Falls Church News Press August 7

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August 7 - 13, 2008

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Coming to the decisive vote by the Falls Church City Council this Monday, we continue to firmly support the admittedly-somewhatunwieldy “City Center South Apartments” affordable housing plan of the Falls Church Housing Corporation (FCHC). There is a crying need for affordable housing in this immediate area, where a rollback in housing values is not expected to be severe and, as a result, the bulk of new jobs will require affordable options for its workforce.

This is compounded by the fact that existing housing stock considered affordable is rapidly disappearing in Falls Church, due to renovations, upgrades and, in some cases, demolition of older properties.

As this past Monday’s long and complicated discussion at a work session of the Council demonstrated, there are many “moving parts” to the proposal that had some at the meeting clearly distressed. Council member David Snyder and Planning Commission Vice Chair John D. Lawrence submitted letters to the editor to the News-Press articulating their concerns (see elsewhere, this edition).

We, too, have ours. For us, concerns are two-fold.

The first involves providing a $2 million interest-free loan transferred from the City through the FCHC to a private developer who has agreed to participate in the project by constructing a new building that will include structured parking. The loan will enable the developer, Thomas Sawner, to purchase and renovate two adjacent buildings, which will bring new tax revenues to the City. But the loan for up to one year is interest-free, and the City will absorb its carrying cost of about $100,000. It is also conceded by FCHC officials that the net impact of this element of the plan on the parking available to the City Center South Apartments will remain at 137, allowing only for more flexibility and less shared-parking arrangements.

Our second concern involves “phase two” of the plan, which would come after the 174 units are completed in the new apartment building at 360 S. Washington St. Eighty-three senior citizens currently residing in FCHC-owned apartments in the Winter Hill development would be encouraged to move into the new building, enabling the FCHC to renovate the Winter Hill units and sell them at affordable rates to first-time home buyers. The FCHC needs the revenues from these sales to cover $5 million of the cost of the City Center South Apartments construction, while the market value of the improved four acres of FCHC-owned Winter Hill property is indicated at $12 million. The FCHC says it won’t sell, but do the renovations, itself. Still, there are no binding commitments on the Winter Hill part of the plan.

These concerns do not justify killing the plan, or delaying it, which would be tantamount to killing it. We support it strongly, but do hope more clarity on these matters can be provided prior to Monday’s vote.

Editor, The end doesn’t justify the means. That’s true in life and it is especially true in government. Yet, violating that important teaching is exactly what is about to happen with regard to the Falls Church Housing Corporation’s (FCHC’s) proposal to build 170 publicly subsidized dwelling units, using more than $20 million in public subsidies, over the life of the project. It is set for final approval on August 11.

While we all support reasonable and effective affordable housing measures, the people have a right to have meaningful

input in our decisions, even for something as positive as affordable housing. Yet, our citizens are being effectively denied that right with respect to the final version of one of the largest City projects in recent memory.

This FCHC subsidized housing project has been a moving target, extremely difficult for the citizens to track and comment effectively on. Some of that movement has occurred as recently as the August 4th work session. New information was disclosed, including that complicated new documents regarding another piece of property to be added to the project using

public funds and that FCHC will maintain $7 million in equity, even though they are asking for a $6 million up front subsidy (composed of taxpayer dollars and developer “community benefits”) and an on-going public subsidy of $1 million annually for at least 15 years.

The new property is being treated factually as part of the project but kept technically separate from it, thereby avoiding formal Planning Commission and citizen review as part of an amended Special Exception. And nowhere is there a financing package for voters to see to determine whether the project should move forward on a cost/benefit basis.

It also came out on August 4th that existing FCHC tenants, long time residents of the City, will be forced to move into the high-rise or lose their existing homes, which raises many issues of fairness and inconsistency with widely accepted housing

policies. Yet even as the project displaces current citizens, many future beneficiaries are of it are not our citizens, though the need for the project is justified on alleged current citizen needs. Whatever the merits of the proposal, the process has not allowed effective community input on the project as set for final approval. The end doesn’t justify the means.

Dave Snyder F.C. City Council

Editor, Next Monday, the Council will vote on the Falls Church Housing Corporation project More Letters on Page 6

August 7 - 13, 2008

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for a year, with the FCHC responsible for the carrying cost of the loan, about $100,000, at the end of the year.

The use of the $2 million will revert back to the FCHC to be used, in addition to $4.5 million promised from Atlantic Realty as an affordable housing proffer for last spring’s approval of its $317million City Center project, to build the City Center South Apartments.

The final phase of the complex process would involve the transfer of 83 senior citizens currently living in FCHC-owned housing in the Winter Hill area into the new apartment building.

The units they’re currently in would then be renovated by the FCHC and sold as affordable homes to first-time home buyers.

With the value of the renovated homes on four non-con-

August 7 - 13, 2008

tiguous acres in Winter Hill put at about $12 million, the FCHC would use $5 million as the final financing piece of its Center Center South Apartment construction.

Part of the remainder would go to maintaining a long-term loan from the City, which according to the FCHC Executive Director Carol Jackson is a necessary component of qualifying the project for tax credits from the Virginia Housing Development Authority (VHDA) next spring.

The unusual timing of the Council’s vote this Monday (the Council usually does not make major policy decisions during August, when many citizens are away on vacations) is driven by the requirements of applying for the VHDA credits, which are worth between $12 and $16 million to the FCHC for its $35 million development project.

The FCHC needs enough time to complete the applica-

tion process by Jan. 1, Jackson has explained. She said that, in hopes of winning Council approval this Monday, she went ahead in the spring to commission the on-going work of the design architects, because of the time required to be ready.

At last Monday’s Council work session, FCHC Board chair Dr. Steve Rogers noted the acute need for new affordable housing in Falls Church.

He said that since 1995, while only 16 new units of affordable housing have been added, 200 were lost since 2002, and another 500 will be lost in the next few years.

The new project would provide housing for employees at the new retail businesses in the City Center Project, and would include persons mostly earning between 30 and 60 percent of the regional median annual income.

They would pay up to 30 percent of their salaries for rent, with the remainder to be

What vacation ?

9%

Yes 27%

No 64%

subsidized by federal Housing and Urban Development programs.

Mary Hickey, who is now the FCHC’s project manager at Winter Hill, said that moving seniors there into a new apartment building would improve their quality of life substantially.

The Council’s reaction at

the work session was mixed.

With Vice Mayor Hal Lippman absent, Mayor Robin Gardner, Councilmen Dan Maller and Dan Sze spoke in favor, and Councilmen David Snyder and Nader Barkouh had major concerns. Councilman Lawrence Webb said he was “not comfortable with this yet.”

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August 7 - 13, 2008

The area is critical to Obama’s chances for bringing Virginia into the Democratic column for president for the first time since 1964.

In three close statewide elections this decade, overwhelmingly lopsided Democratic margins in the area and others in eastern Fairfax County were decisive for the victories of Gov. Mark Warner in 2001, Gov. Tim Kaine in 2005 and Sen. Jim Webb in 2006.

Democratic officials contacted by the News-Press could not recall the last time a Democratic presidential nominee opened a campaign office in Northern Virginia, much less a total of 32 statewide.

Last year, the Obama campaign opened an office in the City of Falls Church that became the Northern Virginia center for his efforts to win the Democratic primary.

In 2003, when he was seeking the Democratic nomination

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for president, Gov. Howard Dean opened a campaign office in the City of Falls Church, which became a nest of relentless activity.

In August 2003, with his campaign hitting a fever pitch, Dean held a rally in Falls Church’s Cherry Hill Park that drew over 5,000 young, energetic and idealistic supporters. A lot of those same people are now active in the Obama campaign here.

Coll reported that the best entry to the 350 S. Washington St. building is off Maple Avenue.

It is expected that many volunteers from the neighborhoods immediately around the location, including those of high school age, may simply show up at the office.

“There is no doubt that this is going to help our retailers in downtown Falls Church,” Falls Church Chamber of Commerce executive director Sally Cole said in comments to the News-Press yesterday.

“We expect hundreds of vol-

unteers from all over the region to discover the dining and retail options in Falls Church, and even if they’re too busy to utilize them a lot during the campaign, they will become familiar with them and return here often in the future,” she said.

The Obama campaign has a total of seven staff members working in Fairfax County, each responsible for a given region of the million-population county.

The overall regional director is Luke McGowan, while Victoria Brenton is in charge of the Springfield area, Cindy Fethian in Braddock, Famid Sinha in Sully and Fairfax City, Mike Lamb in Lee and Mt. Vernon, Aveek Majumdar in Hunter Mill and Drainsville, and Lierman in Mason, Providence and Falls Church.

The campaign of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain has so far announced the opening of two offices in Virginia, one in Virginia Beach and another in Roanoke.

Larceny from Building, 100 blk. E Fairfax St., July 29, between 1:00 p.m. and 5:04 p.m., unknown person(s) stole $100.00 from a purse.

Larceny from Building, 500 blk.

Roosevelt Blvd., between June 5 and June 7, unknown person(s) stole (1) quarter carrot diamond and gold earring $500.00, (1) heirloom pair pearl earrings set in gold $500.00, (1) pair gold “c” shaped earrings about an 1/8 of an inch wide $300.00, (1) silver ring with garnet stone, size 7 $30.00, (1) set pair of earrings, bracelet, necklace Blue/green and clear drop down rectangular necklace has one piece about 2 inches long and an inch wide; set is on silver, modern looking $40.00, (1) silver charm bracelet with circular charms; each Charm has a Chinese character on one side and an English word on the other, like “peace, hope…” $30.00, (1) small pearl earring set in gold $20.00, (1) small coral and silver earring $20.00, (1) gold stud earring $15.00, (3) pair of stud earrings; in pink, green, blue $15.00, (1) pair silver with blue stone earrings, butterflies dangling from stud stone $15.00, (1) pair green glass drop earrings $25.00, (1) pair silver posts, flower with small blue stone $20.00.

Destruction of Property, Clare and Don’s Beach Shack, 130 N Washington St., July 30, 10:40 p.m., police arrested male, 56, of Vienna, VA for DIP and Destruction of Property.

Destruction of Property, 100 blk.

Chanel Terrace, July 28, between 12:00 a.m. and 12:04 p.m., unknown person(s) keyed the driver and passenger side of a vehicle.

Larceny from Vehicle, 300 blk. Riley St., between July 31 and August 1, unknown person(s) entered an unsecured vehicle and stole a GPS. Larceny from Vehicle, 500 blk. N West St., between July 31 and August 1, unknown person(s) entered a secured vehicle and stole a GPS and $5.00 cash.

Larceny from Vehicle, 600 blk.

Langston Lane, between July 31, 4:30 p.m. and August 1, 1:34 p.m., unknown person(s) entered an unsecured vehicle and stole a pair of sunglasses.

Larceny from Vehicle, 300 blk. Rollins St., between July 27 and August 1, unknown person(s) entered an unsecured vehicle and stole a Dell D800 laptop.

Drug/Narcotic Violation, 900 blk. W Broad St., August 1, 11:01 p.m., police arrested a male, 30, of Falls Church, VA for Possession of Cocaine.

Drug/Narcotic Violation, 900 blk. W Broad St., August 1, 11:01 p.m., police arrested a male, 26, of Fairfax, VA for Possession with the Intent to Distribute Cocaine, Possession of Marijuana, Resisting Arrest and Possession of False ID. Larceny from Vehicle, 500 blk. N West St., between July 31 and August 2, unknown person(s) entered an unsecured vehicle and stole a Garmin GPS. Drunkenness, 200 blk. S Washington St., August 2, 9:33 p.m., police arrested a male, 45, of Fairfax, VA for DIP. Urinating in Public, 900 blk. W Broad St., August 2, 11:42 p.m., police arrested a male, 22, of Falls Church, VA for Urinating in Public.

Driving under the Influence, 100 blk.

Hillwood Ave., August 3, 6:49 p.m., police arrested a male, 50, of Falls Church, VA for DUI.

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will vote on the Falls Church Housing Corporation project with major issues still unresolved and most of the Planning Commission concerns unaddressed and they are not small.

ARC $: Atlantic Realty pledged $4.2 million to the FCHC project if the City chose cash over ADUs by September 30. However, if the City chooses cash and then FCHC can’t get financing, what happens?

When asked, the City Attorney said it was fair to assume that the City could get the units. I find any discussion of $4.2 million that starts with “it’s fair to assume” to be unbelievable. We have no written commitment as to what happens to that money (our money) after 30 September.

A senior City official this week said that “Atlantic doesn’t want to do a letter” and that he’s comfortable with that. I’m extremely uncomfortable with that.

Parking: The Planning Commission said to fix the parking deficit and do not “leave it to site plan.” We now have a new parking proposal, which, instead of fixing a seriously

August 7 - 13, 2008

under-parked project keeps the same number of spaces as before. We have a solution that solves nothing.

Winter Hill: We asked that the City get a written commitment to keep Winter Hill (WH) affordable housing. We still have nothing, and FCHC can sell it to a developer as they have admitted several times. One observer at this week’s session noted that, in effect, the City’s money will subsidize whatever developer eventually buys the WH land, whether or not we get any ADUs in there. Good point.

Is that what our money is for?

WH Equity: And finally, we learned this week that FCHC has $12m in WH equity, but they’re only using $5m for this project. They’re asking the City to use almost 100% of its CIP money for affordable housing, while putting up about 40% of their own WH equity.

John D. Lawrence, Vice Chair F.C. Planning Commission

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F.C. Council Postpones Akridge Vote Plans to cast a preliminary “first reading” vote this Monday on the Akridge Company’s mixed use project on N. Washington St. were altered this week, with the Falls Church City Council putting it off until its following meeting on Sept.

8. A lengthy discussion at the F.C. Council’s work session indicated that a number of outstanding issues warranted the postponement, especially since resistance to the current plan by neighbors to the site on E. Jefferson St. and Gresham Place has stiffened. The project, known as The Gateway, which has been in preliminary phases for three years, has been downsized by two stories on two of its three buildings.

But a Gresham spokesman said while they’re not against the project, there are still issues; ingress and egress to their homes, opposition to a loading dock in front of them, and of the plans for a row of four-story townhouses at the back of the project.

“We’d rather they put two stories back onto the buildings they lowered than have those townhouses,” one homeowner told the News-Press. Akridge spokesmen also reiterated that they’ll not be able to decide for some time yet whether the 150 residential units it intends to build will be rented out or sold.

Fairfax Sups Want Investigation of F.C. Water Rates The rate structures used by the City of Falls Church Water System and the Town of Vienna Water System came under fire from two Fairfax County supervisors last week, and they’re now calling for an investigation by the Fairfax County Consumer Protection Commission. Providence District Supervisor Linda Smyth and Hunter Mill Supervisor Cathy Hudgins called for the inquiry in response to alleged differences in the rates charged Fairfax residents serviced by the F.C. and Vienna systems, compared to what Fairfax County’s water system charges.

According to sources, this issue arose after Vienna shifted from taking water and services from Fairfax in favor of open competition, and Falls Church’s system won.

Meanwhile, litigation involving the Fairfax and Falls Church water systems continues.

Report: Restaurant Leases at New Building An upscale, new Italian restaurant with the working name of Pizzeria Orzo has just been signed to a lease for the ground floor of the new Tax Analysts building adjacent to the new Pearson Square rental building on S. Maple Ave., according to the local blog, Blueweeds. The restaurant, scheduled for opening in early 2009, will be near the arts and theatre space proffered to the City of Falls Church by the original builders of Pearson Square,. The space is now being designed by architects retained by Falls Church Arts and Creative Cauldron to bring an array of small theatre and arts options to the City.

Argia’s in D.C. ‘Restaurant Week’ Aug. 11-17 Argia’s Restaurant at 124 N. Washington St. (near the State Theatre) is the only Falls Church restaurant participating in the 13th annual “Restaurant Week” organized by the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington. Over 200 of the finest area restaurants offer three-course fixed-price dinner meals for $35.08, with a la carte items also available. Some restaurants (not Argia’s) also offer lunch at $20.08.

Fairfax Co. Seminar on Foreclosures Aug. 20 The Fairfax County government will offer a free seminar on the ins-and-outs of homeowner and renter foreclosures at a brown-bag lunch presentation Wednesday, Aug. 20, at Room 120C of the County Government Center, 12000 Government Center Parkway, Fairfax, from noon to 1 p.m. Due to limited seating, advance registration is encouraged by calling (703) 246-5086.

Vanderhye Named ‘Environmental Hero’ McLean-area State Del. Margi Vanderhye, a first-term Democrat, has been named a “Legislative Hero” by the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, earning a score of 100 percent in its annual Legislative Conservation Scorecard. A total of 40 legislators were commended with 100% scores.

