Falls Church News Press Jlu 17 new

NARY A DROP?

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In a formal communiqué to City of Falls Church Mayor Robin Gardner earlier this month, Fairfax Commonwealth Attorney Raymond Morrogh said he’d determined that the Fairfax grand jury and his office had “acted appropriately in declining to indict” the man who shot and killed former Falls Church resident Jack Stephen

“Steve” Cornejo in June 2005.

Morrogh was an assistant in the office at the time of the killing and was elected to the Commonwealth Attorney post last November. He’d promised Mayor Gardner he’d review the case.

Cornejo was killed by a single gunshot through his upper back in an early-morning altercation with a neighbor, Brandon Paul Gotwalt, to an apartment where Cornejo was attending a party.

In his three-page letter, Morrogh defended the Fairfax police investigation into the shooting, recounting details provided by witnesses at the scene, and the grand jury decision not to indict Gotwalt. Morrogh did not explain why his office refused to disclose Gotwalt’s identity until it was subpoenaed almost two years later.

Morrogh said in the letter

The City of Falls Church and its inside-the-beltway neighbors will not suffer the continued slide in real estate values that some officials suggest could leave Fairfax County with a stunning, overall 10 percent decline in taxable assessments next year.

Such is the view of one of the area’s most prominent locally-based developers, Robert Young of the Young Group and Jefferson One LLC, as expressed in an exclusive interview with the News-Press this week.

In fact, Young identified what he called a “surprising trend” in Falls Church this summer that he’s observed, and that may be a harbinger of an early warming up of the housing market here.

“The usual pattern is for interest in home buying to drop off during the summer months from a spring peak,” he noted.

“But that has not happened this year. There is a surprising amount of activity, of persons who are serious and intending to buy a home, looking around for something.”

He said the only thing holding them back is an uncertainty about whether the prices are going down further, or not.

“Once they become convinced that prices are not going to be dropping much more around here at all, they’ll start buying,” he said. “There appears to be plenty of prospective new home buyers out there. There is a lot of pent up demand.”

One of the reasons for this is the ideal proximity of Falls Church to multiple transporta-

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July 17 - 23, 2008

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Vol. XVIII, No. 20 July 17 - 23, 2008

As the City of Falls Church’s representative to the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA), City Council David Snyder delivered a scathing indictment against the House Republicans in Richmond who killed efforts last week at finding a funding solution to permit sorely-needed transportation infrastructure improvements and development in Northern Virginia. He accused them of harboring a “cynical” delight that “took pride in doing nothing,” while the region’s transportation needs worsen. “The need for infrastructure is lost on the Virginia Assembly,” he said, describing Richmond’s abusive behavior as similar to that of England against its colonies that provoked the American Revolution. “If Virginia goes into decline, in the future historians will look back on the actions of the House Republicans last week as the beginning,” the angry Councilman, himself a Republican, intoned. He also noted the security and safety issues, and not “mere convenience,” associated with gridlock and infrastructure decay, and said it impacts the federal government in Washington as much as it does residents of Northern Virginia.

Indeed, the problems are only further compounded by the high cost of gas at the pump and the more general economic malaise, triggered by the national housing and sub-prime mortgage crises, the drying up of capital, rising unemployment, inflation and the decline in consumer spending. To have the regional transportation infrastructure unable to function during the lifestyle transitions associated with these troubling issues over time only makes things worse, eventually driving business and the labor force away. In Prince William County and other areas, the construction labor force has already evaporated due to the mass racist hysteria that, in supposedly targeting illegal aliens, caused all Hispanic residents, legal or not, to move away from those aversive environments. And for the skilled and unskilled workers who have remained, their ability to get to and from their workplaces with $4 a gallon gas, roads choked with bumper-to-bumper traffic, and inadequate public transportation, will drive up the costs associated with their labor, creating a workforce pool both too expensive and undermanned. Soon, the byproducts of all this will be felt in the cancellation of projects and the relocation of businesses and workers, alike, away from this region to states where these problems are not so severe.

So, Mr. Snyder’s vision is a correct one. Ideological prejudice by rightwing Republicans in Virginia is killing the golden goose. It is merely repugnant in good economic times. In bad times, it spells disaster. Significant political strides have been made against the pervasive influence of such elements in Virginia in recent years, but much more must be achieved, and quickly. Economic prosperity cannot ultimately prevail in a state where reason does not.

Editor, Why does Nicholas Benton’s columnist Wayne Besen (Anything But Straight) promote slander and false accusations against Pro-Family, Judeo Christian leaders such as (Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family), and American Family Association (Don Wildmon)?

In the June 25, 2008 issue of the Falls Church News-Press, Wayne Besen’s article accused Dr. James Dobson, (one of the world’s most respected family advocates) of being a “serial liar” a “charlatan of family values”, and also of “bastardization of the truth,” but gave no evidence.

Mr. Besen, who’s “Anything But Straight Column” exclusively appears in the FCNP, only listed people who were unhappy by being quoted by Dr. Dobson. Mr. Besen also says several authors complained that they were misquoted, but gives no evidence of this. He even accused Dr Dobson of “suggesting that Sponge Bob Square Pants may be gay” which never happened.

Is the real reason because Dr. Dobson promotes Judeo Christian values and represents one of the most effective ministries aimed at providing a way out of the homosexuals life-

style through ”Love Won Out?” “Love Won Out … testifying to God’s grace … to uphold God’s design for sexuality in a way that transforms lives.” A quote from a participant “I can honestly say that for the first time in my life I heard someone speak about homosexuality that I knew truly understood what I have been going through.”

In the July 9, 2008 issue of the Nicholas Benton’s columnist Wayne Besen also labeled the Pro-Family organizations such as American Family Association as “useless” and “money sucking scams” all because they promote marriage only between a man and a woman. You see once marriage is redefined who’s to say group marriage and polygamy are wrong. In short same sex marriage destroys the traditional family and any children born or brought up are either brought up without a Dad or Mom and

are exposed to all the hazards associated with the homosexual lifestyle: Domestic Violence, AIDS, hepatitis, decreased life expectancy.

Why does the Falls Church News-Press masquerade as a community newspaper while promoting such hatred toward people who hold to Judeo Christian Values?

Jeff Hilton Falls Church

Editor, In his column “The ProFamily Scheme” last week, for the most part, I agree with Wayne Besen completely, but More Letters on Page 6

July 17 - 23, 2008

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that he also reviewed the testimony at a civil trial brought by an attorney representing Cornejo’s family in March 2007. There, Gottwalt’s identity was made public for the first time and after two days of testimony, a jury found him culpable for a “wrongful death” and awarded the Cornejo family $2 million in damages.

“The results at the civil trial add nothing which would support a criminal prosecution,” Morrogh wrote, noting “the burden of proof in a civil case is much lower than that which applies to a criminal case.”

Moreover, he added, “Witnesses in the civil case gave testimony inconsistent with interviews they gave to police in 2005, shortly after the shooting.”

According to Morrogh, police witness accounts reported at the time indicated that Gotwalt intervened to break up a fight between Cornejo and his ex-girl-

July 17 - 23, 2008

friend on the breezeway outside the apartment where the party occurred, and that Cornejo then turned his anger on Gotwalt. An altercation resulted where the pistol Gotwalt was carrying went off, killing Cornejo, according to the police.

Witness accounts presented at the civil trial indicated that the ex-girlfriend was not at the scene at the time and that Gotwalt was the aggressor, wrestling Cornejo to a kneeling position below him, and firing the gun into Cornejo’s back, killing him. The civil trial included testimony of an eyewitness who said he’d not been interviewed by police at the time of the shooting, but Morrogh said he had been.

That witness, Morrogh said, changed his testimony between the time of the incident and the civil trial. When he was interviewed by Fairfax Police following the civil trial about his changed testimony, the witness “failed to give any reasonable explanation for this change in his testimony,” Morrogh wrote.

Falls Church Mayor Gardner had expressed keen interest in the case from the beginning, but found she could obtain no explanations from then Commonwealth Attorney Robert Horan about the failure to indict Gotwalt.

Only after persistent efforts during Morrogh’s campaign to become the new Commonwealth Attorney last fall, did Gardner succeed in eliciting a promise from Morrogh to conduct a review.

In a statement issued to the News-Press yesterday, Mayor Gardner said, “Although I appreciate Mr. Morrogh’s response to my inquiry, I had asked that he contact the Cornejos directly.

This has not happened. I will continue to pursue more comprehensive answers on behalf of the Cornejos because I believe they need to know that their questions and concerns regarding the death of their family member (and a beloved member of our Falls Church community) have been addressed to the fullest extent possible. I do not believe that has happened yet.”

Cornejo was a popular 2001 graduate of George Mason High School in Falls Church, and was the co-captain of its state championship boys’ soccer team. He had extensive ties to family and friends in Falls Church.

Earlier this year, a Fairfax court upheld a bankruptcy filing

by Gotwalt, absolving him of any liability for fulfilling the civil court judgment against him.

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tion options, including Metro in both its rail and bus incarnations.

It is at a location that is a perfect equidistance between two international airports, the District of Columbia and Tysons Corner.

A second reason is that the recent steep drop in residential real estate prices has created a renewed interest in “picking up a bargain,” and finding a stable alternative for parking financial resources in turbulent economic times.

A third reason, Young noted, is the “definite, perceptible trend” of populations from more economically-troubled outlying areas, such as Loudoun and Fauquier counties, seeking homes closer to where they work.

“I think the $4 mark for a gallon of gas has been a kind of tipping point for this,” Young said. “With no one predicting that price will come down anytime soon, if ever, there is a growing urgency to lose the long commute, and come to

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where both road trips will be shorter and more public transit is available.”

Many parts of Fairfax County do not have easy access to public transit, Young noted, which contributes to why property values will continue to decline there as homeowners migrate to where they can access it. That migration will only magnify the impact of the foreclosure crisis that began last year when the sub-prime mortgage mess began to unravel.

This is why predictions of an overall 10 percent decline in housing assessments in Fairfax County are not outlandish, and why county officials are planning extraordinary meetings beginning next month on how to cope with the implications of this for next year’s budget, as well as with revenue shortfalls in the current one.

“Whether or not there will be a rise in home values in and around Falls Church is too soon to tell, but relative to other areas, there will at least be stability, and I predict no significant fur-

ther home value reductions,” Young said. “We are very stable compared to outlying areas such as Loudoun.”

But at the same time, the region is not immune from the same factors that are contributing to distress in the national economy, including the severe tightening of the credit markets in New York, Young noted.

“We remain largely dependent on forces outside our control when it comes to finding funding for new development,” Young said. This could stall growth here for the coming period, and the length of the slowdown is simply impossible to predict. “Will it be this year, or next?” Young asked rhetorically.

Whether some of the largescale mixed-use projects already approved by the City Council can secure funding at this point has to remain problematical, Young said, although he said he knows of no specifics.

“To the credit markets in New York now, residential projects cannot be financed, and commercial projects are becom-

ing increasingly difficult.

This is making it hard for Falls Church to achieve the elusive “critical mass” that will cause its local restaurants, entertainment venues and retailers to prosper, Young noted. “Retail and restaurant business has also slowed down a lot, and its going to take patience, combined with some creative marketing initiatives to weather the current economic environment,” he said, adding that the City government could play an important role to help boost local businesses through effective marketing.

He said that City Hall should also focus on updating its zoning code, including revising parking and buffering regulations, and develop the City’s reputation as a “green city” by requiring green roof, LEED certified and other environmentally-friendly components of new construction going forward.

Young, a resident of McLean, has launched extensive new developments in Falls Church, including the Read Building, the acquisition and renovation of the so-called “Panera” and 105 N. Virginia Avenue buildings, the office building now under construction in the 800 block of W. Broad that will house both the Falls Church School Board administrative offices and the U.S. Post Office, and a Hilton Garden Inn, approved last month for the 700 block of W. Broad and not yet under construction.

He serves on the board of directors of the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce and was a founding first chairman of the Falls Church Education Foundation. He has contributed extensively to such Falls Church civic functions as the New Year’s Eve “Watch Night” and Tinner Hill Blues festivals.

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not on the topic of the low birthrates in Europe. As far as I know, the birthrates are at their lowest in exactly those countries with the best social safety nets, the most educated women population, and the smallest percentage of women forced (in reality or by tradition) to remain at home and raise children: i.e., the four Scandinavian countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway,

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tied to their homes, and many even think of the ecological consequences of growing mass of over-fed, resources-consuming people in well-developed countries.

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F.C. Resident Killed in D.C. Shooting Long-time City of Falls Church resident Barbara A. Carl, 47, of Poplar Drive, was shot and killed in Northwest Washington, D.C., while a passenger in a car in the 2400 block of Ninth Street near Howard University late Tuesday night. According to reports, D.C. Police said the incident may have been an attempted carjacking. The police reported that six men, one armed with a handgun, approached the car around 10:30 p.m. As the driver, a man in his 30’s, began to drive away, several large-caliber rounds were fired at him. One bullet struck Carl on the right side of her torso. The driver drove her to the Howard University Hospital where she died about an hour later. Carl was the mother of two boys. “She had a good heart and loved her boys very much,� said her neighbor, Stacy Hennessey.

3 Shot at Restaurant on Patrick Henry Drive Three men were shot, one near fatally, at the El Catrin restaurant, 2930 Patrick Henry Drive in greater Falls Church, late Saturday night, and Fairfax Police are looking for the 23year-old suspect, Vitalino Gomez-Carreto, of no fixed address, who has been charged with malicious wounding. According to witnesses, a man armed with two handguns approached the front door of the restaurant at just before midnight last Saturday and fired several rounds, striking three victims. All the victims were taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital, including a 52-year-old Arlington man suffering life-threatening injuries, a 23-year-old Falls Church area man and a 25-year-old man. The Gomez-Carreto is suspect had been seen inside the restaurant getting into a dis- Vitalino wanted in connection with a pute with another customer over karaoke singing and then left, triple shooting in F.C. telling a security guard that he would return. He returned about a half hour later with two handguns and opened fire on three men standing in front of the restaurant, one of whom was the man he’d argued with earlier. Gomez-Carreto is Hispanic, stands about 5 ft. 6 in. tall and weighing 150 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information is urged to contact Fairfax Crime Solvers at 866411-8477 or by e-mail at www.fairfaxcrimesolvers.org.

Sen. Webb Sponsors Bill to Rein in Oil Speculation Virginia Senator Jim Webb announced yesterday he’s co-sponsoring two bills designed to rein in the market speculators who have been able to bid up crude oil prices to unnatural highs. Senate Bill 3134 bans unregulated speculative trading of oil futures and other energy commodities. Senate Bill 3185 closes multiple loopholes that allow energy futures traders to evade federal oversight. According to Webb’s office, “Some experts have concluded that excessive market speculation has driven up energy prices as much as 30 percent. If new regulatory measures were enacted, consumers could see oil prices return to the marginal cost of production, around $60-$70 a barrel, within 30 days.�

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F.C. Council Names New Committees, Liaisons In addition to regional and Council of Governments assignments, the Falls Church City Council, with two new members as of July 1, appointed its members to serve as liaisons to 18 F.C. boards, commissions and councils Monday night, and to seven of its own committees. Mayor Robin Gardner is assigned to the School Board and evaluations, and with Vice Mayor Hal Lippman and Dan Maller to the government operations committee.

Lippman is assigned to the legislative committee with David Snyder. Snyder, Maller, Dan Sze and Nader Baroukh are on the economic development committee. Sze and Lawrence Webb are on the appointments committee. Maller, Snyder and Sze are on the rules committee. Sze is the Council liaison to the Planning Commission, with Dan Maller as the alternate, and Baroukh is liaison to the Economic Development Authority.

Protest of Hot-Lane Rousting of Bird Nests A press conference by Audubon Society advocates was slated to Thursday morning on the Little River Turnpike bridge across the Beltway in Annandale to protest clearing for Hot Lanes construction due to begin this week, in alleged violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The act prohibits disturbing the nests and habitats of song birds, with fines as high as $15,000 per bird. According to Elaine Franklin, a naturalist with the Audubon Society, she conducted a bird survey of the area and identified areas where large numbers of birds are nested. The Little River Turnpike area was identified as among “the most critical.� She said the problem is particularly acute for barn swallows.

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“Artisanal” is the buzzword along the stalls at Falls Church’s weekly farmers market.

The term applies to products crafted by classic techniques.

Seemingly, every product at the market touts itself as “artisanal” — cheese, wine and the like; other vendors substitute familiar phrases: “homemade” or “traditional.”

Each stall houses a business of proud farmers and artisans; many are families or independent enterprises.

All of them showcase their trades: from the agricultural to wine, coffee and confectionaries.

Their skills are purportedly rare enough that one is hard-pressed to find equals in quality.

Varieties of zucchini and peppers adjoin wares of chocolate and honey, gelato, crab cakes and fresh buffalo meat. Dragonfly Farms’ local wines sit bathed in ice, hidden from the oppressive summer sun by the stall’s canopy.

