Falls Church News-Press 6-28-2012

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June 28 - July 4, 2012

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Inside This Week Hilton Groundbreaking Imminent, City Says The long-awaited Hilton Garden Inn development in downtown Falls Church took a big step forward, according to the latest report from the City’s Economic Development Office. See News Briefs, page 9

100 Attend S. Washington Meeting Saturday

Hillwood Ave. Standoff Ends After 29 Hours With Arrest & No Injuries Regional Police

Units Hailed for Safe Outcome

by Nicholas F. Benton

According to Falls Church City Manager Wyatt Shields, over 100 citizens attended a meeting last Saturday morning to kick off the process to define the second of a series of “small area plans” for the redevelopment of the City of Falls Church in its commerciallyzoned corridors.

Falls Church News-Press

Council meeting will begin at 8 p.m. The convening of the new Council will be done by the City Clerk, Kathleen Clarken Buschow, in Council chambers Monday, July 2, at 8 p.m. Her duties then will be to swear in the new Council members – Duncan and Tarter, elected last month (and incumbent Mayor Baroukh, who was re-elected to a second term) – then call the roll, to open the meeting to nominations for mayor and conduct that vote.

Late yesterday afternoon, City of Falls Church officials issued a statement formally identifying the subject of the 29-hour standoff on Hillwood Avenue with regional police units as James Vincent Rackowski, 57, whose family resides at the address. They reported that Rackowski had doused himself with gasoline, brandished a gun to police and threatened to burn down the house. Early in the standoff, he fired three gunshots with no injuries. Felled by a TASER gun when he came down the stairs Tuesday night, he was apprehended and will be charged with discharging a firearm within a building. The incident, which began at 4 p.m. Monday and was resolved with Rackowski’s arrest at 9 p.m. Tuesday, caused a major disruption in areas surrounding the usually docile, upscale Hillwood Avenue neighborhood. The treelined Hillwood was cordoned off for almost its entire length, as were side feeder streets, and Fairfax and Alexendria SWAT and other units joined Falls Church police to fill the street with large mobile vehicles. Residents inside the police perimeter were told to remain in their homes, and movement to and from the homes was curtailed. Rush hour traffic customarily moving through the neighborhood, located near the Seven Corners intersection of Routes 50, 29 and 7, was severely stifled both Monday and Tuesday. Hillwood Avenue is commonly used by motorists as a connector between Routes 50 and

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See News Briefs, page 9

David Brooks: Power of the Particular

They say you’ve never really seen a Bruce Springsteen concert until you’ve seen one in Europe, so some friends and I threw financial sanity to the winds and went to follow him around Spain and France. See page 12

Whalberg Stars in ‘Ted’ The funniest movie character so far this year is a stuffed teddy bear. And the best comedy screenplay so far is “Ted,” the saga of the bear’s friendship with a 35-yearold man-child. See Ebert, page 23

FALLS CHURCH POLICE Officer Dmitri Issaev stands watch at the police line cordoning off Hillwood Avenue in F.C. while public safety units from Falls Church, Fairfax, Arlington and Alexandria piled into the area to deal with a standoff that began as Monday afternoon’s rush hour began. (Photo: News-Press)

Swearing in Monday Will Lead to New Council Vote for F.C. Mayor by Nicholas F. Benton

Falls Church News-Press

Index

Editorial..................6 Letters................6, 8 News & Notes.10-11 Comment........12-15 Calendar.........20-21 Restaurant Spotlight ............................22

Press Pass..........25 Classified Ads . ...26 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword...........29 Critter Corner.......30 Business Listing..31

How much Monday’s transitions on the Falls Church City Council will or won’t change things in the Little City has been a matter of considerable speculation in recent weeks, and devoted City Hall watchers will be parsing all the votes and public remarks that the new Council will provide this coming Monday night. That’s when the new Council will be officially sworn in for what will be the shortest terms in City

history. With Council elections moving from May to November as of 2013, the new Council members’ terms will be shortened from two years to 18 months, while existing Council members will find their full four-year terms ending six months short, as well. Following a public reception for new Council members Phil Duncan and Dave Tarter (and including the re-elected incumbent Mayor Nader Baroukh) held at the Art Center of the Community Center adjacent City Hall beginning at 6:45 p.m., the special

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Hillwood Standoff Takes 29 Hours Continued from Page 1

29, two heavily trafficked commuter routes. Falls Church officials issued a release early Tuesday night urging anyone living in the cordoned off area to spend the night elsewhere, listing a number of area motels and hotels. It was released at 8:47 p.m., minutes before Rackowski was arrested. An “all clear” was given by Falls Church police and fire officials to the City’s Communications Director, Susan Finarelli in a small gaggle that included Falls Church Vice Mayor David Snyder an hour after the apprehension about 10 p.m. Snyder reported the development to the News-Press at that time, praising the successful, injury-free outcome of the incident and the cooperation between area public safety units. He e-mailed a short statement, reading, “This excellent outcome is the direct result of excellent public safety work. Each and every one of our police, sheriffs, fire and public works employees deserve our heartfelt thanks. The response and support from the region proves

that we are second to none in our ability to respond to public safety challenges and the help from our neighbors is much appreciated. Finally, we thank our citizens for their patience and support even though their lives were disrupted.” A formal City press release on the resolution of the matter followed at 12:19 a.m. and Rackowski’s identity was announced yesterday afternoon. According to News-Press sources, the Rackowski family, including James, lived at the residence in the 600 block of Hillwood for many years. James Rackowski’s mother, Helen Rackowski, died in February, and more recently his elderly father fell and was being considered for a move to a nursing home. When selling the property was discussed, requiring James to move out, the conditions provoking the incident existed. The official Falls Church City account of the incident is as follows: “Falls Church City Police Department received a call for a domestic disturbance in the 600 block of Hillwood Ave. shortly after 4 p.m. on Monday, June 25. Falls Church Police responded to the scene and were met by

a woman in front of the house. She told police that her brother, the 57-year-old Rackowski, had doused himself with gasoline and that he was going to set himself and the house on fire. She also said that her father, who is the homeowner, was in the house as well. “One officer observed the subject run up the stairs inside the house and open a second floor window. The officer then engaged him in conversation while two other officers entered the house and removed the father. “As the officer approached the house, the subject told him not to come any closer and displayed a handgun. The officers who were extracting the father indicated that there was a strong odor of gasoline in the house. A perimeter was established and attempts were made to talk to the subject. About 6 p.m., at least three gunshots were heard coming from inside the residence. No one was injured or suffered gunshot wounds from those shots. “Falls Church Police activated the Falls Church Emergency Services Unit (ESU) and requested mutual aid from Fairfax County Police Department and the City of Falls Church Sheriff’s Office.

A BARRICADE on Hillwood Avenue Tuesday night. (Photo: Andrew Finein) “The incident escalated as the subject became more agitated. Additional mutual aid units were called throughout the 29 hour standoff to include City of Alexandria Police Department, Arlington County Police Department, Arlington and Fairfax Fire and EMS, regional SWAT teams, and the continued efforts Fairfax County Police. “Conversations were established with Rackowski and it was requested that he surrender himself. During the incident combinations of Oleoresin Capsicum (also known as pepper spray) and other chemicals was launched into the

house. Additionally, a recorded message from family members was projected over a directional speaker for the subject. The priority of the Falls Church Police was preservation of life. “Just before 9 p.m. on Tuesday June 26, the subject came down the stairs. A TASER was deployed to control the subject and take him into custody. He was immediately treated and transported to the Inova Fairfax Hospital where he remained for treatment of injuries and psychological evaluation. “Rackowski will be charged with discharging a firearm within a building.”

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F.C. Council Gets Sworn In, Votes On Mayor & Vice Mayor Monday Continued from Page 1

Once a mayor is elected, she or he will then take the gavel from Ms. Buschow, who will remove from the dais to her normal position to its side, and the new mayor will open the meeting to nominations for vice mayor. Once that is accomplished, there may be some shifting of seating arrangements on the dais among the seven Council members, but that will be it. Of course, it can be assumed there will be some speeches and comments made by Council members as this process unfolds. As the proceedings will be broadcast live on Falls Church Cable TV, citizens can watch from their homes or attend in person, as they choose. Needless to say, the only real issue to be determined will be the election of the mayor. Incumbent Mayor Baroukh has made it abun-

dantly clear that he hopes to enjoy another term in the job he first took on in 2010. However, that will not go unchallenged, according to NewsPress sources. Vice Mayor David Snyder, who has been on the Council since 1994 and served as term as vice mayor from 19961998 and a term as mayor from 1998-2000, quipped to the NewsPress that if asked, he would serve. When the News-Press asked Baroukh at a Cherry Hill reception for departing Council members Monday whether he had the fourvote majority required for his reelection locked up, he smiled and said, “We’re just going to have to wait and see.” More than personalities, there are certain nuanced differences of policy substance between Snyder and Baroukh, and their colleagues on the Council will have to decide whether any of them are important enough to sway their vote one way

or the other. None of the Council members are out of the equation as possible mayoral or vice mayoral options, either. A degree of “palace intrigue” has been underway among influential circles in Falls Church, mulling potentially-successful strategies for either keeping or removing Baroukh as their main goal. Last time, on July 1, 2010, Baroukh won with five votes, including among those who will be voting Monday, Johannah Barry, Ira Kaylin, Snyder and Baroukh were among those who cast their lots with Baroukh, as did Lawrence Webb, who lost his bid for re-election so will not be voting this time. For vice mayor last time, when Webb withdrew his name from consideration after being nominated, Snyder won by a 5-0 vote with Barry and Kaylin voting merely, “present.” But for this Monday’s purposes, the votes from 2010 mean only

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four votes remain for Baroukh, if He has been working hard, they all vote the way they did in attending weekly early-morn2010, and it’s obviously doubtful ing meetings of the Economic they’ll all go for him again, since Development Committee (a subone of them is Snyder, a likely group of the Council not to be confused with the independent rival this time. The outcome, then, will come EDA) almost every week. Snyder is an outspoken advodown to which way one or both of the two new members being cate for development, but has caused 1/15/02 concern from devel- DOLEV sworn in Monday – Duncan1and 22:03 CLNTS WVsomeB/W 127093 opers because of his demand for Tarter – will go. Both Duncan and Tarter come substantial office and retail comonto the Council having run for ponents to any mixed-use proand been elected to public office posal, beyond what those develfor the first time last month. Both opers may think is economically have been active members of the feasible. On July 11, the Citizens for City’s Economic Development Authority (EDA) and bring exper- a Better City will host a public tise and urgency to the City’s need celebration of “all who ran, those for considerable new development who won, those who have served” on the City Council at 7:30 p.m. at in its commercial corridors. Baroukh’s economic develop- a local residence. ment record as mayor has certainly been less than stellar, including whatever misgivings he might have come onto the Council with about the $314 million City Center WHAT A CHILD LEARNS plan that had been approved in ABOUT VIOLENCE 2007. A CHILD LEARNS FOR LIFE. However, it is argued that Teach carefully. We can show you how. he can hardly be blamed for the Call 877-ACT-WISE for a free brochure or downturn in commercial ecovisit www.actagainstviolence.org. nomic development, given the Great Recession’s impact in the City and throughout the region.

