Safeway, 18th St. & Columbia Rd.

DCist checks in with the struggling clinic’s budget woes. Possibly 25 percent of its staff is slated to be cut. Not unlike a newspaper! This could mean more tragic stats in the way of new HIV infections in a city already struggling with the epidemic.

From the Post:

“We plan a return to aggressive grass-roots outreach in high-risk communities,” executive director Donald Blanchon said. “We want to be on the right street corners with the right information addressing people who are truly at risk.”

Whitman-Walker is remaking itself and hoping to draw more patients while recovering from a budget crisis that forced deep cuts and layoffs in 2005. The clinic ended last year about $300,000 in the red, a fraction of the $950,000 deficit it ran two years ago but not enough progress for Blanchon to call the $22 million operation financially viable.

It’s the end of the year, so these commercials are showing up a lot more often:

Like a lot of ex-smokers, I tried a lot of different methods of quitting smoking before something finally took about four years ago. Patches never did much for me, though I do fondly remember the pleasantly woozy buzz you can get from smoking on the patch, something I did numerous times and has probably in itself shaved more years off my life than my decade-long pack-a-day habit. (What finally worked for me? I bought a house. There’s nothing like assuming boatloads of debt to put all the crap you waste money on into clear focus.)

All of which is to say I’m not a particularly good source for advice on how to quit smoking, but local artist Jackie Hoysted has a helpful list of tips today on her Ashes to Ashes blog. Hoysted, the subject of an August City Paper story, has been quit since July, documenting her withdrawal on the blog and in her artwork; you can see her coffin-nail-inspired pieces here.

At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania has done plenty over the past few years to piss off the pharmaceutical industry. He’s essentially declared war on high drug prices and fought for legislation to make drugs more affordable in the District. And more recently, the D.C. Council on Tuesday voted to proceed with his legislation that would tightly regulate drug sales representatives in the District.

Now Big Pharma is fighting back. Online and anonymously, anyway.

A Web site recently posted at bigpharmarealpeople.org names Catania “Big Pharma Enemy #1″ and attributes to him the following:

• “I want to ’shake the pharmaceutical industry to its core.’”
• “I am a Washington Lawyer whose sole purpose is to invent solutions to problems that don’t exist.”
• “If I am successful, hundreds of DC area residents will loose [sic] their jobs.”
• “I am an enemy to Big Pharma, big business and capitalism.”

Who’s behind the site? Good question: The site’s domain name was registered by a proxy service, making it impossible to trace who runs the site. The “Big Pharma Team” is listed as Managing Editor John Galt, Associate Editor Dagney Taggart, Editor Hugh Akston, and Editor Hank Reardon.

Those names should be familiar to anyone who went through an adolescent Ayn Rand phase: Those are the names of characters from that author’s Atlas Shrugged. (Note, however, that they misspelled “Dagny Taggart” and “Hank Rearden.”) E-mails to members of the “Big Pharma Team” were not immediately returned.

“It’s par for the course,” Catania says. “It’s the way the pharmaceutical industry, much like the the tobacco industry, chooses to engage in the arena of ideas. It’s name-calling.”

The site’s tagline is “Big Pharma is Real People, Saving Lives Is Our Business,” and it features sympathetic profiles of several drug company employees, none identified by their full name. A passage on the site says its purpose is to “point out how the news media, movie and entertainment industries lie and distort the facts when it comes to Big Pharma,” to “fight ridiculous Government rules and regulation that hamper Big Pharma from acting in the best interest of customers, patients and pharmacies,” and to “point out that corporations are not faceless, evil giants that take advantage of the individual.”

Have to say, guys—this anonymous Web site isn’t doing much to combat that whole “faceless” thing.

Catania does offer his kudos to the site’s creators in one respect: their taste in photography. The Web page features a photo of the councilmember dating back at least five years. “I’m flattered that they chose to use a picture that makes me look younger and more handsome,” he says.

According to the Washington Post, the civic watchdog group DC Appleseed finds that Fenty and Co. are failing to provide adequate HIV-AIDS education let alone settle on a curriculum.

This is important news considering the latest stats on infection rates. I know Fenty claims to be willing to tackle this issue. But so far I don’t see it. It better be a lot more extensive then Metro billboards, press conferences, and ribbons. To read Appleseed’s full report go here.

Another important issue–DC Appleseed needs to update its blog. It’s so old its last item references Clifford Janey.

Ok. I admit it. I like the elliptical trainer. It’s easy, efficient, and doesn’t hurt nearly as much as running. But last night, ovalizing myself toward nowhere, with nothing on TV and too much mopey indie rock on my iPod, I finally got bored. I started missing group sports. Unfortunately, my only real experiences have been with ballet (I was the short, roundish girl in a room full of spindly 6-year-olds) and karate at a smelly South Philly dojo. By then I was 25, not as round and scared to death of the killing machines in my class.

