For the past six years, Hillcrest residents have donated their time to sprucing up Twining Park, a triangle park along Pennsylvania Avenue SE owned by the National Park Service. Near the end of May, the Park Service drops off about 50 flats of salvia, marigolds, black-eyed Susans, Shasta lilies, dahlias, and Canna lilies, and residents plant them.

Not this year. The flowers have yet to appear, and when Kathy Chamberlain, vice president of the Hillcrest Community Civic Association, called to find out why, she learned that there weren’t any. Someone was supposed to have ordered them in the fall, and he didn’t. So this past weekend, Chamberlain and a few neighbors dug into their own pockets and scoured the local nurseries for replacements, coming up with five flats of vincas, begonias, and petunias, a far cry from the usual haul. “It’s their park,” Chamberlain says. “They just fell down on the job without any explanation. I honestly don’t think we in Southeast get the attention that the parks on Capitol Hill get.”

Spokesperson Bill Line says the Park Service has no record of anyone calling to inquire about the flowers.

The flower beds are noticeably sparser than previous years, and if more plantings were made this late in the season, fewer would survive. Chamberlain says the neighborhood will probably make the switch to perennials this fall. “Even though they’re not as colorful, they’ll be more permanent and reduce the labor necessary for upkeep,” she says.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we run down what’s going on in local Internet discussion groups.

tenleytown
Penny Pagano, Ward 3 Councilmember Kathy Patterson’s chief of staff, chose the wrong list to post a proud message announcing her boss’s successful amendment to provide the D.C. library system with $740,000 to upgrade the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library and branch libraries. The funds will be used for “electrical upgrades, plaster wall repairs and refinishing, bathroom improvements, door and window repairs and replacements, carpet replacements, and painting.” That’s great for the rest of the city, but Tenleytown currently doesn’t have a branch library, a fact not lost on one irate resident. “So when the *!$%#@ are we going to get some action on the Tenley libary, which has now been abandoned for almost 1 1/2 years?” writes the resident. “And when are we going to get the much-discussed temporary storefront library? Every time I think I can no longer be astounded by the sheer incompetence of the government in this city, I am proven wrong!”

TakomaDC
After the roiling thunderstorm last Wednesday, Takoma Park residents ventured out the next morning to take stock of the neighborhood. “With so many lightening strikes very close last night, I hope noone and noone’s house was hit,” writes one woman. “That was the worst thunder and lightening storm I remember in the 27 years I’ve lived here.” Some literally hid under their beds: “My dog, Facey, was terrified,” writes another. “She cried and would not be comforted. Then she forced her 50 pound self into the 6 inch space between the head of the bed and the wall and then partway under the 7 inch clearnace between the bed and the floor. After the storm passed at 3 in the morning I had to move the bed and a floor lamp to get her out.”

AdamsMorgan
Bitching about car-sharing services never gets old, apparently. “I find the argument that since Zipcar is private, it should only use private parking spaces a bit tedious,” writes one resident, restarting a tedious debate. Thank god, though, the thread moves from parking to gunfire: “Another small solution on the weekend would be to make 18th street a walking pedestrian mall (at least at nite) - forcing the late nite visitors to the neighborhood to use public transportation and making the entire situation more safe..…did I mention the 6 gun shots fired behind my house last Saturday nite?”

Last time Tommy Keefer visited the annual Celebrate Mount Pleasant Festival, he says via e-mail, “I had a dream.

“I imagined one day I would actually live in Mount Pleasant and would invite my friends over for Mojitos and we would all walk up to the Festival and eat and have a good time and then maybe go home and drink some more.”

Last month, inspired almost solely by his dream, Keefer moved to a place on Harvard Street NW within spitting distance of the festival location. By the Friday before this year’s bash, scheduled for June 4, he had welcomed his girlfriend home after six months abroad and stocked a minibar with mojito mix. Everything was perfect, he says. Then the fest was canceled.

Well, sort of. On the traditional first Sunday of June, instead of the usual blockslong bash humming with live music and brimming with food vendors, Mount Pleasant residents were treated to a small community fair and booths distributing health information.