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Metrorail Fares Peak of the Peak Fare: Peak Fare: Senior/Disabled: Off peak Fare: Senior/Disabled: Non-SmarTrip® Fare Surcharge: Senior/Disabled: Metrorail Passes 1-Day Unlimited Trip Pass: (SmarTrip® and paper) 7-Day Metrorail Fast Pass: (SmarTrip®) 28-Day Metrorail Fast Pass: (SmarTrip®)

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News Briefs Hilton Hotel Groundbreaking Imminent, City Says The long-awaited Hilton Garden Inn development in the 600 block of W. Broad St. in downtown Falls Church took a big step forward, according to the latest report from the City’s Economic Development Office. The settlement on the sale of the property has occurred, the last step required before construction can now begin. A groundbreaking could occur this summer, the report says. In other Falls Church economic development news in the report, three new retailers have signed leases for space at The Spectrum on the plaza where Mad Fox is. They are Beaddazzled, Moby Dick’s House of Kabobs and Sweet Frog Frozen Yogurt. All are expected to be open for business by the end of the summer. Another new retailer, Space Bar, is now open at 709 W. Broad, site of the former Stacy’s Coffee, with seating for 50 and a 28-foot bar. Live music and a predominantly vegetarian menu are featured. At the site of the old Bangkok Blues at 928 W. Broad, two businesses, Brits on Broad (gifts and hair stylist) and Windy Apple Restaurant have occupancy permits to open soon. At Pearson Square on S. Maple Ave., Body Dynamics occupying 9,711 square feet, is slated to open by Labor Day. Construction is underway at five locations in the City, 101 E. Annandale Road (a two-story office/retail building to replace the one that burned down), Northgate at 472 N. Washington slated for completion by July 2013, the BB&T Bank at the site of the former Chicken Out, almost completed, the 917 W. Broad two-story office/retail building on the site of the former El Zunzal, and the 24 Hour Fitness building on the site of the former Symms at 1000 E. Broad St.

100 Attend S. Washington Plan Kickoff According to Falls Church City Manager Wyatt Shields, over 100 citizens attended a meeting last Saturday morning to kick off the process to define the second of a series of “small area plans� for the redevelopment of the City of Falls Church in its commerciallyzoned corridors. After the adoption of a North Washington St. plan by the F.C. City Council earlier this month, the City’s Planning Director Jim Snyder kicked off the process of citizen input that will result in a second area plan, this one for S. Washington St. The meeting was held at the Columbia Baptist Church. Following initial overview presentations by Snyder and Rick Goff of the City’s Economic Development Department, citizens joined by urban planning students from the Alexandria campus of Virginia Tech broke down into small groups to discuss the following aspects of a prospective plan: 1. land use, 2, height and density, 3. open space, 4. transportation, and 5. arts and culture. The S. Washington Area is centered on Route 29 (S. Washington) below its intersection with Annandale Road to the city limits. Contiguous with Fairfax County, the plan, Snyder said, will be best developed in cooperation with Fairfax County, and to that end, Fairfax’s Providence District Supervisor Linda Smyth was present. Smyth’s presence was also seen as representative of the thawing of adversarial relations between the City and county on the matter of water services. The S. Washington area covers 36 acres of commercially-zoned land that is now home to only 20 acres of buildings that yield $7.4 million annually in revenues to the City. However, as Goff explained, if the area was made more dense – for example, from its current 0.56 floor-to-area ratio (FAR) to a medium-density 2.5, revenues to the City could jump to $16.9 million annually, equal to 49 cents on the residential real estate tax rate. “There is no lack of investor interest in this area,’ Goff told the audience. Some ideas floated by Snyder included a “Tinner Hill Festival Street� that would link the NAACP arch monument on S. Washington with the only significant new developments in the area, the Pearson Square and Tax Analyst buildings on S. Maple..

F.C. Officials Blast Richmond $ Distribution Shift City of Falls Church officials continued their noisy, public opposition to a proposed change in the way Richmond will deliver transportation dollars to this region, a move which has been put on hold until July 18 after a forceful reaction from a wide array of Northern Virginia regional leaders. After Vice Mayor David Snyder called the move by Gov. Bob McDonnell “an outrageous bullying tactic from Richmond for no constructive reason, whatsoever,� Snyder provided follow-up remarks, and so did Mayor Nader Baroukh at a F.C. City Council work session in City Hall last Thursday. Following a report from Assistant City Manager Cindy Mester on the expensive and complicated staffing requirements that would be needed to account for the divvying up of the money to individual jurisdictions instead of to a regional body, Baroukh said, “It is so illogical. The amount of time and money that has already had to be spent, it is incomprehensible. I can’t find a justification for it. It has presented a very difficult and frustrating situation.� Snyder provided more colorful rhetoric, saying “All this effort has been created to fix what wasn’t broken.� It amounts to undermining a “30 year successful regional transportation planning effort.�

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Community News & Notes FourthWALL Cabaret Series Returns Next Month Creative Cauldron’s experimental FourthWALL summer cabaret series kicks off July 7 with a “Best of Broadway” evening filled with tunes from the Great White Way. The series, first envisioned by Creative Cauldron Artistic Associate Matt Conner, gives professional singers and performers an opportunity to craft their own individual cabaret evening, breaking the “fourth wall” between audience and performers to share their viewpoint. This year’s line-up features “Tumble Down Dreams,” an anecdotal journey through a life in the theater presented by veteran stage performer and Arena Stage company member Terry Currier; “Cabaroke” with Chris Sizemore, a hybrid evening of cabaret and karaoke in which the audience gets to choose the performer’s song list; and a concert reading of a controversial new musical “What Kind of Love: An Evening with Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.” Shows are Saturdays at 8 p.m. through Aug. 25 at ArtSpace Falls Church, 410 S. Maple Ave. Tickets

are $20 for adults and $18 for students and seniors. For more information, visit creativecauldron.org.

Local Groups to Sell Food & Beverages at Park Concerts Falls Church City’s annual Concerts in the Park series began last Thursday and will continue through Aug. 2. All performances start at 7 p.m. in Cherry Hill Park, 312 Park Ave., Falls Church. This year, food and drink will be on sale; however, attendees should feel free to bring their own food and nonalcoholic beverages. The Village Preservation and Improvement Society will sell beverages, the Victorian Society at Falls Church will sell ice cream, and the Mary Riley Styles Public Library Foundation will sell Z Pizza. For more information, visit fallschurchva.gov/Concerts.

July 4th Fireworks Set for Mason, Langley High Schools Fireworks displays will be shown at two area high schools this July 4th. The City of Falls Church

Recreation and Parks Department will present its annual free July 4th Celebration on Wednesday, July 4, at George Mason High School, 7124 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church. Musical entertainment begins at 7 p.m. with a live performance by Judo Chop. Fireworks will follow at 9:20 p.m. For more information, call Recreation and Parks at 703-248-5178. The McLean Community Center’s annual 4th of July Fireworks Celebration will be held on July 4 at the stadium at Langley High School, 6520 Georgetown Pike, McLean. The grounds will open at 8 p.m. The fireworks show will begin at approximately 9:15 p.m. Admission and parking are free. For more information, call 703-790-0123 or visit mcleancenter.org.

Hall, 300 Park Ave., Falls Church. The public is invited to attend and learn the history and importance of the Fairfax Resolves, the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution, to the nation’s history, and Virginia’s important role in the early days of the Republic. Admission is free. For more information, visit VPIS.org.

Local Orgs Partner with United Way for Shoebox Project HomeAid Northern Virginia, Housing and Community Services of NOVA, Northern

Virginia Family Service, and Shelter House, among 24 nonprofit groups in the Washington, D.C. area, are taking part in the United Way of the National Capital Area’s inaugural Shoebox Project. Volunteers assembled, decorated and sorted more than 2,000 shoeboxes filled with essential personal care and emergency preparedness items – twice United Way NCA’s collection goal for the project’s first year. The boxes will be delivered to the 24 member non-profits. These organizations will then distribute the boxes to the elderly, homeless and veterans in the communities they serve.

VPIS to Give History Lesson With July 4th Readings The Village Preservation and Improvement Society will host its 29th annual Independence Day Readings next Wednesday at noon, in the Council Chambers at City

The 600 block of N. Oak Street (in Falls Church City) and the 2000 block of N. Oak Street (Fairfax County) recently joined together for their annual block party, in its 50th year and counting. (Photo: Roger McCleskey)

Truman Custer, an Eagle Scout candidate from Troop 349, is pictured above with his completed Eagle Scout project. The new garden is sited at the Walter Mess Plaza, which was dedicated earlier this year next to the American Legion and the W&OD Trail on N. Oak Street. Falls Church resident Roger Neighborgall, who also organized the Walter Mess Plaza dedication, served as Truman’s project sponsor. Fellow Scouts and parents from Troop 349 helped Truman complete the project, with Truman coordinating payment of the lumber, mulch and plants by the Friends of the W&OD Trail. Truman also worked with Keith Tomlinson of Meadowlark Botanical Gardens to select native plants and plan the garden. (Photo: Julie Custer)

Send Us Your News & Notes!

The News-Press is always on the lookout for photos & items for Community News & Notes, School News & Notes and other sections of the paper. If you graduate, get married, get engaged, get an award, start a club, eat a club, tie your shoes, have a birthday, have a party, host an event or anything else you think is worth being mentioned in the News-Press, write it up and send it to us! If you have a photo, even better! Because of the amount of submissions we receive, we cannot guarantee all submissions will be published, but we’ll try our best!

Community News & Notes: newsandnotes@fcnp.com | School News & Notes: schoolnews@fcnp.com Mail: News & Notes, Falls Church News-Press, 200 Little Falls St. #508, Falls Church, VA 22046

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Plein Air Painters Earn Awards in F.C. Arts Festival

Winners of the third annual Falls Church Arts Plein Air Festival received awards for their entries in the competition last Saturday at ArtSpace Falls Church, 410 S. Maple Ave. Mike and June Beyer presented The Don Beyer Volvo-KIA Plein Air Prize for best in show. The $500 prize went to Rajendra K.C. for his watercolor painting “Falls Church Landscape, Little Falls Street in a Summer Storm.” The second-place Tori McKinney, Rock Star Realtor, Plein Air Prize of $250 was awarded to Patricia Walach Keough for her oil painting of “The Falls Church Farmer’s Market.” The Falls Church Arts President’s Prize of $250 was presented to Falls Church artist Jennifer Manown. Her oil painting, “The Falls Church Presbyterian Church,” earned the third-place prize. The show was juried by award-

winning artist Meg Walsh. The show and sale will continue at ArtSpace through Aug. 5. For more information, call 703-679-7881.