Toward one end of the market, the scent of fragrant rosemary mingles with Arabian jasmine in midmorning’s heavy heat, while worldly folk music recounts tales from near and afar.

July 17 - 23, 2008

Perhaps one savors the market’s familial air above all.

Elzena Ross and her greatnephew Martez exemplify that family nature, representing Hondo Coffee Company, familyowned and run out of Manassas.

The Rosses occupy a little tent — adequate relief from Virginia’s morning sun and humid air —

but the robust flavors within are anything but little.

As Hondo Coffee’s ambassador, Ross concedes: “The coffee speaks for itself.” The smooth taste of the organic Honduran coffee allows the drinker to enjoy the coffee black. Local daily roasting at the Manassas headquarters ensures that fresh-

ness. For the customer who likes coffee “regular,” Ross also has cream and sugar on the side.

Hondo Coffee, however, is not your regular coffee company. The company began in 2004 with the foresight of Arondo Holmes. Holmes oversaw the transformation of a ramshackle Honduran farm into

today’s thriving humanitarian and nature-friendly business.

“The owner [Holmes] takes pride, being the coffee is handpicked,” Ross said.

She added: “He puts back into the community [Honduras], building schools, getting the hospital running.” Holmes cooperates with the charity organization Project Honduras.

Of course, Hondo Coffee takes care of its Falls Church clientele as well. Hooked on Hondo’s perfect roasts, local newcomer Keith has frequented Falls Church’s market for several months now. “This one was the one I wanted to come to, for the coffee,” Keith said.

Keith described the coffee as almost tea-like: “It’s easy to make the mistake to call it tea.

It’s mild.”

Ross concurred: “More tea people say, ‘I’ll take a bag.’ We can connect everybody’s taste.”

This is Hondo Coffee’s first season in Falls Church, but the operation spans markets across Northern Virginia and Maryland.

“They’ll [Customers] come all the way from D.C. and buy several bags each month,” Ross said.

For those who can’t make Continued on Page 25

July 17 - 23, 2008

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We all know the story of Dr. Frankenstein, the scientist so caught up in his own research that he arrogantly tried to create new life and a new man. Today, if you look at people who study how genetics shape human behavior, you find a collection of anti-Frankensteins. As the research moves along, the scientists grow more modest about what we are close to knowing and achieving.

It wasn’t long ago that headlines were blaring about the discovery of an aggression gene, a happiness gene or a depression gene. The implication was obvious: We’re beginning to understand the wellsprings of human behavior, and it won’t be long before we can begin to intervene to enhance or transform human life.

Few talk that way now. There seems to be a general feeling, as a Hastings Center working group put it, that “behavioral genetics will never explain as much of human behavior as was once promised.”

Studies designed to link specific genes to behavior have failed to find anything larger than very small associations. It’s now clear that that one gene almost never leads to one trait. Instead, a specific trait may be the result of the interplay of hundreds of different genes interacting with an infinitude of environmental factors.

First, there is the complexity of the genetic process. As Jim J. Manzi pointed out in a recent essay in National Review, if a trait like aggressiveness is influenced by just 100 genes, and each of those genes can be turned on or off, then there are a trillion trillion possible combinations of these gene states.

Second, because genes respond to environmental signals, there’s the complexity of the world around.

Professor Eric Turkheimer of the University of Virginia, conducted research showing that growing up in an impoverished environment harms IQ. He was asked what specific interventions would help children realize their potential.

But, he noted, that he had no good reply. Poverty as a whole has this important impact on people, but when you try to dissect poverty and find out which specific elements have the biggest impact, you find that no single factor really explains very much. It’s possible to detect the total outcome of a general situation. It’s harder to draw a linear relationship showing cause and effect.

Third, there is the fuzziness of the words we use

to describe ourselves. We talk about depression, anxiety and happiness, but it’s not clear how the words that we use to describe what we feel correspond to biological processes. It could be that we use one word, depression, to describe many different things, or perhaps depression is merely a symptom of deeper processes that we’re not aware of. In the current issue of Nature, there is an essay about the arguments between geneticists and neuroscientists as they try to figure out exactly what it is that they are talking about.

The bottom line is this: For a time, it seemed as if we were about to use the bright beam of science to illuminate the murky world of human action. Instead, as Turkheimer writes in his chapter in the book, “Wrestling With Behavioral Genetics,” science finds itself enmeshed with social science and the humanities in what researchers call the Gloomy Prospect, the ineffable mystery of why people do what they do.

The prospect may be gloomy for those who seek to understand human behavior, but the flip side is the reminder that each of us is a Luxurious Growth.

Our lives are not determined by uniform processes.

Instead, human behavior is complex, nonlinear and unpredictable. The Brave New World is far away.

Novels and history can still produce insights into human behavior that science can’t match.

Just as important is the implication for politics.

Starting in the late 19th century, eugenicists used primitive ideas about genetics to try to re-engineer the human race. In the 20th century, communists used primitive ideas about “scientific materialism” to try to re-engineer a New Soviet Man. Today, we have access to our own genetic recipe. But we seem not to be falling into the arrogant temptation -- to try to re-engineer society on the basis of what we think we know. Saying farewell to the sort of horrible social engineering projects that dominated the 20th century is a major example of human progress.

We can strive to eliminate that multivariate thing we call poverty. We can take people out of environments that (somehow) produce bad outcomes and try to immerse them into environments that (somehow) produce better ones. But we’re not close to understanding how A leads to B, and probably never will be.

This age of tremendous scientific achievement has underlined an ancient philosophic truth -- that there are severe limits to what we know and can know; that the best political actions are incremental, respectful toward accumulated practice and more attuned to particular circumstances than universal laws.

A pro basketball player named Micheal (yes, that’s the way he spells it) Ray Richardson once famously said of the New York Knicks franchise: “The ship be sinking.”

When a reporter asked him how far it could sink, Richardson reportedly replied: “Sky’s the limit.”

Something similar might be said about today’s economy, although Phil Gramm, a remarkably out-of-touch former senator from Micheal Ray’s home state of Texas, would beg to differ.

You may have lost your job or the family home. Or maybe you’re behind in your car payment or your health insurance premium. Perhaps you can’t afford the gas to get to work.

Phil Gramm will have none of your complaints: Get over it! Stop whining and eat your gruel. This recession’s all in your head.

No one (not even John McCain, who tended

toward the rapturous when describing Gramm’s economic bona fides) could mistake this sour-visaged investment banker for a populist.

“We’re the only nation in the world,” Gramm once said, “where all our poor people are fat.”

During one of the many Republican assaults on Social Security, the issue of cutting back benefits for the elderly came up in the Senate. “They are 80-year-olds,” howled Gramm. “Most people don’t have the luxury of living to be 80 years old, so it’s hard for me to feel sorry for them.”

John McCain, whose Straight Talk Express ran out of gas long ago, tried to paper over the implications of Gramm’s unseemly outburst this week about the very real suffering that has descended on millions of Americans. “Phil Gramm does not speak for me,” said McCain. “I speak for me.”

But the truth is that Gramm, a close friend of McCain’s for many years, has had a very loud say in the economic policies of the McCain presidential campaign. And those policies are an extension of the GOP orthodoxy that is threatening to sink the ship of state, even as the very wealthy are

And now we’ve reached the next stage of our seemingly never-ending financial crisis. This time Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in the headlines, with dire warnings of imminent collapse. How worried should we be?

Well, I’m going to take a contrarian position: the storm over these particular lenders is overblown. Fannie and Freddie probably will need a government rescue. But since it’s already clear that that rescue will take place, their problems won’t take down the economy.

Furthermore, while Fannie and Freddie are problematic institutions, they aren’t responsible for the mess we’re in.

Here’s the background: Fannie Mae -- the Federal National Mortgage Association -- was created in the 1930s to facilitate homeownership by buying mortgages from banks, freeing up cash that could be used to make new loans. Fannie and Freddie Mac, which does pretty much the same thing, now finance most of the home loans being made in America.

The case against Fannie and Freddie begins with their peculiar status: although they’re private companies with stockholders and profits, they’re “government-sponsored enterprises” established by federal law, which means that they receive special privileges.

The most important of these privileges is implicit: it’s the belief of investors that if Fannie and Freddie are threatened with failure, the federal government will come to their rescue.

This implicit guarantee means that profits are privatized but losses are socialized. If Fannie and Freddie do well, their stockholders reap the benefits, but if things go badly, Washington picks up the tab. Heads they win, tails we lose.

Such one-way bets can encourage the taking of bad risks, because the downside is someone else’s problem. The classic example of how this can happen is the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s: S&L owners offered high interest rates to attract lots of federally insured deposits, then essentially gambled with the money.

When many of their bets went bad, the feds ended up holding the bag. The eventual cleanup cost taxpayers more than $100 billion.

But here’s the thing: Fannie and Freddie had nothing to do with the explosion of high-risk lending a few years ago, an explosion that dwarfed the S&L fiasco. In fact, Fannie and Freddie, after growing rapidly in the 1990s, largely faded from the scene during the height of the housing bubble.

Partly that’s because regulators, responding to accounting scandals at the companies, placed temporary restraints on both Fannie and Freddie that curtailed their lending just as housing prices were really taking off. Also, they didn’t do any subprime lending, because they can’t: the definition of a subprime loan is precisely a loan that doesn’t meet the requirement, imposed by law, that Fannie and Freddie buy only mortgages issued to borrowers who made substantial down payments and carefully documented their income.

So whatever bad incentives the implicit federal guarantee creates have been offset by the fact that Fannie and Freddie were and are tightly regulated with regard to the risks they can take. You could say that the Fannie-Freddie experience shows that regulation works.

In that case, however, how did they end up in trouble?

Part of the answer is the sheer scale of the housing bubble, and the size of the price declines taking place now that the bubble has burst. In Los Angeles, Miami and other places, anyone who borrowed to buy a house at the peak of the market probably has negative equity at this point, even if he or she originally put 20 percent down. The result is a rising rate of delinquency even on loans that meet Fannie-Freddie guidelines.

Also, Fannie and Freddie, while tightly regulated in terms of their lending, haven’t been required to put up enough capital -- that is, money raised by selling stock rather than borrowing.

This means that even a small decline in the value of their assets can leave them underwater, owing more than they own.

And yes, there is a real political scandal here: there have been repeated warnings that Fannie’s and Freddie’s thin capitalization posed risks to taxpayers, but the companies’ management bought off the political process, systematically hiring influential figures from both parties. While they were ugly, however, Fannie’s and Freddie’s political machinations didn’t play a significant role in causing our current problems.

Still, isn’t it shocking that taxpayers may end up having to rescue these institutions? Not really. We’re going through a major financial crisis -- and such crises almost always end with some kind of taxpayer bailout for the banking system.

And let’s be clear: Fannie and Freddie can’t be allowed to fail.

With the collapse of subprime lending, they’re now more central than ever to the housing market, and the economy as a whole.

July 17 - 23, 2008

For those who blame Sen. Chuck Schumer for the failure of the IndyMac Bank in California last weekend, alleging his identification of the bank’s troubles triggered a run, what are they saying now about the prominent front page headline and story in yesterday’s Washington Post baring Wachovia Bank’s dirty laundry?

What are they saying about the fact the FBI has now launched an investigation into IndyMac? Those who urge us to “shoot the messenger” divert attention from the realities of the unraveling U.S. economy, including the role of predator lending in it, and are appealing to those incapable or unwilling to accept things as they actually are.

So it was with President Bush’s lame attempt on national TV Tuesday to blame the nation’s economic woes on “psychology.”

This, of course, comes from the man who sold us “weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” “we don’t use torture,” and other bald-faced lies.

The problem is that the really operative “psychology” is that most Americans simply don’t cope well with bad news, and are eager to grasp for any straw that could enable them to carry on with business as usual.

“Don’t worry, everyone’s insured deposits are safe in our banking system,” come the calming words of assurance from government and banking officials. The sleight of hand, of course, involves the word “insured.”

For people not used to paying attention to much beyond their video games, neighborhood gossip or favorite celebrities and sports teams, they blithely hear such words of comfort, breathe a sigh of relief, and go back to what they were doing.

They don’t pick up on that caveat word, “insured.” Only those who are paying attention may know that a lot of their money and investments may not be “insured” by the FDIC or SIPC, which cover only up to $100,000, which is not a terribly lot in today’s economy, and would go up in smoke in the event of a bank failure, as was the case for over 10,000 depositors at IndyMac. Uninsured deposits at IndyMac totaled in the billions of dollars, and were wiped out when the bank closed its doors Saturday. Folks reported going on line to look at their savings accounts, only to see their deposits altered instantaneously from whatever number they had above $100,000, cut down to $100,000. If a grandmother had accumulated $750,000 in her savings account, she instantly lost $650,000.

FDIC officials generously offered to cover half of such losses, but for that grandmother, the amount she lost was still $325,000.

It’s not the same as the value of a stock plunging, because in that case, the investor still owns the stock, and it can rebound in the future. In the case of savings above $100,000, they’re simply evaporated.

Brokerage accounts are not fully insured, either. The amount of cash held in such an account by, for example, pulling out of the stock market and temporarily “parking” investment funds, is also insured only to $100,000.

When the FDIC was created, in the depths of the Great Depression in 1933, $100,000 was a lot of money, such that the insurance was designed to cover almost everyone. Not so today by a long shot.

The insured limit for Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) was boosted to $250,000 in 2005, but even that is a relatively small sum for fully covering retirement by the standards of today’s economy.

On the one hand, U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has said repeatedly in recent weeks that “banks are going to have to be allowed to fail,” as indeed IndyMac did in the largest U.S. bank failure since 1984. Surely, others will follow, although naming the ones at greatest risk on national TV or in Washington Post headlines doesn’t seem to be the determinant. The FDIC has a list of 90 troubled banks it’s now watching.

Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke offered simple but wise advice in his appearance before the House Banking Committee yesterday. People should deposit only up to the insured limit in any individual bank, he said, suggesting they open accounts in as many different banks as they need to, in order to make sure all their money is insured. It is the least risky thing to do to maintain liquidity in highly risky times.

No bank is eager for that word to get out, as they stand to lose a lot of money from their biggest depositors if the advice is followed. But in these nervous times, with assurances that more banks

Page 11

WASHINGTON – When I interviewed Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for Rolling Stone a couple years ago, I wondered what Barack Obama would mean for them.

“It seems like a President Obama would be harder to make fun of than these guys,” I said.

“Are you kidding me?” Stewart scoffed.

Then he and Colbert both said at the same time: “His dad was a goat-herder!”

When I noted that Obama, in his memoir, had revealed that he had done some pot, booze and “maybe a little blow,” the two comedians began riffing about the dapper senator’s familiarity with drug slang.

Colbert: Wow, that’s a very street way of putting it. ‘A little blow.’

Stewart: A little bit of the white rabbit.

Colbert: ‘Yeah, I packed a cocktail straw of cocaine and had a prostitute blow it in my ear, but that is all I did. High-fivin.”

Flash forward to the kerfuffle — and Obama’s icy reaction — over this week’s New Yorker cover parodying fears about the Obamas.

“We’ve already scratched thrift, candor and brevity off the list of virtues in this presidential cycle, so why not eliminate humor, too?” wrote James Rainey in The Los Angeles Times, suggesting “an irony deficiency” in Obama and his fans.

Many of the late-night comics and their writers — nearly all white — now admit to The New York Times’ Bill Carter that because of race and because there is nothing “buffoonish” about Obama — and because many in their audiences are intoxicated by him and resistant to seeing him skewered — he has not been flayed by the sort of ridicule that diminished Dukakis, Gore and Kerry.

“There’s a weird reverse racism going on,” Jimmy Kimmel said.

Carter also observed that there’s no easy comedic “take” on Obama, “like allegations of Bill Clinton’s womanizing, or President Bush’s goofy bumbling or Al Gore’s robotic personality.”

At first blush, it would seem a positive for Obama that he is hard to mock. But on second thought, is it another sign that he’s trying so hard to be perfect that it’s stultifying? Or that eight years of W. and Cheney have robbed Democratic voters of their sense of humor?

Certainly, as the potential first black president, and as a contender with tender experience, Obama must feel under strain to be serious.

But he does not want the “take” on him to become that he’s so tightly wrapped, overcalculated and circumspect that he can’t even allow anyone to make jokes about him, and that his supporters are so evangelical and eager for a champion to rescue America that their response to any razzing is a sanctimonious: Don’t mess with our messiah!

If Obama keeps being stingy with his quips and smiles, and if the dominant perception of him is that you can’t make jokes about him, it might infect his campaign with an airless quality. His humorlessness could spark humor.

On Tuesday, Andy Borowitz satirized on that subject. He said that Obama, sympathetic to comics’ attempts to find jokes to make about him, had put out a list of official ones, including this: “A traveling salesman knocks on the door of a farmhouse, and much to his surprise, Barack Obama answers the door. The salesman says, ‘I was expecting the farmer’s daughter.’ Barack Obama replies, ‘She’s not here. The farm was foreclosed on because of subprime loans that are making a mockery of the American dream.’”

