elegant shade trees 46. Caesar of comedy 47. “____ boy!”

49. Egg: Fr. 51. Number 55. Choice between a cartoon mouse and a classical composer?

59. Talk sweetly 60. Have a loan from 61. Choice between an average guy and a heavy amount?

63. On the ____ (escaping) 64. Nincompoop 67. Geriatrician’s study 68. Soap ingredient 69. Guitarist Clapton 70. Patty Hearst’s alias 71. Nincompoop 72. Gave temporarily 73. Visionary

Down 1. Cover stories 2. It’s a wrap 3. Small-time 4. Former Virginia senator Charles 5. “Sleepless in Seattle” star

THE QUIGMANS Buddy Hickerson

1

2

3

4

12

5 13

16

17

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7

8

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© 2008 David Levinson Wilk

Complete the grid so each row, column and 3-by-3 box (in bold borders) contains every digit, 1 to 9. For strategies on how to solve Sudoku, visit www.sudoku.org.uk

crossword / By David Levinson Wilk

6. Actress Gardner 36. ____-night doubleheader 7. Grammy category 38. Entry points 1. of the Abbr.

8. Study Prepare tostars: propose 39. They’re polar 5. or Harmon 9. Hamill Generally 40. Part of EMT: Abbr.

10.Gone Considerable amount 42. Mag. workers 9. by 11. Performed better than, 43. Southern California sea12. ____ averages in a way side community 14. "____ Almighty" (2007 comedy) 13. Four-time Indy 500 winner 45. English or French 15. teammate 17.Babe's Additionally 48. Columnist Buchwald 21.1950 TheyIsaac might wearclassic scrubs: 50. Toy seller ____ Schwarz 16.

Asimov Abbr.

52. Gas pump number 18.

Hang open 23. Say “Do this” and “Do 53. Knuckleheaded gesture 19. Auction unit that,” e.g. of affection?

20. one of the Kennedys and a letter in the English alphabet?

26.Choice Butterbetween alternative 54. Approach 22. and Blyton 27.Authors Brings Bagnold up 56. Alpine call 29.Ristorante “The L Word” 57. Board honcho 24. suffix channel, in TV guides 58.aAnchorman Lester 25. Choice between a theater award and "Star Wars" character?

33. “Chances ____” 62. Nutritional stds.

28. Bilko and York: Abbr.

34. Home that’s never hot 65. Prospecting find 30. event on Clearance the market?

66. ATM entry Across

31. Food critic Greene

Last Thursday’s Puzzle Solved

32. Yokohama "yes"

B I C E P S

A L E X I A

B K A G I B O A G S U S M

H E L T E R

S T I R R I N I G B U M P S O E N P E I L

S I P T O R B A T E A B A Z O S T I M U S O C A L R E D T R K I R E C R A N D E B R B I T E E D D A N I R B S E E Y

D O Y O U T H I N K

S P O K E O D E

S C L N O B C

H A R P I N E D Y O M A A N A B F U B U R N E T E N T E S T A G P I R E I P S E R T O N I O N A T E S S

nick knack

© 2008 N. F. Benton

Page 34

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Gretchen Kuhrmann, Artistic Director

Announcements

Franz Josef Haydn

Die Schöpfung (The Creation) Choralis & orchestra, w/soloists: Susan Wheeler, Soprano Joseph Dietrich, Tenor Kerry Wilkerson, Bass

8 p.m., Friday, June 27, 2008 Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center Tickets $25-$35; students 22 & under w/ ID, $5; under 12 free Tickets available at box office

SUMMER’S HERE! Free Tall Iced Coffee

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Yard Sales

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Help Wanted

LAWN & GARDEN Lawn mowing, yard

DRIVERS: LOCAL CDL-A

Career Training. Swift Transportation Trains and Employs! Dedicated, Regional & OTR Fleets. 800-397-2423 experienced helper. Dixie Sheet Metal. 703-533 -1111.

WALK TO WORK! Starbucks at Broaddale

and Falls Plaza has opening for shift supervisors.

