Falls Church News-Press 1-14-2010

Januar y 14 - 20, 2010

Falls Church, Vi r g i n i a • w w w . fc n p . c o m • Free

Founded 1991 • Vo l . XI X N o . 46

Falls Church • Tysons Corner • Merrifield • McLean • North Arlington • Bailey’s Crossroads

Inside This Week Council Authorizes Appeal of Water Ruling

The Falls Church City Council formally authorized City Attorney John Foster to appeal the ruling by a Fairfax Circuit Court judge released last week that prohibits the City from taking an annual “return on investment” of $2.2 million from its water fund.

See News Briefs, page 7

Preliminary OK for Senior Housing

Four hours and 42 minutes after convening Monday night, the F.C. City Council gave a 6-1 preliminary approval for special exceptions permitting the development of a 66-unit senior affordable housing project.

F.C. School Chief Presents 4 Options for Dire Budget Cuts Similar to Ones

Art Contest Lives

Proposed for

Fairfax Schools

by Nicholas F. Benton

Falls Church News-Press

“un-American in my view.” Sze retorted, “The term ‘unAmerican’ is unacceptable to me...it is a slander of the worst kind and makes me very angry.” Gardner concurred, saying she was “disheartened” by the comment. She noted that the citizens of Falls Church elected the City Council to make decisions of this kind,

Falls Church School Superintendent Dr. Lois Berlin, telling the F.C. School Board Tuesday this coming budget year “is like no other,” submitted instead of the usual superintendent’s recommended budget for Fiscal Year 2011, a set of four scenarios for drastic reductions in annual school system expenditures.

Berlin’s draconian scenarios, which will be fleshed out as better information on available revenues arrives, follow on the grim recommendations made last week

by Fairfax County Schools chief Jack Dale to trim $118 million off of what the county system, with its 174,000 students, needs to maintain its current level of functioning.

Dale’s recommendations for Fairfax include closing the Pimmit Hills Alternative School, cutting 600 positions, no raises, larger class sizes, no summer school, no freshman sports, no language instruction in elementary schools, the elimination of winter cheerleading and indoor track, band and strings programs, year-round school programs, and the scaling back of full-day kindergarten and foreign language immersion programs, among others. It calls for imposing fees of $75 for every Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate test, and $100 for participating on a sports team.

Continued on Page 4

Continued on Page 5

See News Briefs, page 7

Maureen Dowd: The Biggest Loser

Maybe America just didn’t want to look at a redhead at that hour.

See page 13

Top Cannes ‘09 Winner ‘The White Ribbon’

In a rural German village on the eve of World War I, bad things begin to happen. A murder, a barn fire, a cruel trick. It’s about how the rise of fear leads to the loss of freedom.

See page 26

MORE THAN 60 STUDENTS took to their canvasses this month for the 9th Annual City of Falls Church Student Art Contest, which was held despite being cut from the City budget last November. Donations from Art and Frame of Falls Church and SmithGifford made this year’s event possible. See story, page 8. (News-Press photo/Natalie Bedell)

November Elections to Begin in ‘11

by Nicholas F. Benton

Index

Editorial..................2 Letters....................2 Community News & Notes..............10-11 Comment........12-15 Business News & Notes...................16 Sports.............18-20 Calendar.........24-25 Roger Ebert....26-28

Restaurant Spotlight ............................30 Comics, Sodoku & Crossword...........33 Classified Ads......34 Business & Services Directory..............35 Critter Corner.......36 Business Listing..37 City Focus......38-39

Falls Church News-Press

The Falls Church City Council voted 5-2 Monday to give final approval to an ordinance moving the date of municipal Council and School Board elections from May to November, beginning in 2011.

An alternate ordinance to delay the change until 2013 was with-

drawn following the epochal vote.

Voting in favor of the switch were Mayor Robin Gardner, Vice Mayor Hal Lippman, and Councilmen Dan Sze, Dan Maller and Lawrence Webb. Voting against were David Snyder and Nader Baroukh.

