The Eagle notes that AU is no longer directly involved with a Nigerian school it helped found in 2005, the American University of Nigeria (AUN):

AUN, located in Yola, was founded in January 2004 as a collaborative effort between AU and the vice president of Nigeria and prominent businessman Atiku Abubakar.

AU and the school had a five-year contract that ended in 2009. During those five years AU developed and provided support for all aspects of the school. AU then renewed the contract for one-year terms until December 2011.

“AUN continues to mature as an institution, has graduated three classes of undergraduates and is now well positioned to function more independently,” [AU President Cornelius] Kerwin said in his memorandum. “Therefore, AU and AUN leaders mutually agreed to end our consultancy when the contract expired at the end of 2011.”

Dr. Robert Pastor, a professor in the School of International Service and the vice president of International Affairs at AU from 2002 – 2007, spearheaded the project of developing the American University in Nigeria.

“One of my jobs was to explore new ways to relate AU to the world, such as setting up universities abroad,” Pastor said.

AUN was the first American-style University in Nigeria, as opposed to the traditional British-style non-interactive education, and is now the best private university in Sub-Saharan Africa, Pastor said.

Huh. Well, at least the logos remain similar.

Unless you are a) a high school student applying for college, b) a person who works at a college, or c) the parent of someone who is applying to a college, you may not be aware of the cottage industry of websites for the college-bound. These sites are the bane of universities, largely because they encourage students and parents to obsess over ever detail about the school of their choice, whipping kids up into a lather about The Perfect School. (And they take advantage of the fact that these kids don't know that the college you go to doesn't actually matter all that much unless it's a top-tier school—and once you're good enough to get into Yale, then it really doesn't matter that Harvard rejected you.)

It's a fascinating world, one that I studied extensively in a past life working at Princeton University, because prospective applicants would sign onto these sites, post their SAT scores, grades, and extracurriculars, and then ask other students (and parents!) if it's likely that they'll get into the college of their choice.

Anyway, all of that is to say that there is more to this story in the American University Eagle about its most recent ranking on Campus Grotto—which is not to be confused with College Confidential or Unigo.

Campus Grotto ranked schools by their "net price," which means tuition minus the average grant—and American came in second after Drexel University with a net price of $36,271.

Obviously, university officials are displeased:

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Enrollment Sharon Alston said these rankings are misleading since the data did not factor in merit awards and other institutional funding from the university.

“The reality is that AU meets the demonstrated need of its students,” Alston said.

Approximately 80 percent of last year’s entering class received financial support from AU.

“This academic year alone, $69 million of the University’s budget has gone toward undergraduate financial aid, and financial aid expenditures are third behind personnel (faculty and staff) and supplies in the overall budget, an indication of the University’s commitment towards the students,” Alston said.

The Eagle story also notes that Kiplinger's recently rated AU as a good value for a private college.

What's most annoying about this trend of websites for college-bound high school students is that their opaque editorial standards and diet of useless lists don't actually do anything useful for students except feed obsessions.

Photo by B. T. Indrelunas via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0

WAMU 88.5 is getting a new home. American University just signed on to buy the building at 4401 Connecticut Ave. NW, and WAMU is expected to occupy more than half the space—doubling the current space it has at 4000 Brandywine St. NW. The move will put the public radio station near the Van Ness Metro station, and farther from the university's campus. (But that should be good news for the likes of Mike DeBonis!)

In a release, the university notes: "Since the building is largely vacant, AU architects are working with station management to implement a rapid design-build process with the goal of WAMU 88.5 broadcasting from its new home in the first quarter of 2013. The remaining space will be utilized for other university academic and administrative purposes."

Full (lengthy) release after the jump:

WASHINGTON, D.C. (February 2, 2012)—American University today announced it has signed a contract to purchase a building to become the new home for WAMU 88.5, the public radio news and information station licensed to American University (AU).

The seven-story building, located at 4401 Connecticut Ave., NW, has 96,102 gross square feet. As the anchor program in the building, WAMU 88.5 and its music service, WAMU’s Bluegrass Country, will occupy more than half of the space to fit its current needs, with the potential for future expansion.

“We are pleased that WAMU will soon be housed in a facility to meet its current and future space needs, and provide an environment for future programming growth to better serve our listeners,” said AU President Neil Kerwin. “As a valuable service to the region, WAMU is one the best examples of American University’s commitment to the multiple audiences in our D.C. community and beyond.”

“A first-class radio station depends on great staff and an appropriately-sized and outfitted facility. We have the staff, and now, thanks to American University, we will have the facility,” said WAMU 88.5 General Manager Caryn G. Mathes. “Our aspirations to develop and distribute more original content will be facilitated by this new location. Our intention to continue our growth into a broadcasting powerhouse will be achievable, and our goal of truly being a community institution can be more readily realized. I’m excited for the future this building represents.”

AU has conducted its due diligence for the property, and the purchase completion is targeted for this spring. Since the building is largely vacant, AU architects are working with station management to implement a rapid design-build process with the goal of WAMU 88.5 broadcasting from its new home in the first quarter of 2013. The remaining space will be utilized for other university academic and administrative purposes.

The new home is approximately one mile from the station’s current Tenleytown location and is easily accessible from the Van Ness Metro. The site matches the essential criteria for current and future station space needs, as identified through a process initiated by WAMU 88.5 in conjunction with American University.

In addition to offering WAMU 88.5 more than twice its current operating space, the site offers first floor, street-level visibility, underground parking, and expansion capability to meet future station needs. The renovation will transform and outfit the space as a world class broadcast facility, with a future fundraising effort to be launched to support the project.

"I'm delighted that WAMU is to fill that space and bring the station to Connecticut Avenue—a vibrant Ward 3 corridor. I trust the station will become even more involved with the community and provide opportunities to see and experience radio operations close up," said Mary Cheh, Ward 3 councilmember. WAMU 88.5 is currently housed in 23,000 gross square feet at 4000 Brandywine St., NW, which has been the station’s home since 1993. Nineteen years ago, the public radio station was a single channel FM station with a $4.1 million budget and 60 full and part time staff.

Currently, WAMU 88.5 is a $21 million multi-platform operation with more than 120 employees broadcasting in Washington on three HD Radio™ channels—the flagship frequency at 88.5–1; WAMU’s Bluegrass Country, a bluegrass and American roots music station, at 105.5 FM and 88.5–2; and Intersection at 88.5–3, a news and information station broadcasting international coverage from the BBC and public radio programs unavailable elsewhere in the Washington area. The station also broadcasts from 88.3 FM Ocean City on the Delmarva Peninsula. WAMU 88.5 has close to 750,000 listeners in the greater Washington, D.C., area. Its network of websites, including wamu.org and drshow.org, hosts more than 350,000 visitors a month.

WAMU 88.5 ranks among the top five stations in the Washington market and the top three public stations nationally. The station is the home of The Diane Rehm Show, distributed nationally by NPR to more than 160 NPR member stations and more than 70 HD Radio channels nationwide, and heard by overseas listeners through NPR Worldwide, the Armed Forces Network, and Sirius XM Radio. The Diane Rehm Show now reaches an audience of more than 2.3 million listeners weekly. In 2010, Diane Rehm was awarded the prestigious Peabody award for her achievements in broadcasting.

WAMU 88.5’s local shows, The Kojo Nnamdi Show and Metro Connection, have won numerous awards and are go-to sources for news and information about local politics, personalities, arts, and culture. The station’s award-winning local news team has grown substantially over the past five years and provides breaking news and in-depth coverage of the District, northern Virginia, and Maryland, as well as education, politics, and the environment.

Last October, the station hosted a 50th anniversary celebration recognizing the achievements made since signing on in 1961 and honoring the station’s founders who played pivotal roles in its history, including original employee Susan Stamberg and Washington broadcasting legends Diane Rehm, Fred Fiske, and Ed Walker.

Located in Washington D.C., American University is a leader in global education, enrolling a diverse student body from throughout the United States and more than 140 countries and providing opportunities for academic excellence, public service, and internships in the nation’s capital and around the world.

Photo courtesy American University

Attention, part-time profs: Are you in or are you out? Starting today, adjunct faculty at American University will begin voting on whether or not to join the Service Employees International Union.

Supporters say collective bargaining can help improve pay and job security for adjuncts, the academic world’s version of migrant labor. Non-tenure-track faculty are generally paid much less than their tenured counterparts ($3,000-$4,000 per course at American, according to union advocates; the average salary at the school is $70,626 for an assistant professor and $150,025 for a full professor).

“We’re over 40 percent of the faculty at AU, but we essentially get four percent of the salary budget,” says Erik Cooke, an adjunct instructor in the university’s philosophy department and supporter of unionization. “We’re highly-trained, committed faculty members, just like full-time professors,” he says.

At AU, some 500 adjuncts handle roughly 30 percent of the courseload, according to Camille Lepre, an AU spokeswoman. The school is hardly alone in relying on cheap scholarly labor. In his book How the University Works, Marc Bousquet writes that non-tenure-trackers now represent 75 percent of all teaching positions in American higher education, up from 25 percent in 1970.

“I know adjuncts who cobble their life together with part-time jobs outside of school. They work evenings, they work weekends,” says Mark Plane, a Public Archaeologist in Residence at AU. Plane is teaching three classes this year for $2,900 apiece. He is also providing administrative support in the anthropology department. For his efforts, he takes home a total of $19,700, with no benefits.