Competitive pay, tips, medical/dental/vision, 401K, stock options, tuition reiembursemt... Bring your applications to 344 W. Broad St, with attention to Mgr

BEAUTIFUL MCLEAN TOWNHOUSE in small prestigious enclave near Tyson. All brick. Three levels. 3/4 bedrooms, 2 full and 21/2 bath. 3200/month. 703-538-2666

ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT near Seven Corners for rent. 703-241-2507. $825/ monthly

PRIME SUBLET OFFICE SPACE in

Falls Church available for small business (1,837 RSF) Contact Syed @ 703-207-0933 ext 112 or sali@jdgcommunications.com

classads@fcnp.com

Public Notice SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL MEETING PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that a Special City Council Meeting will be held on JUly 1, 2008 in City Council Chambers, 300 Park Avenue, Falls Church, VA at 8:00 p.m. ro install the new City Council. The public is invited to attend the reception immediately preceding the meeting at 6:45 p.m. in the Training Center, Level G of City Hall. This locatin is fully accessible to persons with phyrsical disabilities. Special services or assistance to persons with disabilities may be requested in advance.

KATHLEEN CLARKEN BUSCHOW CITY CLERK

lent job call Maria 703.277.1098/703.626.0665

HANDYMAN SERVICE Windows, doors,

rotted wood, petdoors, lighting, fans, faucets, fences, bath, Flat screen TV installation and kitchen remodeling. Insured Free estimates. Call Doug (703) 556-4276 www.novahandyman.com

clean-up, mulching & edging. Low rates. Call Ernesto 703-932-9565

MARYA

HOUSE

CLEANING

Experienced, low rates, good referneces, available for weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or a one time cleaning. Call Marya 703-998-3378

MORALES LANDSCAPE & LAWN CARE

Mulching, seeding & many others. Call David (o) 703-502-3990 or (c) 571-221-4330

HELP WANTED Sheet Metal Mechanic or

For Rent

www.FCNP.com

The Falls Church News-Press accepts no financial responsibility for typographical errors in advertisements. Advertising which has minor discrepancies such as misspelling or small type transposition, but which do not affect the ability of the reader to respond to the ad will be considered substantially correct and full payment is required. The Falls Church News-Press is not responsible if the original copy is not typewritten or legible and clear. The Falls Church News-Press is not responsible for copy changes made by telephone.

GREAT CLEANING SERVICE Residenttial and Commerical, affodradble rates, great references, excel-

Full Time Admin Assistant/ Secretary Needed for Falls Church Law Firm. $8-$14 an Hour Please fax Resume to 301-585-6820 or e-mail to Elsar513@ yahoo.com

TALL OAKS

Please include payment (check or money order) with your ad or call us to arrange payment by credit card.

For public & legal notices, please email legalads@fcnp.com

sunny 2BR, spacious corner unit w/balcony on top (6th) floor. Beautiful parquet floors, upgraded kitchen & bath, new windows, plenty of storage space and parking. Walk to EFC metro, W&OD trails & shopping. $229,900 Open Sunday 6/28 1:30-4 p.m.

600 Roosevelt Blvd. Call Linda Min 703655-3597.

ADMIN ASSISTANT/SECRETARY

(two days before publication)

GET

NOTICED!

in the News-Press

Weekly Classifieds are BACK On Line! www.fcnp.com

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Page 35

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Walsh & Assoc.

PC Attorneys

COMPUTER REPAIR

•Injury cases & Death cases •Medical/Legal malpractice •Breach of contract •Commerical/Insurance • Car accidents Free Consultation 703-448-0073 Hablamos Español 703-798-3448

703-496-7807

XI

XII

DOORS

SIDING & TRIM

GUTTERS

WINDOWS

REPAIRS

703-560-7663

II

IX

III

VIII

QUALITY REPAIR

ROOFING

IIII VII

VI

V

•JERRY DONNELLY • FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

• (703) 536-6731

Memory Lane Professional Photography & Videography Wedding, Portraits & Special Events

Sam Nazari

Tax Smart Mortgage Solutions WWW.MORTGAGE1040.COM

703-448-3508

Low Rates for Residential Mortgages

(703) 869-9372 (703) 205-9051

Skyline Plaza Falls Church

703.578.3556 www.FallsChurchListingMap.com

HENRY HASSAN, MSFM, EA

JOSEPH HOME IMPROVEMENT Drywall • Paint Exterior / Interior, Bath & Kitchen Remodeling, Basements, Handyman, Moving, Clean Garage, All kinds of hauling

YASMEEN HASSAN JONES

Joseph

TAX ACCOUNTANT – IRS ENROLLED AGENT PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTANT

SMALL BUSINESS ACCOUNTING PAYROLL SERVICES INDIVIDUAL AND BUSINESS TAX PREPARATION BUSINESS CONSULTING 703-241-7771 www.hassansacctg.com

6404-N SEVEN CORNERS PLACE FALLS CHURCH VA 22044

See all of the Falls Church listings as soon as they hit the market!

FOOD & DINING

Benton & Potter, P.C. www.bentonpotter.com

Government contract law, all areas of business and corporate law.