Festival director Robert Frazier, who has produced the past nine fetes, cites time constraints for the demise of this year’s festival; when his workload unexpectedly increased, he wasn’t able to find enough sponsors to help defray the costs. On neighborhood Internet groups, residents expressed their disappointment and moved on.

Keefer took it a little harder. “Obviously, I didn’t have a party,” he says. “I don’t even think I got out of bed that day.”

Every year since 2002, the Anacostia Watershed Society (AWS) has posted daily water-quality notices at two locations along its namesake river from June through October. If a blue flag is flying, fecal coliform levels are below the boating standard (good); a yellow flag means levels are above the standard (potentially bad). Last year, the Bladensburg Waterfront Park site violated the boating standard in 17 out of 37 tests, the downstream Anacostia Community Boathouse eight times.

But the AWS has decided not to resume its flagging program for the 2006 season, leaving river users to rely on their schnozzles to figure out what’s in the water. AWS President Robert Boone says the program was primarily intended to raise awareness of lawsuits the organization filed against the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority and the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission. Now that both lawsuits have been settled, the AWS will retire the flags and redirect its resources. “The personnel is limited,” says Boone. “And most people know that right after a rainstorm, it’s going to be funky.”

Christina Galligan, a 23-year-old rower with the Capital Rowing Club, isn’t too discomfited by the missing flags. The boats she rows don’t put her in much contact with the water, and she’s seen enough trash and dead fish in the river to know how dirty it is. “I just figured either someone wasn’t changing [the flag],” she says, “or [the water] was so bad they didn’t have a color for it.”

Found at 16th and Euclid Streets NW:

The District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL) has restarted a standard bit of librarying that hasn’t happened in eight years: mailing out fine notices to patrons with overdue books and materials. The DCPL had not sent the notices since 1998, when it halted the practice due to budget cuts. But beginning May 1, library patrons will receive a reminder 10 days after the due-back date that they have items that need to be returned.

Offenders won’t be able to pay fines by mail or credit card; they’ll still have to clear their records in person. And the DCPL still has no plans to implement one revenue-generating scheme employed by more than 700 library systems around the country: referring delinquent patrons to a collection agency.

But, coupled with a new fine structure an increased replacement fees for lost or destroyed books, the new policy stands to improve a fine system that collected less than $100,000 last fiscal year, well below the DCPL’s peer systems (“A Fine Excuse,” 2/17).

“The emphasis is still on you checking out books and materials from the public library so you can enjoy and learn from them,” says DCPL spokesperson Monica Lewis. “But remember there are other people that want to also read that book or watch that DVD or listen to that CD, so be prompt in bringing those materials back or renew them.”

On Saturday, April 22, the D.C. Public Library (DCPL) closed four of its branches—the Capitol View, Chevy Chase, Francis A. Gregory, and Woodridge Neighborhood Libraries—for volunteers to participate in a “Fix It Up” day. “What we were trying to do was to go above and beyond what [custodial staff are] physically capable of accomplishing…such as painting and planting and things of that nature,” says DCPL spokesperson Monica Lewis.

But some of those who slogged through the rain that day were instead tasked with general housekeeping that appears to overlap with the duties of janitorial staff. From 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., about a dozen volunteers at each location were asked to wash windows, clean tables, scrape off tape, throw out old furniture, and pick up litter.

“I’m constantly amazed at how little maintenance has been done over the years,” says Richard Huffine, president of the Federation of Friends of the D.C. Public Library, who oversaw the Chevy Chase cleanup. “The sad thing is what [the volunteers are]…doing is what the library should be doing on a regular basis anyway.

The turnout might have been better had the spring cleaning not coincided with Earth Day—or with a 1 p.m. town-hall meeting at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. Lewis says that the meeting didn’t affect turnout, and that the volunteers’ efforts were appreciated. “They take care of a lot, the facilities people,” Lewis says. “They have to keep branches clean, maintain the mechanics of branches, and that’s a full time job, there, in itself.”

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we run down what’s going on in local Internet discussion groups.