John McCain’s Don Rickles routines — “Thanks for the question, you little jerk” — can fall flat. But he seems like a guy who can be teased harmlessly. If Obama offers only eatyour-arugula chiding and chilly earnestness, he becomes an otherworldly type, not the regular guy he needs to be.

He’s already in danger of seeming too prissy about food — a perception heightened when The Wall Street Journal reported that the planners for Obama’s convention have hired the first-ever Director of Greening, the environmental activist Andrea Robinson. She in turn hired an Official Carbon Adviser to “measure the greenhouse-gas emissions of every placard, every plane trip, every appetizer prepared and every coffee cup tossed.”

The “lean ‘n’ green” catering guidelines, The Journal said, bar fried food and instruct that, “on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include ‘at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white.’ (Garnishes don’t count.) At least 70 percent of the ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel during transportation.”

Bring it on, Ozone Democrats! Because if Obama gets elected and there is nothing funny about him, it won’t be the economy that’s depressed. It will be the rest of us.

Page 12

In 2001, David Bianco was at the pinnacle of his career in GLBT journalism. He was the founder of Q Syndicate, a content provider for gay media, and wrote, “Past Out,” a widely distributed GLBT history column. He was also the author of, “Gay Essentials: Facts for Your Queer Brain.”

With great irony, the man who made his living by revealing the glorious gay past was quietly reinventing his own personal history.

He had allegedly given up sex with men and was rapidly moving towards Orthodox Judaism.

In September 2003, Bianco went public with his conversion in an interview with The Washington Blade. He denounced, “having all kinds of Internet hook-ups and doing the urban gay male lifestyle thing,” and said he could no longer remain closeted about his metamorphous.

“It was increasingly odd to be supervising content for the gay media on a day-to-day basis when in my own life I was moving away from gay identity,” Bianco said. Then he complained about the reaction he received from colleagues saying, “Nobody gets a parade for leaving the gay community…”

While his exit elicited no parade, Bianco did create a media circus - changing his name to Benkof and appearing on the “Ricki Lake” show to oppose same-sex marriage. Basking in his beloved spotlight – it seemed that Benkof was poised to become the right wing’s latest star.

Then, he just fell off the radar for nearly five years.

Unfortunately, he could not bear anonymity in our celebrity culture and burst back on the scene this year – using the California marriage decision to catapult him to newfound notoriety.

Benkof opened shop with a deceptively titled blog, “Gays Defend Marriage,” and started a new column, “Fabulously Observant,” in which he posed as a pro-gay activist who just happened to give up sex for religious reasons.

What the editors of GLBT publications who decided to run his column did not know was that Benkof had extreme beliefs. He says that his religion teaches him that, “when you engage in mishkav zachar (gay sex), you are inflicting harsh damage on your precious Jewish spirit. Mishkav zachar is such a horrible sin that you are commanded to submit to being killed (yehareg v’al yaavor) rather than committing it.” When his editors found out his nutty views and that he was moonlighting as a zealous opponent of GLBT rights, he was dropped like a BLT at a Seder.

Benkof came to the attention of GLBT rights organizations last month after he began placing defamatory op-eds in mainstream news publications. His columns were notable because they would ostensibly be about a topic, such as President Bush’s record on AIDS, but the real intention was to smear gay people and make the GLBT community look perverse, untrustworthy, selfish and unworthy of basic human rights.

It was really a disgusting display of bigotry and self-loathing on the part of Benkof. He seemed bitter that he gave up sex and appeared to take his frustrations out on all gay people. His tirades were punctuated with hateful and unfounded statements like, “I have tons of data that shows how a significant subset of the gay community in America has always supported adult-child sex.”

The truth is, not a single mainstream GLBT rights organization supports adult-child sex, or even mentions the topic, for that matter. Benkof flat our lied to slime the GLBT community. He seems to have an ax to grind and seethes with resentment that so many GLBT people have rich and satisfying lives.

When defending his views, Benkof would often throw irrational tantrums in online forums. He called me a “self-hating Jew” who was “spitting in the eye of G-d,” and blasted blogger Pam Spaulding as a, “nasty bitch.”

Still, Benkof was a difficult opponent because he’s smart, has a knack for getting published and knew enough about gay history to hijack it. His brain was like a large computer hard drive stuffed with faulty software that contained quirks and bugs. With his prodigious output of anti-gay propaganda, he promised to be a problem for years to come.

But, again, in a blink, he was gone.

Out of nowhere, he announced this week that he was closing down his blog and getting out of the anti-gay marriage business, saying, “I no longer feel comfortable being allied with the people running the Prop.

8 campaign (the group trying to ban same-sex marriage in California), and the same-sex marriage movement in America in general.”

The capricious Benkof is like a supernova of nonsense, he flares up and then he flames out. We can only imagine where the spotlight will lead this walking human tragedy next.

July 17 - 23, 2008

In 2001, Alan Greenspan warned that we might have too little debt. A $5.6 trillion surplus was projected that would have ensured our long term status as the world’s economic superpower while covering the health and retirement costs of the 77 million baby boomers about to retire.

This strong economy was primarily attributable to two factors 1) confidence in federal fiscal responsibility and 2) a technology boom that greatly benefitted Northern Virginia, home to the second largest technology workforce with the highest pay in the country.

President Bush’s father began responsible fiscal management by agreeing to a compromise in 1990, whereby all new spending and tax cuts would be balanced with spending decreases or tax increases. This “paygo” principle was incorporated into President Clinton’s balanced budget bill in 1993 and under Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin’s leadership, set us on a path to a balanced budget and sustained prosperity.

Today we find our economy in a precarious position—perhaps the worst since the Great Depression. The American workforce has lost jobs in each of the last 6 months—65,000 in May and in June. The federal budget deficit has hit historical highs of over $400 billion for six of the last seven years. The stock market has lost nearly 2 trillion in value, and more than a million mortgage holders have lost their homes

trillions of lost dollars in the stock market and causing real financial hardship for all businesses and families.

4) The subprime mortgage meltdown where millions of homes were sold by predatory lenders represented by mortgage brokers who were unprofessional in getting people with another 3 million about to sign up for loans that they to follow. The median fam- couldn’t repay, then securitized ily income has declined over and sold to large financial instithe last seven years. With gas tutions--resulting in collapses prices approaching $5 a gallon such as have occurred with Bear and oil at $140 a barrel, there is Stearns and IndyMac Bank. little relief in sight.

The road back from the fisWe also now have the great- cal brink includes sacrifice est income disparity between from the American people—the the top 1 percent and the bot- message that should have been tom 90 percent as has existed delivered after 9/11 instead of since 1928. Five hedge fund a national call for more shopmanagers last year made more ping at the mall. Encouraging than 9 million working house- greater personal savings and holds. aligning our tax policies to betThe reasons for our current ter reflect the transportation, unsteady fiscal situation include health care, and environmental 1) President Bush’s abandon- needs befitting a great nation ment of the Bush 41/Clinton are vital. Only then can we “pay-go” policy in 2001, so as begin gaining control of our to avoid funding the cost of219191A02 the spiraling debt—the surest way 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. to secure a strong economic 2) The cost of the Iraq war future for our country. is now $650 billion with an estimated long run cost of $3 trillion. There has been a 9 trillion fiscal reversal from $5.6 trillion projected surplus to a $3.5 trillion projected deficit.

The cost of the tax cuts and the Iraq War is almost equal to the last 7 unprecedented high annual deficits.

3) Gas prices which were $23 a barrel when we entered Iraq in 2003 are now about $140 a barrel contributing to

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July 17 - 23, 2008

Page 13

One of the best things about summertime, I think, is the opportunity to partake of the many free concerts offered throughout Fairfax County parks. There may be no better way to spend a lovely summer evening than to relax and listen to the abundant sounds of music in our parks. You can go to a free concert nearly every night of the week somewhere in Fairfax County, but my personal favorite is the Spotlight by Starlight series at Mason District Park. Spotlight by Starlight is the “granddaddy” of all the concerts, offering performances every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday night at 7:30 p.m.

It doesn’t get much easier than this: free concerts, free parking, close to home, and no need to get dressed up! Just come as you are, bring a picnic and the family pet, relax, and enjoy.

At the Newton Edwards Amphitheatre, the best open-air venue in the county, concert-goers have enjoyed big bands, folk, jazz, and bluegrass. In the tradition of “the show must go on,” we’ve even had the audience on the covered stage with the performers in unexpected rainy weather.

It makes the venue a little more intimate, but both performers and audience seem to enjoy the change-up.

Coming attractions include Hesperus, early medieval, renaissance, and baroque music, tomorrow night, Friday, July 18; the Fairfax Symphony Summer Band on two consecutive Sundays, July 20 and 27; and the Patty Reese Band, featuring blues and “roots” rock, on Wednesday, July 23.

Ethnic and cultural music and dance will fill the air on three consecutive Fridays: July 25 – Kusun Ensemble (West African dance); August 1 – Chinese Dance Ensemble; and August 8, Sangre Boliviana. On Sunday, August 10, the

Falls Church resident Dr. Leo Paul Crespi, a longtime Director of Research with the United States Information Agency, passed away on July 8, 2008 at the Capital Hospice Center in Arlington, Virginia. He was 91 years old.

Dr. Crespi was born in Aurora, Illinois on July 23, 1916, and grew up in Los Angeles, California. He graduated summa cum laude from UCLA in 1937, and then went on to earn a Ph.D. degree from Princeton University in 1940 in the field of comparative psychology. It was during his time as a graduate student at Princeton that Dr. Crespi discovered what has come to be known as the “Crespi Effect.”

While experimenting with running rats through laboratory mazes he observed the occurrence of the interesting phenomenon that when the attractiveness of a reward is suddenly changed, an unexpected elation or depression effect results, temporarily

ever-popular Capitol Steps will bring their satirical review to Mason District Park. Plan to get to the park early that evening; it is nearly always standingroom only for the Capitol Steps.

The Spotlight by Starlight series also presents a children’s show on Saturday mornings at 10. The “Backpack Puppets Dinosaur Show”

by The GoodLife Theatre will be featured this Saturday, July 19, and the Bob Brown Puppets will perform next Saturday, July 26. For more information about any of the shows at Mason District Park or other parks in Fairfax County, log on to www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/performances.

Spotlight by Starlight is sponsored jointly by the Friends of Mason District Park and the Fairfax County Park Authority. Funding sources include individual donations and corporate support from Cox Communications, ExxonMobil, the West*Group, Goodwin House Bailey’s Crossroads, and the Music Performance Trust Fund. The Fairfax Symphony Orchestra also provides in-kind support.

The Newton Edwards Amphitheatre at Mason District Park has a viewing platform for patrons with disabilities and bench seating in the general audience area. Many attendees bring their own camping or folding chairs to sit in the “lawn” area. Mason District Park is located at 6621 Columbia Pike in Annandale. After turning into the park, turn right and go up the hill to the upper parking lot. Please follow the directions of the park staff for overflow parking on the grassy areas. See you at the park!

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

influencing performance more than one would expect from the size of the change in the reward.

The Crespi Effect has since been cited in numerous psychology journals.

After his graduation Dr. Crespi taught on the faculty at Princeton for eight years before leaving to head up the U.S. Government’s program of surveying European public opinion that was based in postwar Germany. During this time abroad he was elected President of the World Association of Public Opinion Research. He returned to Washington in 1954 to head the USIA’s worldwide program of opinion surveys. In 1962, he received a Superior Service Award from USIA Director Edward R. Murrow for “making a unique and original contribution to the conduct of United States foreign information activities by his pioneering use of surveys.” He retired from the USIA in 1986. One of

Dr. Crespi’s confidential government papers received possibly the widest attention of any opinion survey in history when it leaked out to the public domain and led to the state of U.S. prestige abroad becoming a central issue in the 1960 presidential campaign. The report was reproduced in its entirety in the New York Times just before the election (October 27, 1960), and was deemed by some to have tipped an extremely close presidential race in favor of John F. Kennedy.

A resident of Falls Church, Virginia since 1962, Dr. Crespi was married to the former Virginia Marie Anderson of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for almost 51 years. She passed away in 1993. Dr. Crespi is survived by his sister; Angie Bowen, of Los Angeles; his three sons; Gregory, of Dallas, Texas, Todd, of Falls Church, and Jeffrey, of Huntingtown, Maryland; his daughter-in-law Jan and grandson Scott, of Dallas; and his daughter-in-law Kathryn, of Huntingtown.

Funeral arrangements are being made by the Cunningham Funeral Home in Alexandria, Virginia.

Missed Saslaw was adaOpportunity mant about refusAt 1:39 a.m. ing to consider last Thursday any changes to morning, the spehis bill. cial legislative Getting Closer session on transA breakportation called through came

by Governor Tim when Governor

By Bob Hull Kaine ended.

Kaine was able But, there was to get House and really nothing to Senate Democrats show for it as the together.

General Assembly The Senators came away with no solution agreed to have House to our transportation prob- Democrats introduce floor lems. amendments to the Saslaw The failure to come away bill to strip away the gasowith anything of substance line tax increase. was a classic missed opporIf that passed the House, tunity and a failure of lead- then they would either pass ership on so many levels. it and send it to the Governor No Deal, Just Blame or agree to a conference comI stated in this column mittee with the House to work before the special session out differences. began that I did not see an We announced this by agreement in sight. But, my releasing a statement to the view changed as time went press the day before the speon. cial session convened on what I went from pessimism would be the last day. to hopeful optimism and That gave House ended with a feeing of frus- Republicans notice that we tration at how polarized would not try to surprise we have become in this them with some maneuver Commonwealth. on the floor.

When it was all over, Final Day there seemed to be a consenWhen the bill finally came sus by newspaper editorials up for a vote, Republicans from around the state that voted with us House House Republicans were to Democrats to strip away the blame. gasoline tax increase.

Clearly, House GOP leadBut, then they voted to ers used every parliamentary kill the amended bill. In device to kill any bill to raise doing so, they also let a taxes, whether statewide or compromise slip through regionally. their fingers.

They apparently even If they had amended the scuttled plans by their own bill further to only leave the members from Northern regional tax and fee increases, Virginia and Hampton they could have killed two Roads for regional tax birds with one stone. increases.

They could have declared The Events Unfold victory and taken credit for The Governor had a finding a transportation soluplan and our Democratic tion while protected their floor leader introduced it rural, anti-tax base from any in the House. But, it was tax increase. killed in the House Rules After all, they voted last Committee. year for tax and fee increasSenate Democrats had es in the regional plans that another plan, introduced by were partially thrown out by Senator Dick Saslaw. Unlike the courts. the Governor’s bill, it called But, the difference is that for a gas tax increase, how- in that bill, they did not ever small. impose the tax increases It passed the Senate and themselves. Instead, they came to the House, where the authorized local officials to Rules Committee, chaired by do that. the Speaker, voted to send it Now we are going to have to the floor without recom- to continue to suffer from mendation. the second or third worst Apparently, GOP leaders traffic congestion in the wanted Democrats to cast United States. But, who’s votes in support of gasoline counting? taxes on the House floor.

Even most House  Delegate Bob Hull may Democrats could not support be emailed at delrhull@state. gasoline taxes, but Senator house.va.us

Page 14

July 17 - 23, 2008

Arlington Student Earns Degree With Honors

sure” to clearly communicate its financial story.

After graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, James C. Montana, entered Amherst College. Son of Dr. Stephen Montana and Dr. Margaret E. Coogan, Montana majored in German and philosophy at Amherst. He received a bachelor’s degree, with summa cum laude distinction. He is also a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

Molina Healthcare to Operate Clinic in F.C.

F.C. Local Graduates Andrea M. Spakauskas of Falls Church graduated Amherst College with a bachelor’s degree and magna cum laude distinction. Her undergraduate studies included French and political science.

She is the daughter of Mr. Anthony Spakauskas and Mrs. Marta Spakauskas.

CAST MEMBER Dave Jourdan stars as Don Quixote in Keegan Theatre’s current production “Man of La Mancha.” The show runs through August 17, 2008 at the Church Street Theatre in Washington, D.C. (PHOTO: RAY GNIEWEK) closed or $100,000 in residential adjusted gross commission in 2007.

‘Beyond Excellence’ Bahamas Conference

Arlington Student Graduates College

ERA Franchise Systems LLC will honor its sales associates at its annual “Beyond Excellence” conference, July 20 – 23 on Paradise Island, in the Bahamas. Richard Bridges and Jennifer Bridges of ERA Blue Diamond Realty in Woodbridge, Va., are among the top producers recognized for excellence in real estate sales, and will participate in the invitation-only event.

To qualify for this year’s event, ERA sales associates or selling-brokers must have achieved 40 residential units

Ross Greenwood earned a bachelor’s degree from Gettysburg College, a highly selective four-year residential college of liberal arts and sciences. Greenwood majored in English.