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There’s good news and bad news about the war in Iraq as it reaches a critical turning point with the end of the so-called military surge that brought an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq 18 months ago, and as the war becomes a key issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.

The good news is that after more than five years of conflict that cost the lives of more than 4,100 American soldiers and Marines, and nearly three quarters of a trillion dollars, there are tangible signs of progress as attacks on U.S. troops have dropped sharply, Iraqi security forces have grown in size and capability and U.S. military commanders reduce the length of combat tours from 15 to 12 months and prepare for the likelihood of further reductions among the 140,000 American troops in Iraq.

The bad news is that the sectarian violence between Iraq’s majority Shiite population and the minority Sunnis and Kurds continues to plague the California-sized country despite an overall drop in violence, as witnessed by deadly suicide bombings against Kurds in the northern city of Kirkuk and Shiites pilgrims in Baghdad last week that made it one of the worst days of violence in recent months.

In addition, pressure to shift U.S. troops from Iraq to battle the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iran’s continuing support for Islamic militant forces in Iraq and new attacks by Turkey against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq have added further uncertainty to the complex calculus of the war in Iraq.

Those are my conclusions

after I accompanied Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey on an unannounced four-day whirlwind visit to Iraq last week — my second trip to Iraq since 2005 — during which he met with U.S. troops and their commanders in Baghdad at a halfdozen bases in northern Iraq, and with two top Iraq army officers.

Casey, who commanded multinational forces in Iraq for three years before returning to the Pentagon in April 2007, was told in briefings that I sat in on that attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces are sharply down in recent months and that the surge has provided badly needed breathing room for the Iraqi government and security forces in their fight against insurgents and Al Qaeda forces.

But he also was reminded that the apparent gains from the surge are fragile and reversible, a point reinforced by the man who succeeded him as the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Patraeus, who is about to take over as chief of U.S. Central Command.

Casey met with Patraeus at Camp Victory, the main U.S. headquarters near the Baghdad International Airport, the morning after Patraeus met with soonto-be Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who stopped in Baghdad during his high profile trip to Southeast Asia, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and the U.K. Patraeus declined to comment when I asked him about his meeting with Obama, but it was clear that he told him Iraq still faces many security challenges, as well as political, economic and diplomatic difficulties.

“This has been a very long, hard slog, and there are many, many tough miles still to go,” Petraeus told National Public

Radio’s Debra Amos the same day I saw him. “The reality is that Iraq has been hard, is hard, and will continue to be hard. But it is a country in which there has been very significant progress.”

Regarding the sensitive issue of a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, as Obama has proposed and which Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki indicated he supports but President Bush is resisting, even while he talks about a “general time horizon.” Petraeus said, “In another month or so, we can probably have an assessment that provides us the possibility of further recommendations on reductions. But again, we’ll see how the conditions are at that time.”

Casey did not meet with Obama, and he was careful to avoid commenting on Obama’s call for setting a 16-month dead-

line for ending the U.S. combat role in Iraq while shifting some U.S. troops to battle the resurgent Taliban and alQaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he told me, the only reporter traveling with him. “I’ll read about it when I get home.”

And while Casey was told by every U.S. commander he met with that the level of violence, both against U.S. troops and between Iraqis, has fallen sharply in the last few months, he was also reminded that alQaeda is still a threat and that winning the support of the Iraqi people remains a huge challenge.

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August 7 - 13, 2008

the attacks are caused by unemployed people who are being paid to do something.” Casey also was told that many young people have joined the insurgent forces, and that they are using new and more deadly kinds of weapons.

Casey reported his findings to President Bush after returning on July 23 when the president met with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon to consider future U.S. strategy in Iraq, including the possibility of further troop reductions this fall and shifting some U.S. troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

While in Baghdad, Casey backed up his assertion that the security situation has improved by visiting an open market adjacent to Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood, a sprawling slum that is the home of radical Shiite cleric Mohktar al Sadr and his Mahdi army that only recently announced a cease fire against U.S. troops. Surrounded by armed security guards, he walked a half-dozen blocks through the teeming market without incident as Iraqis looked on. One of his aides later told me, when I pointed out that any of the Iraqis could have been a suicide bomber, he conceded that the visit was “extremely dangerous.”

Many of the men and women soldiers Casey met with expressed concern about the welfare of their families, their pay and benefits, their future in the Army, and whether they would have to serve additional tours of duty in Iraq. When he asked for a show of hands in a mess hall near Tikrit, two-thirds of the soldiers said they were serving their second or third tour of duty.

Casey asserted that while the surge “has been a great success,” it has also stretched the army to the breaking point. “When I took this job, I was hearing a lot in the press that the Army was hollowing out,” he later told me.

“That’s not the case yet, but we certainly are stretched thin, and

it’s going to take us a year or so to recover our flexibility in our personnel system.”

He added, “We’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the type of Army the country needs, and we believe that it’s an Army that has the capability of operating across the whole spectrum of conflict, from major combat operations through irregular warfare. …What I personally am seeing on this visit is how we have learned as an army over the last five years or so in our understanding of irregular warfare.”

Casey, whose father was an Army general killed in Vietnam, met with a group of young men and women soldiers at a combat outpost near the giant Balud Airbase north of Baghdad, and assured them that while the war has fallen off the front pages in the U.S., the American people haven’t forgotten the sacrifices they are making.

“You all may not appreciate this, but the great work that you all have done and the soldiers that came before you has really changed the way the people in the United States look at this mission. You’ve taken it off the front page, and you really have allowed the president to [pursue] his policies, which is very important to sustain our successes. So you really ought to feel good about that. You really have made a critical difference at a critical time in history.”

He added, “There’s huge support for the servicemen and women in the United States military, both in Congress and among the American people,” he said. “And I can’t go anyplace without people coming up and saying thanks to the men and women of the Army for what they’re doing. They recognize that everywhere that I go. People seem to have found the ability to be against the war but not against the men and women of the armed forces, and they very much appreciate what you’re doing for them.”

Noting that he has been an “Army brat” for 60 years – he celebrated his 60th birthday at

a base in Mosul last week – he said, “I have never seen this Army better in the 38 years I have been in it. And we are that way because of our values, because of our warrier ethos, and because of our people. And that’s each and every one of you.

And each and every one of you make this Army a little bit better every day. So good luck to you all, take care of each other, and God bless you.”

When we were in Baghdad, I

tried to contact Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who was traveling with Obama, but was unable to reach him. I wanted to ask him if he still feels as he did when I spent time with him in Iraq in March, 2005. Reed, a West Point graduate and former Army officer in Vietnam, told me at the time that “we’ve got to get it right” in Iraq. “There are things that we’re doing very well and again I say that if we don’t if we take our eye off the ball, we

could find outselves right back where we were six months or a year ago. This place has the annoying habit of every time you turn the corner, there’s another corner. We might be turning the corner, but watch out.”

I would be surprised if he feels any differently.

(Editor’s note: Albert Eisele, a Falls Church resident, is founding editor and editor-at-large of The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress.)

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August 7 - 13, 2008

Why isn’t Barack Obama doing better? Why, after all that has happened, does he have only a slim 2- or 3-point lead over John McCain, according to an average of the recent polls? Why is he basically tied with his opponent when his party is so far ahead?

His age probably has something to do with it.

So does his race. But the polls and focus groups suggest that people aren’t dismissive of Obama or hostile to him. Instead, they’re wary and uncertain.

And the root of it is probably this: Obama has been a sojourner. He opened his book “Dreams From My Father” with a quotation from Chronicles: “For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers.”

There is a sense that because of his unique background and temperament, Obama lives apart.

He put one foot in the institutions he rose through on his journey but never fully engaged. As a result, voters have trouble placing him in his context, understanding the roots and values in which he is ineluctably embedded.

Last week Jodi Kantor of The Times described Obama’s 12 years at the University of Chicago Law School. “The young law professor stood apart in too many ways to count,” Kantor wrote.

He was a popular and charismatic professor, but he rarely took part in faculty conversations or discussions about the future of the institution.

He had a supple grasp of legal ideas, but he never committed those ideas to paper by publishing a piece of scholarship.

He was in the law school, but not of it.

This has been a consistent pattern throughout his odyssey. His childhood was a peripatetic journey through Kansas, Indonesia, Hawaii and beyond. He absorbed things from those diverse places but was not fully of them.

His college years were spent on both coasts.

He was a community organizer for three years but left before he could be truly effective. He became a state legislator, but he was in the Legislature, not of it. He had some accomplishments, but as Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker wrote, he was famously bored by the institution and used it as a stepping stone to higher things.

He was in Trinity United Church of Christ,

but not of it, not sharing the liberation theology that energized Jeremiah Wright Jr. He is in the U.S. Senate, but not of it. He has not had the time nor the inclination to throw himself into Senate mores, or really get to know more than a handful of his colleagues. His Democratic supporters there speak of him fondly, but vaguely.

And so it goes. He is a liberal, but not fully liberal. He has sometimes opposed the Chicago political establishment, but is also part of it. He spoke at a rally against the Iraq war, while distancing himself from many anti-war activists.

This ability to stand apart accounts for his fantastic powers of observation, and his skills as a writer and thinker. It means that people on almost all sides of any issue can see parts of themselves reflected in Obama’s eyes. But it does make him hard to place.

When we’re judging candidates (or friends), we don’t just judge the individuals but the milieus that produced them. We judge them by the connections that exist beyond choice and the ground where they will go home to be laid to rest. Andrew Jackson was a backwoodsman. John Kennedy had his clan. Ronald Reagan was forever associated with the small-town virtues of Dixon and Jimmy Carter with Plains.

It is hard to plant Obama. Both he and his opponent have written coming-of-age tales about their fathers, but they are different in important ways. McCain’s “Faith of My Fathers” is a story of a prodigal son. It is about an immature boy who suffers and discovers his place in the long line of warriors that produced him. Obama’s “Dreams From My Father” is a journey forward, about a man who took the disparate parts of his past and constructed an identity of his own.

If you grew up in the 1950s, you were inclined to regard your identity as something you were born with. If you grew up in the 1970s, you were more likely to regard your identity as something you created.

If Obama is fully a member of any club - and perhaps he isn’t - it is the club of smart post-boomer meritocrats. We now have a cohort of rising leaders, Obama’s age and younger, who climbed quickly through elite schools and now ascend from job to job. They are conscientious and idealistic while also being coldly clever and self-aware. It’s not clear what the rest of America makes of them.

So, cautiously, the country watches. This should be a Democratic wipeout. But voters seem to be slow to trust a sojourner they cannot place.

Sometimes the most logical, most obvious solutions are the most difficult to see.

While the presidential campaign was mired in the egregious and the trivial last week, there was a hearing in Washington that addressed what should be a critical component of the nation’s energy strategy. It got very little attention.

Put aside for a moment all the talk about alternative fuels. They are no doubt important and the wave of the future.

But the fastest, cheapest, easiest and cleanest step toward a sane energy environment – a step available to all of us immediately – is the powerful combination of efficiency and conservation.

That was the message delivered again and again at a hearing of the Joint Economic Committee that carried the title, “Efficiency: The Hidden Secret to Solving Our Energy Crisis.”

Two political leaders who are no longer very fashionable were on to this long ago – former

Gov. Jerry Brown of California (derided as “Gov. Moonbeam”) and former President Jimmy Carter, who presciently said of the energy crisis in 1977: “With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetime.”

It may be hard to believe, but largely because of far-reaching efficiency and conservation measures imposed by Brown’s administration, California is now among the lowest of all the states in the per capita consumption of energy. If you could take automobiles out of the picture, it would have the lowest per capita consumption of any state.

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, noted that California’s extraordinary progress in this area over the past three decades was set in motion during Brown’s tenure when the state established building standards that required greater efficiency with regard to heating and cooling. Utilities were also required to operate more efficiently. And the state, to the extent it legally could, required appliances sold in California to be more efficient.

Continued on Page 38

A year ago, as the outlines of the current financial crisis were just becoming clear, I suggested that this crisis, unlike a superficially similar crisis in 1998, wouldn’t end quickly. It hasn’t.

The good news, I guess, is that we’ve been experiencing a sort of slow-motion meltdown, lacking in dramatic Black Fridays and such. The gradual way the crisis has unfolded has led to an angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin debate among economists about whether what we’re suffering really deserves to be called a recession.

Yet even a slow-mo crisis can do a lot of damage if it goes on for a year and counting. Home prices went down about 16 percent over the past year, and show no sign of stabilizing.

The pain from this bust is widely spread: there are millions of American families who didn’t buy mortgage-backed securities and haven’t lost their houses, but have nonetheless been impoverished by the destruction of much or all of their home equity.

Meanwhile, the job market has deteriorated even more than you’d guess from the jump in the headline unemployment rate. The broadest measure of unemployment, which takes into account the rapidly rising number of workers forced to take cuts in paid hours and wages, has risen from 8.3 percent to 10.3 percent over the past year, roughly matching its high point five years ago.

And there’s no end to the pain in sight.

Ben Bernanke and his colleagues at the Federal Reserve have cut the interest rates they control repeatedly since last September. But they haven’t managed to reduce borrowing costs for the private sector. Mortgage rates are about the same as they were last summer, and the interest rates many corporations have to pay have actually gone up. So Fed policy hasn’t done anything to encourage private investment.

The problem is fear: private-sector finance has dried up because investors, burned by their losses on securities that were supposed to be safe, are now reluctant to buy anything that isn’t guaranteed by the U.S. government. And the proliferation of special rescue packages – the TAF, the TSLF, the Bear Stearns deal, the Fannie-Freddie thing – may have staved off blind panic, but has fallen far short of restoring confidence.

Oh, and those tax rebates Congress and the White House agreed to mail out have already done whatever good they’re going to do. Looking forward, it’s hard to see how consumers can keep spending even at their current rate - which means that things will probably get considerably worse before they get better.

What more can policy do? The Fed has pretty much used up its ammunition: nobody thinks that additional interest-rate cuts would accomplish much (and there’s a faction at the Fed that wants to raise rates to fight inflation).

And nothing much can or should be done to support home prices, which are still much too high in inflation-adjusted terms. Nor can Washington prevent a continuing credit crunch: Overextended, undercapitalized financial institutions have to rein in their lending, and it’s not realistic to expect the public sector to pick up all the slack – especially when quasipublic institutions like Fannie and Freddie are also in trouble.

There is, however, a case for another, more serious fiscal stimulus package, as a way to sustain employment while the markets work off the aftereffects of the housing bubble. The “emergency economic plan” Barack Obama announced last week is a move in the right direction, although I wish it had been bigger and bolder.

Still, Obama is offering more than John McCain, whose economic policy mainly amounts to “stay the course.”

Incidentally, it’s surprising that the lousy economy hasn’t yet had more impact on the campaign. McCain essentially proposes continuing the policies of a president whose approval rating on economics is only 20 percent. So why isn’t Obama further ahead in the polls? One answer may be that Obama, perhaps inhibited by his desire to transcend partisanship (and avoid praising the last Democratic president?), has been surprisingly diffident about attacking the Bush economic record. An illustration: if you go to the official Obama Web site and click on the economic issues page, what you see first isn’t a call for change – what you see is a long quote from the candidate extolling the wonders of the free market, which could just as easily have come from a speech by President Bush.

Anyway, back to the economy. I titled that column about the early stages of the financial crisis “Very Scary Things.” A year later, with the crisis still rolling, it’s clear that I was right to be afraid.

August 7 - 13, 2008

“We’re trying to come to grips with the end of a 20-year secular credit expansion that went parabolic in the last six years,” the chief North American economist for Merrill Lynch said on national TV yesterday.

“The U.S. economy is at the outset of the first consumer recession since the early 1990s, and it’s facing headwinds comparable to the six-quarter recession that pushed the Standard & Poors Index down 40 percent in the 1970s,” David Rosenberg said in a live interview on CNBC. “We’ve gone from housing to credit to employment, and now I think we’re going to start to see some negative consumer spending numbers now that we’re past this fiscal stimulus program,” he went on.

This is all putting it mildly.

If oil prices are falling for the moment due to a slowdown in demand, how can this be a good thing? The decline in demand means that economic activity, overall, is slowing, and that will have a nasty domino effect everywhere.

Late yesterday came the news that the giant, New York-based American International Group (AIG) reported a quarterly loss far greater than expected, hurt again by the write-down of derivatives linked to the tanking mortgage market.

It reported $5.57 billion in second quarter unrealized market valuation losses on credit default swaps, according to a CNBC staff report.

The 18th largest company in the world, with insurance and financial services in 130 countries, AIG’s malaise signals only the tip of the iceberg, like the massive write-down that Merrill Lynch did recently, and resulting in the Merrill economists’ grim outlook.