In Falls Church 703-992-9255, in D.C. 202-416-1660

Cell 703-507-5005 Tel 703-507-8300

Licensed Work

Skyline Painting Interior - Exterior Commerical & Residential

Free Esimate!

Good Prices! Expert Job!

Call Singh: 703-835-1101 (cell)

(703) 847-5336

James Roofing & Home Improvements

Pizza • Pasta • Wings • Subs • Salads • Desserts

Roof Replacements Rubber Roofs • Flat Roofs Leak Specialists • Roof Coatings Chimney • Repair Facia&Soffit Decks Built&Repaired • Coatings Wood Repair • Drywall Repair Gutters • Siding • Ext.&Int. Painting 24 hr. Emergency Service

Licensed Free Estimates 703-593-3383

GET

NOTICED! in the News-Press

703-532-3267 Ask about our specials!

Driveways • Steps Sidewalks • Patios Small Jobs Welcome

Licensed and Insured. Free Estimates.

With Personal Service

Spring Cleanup, mulching, mowing, edging, trimming.

Residential & Commercial Tree Service & Snow Removal

703-241-4990

Jock Murray postampg@gmail.com 703-629-8698

Postage Stamp Gardens

JEFF L. CADLE

Local brick n’ stone mason installing patios, walkways, steps, chimneys, etc.

Specializing in repairs. Local references.

Free Estimates.

for town homes and city dwellings

Design • Installation • Maintenance

703-698-1390

Insured

Licensed

R. J. Leonard, LLC Construction Company 703.796.1812

• CLASS A CONTRACTOR

• 40 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE • REMODELING, ADDITIONS AND NEW HOMES • DESIGN / BUILD • CALL FOR A FREE ESTIMATE

Lawn Care, Landscaping, and More Weekly Lawn Maintenance, Spring cleanup, Mulching, Aeration, Turf Repair All work done in a timely professional manner at competitive rates.

Please call Travis for a free quote:

703-534-1061

Please visit us online at www.rjleonard.com

Licensed & Insured

We’ll help you find the perfect paint color!

•Yard Cleanup •Mulching • Edging • Trimming • Pruning • Planting & Removal • Lawn Care • Power Washing • Deck • Siding • Painting • Hardscapes • Other handyman services

Serving Falls Church & Northern V.A.

ArlingtonColorConsultants.com

703-241-8548

Free Estimates

703-508-3976 or 703-323-9251

Weaver Enterprises

OTHER SERVICES

Painting • Power Washing, Drywall Repair • Carpentry Work and more

Ledo Pizza Caterers Tysons Station • 7510 Leesburg Pike Falls Church, VA

RE/MAX Allegiance 5100 Leesburg Pike, Suite 200 Alexandria, VA 22302 mobile. 703-868-5999 office. 703-824-4800 ShaunMurphy@remax.net

All work guaranteed.

703-496-7491

www.motternmasonry.com

256 N Washington St Free Consultation

Family and Employment Based Immigration Petitions

Specializing in custom firplaces, patios, walkways, walls, driveways.

Small and large repairs.

Free estimates Licensed and insured.

Email: Trinidad.miranda@yahoo.com

Purchase or Refinance

CGA IMMIGRATION ASSOCIATES

MOTTERN MASONRY DESIGN

LAWN & GARDEN Seven Brothers Landscaping Service

(571) 330-3705

ShinerRoofing.com/FallsChurch

I

X

HOME IMPROVEMENT

VA License #2705 023803

• Affordable Rates • Certified Technicians

www.fastteks.com

FALLS CHURCH

HOME IMPROVEMENT Since 1981

REMODELING & ADDITION, CERAMIC, TILE, FINISHED CARPENTRY, CROWN MOLDING, CHAIRS, DECK RAILS, STAIR, WINDOWS, DOORS, CONCRETE, SIDEWALKS, DRIVEWAYS, BRICK INSTALLED & REPAIRED

Phone # Cell Number

703-848-8322 703-901-2431

www.FCNP.COM

Kitchens & Baths Additions • Sunrooms • Decks Porches • Garages • Basements Free Estimates Call 703-503-0350 Licensed and Insured

VICTOR BLAISE DEVELOPMENTS Repairs – Remodels – Handy Services Call for our summer specials Offering Military & Senior Discounts

703-408-7542 www.victorblaise.com

CLEANING SERVICES Mike’s Carpet Cleaning 5 Rooms deep cleaned only $98 •Stretching•Mold Remediation •Oriental Rugs•Upholstery•Pet Problems • 24 Hour Emergency Water Damage We Clean the White House!