Mayor Gardner and Sze reacted strongly to Baroukh’s accusation that the change was

Page 2

January 14 - 20, 2010

EDITORIAL

The Challenge Of Independence

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Vol. XIX, No. 46 January 14 - 20, 2010 • City of Falls Church ‘Business of the Year’ 1991 & 2001 • • Certified by the Commonwealth of Virginia to Publish Official Legal Notices • • Member, Virginia Press Association •

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The solid majority on the Falls Church City Council, the five of seven Councilmen who voted to move the City’s municipal elections from May to November beginning in 2011, are to be congratulated, especially the four who remained steadfast throughout the extended debate. Mayor Robin Gardner, Vice Mayor Hal Lippman and Council members Dan Sze and Dan Maller never deviated in their commitment to make the switch, based on the clear evidence of far higher voter turnouts for elections held in November than those in May, and we were glad that Councilman Lawrence Webb joined them in the final vote this Monday night.

It was reassuring to witness this resolve on the Council, especially in face of one of the classic offensives thrust against them by long-time proponents of the so-called “Falls Church Way” determined to indefinitely delay the move and to subject it to a public referendum. As Mayor Gardner eloquently said Monday, “The citizens elected the Council to make decisions like this,” and so they did. Councilman Maller was also insightful in noting that those opposed to changing the date were those citizen activists who have enjoyed relatively greater influence and clout in elections with a smaller voter turnout, while those citizens who favored the switch were the “average Joes” who thought making the change, to encourage a higher voter turnout, was a “no brainer.”

The strong, principled resolve exhibited in this case by the majority on the Council is a refreshing and welcome development, a product of the political maturing of the current members, and is something of a new thing for Falls Church. It comes none to soon, either, as the City faces a period that will tax and test its resolve for survival perhaps more than any other in its over 60 years of formal independence.

Unprecedented budget shortfalls already announced have been significantly exacerbated by Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Nye’s ruling to prohibit, beginning immediately, the City from taking a $2.2 million annual “return on investment” draw from its water fund. Without that revenue source, the City is in even more dire shape for balancing its current year and next year fiscal budgets. On top of that, cuts in Virginia state spending may leave the City holding the bag on even more costs, including for education, pension and health funds.

In the face of these extraordinary challenges, some are counseling the City to give up its independence and to ask to be absorbed into either Arlington, with its 200,000 residents, or Fairfax County, with its million.

We staunchly oppose that course.

Such a move would relinquish the decisions and control of the City’s destiny, including regarding the quality of its schools, to oversized government bureaucracies that would relegate Falls Church’s 11,400 citizens to the status of profound insignificance. No one would do this willingly, and if the Council continues to exhibit the strong political will shown in votes this week, it won’t have to.

Letters to the Editor

Youths Dropped Christmas Tree in Wrong Place Editor,

On Thursday afternoon, January 7, three young girls were dragging a Christmas tree down Cleave Drive (just off Hillwood Avenue) toward Azalea Park.

They dragged the tree into the park where it appeared they were going to leave it.

My wife went out and spoke to the girls to let them know that it was not OK to leave the tree in

the park (or to throw it into the creek in the park). They were very cordial and agreed that they weren’t going to leave the tree there. They duly began to drag the tree out of the park and disappeared out of sight.

When I went out today (Friday), I noticed that they had simply dragged the tree across the street from the park and left it in a stand of bamboo and

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www.FCNP.com bushes in the back of a neighbor’s yard.

Given the young age of the girls, it is unlikely that they came up with the idea to dump the tree in our park on their own. So, it appears that an adult who lives in or around Hillwood 1) has the audacity to think it’s OK to use our neighborhood as a dumping ground and 2) is irresponsibly teaching young children that such activity is acceptable.

If this adult is a reader of this newspaper, I would hope that he would want to correct this situation, remove the tree from the neighbor’s yard and dispose of it properly.

Roger Wilson Falls Church

ONLINE

Many Fond Memories of Valleybrook Editor,

My daughter Connie Jo, my son-in-law, A.V. and I were on a trip to Northern Virginia last month to visit my son, Brett, and his family. Since we were in the area, we decided to stop by Valleybrook, once a private school in Falls Church.

As most of you know, it had changed. I must admit, it was a little depressing seeing it non-functioning at the first of September.

Continued on Page 36

January 14 - 20, 2010

Page 3

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Page 4

January 14 - 20, 2010

F.C. Council Votes to Move May Elections to November Continued from Page 1

and the option was also specifically granted by a vote of the Virginia General Assembly.

Gardner noted there had been no changes of substance since the issue was thoroughly debated by the Council on Dec. 14. Tonight, there was only one citizen who spoke in the public hearing portion of the consideration of the item.