2008 Grads Awarded Bachelor’s Degrees Among the 475 students who took part in Franklin & Marshall College’s commencement exercises, were Erin Statler from Arlington and Evan Hamme from Falls

Church. Statler, a graduate of Yorktown High School, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Hamme was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy. He is a graduate of George Mason High School.

WPI Student Receives Degree Paul Alexander Dragnich, son of Mr. and Mrs. George Dragnich of Arlington received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical and computer engineering with distinction at the 140th Commencement exercises at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. A total of 1,089 degrees were awarded during the ceremony, which took

place outdoors on the WPI Quadrangle.

Fairfax County Schools Earn Accolades Fairfax County Public Schools has received a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the United States’ Government Finance Officers Association for its comprehensive annual financial report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2007. The certificate is the highest form of recognition in governmental accounting and financial reporting. The county’s CAFR was judged by an impartial panel to meet the high standards of the program, including demonstrating a constructive “spirit of full disclo-

Molina Healthcare of Virginia announced it has been awarded a contract by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to staff, manage and operate three county primary care clinics one of which is located in Falls Church.

Earlier this month, Molina began operating the Fairfax County Community Health Care Network, which is comprised of three county clinics (Falls Church, Alexandria and Reston) that provide comprehensive medical services to more than 12,000 of the area’s uninsured residents. Providing approximately 48,000 primary care visits annually, centers have licensed pharmacies and laboratory services.

College-Sponsored Scholarships Named This year’s National Merit Scholarship competition includes 194 colleges and universities sponsoring some 4,700 award recipients. In Virginia, seniors at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology were among the finalists to receive college-sponsored awards between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.

Recipients of college-sponsored scholarships with their prospective undergraduate schools in parentheses are:

July 17 - 23, 2008

Page 15

AMONG THOSE ATTENDING the monthly luncheon of the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce at the Italian Café Tuesday were Wills McGill, left, a circulation account executive at the Washington Business Journal and Glenn Miller of Vantage Fitness. (Photo: Brenda Schrier) Olivia Bonin, (University of Southern California), Emily Feeney (University of Rochester), Stephen Houck (University of Rochester), Mohit Iyyer (Washington University in St. Louis), James McAtamney (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), William McGrath (Purdue University), Robert McMullin (New College of Florida), Geoffrey Miller (University of Oklahoma), Rathna Ramamurthi (New York University), Melanie Szwajkowski (Northwestern University) and Cayla Wallwork (New York University).

Teacher Wins Life Sciences Educator Award Paul Cammer, director of the neuroscience laboratory at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is the first recipient of the Life Sciences Educator Award, sponsored by the Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Cammer was recognized for his dedication to his work and his

unique approach in engaging students in the study of life sciences.

The award, which includes a $10,000 prize, is presented annually to a secondary school educator with at least five years of teaching experience who has made a significant and positive contribution related to promoting the study of life sciences to his or her students. Nominees are also expected to show proficiency in teaching Advanced Placement biology or chemistry courses and must demonstrate outstanding student guidance and mentoring skills in their work with students on independent projects.

The neuroscience laboratory at TJHSST is an interdisciplinary lab incorporating skills from the areas of biology, electronics, robotics, computer science, mathematics, chemistry and physics.

Final Performances for ‘A Body of Water’ Firebelly Productions’ acclaimed production of Lee Blessing’s “A Body of Water,” heads into its final performanc-

es, July 17-20 at Theater on the Run (3700 S. Four Mile Run Dr., Arlington).

Performances on Thursday and Friday begin at 8 p.m., with two 2 p.m. matinees on Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are $12-15, and $5.00 for seniors on Sunday. In this mystery, a couple awaken in a house with no memory of who they are or how they got there in this suspenseful exploration of the deep relationship between memory and identity. Call 703-409-2372 or visit www.firebellyproductions.net for information.

Imported from Germany, Justice is five years and eight months old, working in the canine section of the Operation Support Bureau in Fairfax County for the past four years.

For ticket and facility rental information, call 202-393-1099 or visit, www.crimemuseum. org.

Center (2855 Annandale Rd., Falls Church). The next English literacy tutor training workshop will be held in August. For more information, e-mail volunteers@lcnv.org or call 703237-0866.

Volunteers Assist Adults With English

Are today’s schools safe?

What can be done to protect the youth? What drives teens to bring a gun to school and open fire on their classmates?

The Falls Church City Police Department will answer these questions at “Teen Truth: An Inside Look at Bullying and School Violence” seminar.

The seminar will be held at the Falls Church City Hall Training Center (300 Park Ave., Level G, Falls Church) on Monday, August 11 and Friday, August 22. All participants must pre-register with Officer Derrica Wilson at 703-2485056 (TTY 711) or dwilson@ fallschurchva.gov.

More than 150 new volunteer tutors are needed to help area adults learn to speak, understand, read, and write English.

Specifically targeting those adults at the lowest literacy levels, the Literacy Council of Northern Virginia offers the only individualized adult literacy tutoring programs in Northern Virginia. No teaching or foreign language skills are required. A $35 training fee covers the cost of books, materials, and instruction. All tutor training workshops take place at the James Lee Community

Inside Look at Bullying & School Violence

Justice Visits Museum of Crime and Punishment More than a household pet, Justice, lives up to his name daily as he tours with police officers keeping criminals behind bars. Decorated for excellence as a dual purpose patrol and narcotic dog, Justice will be hosting a meet and greet at the National Museum of Crime & Punishment, on July 18th at 1 p.m.

Also present is special guest McGruff the Crime Dog.

MEMBERS FROM THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION of Home Staging Professionals will host an open house viewing of a 7,000 sq. foot custom built home designed by accredited stagers from July 26 - August 24 in Falls Church. (Photo:

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July 17 - 23, 2008

The Greater McLean Chamber of Commerce and the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce are co-hosting a “Young Professionals’ Mixer” at Clare & Don’s Beach Shack from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 17. Young professionals interested in networking with their peers from McLean and Falls Church are invited to attend. Attendance is free and drink specials will be available. Clare & Don’s (www. clareanddons.com) is located at 130 N. Washington Street in Falls Church.

Jason’s Deli, which has approximately 180 restaurants nationwide, is opening their new Falls Church restaurant officially on Monday, July 21. The family owned and operated restaurant chain offers deli style sandwiches, New Orleans Muffalatas, hot pastas, stuffed potatoes, a salad bar, kids menu, free ice cream and a number of organic options. The new restaurant is in Idylwood Plaza located at 7505 Leesburg Pike. For more information about Jason’s Deli, visit www.jasonsdeli.com.

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The Falls Church News-Press will be printing a special Summer Real Estate Guide on Thursday, July 31. The special section, which will include articles of interest regarding the local market, will serve as an insert and a seperate stand-alone publication and be on newsstands throughout summer. For more information about the advertising opportunities available, call 703-532-3267 or visit www.fcnp.com.

Stacy’s Coffee Parlor, located at 709 W. Broad St., Falls Church, has been sold by owner/operator Stacy Hennessey to new owners. Hennessey served as the Executive Director of the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce for almost three years before purchasing the coffee parlor formerly known as Caffeine. Stacy’s Coffee Parlor, “where something is always brewing,” is a popular venue for coffee, ice cream, breakfast and lunch and is known for its live music, children’s activities, fundraising efforts and political events. The new owners will retain the name. For more information visit www.stacyscoffeeparlor.com.

Gay Nuttall retired this week after 16 years at the helm of the Reston-based Washington Suburban Press Network, which has supplied national account advertising to the Falls Church News-Press and other regional weeklies since 1992. Nuttall, a long-time and dear friend of the News-Press, has been replaced by Rich Whippen, who came from Boston to work for the company in the newly created Vice President of Advertising position three months ago. The Washington Suburban Press Network is home to 99 suburban community weekly and daily newspapers, carrier-delivered to households in the Maryland and Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. and the Northwest section of the District. With over 1.6 million+ audited circulation, our publications are the leading newspapers of record in hundreds of communities throughout the Washington region. For more information, visit www.wspnet.com.

Gerald L. Gordon, Ph.D., president and CEO of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (FCEDA), has been granted a Fulbright Award to develop recommendations on building a skilled employment base in northern Scotland when a nuclear power plant closes. Gordon will take annual leave in Scotland for four weeks to explore the region’s potential for renewable energy and develop ways to drive investment into the northern Highlands region as the Dounreay reactor is shut down. He has consulted on economic development goals and strategies with U.S. local and state governments as well as in Puerto Rico, Poland and Micronesia. Gordon has been with the FCEDA since late 1983.

Falls Church-based Axiom Resource Management, Inc., has been named one of America’s Top 100 Companies by Revenue in the field of healthcare information and technology. Healthcare Informatics magazine published their annual list of top healthcare IT firms in June, 2008, ranking Axiom at number 76. Axiom moved up five spots from their 2007 ranking, where they placed at number 81 on the list. Axiom is a professional consulting firm providing program management, operational support, accessibility, management training, and IT solutions. The firm delivers studies and analyses, marketing, distance learning, and Web support. Axiom was selected a “2007 Great Place to Work” in Washington by both Washingtonian magazine and the Washington Business Journal.

Virginia Commerce Bancorp, Inc. will host a teleconference call for the financial community on July 17, 2008, at 11 a.m. to discuss its second quarter 2008 financial results which will be released that morning. The public is invited to listen to this conference call by dialing 866-837-9787 at least 10 minutes prior to the call. A replay of the conference call will be available from 2 p.m. that day through 11:59 p.m., July 24 by dialing 888-2662081 and entering access code 1259618. Virginia Commerce Bancorp, Inc. is the parent bank holding company for Virginia Commerce Bank, which offers a full range of business and consumer banking services through 26 branch offices, one residential mortgage office and an investment services office, principally to individuals and small-to-medium size businesses in Northern Virginia and the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. area.  The Business News & Notes section is compiled by Sally Cole, Executive Director of Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce. She may be emailed at sally@ fallschurchchamber.org

July 17 - 23, 2008

Page 17

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Of the 266 distinct nations or entities in the world today, nearly 100 are now reporting continuing energy shortages, mostly in the form of inadequate electricity supply, but in a growing number of cases, shortages of liquid fuels and natural gas. The actual number of countries affected is probably well over 100 but there are dozens of isolated island-states scattered around the world that are rarely heard from and are almost certainly suffering in silence while waiting for the next oil tanker to come in.

The majority of these energy-short states are small, poor and play only a minor role in world trade. While we should feel sorry for the plight of their inhabitants who are, or shortly will be, enduring severe hardships from greatly reduced supplies of electricity, water, food and use of motor transport, the impact of their problems on the better-off OECD world is likely to be minimal for a while.

Shortages, however, are not confined to small, poor states, but, in an increasing number of cases, are appearing in large, relatively well-off and active states on which the OECD world of North America, Europe and parts of Asia are very dependent. Several of the countries having energy problems are actually oil exporting states that, for one reason or another, are not able to turn their increasing oil wealth into smoothly functioning shortagefree economies. Unfortunately, several major countries appear to be on the path to an energy shortage-induced economic and perhaps political collapse within the foreseeable future which obviously will have serious consequences for us all.

Currently, the most serious situations appear to be in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Both are nations with populations in excess of 150 million people that are ensnared in devastating power shortages that have destroyed their export industries. Both are facing water and agricultural problems that threaten their food supplies. Liquid fuels are running short and reductions in exports threaten their ability to import oil and natural gas. It was recently revealed that the Saudis already are forgiving $6

mies is China and India, and although their situations are nowhere near as serious as the problems in Pakistan and Bangladesh, both are beginning to suffer from electricity shortages that will impact economic growth. China, which now has a shortfall of around four percent of its normal electricity production, is compensating by cutting back on production of aluminum and zinc, which consume prodigious quantities of electric power. The recent earthquake has given Beijing pause in its ambitious plans to expand hydro and nuclear power production. If China cannot increase coal production rapidly enough to keep up electricity generation for its rapidly expanding economy, it is likely to increase imports of coal and oil keeping pressure on world prices.

So far there is no indication of an unusually large increase in Chinese oil imports as there was during the power shortage four years ago. The world price of diesel is simply too expensive to be used to generate electricity for industrial production these days.

India’s energy shortages are more serious than China’s.

Its nuclear power plants are failing, hydro-power from the Himalayas is drying up due to global warming, and the costs of imported fuels are soaring.

Over 85 percent of India’s oil must be imported and coupled with the subsidies of oil prices, the increasing costs are taking a heavy toll on the state budget.

Although the situation in India is not yet as bad as in Pakistan, blackouts and liquid fuel short-

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billion of Pakistan’s $12 billion annual oil import bill.

On top of this, Pakistan has nuclear weapons and its strategic location is vital to the course of the insurgency in Afghanistan. Worsening blackouts, the liquid fuels shortage and probably the food situation are likely to lead to serious political instability before the year is out.

The next important pair of countries in terms of their impact on western econo-

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703-865-7774 Cell 571-345-6061 ages are being reported almost every day somewhere in the country. There is no end in sight to this situation and likelihood of an economic slowdown, coupled with water and food shortages, is increasing.

Several members of OPEC are having electricity and/or liquid shortages. In Nigeria, and Iraq where there are active insurgencies that have damaged the infrastructure, the shortages are endemic. Indonesia, which is just about out of OPEC due to lack of exportable oil, is beginning to face frequent power blackouts and fuel shortages. Even Venezuela and Iran have occasional electricity and fuel supply problems as they are trying to do without substantial foreign technical assistance. In Mexico, demand for gasoline has outrun refining capacity and the country is forced to rely on imports. There are now daily diesel shortages along the border as Americans cross over to fill-up on subsidized halfpriced Mexican fuel.

Aside from the major oilproducing states, most countries in Africa, Latin America and Central Asia are enduring some form of energy shortages. In a number of important mineral producing countries such as South Africa, Chile and Zambia, they have already reduced production due to shortages of electricity and diesel fuel.

The global wave of blackouts and shortages is almost certain to get worse. Although most governments have announced optimistic plans to increase electricity production and bring oil to market within the next few months or years, these are almost certain to fail.

The cost of building electrical generation capacity is soaring and finding affordable fuel unlikely.

In the OECD world, the effects of these shortages is likely to be felt in the form of much higher prices for declining exports from the energypoor. For the citizens of the energy-poor world, life is going to become much harder very soon as electric lights, computers, motor transport, refrigeration, fresh water and imported anything become scarcer and scarcer.  Tom Whipple is a retired government analyst and has been following the peak oil issue for several years.

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July 17 - 23, 2008

Student Scholar Ready to Travel to Japan Meredith Kerrigan, a 2008 graduate of George Mason High School, is one of 20 students nationwide to receive a High School Diplomats Scholarship.

The scholarship provides for a 3-week cultural exchange with 20 Japanese students in Japan this summer. It is underwritten by AIG Insurance Company.

FC Local Preps for National Competition Katie Yensen, 14, was selected for the third time as a member of the Region

1 Olympic Development Program soccer pool. Region 1 consists of players from states as far north as Maine to Virginia and as far west as West Virginia.

Selection for the soccer pool took place at the University of Rhode Island during a week-long camp held July 5 - 10.

Throughout the week, more than 300 players competed in several tournament games for a spot in the pool. Yensen is one of the 30 players chosen that will participate in the national competition.

Yensen, a rising sophomore at McLean High School, lives in Falls Church. She plays for the McLean Strikers U-15, Division 1 WAGS. Fairfax Resident Named to Dean’s List Alexandra Arocho of Fairfax has been named to the spring 2008 dean’s list at Maryland Institute College of Art. Arocho is a member of the class of 2010 and is pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in general fine arts.

Teacher Leads in Summer Congressional Meetings

A JUNIOR CAMPER tests his robotic car at TIC Summer Camp, a technology and sports camp for children ages 7 - 16. Campers learn to collaborate in problem solving with the use of LEGO Mindstorms, a programming language. (Photo: Courtesy Dr. Karen Rosenbaum)

Mary Ann Richardson, social studies teacher at Annandale High School, has been selected by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to lead Virginia’s delegation of NBPTS-certified teachers. The delegation will meet with members of the United States Congress and their staff to discuss education reform as part of Capitol Hill Day 2008 on Thursday, July 17. The Virginia delegation will be joined by several hundred teachers from across the country. Teachers plan to talk to their Congressional representatives about how certification by the

FASHIONABLE CAMPERS FLAUNT ACCESSORIES at Fashion Camp, a summer program of the Fairfax County Public Schools Marketing Advisory Board. Fashion Camp students participate in activity sessions that allow campers to explore fashion trends and create their own personally-styled outfits and jewelry. (Photo: Courtesy Kathryn Walters) NBPTS is refining the standards for teacher effectiveness and high-quality student learning in the 21st century.

Capitol Hill Day 2008 is sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline.

McDaniel College Names Locals to Dean’s List The academic achievements of students at McDaniel College were recognized on the recently announced spring 2008 dean’s list. Owen Cason Baird of Arlington and Julie Christine Hill of Fairfax received honors for 3.5 - 3.69 grade point averages.

