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.

Lalich transferred to Oregon as soon as his run in Charlottesville went to hell, and, because of some weird quirk having something to do with his new school being on a quarter system and not semesters, he'll be eligible to play this season.

If the punishment schedule announced last year still holds, Lalich should get his drivers license back this week from Virginia authorities. It makes sense that Lalich would be on a practice field this time of year, but... Why isn't he in Oregon?

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Another formerly local athlete in some legal heat, and not dealing real well with it: Antonio Pierce, the ex-Redskins linebacker turned Giant person of interest in the Plaxico Burress thigh blast case, is making enemies with his tweets.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Examiner column calls out Duds? Godly folks are coming after the racist Redskins? Who says Cal Ripken and/or Eddie Murray were juiced? FedExField also sucks for things other than football games? Jeremy Mayfield called his stepmomma THAT? Van Pelt goes for big bucks, but Czarniak goes bid-less?)

After testifying before a grand jury, Pierce, who could face weapons charges of his own, twatted: "sometimes u have to Draw a line in the Stand and see what side PEOPLE are on.. Well damn heres the Line!!...A coward dies many deaths but a soldier only dies ONCE!!"

Let others say Pierce's behavior here is off -- The New York Post called him "Tweet-le Dum Dum" -- but he had me at "line in the Stand"...

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John Keim at the Examiner has a nice addition to his paper's Skins coverage: the "Studs and Duds" column. At the end of each day of practice, Keim calls out folks who make plays, and those who mistakes. Sure, it's impossible to watch everything that goes on during workouts, so Keim misses at least half the big plays and half the, well, duds. But call-out columns make things interesting. If a guy screws up in practice, why not write about it? Don't say he's mean to his mother or he's a dog killer (unless it's, well, you know) ! Just say he blew this or that. I read every day.

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The roots don't get any grassier: A religious group in Delaware has made changing the name of the Redskins a top priority. The Peninsula-Delaware Conference of the United Methodist Church, which represents 464 churches and claims about 100,000 congregants, has stopped using FedEx's package delivery services becuase that company is a major sponsor of the Washington Redskins. There are tentative plans to hold rallies at Redskins games this season, also. The team's name is "racially demeaning," church leaders explained in announcing the FedEx boycott. I always love to hear folks argue the other side of this issue, since, well, there isn't another side.

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'Course, the racist team name isn't the only reason some folks stay away from FedExField. In fact, FedExField all by itself gives more fans the motivation to stay home. Venue-related problems during Paul McCartney's appearance on Saturday added to the stadium's shitty legend.

Real Madrid shows up this weekend!

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Road to Ripken™ Update: ESPN quoted Jose Canseco, the Deep Throat of the Dead Balls Era, as saying that the Hall of Fame has at least one P.E.D.-ophile.

Canseco didn't drop the name, however.

We know by now that everything Canseco says is proven true after a brief delay. So who slipped through the cracks at Cooperstown? A blog post about Canseco's statements at USA Today's website generated more guesses about famous former Orioles -- Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken, specifically -- than those from any other team.

So, come on, Cal. Confess. Say you used 'roids. Even if you didn't. Then we can all move on. The game needs you!

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Feeling sorry for yourself? Yeah, me too!

So, together let's mull the State of Jeremy Mayfield. First NASCAR kicked him off the track for allegedly testing positive for methamphetamine after a race in Richmond. Then he went public saying he'd ever used the drug. Must be cold medicine, he said. Then NASCAR said "Oh Really?" and released the results of ANOTHER recent test where Mayfield's pee pee was allegedly tainted. He's still claiming a frame job, but he's done on the track. And now his stepmother has sued him for saying, "She's basically a whore. She shot and killed my dad."

I'm no F. Lee Bailey, but I think his "basically"'s like my"allegedly" here.

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Bobblehead Update: The Scott Van Pelt bobblehead twins, from a Bowie Baysox giveaway, just sold for $88 plus postage on eBay. The auction of Lindsay Czarniak's 'head, a 2008 Baysox freebie, ends today at around 11:30 a.m. The creepy vendor is asking about $70. So far, alas, Czarniak has gotten no bids.

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Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

PLUS: A stirring bonus segment in which Erik lobs a BIG ONE at CP's own glass house. No way are you touching that remote!

William Saletan vs. John McWhorter and Stephen Colbert vs. Byron York, after the jump.

• At his New Republic blog, John McWhorter lights into Slate's William Saletan (Amanda Hess' favorite pro-lifer). A few years ago, McWhorter writes, Saletan "was shot at like a varmint...after writing some columns on evidence that black people are genetically less gifted mentally than whites," and now he's being too timid in response to findings that No Child Left Behind has failed to close the achievement gap between white and black students. Specifically, McWhorter thinks Saletan made a  mistake by asking "Why categorize and measure students by race?" McWhorter, who is both black and conservative--two decades after Armstrong Williams rose to prominence, this still qualifies as a novelty--backed off a little when he read the mea culpa that Saletan, who's white and conservative, published. The novella-length exchange is worth your time. In short, McWhorter maintains that education critics shouldn't shy away from the topic, even if the new study suggests that disparities in academic performance transcend environmental factors, but Saletan just isn't ready to go there. My two cents: The best public schools in the country are light-years behind mediocre private institutions. Why, then, are we surprised that a federally mandated public education program put together by Republicans failed to do what university-level education departments haven't been able to accomplish in decades of classroom experiments? Now would be a great time to stick it to Congress--most of which members' children attend private schools--for killing D.C.'s voucher program.
  
• Also on the race front: FishbowlDC (yeah, that Fishbowl) did a nice job capturing (and by "capturing," I mean, "imbedding a video of") Stephen Colbert lambasting Washington Examiner columnist Byron York. The sentence that got Colbert's team of writers--as well as Matt Yglesias (or, at least we think it was Yglesias who wrote about it)--so upset? "But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are." The rest of the column is simply a recitation of approval ratings broken down by race (York discovered that Obama has a significantly higher approval rating--we're talking 20-30 percentage points--among black voters). The fallout from his column was hot enough to inspire York to write a follow-up. IMHO, this kind of analysis is innocuous compared to the racial finger-pointing that Andrew Sullivan, Dan Savage, and, yes, even I committed when exit poll data suggested that blacks and Latinos bore a disproportionate responsibility for the passage of Proposition 8 in California. (Nate Silver, god love'm, proved us all wrong.)

That's it for me, good readers. Keep your eyes peeled for next week's Summer Music Guide.

Dear everyone preparing "First 100 Days" packages for tomorrow: HAPPY TUESDAY, SUCKERS!

Love, the Examiner

This metaphor takes five paragraphs to unspool.

Suppose you called the plumber to unstop your toilet, and he ignored the toilet, and spent his time and your money building a deck in your yard.

Suppose you told him you didn’t need a deck, or didn’t need a deck now, or would think about the deck later, after he unstopped the toilet. And suppose he ignored you and went on building the deck while the toilet began to back up and spill over.

And when you complained, he told you the toilet was just a distraction---like a tracking poll, or whatever---and that the deck he was building was just what you needed to make property values go up.

You replied that even if the back yard had a gazebo and fountain, no one would purchase a house with unusable plumbing. He said you were letting details obscure your view of the big picture, and that he was following the lead of the firm’s esteemed founder, Franklin D. Roosevelt, a local legend in the home contracting universe, who, when called in to unplug the toilets back in the old days, installed a patio, and put in a swing for the children.

You said that as you remembered, he put in the patio after he saw to the toilet, whereas while he was busy with planning the sundeck, the toilet’s condition had gotten much worse.

Whew! Long way to go to read that:

The plumber of course is not Joe, but President Barack Obama, the toilet is the national and global economy, and the sundeck is the health care and other offensives on which he is wasting your money, and most of his time.

Problem is, Emery's editor has a job much like a plumber's--you're paid to remember to turn off the mains before you unscrew the supply lines, so you don't get a jet of water in the face.

Burned!

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