Local branches of the group pick the players from each city. Players will also compete for a chance to represent the United States at the Homeless World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Homeless World Cup aims to raise awareness of global homelessness; it was the focus of the documentary film Kicking It.

The tournament begins today with a "parade of states" and celebrity kickoff, and concludes Sunday when the championship game will be held and the national roster will be announced. The event is at the Washington Kastles Stadium at the site of the old convention center on 11th and H Streets NW. Tickets are free. (If you go, don't be surprised if the atmosphere reminds you of RFK—a contingent from D.C. United fan club the Barra Brava will be there tonight, supporting the D.C. team against New York.)

Photo by Joel Mason-Gaines

A newborn was found unconscious at the D.C. General family shelter on the morning of Feb. 9. The baby girl was rushed to Children's Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Beverly Fields, the spokesperson for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, tells City Desk that the cause and manner of the child's death are still pending.

D.C. Police Assistant Chief Peter Newsham says the baby had no signs of infection and that the autopsy had showed no signs of trauma. "The baby was alone in a bassinet," he says.

According to a resident at the shelter, who was a close friend, the mother had come to D.C. General pregnant in September. Soon after giving birth in early January at a local hospital, she returned to the shelter. The resident said that there were other mothers who also had children during their stays at D.C. General but either chose not to return or to place their newborns with family.

When the mother came back to the shelter, the resident, she received no help from staff taking care of the baby. She said the mother was troubled and appeared overwhelmed.

Telephone messages left for the mother went unreturned.

File photo by Darrow Montgomery

The event is disturbing, but so is the Post's coverage of it.

First of all, the tone is eerily matter-of-fact. One would imagine that death by trash compactor would be a horrifying and potentially gory way to meet your maker, but this is nowhere reflected in the Post's dispassionate narrative. The probable cause of death isn't explained, and readers are left wondering. Was his body mutilated by the trash compacting? We don't know, because the Post doesn't say.

Second: There's no emotion. Granted, the man's family declined to comment, but there's nothing in the article to suggest that this tragic loss of human life is anything more than a mildly curious occurrence.

"It's so static," Neil Donovan, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, says of the article. The word choice used to describe Lindolph's death is "almost similar to the products being recycled, the cardboard, you know?"

Third: There's no context. Articles like this often seek out qualified commenters—such as university professors or employees at nonprofits—to situate the reported news in a broader background.

You'd think such a morbidly fascinating event would warrant this explanation. Was the incident a sad consequence of the thousands-deep waiting list for Section 8 housing? Another bitter story from tough economic times? The Post doesn't ask anyone.

Last, and worst of all: The Post implies Lindolph is to blame for his own death! The closing sentence of a newspaper article determines what taste readers will have in their mouth, so to speak, after they're done reading. In the case of accidental and unfortunate death, you'd expect that the article would convey that tragedy with its parting thought. Instead, the article quotes a police spokesman, who scolds Lindolph for finding shelter in one of the only places a homeless person can find it:

"He said the incident highlights the dangers of sleeping in dumpsters.

'Those dumpsters clearly are designed for trash only,' he said."

Translation: It's your own fucking fault for sleeping in a dumpster. No shit, they're "designed for trash only"; they're dumpsters. Homeless people know that. But they sometimes choose to sleep in them, despite potential nausea and health risks, because desperate circumstances make the semblance of warmth and privacy to be found amongst the garbage of other, more fortunate people an attractive option.

Now, compare this to another Washington Post article, this one on a different accidental death last week: that of nine-year-old Oscar Fuentes.

A number of things are different: The opening sentence is dramatic, not mundane. The article is brimming with emotion. While the victim's immediate family couldn't be reached for comment, the Post sought the comments of numerous others: non-immediate relatives, neighbors, witnesses. And the article examines Fuente's death not as an isolated, happenchance occurrence, but within the broader context of the ongoing gentrification of Columbia Heights.

Why the disparity? "We all kind of subscribe to this hierarchy," Donovan says. He calls it "the compassion scale." Victims of fires garner more compassion than victims of domestic violence, for instance. "There are the persistent poor who live among us, and when something happens to a couple of them, we set it on this continuum." To the Post, Oscar Fuentes is higher than Marcellous Lindolph Jr on the compassion scale, thus warranting a more detailed, human portrayal.

"We should flatten the hierarchy," Donovan says, "and treat all of our brothers and sisters as equals. That is the moral imperative."

Since it's been established here, here, and here that terminology matters, it seems worth pointing out the screaming language on the front page of the Washington Examiner yesterday: "Suburban dreams turn into ghettoes." The headline inside the paper said: "Foreclosure crisis creating suburban slums."

The story by Bill Myers and David Sherfinski began:

Two years of economic collapse have pockmarked the D.C. region's affluent suburbs with blight, and experts are worried that the foundering cul-de-sacs and towns are on the verge of becoming the region's next ghettoes.

Here's another term – "ghetto" – that gets thrown around far too much, and too casually, in talking about urban (and, in this case, suburban) problems.

Greater Greater Washington looked at the use of the word and its social and racial implications a few months ago; City Desk followed up.

The Examiner story (the main online headline is "Bedroom community blues" instead) referenced dropping home values, falling tax revenues, the high foreclosure rate in some local jurisdictions, and the fact that some – many? it's unclear – former single-family homes are now being (gasp) rented out. It quoted the president of the Kettering Community Association in Upper Marlboro, Linda Crudup, describing the vandalism of some of those foreclosed properties, in the form of broken windows and doors kicked in. It vaguely spoke of "neighbors who just a few years ago worried about curb height or speed bumps" now finding themselves "fighting to keep drug dealers from setting up shop in boarded-up homes." The story also cited an increase in homelessness in Prince William and Loudon and noted one Fairfax County district is "littered with hundreds of boarded-up McMansions."

Those are real problems, to be sure. But they have nothing to do with the term "ghetto," or the actual thing.

Ideas? Comments? I’m at eniedowski@washingtoncitypaper.com, and on Twitter.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and his human services director need to get on the same page.

For the last month or so, the Fenty administration has been getting hammered on surprise cuts to homeless services. Dozens of providers cried foul after they were notified by the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness that, due to trying economic times, their budgets stood to be cut by 15 percent or more.

A week ago, Fenty made with some answers. In his weekly wee-hours appearance with WRC-TV's Barbara Harrison, he called the perception that homeless funding was being cut "either a miscommunication or a distortment of the facts" (forward to 3:30).

Said Fenty, "We have a contractor that works for us that overspent their budget last budget year. We gave them the same amount this year that we gave them last year, but last year they overspent it." That's a clear reference to the Community Partnership, which has contracted with the city since 1994 to distribute and oversee funding of homelessness programs.

Only one problem: At a D.C. Council hearing the day before, Fenty's human services chief mentioned virtually nothing about the Community Partnership overspending. Rather, Director Clarence Carter explained, the city had handed the group $10 million in federal funds last year that weren't going to be available for the coming fiscal year. And here's what Carter wrote to homeless activist Eric Sheptock in a Tuesday e-mail: 'The TCP contract was $38m in 2009, we expended $50m. The gap in spending is the additional dollars I added to homeless services during my tenure.'

In other words, if the Community Partnership was overspending its budget, it was doing it with the full faith and credit of the Fenty administration. And Fenty should know very well how homeless funding works, having chaired the council's human services committee prior to rising to the mayoralty.

During the interview, Harrison tried making the point that "maybe there were just more homeless people that they have to serve?"

But Mayor Fiscal Rectitude wouldn't have it: "There are inefficiencies in government, and we should not be afraid to say, no matter what agency it is, people have to spend money responsibly....Overspending your budget is not a recipe for us just giving you more money. We're not going to do that."

Fenty, told on Tuesday that his comments were disputable at best, passed LL to a spokesperson.