Call Mike 703-978-2270

703-532-3267

Make a Joyful Splash! with

Eileen Levy Create unique art masterpieces using acrylics, water-based oils, pencils and an innovative variety of tools and brushes.

Held at 111 Park Avenue Falls Church on Tuesday Evenings from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm Cost: $90 On-going monthly enrollment Enroll on-line at www.creativecauldron.org Or call 571-239-5288

YOUR AD HERE FOR LESS THAN $15 A WEEK!

703-532-3267

Business & Service Directory 1 x 1” Ad 3 mo. = $220 • 6 mo. = $400 • 1 yr. = $725 1 x 1.5” Ad 3 mo. = $330 • 6 mo. = $600 • 1 yr. = $1100 1 x 2” Ad 3 mo. = $440 • 6 mo. = $800 • 1 yr. = $1450

1 x 2” 1 x 1.5” 1 x 1”

Page 36

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Mayor Robin S. Gardner . . . . . . . . . .

Vice Mayor M. R. Lindy Hockenberry . . . .

City Council David C. Chavern . . . . . . . . . .

Harold Lippman. . . . . . . . . . .

Daniel Maller . . . . . . . . . . . . .

David F. Snyder. . . . . . . . . . . .

Daniel X. Sze . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

City Manager Wyatt Shields. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Home Page <www.fallschurchva.gov>

The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act.This document will be made available in alternate format upon request. Call 703-248-5003 (TTY 711).

city calendar

june 26 Concerts in the Park, 7 p.m.

27 Armchair Travel Group, 10:30 a.m.

Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court in Session

(Special Session, Begins at 2 p.m.)

28 Farmers Market, 8 a.m.-Noon 30 Yard Waste, Bundled Brush, & Special Collections

provided as a public service by the city of falls church

Questions or Comments? City of Falls Church, Harry E.Wells Building, 300 Park Avenue, Falls Church,VA 22046 703-248-5003 (TTY 711)

* Indicates TTY 711 Accessibility

The Week

703-534-8644 703-241-0934 703-538-2398 703-237-9089 703-731-8433 703-241-0419 703-538-5986 703-248-5004*

City Council Work Session, 7:30 p.m.

july 1

Third Quarter Business License Tax Payment Due (If Eligible)

2008 Vehicle Verification Forms Mailed Out

City Council Induction, 8 p.m.

2

General District Court in Session

Architectural Advisory Board, 7:45 p.m.

3

Refuse and Recycling Collection for Thursday and Friday Collection Areas

Book Discussion Group, 7:30 p.m.

4

City Hall, Community Center, Courts, DMV Select, Library, Senior Center, Sheriff’s Office Closed

No Refuse or Recycling Collection

Annual Reading of Founding Documents, Council Chambers, Noon

Fireworks & Music Program,

George Mason High School, 7 p.m.

City Drinking Water Meets or Surpasses Safety Standards The City of Falls Church Department of Environmental Services has mailed its 2008 Annual Water Quality Report to all City water customers. The report details where your water comes from, what tests tell us about it, and other important information about drinking water.

To continually ensure your water is safe and healthy, the City of Falls Church water utility and its water suppliers routinely monitor drinking water for impurities, according to federal and state laws. The City shares the results of these tests each year in the form of this annual consumer confidence report, as required of all utilities

by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Safe Drinking Water Act. The 2008 report describes how drinking water supplied by the City meets or surpasses all federal and state drinking water standards again this year.

The City owns and operates its own water distribution system, with water supplied by the Washington Aqueduct (which draws from the Potomac River).

The City’s water system service area includes 33 square miles of service lines reaching from the City of Falls Church to sections of Fairfax, McLean, Tysons Corner, and Vienna.

Concerts in the Park Thursdays Through Aug. 7

Independence Day

5

Farmers Market, 8 a.m.-Noon

Rain Date for Fireworks & Music Program

All concerts are free to the public and are held at Cherry Hill Park (312 Park Ave.).

In the event of rain, concerts will be held in the Falls Church Community Center located next to the park at 223 Little Falls St. For more information, call 703-248-5077 (TTY 711).

Recreation & Parks Online Registration Coming Soon!

2008 LINEUP: June 26 Falls Church Concert Band (Big Band) Artists: Christy Gavitt & Gloria Freund (Underwater Photography)

The Falls Church Recreation & Parks Division is preparing to launch WebTrac, an online registration system. Any household that has signed up for an activity with Recreation & Parks since Jan. 1, 2006, will have an active account in the database.