The development further aggravates and demonstrates the dual debt and credit crises that is catching the national economy, and as a follow-on, the global economy, in a vicious vice. As debt grows, banks tighten access to credit because of what’s happened to AIG and Merrill Lynch for fear of still more defaults.

The squeeze is ravaging individual families and households in the U.S., where efforts to cut spending have come years too late to relieve the burden of debt that has only continued to grow even as incomes flatten, jobs vanish, assets, such as homes or investment portfolios, lose value, and loans become unavailable.

The scariest news often comes not from Wall Street press releases, but from anecdotal reports on the ground in which, for example, a meter maid in the small vacation destination of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware finds that the number of vehicles parked on its streets, and the number of parking tickets being written, are down dramatically this summer. She’s been working there for two decades, and it’s the worst ever.

Rehoboth Beach is predominantly a middle-class, blue collar, moderately-priced and family-oriented place, drawing from working class neighborhoods in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Western Pennsylvania and Ohio.

While better-off families may be able to enjoy one more summer at their familiar destinations, many in middle-class America already can’t afford to go anywhere.

Housing experts are now saying the bottom of the market remains far off, that home prices still have to drop anywhere from 20 to 50 percent. Overall, no one is now predicting a recovery from all of this before 2010, and many say not before 2011.

What’s curious in this context is the lack of scenarios described by anyone so-called expert of exactly how a sustainable rebound will occur. Is it simply that supply and demand reach equilibrium, that enough value evaporates from the whole shebang that, somehow, bargain hunting gradually fuels a recovery?

But if primary natural resources necessary for sustainable growth, such as oil, become scarcer and more expensive in the process, how can that happen?

We may need the kind of New Deal solutions that brought the nation out of the last Great Depression. Government-financed, massive job-creating infrastructure and energy-development programs, combined with a huge across-the-board debt forgiveness, could be the only way out. Far-sighted political leaders should begin to explore what that might look like.

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WASHINGTON – It is a truth universally acknowledged that Barack Obama must continue to grovel to Hillary Clinton’s dead-enders, some of whom mutter darkly that they will not only not vote for him, they will never vote for a man again.

Obama met for an hour on Tuesday with three dozen top Hillaryites at a hotel here, seeking their endorsement and beguiling their begrudging. He opened the session by saying that he knew there had been frustration about what they saw as sexism during the primary.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Hillary die-hards want to enshrine a whine in the Democratic platform about how the primaries “exposed pervasive gender bias in the media” and call on party leaders to take “immediate and public steps” to denounce any perceived bias in the future. That is one nutty idea.

Perhaps it is because feminists are still so busy cataloging past slights to Hillary that they have failed to mount a vivid defense of Michelle Obama, who has taken over from Hillary as the one conservatives like to paint as a harridan.

Before the Obama campaign even had a chance to denounce Ludacris, one of the rappers on the senator’s iPod, Hillary Inc. started to mobilize.

Susie Tompkins Buell, a former Clinton bundler, told The New York Observer that Obama had to distance himself, given Ludacris’ new song rooting for Obama to “paint the White House black” and calling Hillary the b-word.

Despite Obama’s wooing, some women aren’t warming. As Carol Marin wrote in The Chicago Sun-Times, The Lanky One is like an Alice Waters organic chicken – “sleek, elegant, beautifully prepared. Too cool” – when what many working-class women are craving is mac and cheese.

In The Wall Street Journal, Amy Chozick wrote that Hillary supporters – who loved their heroine’s admission that she was on Weight Watchers – were put off by Obama’s svelte, zerobody-fat figure.

“He needs to put some meat on his bones,” said Diana Koenig, a 42-year-old Texas housewife.

Another Clinton voter sniffed on a Yahoo message board: “I won’t vote for any beanpole guy.”

The odd thing is that Obama bears a distinct resemblance to the most cherished hero in chicklit history. The senator is a modern incarnation of the clever, haughty, reserved and fastidious Mr. Darcy.

Like the leading man of Jane Austen and Bridget Jones, Obama can, as Austen wrote, draw

“the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien. ... He was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased.”

The master of Pemberley “had yet to learn to be laughed at,” and this sometimes caused “a deeper shade of hauteur” to “overspread his features.”

The New Hampshire debate incident in which Obama condescendingly said, “You’re likable enough, Hillary,” was reminiscent of that early scene in “Pride and Prejudice” when Darcy coldly refuses to dance with Elizabeth Bennet, noting, “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me.”

Indeed, when Obama left a prayer to the Lord at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, a note that was snatched out and published, part of his plea was to “help me guard against pride.”

If Obama is Mr. Darcy, with “his pride, his abominable pride,” then America is Elizabeth Bennet, spirited, playful, democratic, financially strained, and caught up in certain prejudices.

(McCain must be cast as Wickham, the rival for Elizabeth’s affections, the engaging military scamp who casts false aspersions on Darcy’s character.)

In this political version of “Pride and Prejudice,” the prejudice is racial, with only 31 percent of white voters telling The New York Times in a survey that they had a favorable opinion of Obama, compared with 83 percent of blacks.

And the prejudice is visceral: Many Americans, especially blue collar, still feel uneasy about the Senate’s exotic shooting star, and he is surrounded by a miasma of ill-founded and mistaken premises.

So the novelistic tension of the 2008 race is this: Can Obama overcome his pride and Hyde Park hauteur and win America over?

Can America overcome its prejudice to elect the first black president? And can it move past its biases to figure out if Obama’s supposed conceit is really just the protective shield and defense mechanism of someone who grew up half white and half black, a perpetual outsider whose father deserted him and whose mother, while loving, sometimes did so as well?

Can Miss Bennet teach Mr. Darcy to let down his guard, be more sportive and laugh at himself?

Page 12

Federal employees receive excellent retirement benefits.

But when it comes to sick leave, not all civil servants are treated equal.

The FERS retirement system which covers federal employees who joined the civil service after 1986 does not include a sick leave benefit. For these employees, unused sick leave at retirement is lost if it is not used.

Contrast that with federal employees under the old CSRS retirement system (those who joined the civil service prior to 1986) who are able to convert their unused sick leave at retirement into an increase in their annual annuity. For example, federal employees under CSRS with 30 years of service and 1 year’s worth of sick leave at retirement, their annual annuity is based on 31 years of service rather than 30.

CSRS employees have not always enjoyed this benefit.

In 1969, Congress took action on the issue after data showed that the use of sick leave went up dramatically as employees’ neared retirement. The Civil Service Commission — the forerunner to OPM — estimated that half of all retiring federal employees had ZERO sick leave; their reports showed that retiring employees prior to 1969 used an average of 40 sick leave days in their last year of employment.

But when it came time to create the new FERS retirement program, Congress ignored the

employees on par with their CSRS colleagues in terms of sick leave, allowing them to also put their unused sick leave at retirement towards their annual annuity. For cost purposes, during the first three years after the provision becomes law, retiring employees would receive an lessons learned under CSRS. addition to their annuity up This oversight has resulted in to 75 percent of the value history repeating itself with of their unused sick leave. respect to sick leave use under After that three-year window, FERS. 100 percent of retiring federal A Congressional Research employees’ sick leave days Service report from August would count towards their 2007, found that sick leave annuity. balances are lower for FERS Our federal workforce is the employees than CSRS best in the world; they deserve employees. Independent stud- a benefit designed to reward, ies by the Bureau of Prisons not punish, those who play by reached the same conclusion. the rules. The current use-it In a recent survey of FERS or lose-it sick leave system and CSRS employees, 85% for FERS employees clearly of CSRS employees said they hurts productivity and increasconserved as much sick leave es training costs. We should as possible. be incentivizing the accrual CLIENTf of sick2 leave, 13:55 6/6/01 JC On the other124847 hand, 75% of not encouraging FERS employees said they people to call in sick in the would use as much sick leave weeks leading up to retirement. as possible during their last I am optimistic we will see this years of employment. The toll provision become law before of this policy is made clearer the end of the2.062" year. when viewed through OPM estimates, which show that lost productivity resulting from this sick leave discrepancy is costing taxpayers $68 million per year.

In an effort to replace the flawed FERS approach to sick Call1-800-97NACME leave, I was able to attach or visit www.mathispower.org language to legislation giving the FDA authority to regulate tobacco, which passed the National Action Council For Minorities In Engineering House last week. It puts FERS

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It’s campaign season, which means conservatives will try to paint Democrats as “liberals,” as if it were a dirty word. I, for one, am proud to be a liberal and believe we should stand up against these conservative smears. One of the great fallacies in modern lore is that liberalism stands for nothing and liberals have no core beliefs. The right wing has impugned the left by unfairly portraying it as a valueless movement mired in moral relativism. This could not be further from the truth.

Indeed, the left is the backbone of freedom, the defender of personal liberty, the guarantor of free speech and religious worship and the nurturer of democratic movements across the globe. Far from believing in nothing, wherever liberal democratic values prevail, civilizations flourish and free people thrive.

The cornerstone of liberalism is the idea that each person is endowed with the precious gift of liberty and can freely choose his or her own path — for better or worse. We believe this is crucial to greater enlightenment, personal growth and ultimate fulfillment. It also offers the best opportunity for people to realize their dreams and achieve their spiritual promise.

Liberalism encourages exploration and education. It reveres science and celebrates the inquisitive mind. Indeed, liberal values are often superior to those held on the right, because they are tenaciously subjected to rigorous examination. Beliefs that are questioned and still prevail are the ones that stand the test of time. Like conservatism, liberalism has very strong core principles. But unlike conservatism, liberalism is not afraid to question “the way it is.” The fulcrum of this philosophy is that all ideas will be constantly examined, scrutinized, studied and debated. If new information emerges to counter the culture’s prevailing values or understanding, it will be rightfully taken into account. Far from moral relativism, liberalism searches for the ultimate value in which to build a moral foundation: Truth.

If one looks at modern conservatism in the United States, it is easy to see that it is a movement of intellectual and spiritual atrophy. In the political realm, conservatives essentially call for judges who are “strict constructionists,” which is shorthand for saying “the Constitution is a dead document.”

What a monumentally ridiculous notion to put forth, that American jurisprudence has not evolved in more than two centuries! Do strict constructionists believe that women and African Americans should have their rights restricted because the nation’s founders treated women as second-class citizens and owned slaves?

Likewise, modern conservatives have also rendered the Bible (or Koran) “dead documents.” In conservative houses of worship, traditionalists put forth the untenable belief that holy books are literal.

They call these books “God’s Plan,” as if the Creator hasn’t had a new thought in a couple of thousand years.

Modern conservatives will claim that liberals are sacrilegious for holding such beliefs. To the contrary, liberals are often extraordinarily religious or spiritual people. However, they diverge with conservatives in that they believe the strongest faith is one that is subject to healthy skepticism and painstaking examination. In encouraging people to explore all faiths — free of guilt, shame, coercion or fear — liberalism also offers people the greatest number spiritual options.

Many of my columns deal with gay themes because equality for gay men and women is the civil rights issue of the new Millennium.

However, gay rights mean nearly as much to heterosexuals as they do for homosexuals. The very peace and prosperity of nations can be easily predicted by looking at how they relate to their gay citizens.

If a country treats gay people with dignity and respect and offers them equality, it signals that the country bases its decisions on sound education, rationalism and science. This inevitably leads towards success in all spheres of life. Countries that ostracize and penalize homosexuals tend to be superstitious, authoritarian and anti-intellectual. This almost uniformly leads to poverty, war, oppression and ultimately tyranny.

In essence, gay rights are the canary in the coalmine for freedom and prosperity. Unfortunately, the bird is hacking, signaling a period of increased oppression and a dangerous erosion of freedom. It is up to us to rescue this nation from the perilous path it is now on. It is time we proudly stand up for what we believe in. If we don’t defend our values, our opponents will define them. Progressive does not mean passive.

Our compassion does not mean that we lack passion. Our respect for other beliefs does not signify that we don’t hold strong beliefs of our own that we are willing to fight for. Indeed, our power comes from our ability to adjust to reality. We are secure in our values, yet humble enough to adapt if our viewpoints are proven obsolete. Wherever liberal democracy takes root, a strong and proud record of economic, moral, social and political achievement follows.

August 7 - 13, 2008

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August 7 - 13, 2008

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Despite all the hoopla about green roofs, many of them are not really green. Vegetated is a more accurate description, and summer may be the best time to see them in their glory. That was true when the Board of Supervisors held a ribbon cutting to celebrate Fairfax County’s latest green initiative at the Herrity Building parking structure last Monday morning.

The shared parking structure on the grounds of the Fairfax County Government complex has several concrete decks, and the top one is perfect for a vegetated roof. Several years ago, the Board of Supervisors asked the Department of Public Works and Environmental Services to prepare a retrofit of some parking spaces as part of the Cool Counties initiative sparked by Fairfax County and other large urban counties. The new green roof will be monitored for how much stormwater and pollution it absorbs, an exercise that will be compared to an unplanted area on the opposite side of the garage.

Vegetated roofs use a combination of soil, gravel, and other planting mediums, and have drainage built into them to allow water to be absorbed slowly instead of running off into local streams. The Herrity Building roof features both extensive and intensive roofs. The extensive part uses low-growing, drought tolerant vegetation, such as varieties of sedum, planted in “engineered” soil. The wide shallow beds are bordered by crushed rock walkways that allow visitors to get a closer look at the plantings. Farther back, near the edge of the parking structure, an intensive portion contains deep soil, almost like a very large and deep window box, which allows for a wider choice of plants, including trees. On

We just returned from a wonderful trip to Europe. We spent two weeks cruising along the Danube, Main, and Rhine rivers, and various canals between them, from Budapest to Amsterdam.

We spent an additional four days in Budapest and Amsterdam.

I took more than a thousand pictures, which I am only beginning to sort through.

We enjoyed a multitude of cathedrals, abbeys, castles, palaces, museums, fountains, medieval walls, shops (lots and lots of shops!), boats, streetcars, buses, swans, horses, milk cows, sheep, flowers – you name it, we saw it. And we walked seemingly thousands of miles, up and down, mostly over rough, shoeeating cobblestones.

It truly was a great trip, and we will invite you over for the slide show when I finally winnow down my pictures – probably a couple of years from now. But one of the most memorable features of the trip is that it coincided with the triumphal tour of Barak Obama through Europe. We saw it all on our European CNN channel right in our staterooms and hotels. It would have been impossible for us to miss it. It dominated the

Monday, golden coneflowers in bloom provided a lovely contrast to the low-growing sedums.

In his remarks at the brief ceremony, Board Chairman Gerry Connolly said the demonstration project supports the Board’s green building policy, adopted earlier this year, that requires county buildings be constructed to meet minimum green building standards and, if possible, exceed them. Green building projects in Fairfax County include a vegetated shed roof and pervious paver parking lot at Fire Station 30, shared with the Providence District Supervisor’s office; Fire Station 40 at Fairfax Center; Fire Station 41 at Crosspointe; and the new pervious paver parking lot and rain garden at the Hidden Oaks Nature Center in Mason District.

Just in case you haven’t heard – there is a Presidential election this fall! Both major political parties are hard at work registering new voters in Virginia, and both Democrats and Republicans are reminding voters that they can vote absentee prior to the November 4 General Election date.

If you are eligible to vote and haven’t registered yet (deadline to register is October 7), you may find more information at the Virginia State Board of Elections Web site, which also has instructions about voting absentee: www.sbe.virginia. gov/cms. A lot of young voters don’t live at home, so please remind your college students to register and apply for an absentee ballot. In-person absentee voting at satellite locations will begin in mid-October in Fairfax County.

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

television news and newspapers throughout his entire trip.

On the whole, the press coverage was highly positive, not the carping, negative stuff you get here. And my distinct impression is that the reason he received such a positive response is that many people in Europe see him as the vanguard of a new generation of voters and officeholders in America who will shake off the deadly policies of the Bush administration. To them, Obama’s “inexperience,” at least in contrast to Bush’s “experience,” is a very hopeful and positive sign.

He looked anything but inexperienced, however. His speeches, particularly the one he gave to more than 200,000 Berliners, were well articulated; his press conferences were well received. He looked and acted like a world leader, and was received as one.

People stopped us on the street and asked if we were Americans. When we confirmed it so, they said enthusiastic things about Obama and wanted us to assure them that he would be elected President.

We did our best!

Another memorable feature: bicycles in Amsterdam!

Amsterdam is a city built for bicycles, and there were hundreds of thousands of them on the road and on the sidewalks anytime of the night and day.

Every thoroughfare, even the canals, has a bicycle lane right beside it. Pedestrians take their life into the own hands if they drift in to a bicycle lane.

And, as in America, most of the bicyclists pay little attention to traffic signals. In Amsterdam, though, according to our cab driver, this makes little difference. If a bicyclist is hit, as they often are, those that hit them are automatically at fault, regardless of the traffic signal. We had a few close calls ourselves.