So I’m still not entirely sold on martial arts, but this looks mesmerizing … and fun. And you can do it with a friend or an enemy.

On my daily MARC train trip to Baltimore last Tuesday evening, I fell into a head-hanging, drooling sleep so deep I nearly missed my station. By the time I reached home, the fever was on, and I was deep into my worst flu bout since elementary school.

Like a good worker, I called in sick on Wednesday, Thursday, and again on Friday, to spare my coworkers from my germs. After six days, countless cups of ginger tea, a quarter bottle of Tylenol, and the second season of The Wire, I was back on the MARC Monday morning, hoping I wouldn’t spook my fellow commuters with a coughing fit.

I shouldn’t have worried. Although I did let out a few raspy coughs into my handkerchief, the final notes of my sickness were nothing compared to sniffling, sneezing, and full-on hacking of many other riders. A bearded man a few rows ahead of me coughed for so long, I feared he would pass out. The train car rang with sickness all the way to D.C.

It’s going to be a long, germy winter for commuters. Have the rules changed and it’s now all right to go to work with a serious cold or even the flu? If so, I propose we follow certain Asian countries where the polite person with a cold covers his mouth in public with a hospital mask. At least on the MARC train.

Since the deal to sell Greater Southeast Community Hospital to Specialty Hospitals of America was announced in August, D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray and Health Committee Chair David Catania have made a big deal about gaining unanimous support for the deal. Their pitch to their colleagues: If you don’t get behind this, the only hospital east of the river has no hope.

Such unanimity was nearly foiled this afternoon, as Ward 8 Councilmember Marion S. Barry Jr. raised questions about whether Specialty was equipped to run a hospital that serves mainly black patients. At one point, Barry introduced an amendment requiring Specialty to come up with a plan to ease his concerns that would then require another council vote, further delaying the approval of the deal.

Catania instead suggested that the Council attach a condition that Specialty work with the mayor’s office on “cultural competency” issues. After Catania’s substitute passed, but Barry’s didn’t, Barry threatened to vote against the deal with a company he said has “no experience with managing a majority African-American population.”

“I’m not gonna have someone coming in experimenting on us,” he said. “Reminds me of Tuskeegee.”

Barry also invoked the Brown v. Board of Education decision, to no particular effect, and promised that if the Specialty did not show progress on these issues within 30 days, he would lead a campaign on behalf of his constituents to boycott the hospital.

Councilmembers Carol Schwartz and Harry Thomas Jr. implored Barry to change his mind, which he did. The bill passed by acclamation.

In the emergency room at Montgomery General Hospital in Olney, there is a cabinet with drawers variously labeled “CRICOTHYRODOMY TRAY,” “TRACH TUBES,” and the like. The bottom drawer carries the sign “OVASSAPIAN AIRWAYS,” to which some wag has affixed a label reading, “THE ONLY WAY TO FLY.”

An appropriate joke, because hospitals are much like airports: both locations demand that you wait for freakin’ ever.

And, as of course you know, an ovassapian airway is “intended primarily for use in intubations utilizing a fiberoptic endoscope,” as it is designed “for removal without disconnecting or displacing positioned endotracheal tube.”

The mother of the 18-year-old Bowie State University student who went missing for eight days in September after crashing his car down a ravine in Beltsville says her son is still recovering in a Washington hospital.

Although Julian McCormick’s injuries at first seemed minor, Peggy McCormick says her son has “extensive tissue damage” caused by hanging from his seatbelt inside his wrecked Honda Civic. “It saved his life, but it done a lot of damage to him also,” she says.

Julian McCormick disappeared Sept. 1 and was found Sept. 8 on the side of the road by a motorist after freeing himself from the wreck. McCormick’s mother says she believes he spent the entire eight days at the bottom of the ravine where he told her he caught fish in a creek with his shoe. She says he was unconscious through much of the ordeal, which took place less than a mile from his family’s home.

Peggy McCormick says her son has undergone several surgeries, and she is unsure when he will be released.

Big news in the corporate world today: Burger King is launching a new and healthy line of food for kids. We’re talking flame-broiled chicken tenders and something called BK Fresh Apple Fries. These are essentially apple chunks cut to resemble fries and delivered in the same packaging as fries. The apple slices will be cold and skinless.

I applaud this particular move; fries kill. And it could plant a very early cynicism in our future leaders toward packaging stunts from corporate America. Just how long do you think it’ll take youngsters to figure out they’re biting into fat-free muscle food and not one of the lushest indulgences known to mankind?

The fries are nearly 200 calories and 13 grams of fat more savory than the apple slices. Coupled with low-fat milk and the grilled chicken tenders, they’ll round out a nutritious outing for kids, starting with a 2008 launch date.