DupontForum
One poster’s delight over the beautification of the notoriously chintzy 17th Street Safeway leads to a decidedly rare form of posting: the rave. “The changes happening there are really a great improvement over the outdated store that it was,” says the poster. “Even the lighting seems to be making a BIG difference … cashiers are now extremely helpful … Whatever a difference better shopping—and working—conditions can make!” Other residents respond with wah-waah gripes: “Unfortunately, the renovations are all in the interior,” writes one. “The exterior needs help - the 17th Street storefront is currently a forlorn brick wall. Those three berths under the awnings need to be given real windows. Note how great Whole Foods on P Street looks with its glass entrance.” Result: The original poster tempers his enthusiasm. “Yes, that is a problem … though I noticed that they’ve changed the color of the awnings from red to black … not that that helps with the brick berths any.”

metropets
An unexpected gift spurs an unusual question. “My friend works at a vet’s office and found a ‘gift’ of two young-adult (?) female ferrets on the doorstep when she got to work yesterday,” writes a pet lover. “She was going to look for a home for them but has now fallen in love with them. She has no previous experience with ferrets and is very anxious to know whether she can expect them to live peacefully with dogs and cats.” One lurker doesn’t think this adds up. “Your friend works for a vet and she wants us to tell her about ferrets and cats ?” CCDogPark writes. “Call me crazy but I would expect a vet to know the answer to questions like this.” Other posters are more helpful: “From what I know, cats and ferrets can live very happily together,” writes one. “About 18 months ago, I placed a FeLV positive kitten in a home with a ferret. The worst problem their person had was keeping the ferret from burrowing through the kitty litter! “ “I remember years ago I had two dogs, a cat, a cockatiel bird and two ferrets,” reads a post signed by Paulette, Cholla, Willie, Dolly and Fred. “They all got along famously. The ferrets even played with my bird.”

ustreetnews
While a resident was out of town for a week, the city planted street cleaning signs on the block where his car was parked. His car, along with many others, were given $30 parking tickets. “No notice was given to the buildings involved, nor were any other types of warning notices posted,” he complains. “What are residents with zoned parking stickers supposed to do if they go on vacation or are called away? Pay the fine? Risk getting towed? I moved here, bought a car for work, & I’ve paid a ton of taxes & registration fees to DC already. We thought things would work out okay if we bought just one space in our building. (We just don’t have $50,000 more for another space.) Now, all I want to do is move out of the District and it’s overly burdensome, money-milking ways. After 14 years, I really hate living here now. I can’t believe that even I am being gentrified out!” Excuse this man if he doesn’t sympathize. “Let me get this right,” he writes, “you live 1 block away from a Metro stop, have a dedicated parking space in your building, and can walk to 100’s of shops, restaurants, and other conveniences, and have two cars and your complaint is about going away for one week on vacation and not being able to leave your extra car on the street occupying a public space while you were gone because of street cleaning and you are calling this gentrification?” After some back-and-forth on the board, the original poster puts up a compilation of responses: “Answers to my original question have basically been:
1) Get rid of my car.
2) Add the price of parking tickets to my yearly car cost.
3) Make a neighbor move my car while I’m away.
4) Pay for parking in a garage.
5) Park in unrestricted spots that are not near my home.
While all are current real-world solutions, they also seem to indicate that we’re all helpless to what our government agencies have decided for us. Kinda sad, if you ask me.”

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we run down what’s going on in local Internet discussion groups.

This edition: Easter Sunday crime blotter

MPD-4D
From the incident report for an assault on the 5900 block of Piney Branch Road NW: “Complaintant reports he was play fighting with suspect (his uncle). Suspect became upset and left. Suspect then returned with a baseball bat and struck complaintant once in the stomach and once in face with the bat. Suspect then fled east on Peabody St. NW. Complaintant received a bloody nose and a bruise on his stomach.”

PublicSafety305
A curious resident wonders what the commotion was at 7th and N Streets NW around 5 p.m. “We had two females fighting - and a consequent stabbing,” writes 3rd District Inspector Patrick Burke. “A suspect is named in the case. The large police presence was likely due to the canvass and preservation of the crime scene.”