TIC Surpasses 1000 Camper Enrollment Technology Instruction Corporation Summer Camp (TIC) has reached a new enrollment record this summer: over 1,000 campers are placed in its two sites, McLean and Bethesda. In its 26th year of operations in the metropolitan area, TIC offers a balanced day: 3 hours of technology and 3 hours of active sports.

Robotics is the theme of the week this year, but TIC campers also do their own projects in programming, video, animation, web design, newspaper, digital photography, graphics, and digital music.

Registration is still open for the July 28 August 8 session. For more information, visit: www.ticcamp.com.

Leaders Target Future Generations Focused on developing youth leadership within the county, the Youth Leadership Program has motivated high school juniors by engaging them in a three-week internship each summer for nearly ten years. Student participants attend monthly meetings that focus on a different aspect of Fairfax County – such as the school board, the health department, government and other civic departments. On July 24, youth leadership participants will create a PowerPoint presentation to share with local schools.

Each participating student presents what they have learned to 100 middle school students and teachers.

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July 17 - 23, 2008

Page 19

Coming Ju ly 31!

Summer Real Estate Guide

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Page 20

In the wake of college basketball analyst Billy Packer’s departure from CBS, sports pundits of all sizes have clamored to comment on his virtues and vices.

While some of his peers spared no time lamenting his future absence and applauding his career, others, mainly the youngbloods of the blogosphere wasted no time kicking up their heels and carrying on like the Munchkins of Oz when Dorothy housed the Wicked Witch of the East.

The reason for the disparate opinions likely stems from two obvious truths. First, Billy Packer was very good at what he did. Second, Billy Packer was very bad at what he did.

How can those two takes both be valid? Packer did have a gift for observation and description. He could spot trends during game play and often noted crucial developments before they had come to pass.

That’s talent that transcended the Captain Obvious analysis offered by many color commentators, who do little more than describe what they’ve just seen.

However, there’s more to commentary than insight and observations. There’s an element of entertainment as well, and that’s why Packer was a poor TV analyst. His analysis, however cogent, was often delivered as criticism, seldom as praise, and in a know-it-all tone that discounted any possibility he could be wrong.

He treated mid-major programs, the sweethearts of spring basketball, as irrelevant nuisances and appeared to relish the moment when Cinderella teams were sent back to sweep the ashes following a March loss at the hands of the traditional powers.

Simply put, he often came across as the Grinch of March Madness. When he was on the air I would get the same feeling as when I would visit my grandmother at her retirement home, knowing that within the first five minutes we would be asked/told, “Do you know who died?”

Packer’s polarized, love ‘em/ hate ‘em status is not unique. Dick Vitale, Joe Morgan, John Madden and Tim McCarver, among many others, are alternatively assailed and adored for their on-air performances. It seems that tastes for sports analysts are highly subjective, but given this divergence in opinions maybe Packer’s departure offers an opportunity for critics of color commentators to be more constructive with their feedback and find a middle ground to which analysts can aspire. So, what do we want?

Foremost, I want an analyst knowledgeable about the sport and the teams involved. Most national broadcast tandems will

July 17 - 23, 2008

only see squads a handful of times a year, so they will never be as knowledgeable about team minutiae as the die-hard fans. I can forgive them for that. What’s unforgivable is ill-fitting criticism born out of a lack of understanding or research pertaining to the teams they are covering.

Last year, Packer constantly laid into Georgetown’s John Thompson III for letting center Roy Hibbert handle the ball at the top of the three-point arc.

Rather than reporting on why the Hoyas employ that offense — at any point during the last two seasons — Packer picked the low-hanging fruit. His analysis was simply that it is not wise to have your tallest player that far from the hoop — never mind that this offense has led to back-to-back Big East titles. Some pre-broadcast research would be nice.

I think announcers should be self-deprecating and unafraid to admit when they’re wrong.

The vast majority of the viewership knows the shoe sizes, cereal preferences and birth stones of their team’s starting lineup. They know when an announcer screws up. Just cop to it and don’t pretend you are infallible.

And finally, have fun with it.

I’ll level with you. I like Dick Vitale. Yes, he goes overboard.

Yes, he probably sleeps in Duke University footie pajamas with a Coach K night light. Yes, he rambles on about Jim Valvano, cancer fundraisers, the ACC and Tyler Hansbrough’s mutant chest cavity that contains the hearts of the nine bravest men to ever walk the Earth. Occasionally, he even discusses the basketball game that’s being played in front of him. However, he brings a passion that I find contagious and that, in many ways, makes him the antithesis of Billy Packer.

Is that an entirely good thing? I don’t know how I feel about it, but Dick Vitale is in the basketball hall of fame, while Packer is on the outside looking in.

Considering the chief complaint against Packer was his curmudgeon-y on-air demeanor, there may be a lesson here.

When it comes down to it, sports are about passion. There’s a place for dissecting plays and critiquing performances, but there is a balance — one that analyst Jay Bilas seems to strike perfectly — that stops short of sapping all enjoyment from the game.

When you’re dealing with Xs and Os all the time, every once in a while it’s nice to hear about something that’s just “Awesome, baby,” with a capital “A.”  Mike Hume may be emailed at mhume@fcnp.com.

With a few players from George Mason High School (GMHS) out for a showcase, the Falls Church Colts were trimmed down to a roster of 10 and fell in both games of a doubleheader to the W.T. Woodson 18U baseball team last Saturday by a combined score of 29-8.

In the first contest, Woodson proved to be too much for the nine-man Colts squad, whose error demons returned in an arduous second inning, leading to a 9-3 Falls Church loss. Due to a lack of pitching on both sides, the game was called after the fifth inning.

Carl Hollinger from Langley High School struck out two batters in the first inning but got scorched for seven runs on five hits in the second. The rising junior got little help behind him, however, as three balls were booted in the inning.

Woodson’s eighth run was scored in the third inning off yet another Falls Church error, while their ninth was plated in the fourth frame off every possible defensive miscue.

Woodson’s number two hitter reached on an error, moved to second on a balk, dashed to third on a passed ball and scored on a wild pitch.

There was little offensive production against the knuckle

ball-hurling pitcher of Woodson, who struck out seven Colts batters. Zach Glenn (Langley High) had half of Falls Church’s hits with two.

Even though the first game was the one called after five innings, the course of the latter contest might have led some players to wish it had been stopped early as well, as Woodson rolled to a 20-5 victory.

All five runs by the Colts were put up in the first frame on four hits, but were relatively shut down for the rest of the afternoon, managing only four hits for the remaining six innings. Singles by Hollinger, Lonnie Millard (GMHS), and Jake Bennett (Marshall High) and a double by Evans Mandes (GMHS) led to an early lead, but Falls Church was unable to hang onto it for long.

Hurling five pitchers, Coach Adam Amerine’s squad allowed 20 runs on 16 hits, but ultimately, seven errors doomed them early. Woodson scored three runs in the first and second innings and four in the fourth, but exploded for eight in the final frame to surge ahead to the lopsided victory.

The past week was not all bad for the Colts, however, as they eked out a 4-2 win over the Virginia Outlaws on July 8. Andrew Lieber (GMHS), in one of his first outings on the mound since his junior varsity

years, picked up the win, hurling three innings and striking out two batters.

Lieber made it through a rocky second inning, in which he gave up three hits, but got out of a jam with two ground balls, escaping with only one run.

A double play by Colts right fielder Tyler Roth (GMHS) and Hollinger got Lieber out of the third frame with minimal damage as well.

Glenn and Bennett combined to hurl the final four innings, allowing only one hit to preserve the Colts victory.

On the offensive end, Hollinger led his squad with three hits, and tacked on insurance in the fourth inning after doubling and scoring on a Glenn single. In the second inning, the Colts plated two runs when Bennett and Hollinger singled and scored on a fielder’s choice and a wild pitch, respectively. Backto-back errors by the Outlaw shortstop scored Ben Taylor (GMHS), who singled, for the go-ahead run in the third inning.

The short-handed Colts returned to their winning ways this past Tuesday with a 12-5 victory, but details were not available at press time. Falls Church rounds out their summer schedule Saturday, July 19 with a doubleheader beginning at 10 a.m. at George Mason High School.

July 17 - 23, 2008

FC-A 13U Wins District Tourney, Heads to States The Falls Church-Annandale (FC-A) 13U all-star team heads to the state tournament today, July 17. After taking the win in Virginia’s District 6 tournament Sunday, July 13, the team will be hitting the diamond at Langley High School, to be hosted by McLean-Great Falls Babe Ruth.

On Sunday, the FC-A “Green Machine” was led by Mimi Azor, Koa Yamaguchi, John Todd and Chris Clayton, all of whom batted over .500 for the district tourney. Todd and Matt Stevens punched across five RBIs apiece. On the mound, Liam Glennon and Michael Evans combined for 15 strikeouts and held their opponents to only three runs.

Lee Graham Hosts Wally Martin 3-Meter More than 100 divers, all ranging from ages eight to 18, came out to Falls Church’s Lee Graham Pool to compete in the Northern Virginia Diving League’s 41st Annual Wally Martin 3-Meter Championship.

Competing divers represented 31 of the league’s 47 pools from across Fairfax and Arlington Counties and the cities of Falls Church and Alexandria.

Tony Taylor, the second vice president of NVSL-Dive, said, “We are particularly indebted

Page 21

to Lee Graham for hosting the meet. The LG pool is an ideal site for this meet with an outstanding diving environment, ample space for spectators and a comfortable snack bar area.

The league really appreciates the LG board’s willingness to host the 2008 meet.”

Divers from four different age groups, each do a different number of dives: Seniors, 15 – 18 years, six dives; Intermediates, 13 – 14 years, five dives; Juniors, 11 – 12 years, four dives and Freshman, 10 years & younger, do three dives.

Winning the championship were Kim Pilka for senior girls (219.30 points), Trevor Michalak for senior boys (238.95), Maggie Cullather for intermediate girls (170.67), Nathan Michalak for intermediate boys (138.65), Allison Stickel for junior girls (135.12), Alex Daloane for junior boys (102.09), Teal Schuppin for freshman girls (70.62) and Lee Graham’s very own Tucker Smith for freshman boys (93.18).

The Wally Martin meet is the only 3-meter competition of the Northern Virginia Swimming League (NVSL) season and is named in honor of the late Wally Martin, who was one of the leaders who brought diving to the NVSL. Past champions of this meet include U.S. Olympian and the University of Texas Dive Coach,

Matt Scoggins of Great Falls, 1996 Olympic Trials Qualifier Kristin Link of Parliament, 2004 Olympic Trials Qualifier Andrew Bradley of Sideburn Run and 2004 and 2008 Olympic Trials Qualifier Mary Yarrison of Springfield. For a complete list of results, visit nvsl.nvblu. com.

McLean 10-11 All-Stars Win District Championship McLean American won the upper bracket for District 4 on Friday, July 11. Winning 109 against Alexandria, McLean will advance to the State Tournament in Virginia Beach, Va. next Friday, July 25 for their first game up against District 14 from Troy, Va. On the afternoon prior to their head-tohead, McLean will join the rest of the competing teams for an opening ceremony in Virginia Beach, where they’ll walk their district championship banner in the Parade of Champions.

Oakton Otters Place 1st at Rutherford Winning first place not once but six times were the Oakton Otters at their meet against Rutherford on July 8. Their second win of the season, the Otters made out with a score of 37-23.

In the freshman girls division, Elana Colbert took first place, Alana Moore took second place and Layne Stikeleather took third place. Michael Tischler finished in first for freshman boys. For juniors, in the girls division, AJ Colbert took first place and Haley Worsham took second. Andrew Sargent took first place for the boys.

First place finisher for intermediate girls was Laura Branton, and for intermediate boys Daniel Nugent won first.

The Oakton Junior Girls and Intermediate Girls remain undefeated in their Division so far this year.

“Our biggest competition will come next week from Ilda, besides Hamlet, which outnumbered us in our first meet,” said Otters Head Coach Cheryl Meltz.

On Tuesday night, the Otters racked up their third straight win of 37-34 against Sleepy Hollow Rec Association, making them 3-1 so far this season.

NVSL-Dive to Hold Cracker Jack Invitational On Sunday, July 20, the Northern Virginia Swimming League-Dive (NVSL-Dive) will host the annual Cracker Jack Diving Championship.

Beginning divers from all across Northern Virginia will compete at Cardinal Hill Pool in Vienna. The annual Cracker Jack Invitational is the world’s largest one-day diving competition.

Open warm-ups will start at 8 a.m. At 8:45 a.m., six and under girls and 10-year-old girls will be allowed on the boards. A 15minute warm-up is scheduled before each event following.

The meet will begin promptly at 9:00 a.m. and will continue until the final diver has finished.

Over the past 20 years, Cracker Jack divers have gone on to participate at NVSL AllStars, on local high-school teams, in college programs, at regional and national events and, in some rare cases, at Olympic trials.

Page 22

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Community Events

&

Theater Fine Arts y

July 17 - 23, 2008

live_music&nightlife

Page 23

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July 17 - 23, 2008

SometimeS a little difference can make all the difference.

at dominion, commitment to diverSity iS an important part of powering our buSineSS. at dominion, diversity isn’t just something we strive for, it’s something we insist on. the bottom line is that diversity is good business—having a workforce and group of suppliers who come from different backgrounds and who have had different sets of experiences helps us generate a broader range of better ideas. as a result, our company is strengthened, our communities prosper and, most important, our customers benefit. to learn more about dominion, our dedication to diversity, and how we help power the communities that power our business, please visit www.dom.com.

July 17 - 23, 2008

Page 25

Families are seeing more than just a copy of the News-Press delivered to their doorstep these days. Thanks to one neighborhood newbie’s efforts, residents are getting milk sent straight from the farm to their front porch.

“It’s about nostalgia,” said Stephanie Oppenheimer. “I got dairy products delivered to my house when I was a kid, and we love having a milk box out on our porch just like the old days.”

Oppenheimer and her family moved to Falls Church from Alexandria in March, where they had milk delivered from Maryland’s South Mountain Creamery (SMC) for nine months.

After relocating, Oppenheimer used an e-mail, that she said ended up “going up a bit viral,” to persuade 90 of her new neighbors to sign up for deliveries. Soon enough, SMC took notice and added a route to include the Oppenheimers’ new stomping grounds.

“It was kind of cool to see how quickly word spread, and even more exciting to hear from the farm owner how quickly the subscriber numbers were up to what the creamery needed to make a go of it,” said Oppenheimer.

Abby Brusco, daughter of SMC owners Randy and Karen Sowers, feels locals are pleased with the step-back-in-time service, saying that customers from Vienna, Alexandria and Arlington have a different mentality about purchasing food products straight from the farm’s rolling hills.

“It’s something that’s kind of foreign for you all down in the city,” said Brusco. “It’s a precious commodity to them.”

So precious that, for some, the milkman becomes like part of the family. When asked what he missed most about their old house in Alexandria, Oppenheimer’s 5-year-old son Jonathan Oppenheimer replied: “The milkman.”

His mother also liked the health perspective of SMC, which doesn’t use any animal growth hormones or crop pesticides.

“There’s definitely a big focus on hormonefree milk and chemical-free packaging,” said Oppenheimer. “Given all the press lately about the dangers of chemicals in some plastics and landfills overflowing with un-recycled plastic bottles, the glass bottles were a big selling point for us.”

SMC, however, is not organic, because sick livestock is treated with antibiotics. A sick cow’s milk is destroyed until the cow is returned to its

Saturday’s weekly event between 8 a.m. and noon, Ross reassures them: “We’re in the final stages of making a deal with Whole Food’s Market.”

The deal will be finalized later this year, she said.

Down the market way, Deb Matthews is the owner and baker of Chase Your Tail Bakery in Leesburg, Va. Matthews has sold “pet treats freshly baked with human-grade ingredients” for four years. Canine cuisine, however, was not her initial calling.

Unemployed in the wake of her telecom company’s breakup in 2001, Matthews scoured the Internet for employment.

She came across her present venture on eBay, buying the Michigan-based company for the sum of $8,000. Matthews

herd. Cows are separated from the herd for the duration of their treatment.

According to Brusco, companies that are certified organic must get rid of or sell sick animals, even if their condition is minor and easily treatable.

“It takes time and money to raise a calf, so why would we sell an animal that’s perfectly healthy just because they’re running a fever?” said Brusco.

Instead of devoting time to the recordkeeping that comes along with being certified, not to mention governmental fees, Brusco says SMC would rather spend its time making high-quality products for their customers. A running blog on their new website — southmountaincreamery.com — is available for anyone unable to make it to Middletown, where visitors are always welcome.

“We hope to update that [blog] with what we’re harvesting because I think our customers want to know what actually goes on day to day at a working farm,” said Brusco. “I think it will make the connection with them.”

As far as the Oppenheimers’ sons, Jonathan and Danny, they eagerly await Wednesday mornings to see what treasures their new milkman has left in their porch cooler just for them.

helped to transport the bakery’s wares halfway across the nation.