In order to utilize the online system, all households will need to update current household information to include a valid e-mail address and listed birthdates for family members. Please call 703-248-5077 (TTY 711) or visit the Community Center (223 Little Falls St.) to update your information or create an account.

Register for the City’s Online Newsletter at www.fallschurchva.gov

Register to Receive Emergency Alerts

July 10

Randy Barrett and the Barretones (Bluegrass) Artist: Hannah Shapero (Pyracantha)

July 17

Skyline (a capella) Artist: Mary Exline (Paintings)

July 24

Andrew Acosta and the New Old Time String Band (Bluegrass) Artists: Dede Haas & Mali Phonpadith (Poetry & Photography)

July 31

Bana Ndule (African) Artists: Kathleen Buschow & Eileen Levy (Paintings)

Aug. 7

Tom Principato Band (Rock and Roll, Blues) Artist: Jill Saxton Smith (Woodblock Cuts)

The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act. To request a reasonable accommodation for any type of disability, call 703-248-5077 (TTY 711).

Falls Church City Police Department Conducts Citizen Survey The Falls Church City Police Department is conducting a citizen survey this June and July to evaluate public attitudes and opinions pertaining to the level of law enforcement services provided.

This is part of the Department’s ongoing commitment to provide the highest level of public safety services to the community.

The survey is available in City Hall, the Community Center and the Mary Riley Styles Public Library, and can be completed online at www.fallschurchva.gov.

The results of the survey will be used to identify specific ways to improve services for residents. Contact the Falls Church City Police Department at 703-241-5053 (TTY 711) for more information.

FOR THE WEEK of

Classes and Events Special Events

Concerts in the Park Thursdays through Aug. 7, 7 p.m.

Cherry Hill Park, 312 Park Ave. Enjoy the best of summer with free musical entertainment sponsored by the City of Falls Church Recreation & Parks Division and the Village Preservation and Improvement Society. Each concert also features local artists and their artwork, sponsored by the Falls Church Arts Council. Visit www.fallschurchva.gov for a complete lineup.

July 4th Independence Day Celebration Friday, July 4, 7 p.m.

Rain Date: Saturday, July 5, 7 p.m.

George Mason High School, 7124 Leesburg Pike Celebrate Independence Day in the City of Falls Church with a spectacular fireworks display.

Spectator seating available at the George Mason High School football stadium and the Northern Virginia Graduate Center parking lot. This is a free event. Call 703-248-5077 (TTY 711) for more information.

City of Falls Church Farmers Market Every Saturday from 8 a.m. - Noon

Growing Green Buy Local at the Farmers Market – and Taste the Difference!

Did you know that the average piece of fruit or vegetable that you buy at the supermarket travels 1,400 miles from the farm to the market? The increased transportation results in additional air and water pollution, as well as increased consumption of oil.

Buying locally grown produce not only helps the environment—it tastes better! There’s no better place to taste the difference than at the City of Falls Church Farmers Market.

The City’s Market features fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables; freshly made baked goods including cookies, bread, pies, French pastries, and scones; meat products including chicken, lamb, beef, and buffalo; dairy products including milk and cheese; freshly made Maryland crab cakes; homemade pasta; eggs; sorbet; honey; handmade soap; wine; and a variety of wreathes and greenery.

The Farmers Market is held every Saturday in the City Hall parking lot at 300 Park Ave., from 8 a.m.-noon.

Submit Your Best Recipe for the Falls Church Community Cookbook Calling all cooks – the Falls Church Volunteer Fire Department is compiling a community cookbook. Proceeds of the cookbook sale will benefit the volunteers, whose mission is to aid in the preservation of life and property through fire and emergency medical operations, routine training, equipment acquisition and maintenance, and fire prevention education. To submit your best dish, go to www.fallschurchvfd.org and click“Submit Recipe.”

Request House Checks This Summer Season The Falls Church City Police Department offers an added layer of security while you’re away from home. It’s the only police department in the region that conducts a daily house check for residents who will be out of town for at least three days.

City police will only conduct house checks on single-family homes and townhouses.

Vacant properties will not be checked.

The department cannot guarantee house checks will stop intentional criminal acts.

House checks will be conducted depending on manpower and other duties of officers.

To request a house check, visit the Police Department at 300 Park Ave. For more information, call 703-241-5050.

Falls Church Recreation & Parks Division 223 Little Falls Street Falls Church, VA 22046 703-248-5077* Phone Numbers Open Gym/Weather Hotline 703-248-5125* Special Events Hotline 703-248-5178* Fax 703-536-5125 Senior Center 703-248-5020*/21* Community Center Hours Monday-Thursday 8 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.