Belvedere Elementary School Goes Green A $2,500 Dominion Foundation grant to Belvedere Elementary School has helped the local school in its goal to go green. The grant supported the development of outdoor classrooms for hands-on math and science learning. It also supported the clean-up and marking of the “Bulldog Paw Way,” a trail linking the school to the adjacent county park at the corner of Sleepy Hollow Road and Columbia Pike. Each grade-level team planted, maintained and harvested crops in one of eight raised beds, shared some of the bounty with the Arlington Food Assistance Center, enjoyed a “taste test” and participated in a composting program, recycling leftover food scraps in the cafeteria. Additional funding from Fairfax County Public Schools

LOCAL enabled the Belvedere community to transform the library courtyard into another outdoor classroom, complete with wildlife habitat gardens, a decomposition garden and a soon-to-be completed rock identification wall. Belvedere families will continue to water and maintain the gardens over the summer.

F.C. Students Named to Spring 2012 Dean’s Lists Several students from Falls Church have been named to dean’s lists for the spring 2012 semester at colleges across the nation. Sean Barrett and Gabriela Borray at Wake Forest University, Peter Ferrara at Lafayette College, Robert Gavora at Washington College, Mary Hoff at Mount St. Mary’s University, and Rebecca E. Makous at the University of Vermont earned dean’s list honors. Earning dean’s list honors at James Madison University were Marco Anshien, Rebecca Aviles, Brittany Bailey, Daniel Benn, Caitlin Davis, Alina Duka, Cecilia Enriquez,

The PAC Navy Elite ’01 boys soccer team went undefeated in the spring, allowing only six goals, to win first place in the U10 Division. The team, coached by Sully Hamid and Carlos Guerra, won the U10 Division in the fall 2011 season. PAC Navy ‘01 were also invited to play in the prestigious Jefferson Cup and were finalists in the Richmond Capital Classic and Battfield tournament. Pictured above, from left to right, are (top row) Wilton, Kobe, Peyton, Henry, Erik, Devin, Coach Guerra, (bottom row) Ethan, Jack, Spencer, Steven, Cole and Colter. (Photo: Courtesy James McMahon)

Michael Evans, Meredith Gilmer, Julianna Horneman, Elizabeth Katz, Leah King, Bryan Kress, Lisl Magboo, Zachary Martini, Victoria Montano, Michelle Nguyen, Danielle O’Brien, Jesse O’Connor, Sheanna Paine, Brian Payne, Madeline Samayoa-Leiva, Morgan Schaffner, Emily Tilman, Christopher Tran, Sandra Tran and Shannon Yarnoff. Rebecca Altmeyer, Seth Ensign, Emily Iekel, Emily Kelly, Elyse Krachman, Kassim Rahawi, Jeffrey Ralph, Lauren Sanata, Katrina Snyder, Andrea Tomlinson and Jonah Williams earned president’s list honors.

F.C. Students Earn College & University Degrees Several students from Falls Church have earned degrees at recent commencement ceremonies. Earning bachelor’s degrees were Margaret Rose Hummel and Catherine Michelle McMahon at Longwood University, Gordon Matthewson at Colorado College,

June 28 – July 4, 2012| PAGE 11 Audrey M. Kraemer and Renato Augusto Chavez at Radford University, Michael S. Brazda at Boston University, Peter Infante at Union College, Gabriela Borray at Wake Forest University, Kalok Lai at Ithaca College, and Michael Trejo at Lafayette College. Earning bachelor’s degrees from James Madison University were Jamie Breitner, Timothy Brooks, Hannah Bryan, Michael Coleman, Caitlin Davis, Christopher Dawson, Cecilia Enriquez, Sachiko Hanamura, Edward Huber, You-Mee Jo, Alexander Kim, Christine Luong, Lisl Magboo, Tracy Poon, Khemvisoth Prum, Christiana Rueckert, Jessica Thatcher, Andrea Tomlinson, Conor Wadsworth, Tian-Hao Wang and Brooke Williams. Louise Robertson graduated with a master’s degree in teaching. (Honors graduates were listed in last week’s News-Press.) Jonathan Martin earned a master’s degree from Southern Methodist University in interactive technology.

Rajendra K.C.’s entry into the Falls Church Arts Plein Air Festival was picked as the first-place winner. He was awarded the Don Beyer Volvo-KIA Plein Air Prize of $500 for his work. Pictured above with the winning painting are (from left to right) June and Mike Beyer; June’s mother, Jane; Rajendra K.C.; and Rajendra K.C.’s wife, Shanti. (Photo: Courtesy Shaun van Steyn)

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PAGE 12 | June 28 – July 4, 2012

NATIONAL

Power of the Particular They say you’ve never really seen a Bruce Springsteen concert until you’ve seen one in Europe, so some friends and I threw financial sanity to the winds and went to follow him around Spain and France. In Madrid, for example, we were rewarded with a show that lasted 3 hours and 48 minutes, possibly the longest Springsteen concert on record and one of the best. But what really fascinated me were the crowds. Springsteen crowds in the U.S. are hitting their AARP years, or deep into them. In Europe, the fans are much younger. The passion among the American devotees is frenzied, bordering on cultish. The intensity of the European audiences is two standard deviations higher. The Europeans produce an outpouring of noise and movement that sometimes overshadows what’s happening onstage. NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE Here were audiences in the middle of the Iberian Peninsula singing word for word about Highway 9 or Greasy Lake or some other exotic locale on the Jersey Shore. They held up signs requesting songs from the deepest and most distinctly American recesses of Springsteen’s repertoire. The oddest moment came midconcert when I looked across the football stadium and saw 56,000 enraptured Spaniards, pumping their fists in the air in fervent unison and bellowing at the top of their lungs, “I was born in the USA! I was born in the USA!” Did it occur to them at that moment that, in fact, they were not born in the USA? How was it that so many people in such a faraway place can be so personally committed to the deindustrializing landscape from New Jersey to Nebraska, the world Springsteen sings about? How is it they can be so enraptured at the mere mention of the Meadowlands or the Stone Pony, an Asbury Park, N.J., nightclub? My best theory is this: When we are children, we invent these detailed imaginary worlds that the child psychologists call “paracosms.” These landscapes, sometimes complete with imaginary beasts, heroes and laws, help us orient ourselves in reality. They are structured mental communities that help us understand the wider world. We carry this need for paracosms into adulthood. It’s a paradox that the artists who have the widest global purchase are also the ones who have created the most local and distinctive story landscapes. Millions of people around the world are ferociously attached to Tupac Shakur’s version of Compton or J.K. Rowling’s version of a British boarding school or Downton Abbey’s or Brideshead Revisited’s version of an Edwardian estate. Millions of people know the contours of these remote landscapes, their typical characters, story lines, corruptions and challenges. If you build a passionate and highly localized moral landscape, people will come. Over the years, Springsteen built his own paracosm, with its own collection of tramps, factory closings, tortured Catholic overtones and moments of rapturous escape. This construction project took an act of commitment. The most interesting moment of Springsteen’s career came after the success of “Born to Run.” It would have been natural to build on that album’s success, to repeat its lush, wall-of-sound style, to build outward from his New Jersey base and broaden his appeal. Instead, Springsteen went deeper into his roots and created “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” which is more localized, more lonely and more spare. That must have seemed like a commercially insane decision at the time. But a more easily accessible Springsteen, removed from his soul roots, his childhood obsessions and the oft-repeated idiom of cars and highways, would have been diluted. Instead, he processed new issues in the language of his old tradition, and now you’ve got young adults filling stadiums, knowing every word to songs written 20 years before they were born, about places they’ll never see. It makes you appreciate the tremendous power of particularity. If your identity is formed by hard boundaries, if you come from a specific place, if you embody a distinct musical tradition, if your concerns are expressed through a specific paracosm, you are going to have more depth and definition than you are if you grew up in the far-flung networks of pluralism and eclecticism, surfing from one spot to the next, sampling one style then the next, your identity formed by soft boundaries, or none at all. (Maybe this is why younger rock bands can’t fill stadiums year after year, while the more geographically defined older bands like U2, Springsteen and the Beach Boys can.) The whole experience makes me want to pull aside politicians and business leaders and maybe everyone else and offer some pious advice: Don’t try to be everyman. Don’t pretend you’re a member of every community you visit. Don’t try to be citizens of some artificial globalized community. Go deeper into your own tradition. Call more upon the geography of your own past. Be distinct and credible. People will come.

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

David Brooks

The Great Abdication Among economists who know their history, the mere mention of certain years evokes shivers. For example, three years ago Christina Romer, then the head of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, warned politicians not to re-enact 1937 – the year FDR shifted, far too soon, from fiscal stimulus to austerity, plunging the recovering economy back into recession. Unfortunately, this advice was ignored. But now I’m hearing more and more about an even more fateful year. Suddenly normally calm economists are talking about 1931, the year everything fell apart. It started with a banking crisis in a small European country (Austria). Austria tried to step in with a NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE bank rescue – but the spiraling cost of the rescue put the government’s own solvency in doubt. In themselves, Austria’s troubles shouldn’t have been big enough to have large effects on the world economy, but in practice they created a panic that spread around the world. Sound familiar? The really crucial lesson of 1931, however, was about the dangers of policy abdication. Stronger European governments could have helped Austria manage its problems. Central banks, notably the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve, could have done much more to limit the damage. But nobody with the power to contain the crisis stepped up to the plate; everyone who could and should have acted declared that it was someone else’s responsibility. And it’s happening again, both in Europe and in America. Consider first how European leaders have been handling the banking crisis in Spain. (Forget about Greece, which is pretty much a lost cause; Spain is where the fate of Europe will be decided.) Like Austria in 1931, Spain has troubled banks that desperately need more capital, but the Spanish government now, like Austria’s government then, faces questions about its own solvency. So what should European leaders – who have an overwhelming interest in containing the Spanish crisis – do? It seems obvious that European creditor nations need, one way or another, to assume some of the financial risks facing Spanish banks. No, Germany won’t like it – but with the very survival of the euro at stake, a bit of financial risk should be a small consideration. But no. Europe’s “solution” was to lend money to the Spanish government, and tell that government to

Paul Krugman

bail out its own banks. It took financial markets no time at all to figure out that this solved nothing, that it just put Spain’s government more deeply in debt. And the European crisis is now deeper than ever. Yet let’s not ridicule the Europeans, since many of our own policymakers are acting just as irresponsibly. And I’m not just talking about congressional Republicans, who often seem as if they are deliberately trying to sabotage the economy. Let’s talk instead about the Federal Reserve. The Fed has a so-called dual mandate: It’s supposed to seek both price stability and full employment. And last week the Fed released its latest set of economic projections, showing that it expects to fail on both parts of its mandate, with inflation below target and unemployment far above target for years to come. This is a terrible prospect, and the Fed knows it. Ben Bernanke, the Fed’s chairman, has warned in particular about the damage being done to America by the unprecedented level of long-term unemployment. So what does the Fed propose doing about the situation? Almost nothing. True, last week the Fed announced some actions that would supposedly boost the economy. But I think it’s fair to say that everyone at all familiar with the situation regards these actions as pathetically inadequate – the bare minimum the Fed could do to deflect accusations that it is doing nothing at all. Why won’t the Fed act? My guess is that it’s intimidated by those congressional Republicans, that’s it’s afraid to do anything that might be seen as providing political aid to Obama, that is, anything that might help the economy. Maybe there’s some other explanation, but the fact is that the Fed, like the European Central Bank, like the U.S. Congress, like the government of Germany, has decided that avoiding economic disaster is somebody else’s responsibility. None of this should be happening. As in 1931, Western nations have the resources they need to avoid catastrophe, and indeed to restore prosperity – and we have the added advantage of knowing much more than our great-grandparents did about how depressions happen and how to end them. But knowledge and resources do no good if those who possess them refuse to use them. And that’s what seems to be happening. The fundamentals of the world economy aren’t, in themselves, all that scary; it’s the almost universal abdication of responsibility that fills me, and many other economists, with a growing sense of dread.