Finally, we came that close to being part of history. As we were touring The Hague, we passed the prison connected with the International Court of Justice. It was crowded with dozens of television trucks and satellite discs. Our guide said they were awaiting the arrival of ----- , which they expected any minute. He didn’t get there until early next morning, but when we saw it on CNN, we saw almost the exact spot on which we had been standing only a few hours before. It was all great fun, and educational, too!

Home, Sweet Home On Sunday, I returned from a 16-day road trip that took me 3,721 miles through the South and then attendance at the enshrinement ceremony in Canton, Ohio. It all began with my registration for the annual five-day Legislative Summit of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The NCSL Summit was held in New Orleans this year and I was joined in attendance by Delegate Jim Scott and Senator Mary Margaret Whipple.

Instead of flying down and back, I decided to drive and make the trip a civil rights pilgrimage, as well as a Blues pilgrimage.

Righteousness Like a Mighty Stream With the five-day NCSL Summit sandwiched in between, I visited civil rights sites in Montgomery, Tuskegee, Selma, and Birmingham, Alabama.

My civil rights pilgrimage culminated with a visit to the Lorraine Motel and the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tenn.

The most impressive of the museums I visited was the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, which has a spectacular multimedia display.

Of course, there is nothing like traveling over the Edmund Pettus Bridge or looking into Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel.

Having been born a few months after the Brown vs.

Board of Education decision and having lived through the civil rights era, this trip was extremely meaningful to me.

Like a Rolling Stone In my Blues pilgrimage, I visited Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Beale Street in Memphis, and traveled down Highway 61to the crossroads.

I spent two days in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and was immersed in the Blues and the culture that spawned the music.

I visited Graceland in Memphis and traveled to Tupelo, Mississippi, to visit Elvis’ boyhood home there.

I also traveled to Nashville to see the Ryman Auditorium and the Ernest Tubb record store. As a devotee of traditional music, this was all a great experience.

Home of the Bulldogs From Nashville, I drove north to Canton to the Pro Football Hall of Fame to see the enshrinement of Darrell Green and Art Monk.

Redskins fans must have comprised three-quarters of the attendees there and our presence was made known many times.

That included cheering wildly whenever Joe Gibbs or another Redskin was mentioned and booing any reference to the Cowboys.

The reception by the fans of Art Monk was especially loud and long.

It was an expression both of our love for this humble football player and for the joy of seeing him finally get into the Hall after seven years of eligibility.

This was my third trip to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, although the first for an enshrinement ceremony, and it is well worth a visit.

I was also able to extend my musical journey by taking another look at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.

I have visited there numerous times in the past and it brought my odyssey to a fitting close before returning home.

It Is What It Is At the NCSL Summit, I heard a number of informative discussions. Two presentations were particularly noteworthy. They were both given

by David Wyss, chief economist for Standard and Poor’s, the bond rating agency.

He discussed how both international and national economic trends are affecting the states and state budgets.

Dr. Wyss made it clear that we are in a recession. He said that this is a hard recession and not a “soft” one which only reduces growth.

The only thing that has propped up the U.S. economy in the past few months has been the economic stimulus checks that taxpayers are spending.

But, that should be over by the end of the year, he stated, and he thinks that the holiday season will be a bad one for retailers.

He expects the Federal Reserve to start increasing interest rates by March of next year and that home sales should start to pick up about the same time.

The November election could have an interesting stimulative effect by the end of the year, he said, if Senator Obama wins. If he wins, then investors will probably choose to cash out their assets instead of waiting to do so in 2009 because Obama wants to increase capital gains taxes.

If that happens, then state and federal revenues will increase for the 2008 tax year.

It sounds like another example of strange bedfellows.

Delegate Hull represents the 38th District in the Virginia House of Delegates.

He may be emailed at delrhull@state.house.va.us 

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August 7 - 13, 2008

Join the Fairfax Master Naturalist Program

THE VANTAGE FITNESS ALL-STARS competed in the Capitol City Fitness Challenge on July 26 and swept in every category, including placing first in the Men’s Novice, Men’s Open, Women’s Novice and overall Team Divisions. The team was comprised of two Vantage Fitness Personal Training Clients, from left: Darryl Austin and Jessy Graling; two Vantage Fitness Personal Trainers, Tom Abbey and Kavon Atabaki; and was coached

by Director of Personal Training David Neil, right. (Photo: Courtesy Garrett Rambler)

The Fairfax Master Naturalist chapter, which specializes in local ecology and natural history, is offering its training course in Falls Church between Sept. 3 and Nov. 19 at Marshall High School (7731 Leesburg Pike., Falls Church).

The Fairfax Master Naturalist Program, which trains volunteers to become Certified Master Naturalists, serves Falls Church, Fairfax County and the City of Fairfax.

Applications are due Aug. 8.

The course syllabus and application are available at www. virginiamasternaturalist.org/ fairfax.html. Email Stacey Evers with questions at stacey. evers@cox.net.

Falls Church Resident Graduates Geoffrey House of Falls Church graduated magna cum laude from Carleton College in May. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology.

Jackson MS Teacher Wins Child Safety Award

ERIC LUCAS, LEFT, AND MATTHEW KEENAN, right, perform in the Keegan Theatre’s production of Stones in His Pocket. The show, directed by Kerry Williams Lucas, runs through Aug. 23 at Theatre on the Run in Arlington. Stones in His Pocket tells the story of a rural Irish town taken over by a Hollywood film crew (Photo: Courtesy Ray Gniwewer)

Velma Greene, a seventh grade teacher at Luther Jackson Middle School, was recently named a first prize winner in the third annual Got2B Safe! Awards Program, designed to honor teachers with the greatest commitment to child safety.

The awards program is sponsored by Honeywell and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). As a first prize

winner of this program, Greene will receive a $500 gift certificate for classroom supplies.

Meals on Wheels Volunteers Needed Volunteers are needed for Meals on Wheels to deliver in the Falls Church and Annandale areas. This opportunity includes picking up meals from a local school or hospital and delivering them to local residents. Meal delivery occurs Monday – Friday and takes about two hours.

Volunteers can deliver weekly, biweekly, monthly or on a substitute basis. For more information, contact 703-3245406.

Capitals Host Open House The Washington Capitals will host an open house on Wednesday, Aug. 13 at 6 p.m. to allow fans to select their season-ticket plans for the 2008-09 season. The event will be held at the Verizon Center (601 F St. NW, D.C.).

Stars Chris Clark and Matt Bradley will be present to sign autographs and meet fans, and Steve Kolbe, radio voice of the Capitals, and mascot Slapshot will be there as well. For more information or to RSVP, visit www.washingtoncaps.com.

Sisters Make Dean’s List at James Madison Adina and Danielle Pollack both made the Dean’s List at James Madison University this spring by

August 7 - 13, 2008

receiving a 3.5 grade point average or above. Additionally, Danielle made the President’s List with a GPA of 3.9 in the fall semester.

Myers Returns to McLean Accounting Firm Marnette Myers, Esq., CPA is rejoining Frank & Company, a McLean-based accounting firm, as the Director of Tax Administration. From 1996 – 2002, Myers served as a supervisory senior accountant for Frank & Company.

For the past six years, she has served as an attorney in the Office of the Associate Chief Counsel (Income Tax and Auditing) for the Internal Revenue Service. For more information on Frank & Company, visit www.frankandco.com.

F.C. Representative Appointed to CSB The City Council of Fairfax recently appointed Ellwood “Woody” Witt as the City of Falls Church’s representative to the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board (CSB).

The CSB partners with individuals, families and the community to empower and support Falls Church and Fairfax residents with or at risk of developmental delay, intellectual disability, mental illness, and alcohol or drug abuse or dependency.

Witt currently serves on the Fairfax Area Long Term Care Coordinating Council (FALTCCC), which focuses on establishing and maintaining services for adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Witt has also represented the City of Fairfax on the Fairfax Area Disabilities Services Board, including as Vice Chair from 2007-08, and he has represented the Disabilities Services Board on the Fairfax County Public Schools Advisory Board for Students with Disabilities from 2007-08.

Page 15

Falls Church Schools Supply Lists Available Falls Church City Public Schools has listed several of their school supply lists on their website.

The lists for Mount Daniel Elementary School kindergarten and first grade, Thomas Jefferson Elementary School second, third and fourth grades, and Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School grades five, six, seven and Encore program are all available at www.fccps.org.

Success in the City to Host Charioke Success in the City is hosting Charioke: Karaoke for Charity on Aug. 21 at Velocity Five Restaurant and Bar (8111 Lee Hwy., Falls Church) at 6:30 p.m.

Proceeds will benefit the Bobby de Lorenzi Foundation and Scholarship Fund at George Mason University.

Tickets are now available and are $45 for Success in the City members and $55 for non-members.

To buy tickets or sponsor, visit www.successinthecity. org.

AT THE FAIRFAX COUNTY 4-H FAIR, last weekend, three young Fairfax 4-H members won top prizes. James Coppock won a Champion ribbon in the Best of Breed for his Mini Rex Rabbit and Best of Show award for the finest rabbit presentation. Sarah Coppock received a Reserve Champion ribbon for her Marion Berry Jam, was named Junior Champion in color photography, Junior Champion in Floraculture and Queen of Show in Floraculture.

Esther Wisdom was Junior Champion in Vegetable Gardening. (Photo: Courtesy Esther Wisdom)

Children’s Center Receives Three Grants The Falls Church-McLean Children’s Center recently announced the receipt of three major grants that will benefit its low-income preschool students.

The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafrtiz Foundation awarded the Center $30,000; the Freddie Mac Foundation awarded $25,000; and the Fairfax County Consolidated Community Funding Pool committed $30,000 a year for the next two years.

The center will use this funding to help children of low-income working parents, to support on-site early intervention services including speech and occupational therapy, and bilingual counseling services.

YOUTH MEMBERS OF St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Falls Church, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Arlington and Christo Rey Episcopal Church in Arlington gather at the end of the Beach Towel 2008 Mission Trip, in which they helped build handicap ramps, expand service dog training areas and refurbish homes in Swansboro, N.C. (Photo: Courtesy Doan Huynh)

Page 16

Learn to Dance

August 7 - 13, 2008

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Falls Church’s Argia’s restaurant was named DC Central Kitchen’s “Eating Well/Doing Good Restaurant of the Month.� To celebrate, Argia’s will donate 10 percent of the proceeds from three special entrees — Mussels Argia, Linguine Campagnola, and Pancetta wrapped pork tenderloin — to DC Central Kitchen through the month of August. Additionally, Argia’s is participating in the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington’s 13th Restaurant Week by offering a three-course, fixed-price menu for $35.08 from Aug.11 – 17. A la carte items will also be available. For information about the locally owned Italian restaurant located at 124 N. Washington Street, visit www.argias.com. For more information about the RAMW or DC Central Kitchen, visit www.ramw.org or www.dccentralkitchen.org.

Ana Visage Institute is hosting a grand opening event at its new Falls Church location from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug.16. A ribbon-cutting with Vice Mayor Hal Lippman, Falls Church Chamber of Commerce Chairman Gary LaPorta and other local community and business leaders will take place at 10:30 a.m. Ana Visage provides a wide array of European day-spa services to the general public, as well as board-certified training in massage therapy, electrolysis, esthetics, permanent makeup and make-up artistry. Ana Visage is located at 350 S. Washington Street in Falls Church. For more information, visit www.anavisage.com..

The Unity Club will be holding a carwash at Two Sisters Coffee on Saturday, Aug. 23, from 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. Along with the carwash, there will be live entertainment and a cookout, as well as coffee and refreshments available for purchase. The cost of the carwash is a donation of your choice to The Unity Club. For more information, contact Dan Greenwood at 703-477-9242 or manager@unityclub.com.

Falls Church-based North Shore Design is hosting an Open House at their recently completed home addition located at 636 N. Harrison Street in Arlington from 1 – 5 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 6. North Shore Design, LLC is a nationally award-winning local design/build firm dedicated to creating beautiful home remodeling projects from start to finish using high quality craftsmanship, honest business practices and environmentally friendly techniques. For more information, visit www.northsd.com.

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Virginia Commerce Bank has appointed Paul Garcia as Vice President, Sales Manager for the Bank’s Mortgage Lending department. As Sales Manager, he will oversee recruitment, sales training and loan originations. Mr. Garcia has over 23 years of experience in mortgage lending. Established in 1988, Virginia Commerce Bank is a full-service, community bank headquartered in Arlington, with over $2.6 billion in assets. The Bank serves the Northern Virginia and Fredericksburg markets with twenty-six branches, a mortgage lending office and an investment services department. For more information, visit www.VCBonline.com.

City First Bank of DC recently closed on a $2.7 million transaction with the Falls Church Housing Corporation (FCHC). It is the first deal in Falls Church financed

by City First, the only community development bank serving the Washington, D.C. metro region. The deal signals the growing problem of inadequate affordable housing not just in low-income communities in Washington, D.C., but increasingly in suburban jurisdictions. The City First financing allowed FCHC to acquire a commercial office building which it is proposing be transformed into City Center South Apartments, 172 units of permanently affordable rental housing. A public hearing and City Council vote on this proposal will take place on Monday, Aug. 11 at 7:30 p.m. in Council Chambers in Falls Church City Hall. Should the project be approved, it will be part of Atlantic Realty Companies’ redevelopment plans to include retail, offices, condominiums, rental housing, a grocery store, bowling alley and hotel. For more information about this project, visit www.fallschurchva.gov. For more information about City First Bank, visit www.cityfirstbank.com.

The City of Falls Church provides a number of business incentive programs available to businesses located and licensed in the City of Falls Church. For information about the City’s Commercial Property Rehabilitation Tax Abatement Program, Industrial Revenue Bonds, Technology Zone Program or any of the City’s business assistance services, visit www.fallschurchva.gov and click on Business Services.

The Commonwealth of Virginia maintained its top ranking in Forbes’s 2008 listing of the best states for business. Forbes’ listing ranked all 50 states in six main categories: business costs, economic climate, growth prospects, labor, quality of life and regulatory environment. Virginia has ranked #1 in the listing each year since its inception in 2006. Utah, Washington, North Carolina and Georgia rounded out the top five states. Maryland was ranked #14, down from #12 in 2007 ranking. For more information,visit www.forbes.com/2008. ď ľ The Business News & Notes section is compiled by Sally Cole, Executive Director of Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce. She may be emailed at sally@ fallschurchchamber.org.

August 7 - 13, 2008

Page 17

Continued from Page 1

As world oil production has never peaked before, there is no historical basis for making informed judgments as to what is going to happen.

All we know is that some six billion people, living in some 200 economies on this earth are soon going to be confronted with getting by on less than the 86 million barrels of oil per day (b/d) that we currently consume.

The outcome of the interaction among all those people, all those countries and all that oil is too complex to foresee with any clarity.

It has long been recognized among those studying the peak oil phenomenon a severe, lengthy, worldwide economic setback could reduce the demand for oil to such an extent that peak production could be lost in the chaos.

Other scenarios involve oil prices rising to such level that demand drops significantly, which would be followed by a major drop in prices, followed by increased demand and rising prices, and the cycle continues.

In the last three weeks, world oil prices have dropped steadily so they are now nearly $30 a barrel below what they were in early July.

Now this decline could be the result of those pesky speculating hedge funds selling short the oil futures contracts.

It could be the $4 gasoline keeping an increasing number of Americans off the roads, or even the Olympics, which forced Beijing into a twomonth shutdown of a sizable piece of its economic activity in an effort to clean up the air.

Incidentally, China’s imports of petroleum products, which grew rapidly in the first half of the year, look like they are going to drop precipitously in August.

If it turns out speculators, $4 gasoline or a lull in Chinese purchases are major factors behind the current weakness in oil prices, then the current declines are likely to reverse in a couple of months.

The speculators will change their positions, the summer discretionary driving season will be over and the Olympics will be in the history books so that China can go back to making its normal amount of air pollution.

If this is indeed what we are witnessing, then oil prices should rebound as the winter heating season approaches. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development

(OECD) oil stocks are unusually low at the minute, and if the world remains in even middling economic conditions, demand from China should return.

At the minute, the Chinese are facing a serious electric power shortage stemming from a mismatch between the new coal fired generating plants they have built in recent years and their ability to mine and transport coal to these facilities.

Some are talking of a renewed surge of Chinese oil, coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports if Beijing is to keep its factories humming on and continue to grow at the planned 10 percent a year.

However, suppose for a minute the pessimists are right and the world is on the brink of a major economic setback. The evidence for a setback abounds, starting with the credit and housing crises in the U.S. through rising unemployment, inflation and more.

Ditto for the E.U. and much of Asia. If U.S. imports shrink significantly, all sorts of economic ills will follow in the economies of our trading partners. The Chinese, however, still remain adamant that their surging economy will power right through a drop in Western demand for their exports.