Friday 8 a.m. - Midnight Saturday 8:30 a.m. - Midnight Sunday Noon - 6 p.m.

Open Gym Hours Open Gym hours are updated on a bi-weekly basis and are also posted on the Open Gym Hotline, 703-248-5125*. All hours are subject to change. * Indicates TTY 711 Accessibility

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Page 37

ly Focus

Chairman: Craig Cheney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Vice Chairman: Ronald Peppe II . . . . . . . . . .

School Board Rosaura Aguerrebere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kathryn Chandler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Susan Kearney. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kieran Sharpe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Joan Wodiska. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Superintendent: Dr. Lois Berlin . . . . . . . . . . .

government and the falls church city public schools

703-237-6931 703-534-4951 703-536-8638 703-536-7564 703-532-0321 703-536-3130 703-533-1248 703-248-5601*

* Indicates TTY 711 Accessibility

june 26-july 2, 2008

For more news about the Falls Church City Public Schools visit: www.fccps.org

Fight the Bite! Help Stop the Spread of West Nile Virus

Celebrate the 4th of July in Falls Church City

The City of Falls Church wants you to join us in saying “NO to Mosquitoes” this summer season. Take the following steps to Fight the Bite and be protected from West Nile Virus (WNV): • Apply insect repellent to exposed skin. Choose a repellent that provides protection for the amount of time that you will be outdoors.

Repellents may irritate the eyes and mouth, so avoid applying repellent to the hands of children.

and water dishes, birdbaths, swimming pool covers, buckets, barrels, and cans.

• Check for clogged rain gutters and clean them out.

• When weather permits, wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants whenever you are outdoors.

• Remove discarded tires, and other items that could collect water.

• Place mosquito netting over infant carriers when you are outdoors with infants.

• Consider staying indoors at dawn and in the early evening, which are peak mosquito biting times.

• Install or repair window and door screens so that mosquitoes cannot get indoors.

Remember to Tip and Toss to eliminate mosquito breeding sites around your property: • At least once or twice a week, empty water from flower pots, pet food

• Be sure to check for containers or trash in places that may be hard to see, such as under bushes or under your home.

To report standing water, dead birds, or other WNV-related problems, residents should contact the Housing and Human Services Division at 703-248-5005 (TTY 711) or register a report at www.fallschurchva.gov/ CommentBox. For more information and tips to “Fight the Bite,” visit the City’s Web site at www.fallschurchva.gov.

FCC-TV Spotlight: Ablevision Tune in to Falls Church Community Television (FCC-TV) to watch Ablevision.

Ablevision is a 30-minute show produced entirely by people with disabilities.

They’ve covered issues such as pet therapy, living as a blind person, and selfdefense for the handicapped. Ablevision airs on FCC-TV at the following times: • Mondays at 9:30 a.m.

• Thursdays at 10:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.

FCC-TV airs on Cox Channel 12, Verizon Channel 35 and RCN Channel 2. For more information about FCC-TV, or complete schedule of the variety of community programs on FCC-TV, visit www.fcctv.net or call 703-248-5538.

BIE Partner of the Week Laurie Clark lsc Design School involvement: Laurie is well-known as the editor and distributer of both the Elementary and Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School PTA newsletters. She has also used her design talents to create the program brochure for the Elementary PTA Home & Garden Tour that raised funds for the schools’ outdoor classrooms.

Why Laurie is a BIE partner: “I’ve been a PTA volunteer for years.

Now that I have my own graphic design business, it’s great to be part of the BIE as well. I’m happy to share my expertise on programs that benefit the schools.”

For more information about sharing your expertise through the BIE Partnership, visit www. fccps.org or contact Marybeth Connelly at connellym@fccps.org.

School content published in The Weekly Focus is written and edited by the Falls Church City Public Schools. For more information, contact the Falls Church City Public Schools Communications Office. Phone: (703) 248-5699 Fax: (703) 248-5613.

The City of Falls Church Recreation & Parks Division presents its annual July 4th Independence Day Celebration on Friday, July 4, 2008 at George Mason High School, 7124 Leesburg Pike. Musical entertainment begins at 7 p.m. with a live performance by Kajun Kelley.

Fireworks will follow at 9:30 p.m. This is a free event.

Spectator seating will be available at George Mason High School’s Moore Cadillac Stadium and the Northern Virginia Graduate Center parking lot. Most of the spectator seating will be on the synthetic turf football field.

Attendees are encouraged to bring blankets for the field.

Chairs will only be permitted on paved surfaces.

No alcohol, smoking, fireworks, or pets permitted on site. Food and drinks will be for sale. In the event of rain, the event will be held on Saturday, July 5 at the same time and location.

For more information, call the Recreation & Parks Division at 703-248-5178 (TTY 711).

Watch vs. Warning—Know the Difference!

Warning A warning is issued when a hazardous weather or hydrologic event is occurring, is imminent, or has a very high probability of occurring. A warning is used for conditions posing a threat to life or property.

Watch A watch is issued when the risk of a hazardous weather or hydrologic event has increased significantly, but its occurrence, location, and/or timing is still uncertain. It is intended to provide enough lead time so that those who need to set their plans in motion can do so.

Advisory An advisory is issued when special weather conditions are less serious than a warning.

They are for events that may cause significant inconvenience, and if caution is not exercised, could lead to situations that may threaten life and/or property.

Don’t get caught off guard when warnings are issued. Get real-time updates and instructions on what to do and where to go during an emergency by registering for Falls Church Alert. You will receive alerts from the City via portable electronic devices and e-mail, only in the event of an emergency. Sign up for this free service at alert.fallschurchva.gov.

You can also visit alert.fallschurchva.gov to update your profile, and add or delete devices from the emergency distribution list.

Grab a Good Book for Summer Every educator knows it. So do most parents. Summer reading is essential for students. Reading experts note that most young readers suffer a backslide in reading skills during summer downtime. But that needn’t be the case. Parents are encouraged to make reading a priority during the summer months to instill in their children a sense that people need never take a vacation from learning.

Each year, the George Mason High School English Department compiles a “Summer Reading List” for students in grades 8-12 who are required to read one designated book for the course in which they are enrolled for next year. Student comprehension of the work will be assessed within the first few weeks of school and will count toward first quarter English grades.

SCHOOL CALENDAR DATES ARE SubjEcT To chAngE July 1

School Board Organizational Meeting (MEH) Summer School Begins 7 15-16 Summer SOL Testing (GM) (MD) Mt. Daniel Elementary (TJ) Thomas Jefferson Elementary (MEH) Mary Ellen Henderson Middle (GM) George Mason High

Check the FCCPS Web site for more calendar information. www.fccps.org

Summer School Dates Announced “Into the Wild” which chronicles the adventures of Annandale, Virginia’s Chris McCandless, is on the new GMHS list of recommended summer reading.

The list this year includes perennial favorites such as Richard Adams’ “Watership Down”, John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” and “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” by C. S. Lewis. In addition, 10 teachers have provided lists of their favorite books for your reading pleasure.

The 2008 GMHS Summer Reading List can be found at www.fccps.org.

Mark your calendar! The Falls Church City Public Schools summer sessions have been scheduled for the following dates and times: Mount Daniel School • July 7-July 31 (M-TH); 8:30 a.m. - 12:00 noon Thomas jefferson Elementary School • July 7-August 1 (M-F); 9:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Mary Ellen henderson Middle School • July 7-August 1 (M-F); 7:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m. george Mason high School • July 7-July 25 (M-F); 8:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

June 26 - July 2, 2008

Page 38

BACK IN THE DAY dog. lazy ick qu The fox sly p e d j u m the over dog. lazy is the w No for all time cows od go me to to coaid of the pastheir Now ture.

15 s Yearo Ag

time is the all for cows good me to to coaid of the pastheir Now ture. time is the all for cows good me to to coaid of the their.

15 & 10 YEARS AGO Falls Church News-Press Vol III, No. 15 • July 1, 1993

“Falls Church’s own gala fireworks celebration of Independence Day will occur Sunday evening on the grounds of the George Mason High School.

Food and drinks start becoming available at 6 p.m., the music starts around 7 p.m., and the fireworks show should commence at about 9:15 p.m.”

Continued from Page 10

chological disaster.

A study by RAND Corp. found that the psychological toll of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan may in fact be “disproportionately high compared to the physical injuries of combat.”

Post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries, major depression and suicide are exacting a fearful price from combat soldiers and Marines.

These matters are not even being talked about enough, much less dealt with adequately.

Never before has such a strain been placed on the allvolunteer military. As the RAND study noted: “Not only is a higher proportion of the armed forces being deployed, but deployments have been longer, redeployment to combat has been common, and breaks between deployments have been infrequent."

While most service members readjust to civilian life successfully after combat, the number who come home in some kind of psychological trouble is huge. The study found that approximately 300,000 individuals who served in Iraq or Afghanistan are currently suffering from PTSD or depression, and that 320,000 have most likely experienced a traumatic brain injury.