Matthews has made the onehour journey to Falls Church every week this year. Like the Rosses and Hondo Coffee, Matthews is a greenhorn to this farmers market.

So far, she has enjoyed the year.

“I’m ecstatic. Business has been wonderful,” said Matthews.

Successful, too, are the pet treats available fresh from Chase Your Tail’s ovens. Owners can reward pets with whole-wheat flour snacks and a plethora of novel tastes for the canine (or feline) taste buds.

Each snack holds a unique flavor and Matthews’ unflagging commitment to her products.

Pumpkin Nibbles, Apple Bites and Peanut Butter Carob Chip Blossoms hint at three of the 12 delights for sale last Saturday.

Despite rising gas costs, Matthews returns each week.

“As a business owner, gas prices factor in,” she said. Other costs affect the bakery operation as well. “The price of flour has had a direct influence,” Matthews said, forcing her to raise prices.

Even so, healthy pet treats remain affordable. A grab bag of 12 assorted goodies costs $5.

Matthews shared her thoughts on the farmers market, too. “If you really wanted to be green, you could get all your groceries here,” she said.

Within walking distance of downtown Falls Church, the market provides locals with quick access to fresh products and exotic delights, with none of the carbon emissions from costly transportation of goods.

For environmentalists, the health-conscious and the everyday needs of Falls Church locals, the farmers market brings the luxury of green living literally next door.

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STARTS FRIDAY, JULY 18

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WASH SUB PRESS THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 2X3.5 THU ’ “‘ 7/17 ALLIED DC AC

MAMMA MIA! IS THE MOST FUN TO BE HAD AT THE MOVIES THIS SUMMER.

“Batman” isn’t a comic book anymore. Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” is a haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy. It creates characters we come to care about. That’s because of the performances, because of the direction, because of the writing, and because of the superlative technical quality of the entire production. This film, and to a lesser degree “Iron Man,” redefine the possibilities of the “comic book movie.”

“The Dark Knight” is not a simplistic tale of good and evil.

Batman is good, yes; the Joker is evil, yes. But Batman poses a more complex puzzle than

Bruce Wayne ...... Christian Bale Alfred . ................. Michael Caine Joker .................... Heath Ledger James Gordon ..... Gary Oldman Harvey Dent ....... Aaron Eckhart Rachel Dawes Maggie Gyllenhaal Lucius Fox . .... Morgan Freeman Warner Bros. presents a film directed by Christopher Nolan.

Produced by Christopher No-

usual: The citizens of Gotham City are in an uproar, calling him a vigilante and blaming him for the deaths of policemen and others. And the Joker is more than a villain. He’s a Mephistopheles whose actions are fiendishly designed to pose moral dilemmas for his enemies.

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“Jaw-Dropping, Eye-Popping Family Fun!”

Everyone will be having a rollicking good time and dancing in the aisles to ABBA’s irresistible songs. Meryl Streep is sensationally good in one of her most entertaining performances ever. There’s not an audience anywhere that won’t be smiling.

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lan, Charles Roven and Emma Thomas. Written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan. Photographed by Wally Pfister. Edited

by Lee Smith. Music by Hans Zimmer.

Running time: 152 minutes.

Classified: PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence and some menace).

The key performance in the movie is by the late Heath Ledger, as the Joker. Will he become the first posthumous Oscar winner since Peter Finch?

His Joker draws power from the actual inspiration of the character in the silent classic “The Man Who Laughs” (1928). His clown’s makeup more sloppy than before, his cackle betraying deep wounds, he seeks revenge for the horrible punishment his father exacted on him when he was a child. In one diabolical scheme near the end of the film, he invites two ferry-loads of passengers to blow up the other before they are blown up themselves. Throughout the film, he devises ingenious situations that force Batman (Christian Bale), Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to make impossible ethical decisions. By the end of the film, the whole moral foundation of the Batman legend is threatened.

Because these actors and others are so powerful, and because the movie does not allow its spectacular special effects to upstage the humans, we’re surprised how deeply the drama affects us. Eckhart does an especially good job on Harvey Dent, whose character is transformed by a horrible fate into a bitter monster. It is customary in a comic book movie to maintain a certain knowing distance from the action, to view everything through a sophisticated screen.

“The Dark Knight” slips around those defenses and engages us.

Yes, the special effects are extraordinary. They focus on the expected explosions and catastrophes, and have some superb, elaborate chase scenes.

The movie was shot on location in Chicago, but it avoids such familiar landmarks as Marina City, the Wrigley Building or the skyline. Chicagoans will recognize many places, notably LaSalle St. and Lower Wacker Drive, but director Nolan is not making a travelogue. He presents the city as a wilderness of skyscrapers, and a key sequence is set in the still-uncompleted Trump Tower. Through these

July 17 - 23, 2008

Page 27

don’t much like ABBA, but this movie wasn’t made for me. It was made for the people who will love it, of which there may be a multitude. You know who are are. Rating: Two stars.

S less enslavement to his mistress of 10 years (Asia Argento). He is devoured by the mistress; their mutual obsession is more potent than any love.

Directed by Catherine Breillat, famous for her explicit films, now bringing the same passionate power to an elegant period piece. Rating: Three and a half stars.

E

lsa & Fred (Romantic comedy, PG, 106 minutes). A bittersweet romance between two elderly neighbors in a Madrid apartment building. Alfredo (Manuel Alexandre) not only falls head over heels for Elsa (China Zorrilla), but helps her fulfill her lifelong dream, which is inspired by the famous scene amma Mia! (Musical, PGin “La Dolce Vita” when Anita Ekberg 13, 98 minutes). Movie verand Marcello Mastroianni wade in the sion of the hit stage musical, waters of Rome’s Trevi Fountain at with Meryl Streep as the villa owner dawn. Predictable, but the final act on a(MGreek isle and Amanda Seyfried is a triumph. Rating: Two and a half Roland acaulay Culkin) (left), Mary (Jena Malone), asCassandra her about-to-be daughter. and (Eva Amurri) married in United Artists ' comedy stars.

"SThe aved!" © 2004 - United Artists - All Rights Reserved girl doesn’t know who her father is, but finds an old diary and invites he Last Mistress (Drama, three likely candidates to her wednot rated, 114 minutes). Set ding: Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and in Paris in 1835, the story of a Stellan Skarsgard. Wall-to-wall with notorious libertine (Fu’ad Ait Aattou) ABBA songs, of course, and energetic who attempts to be a faithful husband dancing. I was underwhelmed and to a rich young lady, despite his help-

M

T

EPIC.ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR.”

“ heights the Batman moves at the end of strong wires, or sometimes actually flies, using his cape as a parasail.

The plot involves nothing more or less than the Joker’s attempts to humiliate the forces for good and expose Batman’s secret identity, showing him to be a poser and a fraud. He includes Gordon and Dent on his target list, and contrives cruel tricks to play with the fact that Bruce Wayne once loved, and Harvey Dent now loves, Assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). The tricks are more cruel than he realizes, because the Joker doesn’t know Batman’s identity. Heath Ledger has a good deal of dialogue in the movie, and a lot of it isn’t the usual jabs and jests we’re familiar with: It’s psychologically more complex, outlining the dilemmas he has constructed and explaining his reasons for them. The screenplay by Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan (who first worked together on “Memento”) has more depth and poetry than we might have expected.

Two of the supporting characters are crucial to the action, and are played effortlessly by the great actors Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Freeman, as the scientific genius Lucius Fox, is in charge of Bruce Wayne’s underground headquarters and makes an ethical objection to a method of eavesdropping on all of the citizens of Gotham City. His stand has current political implications. Caine is the faithful butler Alfred, who understands Wayne better than anybody and makes a decision about a crucial letter.

Nolan also directed the previous, and excellent, “Batman Begins” (2005), which went into greater detail than ever before about Bruce Wayne’s origins and the reasons for his compulsions. Now it is the Joker’s turn, although his past is handled entirely with dialogue, not flashbacks. There are no references to Batman’s childhood, but we certainly remember it, and we realize that this conflict is between two adults who were twisted by childhood cruelty -- one compensating by trying to do good, the other by trying to do evil. Perhaps they instinctively understand that themselves.

Something fundamental seems to be happening in the upper realms of the comic book movie. “Spider-Man II” (2004) may have defined the high point of the traditional film based on comic book heroes. A movie like the new “Hellboy II” allows its director free rein for his fantastical visions. But now “Iron Man” and even more “The Dark Knight” move the genre into deeper waters. They realize, as some comic book readers instinctively do, that these stories touch on deep fears, traumas, fantasies and hopes. And the Batman legend, with its origins in film noir, is the most fruitful one for exploration. In his two Batman movies, Nolan has freed the character to be a canvas for a broader scope of human emotion. For Bruce Wayne is a deeply troubled man, let there be no doubt, and if ever in exile from his heroic role, it would not surprise me what he finds himself capable of doing.

Richard Roeper,

At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper

pace Chimps (Animated adventure, G, 80 minutes) is a goofy animated space opera that sends three U.S. chimpanzee astronauts rocketing to a galaxy, as they say, far, far away. There they encounter strange life forms and the evil Zartog, who has captured an earlier space probe. Not in the same science fiction league as “Wall-E,” but successful, with lots of whizbang action and some witty dialogue.

Rating: Three stars.

2

1 (Crime drama, R, 123 m., 2008). A formula movie “inspired by” a true story about the M.I.T. students who developed a card-counting system that enabled them to win millions at the blackjack tables in Las Vegas. The excitement is as watereddown as the drinks. It’s not unwatchable, but you could watch it with your eyeballs tied behind your back and enjoy it just as much. Rating: One and a half stars. (Jim Emerson)

T

HE BANK JOB (Crime drama, R, 111 m., 2008). A serviceable B-grade British heist movie, “The Bank Job” is no better than its generic title. It front-loads the naughty sex and back-loads the plot twists (the titular crime takes place in the middle), but apart from the prominence of Princess Margaret in the goings-on, it’s a pretty routine job, as the use of the hackneyed phrase “plot twists” earlier in this sentence should indicate. For a movie about crime and sleaze and sex, it ought to be a lot more fun. Inspired by the 1971 “Walkie-Talkie” bank job in London.

Rated: Two and a half stars. (Jim Emerson)

C

OLLEGE ROAD TRIP (Comedy, G, 83 m., 2008).

The sort of movie that gets described as “fun for the whole family,” but it really isn’t. Raven-Symone plays a high school whiz kid visiting prospective colleges with her overprotective police chief father (Martin Lawrence). This movie’s jokes and trust-your-offspring sentiments have been heard 1,000 times. With Donny Osmond. Rated: One-half star. (Darel Jevens)

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ENELOPE (Romantic comedy, PG-13, 84 m., 2008). First-time director Mark Palansky brings us Tim Burton-light with his debut, “Penelope,” a fanciful romantic fable in which the title character was born with a pig snout for a nose. Surgery is out of the question, as the only thing that will remove the “curse” is if Penelope (Christina Ricci) finds true love. Enter Max (James McAvoy), who pursues her at first for money, but then really falls for her. What bumps the derivative “Penelope” up from a two-star rating is the acting ensemble.

Give casting director Susie Figgis a round of applause. And Palansky while you’re at it, because he was able to get these actors to rise above the so-so script. Is there a better character actor working today than Peter Dinklage? And the great Catherine O’Hara plays Penelope’s clueless, neurotic mother. Rating: Three stars.

(Teresa Budasi)

Continued on Page 28

Page 28

July 17 - 23, 2008

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TOP-LOSS (Drama, R, 112 m., 2008). Writer-director Kimberly Peirce’s uneven film about a young soldier home from Iraq (Ryan Phillippe) who is forced to rethink his ideas about heroism and patriotism when he is “stop-lossed”: involuntarily assigned to another tour of duty.

The story is hampered by awkward construction and its characters’ inarticulate attempts to describe what is going on, but no feature film can approach the visceral power of any of the hundreds of YouTube clips or superb documentaries that let the soldiers tell their own stories. Rating: Two stars. (Nell Minow)

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Financing offer valid on purchases of $999 or more from July 8, 2008 – July 21, 2008 on La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries Private Label credit account. On promo purchase, no monthly payments required & no finance charges assessed if (1) promo purchase paid in full in 12 months, (2) any minimum monthly payments on account paid when due, and (3) account balance does not exceed credit limit. Otherwise, promo may be terminated & finance charges assessed from purchase date. Standard terms apply to non-promo purchases, optional charges & existing accounts. As of 6/1/08, variable APR’s: 21.98% applicable APR’s & on all accounts in default, 28.99%.Minimum Finance Charge $1.50. Subject to approval by GE Money Bank. Finance purchases require 1/3 down payment. Discount can not to be combined with any other promotional offer. Advertised products reflect savings. Offer expires July 21, 2008. Featured items may not be stocked as shown. Wall recliners are $30 additional when available. Photographs are representative of promotional items,

Guaranteed Lowest Prices and Largest Selection of La-Z-Boy Furniture!

(c) 2008 The Ebert Co.

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20

Page 29

Page 30

July 17 - 23, 2008

Anthonyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Restaurant 309 W. Broa

4OZZa 1Vc`QV <Sea >`Saa " % f $ $ #Âś July 17 - 23, 2008

&$ ) Ă&#x160;

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6876 Lee Highway Arlington, Virginia 22213 Tel: (703) 538-3033 Fax: (703) 573-0409 www.lacotedorcafe.com

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UPER DAILY LUNCH & DINNER BUFFETS

Lunch Dinner ri 11:30am-2:30pm Mon-Fri 5pm-9pm dults - $7.75 Adults - $8.95 s (2-10) - $3.75 Kids (2-10) - $4.50 Sat. & Sun. 11:30-9pm Adults - $8.95 Kids - $4.50

DWaWb g]c` \SO`Sab 1]aÂ&#x20AC;Â&#x2022; Z]QObW]\ W\ 4OZZa 1Vc`QV . # ! E 0`]OR Ab`SSb ]\ @bS % PSbeSS\ EOaVW\Ub]\ Ab Bga]\¸a 1]`\S`

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www.theha w rvestmoonrestaurant.com

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DOZWR ]\ O\g aO\ReWQV aOZOR ]` ^WhhO :W[Wb Q]c^]\ ^S` dWaWb <]b dOZWR eWbV O\g ]bVS` ]TTS`a <] `S^`]RcQbW]\ O\R \]b `SRSS[OPZS T]` QOaV Â&#x2013; & 1]aW 7\Q =TTS` Sf^W`Sa % ! & 1=23( 4/::A

Âľ1]aÂ&#x20AC;Âś Âľ1]aÂ&#x20AC; eWbV VSO`bV RSaWU\Âś O\R ÂľAW[^Zg 5]]R BOabSÂś O`S `SUWabS`SR b`ORS[O`Ya ]T 1]aÂ&#x20AC; 7\Q >`WQSa O\R ;S\c WbS[a [Og dO`g Pg Z]QObW]\ Â&#x2013; & 1]aÂ&#x20AC; 7\Q /ZZ `WUVba `SaS`dSR

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Accessible from South Washington & East Broad Streets

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Eden Center has been serving the Falls Church community for more than 40 years. There are beautiful shops that include Restaurants, Jewelry Stores and many others. The local Vietnamese American community takes great pride in Eden Center. The center hosts many Special Events during the year.

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Page 32

SAN ANTONIO -- We always like to delve into the wine list at restaurants we review.

It’s a pleasure, but we are also firm believers that wine and food go with each other because nature planned it that way.

Sure, some wine and food matches can be truly awful.

As I write this, a decidedly unpleasant memory arises that involved a glass of cabernet sauvignon served with a smoked salmon salad. It lived up to the “awful” description exactly.

If you haven’t honed the art of wine-food pairing, however, don’t worry overly much about it. If you love the wine you’ve ordered and the food is well prepared, chances

By Bonnie Walker are you’ll enjoy the meal.

San Antonio Lately, we’ve been asked Express-News questions having to do with ordering wine at restaurants. Here are some thoughts about one we were asked recently.

Why does a wine served at a restaurant taste better than the same wine you serve at home?

While this is probably not always true, I can think of a couple of simple reasons it might happen enough that someone would ask us about it.

First, restaurants that care about wine store and serve them professionally. Not all of us, including myself, are able to do that at home.

We’ll start with storage. Do you have a wine cellar or wine cave with temperature and humidity controls? Or, is your wine rack in a cool, dim or dark place (especially with no fluorescent lighting). Is it an untrafficked area so the wine isn’t sloshed around in its bottle every time someone walks past the rack?

Restaurants that are serious about their wines will store them in one of the ways described above. If they’ve purchased wines that have been handled competently along the way, from the winemaker to your wine waiter, you should get that wine just as it was meant to be tasted.

Does this always happen? No. Even in the best of circumstances there might be a chemical mishap, from a flawed cork to unwelcome bacteria that ruins the flavor of the wine.

