Day: December 22, 2004

If you have DSL or some other fast internet connection check outOut of the Rubble, A Public Housing Drama Rises (washingtonpost.com) There are 3 video segments on the Arthur Capper Carrollsburg project featuring residents, activists and a DC government official. The artist Anu Yadev who I mentioned before appears in the video along with bits of her play.

I do like the last vingette about the woman who moved up and out to better housing. Change is the Devil, but it can be a blessing that kicks you in the pants and forces you to reevaluate your life and do something. It forces you to decide if you are going to stay in the same rut or move on. Of course if you’re over 60 ruts are good and change always bad.

The video also talks about who stays and who goes and the official mentioned the good and the bad. I could say there are no such thing as bad people, but good souls with really bad habits, but I’m just not THAT good to believe it completely. However this desire to separate the wheat from the chaff that the housing official wants to do is slightly troubling. I totally understand the logic. If you are going to have a public housing, mixed income project that is stable and healthy you just can’t have certain people coming in who may/will hinder the project’s success. If you want the area to be free of drugs and low crime you can’t have criminals or crackheads or their other drug abusing cohorts. But those criminals or crackheads do belong to families who contain individual members who are clean and can be considered good. However you take out the drug dealer you take out his whole family. And that is something we may have to accept.

The Rhode Island Home Depot is good for paint on any other day other than Saturday. For all other things it is pretty much hit or miss. If you need a part, I mean really need a part or something particular, go out to Maryland. If you need something in general like, soil, any sort of tile, light fixtures and you’re not particular, Rhode Island will do.

Of course it may have been too much to ask for when I was looking for insulation strips for the doors and windows. They didn’t have the size I needed. So I may have to go back to the ghetto methods of paper towels in the crevices. This is what you have to do when you have Section 8 windows.

I could also check the Logan Hardware store on the other end of Shaw. I am at times amazed at how much stuff can fit in such a tiny store. One time I needed a blade for my hacksaw and they had what I needed. I know they are good for toilet parts.

I’m glad there is a Home Depot in the city, nearby. However I wish they weren’t the home improvement store equivalent of the Soviet Safeway.