Evidence is accumulating, however, that all is not well with China’s economy. Exports are no longer growing, petroleum imports are dropping and outside economists are now saying that GDP may only grow by nine percent this year. All of this suggests China’s imports of crude and petroleum products may slow markedly before the year is out rather than increase as some are suggesting.

Judging from what happened two years ago, OPEC is likely to cut production again should oil prices slip below $100 a barrel, which in turn would set off on another round of price increases. The course of all this will depend on just how the U.S., China’s and the world’s economies fare over the next year or so.

If things get really bad, the demand for oil, which will be expensive by historical standards no matter what happens, may drop precipitously. Then both production and prices are likely to fall amidst much volatility and suffering in the poorer countries that are already taking serious economic hits.

Falling demand for oil obviously is going to cut production so that a nominal “peak” in world oil output will occur.

From there on, the situation has so many variables as to become

unpredictable.

Worldwide demand for oil could fall by hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of barrels per day.

Oil consumption, however, is so deeply rooted in the sinews of the world’s economy, it is difficult to image demand dropping by many millions of barrels from the current 86 million b/d. But then again, nobody can realistically foresee what is going to happen.

If worldwide economic problems should stretch out into years, then we would be in the midst of what most foresee will be the geologic/economic decline in world oil production.

If demand has already dropped due to bad economic times, then the geologic peak is likely to go undetected. For in our rearview mirror, world production would have been dropping for months or years simply because fewer have enough money to pay for the stuff.

The message is that there are many ways to perceive the coming years. Either the lack of enough oil due to geologic constraints will create unimaginable economic troubles, or economic troubles from some other cause can kill the demand for oil.

A major blow-up in the Middle East, for example, could create so much turmoil that world oil production would peak on the spot, never again to return to current levels of production.

It is getting very complicated out there, and none of us really know what is going to happen.

The only thing we can be sure of is that somewhere along the line, changes in our lifestyles are coming – perhaps faster than we think.  Tom Whipple is a retired government analyst and has been following the peak oil issue for several years.

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Page 18

August 7 - 13, 2008

&

Theater Fine Arts

August 7 - 13, 2008

I

t’s grub time once again — D.C. Restaurant Week is here! Starting Monday and running through next Sunday, almost 200 of the area’s finest dining establishments will be offering up three course meals at an attractive price.

Astute observers will notice, however, that the cost has taken a steep jump up this go around. While lunch still will only run you $20.08, dinners see a $5 increase to $35.08.

Now yes, times are tough, but these are still great deals at some of the choicest eateries including Falls Church’s very own Argia’s. Also among the participating restaurants are my personal favorites: Willow Restaurant in Arlington, Vidalia in D.C., the Del Merei Grille in Del Ray, Indigo Landing in Alexandria. and Le Gaulois Cafe in Old Town.

For a complete list of all restaurants, check out the website at www.washington.org/restaurantwk.

What: Washington, D.C. Summer Restaurant Week When: August 11 - 17, 2008 Where: Participating Restaurants in the D.C. area See www.washington.org/restaurantwk for list of restaurants and more information

Page 19

Page 20

As the summer temperatures begin to trend their way towards a cooler climate, the Nationals are starting the heat up. Finally.

In the past few weeks, Washington has traded its top relief pitcher, Jon Rauch, flat out released its marquee offseason free agent acquisition, Paul LoDuca, and cut a former All-Star shortstop, Felipe Lopez. And entering Wednesday night’s game with the Rockies, the Nationals had won four consecutive games.

Jettisoning veterans is not often the spark plug teams use to ignite late summer drives.

Indeed, pennant contenders are looking to add veteran hands this time of year. For example, the Mets and Rockies may both be interested in former National Livan Hernandez to bolster their pitching depth down the stretch.

Instead, the Nationals have gained speed by shedding their extra baggage. Throughout June and July, LoDuca, Lopez and similarly released Johnny Estrada received significant playing time, despite their lack of productivity and despite Washington’s entrenchment at the bottom of the National League East.

With a stated goal of building from within by management, years with no hope of a pennant usually mean a reliance on youth, giving prospects from the minors time to shine and gain experience on the major league level. But with LoDuca, Lopez and Estrada, it was different. By putting the unproductive veterans in the lineup, Washington’s front office hoped it could audition them as trade bait, turning them over to other teams to further fertilize the farm system. But nothing changed.

Their struggles continued. It was a perpetual purgatory.

The Nationals had nowhere to go. Just pack their bags and shuffle off to the next series, expecting more of the same.

The routine held little appeal for fans. The ballpark is beautiful, but tuning in the team on TV was a practice only masochists could stomach. Do the team’s abysmal TV ratings really need any more analysis than that?

But then Rauch was traded for swift-footed second baseman Emilio Bonifacio and management finally waved the white flag by waiving Estrada, LoDuca and Lopez. In came shortstop Alberto Gonzalez from the Yankees and suddenly the Nats had dropped their bal-

August 7 - 13, 2008

last, swapping stagnation for speed and a sure-handed middle infield.

Before this streak, the team endured 21 losses in a 24-game stretch. They’ve now won four in a row, with Bonifacio batting .444 and collecting two triples since joining the Nats’ roster.

Finally, with the turnover, the team has gained purpose.

There is again an air of excitement with this team, an air of possibility.

The trade audition time given to Lopez and Co. served as a kind of artificial ceiling.

Sure, the Nats’ youth could play hard, but playing time would still be given to a moping shortstop and a catcher who struggled to play his own position. It was a thinly veiled dig at Lopez when, after the announcement of the three waiver moves, General Manager Jim Bowden said, “We want players here that are going to hustle and play the game hard and play the game right.” Suddenly the ceiling was gone and a newfound meritocracy was left in its place.

So in comes Bonifacio, with his youthful vim and vigor, flying around the bases at speeds comparable to an Olympic sprinter. And when he steps into the light, what does he have to say?

“Everybody knows we don’t have a good record right now,” Bonifacio told the Washington Times Monday night. “But I feel no matter what, everybody has to do his job. We’re playing good baseball right now.”

It’s a kind of second-spring in a way. Now we get to see what this team can do. In all likelihood, with the exception of first base, the Nationals’ Opening Day 2009 roster will look a lot like the one we will see for the remainder of the season. For perhaps the first time since the team’s illusory 3-0 start to the season, the possibilities are actually exciting.

Still, the future is not now.

A last-place finish in the division remains seemingly inevitable. In the winter, moves must be made to bolster the middle of the lineup. But in the meantime, there are signs of life again. The team’s idle time is over. It’s time to move forward once more. And for fans, it’s finally time to enjoy the ride.

Lee Graham sent three of its best divers to the 2008 Northern Virginia Swimming League (NVSL) All-Star Dive Meet at Dunn Loring Pool on Sunday to compete for the title All-Star Champion, one of the highest individual honors for an NVSL diver. Unfortunately, Lee Graham will not have a champion for the 11th consecutive year. A Dolphin diver has not been crowned All-Star Champion since a four-year winning streak. Timmy McNeill earned the honor in 1993 before Stephanie Sutton won three consecutive titles as a senior from 1994 to 1996.

Tucker Smith, a freshman and rising star in the program, placed higher than any other Dolphin with an eighth place finish. Earning an overall score of 55.89, Smith beat out sixteen other divers in his age bracket.

Ray Curry has been the heart and soul of the Lee Graham Dive Team for years, and was finally honored as an all-star in his final season with the team.

Curry capped off his fine career with Lee Graham with ninth place out of 19 senior All-Stars.

Curry’s 139.47 clip ranked him 25th overall out of the 169 allstar competitors.

“Raymond is a first time allstar diver, and as a graduating senior he should be very happy with the outcome,” noted assistant coach and fellow teammate Rachel Hassan. “There are many outstanding divers who practice twelve months a year, and Ray definitely fits in with the best of them.”

Lee Graham’s only all-star on the girls side was junior Elena Bavolack. Like Smith and Curry, Bavolack finished in the middle of the pack, an impressive feat for the level of competition. She posted an overall score of 83.82, earning the 12th spot among 22 other girls in her

age bracket.

While divers from undefeated Division I champion Truro and D-I powerhouse Vienna Woods stole the show, there is no doubt Lee Graham came out of the All-Star Meet with things to be happy about.

All three Dolphins had better scores than at least ten other divers in their age group, and more importantly, not once did any Lee Graham all-star finish behind a diver from Pinecrest, the reigning Division II champion.

Like the swim team, the Lee Graham dive program seems to be on the rise. Two of their five meets resulted in ties, but because they were outstanding in the overall points category, the team finished second in Division II behind Pinecrest.

With bright youngsters like Smith and Bavolack returning for years to come, Lee Graham is sure to contend for Division II and maybe even Division I titles in the near future.

August 7 - 13, 2008

In honor of their District 4 win, Paul Shiffman and Steve Bielamowicz, coaches of the 10-11 McLean American Little League team, dyed their hair blue after the players captured a 10-9 victory win back in July against Alexandria.

“It was a miracle game,” said Shiffman, regarding Alexandria’s 9-1 lead after the first two innings. This was the first McLean baseball team to win a District 4 title in five years. The team went on to compete at States, held in

Lee Graham’s finest swimmers put a frustrating season behind them, and had a collectively solid day against some of the best competition in the area at the Northern Virginia AllStars Swim Meet on Saturday.

Lee Graham had a top-three finisher in nine of the 40 events, including two first place finishes.

The meet featured the best swimmers from nearly every pool in the Northern Virginia Swimming League, all competing for bragging rights as the best in the region. Each event

Page 21

Virginia Beach, Va. this year, where they unfortunately cut their time short with a 2-2 record.

‘Football 101’ Reaches Out to Moms, Women The Washington, D.C. regional chapter of the National Football Foundation will be holding a “Football 101: Women’s Clinic” on Saturday, Aug. 9 at James Madison High School (2500 James Madison Dr., Vienna) from 10:30 a.m.

– 2:30 p.m.

Learn some X’s and O’s from National Association of

had 17 to 19 swimmers, which allowed for a lot of parody as no pool took more than four victories. Local powerhouse, and undefeated Division I champion Overlee had four wins, as did Mosby Woods and Mount Vernon Park.

The first Dolphin to take the water was Lucas Cherry in the 11/12-year-old 50-meter freestyle. Cherry placed fifth in the event with a time of 28.88 seconds, a mere .03 behind the fourth-place finisher.

On the girls side, Logan Moore came in second in the same event with a 29.76 clip.

This however, would not be the last time Moore took the silver.

Intercollegiate Athletics Coach Bill Ramseyer and his wife Mary.

While the clinic is targeted at moms with football-playing sons, the 4-hour-long session is open to all women who are admittedly a little lost when it comes to watching the pigskin tradition. Attendees can expect coach-led demonstrations, a woman’s perspective on the game, how to watch the action and more.

Registration costs $20 and includes a t-shirt and refreshments. For more information, contact Greg Oliver at 703707-9414.

After brushing aside a constant downpour followed by brutal heat, the best swimmers at High Point Pool in Falls Church held their own in a meet featuring the fastest from across the Northern Virginia region, posting numerous personal-best times in the All-Star Individual Meet at Little Rocky Run last Saturday.

A Division 4 club, the 10 High Point Dolphins entered in the meet took on swimmers from much stronger divisions, but still managed to brave the elements and surpass previous record times for their pool.

15-18 competitor Hunter Perrot led the Dolphins on the afternoon, posting an eighthplace finish in the 50-meter freestyle, a race in which the top 10 competitors all finished within one second of each other. Perrot later went on to place 13th in the 50-meter breaststroke.

Building for the future, numerous High Point youngsters swam their best times of the season. 9-10 swimmer Fiona Muir had her best backstroke race of the season, moving from a ninth-place seed to a sixth-place finish, dropping .67 seconds from her time in the process. Muir also placed ninth in the 50-meter freestyle for her age group. Muir’s brother, Iain, finished 17th in the eight and under 25-meter freestyle as well.

In addition, Claire Fleury dropped almost half a second in her 25m breastroke race, as the eight-and-under Dolphin finished 14th in the event. Ben Sharrer, swimming in the same age group as Fleury, dropped half a second in his 25m butterfly race.

Laura Salt took seventh place in the 11-12 50-meter breaststroke, while Kelley Frank placed eighth in the 15-18 50meter freestyle and ninth in the 50-meter butterfly. On the guys side, Lachlan Flatin took seventh in the eight-and-under 25-meter breaststroke, Peter House placed 11th in the 11-12 50-meter breaststroke, and Kyle Gittins took 15th in the 100meter 9-10 Individual Medley.

“I think the meet went very well [for us], especially considering the weather,” said Katie Rock, coach of High Point.

“The swimmers really made the best of a long day and we saw some great races.”

The individual all-star meet rounds out the season for High Point Pool, in which the Dolphins moved up to their current conference from Division 5, entering a heightened field of competition. However, High Point managed to finish 2-3 on the season, losing two of their dual meets by just one relay.

The close outcomes lead Rock to believe that the 2009 season should be even better for the young swimmers.

“Next year I think our team will be as strong if not stronger and should be able to compete well once again,” commented the coach, an alumna of High Point. “I am especially looking forward to seeing our younger swimmers grow as they are a very strong age group right now.”

Rock also pointed to the fact that she had a handful of 1112-aged Dolphins step up to fill the void in the 13-14 age group, racing against older and more experienced swimmers. The practice gained through such stiff competition, Rock said, should vault High Point to an even better finish next year.

She followed up her second place finish in freestyle with another one in backstroke, just minutes later.

No other Lee Graham swimmers were able to place in freestyle, but Natalie Leake finished sixth in the 15-18 age group.

She was just hairs away from placing though, as only .4 seconds separated her from third place. Leake however, got her revenge placing second in the girls 15-18 breaststroke later in the afternoon.

Like Moore, Cherry would duplicate his freestyle finish in backstroke. In another close race Cherry finished fifth, hundredths of seconds behind the

mark.

More notable performances in backstroke were in the 1518 age group by sisters Anna and Maggie Macedonia. Anna placed third with a time of 31.16, and her younger sister Maggie was just .4 seconds behind, taking fourth.

The youngest Lee Graham all-star was 8-year-old Elena Summers. Summers, the only Dolphin showcased in the eightand-under group placed second in 25-meter breaststroke, and ninth in butterfly which is commonly known as the most difficult stroke.

Ben Southern was the only Dolphin to place in butterfly.

Southern earned a bronze in the 11-12 age group.

The most impressive individual performance by a Lee

Graham swimmer was 10-yearold Miller Surette. He was the only Dolphin to win a race, and he won two. He squeaked by Great Falls swimmer Max Wingo by a tenth of a second for the win in breaststroke, and also won the 9-10 category in the 100 meter individual medley (IM).

Surette and Maggie Macedonia were the only Dolphins with notable performances in the IM. The fore mentioned Surette earned his second gold, and Macedonia placed third in the girls 15-18 group.

While Lee Graham did go winless this year in the fiercest division of the NVSL, their young All Stars showed that the Dolphins have no plans to remain the doormat of Division I.

Page 22

S

August 7 - 13, 2008

everal good free-for-all shows around the place.

1460 Wall Mountables, at D.C. Arts Center (2438 18th Street NW, Washington, D.C.).

Note: second floor gallery space, with only a doorway on the ground level. Through Aug. 31.

The event is wild and woolly as it usually is. This is the young hip art scene crowd you’d expect in the heart of Adams Morgan.

All of these shows have their fair share of art works that don’t quite cut it; it’s all part of the hung-what-you-brung ethos.

The bad art can be as entertaining as the good stuff, sometimes even more so. Trying too hard is, of course, death to any

attempt at being hip. Like bad tattoos and weird piercings in places you don’t want to know about, this show can produce some spectacularly bad results.

Mind you, there is also a fair amount of really good stuff here. At 10 bucks for a two-foot square spot, the art here can be stupefyingly cheap at times.

Thought-provoking art for $30 doesn’t require a lot of internal debate before a red dot shows up beneath it.

All Arlington Salon, at Ellipse Art Center, through Saturday, Sept. 13 (4350 Fairfax Drive, Suite 125, Arlington).

Interestingly enough, these three shows, while similar in

basic idea, produce three very different results. Both of the DC shows (My Space on 7th and 1460 Wall Mountables) sold wall space to artists and allowed them to fill the space as they saw fit.

The All Arlington Salon show is another hung-whatyou-brung show; however, this one was limited to artists living or working in Arlington, and allowed only one piece per artist. The All Arlington Salon also differed in that it had no entry fee. The Ellipse Arts Center with Arlington County money can do that, where as the other two galleries ran these shows as fund raisers. Galleries often run shows of this sort in the offpeak months to pay the bills, and generate foot traffic when attendance might otherwise be a tad on the lean side. All three of these shows had at least two Falls Church residents in them. has a series of her book purses here. These are smaller than the ones she showed on the 12th floor of this year’s Art-omatic. Had the review for the 11th and 12th floors of Artomatic seen print, you’d know Phillips’ purses were one of the best things in the whole building.