“We know there will be a higher turnout of voters this way, and this is sufficient grounds to do this,” Maller said. Webb, who had earlier favored a public referendum on the matter, said he’d “come full circle” from the point he first raised the issue of switching the date last fall.

“When I campaigned for election in 2008, I found so many people who were unaware that there were May elections in Falls

Church,” he said. “I came to realize that people are trained from the earliest age to expect elections to be in November. I believe that moving the date to November is the best thing to do.”

Webb responded to Snyder’s comment that moving the date amounted to a “disenfranchisement” of voters, because it ignored signatures of 138 citizens on a petition and a large number of letters and comments opposing the change. “It does not amount to a disenfranchisement,” Webb said. “That would be the last thing I would want to do. I am a member of two communities that are among the most disenfranchised, and would totally oppose that.”

Maller said the debate on the matter in the last two months revealed “a pattern” to him.

Those most involved in the

affairs of the community tended to be skeptical or opposed to the change, he said, while the average citizens he talked to at bus stops couldn’t understand why the Council would hesitate for a moment on moving the date to November to get a higher voter turnout.

Lippman, who was out of the country for much of the debate in December, said he’d followed it closely on the web through live coverage of Council meetings on the City’s web site. He said, “I felt keenly about this issue well before this (most recent debate),” adding, “I determined that when only 31 percent of voters turned out in May 2008 for one of the most important elections in the City’s history, with a referendum on the City Center development included, that something was very broken and needed to be fixed.”

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Vote on-line at www.FCNP.com Last Week’s Question: How should Falls Church respond to the ruling in the water case?

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January 14 - 20, 2010

Page 5

Falls Church, Fairfax Schools Both Face Drastic Budget Cuts Continued from Page 1

In the much smaller Falls Church system’s case, the cuts will be at least as severe, proportionately. While Dr. Berlin did not spell out specific positions or programs that would be cut under the four scenarios in her presentation tonight, she did lay out rough dollar consequences of options ranging from a net 1.8 percent budget reduction to an 8.6 percent reduction.

But Dr. Berlin did indicate that cuts will be in areas such as nonpersonnel costs, staff work days, staff positions, employee benefits, instructional programs, extracurricular stipends and tuition assistance programs. She said as much as she wished it were otherwise, there may be no way to avoid significant layoffs.

The options that will be adopted by the School Board and Falls Church City Council over the next

three months will be predicated on revenues available from the City, the state and federal government, and there are a lot of unanswered questions on those now as the consequences of the recession have taken a very deep toll, and a court decision last week could make that even worse.

For example, Dr. Berlin conceded that her discussions with City Hall officials that played into her scenarios came prior to last week’s Fairfax Circuit Court ruling forbidding Falls Church from using proceeds from its water system for its operating budget, including for its transfer to the schools.

The superintendent’s four options, or “tiers” as she characterized them, drop the current $36,582,575 annual budget by either $651,000, $1,112,700, $2,220,500 or $3,129,900.

She said, “The toll of an 8.6 percent reduction is so drastic and dra-

conian, I think you will understand, when you see the details, why I am not presenting options with deeper cuts of 10 or 15 percent, as some had suggested earlier.”

She told a somber School Board that she did not want to lay out specific jobs and programs that would fall under one or the other of these scenarios at this time, but that the School Board would have access to such lists prior to their first work session on the budget on Jan. 23.

Before then, however, the School Board is scheduled to participate in a joint work session with the City Council next Tuesday, Jan. 19, to hear a midterm review of the overall revenue situation going into the new budget cycle.

This is in the context of an anticipated increase in enrollment of the overall system, expected to grow from 2,016 to 2,057 students.

FALLS CHURCH CITY Schools Superintendent Dr. Lois Berlin presents budget scenarios at a School Board work session Tuesday.

(Photo: News-Press)

The School Board expressed confusion and frustration with how the budget process may unfold, noting that the City Manager indicated that his proposed budget would be presented on March 8, prior to when the School Board may have their own budget finalized.

However, a number of joint sessions with the Council and

School Board meeting together are slated in the next six weeks.

The first public hearing on the School budget is slated for Tuesday, Jan. 26, at City Hall.

In the case of Fairfax County, the School Board has only until Feb. 4 to forward its proposed budget to the County Board of Supervisors.