3DSubstation
Still more Easter togetherness: Burke reports that “A Burglary occurred in the 1600 block of Park Rd. NW between the times of 6:25pm and 6:50pm. The complainant states that an unknown male knocked on the door and produced a machete. The complainants were tied up. Stolen is US Currency, assorted cellphones and a wallet.”

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we run down what’s going on in local Internet discussion groups.

WardOneDC
A post that links to the Office of Campaign Finance’s candidate list, on which a Michael Brown is listed as a mayoral candidate, gets one resident a little nervous. “Somebody please tell that this isn’t the same fema Michael brown,” he writes. “seriously.” “Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this one is the son of former Clinton cabinet member Ron Brown,” replies another. “Not the same as the FEMA Michael Brown.” A second resident confirms it, sort of: “Yes he is,” he writes. “Ron Brown was Secretary of Commerce in the Clinton Administration until 2003. Unfortunately Mr. Brown die in a plane crashed that year.”

TakomaDC
One resident posts a frequently e-mailed piece of trivia: “An interesting little fact…On Wednesday of this week (April 5th, 2006) at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be…01:02:03 04/05/06. This will never happen again.” Uh, not so fast, Einstein. “Actually, it happens for most of the rest of the world next month, on 4 May 06,” writes one man. Another chimes in that, “It will also happen again (US style dates) shortly after 1 am on April 5, 2106; shortly after 1 am on April 5, 2206; shortly after 1 am on April 5, 2306; and so on: infinitely many times.” The original poster decides to change the subject. “Very interesting view,” she writes. “I’ve started using the day/month/year format. With the month spelled out there is no confusion for anyone and it makes me feel as if I’m joining the rest of the world. Since most of the email discussion lists I’m on are international, it is less likely to announce I’m American, we do things differently.”

BikeWashingtonDC
Washington area bicyclists wonder if it’s possible to cut through Alexandria’s Fort Belvoir to avoid traffic. “I entered at the Beulah St. / Telegraph Rd. gate (where they checked my ID and did a quick wand scan) and exited at Mount Vernon Memorial Highway,” writes a man who rode on the base last month. “I actually would have appreciated getting stopped so I could have asked directions.” But someone planning to lead a group of bikers from West Virginia to Virginia Beach this summer was told by the base that groups aren’t allowed in unless for official business—and he doesn’t want to risk lying to base guards. “I could just see my group getting a free ride to Guantanamo Bay, shackled up in front of Georgie Boy in Jackboots, for an attitude adjustment.” The guards aren’t that bad, writes another. Just watch out for pasty women with aquiline noses. “They’ll just turn you around (except for the blond woman who had this ice princess thing going on, kind of a Tilda Swinton in Narnia thing, she was evil, but they seemed to have found her someplace else to go).”

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we run down what’s going on in local Internet discussion groups.

LDSAbstractSingles
When a guitar player performing a special musical number during a Mormon church service stops mid-strum, instructs the A/V guy to “plug me in,” and proceeds to rock out the hymn (think Marty McFly at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance), local Mormons wonder if you’re allowed to jam at sacrament meetings. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” one man writes. “The most I’ve ever seen is the spontaneous gospel choir jam. I think it was a testimony meeting, a family got up and, as a sign or appreciation to the ward, started to vocally rock out. We were cool with them after, but tried not to be too encouraging.” Another man wonders if the guitar was acoustic or electric. “I think [an acoustic guitar] would have a completly different effect than a solid body electric,” he writes. “THe Solid body is usually seen as the embodiment of evil by some people.” Says another, “Personally, I thought electric instruments weren’t allowed because people were trying to sleep during [church] and it would wake them up .” Later, a poster claims that according to a church handbook, guitars and brass instruments aren’t approved for chapel. And sometimes God decides to enforce the rule himself. “We had a french horn player in the Colonial Ward…[who] joked that it wasn’t really something you’d normally hear in an LDS chapel,” recalled another woman. “Then, while she was playing, lightning struck and our power went out. It was hilarious.”

