Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

a la Bruce Willis

Wal-Mart that beacon of low wages might be coming to the Nation’s Capitol putting itself at the old Brentwood lot, where a Giant and the Home Depot now sit. Now I am a fan of low prices, but not so much of domestic/foreign slave labor. According to today’s Washington Post Business section, right now they are at the ‘talking’ stage of filling in the space that was supposed to be taken up by K-Mart, Wal-Mart’s struggling rival. However, K-Mart fell on hard times before anything was built and so nothing was built on the site. Right now it is just an empty mud lot. Well there are worse things that could go there, the Kit Kat Klub Stripper Emporium.

Just say no to the ugly

Okay you may have seen the example of the not ugly house where the 3rd floor addition does not take away from the street view. Well when you add another floor with no regard of how it is going to look in regard to the other houses…. it’s ugly. Trust me.

The problem with a transitioning area where the prices are on crack sometimes are the renovations for sale. Most of the time the damage is limited to the original footprint of the house. But when the square footage can be increased by a coupla hundred feet, sellers/developers ‘throw’ something up and it ain’t always pretty. However it looks good on the MLS when instead of a 2 bedroom 1 bath, one can advertise a 3 or 4 bedroom with 2 bathrooms. Note that one of the bedrooms usually is the size of a walk in closet, with a window.

So if you own a home in Shaw or any other ‘transitional’ area please for the love of all that is good, think of your additions in a hostilic fashion. Think about how it will look with the other houses surrounding it. Don’t be the one with the ugly house.

Open letter to Marion Barry, Ward 8 Candidate

Although In Shaw should really stick to Ward 1, 2, & 5 issues, one cannot help but notice that which is over the river in Ward 8. Besides, it is a COUNCIL seat, which would have an impact on all wards.

Dear Former Mayor Marion Barry,

Dude, you’re like 68. For heaven’s sake retire. No, really this time. Didn’t Walter Washington retire from politics after you defeated him for the mayorial bid?

Don’t think that you can’t serve the people of Washington, DC by retiring. There are other things besides politics. There are non-profits out there that would love your leadership and be a bit less taxing, face it you’re not in the best of health. Volunteer your time to a few causes that are near and dear to your heart. If that doesn’t appeal to you, then how about just being an ANC. It will tax you. It doesn’t really pay. But you get to serve people at the most local level ever.

No, please retire. Todays politics are for the young guns like Adrian Fenty (hubba, hubba). With all due respect you are just too old school. It ain’t 1960, or 1970, or 1980. We’ve entered a new century. The old struggles of your time are still here but they aren’t the same, they’ve changed too. Housing and jobs are still a problem, but the old solutions aren’t the answer.

So once again. Move to Florida or Georgia. Find a 5th wife. Ponder the joys of fishing. Retire.

Sincerely,

InShaw Webmistress

House of the week

I don’t know how often I’ll do this but I have mentioned this house before. I see it as a good example of adding more squarefootage without looking ghetto or butt ugly. On the corner of R and 5th you’ll see a house with the extra floor.
. From the street you can sort of see the 3rd floor addition but when looking at the adjoining houses it doesn’t look too out of place.

Pix 1
Pix 2

Citizen empowerment

Confession time: I used to be a registered Republican. There are moments I feel that I have that are purely Republican moments in Shaw. Usually they are summed up as, taking matters in your own hands when you don’t believe the gov’ment won’t do it right/at all/ on time/ etc.

I have these feelings during community meetings when folks demand that DPW clean the alleys and the sidewalks and other littered areas and keep the bums off their property. With all due respect to the city government of the District and it’s many departments, the City can be disappointing. Yet on the other hand, citizens really need to take some responsibility and take on some burdens to improve their environment and not wait for the government to do it for them.

Now, I am not advocating that people break the law, endanger their lives, or encroach on others rights and freedoms. There are things that only the state/govt has the right to do, such as arrest, tax, and transfer rights and freedoms. No citizen has that right or should. No. What I want people to do is salt their sidewalks when it snows. I want them to volunteer to clean the street gutters when the Weather Service says there might be flooding. I want them to take responsibility for their children and property. I want them to consider working together, neighbor to neighbor, on a one block level to tackle problems and concerns.

I love my block because people do things that others may believe is something for the government to deal with. We have alley cleaning man. Who is he? I dunno? But he takes it upon himself to sweep up the alley, post no dumping signs, and clean up the alley. B. cleans the sidewalks, whenever. Maybe once a week, a month, a quarter, but he helps keep the neighborhood nice. Lem, is the handyman who (possibly with marketing in mind) keeps an eye on repairs that need to be made on the block, helping with the upkeep. For a while the block had an informal Welcome Wagon to help orient new homeowners, providing community information. For my own part I patched a fence of a vacant property to keep out the illegal dumpers. With a neighbor we (I don’t recommend it) confronted a crackhead about smoking in a backyard. Some deal with trees, planting and trimming, things that with the patience of Job, one could wait for the city to do. Some help with enforcement by gently reminding neighbors of infractions. In winter, B. and I shovel, salt and sand the sidewalks.

Now we don’t take on large tasks by ourselves. Just small ones, that add to the livability of the block. So when I hear complaints from folks in other parts of Shaw complaining that the city should do this, or the city should do that when this and that are things a civicly minded citizen could tackle. Citizens should empower themselves, even if they just limit themselves to caring for their little section of the block, they have done a lot.

So if you can, maybe this weekend or next….
Clean out your treebox
Pick up some of the sidewalk litter
Tidy up the front yard
Secure your property
Talk to a neighbor
Check on the elderly down the block
Engage a conversation with some of the neighborhood youths
Try to find the owner of the vacant house on the block

Not the whole list. Pick one. And do it.

DM

Well DM is back from an extended vacation and sitting in the front yard. She introduced me to her relatives out there with her and asked about some of the flowers growing in the yard. So I headed home dumped my stuff in the living room and placed some of the flowers I got growing in the back in a empty jar in water, grabbed some fruit growing in the yard as well and headed back.

She was talking, and talking and so I sat out there with her a bit longer and listened. The mosquitos were biting too. I decided to excuse myself for dinner and she offered some food. I took her up on her offer but it was something frozen to take with me. If I had thought it was something for me to take home and cook, I would not have taken it, but I couldn’t get a word in to refuse. Damn.

I returned later after chatting with some other neighbors, trying to figure out how on earth I’m going to return this stuff to her & save face. Bugs were biting. A white neighbor was called over and DM talked and talked and talked, seeing that this was never going to end I excused myself again on account of the bugs and the neighbor also departed on this pretense as well.

Came back, because I said I would when I left to sit with the small group. DM was talking about her drinking and another neighbor took a 40 in a bag and poured it in a cup. Me I’m trying to avoid the smoke knowing I’m going to have to shower to get the ciggy smell off me.

I’m sitting there wondering. I am so out of my element.