Plane’s employer, though, is not so fond of the notion of a union. In an email, Lepre disputes the union advocates’ assertions about adjuncts’ wages. “$3,000-4,000 is not a viable average and the university doesn't agree with it as a ballpark,” she writes. “There are many adjuncts outside that range.” (She wouldn’t say what range the university thinks is more accurate.)

Besides, she says, full-timers have responsibilities beyond teaching. “Tenure and tenure-track faculty are not only teaching classes; they perform research, serve on department committees, represent the university in other ways, and have other obligations and responsibilities that adjunct faculty do not have.”

The school’s public response to the election has been muted. Questioned about AU’s stance on the election, Lepre directed Washington City Paper to a December letter to the campus community from Provost Scott Bass. “As the election process unfolds, the university welcomes free and fair exchange of views on the advantages and disadvantages of the union for our community,” Bass wrote.

Bass cast AU as a decent employer, noting increases in the budget for adjunct pay, free parking, and professional development grants. Though the administration says it has “concerns” about unionization, it has professed its neutrality in the coming vote.

What are those concerns? Under the mantle of “Frequently Asked Questions,” on a website devoted to the union vote, the university notes that most SEIU contracts require union membership as a condition for employment, it is very difficult to “decertify” a union should the professors change their mind, and that adjuncts should expect to pay $26 a paycheck in union dues.

It’s true that SEIU would represent all AU adjuncts, according to Anne McLeer, Local 500’s director of research and strategic planning. McLeer contests that $26-a-paycheck claim, though: Local 500 union dues are $29 a month, she says, and professors who choose not to join the union would pay a fee equivalent to about 85 percent of member dues. That works out to $24.65 a month.

The votes will be counted on Feb. 16. A simple majority will determine the outcome.

What AU’s adjuncts will get for their dues isn’t entirely clear. The organize-the-adjuncts campaign has been going on at private universities across the country. Locally, SEIU has represented George Washington University adjuncts since 2004. SEIU hasn’t eradicated the gap between part-timers and full-timers, but they have scored increases in pay. After unionization, the minimum per course jumped from $2,500 to $3,300 in GWU’s English department, an increase that McLeer said was typical across departments. Now, adjunct faculty at GWU are paid at least $3,400 or $3,915 a course depending on credentials. “If I made that, last semester would have been a hell of a lot easier,” Plane says.

The only major benefit available to GWU adjuncts is a retirement plan with no university contribution. As for job security, GWU is now obliged to give back to adjuncts any course they have taught for four semesters or more, unless they stop offering it to students altogether.

Across the District line, SEIU Local 500 organized adjuncts at Montgomery College in 2008. But at this cash-strapped community college, the union only got an 11 percent pay increase, according to McLeer. Other perks in the contract include a professional development fund and the opportunity for veteran adjuncts to get annual appointments. The union has gotten enhanced paid leave and a stipend for participation in the school’s wellness program, but not health insurance or other benefits.

Nationwide, only 8 percent of adjuncts at private colleges and universities are unionized. Most of their unions have sprung up within last ten years. “The range in gains is tremendous, from virtual revolution in conditions and pay to small incremental gains,” according to Joe Berry, author of Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education. Columbia College in Chicago may be on the “incremental” end of that range. Before adjunct faculty there unionized in 1994, they earned $1,440 per course. Now they get anywhere between $1,500 and $4,770, but still don’t enjoy any benefits or job security measures. New York University adjuncts have been more successful. When they joined United Auto Workers in 2004, they secured a 19 percent pay raise over six years. They now also have access to health insurance, a pension, and an arbitration process to address employee grievances. And at the New School, UAW won dramatic increases in minimum pay. It was about $35 an hour before 2005; by 2008 hourly pay ranged from $53 to $95.

Despite the uneven gains elsewhere, union supporters at AU enter the election period confident. “It just makes sense,” Cooke says of unionization. “We have just as much training and just as much commitment to our students as other faculty members. The disparity there needs to be equalized.”

Why would students want to change their voter registrations to D.C.? The 2010 elections were, after all, some of the most significant Congressional midterm elections in recent years — except for here in the District, which doesn’t have any voting representation in Congress.

Why would Republican students want to vote in one of the most Democratic cities in the country? How hard would it be for students to switch their registration back to their hometowns later on?

Well, I was one of the few hundred students who switched my registration to D.C. last year, and I haven’t switched back since. As AU students, we live here for at least two-thirds of the year, so we are affected by the decisions of D.C.’s elected officials as much as, if not more than, those of our elected officials back home.

Whether it’s deciding on the approval of campus plans or setting policies for welfare and education in the city, the decisions made in the D.C. government have a significant impact on us as college students.

Like most of my classmates, I didn't buy this argument when I was in school at Howard. I recall someone who was trying to register me in D.C. that "you vote where you live" but I didn't want to lose any ties to my California hometown. Funny enough, I ended up only spending about five months at home over the next four years. Ah, shortsightedness of youth!

The question arises as the District, having tweaked its city council ward boundaries following the 2010 census, prepares to adjust its Advisory Neighborhood Commission districts, too. And, just as they are on issues unrelated to the decennial population survey, neighborhoods adjacent to campuses are grappling with tension between students and neighbors.

The latest flare-up comes in the tony part of town abutting American University. Ward 3 Redistricting Task Force Chair Jeffrey Kraskin and ANC 3D Chairman Tom Smith have floated a plan for ANC 3D that would create a student-only ANC Single Member District within 3D, with spillover going into a mixed district, reports AU's student newspaper, the Eagle:

The plan would group all of AU except for Letts, Clark and Roper Halls into ANC 3D 07, the district seat currently held by student Deon Jones.

Letts, Clark and Roper Halls would fall with Spring Valley neighborhood under ANC 3D 02, currently headed by ANC 3D Chairman Tom Smith.

Taskforce Chair Dr. Jeffrey Kraskin said all of AU would ideally fall into one district, but AU’s resident hall population is over the 2,000-person cap per district.

“It has to be done; we have to break it apart,” Kraskin said.

The Eagle finds a bit of man-on-the-street support for saturating one ANC with university representation. (One student is quoted as saying, "We’re trying to unite the campus community with the community at large, and the best way to do this is to have a guaranteed student seat.")

But on Greater Greater Washington, Evan Brown and Matt Lien, both AU students, write that the gerrymandering "blatantly under-represents and marginalizes the American University student population for solely political reasons." Just as GOP-dominated Southern legislatures have maximized Republican Congressional prospects by creating minority-dominated districts that would presumably concentrate the Democratic vote, they worry, concentrating students into just one of an ANC's districts would dilute their impact when the whole body votes.

Similarly, back in August, the Georgetown ANC 2E voted to create a second SMD just for Georgetown students. Then, ANC 2E 04 chair Jake Sticka, a sophomore at Georgetown, argued against student-only districts, writing that it "gerrymanders" them out of having a voice.

The upside of student-only ANCs is that students are essentially guaranteed a voice on the commission; surely, a student body is most likely to elect a peer as its representative. But such a policy would give students only as many voices as they have districts; in the case of Kraskin and Smith's proposal for AU, that's one voice. Were the campus split into multiple SMDs, several students could, theoretically, be elected to the ANC.

And in the future, there's one very large thing at the mercy of ANC 3D's approval: AU's campus plan. The plan proposes some serious changes, like turning a parking lot on Nebraska Avenue NW into a mixed-use development, and has been met with opposition from nearby, non-student residents in ANC3D. For neighbors wary of the university's changes, the potential for multiple AU-based commissioners—or a swath of commissioners whose constituents include students—probably isn't very appealing.

Dancing Crab, the D.C. landmark whose website says it serves the "finest Hard Shell crabs from Maryland and Louisiana," has been accused of serving something else: Minors.

On Wednesday, the District's Alcoholic Beverage Control Board held a hearing regarding two investigative reports about the eatery, located at 4615 Wisconsin Ave. NW, submitted by liquor cops. The reports accuse the establishment of selling booze to three underaged customers. The three were students from nearby American University. The restaurant attracts attendees of the school—an entry on the AU website says the "establishment offers inexpensive seafood." But the board seemed convinced the place had been offering more than that, so it socked the business with a $6,000 fine and a 23-day liquor license suspension. Though the business can probably afford the fine, 23 days without the ability to serve alcohol will definitely hurt its bottom line.

Reached by phone, Dancing Crab manager Chris Leach says the "heavy fine" and the suspension are a "nightmare," and that "all reasonable efforts were taken to to keep alcohol out of the hands of the underaged." "You do your best to look at the I.D.," she says. But a tick later, Leach admits the Dancing Crab's nighttime business leans heavily on AU students, and that business has slacked off ever since authorities began descending on the place to check identifications and make arrests. "Word has gotten around," she says.

The raids that led to the fines began last spring. On March 28, investigators from ABRA and MPD entered the Dancing Crab and "observed two females who appeared very young in age sitting at a table consuming what appeared to be alcoholic beverages," say documents. "Upon checking the identification of the females Detective [Dave] Carter determined both patrons were under 21 years of age and were consuming Vodka and tonic drinks." Investigators discovered the two AU students had used fake IDs to get in. The pictures on the IDs weren't of the students.

In a May 1 incident, in which an underaged female student was caught drinking a beer in the establishment, things went similarly, according to documents—except that when investigators arrived at the Dancing Crab to check on things, an employee of the place appeared to try to warn the underaged customer by whispering in her ear.

AU spokesperson Rob Hradsky e-mails that "there have been several incidents in the past in which underage students have been served alcohol at the Dancing Crab." He adds that "ABRA has been a strong partner with the university in working with neighborhood establishments to curb underage drinking."

Photo by T o n y via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

Freshman Ty Lane joins American University students to counter-protest against Westboro Baptist Church.

“Where the fuck are they?” says one American University student, as she and her friends join the crowd of AU students gathered to counter-protest the Westboro Baptist Church gathering on a cold Friday afternoon. “Are they here yet?”

They were. The problem these AU students were having, however, was that the Topeka-based church had brought far too few members to adequately address the student body at American University.

According to their press release, the WBC had arrived to “give your children [i.e., AU students] an opportunity to see what truth looks like.”

“Now they beg for some truth from the humble servants of WBC,” the group said. “They will know what their God requires of them & will not be able to plead ignorance any longer.”

To accomplish this mammoth task, the church had brought just four supporters. AU countered with between 700 and 1,200 student counter-protesters, according to university officials.

Some students didn’t even bother trying to actually see the WBC picketers, who stood across the street from the university, surrounded by protective police.

“I’ll see pictures online,” says Dakota David, a freshman at AU. She was spending her time walking around the crowd, taking note of the various counter-protest signs—some straight-forward, many tongue-in-cheek. “I think it’s awesome,” David says. “When you face something so horrible like the Westboro Baptist Church, we can all unite against that.”

AU students named their counter-protest the “Rally to Reaffirm Sanity,” basing their message off Jon Stewart’s rally last fall.

Some students copied the style of signs from the Stewart rally as well. One sign read “Good Lord, It’s Cold,” while another said “God Hates Hoyas.” Other signs were more direct. One declared “God Loves Orgasms,” and another noted that “Dude, You’re Gay If You Think Lesbians Aren’t Hot.”

Freshman Ty Lane, proudly displaying her rainbow-colored briefs to the WBC picketers, calls the counter-demonstration the largest collected student movement she’d seen since enrolling. “It’s the the biggest joining of AU that I’ve ever seen,” Lane says. “Everyone at AU has at least one gay friend.”

Upon learning Washington City Paper is willing to print curse words, Lane became more explicit.

“I think that Westboro should suck our AU gay cock,” she says. “Because gay rights are going to come around before they’re all dead... so they should deal with it.”

Kim Ketchoyian, a senior, says she's “flattered” by the WBC’s picketers. “I’m proud of my ‘faggy school’,” she says, putting air quotes around the WBC’s description of AU. “I feel like I’m at a zoo right now. They’re like the lion cubs.”

Many AU students seemed to be spending more time watching the speakers than opposing the WBC picketers. Several a capella groups performed, student leaders gave speeches praising AU’s diversity, and there were readings of poetry created by blacking out certain words in the WBC’s press release.

For her part, sophomore Patrice Ingham says she can't understand why the WBC chose to show up in the first place. “Do they really have to call us the ‘doom generation’ because we’re more accepting than them?” she says.

Others agreed.

“Nobody’s even paying attention to them anymore,” one girl mutters, while AU a cappella group On a Sensual Note sings a Lady Gaga song. “They might as well not even be here.”

Christian Kingston, who had donned an American University snuggie, spent the majority of the rally giving out “Free Consensual Hugs.” “We’re all part of the community, and we need to embrace who we are,” he explains. “By giving out these hugs... we embrace everyone as we are.”

“This is epic,” yells another student, accepting a hug from Kingston before turning back to listen to another a cappella song.

The rally ends with Nate Bronstein, AU’s student government president, leading the crowd in a chant of “Once an Eagle, Always an Eagle.” (AU’s school mascot is, unsurprisingly, an eagle. Its colors are red, white, and blue, though rainbow flags appeared the norm for this event.) Then the loudspeakers blast Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance,” and the whole rally turns into a very chilly dance party.

Not dancing, however, were the WBC protesters. They had left 15 minutes earlier. Guess they don’t like Lady Gaga.

The doohickey seems to stare at you. Two wide eyes set in an all but indestructible black box, the Mobile Plate Hunter-900 is D.C.'s own panopticon. At a hefty cost of $16,000 to $20,000 per device, the unblinking Metropolitan Police Department robot never misses a thing. It steals a color image with one lens and an infrared one with the other. That's how it spotted 18 year-old Deandrew Hamlin.

Just hours after one of the devices was installed somewhere in the area of Benning Road NE last week, the technology may have proven its worth. MPD spokesperson Istmania Bonilla told The Washington Post that as a Jeep Cherokee rolled by on Oct. 25, the device did what it was made to. It scanned the vehicle's tags, and began comparing the numbers against a "hot list" of stolen vehicles. It got a ping.

Alerted by the machine, cops chased down Hamlin, an alleged car thief and a murder suspect. Cops say Hamlin was driving the car of slain American University professor Sue Ann Marcum, 52.

But if that's the correct version of events, police charging documents don't make that clear. In an affidavit regarding Hamlin's arrest, officer W. Dempster makes no mention of the License Plate Recognition (LPR) contraption cops have been phasing in since about 2005, tipping him off.

I, Officer Dempster was on duty as"Auto Theft 69"in the area of the 2400 block of Benning Road, NE Wash, DC. There I observed a gold in color Jeep Cherokee SUV bearing Virginia tags YXEl456 traveling west bound on Benning Road, Northeast. I saw that the Jeep was occupied only by the driver and I recognized it matched a look out for a felony vehicle wanted in connection to a Montgomery county homicide from earlier in the day.

Nate Maloney, a spokesperson for the technology company that sells Mobile Plate Hunters to MPD, says they installed four of their machines in the District the day Hamlin was caught, and that one of them was definitely on Benning Road. Though many of the machines are attached to police cars, that particular one is a stand-alone, he says. Maloney wasn't surprised when he read that his machines had helped tracked down a stolen car.

Though cops run tags all the time, one advantage the computerized tag hunters have is they don't carry around prejudices: "It's an equal opportunity profiler, if you will," says Maloney. The machine takes note of every single vehicle it encounters, including those that are parked.

Uninfluenced by the kind of  subconscious stereotyping that makes taking the Harvard race test a frightful experience, the machine is perhaps a useful addition to a police department that in 2006, discovered it was keen on stopping black and Latino pedestrians in Georgetown and Adams Morgan.

A police department source who works on fighting auto theft in the District says the machines have done more than remain colorblind, though; they've also been wicked efficient, helping to recover stolen vehicles faster than humanoid cops can. "It's impossible to go down the street and run every tag," he admits.

But as more and more patrol cars and neighborhoods are rigged with the machines, there would seem to be at least two concerns: The price tag, which gets worse when you consider warranty costs that run about $1,500 a year for each unit, and privacy. Though for now, MPD mostly uses their mechanical snoops to look for stolen cars (and perhaps terror suspects), the device can be tweaked to ping for other reasons, and that worries the American Civil Liberties Union.

"ALPRs raise serious concerns to your privacy because of the system's ability to monitor and track the movements of ALL vehicles," reads a blog post on the ACLU website, "including those registered to people who are not suspected of any crime."

The civil rights lawyers could be onto something. A police source says MPD has used images from the devices to figure out what cars were in the area of a crime scene in the moments when patrol cars arrived. So you could end up being scrutinized  simply because your vehicle was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That's the down side of a surveillance device with indiscriminate ways—the paranoid among us have little chance of staying completely clear of it. Still, if cops are expected to deliver on making D.C. streets as safe as concerned residents seem to want them to, it's likely to cost something even more precious than tax dollars—like the ability to stay off the grid.

So did the machine locate Hamlin or what? Contacted, Bonilla says she hasn't heard anything to the contrary.  Seeing that would-be terrorist Metro attacks and mail bombs have shown up in the news cycle of late, that's a win for a surveillance culture we're likely to see more of.

The fact that some local residents have been living with chemical weapon stockpiles buried in their backyards for years isn't news, of course. (WaPo filed a brief blog item about it last month.) But it's nice to see a big West Coast newspaper devote such extensive reporting to what is basically a local neighborhood issue:

Since 1993, the Army Corps of Engineers has removed 84 chemical-filled shells and more than 1,000 conventional munitions, plus at least 44,000 tons of contaminated dirt and debris, from the verdant campus of American University and the manicured lawns of Spring Valley, one of Washington's most prestigious neighborhoods.

The toxic trash dates from 1917 and 1918, when the military leased the then-rural campus and nearby farms to test gruesome gases. After the war, soldiers and scientists buried lethal leftovers in unmarked pits, calling the area Death Valley.

Naturally, the D.C. real estate community rebranded the area "Spring Valley" and soon mansions were built. The rest, as they say, is history. The most prestigious chemical-laden address? The yard "between the official residence of South Korea's ambassador, Han Duk-soo, and the white-columned house of American University's president, Cornelius Kerwin," where "previous digs unearthed more than 300 munitions and chemical weapons debris...."

Here's the kicker:

The work draws little apparent interest among students. Only a dozen people showed up when six experts gathered recently to give presentations on the cleanup. A senior, Michael Ginsberg, had organized the panel as part of his honors project.

"Most students don't even know there were chemical weapons here," Ginsberg, 21, said in frustration.

It recalls the old Jello Biafra line from "Kinky Sex Makes The World Go Round":

We've got our college kids so interested in beer
they don't even care if we start manufacturing germ bombs again.
Put a nuclear stockpile in their back yard,
they wouldn't even know what it looked like

 

The Issue: The District Department of Transportation's plan to install a 37-mile streetcar system glaringly leaves Ward 3 out in the cold, without concrete plans for a streetcar to run up Wisconsin Avenue from Georgetown. “One of the reasons they didn’t proceed was lack in community support,” says Glover Park resident Ben Thielen and creator of the Wisconsin Avenue Streetcar Coalition. 

Streetcars for Stella!: “It’s a no-brainer to bring the streetcar up Wisconsin Avenue. It’s one of the most densely packed corridors in the city,” says Glover Park Advisory Neighborhood Commission commissioner Brian Cohen. The area lacks a nearby metro stop and residents often complain about the unreliable buses, Cohen says. The surrounding neighborhood is also one of six areas expected to face the largest population increase in the District over the next 30 years, according to city figures. If concrete plans aren’t laid down now, 10 to 20 years down the line, “whoever’s living in the neighborhood then is going to look back and say, how did they screw this up 20 years ago,” he adds.

Not worth the money: The capital cost of implementing streetcars in the 2030 plan–including tracks, street reconstruction, power systems and streetcars themselves–is $25.8 million per mile, according to DDOT. Some community members question the need and expense of a streetcar line down Wisconsin Avenue, as well as the impact on vehicular traffic, says area resident and trolley champion Andrew Aurbach.

What’s Next: Aurbach drafted a resolution calling for streetcars in Ward 3 that was presented before the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 3b in January. Ideally, the streetcar would run along Wisconsin Avenue to either Friendship Heights or Tenleytown and connecting down to Georgetown, he says. ANC3c similarly plans to consider the resolution this evening.

Photo by Oran Viriyincy, Creative Commons Attribution License

There was a time when Washingtonians who like their water from the tap and those who prefer it in bottles got along just fine. That time was called "last week."

Last night at American University's Wechsler Theater, the university's Center for Environmental Filmmaking hosted a screening of Tapped, a film about the environmental costs of bottled water. On Monday, the International Bottled Water Association, which is not thrilled with Tapped, e-mailed the university. Tom Lauria, the IBWA's vice president for communications, wrote that the trade group "will be there to set the record straight, both in terms of the pre-production conduct of 'Tapped' producers and the faulty information they provide to viewers." Lauria demanded a seat on the panel discussing the film cautioned that "We have many relevant comments, corrections and observations of concern to film students, and it may prove to be smoother program if AU accommodates authoritative voices who find flaws in this very problematic and false depiction of bottled water companies, as opposed to having serious issues shouted from the aisles."

Chris Palmer, the director of AU's Center for Environmental Filmmaking, invited Lauria to join the discussion, with the caveat that he wouldn't be allowed to dominate it. He read Lauria's e-mail to the room before the panelists spoke.

In an interview yesterday before the panel Lauria said he has a "little bit of a personal ax to grind" with the filmmakers; he arranged an interview for them with IBWA's president, Joseph Doss, whom he said the filmmakers "did pretty much of a hatchet job" on. In a way, he said, he was happy the showing was at American: "The film was not picked up by Sundance," he said. "It is reduced to college road shows."

"Was it rejected by Sundance?" said Stephanie Soechtig, the film's director, yesterday. "Yes. As were 3,000 other films. It was, however, selected by the International Documentary Association to be considered for an Academy Award. We didn't get nominated, but it's the thought that counts."

The IBWA "posts comments to almost every article written about us," Soechtig said. "Yet they can never specifically discredit any of our facts."

The trade group, she said, is "desperate to contain this message and discredit this message. Much like when the tobacco industry was going down and Tom Lauria swooped in to do the same thing with them."

Lauria used to be a spokesperson for the Tobacco Institute, a trade group that dissolved in 1998. Soechtig was in Los Angeles yesterday preparing for a 30-day tour to promote Tapped's March 22 DVD release, but this fact still came up last night.

“I wonder, when you worked for the Tobacco Institute, if you started your presentation with, ‘I love cigarettes,’” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, a group that lobbies students, restaurateurs, and legislators to use tap water.

It was a hard left jab on a night that was quite entertaining if you always thought of drinking water as a rather gentle subject. “It takes a vivid imagination to believe this film,” Lauria told the room. “No one's against tap water. You can’t shower in bottled water." Critics of his industry, Lauria said, effectively want to take away people's right to drink water.

Hauter showed off a reusable bottle filled with tap water and threw a couple more elbows at Lauria's résumé.

“Would you knock that off?” Lauria said. “How dare you…judge” people for where they choose to get their water, he blustered.

"How dare YOU?" an audience member blustered back.

Christopher O'Brien, the university's director of sustainability, said his favorite beverage was actually beer.

The Eagle reports:

About half the structure collapsed — and pieces were still falling. What was left standing was closest to Butler Pavilion.

After the collapse, few people were outside. No emergency vehicles were in the area either.

The bridge opened in 2008 — with the canopy opening shortly thereafter, The Eagle previously reported.

SUB Director Clay Pencek, who was working the information desk in MGC, said the collapse happened around 11:40 a.m., and that there were no injuries.

The builder of the canopy has been contacted, and plans are being developed for a repair or replacement of the structure, University Architect Jerry Gager said in an e-mail.