This healthful menu promises to ignite a nationwide pissing match between parents and their children, especially the ones who are old enough to appreciate BK’s heart-attack offerings. Reprogramming, say, an 8-year-old to embrace apples over fries is the parenting equivalent of moving up summer bedtime from 8 pm to 7 pm. Better luck will be had with kids just breaking into toddlerhood, who view a trip to a fast-food restaurant as a treat in itself.

If you’re thinking about heading down to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library at 9th and G Streets NW, bring your own water—but don’t drink too much of it. The library’s water fountains are almost all broken, and the bathrooms aren’t too much better. According to one librarian, none of the fountains are working; two on the second floor are just barely flowing in that “drink at your own peril, you don’t know how many lips have been on this fountain” sort of way. It’s easier to find a ceiling leak—four by the second floor northeast stairway alone—than a working fountain. Meanwhile, the women’s bathrooms on the second and third floors are both out, and the one down in the basement smells like a dirty-diaper dumping ground. People generally avoid books these days, but it’s nice to know a library is giving you few more reasons.

Unless they’re biological freaks of nature——or spend half their lives on ellipticals——chefs and food writers typically gain weight after years of shoveling starchy, fatty things down their throats. Even though we all worry it will come, none of us really want to face that day when the doctor finally sighs and delivers the bad news: You need to drop some pounds, lardass.

Because once you get the news, you have to make decisions. Low-carb diet? Low-fat diet? A combination? More exercise? Less alcohol? To anyone who loves good food and drink, choosing one of these diet plans can be like choosing between waterboarding and sexual humiliation.

Roberto Donna, the man who practically introduced Italian regional cooking to D.C. via Galileo and his many other restaurants, has decided to jump on the diet grenade for “health reasons,” he wrote me via e-mail. “I want to live a long, full life and it’s important to stay healthy.”

His diet, unfortunately, calls for Donna to swear off carbs and go light on meats. “Everything else in moderation,” he writes, “and combined with exercise.” Everything else? For a man whose name is synonymous with Italian cuisine, is there anything else but pasta, bread, and meat? It’s a damn good thing that red wine carries so few carbs.

I have to say, though, that Donna looks better. He’s not exactly ready to audition for Dancing With the Stars, but he looks noticeably trimmer. Donna says he’s lost 33 pounds. His goal is to drop another 50.

Now if you’re worried that Donna’s one-way ticket to Mary-Kate Olsen land will affect his cooking at Bebo Trattoria, fret not. The chef still gives himself room to taste test. “It’s all about eating and tasting in moderation,” he writes. “It is important to taste [the] foods I cook and prepare for my guests, but just taste.”

Kids fuck. You wanna know what kids in the District think about fucking and getting tested for HIV? I’m not sure you do. But Metro TeenAIDS worked up a survey of 13-to-24 year olds and released the somewhat-disturbing/somewhat-expected results on its Web site recently. OK. Recently is a bit of a stretch. Try June. But it’s August and no one here has a thing to say about Merv.

So the news nugget for those not reading Merv obits: A surprising number of young gay/bi males opted to get tested but failed to show up to get the results of their tests. You can find the full survey here.

At 28 years of age, Barton Seaver would seem to have the world by the short and curlies. The chef owns his own well-received restaurant, Hook in Georgetown; he’s the media darling of the D.C. dining scene (and isn’t it about time we punched his dance card?); and he’s developed his own unique way of preparing delicate fillets such as sablefish and halibut (which you can learn about in this week’s Young & Hungry).

But before you slit your throat in jealousy, consider this: Barton Seaver cannot drink alcohol or eat breads.

After feeling unusually fatigued for months, Seaver decided to see an allergist. Tests revealed that the chef is allergic to grain smut, a fungus that infects cereal grasses such as wheat and corn.

“It’s just sort of a continuing annoyance more than anything else. It’s not been debilitating in any way,” Seaver says. “I can’t eat anything with any form of grain in it. It’s kind of miserable because I now have a largely antagonistic relationship with the world around me.”

As far as alcohol, Seaver’s doctor is still working with him to figure out the problem. “He said I did show some either toxic or allergic reactions to alcohol.”

So has Seaver completely given up all bread and alcohol? Is he, in other words, a walking nightmare for every French native?

“Every now and then, I just sort of test the waters to make sure they’re not lying to me,” Seaver says. “It’s actually funny because now that I’m off of it….when I do have something with flour in it, I will immediately feel very bad….Even just having a glass or two of wine every day, you don’t think it really affects you, but I will tell you that now…when I do have a glass, it profoundly affects me the next day.”

“May be it’s all the years of eight balls of coke and bottles of Jameson every night,” the chef deadpans.

Me: You’re joking, right?

Seaver:

Me: You’re not going to answer, are you?

Seaver: