Announced today by the Nats and The George Washington University: That august institution’s baseball team will have the honor of being the first hardball squad to play at Nationals Park.

A March 22 game will pit GW versus St. Joseph’s in riveting Atlantic 10 action. Oh, and according to the GW press release, “The match between the Colonials and the Hawks will serve as a test run for the Nationals’ staff as they prepare for the 2008 season in their new stadium.”

Sweet! A chance for the interested fan/D.C. taxpayer to buy a ticket and see the stadium without the huge major-league/papal crowds, right?

Wrong:

The game will be privately ticketed and is not open to the public. A limited number of general admission tickets will be made available to the GW community after March 10. A valid GWorld identification will be required. Details will be released separately.

Not an auspicious beginning for our $611 million of public money, have to say. Chime in the comments with your own outrage!

Press release after jump.

EDIT: Right, so this was in the Post on Tuesday. I’m still pissed about it now!

Read the rest of this entry »

E. Ethelbert Miller is a poet and the director of the African-American Resource Center at Howard University. He is the author of numerous books of poetry and a memoir of fatherhood.

When I contacted Miller about this portrait, we discussed the quality of the natural light in his office.

“Does your office face south?” I asked Miller. “In Washington, D.C., southern windows get good light.”

“My office faces Mecca,” Miller informed me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Which way is Mecca again?”

“I’m just kidding,” Miller said.

“Your guitar is ready for pickup,” a representative of Atomic Music informed me. We were communicating via cellphone.

“Do you mean the Gibson bass I dropped off last week?” I queried. “The yellow Gibson bass with loose electronics, and a possible microphonic problem?”

“Yes,” replied the Atomic representative. “This guitar has been repaired.”

“Excellent,” I replied. “I hear Barack Obama is speaking at the University of Maryland. Though I have lent my support to neither Barack nor Hillary—nor John McCain, for that matter—I am a sometime journalist, and I suspect that this Obama event may prove newsworthy. Though I will be late to the rally, it may be in my interest to attend. Because you are located near the University of Maryland, I can see Mr. Obama speak, then pick up my guitar.”

“Well,” replied the Atomic representative. “Your guitar will be here.”

“Capital!” I exclaimed. I donned a winter coat, exited my home, climbed into my black Toyota Matrix, and pointed the sleek vehicle in the direction of the University of Maryland. The Toyota cut through the crisp February air, a graphite-colored knife through butter. After thirty minutes of competent driving, I arrived at the labyrinthine parking lot of the University’s 18,000-seat Comcast Center. I parked in Lot FF and walked to the grand stairway that adorned the Comcast Center’s façade.

“Here for Obama?” inquired a University security guard. “Line starts three-quarters of a mile back there,” he replied, pointing to a obscure location over a distant hill.

“Is there a press entrance?” I inquired. “You may not realize that I am a member of the press,” I added.

“Press entrance closed already,” the security guard replied. “Where were you?”

“I suppose I was late,” I admitted. Though my whereabouts at any given moment are not really your business, I thought, but did not say.

“Well, you can enter with the general public,” the University security guard offered.

“I do love the public,” I agreed. I walked to where the guard had pointed—down a hill, over a bridge, up a hill, around a dorm, over another bridge, and up another hill—and joined a politicized caravan of bearded College Park students eager to hear Mr. Obama’s message of hope. The front door of the Comcast Center was in sight when an unidentified voice called out.

“They’re closing the door!” I heard. “Run!” The bearded students and I broke into a sprint, pushing forward at all costs to enter the Comcast Center. All sense was lost in the stampede. Backpacks filled with expensive textbooks were tossed aside. The overweight and handicapped fell behind. A half-finished Starbucks latte dribbled into the grass. Then, as suddenly as the mad rush had begun, it ended. I was swept through a glass door, whisked by a cadre of security guards, and thrust up an escalator towards the stadium’s cavernous space. I heard the cheers of the crowd and found a seat. Obama was about to speak.

After all this, I still have to pick up my guitar, I remembered. But has the microphonics problem has been addressed? What will the repair cost?

For years, I’ve been hearing about these big-time security breaches where hackers or somesuch mischievous types grab a hold of a whole bunch of social security numbers and crap like that. And for years I’ve been yawning and going about my business.

UNTIL TODAY!

Georgetown University, my alma mater, had some 38,000 names and SSNs stolen from the student activities office in the Leavey Center (GU’s wholly subpar student center). Friends have gotten this e-mail:

Dear Current or Former Students, Faculty and Staff:

We are writing to inform you that you are among a group of individuals whose personally identifiable information such as name and social security number may have been exposed due to a recent computer theft on campus. We regret this incident and wanted to alert you via email as soon as possible after completing our investigation of the nature and scope of the data at issue. Recognizing the seriousness of this incident and the concern we share for the personal security of those within our community, we are making arrangements to provide free credit monitoring services for you….

A thorough internal investigation of the data that was contained on the hard drive has now determined that the hard drive included personally identifiable information for students enrolled and some faculty and staff from 1998 through 2006. Since the files related to a range of cross-campus student financial transactions processed through the Office of Student Affairs, it pertained to students enrolled at the Main, Medical and Law Center campuses. No financial information, such as bank account or credit card numbers, was contained in the hard drive. This incident is limited to this one hard drive and does not extend to other University systems and services where personal data may be stored or updated.

Currently, I’m freaking the fuck out, fixated on how all my dreams of home ownership and car ownership and career success and old age and are all but certainly going up in flames! WHAT WILL I DO!?!?!

(Actually, I’m pretty chill, ’cause for all those years I’ve been hearing about these huge security breaches, I’ve yet to hear a single story about some dude who got his identity stolen because of it. And, hey, free credit monitoring! Long live blissful ignorance!)

This morning I was checking out an ad from Georgetown University in the Washington City Paper. Turns out that the U. is promoting some programs under its Georgetown Public Policy Institute. There’s the Master of Public Policy (MPP), there’s the Executive Master of Policy Management (MPM), and there’s the Master of Public Policy Evening Program (MPP-EP).

On that last one: How many graduates do you think leave off the “-EP” when it comes time to write up their resumes?

Ytit Chauhan is a sophomore at George Washington University. According to campus newspaper the GW Hatchet, he is also a former candidate for the city council in Atlantic City, N.J. Although he lost the race this year, there are future gains to be had! Chauhan is apparently going to be in a documentary about “young adults—five men and women ages 18-20—who are running for public office in different states,” according to the film’s IMDB page. The movie is being produced by David Letterman’s company Worldwide Pants Inc.

“At the beginning it was very hard to get used to,” said Chauhan, a sophomore. “They would film me from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed. But it eventually became second nature,” Chauhan told the Hatchet.

Here’s a bit more from the Hatchet article:

Besides being a young candidate, Chauhan faced other problems including a lack of funding and organization, he said.

“I was focused on big issues, issues of corruption and bringing in change,” Chauhan said. “Since I was running for city council in a medium-sized city, people weren’t worried about the big things. It’s really the small issues that matter.”

He added, “If you are interested in running for office, you have to study the issues. You don’t have to have positions on every issue, but just know what the issues are. (People) don’t want someone who has all the answers, they just want someone they can trust.”

This semester, George Washington University has been plagued by some prominent Pinocchios. First,there was the GW sex columnist who plagiarized his sex tips. Then, the group of protesters who came under fire for plastering campus with ambiguously satirical anti-Muslim posters. Just last week, a freshman was found responsible for drawing swastikas on her own dorm room door, spurring campus outrage and an FBI investigation.

Here’s a break-down of GW’s sweet little lies:

Truth-Bender: Sahil Mansuri, a junior.
Offense: Lifted sage shackin’ up advice for his anonymous sex column, “Under The Covers,” from this Web site. The result was gems like this: “[Following] an unremarkable high school experience, where the only time I got laid was when my prom date was drunk …. I could walk into any party, any bar, any club, and within a few minutes, have some hot girl’s tongue down my throat. I exuded confidence, I was charismatic, I was irresistible.”
Defense: Ignorance. “He said he simply believed that the ideas—including phrases, acronyms and strategies—were allowed to be borrowed from other sources without attribution.” —The GW Hatchet
Punishment: According to the Hatchet, “He is not a paid staff member and his column is being suspended indefinitely.”
The Verdict: Kudos to anyone willing to admit that they lost their virginity by committing gray rape. Unfortunately, plagiarizing the pick-up advice of someone who wears fuzzy Dr. Seuss hats on VH1 doesn’t exactly make me believe your claims to be “irresistible.” Mansuri’s not writing, for now, but the real question is: Is he boning? And is he still such an asshole about it?

Fabulists: Freshmen Yong Kwon and Ned Goodwin; senior Brian Tierney; graduate students Adam Kokesh, Maxine Nwigwe, Lara Masri, and Ammal Rammah.
Offense: A group of wiseacres calling themselves “Students for Conservativo-Facism Awareness” hung posters around campus depicting anti-Muslim sentiments in an attempt to satire the Young America’s Foundation’s “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.” When their satire was misinterpreted as overt racism, the group was scrutinized by Muslims and the YAF.
Defense: Just kidding! “There’s a great tendency in academia to have a knee-jerk reaction to anything controversial,” Kokesh told The Hatchet. “Anyone who bothered to read the whole thing got that point (that the posters were satirical).”
Punishment: The posters were torn down. Any further punishment was minor enough to go under the radar.
The Verdict: You got the publicity you wanted, but you also enabled the YAF, of all things, to play victim. Clearly, the GW community doesn’t respond well to satire; next time, know your audience better.

Jive turkey: Sarah Marshak, a freshman.
Offense: This past month, six swastikas were drawn on Marshak’s door. Earlier this week, it was revealed that Marshak drew at least five of them herself.
Defense: Denial. First, Marshak “categorically denied” drawing the swastikas; then, Marshak claimed she “only drew the final three of six swastikas on her door in an attempt to highlight what she characterized as GW’s inaction.” Earlier this week, UPD revealed that, yep, Marshak’s still lying. Marshak drew at least five of the swastikas—and possibly all of them. “I wasn’t looking to create this, sort of, insanity,” Marshak told The Hatchet. “I wasn’t looking to become a media darling. I was just looking for acknowledgment from University that someone drew a swastika on the door.”
Punishment: In the works. “Marshak said Tara W. Pereira, director of [GWU's Student Judicial Services office], informed her she would likely be expelled. Marshak said she did not want to leave GW but probably will,” The Hatchet reports. No word yet from outside law enforcement.
The Verdict: What does it take for a girl to get some acknowledgment that she faked a hate crime around here? Sure, most people do something they regret their freshman year of college. Few, however, manage to get the FBI called in.

At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown is introducing a bill at today’s Council meeting to finally give some names to buildings on the University of the District of Columbia’s Van Ness campus.

Right now, the buildings are numbered, which, in a perverse way, has always seemed to fit the campus’s cold, ’70s-era architecture. And the numbers don’t really make sense. The campus has nine buildings; the numbering starts at 32 and goes to 52, obviously skipping a whole bunch of numbers along the way.

Brown’s proposal, which has gained a number of cosponsors, would name each campus building after a different UDC alum, as determined by a seven-member commission. Good move, Kwame, but one question: Why not do what just about every other campus on the face of the planet does and use the names to raise some money for the school? Restricting the names to UDC alums is a noble gesture, but wouldn’t throwing some high rollers up there be even better for UDC?

UPDATE, 11:45 A.M.: Brown, via a spokesperson, says that “while it doesn’t specifically mention it in the bill, the idea is ultimately to work with sponsors to support the renaming of each building when an alumnus is chosen to be honored.”

On Monday morning, the George Washington University community awoke to a campus plastered with fliers that appeared to espouse vitriolic anti-Muslim sentiment. G.W.’s student newspaper, The Hatchet, describes the fliers:

The posters, on standard letter-sized paper, read, “Hate Muslims? So do we!!!” Below the statement is a picture of a Muslim man next to a diagram describing a “typical Muslim.” Some features mentioned include “venom from mouth,” “suicide vest,” and “peg-leg for smuggling children and heroin.”

The GW Young America’s Foundation is named as a contact on the poster, but leaders of the conservative organization said they had no involvement.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that the posters were a stunt: An outsider’s satirical response to the YAF’s upcoming “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” set to begin October 19. The YAF staged a controversial event; someone who objected to it responded by falsely publicizing ridiculous anti-Muslim sentiments and attributing them to the YAF. That’s satire—albeit cheap, low-rate satire.

But the subsequent GW community meeting—and the Hatchet’s follow-up story—made it clear that (uh, sorry guys) nobody really gets it.

The GW Peace Forum, which organized the event, had this to say:

“We’re all here, we’re not all the same and we need to understand,” said sophomore Tarek Al-Hariri, president of GW Peace Forum, during the discussion. “I think something this morning happened. It may or may not have been taken the way it was supposed to be (and) may not have been a mistake. Nevertheless, people were affected, and people took offense.”

The quote is pretty representative of GW’s general confusion over what the discussion was, in fact, discussing. (Something happened, but it may or may not have been—what now?)

The remainder of the meeting was similarly stalled by a lack of understanding of the situation at hand. Reports The Hatchet:

“It was completely satirical and overblown,” [graduate student Lara] Nasri said. “It was the antithesis of racism.”

[YAF President Sergio] Gor disagreed with Nasri.

“This is not satirical,” said Sergio Gor. “It is hatred.”

Kareem Shibib, a senior from Cornell University who came to gathering after hearing about the poster, said that the flyer is racist.

“I think this is a rather overt form of racism,” Shibib said. “What is important (is) to look further into this.”

So, GW graduate student Nasri, for one, thinks it’s satire. But strangely, YAF president Gor—who has come under fire from students who think that he’s responsible for the flier—insists that it’s not. Cornell’s Shibib says we better look into it.

As for the unknown poster (or posters) of the fliers, just about everybody is pissed at them; some have suggested their expulsion if they’re ever found out. At least then they’d get a chance to explain to everybody what the heck they were talking about.

As Michael Grass reported in yesterday’s Express, there’s controversy brewing at The Library, the newly rechristened 12th Street NE watering hole. Apparently, some neighbors don’t like the beer selection at the dive bar, and others think there’s been an increase in litter since the bar reopened.

But the most interesting criticism comes from Kee Malesky, a corporate librarian, who finds the name offensive. I interviewed Malesky about her grievances yesterday, and here’s what she had to say:

1. It’s not a library. “A library is a place for people to study or read, have quiet community meetings. This is a bar with ten satellite TVs tuned to sports events.”
2. It provides an easy alibi for Catholic University’s slacker students. “Why else would they call it The Library unless to lie to their parents [and] professors about what they did last night?”
3. It impugns the dignity of librarians worldwide. “It’s snide, cynical, rude, and offensive to the neighbors and librarians everywhere,” she says.

Brookland neighbor Sandy Malone, however, says Malesky needs to lighten up. As an undergrad, she attended both Ohio State and Ohio University and says, at the time, both campuses had bars called The Library nearby. “It was like a joke,” she says. “It’s just a funny name.” She thinks Malesky should be grateful a place like The Library exists. “They need a campus bar,” she says of the students. “Otherwise, they’re going to come to the restaurants and push the neighbors out.”

Still, the whole Library spat got us wondering about other nerdily named establishments in the area. For example, has the Science Club received criticism for its name? Co-owner Steve Maguire says absolutely not. Nerds love the name, he says. “I’ve seen people stop traffic on 19th Street…They run up the stairs and say, ‘Science! We’re both biologists.’” Environmentalists also frequent the Dupont Circle spot, he says, adding, “we have been extremely well received by the scientific community and dorks in general.”

Hate crimes are practically becoming routine in the region these days, and local universities are ground zero: from the University of Maryland (the noose incident), to Georgetown (the early morning homophobic attack), to most recently Gallaudet. This morning’s District Briefing in the Post reports a “possible hate crime” at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf on the Gallaudet University campus. Six white students and one black student scrawled “KKK” and swastikas all over a black student. I don’t quite understand what’s “possibly” hateful about this incident. Having symbols of vicious prejudice scribbled all over your body isn’t exactly a hobby.

Meanwhile, over at Georgetown, students gathered Monday to protest bias-related incidents at the university, according to school newspaper The Hoya. Members of a LGBT student group, GUPride, gathered signatures “for a petition supporting reforms to university procedure for addressing future hate crimes,” and three professors and college group leaders spoke at the rally. But the article didn’t mention any direct condemnations of Philip Cooney, the Georgetown student who was arrested in connection with the attack last month.

Is history at work here? Would Cooney have been spared if this crime had occurred prior to March 2006? The incident I’m referring to is, of course, the Duke Lacrosse scandal, which Cooney’s lawyer referenced to NBC 4.

“The police investigation was nothing,” he said. “You have a complaining witness who says he saw someone who he thought may have attacked him vis-à-vis the Web. That’s the investigation. Did they try to talk to Mr. Cooney before the investigation? No. Would you expect the police to do that? Yes,” he told NBC.

Over the summer, I met Supreme Court lawyer Tom Goldstein, and since then, I’ve been looking for some reason to write about him. Today, finally, I get my chance.

There are several reasons why Goldstein is pertinent to this blog:

1. He resides in Washington D.C. (usually reason enough for a post).
2. He wrote a big story on Slate.com about the Supreme Court’s upcoming term, which may include the famed DC handgun ban case, District of Columbia v. Heller.
3. As lawyers go, Goldstein has a pretty crazy story: Though he was a big-time debater in college (University of North Carolina), he was a mediocre student who got rejected from every law school he applied to. Luckily, he had a relative who worked at the law school at American University. So, he got in. He argued his first case before the Supreme Court when he was 28. Shortly thereafter, he left his firm and, with his wife, started a boutique practice, specializing in the Supreme Court. (The main office was the family laundry room.) To make a long story short: Goldstein is one of the top Supreme Court lawyers in the country, having argued 17 cases at the ripe age of 37. He currently heads up the Supreme Court practice at Akin Gump in the District. He also runs scotusblog.com.

But what clinches the deal (the deal in which I say to myself: OK, now this sounds blogworthy) is that Goldstein’s firm is representing the District in the handgun ban case, and his Slate piece includes interesting thoughts on the case’s future. Goldstein says that there’s no precedent for a case like this to hint at the justices’ ruling. “Still, the district has a cascade of arguments for reversal. And the decision is likely to break down along ideological lines, with the four members on the left of the court advocating against gun rights.” Goldstein goes on to say the case could have far-reaching political repercussions: “The success of the NRA shows that there is a significant portion of the population that favors and mobilizes around gun rights. The court’s decision could have a profound effect on whether those voters go to the polls. By contrast, those who favor greater gun regulation overwhelmingly are not ’single issue’ voters.”

So, glad I could share.

Praise the Lord! WGTS and its one dozen listeners are not going anywhere. The station at 91.9 FM, owned since ‘46 by Seventh Day Adventists over at Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, has been up for sale for some time. The only serious bidder was American Public Media Group, the other public radio conglomerate, which basically owns all the public radio programs that NPR doesn’t. And that’s a lot, people, despite what you’ve heard.

Anyway, APM wanted to turn the D.C. area’s little Christian station into something that was not, well, Christian. Thus SAVE GTS was born. Prayers were answered, the station was yanked off the market, and the college’s endowment will remain paltry. APM has instead offered to slap down $20 mill for a different Christian station down in Miami, which is set to die on Sunday, only to rise again as a classical station.

Well, we’ll always have WETA. But unfortunately commercial-free bluegrass is only for the privileged few.

D.C.’s hotshot personal injury lawyer Peter Grenier, retained by at least seven families of Tech victims, has to be a real threat to the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Grenier, partner at Bode & Grenier, 1150 Connecticut Ave., told the Washingtonian in ‘02, when the mag named him one of D.C.’s 75 best lawyers: “I try to take cases so obvious that even a baboon could win them.”

It’s hard to find so a modest lawyer around these parts. I mean, could a baboon get a jury to agree to an unheard-of $98 million against the D.C. police? That’s the dollar figure attached to the Grenier legend, the one awarded (later knocked down to $1.1 million) to the mother of a police informant on the Georgetown Starbucks triple homicide, killed while in police custody and making an undercover drug buy in ‘97.

So, hey, VA: You’ve been warned.

1. After reading the Washington Post story today about the 23 Virginia Tech students hospitalized for carbon monoxide poisoning, I’m beginning to wonder. Every university has its share of stupid and tragic. My alma mater—Penn State—had a school shooting, an incident where a student was killed by a falling tree branch, and a massive riot one summer. And we all know about the University of Maryland’s troubles. But, shit, Virginia Tech just can’t get a break. Is the campus cursed?
2. If you cat-sit, you are supposed to change the feline’s water and replenish its food bowl. A good sport will keep the litter box clean. I’ve done all those things for Blakey. But then the cat—which is huge, almost panther-huge—seems to want some sort of attention. So I sit on the couch and pat at the cat’s ears and head for a while. But petting a cat is kind of boring. So how long do you have to play with your friend’s cat as part of your cat-sitting duties? And do you even have to bother?
3. During halftime of the Redskins second exhibition game, Joe Theismann was featured “interviewing” a pre-injured Jason Campbell. The interview was stultifying in the usual Theismann way. The former Skins quarterback talked more than enough about himself. He also came to the interview dressed in gym shorts. And let’s just say the way the interview was shot, I kept thinking we were going to end up seeing Theismann’s balls. Thankfully, the viewers were spared such sights. Instead, we got a good look at his fucked-up leg. So my question: Why are TV producers still putting Theismann on the air?