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January 14 - 20, 2010

Temple Rodef Shalom Rabbi Richard Sternberger Dies Richard Sternberger, a rabbi at Falls Church’s Temple Rodef Shalom, passed away Monday, January 11, from brain injuries resulting from a fall two weeks ago. He is mourned by his family, many close friends, the members of Temple Rodef Shalom, his congregation, the Mid-Atlantic region which he served for many years, and the Reform Movement to which he was devoted.

Sternberger grew up in Philadelphia. He was ordained as a rabbi in 1952. From 1952-54, he served as a Navy Chaplain on active duty and continued as a reserve Chaplain for 30 years.

He became assistant rabbi at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation in 1954 where he remained until

1958. In 1958, he was appointed as rabbi of the Jewish Community Center of White Plains, later to be called Kol Ami. During the summer of 1964, he worked in Macomb, Mississippi to help register black voters. A staunch civil rights supporter, he continued to march in Washington for equal rights for all citizens. In 1967, he joined the UAHC (now URJ) as the Assistant Director of the New York Federation of Reform Synagogues, later moving up to the position of Regional Director of the Mid-Atlantic Council.

During his years in Washington, he served as an adjunct rabbi at Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church. Also during that time,

Longtime F.C. Resident Bill Parnell Dies at 87 William Patrick (“Bill”) Parnell, 87, of Stratham, NH, passed away Jan. 6, 2010 after a long illness following complications from heart valve replacement surgery. A former resident of Falls Church, he was born in Easthampton, Mass., the son of the late James Parnell and his wife, Mary, a native of Skibbereen, County Cork, Ireland.

Bill was salutatorian of his graduating class at St. Michael High School, Northampton, MA, and received his B.A. Summa Cum Laude from St. Anselm College, Class of 1943. He held an M.A. from Boston University and pursued further graduate studies at

Columbia University.

He served in the US Navy during World War II, completing his training as a communications officer at Harvard University.

Bill taught American History at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY, and at Annandale High School in Annandale, VA. After his retirement, Bill worked in the reference library of the Army Times newspaper in Washington, DC. Upon moving to Stratham, NH, Bill worked as a paralegal, doing real estate title abstracting.

A communicant of St. Michael Church in Exeter, Bill was active as a volunteer with the St. Vincent

he helped to form a new congregation in Ocean City, Maryland, Temple Bat Yam. Upon his retirement from the URJ, he became

de Paul food pantry. He and his wife, Pat, were home communion ministers for the shut-ins. While living in Falls Church, Bill was active in Democratic politics and in the local citizens group, Citizens for a Better City.

Bill was pre-deceased by a half sister, Mae Ryan; by his brother and sister-in-law, James and Sadie Louise Parnell; and by infant twin grandchildren, Liam and Sadie Claire Parnell.

He is survived by Pat, his wife of 62 years; his sister, Barbara of Easthampton, Mass.; four sons and their wives: William B. and Bernadette of Derry, NH; Edward J. and Ellen of Richmond, Larry and Janice of Lansdowne, Va.; and Howard and Mary of Falls Church.

There are eleven surviving grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, plus nieces and nephews in both his and Pat’s families.

Bat Yam’s first rabbi.

In 1999, he retired fully and moved to Falls Church to be among his friends at Rodef Shalom. As a tribute to his contribution to social action, Temple Rodef Shalom established the Rabbi Richard Sternberger Social Justice Award, which is given annually to a group or individual working on social justice issues.

In addition to being active in civil rights, Rabbi Sternberger was a major force in NFTY, the Reform Movement’s youth organization. He cared deeply about Jewish camping. Richard was also committed to supporting AZRA, the Reform Movement’s Zionist arm, and other causes in Israel. At the time of his

death, he was a resident at the Chesterbrook Residences where he brought his spirit, intelligence and positive energy to many who live there.

A funeral service will take place at Temple Rodef Shalom, 2100 Westmoreland Street, Falls Church, on Thursday, January 14 at 10:30 a.m. A mourner’s meal will follow; burial will be in Brownsville, Tennessee.

Contributions in memory of Rabbi Sternberger can be made to the Rabbi Richard Sternberger Memorial Fund of Temple Rodef Shalom. A shiva service will be held at the Chesterbrook Residences sometime after Shabbat with the date and time to be announced.

Bill enjoyed reading, especially history and biography, as well as mystery novels, and he was very fond of Celtic and folk music. He was a strong Red Sox fan and an avid Washington Redskins supporter. His family and friends appreciat-

ed his quick mind and his wry sense of humor as well as his integrity and compassion. He was a devoted family man, especially delighting in time spent with the youngest members. He and his wife enjoyed traveling, particularly with Elderhostel programs. Bill and Pat made three trips to Ireland, getting acquainted with his mother’s relatives there.

A funeral mass is scheduled for noon on Saturday, Jan. 16 at St. Michael Church, Exeter, with a light luncheon for the congregation after the service. Interment will be in Old Blanford Cemetery, Petersburg, Va., at the convenience of the family. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Bill’s memory to St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry, St. Michael’s Church, 9 Lincoln St., Exeter, NH 03833. To sign an on line guest book, please visit www.brewittfuneralhome.com.

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January 14 - 20, 2010

F.C. Council Authorizes Appeal of Water Ruling Following a lengthy closed session Tuesday night, the Falls Church City Council formally authorized City Attorney John Foster to appeal the ruling by Fairfax Circuit Court Judge R. Terrence Ney released last week that prohibits the City from taking an annual “return on investment” of $2.2 million from its water fund. The Council also authorized settlement efforts on the remaining counts in the suit that are slated to be heard early next month, including one by the Fairfax Water Authority that seeks $20 million in punitive damages from Falls Church. A statement from City Hall yesterday confirmed that “the City respectfully disagrees with the judge’s ruling” and “will fight vigorously to protect its legal interests.” There is a motion for a Jan. 27 hearing to clarify the judge’s ruling. In the closed session, the Council did not discuss the impact on the current or next fiscal year’s budgets of Judge Ney’s ruling as that is a matter which must, by law, be discussed only in public sessions.

Fairfax County Unit Deployed to Haiti After Quake “Virginia Task Force 1,” composed of 72 members of Fairfax County’s Urban Search and Rescue unit, headed to Haiti yesterday to help rescue efforts among people trapped in the rubble caused by Tuesday’s massive earthquake. Six search and rescue dogs joined physicians, paramedics, structural engineers and search and technical rescue personnel, along with 48 tons of rescue equipment, relief supplies and enough resources to sustain the unit for two weeks. Rebecca Gustafson, spokesperson for the U.S. Agency for International Development, rode with the unit, which debarked from Dulles Airport late yesterday morning.

F.C. Council: A Preliminary OK for Senior Housing At 12:12 a.m. Tuesday morning, the Falls Church City Council, four hours and 42 minutes after convening Monday night, gave a 6-1 preliminary approval for special exceptions permitting the development of a 66-unit senior affordable housing project, known as the Wilden Building, at 350 S. Washington St. With the vote, the Council has complied with a tight time line for the project to qualify for state tax credits and $4 million in federal stimulus funds to construct a new building at the downtown site. Councilman Nader Baroukh cast the only negative vote. However, Council members indicated that a number of outstanding issues need to be resolved, especially pertaining to easement and other issues with immediate neighbors to the site, in order for a final approval to be granted next month.

F.C. Schools Honored By State School Board The Virginia Board of Education has presented its Excellence Awards to two Falls Church City schools, George Mason High and Thomas Jefferson Elementary. According to the announcement from the Falls Church School Board, “The honor is awarded to schools that meet all state and federal accountability benchmarks for at least two years.”

Pizza Restaurant on S. Maple Begins Construction The gourmet pizza restaurant, Pizzeria Orso, that has been promised for years on the ground floor of the new Tax Analysts building on S. Maple has finally begun construction, Tax Analysts’ Chris Bergen reported to the Falls Church City Council this Monday.

Safeway on Arlington Blvd. to Be Renovated The Safeway grocery store at 6118 Arlington Blvd., adjacent the Target store, has closed for redevelopment and will reopen by the end of 2010 expanded from 43,259 to 58,554 square feet with a pharmacy, full-service deli, bakery, floral center, Starbucks coffee and more.

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January 14 - 20, 2010

F.C. Student Art Contest Continues Despite Cuts

by Natalie Bedell

Falls Church News-Press

The City of Falls Church’s 9th Annual Student Art Contest reception went off without a hitch during this month’s FIRSTfriday event, despite the contest being axed from the City’s budget last November.

Professionally printed calendars featuring the 13 winners’ artwork – one top winner for the cover and 12 additional winners for each month – have been financed by the City for the last eight years. But they will not this year.