Check out the photo gallery of the canopy—before and after.

Cappuccino photo by Jazzbobrown, Creative Commons Attribution License

It’s an early Saturday afternoon inside the cozy basement café at Politics & Prose bookstore on Connecticut Avenue NW. I’ve been here awhile – a good long while.

I arrive with my laptop and a yellow legal pad before 10 a.m. and install myself at one of the little tables along the wall that leads to the stacks. After ordering a cappuccino, I fire up my computer and get right to work. When the battery wanes, I fish around behind a pedestal holding a lamp and find an electrical outlet to plug into. There is even an extension cord handy – what convenience!

All the while, I nurse the same cappuccino. Eventually, what was lacey white foam has congealed into a dingy crust around the porcelain cup.

Every now and then, I catch the gaze of one of the baristas – a woman with long brown hair and tattoos, who keeps up an incessant banter with the other barista, while the patrons come and go with their coffee drinks, bagels, soup of the day.

There she goes again. She’s giving me the eye, the sign that the coffee shop staff has made you – that you are bagged, spotted, scoped, identified as a Wi-Fi loafer, one of those Internet-surfing freeloaders who arrives early, orders little, and stays all day.

Sometimes referred to as “digital nomads,” the café vagabonds have inspired countless features and were even toasted in the Washington Post as harbingers of a future business culture, in which we will all one day be untethered from bland cubicles and dreary office parks.

No sooner has digital nomad culture been feted as trendsetting, however, than it has become apparent that not everyone is so happy with the Wi-Fi wanderers who move between establishments such as the Big Bear in Bloomingdale, Tryst in Adams Morgan and Mid-City Caffé in Columbia Heights.

One could assume that coffee shops lose money on these one-cuppa customers who spread out across tabletops from breakfast through teatime. There are signs that this has been the case. Some popular establishments like Tryst have turned off the Wi-Fi on weekends, while others contract with Internet providers that allow them to dole out the online access an hour or two at a time and only to paying customers.

And the issue has sparked heated debate among customers as well. Just check out the eruption on Prince of Petworth earlier this month when one local nomad expressed “shock” upon hearing that Sticky Fingers Bakery had banished Internet service on Saturdays.

While people voice strong views online, where they remain comfortably anonymous, the same issues are rarely aired in real time and face-to-face.

Take my experience at Politics & Prose’s café. Despite my suspicions about the eye, I’m left to my online reverie as the morning coffee and pastry crowd comes and goes – many without even sitting down – followed by some gatherings of mommies with baby strollers in tow, the dads with young kids who are stopping in after Saturday morning sports practice, and a few other laptop luggers like myself. They eventually are joined by late-rising American University students, here to rehash the night before and plot the one ahead. The students are holding fast to their table too but sans computers.

My crusty coffee cup forgotten at the corner of my screen, I’m open season for the Upper Northwest matrons who just popped in. They’ve come for lunch but, by now, all the tables are taken. So one of the women sidles up to mine and asks: “Are you going to be staying long?”

Her companion looks slightly mortified by her friend’s nerve. My inquisitor rolls her eyes, as if to acknowledge the breaking of a social code. But her look says she is more displeased by my audacity at hogging a scarce patch of coffee shop real estate more than her own cheek at trying to nudge my computer and me toward the door.

This is the first real challenge I’ve had in several weeks of Internet loafing.  My first reaction: shame. I am taken aback by the woman’s righteous indignation. After all, it cannot be denied that I am hogging table space from customers who are willing to plunk down lots more money than the two bucks and change I spent on a cappuccino several hours ago.

I mumble faintly: “Yes, yes, I’m planning to stay.”

The barista looks over and gives me the eye again. Or is she?  At some point it becomes hard to distinguish whether you’re getting the eye or simply projecting – “They’re thinking I’m a Wi-Fi loafer! Right now, they are thinking, ‘what a deadbeat!’”

Then, I snap out of it, remembering I’m not just some Wi-Fi loafer, I am a Wi-Fi loafer on assignment. Confessions of a Wi-Fi Loafer—that's the title of this series.

I have not resorted to such guerrilla reporting tactics lightly. I tried the standard interviewing techniques. But café owners are understandably reluctant to publicly dis their customers – even the Wi-Fi moocher variety. And, who in their right mind – especially in this status-oriented city – is going to allow a reporter to identify them on the record as an Internet café idler, an exploiter of bandwidth and table space?

Ever the dedicated public service journalist, and with few other avenues open to me, I have taken it upon myself to become the ultimate Wi-Fi loafer. I’m your faithful correspondent on the frontlines of cafes in every corner of the city wherever Internet connections and electrical outlets beckon and coffee is sold. Please feel free to share your own Internet loafing experiences or your feelings – either for or against the loafers you have encountered.  You can post them here or email me at thegreendistrict@gmail.com.