These ones are still pretty good.

Phillips takes old books with catchy titles or cool covers.

After gutting the wordy part,

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she makes purses out of the hardcover bindings. Cloth liners and handles are masterfully matched, often to the point that you’d swear they were patterned after the original end papers. It’s an ingenious concept, and well, we already called them masterful now, didn’t we?

They’re the perfect thing to set off a young hip smart and ever so stylish young lady’s ensemble. As any good librarian could warn you, however, don’t get them wet. Quizzically, book publishers manufacture them with dyes seeming to bleed nano-seconds after the tiniest bit of water hits them.

If you carry around a purse like the one at DCAC titled “English Synonyms Antonyms and Prepositions,” you’d better be a grammarian. Then again, seems like the perfect thing to carry along when applying for that editing job. Of course, guys might give a second thought to asking out the ice queen toting the “Disputed Passages” purse.

Choose carefully, ladies, this is one case where a book will definitely be judged by its cover.

Phillips also shows her purses at Crafty Bastards events, and on the web at www.rebounddesigns.com.

Tina Seamonster needs some sort of award for best nom de plume (we’re assuming). Seamonster’s sliced and varnished log sections resemble some sort of bad kitsch souvenir from the 50s that would read “Home is where you hang your hat.” Only these cutting pieces have weird observations and sayings on them, such as, “Being a vampire must be such a drag, it just goes on and on and on ...” or “Sometimes I hate that time is linear. I want it to be a swirly wobble...” It’s hard not to love stuff like this.

Kerri Sheehan has a series of photos showing people floating in open water. All you see is a pair of feet – or hand, etc.

– rising out of the wavy undulations beneath a vast sky. They seem like people attempting to survive while adrift at sea; could be a metaphor for life.

Matthew Smith has a few diptych style photos that juxtapose disparate items allowing you to make up your own story about the combination. This is one notion that has an especially strong result; it’s all about context and linkages within the mind of the viewer. I liked his untitled piece that showed two slabs of raw steak next to a person in bed. That one was fairly obvious. Others will have you scratching your head for a long time.

Almost every one of the 212 pieces on view are of respectable quality. Arlington stands head and shoulders above all the others.

Lisa Marie Thalhammer has an especially nice canvas that walks that tantalizing line between painting and drawing.

Titled “Portrait of My Cousin,” Thalhammer shows one of her girls and guns series. As I recall, they all are nude to the waist, and toting some sort of firearm. This one is of a spectacled Lisa Loebesque young lady, that doesn’t seem quite so lady-like with a rifle, complete with scope, in hand. A similar image of a man would have us questioning his intelligence and intentions. Here we see this woman as both smart, capable, sexy and not to be taken lightly ... or else.

A far more subtle, yet just as poignant piece is Jessica van Brakle’s “Towers and Lace.”

Here we find a beige, almost skin toned field with three construction cranes rendered in ink, overprinted with a three dimensional lace pattern below. You can find several metaphors here, but the most incisive one seems to be a juxtaposition of feminine and masculine power; a collage of sex and money.

It seems to suggest feminine allure is, in fact, the real power driving progress forward. While Thalhammer’s painting has a more modern “Gurl Power” perspective, van Brakle’s piece has a more traditional perspective.

Either way, as we all know, women never were as weak as all that “sugar and spice” nonsense would have you believe.

August 7 - 13, 2008

Page 23

registration are available at the FCCPS website at www.fccps. org, in the Extended Day Care Office (601 S. Oak St., Falls Church) or by calling 703-2485682.

TJHHST Student to Study Whales

Virginia International Polo Club Hosts Junior Camps The Virginia International Polo Club will host Junior Camps for ages 10 – 18 to teach campers basic horsemanship, riding and polo skills. The camps are taught by professional instructors and will be offered from August 12 – 15 from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. at the polo club’s facilities in Upperville, Va., each day.

For more information or to register, call 540-592-7474 or at

info@vipolo.com.

Registration Available for Extended Day Care Day Care and After School Activities Program (ASAP), Falls Church City Public Schools’ after school programs, have opened registration for the fall. In order for children to attend Day Care/ASAP on the first day of school, registration forms must be complete and on file

by Aug. 22.Enrollment options have changed this year, and the “drop-in” and “one-day per week” options are no longer available. Documents for

Arman Carter, a rising junior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST), will join an Earthwatch Institute expedition in August to study food availability and feeding behavior of grey whales off the coast of British Columbia in Canada.

Carther will work with five other high school student volunteers from the United States, Canada and Korea. Carter is a resident of McLean.

Poolside Lessons Taught at Lee Graham Drawing and watercolor exploration lessons for students of all ages will be taught by local artist Bill Abel at Lee Graham Pool in Falls Church. The cost is $15 per class and will be held after swimming lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with drop-in classes on Fridays. Class size will be limited, ensuring quality instruction.

Locally, Abel has taught in the public schools, Stacy’s Coffee Parlor, Falls Church Parks & Rec., Creative Cauldron and Art & Frame of Falls Church, as well as the occasional private lesson.

Private lessons and small group classes will begin in September.

Call 703-283-6260.

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August 7 - 13, 2008

Now that’s a real conservation piece.

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WHAT WE DO EVERY DAY, POWERS YOUR EVERY DAY.

August 7 - 13, 2008

When Deborah Koenig received an email from the “Wheel of Fortune” inviting her to attend a contestant audition in Washington, D.C., she didn’t believe it.

“The first thing I thought when I got the email was that someone was playing a trick on me, so I Googled the RSVP telephone number and was happy to see that it was Sony studios,” says Koenig, thrilled that the email was legitimate.

Koenig remembered visiting the “Wheel of Fortune” website a year earlier and registering for an ID. She suspects her status as a “Wheel Watcher” got her the invite. The audition announcing email asked her the following three questions before deciding whether to attend the tryouts.

The e-mail launched into the questions: “Do you think you can solve puzzles under pressure on national television?”

“Can you be heard calling out letters?” and finally “Do you have a good presence and energy?” Koenig recalled calling out a letter loudly after reading the email, and satisfied with her performance, answered yes to every question.

The “Wheel of Fortune” confirmed in her future, Koenig was left anticipating what that future would bring.

“At that point auditioning would be an experience of a lifetime, even if I didn’t make it through, so what did I have to lose?” says Koenig. All she needed to do now was show up in D.C. with her invitation and photo ID at the ready.

Auditions were held in a large, generic conference room in a downtown D.C. hotel, attracting about 40 or 50 promising contestants. Koenig recalls: “I was still skeptical when I arrived, but there were a lot of other people there audition-

Page 25

ing as well. Then I suddenly became competitive.”

First, these potential contestants completed a questionnaire, directed to include a recent accomplishment, something the host might be able to tell the audience if they were chosen to appear on television.

The “Wheel of Fortune” coordinators projected a puzzle onto a large screen and began to call out random names. Once called upon, the contestant guessed a letter.

“When my name was called, I stood up and clearly called out a letter, but it wasn’t in the puzzle, so I had to sit back down. That’s when I thought: I’m not going any further,” says Koenig.

With the first phase completed, the attendees received a five-minute timed quiz containing 10 word puzzles and took a quick break when the buzzer called time. Upon returning, the coordinators announced the names of those who would continue on to the next phase of auditions. The others were to leave immediately.

“I was surprised. My name was the first one called,” says Koenig. Polaroid pictures were taken, cementing contestant status with every shake of a new floppy photo. She noted: “So much for the digital age.”

Finally, contestants formed into groups of four and the puzzle returned to the screen.

“We needed to pretend we were playing a real game, spin an imaginary wheel and everything,” explains Koenig. After all groups spun the “imaginary wheel,” coordinators let them leave, promising a letter, if they were selected. They just needed to wait and see.

Lo and behold in less than two weeks time, Koenig received a letter. She was a chosen one, although it could be up to 18 months before the taping of her appearance, leaving her time to plan for the experience.

Approximately three months

later, Koenig received a phone call from another “Wheel of Fortune” coordinator, Gary. He asked if she was available for a taping date of July 10.

“Of course, yes!” Koenig says, exclaiming without hesitation. Gary promised a packet of information containing more details.

One document, entitled “Wheel of Fortune Contest Information,” was just part of the packet. The cover letter confirmed her name, date of her taping and stated the necessary arrival time.

Besides the usual proper identification reminder, the information included some very specific television wardrobe rules.

These guidelines caused Koenig a lot of packing-related angst. Included in with the directions were instructions, which read: “Ladies should avoid wearing tight or clingy tops. Please wear a blazer or a loose-fitting blouse/shirt/cardigan sweater to avoid the ‘muffin top’/’love handle’ look.”

To Koenig, it seemed frustratingly nebulous. “In my mind, I began going through outfits trying to determine which would avoid the ‘muffin top’ look.

Although, I was honestly more worried about ‘love handles’ than ‘muffin tops’,” says Koenig.

The promise of a professional make-up artist preparing her for taping was a highlight for Koenig, no pun intended. “I had never been airbrushed before.

They did my face and neck. It felt funny, but good,” she says.

Contestants ensured their accompanying guests were also dressed properly, in case they had to join the winning contestant on stage.

So Koenig packed her attire to specifications, and booked an overnight trip to California’s Los Angeles International Airport and on to Culver City where the “Wheel of Fortune” is taped on location at SONY studios.

Arriving at the hotel where

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she received a special contestant discount, Koenig proceeded to make her reservation for the morning’s “WOF” shuttle – shorthand for “Wheel of Fortune” for those in the biz – that would deliver her and fellow contestants to the studio for orientation at 7:15 a.m. The specially designated bus would be full of potential winners.

Contestants were warned against being late, lest their slot might be given to another contestant. Coordinators also prepared contestants for the long haul; with five or six “Wheel

of Fortune” shows taped a day, contestants might be at the studios until as late as 6 p.m.

Upon arrival, the contestants all walked as a group to the set.

“A lawyer went over an hour and a half worth of paperwork.

That was not the fun part,” says Koenig. The contestants, now opponents, were put into teams of three. One person on each team picked a numbered golf ball out of a bucket to determine in what order their episode would be taped.

Page 26

August 7 - 13, 2008

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ONE OF THE BEST “MOVIES OF THE YEAR. ” Jennaphr Frederick, Fox-TV

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Richard Roeper and Michael Phillips, At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper

EMOTION AND JOY.”

Francine Brokaw, Herald Publications

Eric was a pre-adolescent with a violent streak and the wrong kind of friend in Philip.

Together, they murdered a girl about their age and were put on trial as Boy A and Boy B. They were essentially evil, the prosecutor argued, and deserved the maximum legal sentence. Philip died in prison. Now Eric, at 24, has been paroled and given a new identity: Jack Burridge.

“Boy A” is based on a novel

by Jonathan Trigell, possibly inspired by the real-life British case of two youths seen on a shopping mall’s security video as they led away a child who was found dead. Such cases raise the question: Are children who murder indeed essentially evil, or can they heal and change over a period of years?

Should society give them a second chance?

That is the fervent belief in this film of Terry (Peter Mullan), the rehabilitation counselor for the renamed Jack (Andrew Garfield). He lectures Jack that he must never, ever reveal his secret. He believes Jack has changed, but society doesn’t

believe it and will crucify him.

So warned, Jack takes a delivery job with a Manchester firm and begins his new life.

Mullan and Garfield anchor the film -- Mullan, that splendid Scots actor (“My Name Is Joe”), and Garfield, 24, with his boyish face and friendly grin. When Jack is rebuilding his existence, Terry is his lifeline, who encourages him almost daily. At first the new job goes well. He makes a friend of his job partner, Chris (Shaun Evans). And Michelle (Katie Lyons), the secretary at the office, boldly asks, “Aren’t you going to ask me out for a drink, then?”

He does, and they fall sweetly in love. He urgently wants to tell her his secret, but Terry for-

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bids it. One day when Jack and Chris are driving a country road, they come upon a car crash and rescue a young girl from the wreckage. They’re hailed as heroes and get their photo on the front page of the Manchester Evening News -- Jack with his hat brim pulled low over his eyes.

A series of events eventually leads to Jack’s exposure by a shameless London tabloid, which runs the photo and breathlessly boasts that they’ve found Boy A, the embodiment of evil, now free to walk the streets. Jack’s life collapses, and he goes on the run. These scenes are the movie’s most desperate, ending at Brighton, where he has a fairly improbable chance encounter with Michelle.

By now we have seen, in a pub brawl, that Jack is still capable of violence. In flashbacks, we see boyhood behavior leading up to the tragic murder. And Terry’s own son, a layabout, resents his father’s clear preference for Boy A. The whole alternative identity falls apart, and Jack/Eric is left homeless and wandering.

Well, should he be forgiven?

Judeo-Christian tradition teaches that a boy becomes a man (“reaches the age of reason,” Catholics say) at about 12. Eric looks 9 or 10 when he commits his crime. Mistreated at home by a drunken father, raped by his brother, bullied at school, he has much to resent, much cruelty to absorb. When we see him at 24, we are inclined to believe he deserves a new chance.

The film, directed by John Crowley and written by Mark O’Rowe, paints an accurate portrait of working-class life in the north of England, the grimness of the streets contrasting with the beauty of the countryside. It is spoken with accents, Mullan’s Scots the hardest to understand. He can speak standard English, but the accent is one of his tools. I’ve never had a problem with his speech because he is such great actor you can forget the words and

August 7 - 13, 2008

Page 27

Rating: Three and a half stars.

H

ell Ride (Action, R, 83 minutes). War between two bike gangs hard to tell apart, in a dismal train wreck of a movie.

Most of the bikers seem near retirement age. With Michael Madsen, Dennis Hopper, David Carradine.

Written and directed by and starring Larry Bishop. Rating: One star.

A

lexandra (Drama, not rated, 91 minutes). An old lady rides in a military train to a remote Russian army outpost. We gradually find out who she is and why she is visiting.

Some soldiers stare at her, fascinated by this reminder of the lives they left behind. She bonds with a local woman she meets at the market. Starring legendary opera star Galina Vishnevskaya. Written and directed by Alexander Sokurov (“Russian Ark”). Rating: Three and a half stars.

B ANDREW GARFIELD stars as the young, confused Jack Burridge who seeks to move beyond a violent past in director John Crowley’s “Boy A.” (Photo: © 2008 Weinstein Co.) listen to the music.

He and Andrew Garfield fit well together -- both have faces you like on first sight, both have charm, both have warmth.

Garfield, just now emerging as a talent to watch (“The Other Boleyn Girl”), inhabits Jack effortlessly, showing his hope,

his fears, his nightmares, his doubt that he deserves his new life. And the movie poses the age-old question of forgiveness. At this moment in Chicago, children with handguns kill people. Can we say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”?

FROM THE DIRECTOR OF AND

ottle Shock (Drama, PG-13, 112 minutes). Based on the true story of how in the bicentennial year of 1976, unknown Napa Valley vineyards defeated famous French wines

in a blind taste-testing. With Alan Rickman superb and funny as the Brit who arranges the competition, and Bill Pullman and Chris Pine as the feuding father and son whose struggling vineyard triumphs. We know the outcome, but the movie makes it exciting anyway. Rating: Three and a half stars.

F

rownland (Drama, not rated, 106 minutes). A shriek for help, centering on an extraordinary performance that plays like an unceasing panic attack. Dore Mann plays Keith, a painfully neurotic door-to-door salesman whose very manner drives people away. Written, directed and edited by Ronald Bronstein, using a crew of four. Has attracted praise and perplexity in the indie world because Mann’s performance is so uncompromisingly agonized.

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an on Wire (Documentary, PG-13, 94 minutes). The story of how a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit crossed EIGHT TIMES on a tightwire between the two towers of the World Trade Center on Aug. 7, 1974. The task is approached like a bank heist, and the documentary has the tension of a first-rate thriller, as Petit and his accomplices sneak nearly a ton of equipment past security.

Director James Marsh seamlessly combines actual and restaged footage to make a spellbinder. Winner of the Audience Award and named Best Documentary at Sundance 2008. Rating: Four stars.

P

ineapple Express (Comedy, R, 112 minutes).

The answer to the question, “What would happen if a stoner buddy comedy was made by a great director?” David Gordon Green makes his first mainstream effort, beautifully photographed and often very funny. Seth Rogen and James Franco star as alwaysstoned friends who start a drug war after sampling Pineapple Express, a new blend of weed so good that even smoking it, Franco says, is a crime “like killing a unicorn.” Be aware: Despite a “warning,” the movie is enthusiastically pro-pot.

Rating: Three and a half stars.

S

mart People (Comedy, R, 95 m., 2008). Dennis Quaid plays a dour lit professor who’s indifferent to his students

and ‘Undeclared’ and they had a baby, and by some miracle those babies met - this would be the funny movie they birthed.”

Continued on Page 28

–PETER TRAVERS

COLUMBIA PICTURES PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH RELATIVITY MEDIA AN APATOW COMPANY/MOSAIC MEDIA GROUP/GARY SANCHEZ PRODUCTION A FILM BY ADAM MCKAY “STEP BROTHERS” RICHARD JENKINS MARY STEENBURGEN ADAM SCOTT KATHRYN HAHN SUPERVISIONMUSICBY HAL WILLNER STORY EXECUTIVE MUSIC

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Aug 6

Studio

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

Warner Bros.

Aug 8

Studio

Fly Me To The Moon

Summit

The Perfect Game

Lionsgate

Pineapple Express

Sony

Aug 15

Studio

Mirrors

Fox

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Warner Bros.

Tropic Thunder

Paramount

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Weinstein Co.

Aug 22

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Death Race

Universal

Crossing Over

MGM

Hamlet 2

Focus

The House Bunny

Sony

The Longshots

MGM

Page 28

August 7 - 13, 2008

Robert Richardson, Scorsese deployed a team of nine other cinematographers, all of them Oscar winners or nominees, to essentially blanket a live September 2006 Rolling Stones concert at the smallish Beacon Theater in New York.

The result is startling immediacy, a merging of image and music, edited in step with the performance.

Rating: Four stars.

new kid, humiliated by the local bully (Cam Gigandet) for having a crush on his girlfriend (Amber Heard). Djimon Hounsou is the stoic African MMA master who teaches the kid to fight. Rated: Two and a half stars. (Bryant Manning)

and just about everything else, including his family. A widower, he lives with his Young Republican 1 (Crime drama, R, 123 daughter (Ellen Page, toning down m., 2008). A formula movie her Juno ever so slightly) and ne’erCLNTS 1 127093 1/15/02by” WV 22:03 “inspired a true B/W story do-well brother (Thomas Haden HE BANK JOB (Crime about the M.I.T. students who Church), who acts as his chauffeur. drama, R, 111 m., 2008). A developed a card-counting system Sarah Jessica Parker plays a docserviceable B-grade British that enabled them to win millions at tor and former student instrumental heist movie, “The Bank Job” is the blackjack tables in Las Vegas. in bringing him out of his brittle no better than its generic title. It The excitement is as watered-down shell. Reasonably smart and mildly front-loads the naughty sex and as the drinks. It’s not unwatchable, funny, but not brilliant. Rating: Two back-loads the plot twists (the titular but you could watch it with your and a half stars. (Jim Emerson) crime takes place in the middle), eyeballs tied behind your back and but apart from the prominence of enjoy it just as much. Rating: One Princess Margaret in the goingsand a half stars. (Jim Emerson) im’s Island (Adventure, on, it’s a pretty routine job, as PG, 96 m., 2008). A pair of the use of the hackneyed phrase heroines on opposite sides (c) 2008 The Ebert Co. “plot twists” earlier in this sentence of the world team up in a heartshould indicate. For a movie about warming story from Walden Media, crime and sleaze and sex, it ought the latest in its series of fine films to be a lot more fun. Inspired by based on popular children’s literathe 1971 “Walkie-Talkie” bank job ture. Nim (Abigail Breslin of “Little in London. Rated: Two and a half Miss Sunshine”) and her marine biologist father, Jack (Gerard stars. (Jim Emerson) Butler), are the only human resiWHAT A CHILD LEARNS dents of a remote but idyllic South ABOUT VIOLENCE ever Back Down Pacific island. Into the plot comes (Action drama, PG-13, 110 A CHILD LEARNS FOR LIFE. Alex Rover, who’s really Alexandra, m., 2008). This fun and a famous author (Jodie Foster) Teach carefully. We can show you how. shamelessly formulaic tale proterrified of life. Directors Jennifer Call 877-ACT-WISE for a free brochure or vides a dazzling highlight reel visit www.actagainstviolence.org.

Flackett and Mark Levin seamlessly for mixed martial arts fighting. combine adventure, drama, comEssentially a remake of “The edy and fantasy as Jack, Nim and Karate Kid.” Sean Faris is the Alexandra have to confront their separate but often parallel fears and challenges. The filmmakers wisely make Nim the center of the story in a way that young audiences will find empowering. Rated: Three stars. (Nell Minow)

2

T

DOLEV

*127093*

N

N

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

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he Counterfeiters (Drama, R, 98 m., 2008). A true story of the Nazis’ massive wartime counterfeiting operation, run out of a concentration camp. It’s a noble effort, but nothing inspired. The Austrian winner for Best Foreign Language Film of 2007, it plays like just that: a rather dull prestige picture that is all too good at fitting the horrors of the Holocaust into a generic movie format. Rating: Two and a half stars.

(Jim Emerson)

40+ Virginia Homes

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hine A Light (Concert documentary, PG-13, 122 m., 2008). Martin Scorsese’s “Shine a Light” may be the most intimate documentary ever made about a live rock and roll concert.

Certainly it has the best coverage of the performances on stage.

Working with cinematographer

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August 7 - 13, 2008

August 7 - 13, 2008

Page 31

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Page 32

Hacking my way through the profusion of herbs in my small but productive garden, I reveled in the fragrances of the thyme, rosemary, tarragon, cinnamon basil and other plants I was forced to cut back before they took over the adjacent patio.

What a wonderful time of year, when the upside of a wet, hot summer that plagued us in so many other outdoor pursuits is seen in such garden abundance.

Not only does it fill some inner, primal urge to grow things in rich earth, it provides inspiration for additional creativity in preparing summer food and drink. Creating herb blends to perfume the smoke of the barbecue grill. Brightening the routine tossed salads in need of some new tastes. Finding just the right chopped leaves to blend into artisanal chevre cheeses from the local farm stands. All these are summertime givens for me, but don’t forget what can be done with a deft touch to your cocktails and vodka infusions.

Not that there is any shortage of flavored vodkas on the market. Infusions are arguably the biggest thing in the world of alcoholic beverages these days. The major money is found in handling infusions at the mass-production level in factories or distilleries, not at the local bar no matter how much of a signature gimmick is created. Virtually every commercial brand of vodka, for example, offers versions infused with various fruit flavorings. Likewise with some gins, rums and even whiskies. It is just that I prefer my own infusions, free of chemicals and trickery. Buying such concoctions may be fine for ease of use but, just as a home cooked meal can be more enjoyable than a takeout spread, doing your own infusing is a lot more fun. It certainly can lead to a more enjoyable cocktail party conversation than simply opening a bottle.

Infusions have been around for nearly as long as alcohol has been part of the human experience. Liqueurs concocted on farms, in monasteries and in laboratories give testament to the boundless imagination of amateur and professional chemists.

Mead makers of the Middle Ages infused their honey liquor with herbs and spices. And, the strength of alcohol was long believed to counteract the toxic parts of certain substances favored as medicines throughout the centuries.

Alcohol can be infused with botanicals, marinated with macerated fruits, or stirred together with other potions. It can be dotted with flecks of pure gold, cloves, grains of pepper, sprinklings of cinnamon. The mixtures can be festive, imaginative, wonderful introductions to grown-up spirits.

They can be used as dessert toppings, as baking ingredients or — as many tavern owners and restaurants know — excellent appetite-boosters and after-meal relaxers. They can be flavored with nuts, fruits, exotic plant extracts. They can be orange, blue, black, white, red, pink, yellow, green or any other color. If all this doesn’t inspire you to experiment and enjoy, there is no hope for civilization as we know it.

August 7 - 13, 2008

Rarely is it correct to play a hyper-aggressive style of poker.

But there are certain situations where a seemingly reckless approach will actually be the most profitable strategy to employ, like at the Main Event at the World Series of Poker.

That’s because the Main Event features a unique combination of variables that must be present in order to make a hyper-aggressive poker style pay off.

The most important variable to consider is stack size.

Hyper-aggressive poker works best in deep-stack tournaments.

Tournaments where stack sizes are small in relation to the blinds and antes aren’t the time to play like a maniac. The goal of hyper-aggressive poker is to create a wild and crazy image that will return dividends when you’re eventually dealt a monster hand. You can achieve that table image by frequently making small raises with marginal hands that don’t jeopardize a large percentage of your chips.

Another factor to look for is the presence of weak players that call too many big bets.

There are a swarm of these types at the WSOP Main Event.

They are precisely the kind of players who are most confused by hyper-aggressive play. Look for these players to give you an early Christmas gift when you do pick up a monster hand. Be sure to avoid big bluffs against them, however, because they’ll call too often. Instead, wait until you have the best hand and then bet it strong.

Also, look for a game with minimal pre-flop reraising.

Hyper-aggressive poker is most effective in games where players are happy to just call rather than reraise. You’ll be able to take control in these situations.

However, if other players start reraising you before the flop, you’ll need to tighten up. At this kind of table, keep your bets on the small side. There’s no need to bet too much on speculative hands. Your goal is to reel in a big fish on the river and take all of his chips when you have a made hand.

You can also play hyperaggressive poker against tight opponents when antes are introduced into the game. Picking up two or three sets of blinds and antes each round will help get you to the chip lead. But you have to stay out of trouble.

Be very careful when one of the tight players calls your big bet.

Also look for situations where your opponents play poorly after the flop. Weak, lose, predictable and overly-aggressive

players make the perfect targets. A hand that you wouldn’t normally play against solid players, like Jc6c, is a hand that might have value against players who tend to make mistakes after the flop.

One more thing: If you also happen to have position against these same weak players, you can make a good case for playing virtually any two cards that you’re dealt!

The bottom line is that the WSOP Main Event draws the weakest field of the year in terms of caliber of player. The tournament is littered with novices who are bound to make at least one catastrophic mistake.

You’ll have to beat more than 6,000 players to win this tournament. My advice is to play

as many hands as you can early on and hope to benefit from the inevitable mistakes that others will eventually make against you.

Sure, a conservative approach is the safer alternative. But in order to dominate a table and compete for the title, you’ll need to amass a lot of chips early. A hyper-aggressive style is wellsuited to attain that goal.

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

Cox Channel 12/ RCN Chanel 2/ Verizon Chanel 35

August 7 - 13, 2008

Page 33

Level: 1 3

2 4

SOLUTION TO LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE

8/10/08

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

ACROSS 1. Sudden impact 5. Corral 11. Checked, as a box 14. Three-time Grammy winner for Best New-Age Album 15. Loosen, as a corset 16. “Norma ____” 17. Really get the grit off some fruit?

19. Broker: Abbr.

20. Till bill 21. Julia’s Oscar-winning role 22. War correspondent Ernie 23. One who tries to convince a PC owner to convert?

27. As you like it 30. Faith that teaches the unity of all races 31. Sunni leader 32. Estimator’s phrase 33. Devitalize 36. It’s been left on 17-, 23-, 49- and 58-Across 41. ____-Cat 42. Ibuprofen target 43. Tiny bit 44. Many MySpace users 46. Martyred bishop of Paris 49. Ancient Peruvian’s discarded item while snacking?

52. Shakespeare’s “very foolish fond old man” 53. Gas: Prefix 54. Wrath 57. Crew’s control?

58. Like any premium channel watching TV lover?

62. Normal: Abbr.

63. Perfectly pitched 64. Top-notch 65. Lean-____ (sheds) 66. La ____ de Nueva York 67. Hidden valley

DOWN 1. Kid around 2. Long ago 3. City on the Rhone 4. Sorority letter 5. Toddler 6. How many Asian entrees are served 7. Fallback strategy 8. “Annabel Lee” monogram 9. What makes a drink clink 10. Nintendo’s Super ____

THE QUIGMANS

BUDDY HICKERSON

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

17

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21

10

11

28

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40 43

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© 2008 David Levinson Wilk

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

CROSSWORD / By David Levinson Wilk

Across

11. One of Superman’s pow-

39. Black Power symbol 40. Cambodian currency 5.

12.Corral Golfer’s feat 45. Stud’s place 13. Checked, Hinder as a box 46. “For Your Eyes Only” 11.

18. Radiation dosages singer Easton 14. Three-time Grammy winner for Best New-Age Album 22. Shade of green 47. Described as 15. Loosen, as a corset 23. Poetic foot 48. 552, on a cornerstone 16.

24. "Norma Spain’s____" second-longest 49. Irving Berlin’s “When riverReally get the grit off some fruit?____ You” 17.

25. Broker: Bringing up the rear 50. “Cool!”

19.

Abbr.

26. Denny’s rival 51. “To your health!”

20. Till bill 27. Nervous twitches 54. “American ____” 21.

Oscar-winning 28. Julia's Mideast sultanate role 55. Painter Magritte 22. correspondent Ernie 29. War Fortunetellers?

56. Place of bliss 32. One Suffix with 58. The Pres., militarily 23. who triesball to convince a PC owner to convert?

34.

Opposed to speaking 27. As you like it 35. Classy grps.?

59. Singer DiFranco 30. Faith that teaches the unity of all races 37. Dentist’s request 60. A/C measure 31. leader 38. Sunni Part of Mork’s goodbye 61. Complain constantly 1. ersSudden impact

32. Estimator's phrase

Last Thursday’s Puzzle Solved

33. Devitalize

S E C T

T B A R

O O N A

C A L E B

A G I R L

S K I M

A N N E

R E T R O S P E C T

N O O N S

E K E S O U T

L Y S O L

C O P A S E T I C

H O N W U P E I S M T H E A N W A W A S T O

A L F B I T I E R T I O N N O O D P R E D W V E D O L I C N A T O C T R I R O N N O C D I O Y X B

M A N N O N E I P E R M L O S N E O V E S R A T H I T H E O E D R L S S M A S K A R P I L E I C L A C K

NICK KNACK

© 2008 N. F. Benton

Page 34

August 7 - 13, 2008

For Sale

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High Speed Internet Ready! Great Commuter Location. Schools: Sleepy Hollow, Glassgow, Stuart. Don’t Miss this low price. Owners are Licensed Real Estate Agents. Contact: Ryad Daoussi, 703-863-9875 IKON Realty, Inc.

32 MPG SATURN Coupe 1993 Saturn Coupe 32 mpg. Ex. condition, sunroof, 5-spd, AM-FM CD, many new parts $1,350 703-2375460

FALLS CHURCH CITY $249.950 IT’S JUST RIGHT - for you. Spacious

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Help Wanted AFTERNOON NANNY Seeking expe-

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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

ROOM FOR RENT

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TYSON CORNER, MCLEAN - THE COLONIES apartment for rent 3 bedrooms 2 baths. 24 hr security, parking, 5 minutes to 495, 66 & Dulles Airport.. $1900. References. Call 703-821-3982 or 703-639-8078

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*Brick & Block - Concrete *Stone & Marble - Carpentry *Painting - Plaster *Landscaping - Trimming/Edging *Raking - Cleaning *Tile Workd Call Gary 703-849-1813 or Cell 703-5825815 Located in Falls Church.

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

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10 years experience. For further information call me at 703-901-0596. Senior discount, Ask: Susy.

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PIANO LESSONS Gifted teacher and musician. Lessons for children and adults in my Falls Church Home. Call Susan 703-204-0649

Request For Proposals (RFP) Banking Services - RFP NO. 0729-08-BS City Of Falls Church, Virginia The City of Falls Church is now accepting sealed proposals for Banking Services.

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 #0729-08-BS will be accepted until: 3:00 PM on Friday, September 12, 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).

Public Notice

Request For Proposals (RFP) Red Light Camera - RFP NO. 0712-08-RLC City Of Falls Church, Virginia

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING CITY OF FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

The City of Falls Church is now accepting sealed proposals for a turn-key Red Light Camera system and associated services.

The ordinance(s) referenced below was given first reading on May 27, 2008; and second reading and public hearing will be held on Monday, August 11, 2008 at 7:30 p.m., Official Time, or as soon thereafter as may be heard. [Second reading was originally scheduled for July 28th and was continued to August 11, 2008.

City Council may hold additional work sessions on this matter prior to second reading; please check the city website at www: fallschurchva.gov] (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

Submit Your Classified Ads Every Week On-Line www.fcnp.com

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 #0712-08-RLC will be accepted until: 2:00 PM on Tuesday, August 19, 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).

Volunteers who live in the City of Falls Church are needed to serve on the boards and commissions listed below. Call the City Clerk, Kathleen Buschow (703-248-5014, or e-mail cityclerk@fallschurchva.gov) for an application form or more information.

Requests for reappointments must also be made through the City Clerk. Applications are being accepted until the end of the month. Vacancies that have been advertised for more than one month may be filled during each subsequent month before month’s end.