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

NATIONAL

Whichever Way on Health Care

Whichever way the U.S. Supreme Court ruling goes on President Obama’s health care reform this week, Obama will be the winner, even if the American people won’t. Here’s the reason why: the reform was crafted to benefit many millions of Americans, directly or indirectly most of us, and if the Supreme Court strikes it down, or a big part of it, Obama will have all of us who recognize this on his side as he makes slamming the partisan court a big theme in his re-election effort. Needless to say, if the court upholds it, then even better for Obama. But either way, the real vulnerability in all this, politically speaking, is the discredited Supreme Court, itself. By coming down against health care reform, it will have established only its latest Falls Church news-press marker as a pliant footstool for the monied interests behind the effort to unseat the president. It bears repeating the key indicators of the court’s partisanship: stopping the counting of the vote in 2000 to hand the presidential election to George W. Bush, and defining corporations as people to permit unlimited, anonymous contributions to political campaigns in the infamous “Citizens United” decision. A blow against health reform will only be the latest, and more convincing, self-indictment. Some argue that studies indicate Bush would have won, anyway, in 2000. But that was far from the point. The matter had to do with counting the people’s votes, not who won. The Supreme Court took the extraordinary move of intervening in a state matter after the Florida high court ruled in favor of counting all the votes in an election whose outcome was within a couple hundred votes. It was an abomination at the time, requiring a marked departure from the Supreme Court’s until-then respect for state’s rights. Apparently high level people in this land really wanted Bush in, and we can only imagine how much wealth they were able to accumulate under his watch in the mobilization and execution of the unprovoked invasion of Iraq and the unprecedented financial bubble leading up to the Great Crash of 2008. Neither of those would have happened with a Democrat in the White House. Spoiling the outcome of one presidential election in 2000, this same Supreme Court did what few believed was possible – to eclipse the world-historical scandal of the 2000 ruling with one even more egregious, even more fatal to democratic values. That was the 2009 “Citizens United” ruling on unlimited, unaccountable political campaign contributions. This week’s health care ruling needs to be seen in that context, and will be by a growing majority of Americans who will be impacted directly by its effect. That’s because the ruling won’t simply enfranchise one group – the rich and powerful – in our population, but because it will directly, negatively impact and harm tens of millions of American citizens. President Obama has gained his advantage for re-election this November by providing benefits to those millions of struggling Americans who elected him in the first place. By saving the U.S. auto industry, he saved countless jobs. By granting young immigrants, here illegally or not, an ability to remain to complete their educations and keep their families together, he won over a vast majority of immigrantAmericans of all nationalities and races. By affirming full equality under the law for lesbian and gay Americans, including support for their marriage rights, he not only has delivered for them, but for the many multiples of millions of Americans who have family, friends, co-workers and classmates impacted by that support. In other words, what will continue to bedevil Obama’s enemies is the fact that his support is grounded in the vast majority of Americans he has helped, and vows to continue helping, despite how badly Bush wrecked the national economy. His base of support lies in his concrete life-benefiting achievements for vast numbers of Americans, not in ideological hot air. That’s why the President is the guaranteed winner no matter which was the Supreme Court rules this week. That’s why so many Republicans, and especially their monied masters, hate majorities. If Obama’s going to lose in November, it will have to be to something other than popular support.

June 28 – July 4, 2012 | PAGE 13

Nicholas F. Benton

 Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com.

The Fear Factor If there is one thought that summarizes the strength and weakness of the Arab awakenings, it’s the one offered by Daniel Brumberg, a co-director of the democracy and governance studies program at Georgetown University, who observed that the Arab awakenings happened because the Arab peoples stopped fearing their leaders – but they stalled because the Arab peoples have not stopped fearing each other. This dichotomy is no surprise. That culture of fear was exactly what the dictators fed off of and nurtured. Most of them ran their countries like Mafia dons operating “protection rackets.” They wanted their people to fear each other more than the leader, so each dictator or monarch could sit atop the whole society, doling out patronage and protection, while ruling with an iron fist. But it will take more than just decapitating these regimes to overcome that legacy. It will take a culture of pluralism and citizenship. Until then, tribes will still fear tribes in Libya and Yemen, sects will still fear sects in Syria and Bahrain, the secular and the Christians will NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE still fear the Islamists in Egypt and Tunisia and the philosophy of “rule or die” will remain a potent competitor to “one man, one vote.” You would have to be very naive to think that transitioning from these primordial identities to “citizens” would be easy, or even likely. It took two centuries of struggle and compromise for America to get to a point where it could elect a black man with the middle name Hussein as president and then consider replacing him with a Mormon. And that is in a country of immigrants. But you would also have to be blind and deaf to the deeply authentic voices and aspirations that triggered these Arab awakenings not to realize that, in all these countries, there is a longing – particularly among young Arabs – for real citizenship and accountable and participatory government. It is what many analysts are missing today. That energy is still there, and the Muslim Brotherhood, or whoever rules Egypt, will have to respond to it. Precisely because Egypt is the opposite of Las Vegas – what happens there never stays there – the way in which the newly elected president, Mohammed Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, ultimately learns to work with the secular, liberal, Salafist and Christian elements of Egyptian society will have a huge impact on all the other Arab awakenings. If Egyptians can forge a workable social contract to govern themselves, it will set an example for

Thomas L. Friedman

the whole region. America midwifed that social contractwriting in Iraq, but Egypt will need a Nelson Mandela. Can Morsi play that Mandela role? Does he have any surprise in him? The early indications are mixed at best. “As Mohammed Morsi prepares to become Egypt’s first democratically elected president,” Brumberg wrote on foreignpolicy.com, “he will have to decide who he really is: a political unifier who wants one ‘Egypt for all Egyptians’ as he said shortly after he was declared president, or an Islamist partisan devoted to the very proposition that he repeated during the first round of the election campaign, namely that ‘the Quran is our constitution.’ “This is not so much an intellectual choice as it is a political and practical one,” he added. “Morsi’s greatest challenge is to unite a political opposition that has suffered from fundamental divisions between Islamists and nonIslamists, and within each of these camps as well. If his call for a government of national unity merely represents a short-term tactic for confronting the military – rather than a strategic commitment to pluralism as a way of political life – the chances of resuscitating a transition that only days ago was on life support will be very slim indeed.” It is incumbent on the Muslim Brotherhood to now authentically reach out to the other 50 percent of Egypt – the secular, liberal, Salafist and Christian elements – and assure them that not only will they not be harmed, but that their views and aspirations will be balanced alongside the Brotherhood’s. That is going to require, over time, a revolution in thinking by the Muslim Brotherhood leadership and rank-and-file to actually embrace religious and political pluralism as they move from opposition to governance. It will not happen overnight, but if it doesn’t happen at all, the Egyptian democracy experiment will fail and a terrible precedent will be set for the region. The United States has some leverage in terms of foreign aid, military aid and foreign investment – and we should use it by making clear that we respect the vote of the Egyptian people, and we want to continue to help Egypt thrive, but our support will be conditioned on certain principles. What principles? Our principles? No. The principles identified by the 2002 U.N. Arab Human Development Report, which was written by and for Arabs. It said that for the Arab world to thrive it needs to overcome its deficit of freedom, its deficit of knowledge and its deficit of women’s empowerment. And, I would add, its deficit of religious and political pluralism. We should help any country whose government is working on that agenda and we should withhold our support from any that is not.

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PAGE 14 | june 28 - JULY 4, 2012

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

A Penny for Your Thoughts

News of Greater Falls Church By Supervisor Penny Gross

Falls Church High School pulled the short straw to determine order of graduation from George Mason University’s Patriot Center last week, but the ceremony was no less dignified and full of celebration. The June 20 morning graduation was the last in the series of Fairfax County high school commencements this year. Principal Cathy Benner welcomed nearly 300 green and white robed graduates and their families to the cavernous hall with obvious pride, and a gentle reminder about the respect that should be accorded all the successful students. Dr. Patricia Edwards, director of Student Services, presented 13 Honor Graduates, 19 Advanced Placement students, and nine students who will be going into military service. The Marine Corps apparently did a very good job of recruiting, as five of the graduates will report for Marine basic training. Thien Quoc Vo and Katherine Sejas gave the Honor Graduate Address, characterizing the Class of 2012 as “bold, brave, benevolent people.” Students chose as their graduation speaker Ryan Healy, a 2001 FCHS graduate, now a coach and teacher at his alma mater. The printed program noted that his “classroom overflows with music, laughter, and love.” His graduation speech certainly reflected a lot of laughter, his own and the students’. One admonition to the students was worth repeating: “If you look back too much, you will soon be headed that way.” Looking back didn’t seem to be on many minds as the seniors enthusiastically received their diplomas from Principal Benner, threw their caps into the air, and filed out into the bright sunshine, confident of their achievements, and ready for their next challenges. Congratulations to all the graduates!

Schools are fairly quiet during the summer, but Belvedere Elementary School families are undertaking a special effort to water and maintain new gardens planted this spring, thanks to a $2500 Dominion Foundation grant. Outdoor classrooms for handson math and science learning, and the clean up of “Bulldog Paw Way,” a trail linking the school to parkland nearby, were among the projects supported by the grant. Eight raised beds planted by the children, who harvested crops, enjoyed a “taste test,” and participated in a composting program to recycle leftover food scraps in the cafeteria. At the front of the school, two brightly painted rain barrels were installed to conserve water, and a pollinator garden was created with milkweed and nectar perennials. Second graders raised monarch butterflies from caterpillars and released them into the garden. The day I visited, there were no monarchs, but a lot of other butterflies and bees were enjoying the smorgasbord set out for them. Other funding from a county Schoolyard Stewardship mini-grant transformed the library courtyard into a wildlife habitat garden, an intriguing decomposition garden, and a soon-to-be completed rock identification wall. According to Belvedere librarian Pat Gualtieri, tasked with watering on the weekend, Master Naturalist Stacey Evers and landscape designer Beth Maher freely gave of their time and expertise to help the gardens come to fruition. Belvedere’s goal is to become a nationally certified “Eco School.” Great things are happening in our schools, even in the summertime!  Penny Gross is the Mason District Supervisor, in the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. She may be emailed at mason@fairfaxcounty.gov.