Another simple answer is vintage. Even in mass-marketed wines that aim for consistency every year, we can sometimes notice a difference from one year to the next. Check to be sure the wine you have at home was produced in the same year as the one you loved at the restaurant.

Do you keep your wine glasses scrupulously washed and polished?

True, not all restaurants do this. But, when wines are being tasted at a competition, cloudy glassware or any hint of a soapy taste will result in a loud hue and cry from the judging rooms.

Soap in wine, just like in food, will really throw off the taste.

Are you serving the wine at the proper temperature?

Most restaurants pay attention to the fact that a red wine needs to be cooled to cellar temperature, not served at the temperature of the average home living room in July.

Put it in the fridge 15 minutes before you serve it. For white wines, chill them in the refrigerator but take them out 15 minutes before you serve them. This might not be the perfect rule of thumb, but it works well enough and is easy to remember.

I’ll take this opportunity to complain about something I see too often. When I walk into a restaurant and pass the bar, my heart sinks when I see a slew of wines to be served by the glass opened, partially used and stoppered, sitting on the shelf behind the bar.

Not all of these wines will be pleasant to drink when served. Most of these wines, even reds, would be better kept in a cool place.

This has happened to me enough that I now ask the wine server if the red wine by the glass has been stored in a cooler or not. If not, I ask them to cool it down for a few minutes. (We assume that whites, already opened or not, will be kept chilled.)

Finally, we get to what is a subjective reason that wine served at a restaurant might taste better than the same wine served at home. That might be simply because we’re out, relaxed, not working to put a meal on the table or distracted by television.

If the wine is being shared by friends, so much the better.

Even if it’s just a relative perception that the wine is better, that’s always something to count as pleasure added.

July 17 - 23, 2008

Television forever changed the game of poker and is solely responsible for the resurgence of no limit Texas Hold’em.

Before that, limit hold’em was the name of the game.

I started my poker career grinding it out in limit games just like many other of today’s big name professional players.

Few of us had any experience playing in no limit games.

These days, however, most people learn to play hold’em by starting with no limit. Now, don’t get me wrong, that’s not necessarily bad. But I do believe it’s better for beginners to learn the game by playing limit poker, or at least by playing both variations of the game.

One reason is that limit hold’em is a much faster game.

In limit hold’em, you’ll rarely see a five minute delay before a player decides to make a big call on the river. In that respect, beginners will play a lot more hands, thereby gaining valuable experience much faster.

Here are a few other reasons why I think it’s so important to learn how to play limit hold’em.

You’ll learn to play with more aggression, both before and after the flop. In limit hold’em, acting aggressively in marginal situations isn’t nearly as dangerous as it is in no limit where you can risk all of your chips on any given hand. All great poker players understand the importance of playing aggressively. Limit hold’em teaches you to do just that. At the same time, the game’s structured betting protects your bankroll from monster swings.

You’ll also get to play more flops in limit hold’em. In no limit hold’em, when another player makes a pre-flop raise, it will often be so large that it will force you to fold your hand. That doesn’t happen in the limit game, so you’ll see more flops and gain more valuable experience. You’ll learn how to play a variety of hands based on position, flop texture, and your ability to get reads on your opponents.

Most importantly, you’ll learn to read your opponents’ betting patterns by playing limit hold’em. In the no limit game, creative betting is often rewarded. That’s not always the case in limit hold’em where a skilled player’s bets generally have a clear purpose.

Focusing on your opponent’s betting pattern can often reveal

critical information about their hand.

Here’s an example.

You’re playing $10-$20 limit hold’em and raise in early position with AJ. The player on your immediate left reraises to $30 and you call. The flop comes As-9c-2h.

You check to the raiser. He bets, you check-raise, and he calls. The turn card is the 7d.

Now, let’s assume that you know your opponent is a tight player. His initial reraise from early position suggests he probably has a pocket pair, or a hand like A-K or A-Q. Go ahead and bet the turn hoping that your opponent has a hand like pocket kings.

Warning: If he raises, be prepared to fold!

Despite the fact that you have a powerful hand, when this type of player raises on the turn, he’s probably holding pocket

aces, A-K or A-Q. If so, you’ll need to catch a miracle jack on the river to win the pot.

Well, that’s a pretty simplistic example of how to read an opponent’s hand. But the key point is that you’ll have plenty of opportunity to practice this skill in limit hold’em.

And when you do master that skill, you’ll be a much stronger player in no limit hold’em, seven card stud, Omaha, or whatever game you choose to play.  Visit www.cardsharkmedia. com/book.html for information about Daniel Negreanu’s new book, Hold’em Wisdom for All Players. © 2008 Card Shark Media. All rights reserved.

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July 17 - 23, 2008

Page 33

Level: 1 3

2 4

SOLUTION TO LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE

7/20/08

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

ACROSS 1. Lord of poetry 6. Pushover 10. Actress Grier 13. Anchor man?

15. WWII general Bradley 16. ____ carte 17. 1971 Beatty title role 18. Friendly 19. Write 20. Band with the 1983 hit “One Thing Leads to Another” 22. Spiral in space 24. Math subj.

25. Weather Channel topic 28. Eat home cooking 30. Casual denials 34. 2005 Oscar winner for Best Actor 38. White house 39. Bakery lures 40. King Minos, for one 41. ____ 6 42. What most people believe 45. Object of devotion 46. Knock down, as a door 47. Loved by 49. Stately trees 53. Old Navy rival 56. Offerings from Dr. Ruth (or what to find at the ends of 20-, 22-, 34-, 42- and 53Across) 59. ____ Speedwagon 60. Rash reaction?

63. Destiny 64. Contribute 65. 1977 silver screen princess 66. Not poisonous 67. Word after sweetie or cutie 68. Eventful times 69. Speak highly of

Down 1. Cellar, in real estate ads 2. Marina sight 3. Kitchen gadget 4. 11th century Norwegian king 5. “Don’t worry about it” 6. “Man alive!”

7. Britney Spears’ “____ Slave 4 U” 8. Place for doodles 9. Corp. image maker

THE QUIGMANS Buddy Hickerson

1

2

3

4

5

13

6 14

17 20

35

36

10 16

18

19

26

11

12

33

23

27

29

37

30

31

32

50

51

52

38

39

40 42

41

43

44

46

45 47 53

9

22

25 28

8

15

21 24

34

7

54

48

49

55

56

59

60

64

65

67

68

61

62

57

58

63 66 69

© 2008 David Levinson Wilk

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

crossword / By David Levinson Wilk

Across

10. Father

38. Rust 40. Ho ____ Minh 42. Crew implement 12.Actress Umpteen 43. Alphabet trio 10.

Grier 14. T. ____ 44. Pres. Jefferson 13. Anchor man?

21. Prefix with phobia 46. “Family Ties” actress 15. WWII general Bradley 23. Pined (for) Meredith 16. carte foe Luthor 26.____ Superman 48. Banish 27.1971 VetoBeatty title role 50. When some news airs 17.

29.Friendly No ____, ands or buts 51. 1993 Attorney General 18.

31. Palo ____ nominee Wood 19. Write 32. Con 52. It may be cast 20. with the 1983 hit "One Thing Another" 33.Band PlayStation maker 53.Leads Lint to collector 22. in space 34.Spiral “Twister” actress Gertz 54. Lucas knight 35.Math Nickname 55. Style 24. subj. among baseball sluggers 57. Just make, with “out” 25. Weather Channel topic 36. Mr. of mysteries 58. Proof word 28. Eat home cooking 37. Mrs. Marcos of the 61. “The Company” 30.

Casual denials Philippines 62. Owns 1. of poetry 11.Lord What the “A” stands for 6. in Pushover 35-Down

34. 2005 Oscar winner for Best Actor

Last Thursday’s Puzzle Solved

38. White house

H A R P E R

A C O R N S

A M F M

C A R D

T R U E S T O R I E S

H I S O G H S S S U T E R U P P E A G N R O D R O

S O I R E E

E A G L R E V E A T T I R E T A I P E I M C C A I N

E X T E N D S D E A R S I R

T E R D R A R O T O H O R I S E T O

O M O O O N T V

S T Y E O A B D Y

W A R D I N O R M N E Y P J O E F I N N E M E N W I R E E H R E P S N U T R D E R O R N E P I T S E X E S

nick knack

© 2008 N. F. Benton

Page 34

July 17 - 23, 2008

Yard Sales

MORALES LANDSCAPE & LAWN CARE

MOVING SALE Everything must go!

Furniture, photography equipment, computers, monitors, books, music,...Saturday, July 19, 2008 between 9:00am - 5:00pm at 313 N. Lee Street, Falls Church, Va 22046. Rain or Shine

YARD SALE Sat 9-3. Rain Date Sunday.

7324 Allan Ave. Falls Church 22046

For Sale 1997

MERCEDES BENZ C-230 Midnight Blue in Excellent condition, $700 bellow blue book - $5000. Excellent on gas. 83K miles.

571-275-2210

Help Wanted CHILDCARE Fitness First is hiring for our 7-

Corners location. Afternoon/weekend shifts available. Experienced preferred, but will train the right individual. Parent with child welcome to apply.

Please page Barbie at 301-208-3643

COMPUTER TUTOR

Computer Tutor - experience preferred - Tues.and Thur. 8:30AM to 10:30AM - City Falls Church - respond to 703237-1783

DRIVERS: LOCAL CDL-A

Career Training. Swift Transportation Trains and Employs! Dedicated, Regional & OTR Fleets. 800-397-2423

HELP WANTED Sheet Metal Mechanic or experienced helper. Dixie Sheet Metal. 703-533 -1111.

For Rent FURNISHED BEDROOM, living room,

private bath, Kitchen privileges, private entrance, metro bus. Please no pets/smoking. 600/month includes utilities. 703-941-5739

HOUSE FOR RENT FALLS CHURCH CITY Falls Church City Rambler 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, basement. Available September 1, 2008 $2400/month Contact Chris@(703)628-4541

Services ADOPTION Loving childless couple wishing to adopt an infant. Willing to pay legal & medical expenses. Call Brad & Heidi at 1-(877)-217-9873.

CHILD CARE

Experienced childcare provider provides quality care for your infant in F.C. home. (703) 241-0605.

DOLLAR MASSAGE Affordable professional massage service. Licensed /certified. 2304 Gallows Road, 2nd floor, Dunn Loring, VA22027 (By Postal Office) 703-2259051

GIT RID OF IT For Removal of Junk,

Trash, Yard Debris, Appliances, Furniture & Estate clean-ups. Call 703-533-0094. We will beat most competitors prices!

GREAT CLEANING SERVICE Residential and Commercial, affordable rates, great references, excellent job call Maria 703.277.1098/703.626.0665

HANDYMAN SERVICE Windows, doors,

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

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.

HOUSE CLEANING SERVICES. Low rates. Good references. Call Dolores 571/232-1091.

I AM A FILIPINA care giver, mature and

experienced. I am sweet, loving and affectionate.

I am looking for an elderly to take care. Willing to live-in. Call 571-426-8802

LAWN & GARDEN Lawn mowing, yard clean-up, mulching & edging. Low rates. Call Ernesto 703-932-9565

MARYA

HOUSE

CLEANING

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

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

Public Notice ATTENTION!!! DISADVANTAGED BUSINESS ENTERPRISES CLECO CORPORATION DRAWER A RESTON, VA 24280 Will be accepting quotations from DBE/WBE/MBE Subcontractors and suppliers for VDOT call order A96 in Fairfax Co., Virginia. Project No. (NFO)PM09-029354,C501 consisting of bridge deck repair 0.5 M. N. of INT. !-495/I-95. Items include, but are not limited to asphalt, guardrail, concrete, pavement markings, traffic control devices, and epoxy patching. This project will be bidding on July 23, 2008. Any questions should be directed to our office (276)-880-1034 or faxed to (276)-880-3119 OR emailed to whitney@clecocorp.com. Cleco Corporation is an equal opportunity employer.

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING CITY OF FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA The ordinance(s) referenced below was given first reading on May 27, 2008; and second reading and public hearing will be held on Monday, July 28, 2008 at 7:30 p.m., Official Time, or as soon thereafter as may be heard.

(TR8-32) A Resolution to Amend the Comprehensive Plan of the City of Falls Church, Virginia, to change the designation of 1.2 acres of land located at 350 and 370 South Washington Street from “Business” to “Mixed Use” on the City’s Future Land Use Map (T08-11) An Ordinance to Amend Chapter 38 of the Official Zoning Code of the City of Falls Church, Virginia, by amending Section 38-4 (f), Special Exception; 4 (a.) Primary Criteria.

(TR8-33) A Resolution to Grant Special Exception(s) for Residential Development within Mixed Use Projects and for a Residential Height Bonus under Section 384 (f) in a B-2, Central Business district on 1.2 acres of land located at 350 and 370 South Washington Street All public hearings will be held in the Council Chambers, 300 Park Avenue, Falls Church, Virginia. Copies of legislation may be obtained from the City Clerk’s office (703248-5014) or at cityclerk@fallschurchva.gov.

This location is fully accessible to persons with physical disabilities. Special services or assistance to persons with disabilities may be requested in advance. To speak at a public hearing, fill out a speaker slip and give it to the Clerk at the left front table.

Speakers will be called forward by the Mayor at the appropriate time.

KATHLEEN CLARKEN BUSCHOW CITY CLERK PUBLIC AUCTION Notice is hearby given

that the contents of the following rental storage spaces located at Fort Knox Self Storage will be offered for sale.

Unit # 137 Roger Pol Unit # 141 Roger Pol Unit # 233 Rodney Neal Unit # 316 Vincent Lewis Unit # 662-A Christopher Gordon Unit # 768 Anna Rajnic Sale will be held at 2933 Telestar Ct. Falls Church, VA. (703) 698-0022. Thursday July, 24 2008. 1:00 pm. Terms: Cash only. Locks cut at auction

PUBLIC NOTICE The Board of Zoning Appeals of the City of Falls Church, Virginia, will hold a public hearing on July 17, 2008 at 7:30 p.m., in the Council Chambers, 300 Park Avenue, Falls Church, Virginia, for the consideration of the following Appeal: A1487-08 by Lilian J. Gemond, John L. Melnick, Laurence J. Tracy and Susan V. Tracy who state they are aggrieved by several determinations made as part of a rezoning and special exception application at 706 W. Broad Street and that these determinations were made by the Zoning Administrator and that these determinations are erroneous, and who now appeal these determinations to the Board of Zoning Appeals, said parcels identified on the Falls Church Real Property Identification Map as Lots 3 and 4 of Block C of the Sherwood subdivision zoned B-1 Limited Business; Lots 14, 15 and 17 of Block A of the Woodland subdivision zoned T-1 Transitional and Lot 16 of the Woodland subdivision zoned T-1 Transitional; said determinations being: 1. The Application for rezoning and special exception is not complete and thus not properly reviewable.

2. Sec. 38-30(f)(12) of the City Code allows only for a waiver of Sec. 38-30(f)(1)-(11) requirements, and may not be cited as a waiver for other Sec. 38-30 requirements.

3. Sec. 38-28(a) setback requirements are applicable.

4. Sec. 38-30(e) buffering requirements are applicable.

5. Sec. 38-33 restricts location of the parking component of the contemplated project from within 100 feet of the St. James property.

6. Sec. 38-28(a) restricts B-1 buildings to four (4) stories without a variance from the BZA. 7. The Special Exception provision in the Code does not operate as an overriding waiver of all other Code requirements.

8. Sec. 38-31(d)(2) requires one (1) parking space per 250 square feet, not one (1) parking space per 300 square feet, for the contemplated office building.

Copies of the above file may be reviewed in the Office of the Zoning Administrator, City Hall, 300 Park Avenue, Falls Church, VA 22046.

Request For Proposals (RFP) Hobby Classes RFP NO. 071108-HC City Of Falls Church, Virginia The City of Falls Church is now accepting proposals for hobby classes to serve community residents through its Recreation and Parks Department. The City of Falls Church Recreation and Parks Department offers year round classes three times a year. Winter/Spring is January through May. Summer is June through August. Fall is September through December. Start dates for each quarter varies.

All proposals must meet the requirements in the RFP document which can be downloaded from the City of Falls Church’s website: www.fallschurchva.gov; Purchasing and Procurement link.

Sealed proposals for RFP NO. 0711-08-HC will be accepted until: 3:00 PM local time, July 21, 2008.

For information regarding this RFP contact: Faye Smith, Purchasing Manager; (703) 248-5007; fsmith@fallschurchva.gov The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act. To request a reasonable accommodation for any type of disability call 703 248-5007, (TTY 711).

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

July 17 - 23, 2008

Page 35

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Page 36

July 17 - 23, 2008

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

Vice Mayor Harold Lippman. . . . . . . . . . .

City Council Nader Baroukh. . . . . . . . . . . .

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

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

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

Lawrence Webb . . . . . . . . . . .

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

Home Page <www.fallschurchva.gov> * Indicates TTY 711 Accessibility

july 17 Story Hour, 10:30 a.m.