Architectural Advisory Board City Employee Review Board Environmental Services Council Girls’ Home Advisory Board Falls Church Cable Advisory Corp. Board Historic Architecture Review Board Historical Commission Housing Commission Human Services Advisory Council Local Board of Building Code Appeals Planning Commission [4 vacancies for terms beginning 1-09] Private School & Day Care Facility Board Public Utilities Commission Recreation and Parks Advisory Board Retirement Board Senior Citizens Commission Citizens’ Advisory Committee on Transportation Tree Commission Zoning Ordinance Advisory Committee Regional Boards/Commissions: Fairfax Area Commission on Aging Long Term Care Coordinating Council Workforce Investment Board

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Page 35

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

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

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1 x 2” 1 x 1.5” 1 x 1”

Page 36

August 7 - 13, 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>

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*

* Indicates TTY 711 Accessibility

city calendar

august 7

8 9 11

Story Hour, 10:30 a.m.

Retirement Board, 5:30 p.m.

Concerts in the Park, 7 p.m.

Book Discussion Group, 7:30 p.m.

2008 Vehicle Verification Forms Due Farmers Market, 8 a.m.-Noon Yard Waste, Bundled Brush,

& Special Collections Teen Truth Seminar Story Hour, 10:30 a.m.

City Council, 7:30 p.m.

Volunteer Fire Department Business, 8 p.m.

12 Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court NOT in Session Story Hour, 10:30 a.m.

13 General District Court NOT in Session Story Hour, 7 p.m.

Citizens Advisory Committee on Transportation, 7:30 p.m.

2008 Vehicle Verification Forms Due Aug. 8 TheCommissioneroftheRevenuehasmailed VehicleVerification Forms to all City residents and businesses. If you have purchased or sold a vehicle in 2008 or have other changes to your vehicle record, you must return your completed form to the Commissioner by tomorrow, Aug. 8. Prompt receipt of your changes ensures accurate Personal Property (Vehicle)Tax bills when theTreasurer’s Office issues them in early September.

Forms can be faxed to 703-248-5212; emailed to commissioner@fallschurchva.gov; or mailed to Commissioner of the Revenue, 300 Park Ave., Suite #104E, Falls Church, VA 22046. Questions? Call 703-248-5065 (TTY 711).

Recreation & Parks Online Registration Is Here!

Withtheclickofamouse,youcannowregister forthemanyexcitingclasses,camps,activities, and sports programs offered by the City. Visit www.fallschurchva.gov to sign up today!

Any household that has signed up for an activity with the Recreation & Parks Division since Jan. 1, 2006, will have an active account in the database. However, households will need to update current information with the Community Center in order to utilize the online registration system. 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

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).

FOR THE WEEK of

Teen Truth: An Inside Look at Summer Camps Bullying and School Violence The Recreation & Parks Division is currently accepting registration for the following summer camps:

• Are our schools safe?

• What can be done to protect our youth?

• What drives a teen to bring a gun to school and open fire on his classmates?

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

This free seminar is open to educators, parents and students.

Monday, Aug. 11, 9-10:30 a.m.; 1:00-2:30 p.m.; or 6-7:30 p.m.

Friday, Aug. 22, 9:00-10:30 a.m.

City Hall Training Center 300 Park Ave., Level G “Teen Truth” examines the phenomenon of school violence and bullying through hard-hit-

ting footage, interviews with real teens, and a dramatic look inside the mind of a violent teenager.

Participants will be ready to discuss how to change the alienating culture of high school; stop bullies; and make school a safe and supportive place for all young people.

Space is limited; all participants must pre-register with Officer Derrica Wilson at 703-2485056 (TTY 711) or dwilson@ 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 703-241-5053 (TTY 711).

Final Concert in the Park Performance Tonight The 2008 Concerts in the Park series comes to a close tonight with a live performance by local rock and roll and blues musician Tom Principato. Bring a blanket and a picnic and enjoy this free performance at Cherry Hill Park (312 Park Ave.). In the event of rain, concerts will be held in the Falls Church Community Center (223 Little Falls Street). Also featured tonight is artwork by Jill Saxton Smith.

The Concerts in the Park 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. Art exhibits are sponsored by Falls Church Arts.

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).

Vote on City Center South Apartments Scheduled for Aug. 11 The City Council is considering the Falls Church Housing Corporation’s application for a comprehensive plan amendment and special exception for 1.2 acres, located at 350 and 370 South Washington St., with the pending addition of property located at 360 South Washington St. The proposed development is for a 174-unit affordable residential apartment building with ground floor office space.

For more information on this proposed development, visit www.fallschurchva.gov.

A vote is scheduled to take place during the Monday, Aug. 11 regular Council meeting at 7:30 p.m.

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 703-248-5014 (TTY 711).

Karate (ages 6-12) Aug. 11-15 or Aug. 18-22, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Community Center (223 Little Falls St.) The “Ninja Rangers–A Warrior’s Call” camp is designed to help boys and girls utilize their full range of imagination and problem solving skills.

Tennis II: Intro to High School Tennis Camp (ages 10-13) Aug. 11-14, 9:30 a.m.-noon George Mason High School (7124 Leesburg Pike) Stroke production drills combine with match play tactics and strategies to prepare players for high school competition.

Tennis I Fundamentals Camp (ages 10-13) Aug. 11-14, 9:30 a.m.-noon George Mason High School (7124 Leesburg Pike) Through fun skill-building games, beginners and intermediates learn the fundamental strokes with emphasis on the serve,return of serve,score keeping, and tennis rules.

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

Growing Green Water Conservation Tips As good stewards of the environment, it’s important to conserve water whenever possible, especially as temperatures rise. During the summer months,our consumption of water increases dramatically—we swim in pools, water our lawns, and wash our cars.

The City of Falls Church has been working with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments to promote wise water use, and offers the following outdoor and indoor water conservation ideas that are simple and easy to follow: Outdoor Water Conservation • Prioritize your summertime watering needs. Newly planted trees, shrubs, and lawns should receive first priority when it comes to determining the need for water. When you water your outdoor plants, trees, or lawn, it is best to water early in the morning when temperatures and wind speed are at the lowest.This reduces water loss from evaporation.

• Don’t over-water your lawn. As a general rule, your lawn only needs one inch of water every five to seven days. Place a small empty tuna can near your sprinkler system, this will help you to determine when to turn the sprinkler off. When the can is full, you have watered approximately one inch.

• Set sprinklers for lawn and garden only, don’t water the street or sidewalk.

• Use a broom the next time the driveway or sidewalks needs cleaning instead of pulling out the hose.This saves up to 80 gallons of water.

• Capture and recycle rainwater. Place rain barrels or buckets beneath your downspouts.

You can use rainwater to water plants and trees or to wash your car.

Indoor Water Conservation • Turn off the water when brushing teeth or shaving. Collectively, we could save thousands of gallons of water a day if we turned off the faucet until we need it.

• Take showers instead of baths. Take shorter showers too, if possible.You can save up to 1,000 gallons of water a month if you time your shower to keep it under five minutes.

• Don’t use the toilet as a wastebasket. Many of us throw tissues or other small water soluble items into the toilet. Use a wastebasket instead.

• Run the dishwasher and washing machine only when full. These machines use a tremendous amount of water.

There are hundreds more ways you can easily conserve water.Visit www.wateruseitwisely.com for more tips.

Dominion Virginia Power Meeting Thursday, Aug. 21, 7:30 p.m.

City Hall Council Chambers (300 Park Ave.) Residents of the Greenway Downs and Virginia Forest neighborhoods are encouraged to attend this follow-up meeting with Dominion Virginia Power. Dominion Virginia Power representatives will be available to answer your questions and provide an update regarding its efforts to improve electric service reliability in your neighborhoods.

For more information, call DominionVirginia Power at 703-375-5912.

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

August 7 - 13, 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

august 7-13, 2008

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

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

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:

• 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.

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

City police will only conduct house checks on single-family homes and townhouses. Vacant properties will not be checked.

Tune in to Falls Church Community Television (FCC-TV) to watch Down Home Virginia . Produced by the Virginia Farm Bureau, this half-hour program is geared toward consumers and families in Virginia, and focuses on both agriculture news and family-oriented stories .

You can catch Down Home Virginia on FCC-TV at the following times: • Mondays at 5:30 p .m . • Tuesdays at 7:30 a .m . • Fridays at 8:30 a .m . • Sundays at 11:00 a .m .

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

BIE Partner of the Week Chris Earman DKG Design School Involvement: Donated custom-imprinted T-shirts as a silent auction item for Falls Church Education Foundation Gala; prints school spirit wear for all Falls Church City public schools; worked with school teams to create George Mason High School swim team wear; Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School field day shirts; Thomas Jefferson Elementary School fourth grade “movingup” T-shirts; and Falls Church Education Foundation “Run for the Schools” banners, signs & T-shirts .

Why Chris is a BIE partner: “Having graduated from George Mason High School, I appreciate the education available to all students . Each year I continue to be impressed with the quality of my sons’ education in all four of our 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.

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

of City Hall and the adjacent Cherry Hill Park.

Restaurants and artists interested in participating can contact Jenny Elmore at 703-2485077 (TTY 711) or jelmore@ fallschurchva.gov. The deadline to register is Friday, Aug. 15.

Fall For Fun celebration

Friday, Aug. 8, 5:30-7:30 p.m. berman Park (Across from the Fields of Falls Church Apartments on Ellison St.) All are welcome to this community event to learn more about City of Falls Church services!

Enjoy free: • Hotdogs • Crafts • Games • Car seat checks • Fingerprinting for children • School supplies (limited to the first 20 children accompanied by an adult) • And more!

For more information, contact the Housing and Human Services Division at 703-248-5005 (TTY 711).

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.

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

FCC-TV Spotlight: Down Home Virginia

The department cannot guarantee house checks will stop intentional criminal acts. House checks will be conducted depending on manpower and other duties of officers.

Fall Festival and Taste of Falls Church a Perfect Pairing On Saturday, Sept. 13, the City of Falls Church welcomes the fall season with the Fall Festival and the Taste of Falls Church. This free event features local artists, restaurants, live entertainment and children’s activities from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on the grounds

703-536-8638 703-536-7564 703-237-6993 703-536-3130 703-533-1248 703-248-5601*

* Indicates TTY 711 Accessibility

Request House Checks This Summer • Vaccinate all cats, dogs and ferrets against rabies and keep the vaccination current.

703-534-4951 703-532-0321

Help Welcome New FCCPS Teachers The Falls Church business community is renowned for its generous welcome of new Falls Church City Public Schools teachers.

At the start of every school year the FCCPS, through its Business in Education (BIE) partnerships pres- New FCCPS teachers are all smiles outside George Mason ents each new teach- High School when they receive a bag filled with gifts from er with a bag full of local businesses at the start of the 2007-2008 school year. treasures, donated by local businesses.

Businesses are donating mugs, gift certificates, key chains, pens, pencils, magnets and many other items a new teacher can use. To contribute to this year’s new teacher welcome bags contact FCCPS BIE Coordinator, Marybeth Connelly at connellym@fccps.org or visit www.fccps.org/bie/ for more information.

Items donated must be received by August 13th.

Fall Registration Deadline August 22

The registration packet is available online at www.fccps.org/asap

SCHOOL CALENDAR DATES ARE SubjEcT To chAngE August 7 6:00 p.m. School Board Work Session (MEH) 12

7:30 p.m. School Board Regular Meeting (City Hall)

22

Deadline for Day Care/ASAP Fall Registration 8:00 a.m. 5th Grade Locker/ Orientation (MEH) 10:00 a.m. New Student Orientation (MEH) 6:30 p.m. School Board Work Session (City Hall) 7:30 p.m. School Board Regular Meeting (City Hall)

26

27

9:00 a.m. New Student Orientation (GM) 12:00 p.m. 8th Grade Orientation (GM)

28

12:45 p.m. Meet the Teacher (TJ) 1:30 p.m. Kindergarten Meet the Teacher (MD) 2:00 p.m. 1st Grade Meet the Teacher (MD) 2:30 p.m. Pre-School Meet the Teacher (MD) September 2 First Day of School (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

Page 38

August 7 - 13, 2008

‘

It’s not widely understood how profound a change in overall energy consumption could be realized from a big-time, coordinated efficiency and conservation effort. It is not something that has captured the public’s imagination.

In addition to the obvious need for more fuel-efficient vehicles, we should be demanding more efficiencies from utilities across the country; we should be requiring (as Schumer has been pointing out) that states revamp their commercial and building codes; and we should be trying to weatherize homes from one coast to the other, including the homes of families without enough money to make such improvements themselves.

And, of course, there are the everyday good energy deeds that would help make a world of difference: car-pooling; taking public transportation when possible; using more efficient lighting; dropping the thermostat a couple of degrees; buying more efficient appliances; unplugging appliances that aren’t in use.

Dan Reicher, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Energy, told the Schumer panel that increased energy efficiency was “the real low-hanging fruit in our economy.” His words echoed those of Al Gore, who described a commitment to efficiency and conservation as “the best investment we can make.”

Reicher, now the director for climate change and energy initiatives at Google, said, “From cars and homes to factories and offices, we know how to cost-effectively deliver vast quantities of energy sav-

ings today.”

He cited estimates suggesting that an additional global investment in “efficiency opportunities” of $170 billion annually over the next 13 years “would be sufficient to cut projected global demand by at least half.”

Combining the development of alternative fuels with a real efficiency and conservation effort is the winning hand.

Because of the high price of oil, people in many parts of the country are already frightened, in the heat of summer, about their winter heating bills.

Families are worried about having to choose between mortgage payments and fuel bills, or fuel bills and prescription medicine.

The Senate considered but was unable to pass a measure that would have substantially increased financing for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. If the government can’t get that done in

the current atmosphere, it hardly seems likely that it could move to an even more important step: finding a way to get the homes of these cash-strapped families properly weatherized so that they use substantially less fuel

over the course of each winter.

Energy efficiency and conservation. We know what we should be doing. What we don’t have is the leadership, the common sense or the will to get it done.

“I was the last to pick. So there was only one ball left and it was number one! I was happy to be going first and not have to wait,” says Koenig.

Once back on the set after practicing, her first realization was that the big wheel of fortune isn’t really all that big, although still weighing two tons.

She was shocked that even the board, where Vanna White stands and prances about professionally since her beginning in 1982 to reveal letters, appeared dwarfed.

Suddenly – it’s showtime.

Pat Sayak arrived on stage, welcomed the contestants and introduced them to the guest audience.

“I thought I’d let him know I was a Maryland Terrapins fan, since I know he lives in Maryland; get in good with the host,” says Koenig.

It was time for the first tossup puzzle. Koenig shouted out the sizzling correct answer “Back Yard Barbecue.” Lady

luck was smiling on her.

At the first commercial break, the production assistant reminded her to speak up, but other than that request, taping was running smoothly.

“I was nervous and kept cutting off Pat, it was like I had to get it out before someone else snatched away the puzzle.”

“WOF” staff reminded contestants to keep their energy up and act excited. Koenig took this to heart and reacted enthusiastically. “Every time I got a puzzle correct and Pat came over to congratulate me, I grabbed him.

He was probably like, get away from me.”

Koenig bested her two opponents with solves like “Tennis Partners, Beer-Battered Fish and Chips and Western Europe,” making it to the finals round. A “WOF” assistant asked Koenig’s guest, this Virginia reporter, to join her on stage.

Sayak briefly welcomed me, for the viewers at home to get a glimpse. Better as an observer, when Pat directed a question to me – the guest – I found myself babbling a vapid answer. I knew if Koenig solved the final puzzle, winning whatever was enclosed in

the mystery envelope, I would be expected to run up to her and celebrate on national television.

The pressure got to Koenig in the final round, stumped by “Hot Cocoa Mix” the food and drink themed puzzle. “It is so hard to figure out a word that an ends with an ‘A!’” says Koenig.

So maybe she didn’t win the hidden $35,000 in the envelope

– ouch – but she still accumulated almost $14,000 dollars in cold hard cash – before taxes of course.

Although Koenig wanted to celebrate by flying home first class, as opposed to her economy class flight from D.C. – in the last row, in a seat that didn’t recline for 5 hours – she found the money wasn’t exactly hers yet. In fact, she wouldn’t actually receive her

winnings until after the show’s airing.

“I was bummed that it would take so long to get my money, so my shopping would have to wait. I could handle that,” says Koenig. For this type of anticipatory wait, it is agreed, patience is an easy virtue.

Watch Koenig’s adventure in California when she appears on “Wheel of Fortune” on ABC, Sept. 8 at 7 p.m.

August 7 - 13, 2008

Page 39

Page 40

ti ul M

August 7 - 13, 2008

pl

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