Congressman Moran’s News Commentary

The Highway Transportation Bill By James P. Moran

Congress faces a looming deadline that could threaten millions of jobs. The Highway Transportation Bill, legislation that funds the maintenance of our roads, public transportation and thousands of construction projects across the country, expires in less than a week. In May, Speaker John Boehner blocked consideration of the Senate-passed Highway Transportation Bill to fund federal transportation programs that create jobs. Congressional Republicans instead passed a highly partisan version of the bill that would cut highway investments in 45 states and D.C. and eliminate funding for transit programs like Metro, harming more than 500,000 jobs. Fortunately, there is an easy solution to the problem we are facing – the House should approve the Senate version of the bill passed overwhelmingly more than 100 days ago. The Senate version of the bill, approved on a 74-22 vote, would boost our economy and keep millions of Americans at work. In

fact, the Senate-passed bill would protect 1.8 million jobs nationwide and create one million more jobs through leveraging transportation funds. The Senate Transportation bill also makes meaningful reforms by maintaining current funding levels for highways and public transportation, consolidating over two-thirds of all highway programs, establishing a national freight program, improving safety oversight of public transportation, and instituting accountability for transportation infrastructure investments. It provides certainty to states, businesses and investors. It is also fully paid for. The Senate bill also demonstrates what we know to be true – investing in our federal infrastructure creates jobs. The American Alliance for Manufacturing states that every billion dollars of infrastructure investment creates 18,000 jobs here in America. With $2.2 trillion in needed investments, the Republican version that cuts funding for repairs to our crumbling

infrastructure is unwise from a public safety and economic perspective. Further, an extension of the Senate’s Highway Transportation Bill would help unemployment in the industries hardest hit by the recession. The construction sector lost 28,000 last month and their unemployment rate sits at 14.2 percent. Of the one million jobs created by the Senate highway funding bill, a significant portion of these are construction jobs. This economic impact alone should bring Republican House leadership to the negotiating table. Failure to arrive at a solution is unacceptable. Given all of the problems we face as a nation, an agreement to extend the Highway Transportation Bill can bridge the ideological gaps that divide us and lay the foundation for future compromise on other issues. As Senate and House leadership works to find common ground on a Highway Transportation Bill before the June 30 deadline, the bipartisan Senate version should be our model for compromise.

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

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Going to Texas Vigil The more victories the LGBT movement racks up, the more vicious our opponents become. When I look at the anti-gay extremism in 2012, I’m reminded of 1998’s “Summer of Hate,” which began with a national “ex-gay” advertising campaign, escalated with a flurry of anti-gay legislation in Congress, and ended with the horrifying death of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. “We didn’t know who Matthew would be, but we could have certainly predicted that there would be some very, very tragic violent deaths over the summer,” former Human Rights Campaign Executive Director Elizabeth Birch told the Today Show following Shepard’s murder. Following an eerily similar outpouring of raw hatred coming from politicians and the pulpit, two teenage girlfriends in a five-month relationship were shot in the head with a large caliber handgun in Violet Andrews Park in Portland, TX this weekend. Mollie Judith Olgin, 19, died in the attack, while Mary Christine Chapa, 18 was rushed to a hospital where she is now listed in serious but stable condition. Although it has all the hallmarks of a hate crime, we still don’t know precisely what happened and we should not prematurely jump to conclusions. “There’s no evidence to suggest that this crime was committed as a bias against the girls or their lifestyle,” said Portland Police Chief Randy Wright. Nonetheless, as Birch previously pointed out, we know that a heightened level of anti-gay vitriol inevitably leads to violence. When you have fanatical enemies dedicated to bullying, berating, and belittling, it can come as no surprise when their behavior eventually devolves into brutalizing and bashing. As if on cue, the Texas Republican Party just released a repulsive platform that went out of its way to demonize the LGBT community: “We affirm that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society and contributes to the breakdown of the family unit. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans.” It is folly to separate such vituperative voices from the violence that follows. A report published by the Southern Poverty Law Center in November 2010, analyzing FBI data from 1995 to 2008, found that LGBT people are 2.6 times more likely to be attacked than blacks; 4.4 times more likely than Muslims; 13.8 times more likely than Latinos; and 41.5 times more likely than whites. The Anti-Violence Project released their national report on hate violence for 2011. Nationwide there were 30 killings of LGBT Americans due to hate which is the highest yearly total ever recorded. Could these awful numbers surprise anyone, considering the whackos are coming out of the woodwork? Exacerbating matters are the dangerously false and inflammatory claims by anti-gay organizations that Christians must choose between gay rights and religious liberty. For example, in a May 8 Family Research Council fundraising letter focusing on gays in the military, the group’s President Tony Perkins wrote: “Enemies of Christianity, those who would silence the Gospel and eradicate our faith, are pushing hard, working fast…Forcing acceptance of open homosexuality in the military was only the beginning. Muzzling those who speak out against this policy goes hand in hand with it.” Bryan Fischer, a talk radio host for the American Family Association and major player in GOP politics, has a daily show that reaches a million listeners in 35 states. In one broadcast he told his audience, “Homosexuality gave us Adolf Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine, and six million dead Jews.” Here are a few more chilling incidents that recently occurred: • Indiana pastor Jeff Sangl and his congregation encouraged a fouryear-old to sing a song called, “Ain’t no homos gonna make it to heaven.” • Kansas pastor Curtis Knapp said in a radio address: “They [gay people] should be put to death…Oh, so you’re saying we should go out and start killing them? No, I’m saying the government should.” • North Carolina pastor Charles L. Worley called for all LGBT people to be forced into camps with an electrified fence, where food would be dropped until they died off. While such fiery rhetoric is good for raising money, I suspect it also raises body counts. I’m going to Texas on Friday to mourn the loss of a beautiful young girl at a vigil in the park where she and her girlfriend were shot. But I’m also hoping this tragedy wakes people up to the nightmares on the horizon that are sure to come if our foes don’t halt their rancid and reactionary rhetoric.

Wayne Besen

COMMENT

Our Man in Arlington

june 28 - july 4, 2012 | PAGE 15

By Charlie Clark It doesn’t take a crystal ball to know Crystal City is in for a transformation. That teeming but inhospitable island of glass boxes plopped by the airport in the late 1960s is being re-imagined as a warmer “urban boulevard” while undergoing, as a county official recently put it, “one of the most dramatic makeovers in regional history.” On June 16 the County Board cleared an agreement with our Alexandria brethren to jointly head off Route 1 traffic congestion and begin planning for a streetcar to link Crystal City to Potomac Yards. It’s a two-phase, still-unfolding project that won’t go live until 2019. As for the actual “city” – a developer’s misnomer that outof-town journalists presume is separate from Arlington – it’s experiencing the growing pains 21st-century planners can inflict on workers, residents and visitors. I heard some details at a June 13 dinner with the Arlington Committee of 100. Responding to the havoc wreaked by the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission, which moved 13,000 of Crystal City’s defense jobs further away from terrorist threats, Arlington set up an ambitious planning task

force. Over five years, there were 100 meetings, all but two attended by Mitch Bonanno, senior vice president-development at Vornado/Charles E. Smith. The result was approval in September 2010 of the 40-year Crystal City Sector Plan. It seeks to better balance residential and commercial interests while offering businesses a new zoning option to modernize stale properties. Bonnano polled banqueters on how many had been to Crystal City “for fun” since 2004, which is when his company began its push to humanize the area for pedestrians. He touted the Synetic Theater, the recent Artomatic artists’ fair, and adaptive re-use of a high-rise. “It’s a vibrant urbanity not matched in Fairfax,” he said. The regional one-upmanship was hammered home by Terry Holzheimer, director of Arlington Economic Development. He asserted that even the reconstituting Tyson’s Corner won’t catch up to Crystal City in usability, though real estate prices at Tyson’s will be competitive. Crystal City has spawned more economic analysis than any other area in the country, Holzheimer said. “We must plan carefully because we will get what we plan.” The focus will be on enlivening street-level retail while factoring

HEALTHY EYES

in Crystal City’s existing underground concourse. The plan is to boost the proportion of residents versus day-tripper employees with new amenities, such as a grocery store. All the usual planning elements – affordable housing, fire, emergency medical services and recreation – were considered. “There’s probably more free parking in Crystal City now than anywhere else in the county,” Holzheimer said, but pay parking will become the norm. Revenues are on-target to finance such improvements as $22.3 million in roadway infrastructure projects, he added. The chief worry is that, with federal leasing “dead in the water,” not all the newly rehabbed buildings will find tenants on schedule. The metamorphosis presents both thrills and threats to the folks who call Crystal City home. Christer Ahl, who cochairs a council monitoring the implementation, said neighbors are impressed with the county’s amenities but wary of commercial domination. Many want to protect retailers in the Underground, he noted. He called for more open space, a “refuge for the lunch crowd.” And he raised an eyebrow at the notion that the population of residents and workers could triple by 2050 without creating a traffic nightmare.  Charlie Clark may be e-mailed at cclarkjedd@aol.com.

WEAR SUNGLASSES

Every day that you’re outside, you’re exposed to dangerous, but invisible, ultraviolet (UV) sunlight. Left unprotected, prolonged exposure to UV radiation can seriously damage the eye, leading to cataracts, skin cancer around the eyelid and other eye disorders. Protecting your eyes is important to maintaining eye health now and in the future. Shield your eyes (and your family’s eyes) from harmful UV rays. Wear sunglasses with maximum UV protection. For more information, visit www.thevisioncouncil.org/consumers/sunglasses. A public service message from The Vision Council.

PAGE 16 | JUNE 28 - JULY 4, 2012

LOCAL

Fa l l s C h u r c h

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Business News & Notes Teo’s Bakery Now Open on Broad Street Teo’s Bakery has opened at 1109 W. Broad Street in Falls Church (the space previously occupied by Baguette Republic and the Bread house.) The bakery and Hispanic take-out food market was named for owner/operator Alejandro “Alex” Roman’s mother. Teo’s Bakery, which also offers coffee and morning fare as well as a wide variety of cakes, breads, lunch and dinner options, is open seven days a week from 6am to 5pm. For more information call 703-533-3331.

Art Cinema & Cafe Coming to Mosaic Development in Merrifield A new state-of-the-art theater, Angelika Film Center & Café, will open at Merrifield’s Mosaic complex in September. The cinema will showcase independent, foreign and specialty films along with local film festivals in auditoriums featuring stadium style seating, wall to wall screens and digital projection and sound. The three level lobby will feature a Café, a Lounge and creative food options thanks to the theater’s partnership with Chef Lee Anne Wong, a French culinary Institute graduate, finalist on Bravo’s Top Chef, and contributor on the Cooking Channel’s Unique Eats. The Angelika in New York City has been one of the most successful art houses since its opening in 1989. Locations in Dallas and Plano, Texas have been in operation for more than ten years. For more information, visit www.AngelikaFilmCenter.com or www.MosaicDistrict.com.

F.C. Chirporactor Signs Deal for Monthly Internet Radio Show Dr. Raymond Solano of Solano Spine & Sport Chiropractic in Falls Church has been a regular guest in recent weeks on News Channel 8 and NBC 4 discussing a variety of health & sports medicine topics. He will continue to be a regular TV guest during segments of “Let’s Talk Live” and Barbara Harrison’s “Mid-Day Show”, offering insight on health & wellness to viewers in the D.C. metro area. In addition, Dr. Solano has signed on to have a monthly internet Radio Show with HealthyLife.net. The focus of his show will be Sports Medicine Talk and will include interviews with professional athletes. For more information about the radio show or to watch Dr. Solano’s recent TV appearances, visit www.solanospine.com.

Sunstone Counseling Opens in Falls Church Licensed Professional Counselor Amy Stephens and Licensed Clinical Social Worker George Coye have founded Sunstone Counseling, an eight-person counseling services group located at 124D E. Broad Street in Falls Church. The group is comprised of eight mental health professionals focusing on clients with behavioral and emotional concerns and issues, such as anxiety, career decisions, depression, grief and various relationships issues. Stephens and Coyne originally worked together at the Falls Church-based Center for Well Being, until deciding to launch their own counseling service. For more information, visit www.sunstonecounselors.com.

Chamber Distributing ‘Shop Local’ Bags at Upcoming F.C. Events The Falls Church Chamber of Commerce will distribute Shop Local shopping bags, while supplies last, at the Thursday, July 5 Concert in the Park, the Friday, July 6 FIRSTfriday of Falls Church ArtALot event, and the Saturday, July 7 Farmer’s Market. The bags, which encourage residents to spend their money locally to support the community, will be filled with coupons, premium items, and information about local businesses. A limited number of bags will be distributed at each event. For more information call 703-532-1050 or email info@fallschurchchamber.org.

F.C.’s Pancake House Dine Out Day to Benefit Homestretch The Original Pancake House’s June Dine Out Day on Thursday, June 28, will benefit Homestretch in its mission to help homeless families get back on their feet and into permanent, sustainable housing. From 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., 15% of sales will be contributed directly to the nonprofit located at 370 S. Washington Street in Falls Church. Additionally, owners Jeff and Jane Bulman will donate an additional $1 for each Pancake Puppy sold through the end of the month. The Original Pancake House is located at 7395 Lee Highway in Falls Church. For information about the restaurant’s Falls Church, Rockville or Bethesday locations, visit www.ophrestaurants.com.  Business News & Notes is compiled by Sally Cole, Executive Director of Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce. She may be emailed at sally@fallschurchchamber.org.

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

McLean Mom Takes Kids from ‘Allah to Z’ with Picture Book

by Kristine Hull

Falls Church News-Press

McLean mother Sam’n Iqbal wanted to teach her daughter about their Muslim faith and culture, but found the task challenging. While there were many resources for teenagers, she could find no interactive classes for younger children. Iqbal searched bookstores, but there were no books explaining Islam to children. So if there were no other books, Iqbal would write her own. Iqbal, a native of New Jersey, was taught early in life about her faith – both at home and within her masjid, or mosque, the Islamic Society of Central Jersey. Iqbal wanted to write a book that would explain to younger children the customs and traditions she grew up with, but in a Western, contemporary style with “lots of colorful pictures, pictures you can identify with.� “You don’t find things like that in the traditional books,� Iqbal said. As Iqbal set out to write a book for her daughter, she had several ideas. After years of mulling them over, the one that stood out was a rhyming alphabet book. “This was the one that I felt captured everything, at that moment in my life that I wanted to teach,� Iqbal said. Iqbal’s book, Allah to Z, is geared toward helping young American-raised Muslims read about and understand different aspects of their religion in an engaging way. “It’s like a mini encyclopedia for preschool children about things they should learn,� Iqbal said of the book, which introduces a person, place or concept from the faith for each letter of the alphabet. The book starts with Allah and ends with Zakat, the act of charitable giving, passing E for Eid and R for Ramadan along the way. The rhymes on each page allow for children to easily remember what they were taught, and Iqbal used this technique because, as she explained, children are “like sponges – they soak everything up.� Each entry is accompanied by a short poem explaining the term’s significance, and is joined by colorful pictures designed by award-winning artist Lina Safar. The artwork depicts persons of many different cultures and religions – among them Iqbal’s two children. Because she originally wrote the book for her oldest daughter, Iqbal was eager to put her children in the book so that they could relate to the story. Iqbal had wanted a story in which her children could see someone that looked like them, rather than feeling left out. Not only did she wanted her children to relate to the story, but it was important to Iqbal that many kinds of children were also seen in the book. “I wanted them to see differences in people and cultures, and within the same cultures,� Iqbal said. “It’s definitely a mix of different kids in the book.�

June 28 – July 4, 2012| PAGE 17

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Sam’n Iqbal, a mother of two from McLean, wrote the book Allah to Z because she wanted to teach her daughter about their Islamic heritage in an engaging way. (Courtesy Photo)

Iqbal intends for the book to be not just for Muslim children, but for all children, as it tells a story about the Muslim culture and other religions as well. “I made sure it was open-minded so that people could learn about other cultures and other religions, and there’s a lot to learn,� Iqbal said. “I want kids to be able to see that there are different people with different religions.� Iqbal provided the book to preschool and kindergarten classes in the Falls Church area, with the hopes that the schools will use it to give children a better understanding of her religion. Her desire to spread learning about Islam has gone beyond the book, though, to plans for an interfaith counseling program for Sunday schools and Islamic schools with her master’s degree in Bicultural School Counseling. Iqbal hopes to have her book distributed in the Northern Virginia area. She does not worry about how well the book will sell, though, but is focused rather on the impact it can have for children. “Success to me isn’t related to how much I make, it’s about people being interested in it and using it in their curriculum, that they feel it was a strong enough book to teach other children, not just my own,� Iqbal said. Allah to Z can be found in local bookstores next month, but it can now be pre-ordered through Barnes and Noble online.

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

SENIOR LIVING

S ENIOR L IVING

Senior News Line

Blue Collar Blues

by Matlida Charles

King Features Syndicate

Blue-collar workers among us could be hurt if the retirement age is raised again. While the overall state of Social Security wouldn’t be affected that much, it would be a burden for those who’ve done the hard work all their lives. So says a report by the American Institute for Economic Research. Think about it: Those of us who’ve done physical work all our lives want to retire earlier. We’re tired and need a break. A researcher examined records for a period of 21 years and found that: • Less than 5 percent of workers in white-collar professions retire at age 65. This group includes lawyers, scientists, managers and administrators. • Those who do manual labor, the blue-collar workers among us, retire at age 65 at the following

rates: 32 percent – foremen, machine operators 23 percent – carpenters 21.6 – farm workers 19 percent – kitchen workers 18.5 percent – gardeners, auto mechanics If the retirement age is raised, blue-collar workers won’t stay on the job. They’ll still retire, but their Social Security each month will be less than it would be at full retirement age. The current debate is whether raising the retirement age would have any benefit to the Social Security program itself. One study that showed raising the earliest retirement age from 62 to 65 would have only “modest effects� on the health of Social Security. On the other hand, to keep working requires that one have a job. It’s shown that the unemployment rate for those age 55 and older is the highest it’s been in 60

years. If you object to the government trying to balance the budget by tinkering with our retirement, let your senators know.. *** There’s a new twist on an old scam on seniors. The “grandparents scam� has taken a very creative turn. In the typical grandparents scam, a “grandchild� will call his grandparent and claim that there’s an emergency and that money must be wired to solve the problem. Different versions have the grandchild either in jail, stuck in a foreign country, in an accident ... it doesn’t matter, but money needs to be sent immediately. Generally a “Hi, grandma� is enough to convince a senior that it is indeed his or her grandchild on the phone. Too many times the grandparent doesn’t ask enough questions. And too often, thousands of times a year, the grandparent will send the money ... to scammers. It’s not the grandchild on the line – it’s thieves. Now there’s a new version of this scam. Not only do the thieves know the grandchild’s name and school, they have his or her voice

June 28 – JULY 4, 2012 | PAGE 19

asking you for money for the emergency. You can thank the Internet for that. If a grandchild has posted anything online that includes their voice, scammers can use that recording to create an emergency message, all in your grandchild’s voice. All of these scams have some things in common. It’s an emergency. Money must be wired right away. If it’s not the grandchild, the scammer could claim to be an attorney or another relative. And there is a need for secrecy (“Don’t

tell mom!â€?) You do need to consult others, though. If you get a call like this, contact the grandchild’s parents and ask what’s going on. If they’re not home, call the police. Do not send money. These thieves work out of foreign countries, and you will never get your money back. ď ľ Write to Matilda Charles in care of King Features Weekly Service, P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475, or send e-mail to columnreply@gmail.com.

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ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

JUNE 28 – JULY 4, 2012 | PAGE 25

June

28 y

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Mala Rodríguez The State Theatre 8:30 p.m. 220 N. Washington St., Falls Church

703-237-0300 • thestatetheatre.com

July

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Bo Bice Iota Club and Café 8 p.m. 2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington

703-522-8340 • iotaclubandcafe.com

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Chris Isaak The Birchmere 7:30 p.m. 3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria

703-549-7500 • birchmere.com

3

BY LESLIE POSTER

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS

Three-time Grammy award winner Shawn Colvin, the singer-songwriter who found charttopping success with the single “Sunny Came Home” off of the platinum-selling album A Few Small Repairs, released the latest installment in her nearly 25-year recording career with the album All Fall Down. The record, her eighth studio album since her Grammy-winning debut Steady On in 1989, came out this month in conjunction with her memoir, Diamond in the Rough. After decades of songwriting, she’s no stranger to putting her words, rooted in her personal and sometimes painful experiences, out into the world. But when comparing the latest album to the book, she says there’s no question in her mind that writing the latter posed the greater challenge. “It’s just so much material, so many choices to make,” Colvin said. “It’s such a larger volume of work, whereas songs are much more brief; you’re kind of anchored by rhythm and rhyme scheme and melody.” Writing a book wasn’t something she had planned to do. In fact, she hesitated to embark upon the project at the suggestion. “I thought it was probably not a great idea, just because I didn’t feel equipped to do it,” Colvin said. “Those who suggested I do it said, ‘well, you have a story to tell.’ I said, ‘we all have a story to

tell, so why should mine be any more or less interesting?’” She wrote a few chapters, almost as an experiment. Could she grasp the craft? Could she find a voice? She found her answers and enjoyed the process, and so the songwriter became an author, poring over journals and photographs, talking to those close to her, distilling her life’s experiences into outlines, and finding her story to tell. The book tells the tale of a young girl from small-town South Dakota who came to realize her musical dreams. Fans familiar with Colvin’s work will get to look behind the music and see what it’s like for her to record and write the songs they know and “all of the dues paying that came before,” Colvin said. But beyond that, she says, is a story about a person who has faced trials in her life, struggles that people can relate to. She doesn’t shy away from discussing alcoholism, depression, anorexia, and love life troubles, but “there’s a good dose of humor in there,” she said, “and I think it’s enjoyable. I think it’s an enjoyable book.” The title of the book shares a name with one of Colvin’s first songs. “That song in particular was a real turning point for me in terms of feeling like I could really be a songwriter,” Colvin said. “It just really talked about coming of age, and coming into myself, and it seemed appropriate for that to

SHAWN COLVIN (C������� P����) be the title of the book as well,” she said. Wrapped up in her decision,

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Scissor Sisters 9:30 7 p.m.