cleveland-park
Cleveland Park residents finally notice the outrageous housing market. “Recently I have seen some postings on the list for Houses for Sale in our area,” a renter rants. “The list prices $900K+ for 3 bedroom houses are simply absurd….Do people living in the neighborhood really want to see it turn into an area where only millionaires can afford to live?” This prompts lessons in Introductory Economics (The prices are “not absurd—they are simply (unfortunately?) what the market will bear,” one man writes. “An object’s value is what someone is willing to pay for it.”) and History (“It’s important to realize that Cleveland Park was never an inexpensive place to live,” a woman writes). This is lost on a college student who works herself into a tizzy in a post titled, “Cleveland Park Realistate.” “I am a young person, who is just about to graduate from college, and my dream is to own a one bedroom condo in Cleveland Park sometime in the future,” she wails. “Right now I am renting a studio, and I believe that this is all that I will be able to afford in the neighborhood for the rest of my life! I refuse to move out to the Suburbs, let alone leave DC for some place like Texas!”

tenleytown
Residents of Tenleytown, also dealing with skyrocketing housing prices, are more concerned with the absence of a neighborhood library. “Where is the storefront library that was promised long ago as a temporary solution to the lack of a library in Tenleytown?” one resident wants to know. “Back on December 10th, a meeting was held on the Tenleytown library issue and Kathy Patterson and DC library officials indicated that an announcement about the storefront library was to be made very soon thereafter,” responds one man. “Every time I inquire about the storefront library, the answer is always ‘a lease is close to being signed,’” writes a woman. “I heard a rumor recently that a site at AU is a strong possibility, and yes, that a lease is close to being signed.” One resident isn’t holding his breath. “I suspect that the Baseball Stadium will be build and probably a year old before they even start on the Library,” he grumbles.

In July 2000, City Paper profiled Jeff Schmidt, who, in May of that year, was fired from his job as an editor at Physics Today.

The reason for Schmidt’s termination after 19 years of service, his employers told him, was because he had “stolen time” at work to write a book, Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-Battering System That Shapes Their Lives.

Never mind that just a few days before, he fulfilled his entire annual review-period work quota in 10 months—that is, he was two months ahead in his work. But after almost six years of protesting and two years of litigating, Schmidt, 59, has finally won a measure of justice. In February, he and the American Institute of Physics (AIP), the organization which publishes Physics Today, agreed to settle Schmidt’s wrongful-termination lawsuit.

Schmidt, a Van Ness resident, readily admits that he spent some office time writing the book, in which he drew upon his personal experience to illustrate his points, many of which are highly critical of the politics, hierarchy, and subordination of modern workplaces. But Schmidt’s record also shows that he completed all of his editorial duties, sometimes ahead of schedule.

The dismissal sparked howls of outrage in the physics community, in which scientists usually get fired for publishing too little. Thousands rallied to support Schmidt. Even Noam Chomsky got in the act, collecting signatures for a letter protesting Schmidt’s firing. Schmidt’s supporters contend that the AIP had been looking for a reason to get rid of Schmidt not only for Disciplined Minds, but also for his on-the-job agitating for workplace reform, notably the hiring of more minorities.

During the discovery process, a number of suspect and embarrassing documents surfaced, such as performance reviews that appear to have been changed retroactively. AIP agreed to Schmidt’s demand that the settlement be made public, and it agreed to mandate diversity training for all employees and support an effort by the National Society of Black Physicists and the National Society of Hispanic Physicists to become nonvoting member societies of AIP.

Schmidt agreed not to disclose the monetary amount he received, but his friend Sanjoy Mahajan, a physics lecturer at the University of Cambridge, estimates that it was around a half-million dollars. Schmidt had sought five years of back pay and benefits, front pay in lieu of reinstatement, and compensation for pain and suffering, among other damages.

AIP also demanded that Schmidt sign a nondisparagement agreement, which the group already claims he has violated 25 times. (Schmidt could be held liable for $20,000 in damages and fees for each violation.)

Even so, Schmidt is happy with the outcome. “I’m really amazed and surprised at the settlement,” says Schmidt. “I think it’s a victory for free expression and diversity in the physics community.”

As the final part of the settlement agreement, Schmidt was given a positive recommendation by the AIP and reinstated to his former position. He resigned a few hours later. What did he do while he was back on the job?

“I have to admit, I stole the time,” he says. “I didn’t do any work for them.”