Concerts in the Park, 7 p.m.

Board of Zoning Appeals, 7:30 p.m.

19 Farmers Market, 8 a.m.-Noon 21 City Meals Tax Due

(Commissioner of the Revenue)

Yard Waste, Bundled Brush, & Special Collections

Story Hour, 10:30 a.m.

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

Planning Commission, 7:45 p.m.

Story Hour, 10:30 a.m.

23 General District Court in Session

Story Hour, 7 p.m.

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

Story Hour, 10:30 a.m.

Concerts in the Park, 7 p.m.

provided as a public service by the city of falls church

Questions or Comments? City of Falls Church, Harry E.Wells Building, 300 Park Avenue, Falls Church,VA 22046 703-248-5003 (TTY 711) The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act.This document will be made available in alternate format upon request. Call 703-248-5003 (TTY 711).

city calendar

22 Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court in Session

The Week

703-534-8644 703-237-9089 703-992-9433 703-731-8433 703-241-0419 703-538-5986 703-532-1043 703-248-5004*

Historic Architectural Review Board, 7:30 p.m.

26 Farmers Market, 8 a.m.-Noon

Tune In To 1680 AM

In the event of an emergency or power outage, tune to 1680 AM Radio for official City of Falls Church announcements regarding impending emergencies, City operations and responses, and recommended action. Purchase a battery-powered radio today and tune to 1680 AM – your trusted source for emergency information.

Recreation & Parks Online Registration Coming Soon!

The Falls Church Recreation & Parks Division is preparing to launch its online registration system. Any household that has signed up for an activity with Recreation & Parks since Jan. 1, 2006, will have an active account in the database. In order to utilize the online system, all households will need to update current household information to include a valid e-mail address and listed birthdates for family members. Call 703-248-5077 (TTY 711) or visit the Community Center (223 Little Falls St.) to update your information or create an account.

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

Register to Receive Emergency Alerts

Growing Green David Jantzen Named 2008 City of Falls Church Environmental Hero The City of Falls Church has named Urban Forestry Crew Leader David Jantzen as the 2008 Environmental Hero of the Year.Each year,the Employee Environmental Task Force selects a City employee who has made a special effort to encourage recycling, waste reduction, energy savings or another form of environmental stewardship in the workplace.This diverse group of City employees, focused on promoting green initiatives at work, unanimously voted Jantzen as this year’s winner.

Jantzen was nominated by a fellow employee for designing a watering system for trees and shrubs that uses rainwater instead of chlorinated tap water.The watering system pumps rainwater from one of the Operations Division’s 4,000-gallon cisterns through a series of underground pipestoa dripirrigation systemina “landscape holding area.” Cisterns are large tanks connected to roof downspouts that capture rainwater from a roof during rain events.

Trees and other landscape plants receive rainwater from the cisterns instead of tap water. In this manner the City saves money and energy while promoting water conservation.Additionally,David implemented a system to collect and utilize wood chips produced during regular landscaping work. Furthermore, Jantzen regularly commits his time and effort to support recycling and waste reduction programs.

The City of Falls Church has many dedicated“green”employees who have implemented innovative and cost effective programs. For example, the Operations Division uses approximately 4,000 gallons of cistern rainwater daily to flush the sanitary sewer lines in order to prevent blockages and keep the lines in good working condition.The Operations Division currently has six 4,000-gallon tanks that provide rainwater for sanitary sewer line flushing and landscape watering,and one 2,000-gallon tank that is used for small jobs such as washing vehicles.In addition to saving money and energy,retaining roof runoff reduces the burden on the stormwater drainage system and ultimately, on our local streams.The total rainwater storage capacity at the Falls Church Property Yard is about 26,000 gallons. The City purchased these cisterns through a Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation Water Quality Improvement Grant During Fiscal Year 2009 (which runs July 1, 2008 through June 30, 3009), the City will comprehensively measure the government’s overall energy use. This will enable the City to track its efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions and operating expenses.

The City also sponsors community green events throughout the year, including Citywide Cleanups, Recycling Extravaganzas, Habitat Restoration events, Tree Planting events, Growing Green Lecture Series, Rain Barrel Workshops, and more. For a full list of events go to www.fallschurchva.gov and click on the“Growing Green” logo.

School Supplies Needed

FOR THE WEEK of

Concerts in the Park Thursdays Through Aug. 7 Enjoy the best of summer at the free 16th Annual Concerts in the Park series. Bring a blanket and a picnic and enjoy performances by local musicians.

The series is sponsored by the City of Falls Church Recreation & Parks Division and the Village Preservation and Improvement Society, with support from the Friends of Cherry Hill Foundation.

Each concert also features local artists and their artwork, sponsored

by Falls Church Arts.

All concerts are free to the public and are held at Cherry Hill Park (312 Park Ave.). In the event of rain, concerts will be held in the Falls Church Community Center located next to the park at 223 Little Falls St. 2008 LINEUP: July 17 Skyline (a capella) Artist: Mary Exline (Paintings) July 24

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

July 31

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

Aug. 7

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

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

City Center South Update

Atlantic Realty, the developer of City Center South, has submitted a site plan for the project.The Planning Commission will review the plan in a work session later this summer.

The City Center South proposal is approximately one million square feet of mixed-use development within a 8.77acre area bounded to the north byWest Broad Street (220 block), to the south by Gibson Street, to the west by Big Chimneys Park, and to the east by South Washington Street.

Learn more about City Center South at www.fallschurchva.gov.

Don’t Get Caught Off Guard This Summer— Sign Up For Alert Falls Church Get real-time updates and instructions on what to do and where to go during an emergency in Falls Church City, by registering for Falls Church Alert.

You will receive alerts from the City via portable electronic devices and email, only in the event of an emergency. Sign up for this free service at alert.fallschurchva.gov. You can also visit alert.fallschurchva.gov to update your profile, and add or delete devices from the emergency distribution list.

The Falls Church City Housing and Human Services Division (HHS) is sponsoring a Fall for Fun celebration at Berman Park (located on Ellison Street) that will include fun activities and information on community resources for all residents.

HHS is seeking donations of school supplies to be distributed at the event on Friday, Aug. 8, 2008. The collected supplies will be given to disadvantaged children of the community.

School supplies such as notebooks, gift cards, crayons, pens, pencils, erasers, highlighters, rulers, paper and glue are needed by Friday, Aug. 1 and can be brought to: Housing and Human Services Division 300 Park Avenue, Rm. 100 West Thanks to donations from the community, these Falls Church, VA 22046 children were equipped with the right supplies before the start of the 2007-2008 school year.

For additional information, please call HHS at 703-248-5005 (TTY 711).

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

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

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

July 17 - 23, 2008

Page 37

ly Focus

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

Vice Chairman: Susan Kearney . . . . . . . . . . .

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

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

Charlotte Hyland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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

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

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

government and the falls church city public schools

july 17-23, 2008

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

703-534-4951 703-532-0321 703-536-8638 703-536-7564 703-237-6993 703-536-3130 703-533-1248 703-248-5601*

* Indicates TTY 711 Accessibility

Beware of Bats

Metro Offers New Senior SmarTrip® Card

You’re not the only one enjoying these warm summer nights. Bats can be an active presence during the summer.

Metro is making it easier for senior citizens age 65 and older to get their discount when riding Metrobus and Metrorail with the new senior SmarTrip® card.

Residents who encounter a bat in their home should never touch or remove the bat. Animal Control should be notified immediately to evaluate the situation and capture the animal. Bats are considered high-risk rabies vectors and by order of the state health department, any bat, alive or dead, found in the living space of a residence should be captured and tested for rabies. Animal Control will determine if an actual rabies exposure has occurred.

If a bat is found in the living quarters near a child, mentally handicapped person, intoxicated person, sleeping person, or pet, the person or pet should receive immediate medical attention for rabies. Bats have very small teeth and can bite a sleeping person without necessarily being felt.

Health officials recommend the following steps to prevent families and pets from exposure to rabies:

• Vaccinate all cats, dogs and ferrets against rabies and keep the vaccination current.

• Avoid contact with wild animals, stray cats, and stray dogs.

• Do not feed wild animals, stray cats, and stray dogs. If you see a raccoon, skunk, fox, or any other wild animal acting as though it may be sick, contact Animal Control or the Police Department immediately.

• Eliminate outdoor food sources around the home.

• Do not let your pet cats or dogs roam freely, especially at night.

• Keep children and pets away from storm drains. Wild animals run through storm drains, so there is always a threat that an animal may be lingering at the entrance.

In the event of a bat encounter, contact the City’s Animal Control Officer immediately at 703-248-5172 (TTY 711).

FCC-TV Spotlight: NASA: Destination Tomorrow Tune in to Falls Church Community Television (FCC-TV) to watch NASA: Destination Tomorrow . This 30-minute program, produced by NASA, focuses on NASA research including new technologies, advanced aerodynamics, past achievements and medical breakthroughs . Each program provides an inside look at NASA and demonstrates how its research and technology relates to our everyday lives .

You can watch NASA: Destination Tomorrow on FCC-TV at the following times: • Tuesdays at 9:00 a .m . and 4:00 p .m . • Thursdays at 5:30 p .m . • Sundays 1:30 p .m .

FCC-TV airs on Cox Channel 12, Verizon Channel 35 and RCN Channel 2 . For a complete schedule of community programs on FCC-TV, visit www.fcctv.net .

BIE Partner of the Week Jeff Peterson

Village Preservation and Improvement Society School involvement: VPIS has supported the schools in numerous ways . It provided grants to the George Mason High School Solar Panel Project and to all Falls Church City schools for outdoor plantings; donated funds to improve school-based recycling efforts; participated in Community Resource Fair; supports Operation Earthwatch .

Why Jeff is a BIE partner: “In Falls Church, VPIS stands for community .

What better way to enhance the community than to reach out to the schools that are so important to our town? We are pleased to be able to partner with teachers and administrators at all of the city schools .”

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

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

Metro will eliminate the senior ID card currently required to purchase a reduced fare SmarTrip ® card. Seniors will be able to purchase the senior SmarTrip® card simply by showing a valid, government-issued photo ID that includes their date of birth and completing a required registration form at the place of purchase.

Seniors who currently have the senior ID card will be able to continue to use their card until it expires. However, cards will not be renewed or

replaced after they expire. Metro is no longer accepting applications for senior ID cards.

The new senior SmarTrip® card is bright yellow, which makes it easy to identify as a reduced fare SmarTrip® card. Reduced fare is automatically deducted from the card.

Senior SmarTrip® cards are available for purchase at all Metro sales outlets and regional commuter stores. Once customers purchase a senior SmarTrip® card for $5, they can add value to the card at any Metrorail station and on any Metrobus.

Please note: Seniors who currently use a reduced fare SmarTrip® card should not purchase a new senior SmarTrip® card unless their card is lost, stolen or damaged.

For more information about using SmarTrip®, please visit www.wmata.com/riding/smartrip.cfm or call the SmarTrip® Office at 1-888-762-7874 between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Falls church city Police Department conducts citizen Survey The Falls Church City Police Department is conducting a citizen survey to evaluate public attitudes and opinions pertaining to the level of law enforcement services provided. This is part of the Department’s ongoing commitment to provide the highest level of public safety services to the community.

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

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

FCCPS Summer Enrichment Camp a Success Summer camp led to show time for 30 middle school students who participated in the first annual FCCPS Summer Enrichment Camp. The students had the opportunity to explore the artistic and dramatic skills associated with a successful theater production and to learn the basics of digital storytelling.

available multimedia tools to tell fiction and nonfiction stories. The camp, taught by Brett Sparrgrove included graphics, audio, video, animation and Web publishing to compose a story board, publish a narrative, and produce a final video.

The summer enrichment program was such a success this year, organizers plan to offer more creative opportunities next summer.

Teachers Jed Frei and Briana Platt showed students how to manage all of the elements necessary to stage an original production. From plaster masks to costumes to scripts, the students and their teachers crafted a tremendous show. Students participating in the digital storytelling camp learned how to Students work on multimedia digital storytelling projects duruse a variety of ing this year’s FCCPS Summer Enrichment Camp.

SCHOOL CALENDAR DATES ARE SubjEcT To chAngE July now –

Aug. 1 Summer School August 7 6:00 p.m. School Board Work Session (MEH) 12 7:30 p.m. School Board Regular Meeting (City Hall) (MD) Mt. Daniel Elementary (TJ) Thomas Jefferson Elementary (MEH) Mary Ellen Henderson Middle (GM) George Mason High Check the FCCPS Web site for more calendar information. www.fccps.org

Save the Date

3rd Annual Run for the Schools to benefit the Falls Church Education Foundation Sunday, September 28th – 8:00 a.m.

Register today: www.fcedf.org

July 17 - 23, 2008

Page 38

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

15 s Yearo Ag

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

15 & 10 YEARS AGO Falls Church News-Press Vol III, No. 18 • July 22, 1993

‘Falls Church Site Reported One of 6 Finalists For Grad Center - List Narrowed Down From 40 Original Bids” “Although city and school officials are maintaining official silence about the news that the West Falls Church site is one of six on the short list of applicants for the proposed UVa/Va Tech graduate center, all indications are that Falls Church has survived the first round of cuts. According to ...”

Bob Herbert Continued from Page 10

are dancing mindlessly to the music of another Gilded Age. In the real world, somewhere outside of Phil Gramm's field of vision, increasing numbers of Americans are working two and three jobs to make ends meet; struggling families are worried sick in July about what it will cost to heat their homes in January; food costs and home foreclosures are soaring; the job market has tanked; and the stock markets are running with the bears.

In that kind of atmosphere, it's beyond obscene to have to listen to some platinum-cardcarrying fat cat tell us, in a tone dripping with condescension: "You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession."

What does it say about John McCain's judgment that this guy was one of his top -and possibly his pre-eminent - economic adviser? What does it say about McCain's judgment that in 1996, he believed Phil Gramm was the best choice to be president?

The biggest failing of both parties in this presidential campaign has been the unwillingness to be forthright with

IN THE

NEWS-P PREESS

Falls Church News-Press Vol VIII, No. 19 • July 23, 1998

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

CRITTER CORNER 10 Year s Ago

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

‘Council Hopes to OK Terms For New Fire Station Deal’ “A resolution to authorize the City Manager to close the deal to buy land and construct a new fire station is expected to come before the Falls Church City Council at its meeting this Monday night. The Council agreed at a work session last Monday that it would put the terms of the agreement for the proposed deal in the form of a resolution, rather than an ordinance...”

the public about the true extent of the crises facing the country. The federal government and ordinary Americans are up to their eyeballs in debt. Much of the financial sector is in deep trouble, with previously blue-chip companies wobbling along on legs as rubbery as a bad check.

Perpetual war in Iraq and oil prices spiking toward the moon are adding to a sense of national paralysis. Where is the money to invest in ventures that will create good new jobs, that will chart new directions in energy self-sufficiency, that will revitalize the public schools, rebuild the nation's infrastructure, put New Orleans back on its feet?

Where are the grand ideas, the ideas worthy of a great nation?

Barack Obama got a lot of play with his clever response to the Phil Gramm madness. "You know, America already has one Dr. Phil," said Obama. "When it comes to the economy, we don't need another."

Cute. But woefully inadequate. The Democrats, timid as always, should be pounding the populist pavement from one coast to another, explaining how the reckless and deliberately inequitable policies of the past several years have gotten the U.S.

into this terrible fix.

We should be getting chapter and verse about how badly the war in Iraq is hurting us here at home. We should be seeing charts and graphs explaining how ordinary Americans, now the hardest-working people on the planet, have been cheated out of their share of the extraordinary productivity improvements they've racked up over the years.

There should be a sense of urgency coming from the Democrats in this campaign, a clarion call compelling enough to rally the legions who have been treated unfairly and badly hurt in the nation's other undeclared war: the class war.

Phil Gramm was a general in that conflict, and there was nothing cute about it.

THIS LITTLE CRITTER sitting in front thinks she is the boss.

She just had to get into the photograph when mom came around with the camera. Her name is Xochitl (pronounced “SoChee”) and I’m Toby. Even though I could sit on all 11 pounds of her and not even notice, she still tries to order me around.

When I want to sleep she gets all crazy and runs around like a mad woman. It makes me wonder how she would like a 120 pound lap dog, if you know what I mean. Honestly, she’s not that bad and it’s fun when we go to the park and play. Our favorite game is “tug-o-war” when we’re at home. I always let Xochitl win, because I know that she will go off to brag about beating the big lab in the house and leave me alone in peace!

If you would like to see your pet here, e-mail us at crittercorner@fcnp.com or send a picture and short description to Falls Church News-Press c/o Critter Corner, 450 W. Broad St., Suite 321, Falls Church, VA 22046.

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Three in Falls Church Open Sunday 1-4

Lge brick TH a 9 minute walk to WFC Metro! Immaculate, sunny charmer has a spacious open floor plan, updated kitchen, and family room w/SGD to private brick-walled patio backing to treed area.

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