These singles whet the appetites of the FCNP editorial team this week: 

Nicholas Benton – Symphony No. 3 by Camille Saint-Saëns 

815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.

202-265-0930 • 930.com

Jody Fellows – All My Days by Alexi Murdoch

Leslie Poster – The Race Is On by Sawyer Brown

too, was a photograph, a picture that would become the memoir’s cover. It shows a young Colvin – before the awards, the records, the hits, the music videos, the international tours – standing before a swing set, covered in mud. It’s a little tongue-in-cheek way, she says with a laugh, to show the diamond in the rough. • Shawn Colvin will play The Birchmere July 19 and 20 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $49.50. For more information about Shawn Colvin, visit shawncolvin.com.

CLASSIFIEDS

PAGE 26 | JUNE 28 - JULY 4, 2012

FCNP.COM | FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS

NOLAND HANDYMAN SERVICE:

Misc For Sale

THRIFT STORE OPEN! Get It Used Thrift Store: Furniture, clothing, household items and more! LOW PRICES! Rogers Dr & Lee Hwy (Behind Sunoco)

Homes for Rent HOME: GREAT LOCATION! $1,3001,000 Monthly. 1 Bedroom, 1 Bath, Kitchen, Dining, Living, Laundry Rooms. Perfect for 1. Nonsmoker; No Pets; Alarm Security; Included Utilities. Call 703-237-9753.

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HOUSE CLEANING SERVICE Available 7 days a week. Week, biweekly, monthly or one time. Good references in Falls Church City. 10 years experience. For further information call me at 703-901-0596. Senior discount, Ask: Susy.

Public Notice PUBLIC RECEPTION AND SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING

Room for Rent FURNISHED ROOM in Falls Church

City. Includes all utilities, internet, cable TV, private entrance. No smoking. No pets. One person only. Call 703-209-5988 Help Wanted

DENTAL RECEPTIONIST for General Dentist Office in Falls Church, VA, near West F.C. Metro. Computer & Math Skills Required. Hours: M,T,Th,F - 9-4 PM. Send Resume to: jobs122@yahoo.com DRIVERS: Great Pay! Flexible schedule, Be your own Boss! No Forced Dispatch Regional runs available from Hagerstown, MD CDL-B. 877-711-4024 or 877-701-3981

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that there will be a Special City Council Meeting on Monday, July 2nd beginning at 8:00 p.m. for the induction of the new City Council Members. Council will elect the Mayor and Vice Mayor at this meeting. The meeting will be preceded by a public reception at the Community Center in the Art Room at 6:45 p.m. for the new City Council Members. Please stop by and offer congratulations to our new City Council Members Nader Baroukh, Phil Duncan, and Dave Tarter. KATHLEEN CLARKEN BUSCHOW CITY CLERK

fcnp.com

Education ESL & TOEFL PREP CLASSES: ESL and TOEFL classes available at the American College of Commerce and Technology. Improve listening, reading, speaking, writing, vocabulary, American Culture, and professional development. Small class size, personalized instruction, flexible day and evening schedules. Scholarships and payment plans available. Call 703-942-6200 or 804-437-4230 (Hablo Espanol); visit campus at 150 South Washington Street, Falls Church; go to www.acct2day.org; or email acctenglish@yahoo.com. FALLS CHURCH TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS! Enhance your

News-Press Classifieds WeWeare tothetheletter letter are pleged pledged to and and spirit of policy forpolicy achiev- for spirit ofVirginia’s Virginia’s ing equal housing opportunity 50¢ each additional word achieving housing opportuthroughoutequal the Commonwealth. We Add a box - $10 and support nityencourage throughout theadvertising Commonand marketing programs in which wealth. encourage there are We no barriers to obtaining and Deadline: 2 p.m. Tuesdays (two days before publication) housingadvertising because of race, color, relisupport and gion, national origin, sex, elderlimarketing programs in which ness, familial status or handicap. there are no barriers to obtaining All real estate advertised herein Fill out our Classified Ad form is subject to Virginia’s fair houshousing because of race, color, online at www.fcnp.com ing law which makes it illegal to religion, national origin, sex, advertise “any preference, limitaPhone: 703-532-3267 • Fax: 703-342-0352 tion, or discrimination because of elderliness, familial status or E-Mail: classads@fcnp.com race, color, religion, national orihandicap. All real estate advergin, sex, elderliness, familial status Mail: 200 Little Falls St. #508, Falls Church, VA 22046 or handicap to make tised hereinor intention is subject to any such preference, limitation, or For public & legal notices, please e-mail legalads@fcnp.com Virginia’s fair housing law which discrimination.” This newspaper will not advertis-“any makes itknowingly illegal toaccept advertise ing for real estate that violates the preference, limitation, or fair housing law. Our readers are discrimination because of race, hereby informed that all dwellings The Falls Church News-Press accepts no financial responsibility for typographiadvertised in this national newspaper are color, religion, origin, available on an equal opportunity cal errors in advertisements. Advertising which has minor discrepancies such as sex, elderliness, familial status or basis. For more information or to misspelling or small type transposition, but which do not affect the ability of the file a housing complaint call themake handicap or intention to reader to respond to the ad will be considered substantially correct and full payVirginia Fair Housing Office at (804) any367-8530. such Toll preference, limitation, ment is required. The Falls Church News-Press is not responsible if the original free call (888) 551For the hearing impaired call or 3247. discrimination.” This newspacopy is not typewritten or legible and clear. The Falls Church News-Press is not (804) 367-9753. responsible for copy changes made by telephone. per will not knowingly accept T: 3.75 in advertising for real estate that violates the fair housing law. Our readers are herby informed that all dwellings advertised in this newspaper are available on an equal opportunity basis. For more information or to file a housing complaint call the Virginia Fair Housing Office at (804) 367-8530. Toll free call (888) 551-3247. For the hearing impaired call (804) 367-9753.

$20 for up to 20 words

Email: fairhousing@dpor.virginia.gov. Website: www.fairhousing.vipnet.org

career. Earn a post-graduate Advanced Graduate Specialist degree in International Business Development or Computer Science. Develop Project Management or Excel skills thru our Seminar Programs, at American College of Commerce and Technology. Scholarships available for all Falls Church educators and family. Classes start July 9. Call 703-942-6200. 150 S. Washington St, Falls Church. Certified to operate by SCHEV.

Odds of a child becoming a pop singer: 1 in 58,000 Odds of a child being diagnosed with autism: 1 in 150

Moving Sale

T: 7 in

SATURDAY, 6/30: 8AM-1PM - 2008 Cherri Drive, 22043. Large and Small Furniture, Lots of Toddler/Baby Toys and Clothes, and More!

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fcnp.com Some signs to look for: No big smiles or other joyful expressions by 6 months.

No babbling by 12 months.

No words by 16 months.

To learn more of the signs of autism, visit autismspeaks.org © 2007 Autism Speaks Inc. “Autism Speaks” and “It’s Time To Listen” & design are trademarks owned by Autism Speaks Inc. All rights reserved.

NOTE TO PUB: DO NOT PRINT INFO BELOW, FOR I.D. ONLY. NO ALTERING AD COUNCIL PSAS. 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

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PAGE 28 | JUNE 28 - JULY 4, 2012

ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

2011 Hugl Weine Gruner Veltliner

For several years now, its green apple snap has made Gruner Veltliner from Austria one of our favorite wines with seafood, especially shellfish. The 2011 Hugl Weine Gruner Veltliner (about $13 at big box stores) is a fine example of its kind, fresh and fruity with a strong mineral foundation. The winery’s young owners, Sylvia and Martin Hugl, own 22 hectares of vines and buy more grapes from nearby growers. If this wine is typical, they make By Colette & John Bancroft full-bodied dry whites that will be a welcome accompaniment to a ST. PETERSBURG TIMES variety of cuisines. The signature green apple bounce of this wine lies in wait to surprise the palate, its lemony and very light violet nose giving no clue of what is to come. But at first sip there it is, couched in a crisply mineral matrix subtly accented by lemon, a little grapefruit and white pepper. Apple reasserts itself strongly on a clean supple finish. In addition to pairing it with raw oysters or mussels steamed in white wine and herbs, try this elegant white with garlicky scampi or buttery seared sea scallops.  Colette Bancroft is the St. Petersburg Times’ book editor, and John Bancroft is a freelance writer specializing in food, wine and travel.

Sitting Pretty In late 2009, I entered Day Two play of the $15,000 buy-in World Poker Tour Doyle Brunson Classic as the chip leader. I was full of confidence; my bluffs were working flawlessly and I was reading my opponents to a tee. Right after a break, an out-ofcontrol pot came up. The big blind wasn’t sitting in his seat yet so his hand was mucked. I knew that would encourage a loose raise from someone and that I should prepare to get aggressive and reraise the pot. With the blinds at $400/$800, a player opened for $2,400 and Player X called. I was in the small blind with 8c-6s and also decided to call even though that’s an unusual play for me. The flop came Qs-8s-7s and I bet out $6,000. The initial raiser folded but Player X made it $12,000 more to go. I sensed weakness and called immediately. The turn was the 8d. I checked my trip eights and this time Player X made it $20,000 to go. If I raised and he had the flush already, he’d probably move me all-in. But if he was only on a draw, tossing in a raise was my best play.