NEWS-P PREESS

Falls Church News-Press Vol VIII, No. 16 • July 2, 1998

‘Gala July 4 Celebration Set Sunday2 Local Churches Combine for Special Patriotic Programs’

Bob Herbert

IN THE

It is now the time for all good to go cows to aid of the p a s their ture . * * * Throw * * Pour it up. it up

CRITTER CORNER 10 Year s Ago

It is now the time for all good to go cows to aid of the p a s their ture . * * * * * Throw Pour it it up. up

‘No Surprises: New Council Names Snyder Mayor, Mabry Vice MayorUnanimous Vote for Synder, 4 Votes for Mabry’ “Four Falls Church citizens were sworn in to serve four year terms on the City Council here in a special meeting at City Hall last night, and the first action of the newly-constituted Council was to unanimously elect former Vice Mayor David Snyder as the City’s newest mayor.”

These wounds, as the title of the report points out, are often the “Invisible Wounds of War.” They’re as real as a bullet or a shrapnel wound, but they’re not always as obvious. And for a variety of reasons, including the fear that exposure may harm their careers, many of these psychologically wounded warriors do not seek mental-health treatment.

Studies have shown that fewer than half of the GI’s with psychological wounds of one sort or another are receiving treatment. And according to the RAND study, “Even when individuals receive care, too few receive quality care.”

Support the troops? Too often that's an empty slogan.

Flag waving and bumper-sticker patriotism don't add up to much when there are many thousands of GI’s in need of first-class care who are not getting it.

“This should be a top issue in the presidential race, and it should be a top issue in the news,” said Paul Rieckhoff,

executive director of the advocacy group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “When you come home from Iraq, you feel like you're lost in the wilderness sometimes. You feel like you don't fit in.”

Add to that burden the mental torture of depression or PTSD or the debilitating effects of traumatic brain injury, and you have the stuff that leads to alcoholism, drug abuse, family dissolution, homelessness, trouble with the law and sometimes suicide.

“The hardest part is getting the veterans in," said Rieckhoff.

“We have to make it much easier for them to access mental health services.”

However one feels about the nation's war policies, we have an ironclad obligation to look out for the short- and long-term needs of the troops we send off to combat. In the absence of any general call for sacrifice, it’s the least we can do.

Right now we're not even doing that.

Please join us for an Open House on Saturday, June 28 from 1:00pm – 3:00pm.

GET IN MY BELLY! I’m Lulu, a seven-year-old tabby. I moved here about three years ago from Oregon, and haven’t stopped eating since. It started out that I ate because I was nervous for my big move, then I ate because I wanted to please my parents, then I ate because I thought I was eating too much.

It’s a vicious cycle. My mom doesn’t mind, even though she says that she thinks I am the fattest cat in all of Falls Church!

Then she tells everyone that my life is just too easy. I will have you know that I have nearly smooshed many an annoying fly that dared cross my path. That alone deserves a little can of tuna and a bowl of milk. While you’re at it...do you think you could scratch my belly?

Walk-In Clinic at

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Joining your friends on the Terrace...

SUZANNE FAUBER

German Gourmet PURVEYOR OF FINE G G GERMAN IMPORTS

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Cleo Knows Dog Bones.

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Office (703) 528-2288 Cell (703) 395-8741 suzanne@buckrealtors.com www.suzannefauber.com

...one of the many reasons to choose the vibrant Assisted Living lifestyle at Chesterbrook Residences!

Schedule a tour and join us for a complimentary lunch!

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(703) 531-0781

www.chesterbrookres.org Coordinated Services Management, Inc. Professional Management of Retirement Communities Since 1981.

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Monday - Saturday 9am - 6pm Closed Sundays

5838 Columbia Pike Falls Church, Va 22041 (703) 379-8080

June 26 - July 2, 2008

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Just Listed in Falls Church City Open Sunday 1-4 Charming three level Colonial a short walk to George Bus, Express Bus to Metro and Award Winning Elementary School! Five bedrooms, three full baths plus powder room, spacious Living Room with built-in bookcases, separate Dining Room has pressed tin ceiling and two built-in corner cupboards, updated Kitchen with French Flair has cherry cabinets, hardwood floor and tiled walls. French doors from living Room lead to First Floor Family Room with Fireplace. Hardwood floors, full basement, loads of storage. All on a pretty lot! On street with million dollar homes. $649,950 Dirs: 7-Corners: West on Broad St , L on S. Washington St, R on W Cameron Rd to 215

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