Morning Roundup: “You Lie!” Edition
ANOTHER HORSE'S ASS NAMED JOE WILSON, this time a Republican, breaks decorum and accidentally says what he thinks. This is a cause of great concern! In American politics, there is a ridiculously precious conceit called decorum, which means you can Twitter a retort or pound your opponents on a chat show later, but you must never, ever, show the passion for your job one would take for granted in a high school football coach.
Someone just called me, from Germany (!) to say that there are 22 ghost bikes in Dupont Circle today to honor Alice Swanson. Great!
AFTER THE JUMP: Trees, eagles, bells, weird traffic circles, Giants fans, Beatles, Big Star
Yesterday at the circle on the western end of Memorial Bridge, which I have written about before, police were ticketing motorists for an offense I can't quite figure out. (A Park Police spokesperson is looking into it for me.) My totally uninformed take, then: That circle is a magnet for crazy, sure, but it's also the worst-marked and least intuitive traffic hazard in the region. Instead of penalizing people for not knowing what the hell to do there, how about re-engineering the whole shebozzle?
Mosquito farms appearing around trees on Champlain Street NW. I don't have a call out on this one. Anyone know the score?
BIKE COMMUTING TIP: The weather is glorious, and people who had been in hiding from the heat are once again taking their jogging clothes out for walks. This is a concern if your ride, like mine, takes you on bike trails. You simply must have a bell. Local bike stores have fine bells, but Annapolis' Velo Orange offers classy Japanese bells that you can mount to your handlebars or, if you're even a little handy, to your stem. Your bike will look great, and you will receive shrugs rather than glares when you pass people walking in Lycra.
POWERPOP UPDATE: It is a good week to be a sad geezer. While I save up for the mono Beatles reissues, I've been listening to the Big Star box set, which Marc Hirsh did a great job of reviewing/destroying in this week's paper. (Hirsh wrote this marvelous piece for the Boston Globe, and I'm really glad to see him in our paper.) Like Hirsh, I am not convinced of the necessity of this box set, which I should add I got for free so take that for what it's worth. But it has made me re-listen to the Big Star albums I already had, as well as Chris Bell's I Am the Cosmos, which still sounds sooo good.
GIANTS FANS: This is a big week for you. (1) (2) Embrace it. Also: Wemple is one of you. Dumbasses.
EAGLES TERRIFY SUBURBAN RODENTS: Morning Roundup's previously unnewsworthy neighborhood of Del Ray was the site of an eagle attack yesterday, reports Mrs. Morning Roundup, who watched one of the grand birds fall out of a tree and bounce off our sandbox with a baby squirrel in its beak. The eagle gathered itself and flew off with its lunch, leaving behind a bereft mama squirrel, who ran around our yard making weird noises. Circle of life!
That is all.
10:05 am
The thing around the tree is another way to slowly water it. Some of them have what they call "gator-bags" around the bottom of them, and now there are these tub-type things...but you're right they are a potential breeding ground mosquitos.
12:33 pm
I am so with you on the Memorial Bridge. Personally, I have figured out which lane I need to be in for where I want to go before entering the circle. But I took be 18 years to get to that point. Signage on Park Service managed roads is atrocious and this circle is no exception. It would be essentially impossible for someone who has not used that circle many times to know where they need to be in order to exit properly without crossing a solid line.