I decided to play it safe and just called. The river was the 2c. I checked and Player X moved all-in. He had $140,400 in chips to my $160,000 so it would be a huge call to make. If I called and was wrong, I’d be on serious life support. But if I called and won, I’d have a massive chip lead early on Day Two. I asked, “Do you have it?” And then slyly added, “Can you beat a full house?” He told me he had the nuts and I believed him. I folded. Then he flipped over Ac-Js to win with a massive bluff. The good news was that I was able to build my chip stack as the tournament progressed. In one pot, with the blinds at $500/$1,000 plus a $200 ante, Marco Traniello opened for $3,000 and I made it $10,000 to go with Jc-7s and got a call. The flop was J-9-2. Marco checked, I bet $9,000 and he called. For some reason, I put him on pocket eights. I was confident I had him beat so my plan was to bet on every street. The turn card was another deuce. Marco checked and I bet $10,000, telling him that I thought he had snowmen. He smiled wryly

and made the call. The river was an eight and he fired out $19,000. I snap-called, he flipped up Kc-10c, and I took down a huge pot with a hand that I would muck 99% of the time. Why did I play J-7? I sensed weakness pre-flop so I tried to take down the pot by making a reraise. If Marco folded, I’d win the $3,000 bet plus the $1,800 in antes and $1,500 in blinds riskfree. Once we took the flop and he check-called, I knew I had him beat because the possible hands with which he would call a reraise and a $9,000 flop bet was pretty small – likely a pocket pair, A-Q, A-K or maybe even A-9. As long as no ace, king or queen hit on the turn, I was going to bet, and ditto for the river. My call at the end was easy to make. I mean, what hand could beat me, eights full? Not likely. In any event, I ended the day with $412,000 in chips and was one of the top three chip leaders heading into Day Three.  Learn more about Phil Hellmuth at www.PhilHellmuth. com and www.PokerBrat.com. © 2011 Card Shark Media. All rights reserved.

ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

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Across

1. Tree with cones

1. Tree with cones 4. Blue 7. Fissures 12. Breeze through 13. Prunes, once 16. Parisian path 17. Cartoon modeled after Clara Bow 19. Judy of kid lit 20. Bit of fiction 21. Comet named after its codiscoverers 23. Trig measurement 26. Sp. lady 27. Mystery writer ____ Stanley Gardner 28. ATM charge 29. DeLuise of “Fatso” 31. Automaker since 1974 33. Etymologist’s ref. 34. Famous 37. Scat syllable 39. Phrase trademarked by Roger Ebert 42. “There’s ____ in ‘team’” 43. Categorize anew 46. “Xanadu” rock grp. 49. Crime lab evidence 51. D-backs, on scoreboards 52. Spearheaded 53. Actress Gerhson 55. Sounds of hesitation 57. Specialized fishermen 59. “Move it, Wile E. Coyote!”

JUNE 28 - JULY 4, 2012 | PAGE 29

61. Justice Fortas 62. Milk carton mascot 63. Road sign ... or a warning to those as they begin to solve 17-, 21-, 39- and 59-Across 68. Stirs up 69. Staggering 70. Soft drink suffix 71. Message since 2006 72. Pick 73. Cryptologist’s org.

DOWN

1. “Marvy!” 2. Clear, as winter windshields 3. Shy 4. Nathan Hale, e.g. 5. Priestly robe 6. Twosome 7. Broccoli ____ 8. “Imagine that!” 9. Lead-in to carbon or scope 10. Place of worship 11. Trickled (through) 14. Hardness scale inventor 15. Fire starter 18. “Conan” channel 22. Uncovered 23. It’s south of Eur. 24. 1994 biopic 25. Go on 30. “I’m less than impressed” 32. Down under denizen 35. Hold the deed to 36. Hard: Fr.

CHUCKLE BROS BRIAN & RON BOYCHUK

4. Blue

Sudoku

7. Fissures

Level: 1 2 3 4

38. Juilliard subj. 40. ____ culpa 41. Vinelike vegetable 44. Goes over lines again 45. QB’s scores 46. First king of England 47. Stay out of sight 48. Baby shower gift 50. Simple life? 54. Make ____ of money 56. Cowpoke’s prod 58. “Well, ____-di-dah!” 60. Tops 64. Congregated 65. Green shade 66. Swiss peak 67. Narc’s org.

Last Thursday’s Solution A M P S U P

J A G U A R

R A U P B E M I E D T O

S T A P L E

E S P O I E N M K B O S E P E R L L A U N M M I E N D O

S H A R D

T O L T E C

E A T S O U T

A R A Y P U B

T O M S E E H A L F I M E N T I L O I N A S S O T E T R

L D R S T S H O A U D L I J T O O N S C A

O H H E L L

B I G M U D D D Y U O C O A B O W L E B

E Y N D T S S H E R A S

K E L L E R

O D E S S A

By The Mepham Group

12. Breeze through 13. Prunes, once 16. Parisian path 17. Cartoon modeled after Clara Bow 19. Judy of kid lit 20. Bit of fiction 1

21. Comet named after its co-discoverers 23. Trig measurement 26. Sp. lady 27. Mystery writer ____ Stanley Gardner 28. ATM charge 29. DeLuise of "Fatso"

Solution to last Sunday’s puzzle

NICK KNACK

1

© 2012 N.F. Benton

6/24/12

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.

© 2012 The Mepham Group. Distributed by Tribune Media Services. All rights reserved.

PAGE 30 | JUNE 28 – JULY 4, 2012

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

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BACK IN THE DAY

laz y The dog. c k q u i fox sly p e d jum e r o v lazy the g . d o is Now time the all for o d g o to cows

20 s Yearo Ag

e c o mthe to of aid i r t h e re. pastu w N o the is e t i m all for o d g o to cows e c o mthe to

20 � 10 Y���� A�� �� ��� N���-P���� Falls Church News-Press Vol II, No. 14 • June 25, 1992

New Mayor Picked Next Week The City of Falls Church will have a new mayor and vice-mayor within moments after its new City Council is officially constituted next Wednesday night. Current Mayor Dale Dover is not expected to be re-elected. Three new members of the City Council will be sworn in that night, and their first action will be to join the four existing members to elect a mayor and vice-mayor. Dover watched three of the Council members who voted for him to become mayor two years ago sit in their last meeting before leaving the Council Monday.

Falls Church News-Press Vol XII, No. 16 • June 27, 2002

It is no the timw e for g o all o cows d to go to the aid of the pa stu ir re. *** **

10 Year s Ago

Thr ow it up. Pour it up It now is the time for all go od cows to go the to aid

Rogers to Stay on As Chair of City Center Task Force Dr. Steve Rogers, who completes a fouryear term on the Falls Church City Council this weekend, including two as Vice Mayor, will retain his post as chair of the critical City Center Task Force, he announced. Rogers was instrumental in moving the Council forward following the final Street Works, Inc., City Center consultants’ study in January to create the task force, which is moving rapidly to craft a succession of steps toward revitalization of Falls Church’s downtown area.

UVA Reinstates Ousted President BY RICHARD PEREZ PENA

NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Facing a torrent of criticism, the University of Virginia trustees made a stunning turnabout on Tuesday, voting unanimously to reinstate the president they had forced to resign over concerns that the university was not adapting fast enough to financial and technological pressures. The decision by the governing Board of Visitors capped an extraordinary 16 days since the ouster of President Teresa A. Sullivan was made public. The

turmoil that led to it opened a window on the pressures public universities face nationwide, as they grapple with shrinking state support, rising tuition and pressure to shift resources from traditional liberal arts programs to education in business and technology, and the growing availability of college-level courses online. As it weighed how to address those challenges, one of the nation’s pre-eminent universities suddenly and unexpectedly forced out a popular leader after only two years and with little explanation, spurring students, faculty, admin-

istrators and alumni to unite in her defense, demanding that the board reverse itself. Even the interim president selected by the Board of Visitors said he disagreed with Sullivan’s removal, and then, as protests grew louder, said he would not fill his new role as long as there was a chance she might be reinstated. After insisting for days that the affair did not involve him, Gov. Bob McDonnell was also drawn into the fray, first criticizing the board’s secrecy – though not its decision – and then, Friday, demanding that it resolve the matter one way or another, or he

MUGGS, a 3-year-old pug, loves to meet new people, go for long walks, and eat treats (especially chicken and rice). When his owners return from work, this delighted pug makes some funny sounds to welcome them home. would ask all of its members to resign. The board took less than 20 minutes at Tuesday’s special meeting to reinstate her by a vote of 15-0. She emerged on the steps of the university’s white-columned Rotunda afterward to address a whooping crowd, and quoted something that Thomas Jefferson, designer of the building and founder of the university, wrote upon being elected president: “It is pleasant for those who have just escaped threatened shipwreck to hail one

Support for Postal Service Cutting Back Saturday Mail

BY RON DIXON & DALIA SUSSMAN NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

An overwhelming majority of Americans support the Postal Service’s plan to end Saturday mail delivery, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS News. The survey found that about

7 in 10 Americans say they would favor the change as a way to help the post office deal with billions of dollars in debt. The Postal Service continues to suffer losses of $36 million a day and is headed for projected losses of about $21 billion a year by 2016. The poll found that more than

8 in 10 Americans use the Postal Service at least sometimes, including 38 percent who use it all the time and 45 percent who use it mainly for bills. Just 16 percent use it only around the holidays or almost never. But in a more ominous sign as the agency tries to adjust to the digital age, only 3 in 10

people under age 45 say they use it all the time. Usage rises to 42 percent among those age 45 to 64 and a majority, 54 percent, of people who are older. The Times/CBS News telephone poll was conducted nationally from June 22 through June 25 among 990 adults, and

another when landed in unexpected safety.” The dispute exposed fears about the murky future of higher education at a time of deep cuts in state support. Sullivan said she perceived the many threats to the university, but favored addressing them in a collaborative, incremental way, not the more aggressive, top-down approach favored by the head of the board, or rector, Helen E. Dragas, and the former vice rector, Mark Kington, who were the driving forces behind the president’s ouster.

has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The survey findings come as legislation to overhaul the Postal Service is stuck in Congress. A main point of contention has been the elimination of mail deliveries Saturday. The Postal Service has said ending a day of delivery each week would save $3.1 billion annually.

Vacation Rentals Available?

classads@fcnp.com • 703-532-3267

Are you searching for a better job or a more reliable car? Have you outgrown your apartment? Are you looking to get rid of that old couch and chair sitting in the garage?

Whether you’re buying or selling, the Classifieds has it all. From automobiles and employment to real estate and household goods, you’ll find everything you need in

the Classifieds. Put the Classifieds to work for you, and inch even closer to your goals.

You’ll have plenty of renters when you advertise through Virginia Press Services’ Statewide Display Advertising Network! Place your business card-size ad in more than 65 newspapers and your message will reach more than 800,000 Virginians. CONTACT THIS NEWSPAPER or Adriane Long, Virginia Press Services, 804-521-7585 or adrianel@vpa.net.

PAGE 32 | JUNE 28 - JULY 4, 2012

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Sizzling Hot Properties! Under Contract

Under Contract

103 Poplar Dr | Falls Church City

7796 Marshall Heights Ct | Falls Church

Fabulous 3 BD/2 full/2 half bath townhome mins to Tysons. Offered at $505,000

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$JHQW 0F(QHDUQH\ 0F/HDQ 2IILFH 6DOHV 9ROXPH +RPH 2IILFH ZZZ ND\HV FRP H PDLO PHUHO\Q#ND\HV FRP

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Representing Buyers Gorgeous Winter Hill Townhome 3 BD/2 full/ 2 half baths. Offered at $515,000

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Beautiful 5 BD/3 BA brick home with spacious rooms and spectacular yard. Offered at $689,000

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