Due to the lack of funding, two local businesses, Art and Frame of Falls Church and SmithGifford marketing firm, stepped up to make donations to keep the contest, if not the calendar, alive. Despite a solid level of participation by F.C. students, no calendar will be printed due to budget cuts. Art and Frame Owner Tom Gittins estimated the expense of printing and distribution to be $10,000 to $12,000.

“There are budget cuts going on in the City of Falls Church, Fairfax County, Arlington County – all across the nation, and this is

“THE SHOW MUST GO On” seemed to be the mind set of Art and Frame of Falls Church, which partnered with SmithGifford in its efforts to continue the F.C. City Student Art Contest. Robin Clark (above) was the intern responsible for coordinating the logistics of the contest. All of the students’ art above can be viewed at Art and Frame at 111 Park Ave. in Falls Church through Jan. 30 Monday – Saturday between 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. (Photo: News-Press)

one way to keep the arts alive in our own community rather than shutting it down,” said Gittins, who added that the arts needed to be “kept alive for the children.”

George Mason High School (GMHS) senior and current intern for the local frame shop, Robin Clark, planned the contest this year, which was assigned the theme “Change in the City of Falls Church.”

“2009 was very momentous for change. We had the presidential election, key events occurring and a lot of change in Falls Church being finalized,” said Clark, chronicled by the noticeable presence of F.C.’s Flower Building and President Obama in the students’ art this year.

Clark admitted having no expectations starting out but felt it was “a nice thing to do for the whole community.”

He began spreading the word through the Falls Church City Public Schools (FCCPS) Business in Education Partnership. Soon enough, more than 60 FCCPS students submitted artwork ranging from photographic collages to watercolor paintings.

So, this year marks the debut of an on-line calendar, which has been made available on the FIRSTfriday Web site. Clark said his goal is to eventually have the calendar pages available in a printable “pdf” format for those interested to download and print at home.

Gittins noted that since last year’s art contest theme was “Going Green,” being paperless this year may be, ironically, appropriate. By using less paper, “this

MAYA KING’S “Falls Church Changes in 2010” won the cover slot for this year’s calendar. (Photo: News-Press) year, we’re actually doing it,” he said with a laugh.

Jokes aside, a genuine outpouring of thanks from the community has been made evident. GMHS art teacher Maria Shields has made the contest a mandatory assignment for her students since its inception.

Shields said she was “extremely disappointed” when she first heard the contest had been dropped from the budget.

“I’m afraid cutting back on the arts often happens, but the fact [the City] could no longer publish the work isn’t a rejection of the arts,” said Shields, who went on to praise Gittins as a “gem” in the F.C. community.

While she said her students don’t always get excited in art class, they’re able to form a new appreciation when presented with the local angle present in each year’s theme.

“They don’t always make that immediate connection with the artists we study, but when it’s about their own town, they get to become the artist. They get to show change in Falls Church through their eyes,” said Shields.

Winners this year announced last Friday were Maya King, Araba

Ankuma, Ying Liang, Jonathan Babington, Emily Rueckert, Katie Pikturna, Alli Bregar, Angela Swanson, Sarah Valley, Fae Montgomery, Rachel Bell, Meredith Brindley and Savanna Sulc. Each winner received a $200 Art and Frame gift certificate and a sketching set, while all participants went home with a FIRSTfriday t-shirt courtesy of SmithGifford and Art and Frame.

Gittins and Clark hope to reach a point when enough private sponsorship is available to fund the printing of the calendars once again. However, Clark said upholding the contest alone is necessary to give artistic talents in the schools a voice since “art is held on a lower pedestal already.”

“When people think of the validity of a career, they think of a scientist wearing goggles, bravely finding the cure to some disease. But maybe those scientists wouldn’t be able to do what they’re doing unless they were motivated by certain types of art,” said Clark.

To view the on-line calendar, visit www.firstfridayoffallschurch. com.

January 14 - 20, 2010

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Creative Cauldron ‘Plays On’ at ArtSpace Creative Cauldron’s monthlong music event, “Play On,” continues at ArtSpace (410 S. Maple Ave., Falls Church) this Friday, Jan. 15 at 8 p.m. with Randy and the Barretones. Local blue grass legend Randy Barrett and his band play a mix of bluegrass, country, swing music and beyond. Barrett has collected several Washington Area Music Awards for Best Male Vocalist in Bluegrass and Traditional Folk, as well as Bluegrass Album of the Year for his CD, Lights of Home.

Friday tickets are $15 for adults

January 14 - 20, 2010

and $10 for students.

On Saturday, Jan. 16, Hui O Ka Pua ‘llima, a Polynesian dance troop based in McLean, will perform traditional and contemporary songs and dances of Hawai’i and the Polynesian islands of New Zealand and Tahiti.

The Mpingo Clarinet Quartet will continue the event on Sunday, Jan. 17 at 2 p.m., employing the use of bass clarinet, basset horn, E flat soprano clarinet, as well as B flat and A soprano clarinets in a varied extensive repertoire.

Sunday tickets cost $10 for adults and $5 for students. For more information, visit www.creativecauldron.org.

GEORGE Bus Won’t Run MLK Day

on-line at the league’s Web site: www.fckll.org.

Residents and the like are reminded the GEORGE Bus will be out of service Monday, Jan. 18 in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

McLean’s ‘Embrace the Dream’ Celebrates MLK Day

Falls Church Boy Scouts Earn Eagle Status Falls Church’s Boy Scout Troop 895 achieved a noteworthy record in 2009 by awarding the Eagle rank to eight Scouts – a historic high for the 55-year-old troop. The troop has 60 active members ranging in ages 11 – 18.

It normally awards a handful of Eagle badges per year, but an unusually large number of dedicated Scouts earned the rank in 2009, topping the previous annual record of six Eagle awards. Scouts in the troop who became Eagles this year were Matt Baker, Will Doty, Simon Farrow, Max Faulkner, Vincent McLeese, Matthew Rollo, Noam Terman, and Eric Westerfield. The Eagle badge is the highest rank in scouting. It is earned by only four percent of boys involved in the world’s largest youth organization.

To become an Eagle, a scout must serve in leadership positions in his troop, and complete a community-service project. The work of Eagle candidates from Troop 895 can be spotted all over the Falls Church area.

For instance, Baker built a nature path at a senior citizens facility. Farrow constructed mulching bins for the gardens at Mt. Daniel Elementary School and Doty installed a landscape retaining wall at Lee-Graham pool.

Last In-Person Little League Registration Announced

FALLS CHURCH CUB SCOUT Den #5 from Pack #657 stopped by the Falls Church News-Press office last Thursday to learn more about how newspapers distribute their information. Scouts in attendance were (left to right) Jack Brown, Michael Nelson and Joseph Nelson on the bottom row, joined by Jonah Werbel, Evan Lankford, Jack Lindly and Jonathan Oppenheimer in the middle. Behind the boys stands den leaders Liza Nelson and Peter Oppenheimer.

(Photo: News-Press)

The last in-person registration for the Falls Church Kiwanis Little League will be at the Falls Church Community Center (223 Little Falls St., Falls Church) this Saturday., Jan. 16, from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. As an alternative, families interested can continue to register

McLean Community Center’s 7th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration, “Embrace the Dream: Exploring our American Blues Heritage,” will take place this Sunday, Jan. 17 from 3 – 5 p.m. in the Alden Theatre (1234 Ingleside Ave., McLean). A community barbecue buffet reception, catered by the Tender Rib of Temple Hills, Md., will follow a performance by Michael Hill’s Blues Mob. Dr. Ed. Jackson, Jr., executive architect of D.C.’s Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, will serve as the keynote speaker. Rev. Todd Brown, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Chesterbrook in McLean, will be the Master of Ceremonies.

Tickets, which include the reception, are $5 for adults and $3 for children under the age 10. To buy tickets, or for more information, visit www.mcleancenter.org or call 703-790-0123.

Sacred Well Host ‘Charity Yoga’ Fridays This Friday, Jan. 15, an alllevels yoga class benefiting local charities will be held from 6 – 7:15 p.m. at Sacred Well Yoga Studio (450 W. Broad St., Ste. 320, Falls Church). The charity event will take place every Friday evening through March 26. Those interested are reminded 100 percent of all donations go to local charities. The suggested donation is $10. For more information, visit www.swys.net or call 703-9898316.

F.C. Rotary Welcomes George Atwell Past Falls Church Rotary District governor, George Atwell, will speak about Rotary’s worldwide efforts to eradicate Polio at the next F.C. Rotary Club’s meeting today, Thursday, Jan. 14.

The dinner meeting will be held

at 6:30 p.m. at the Harvest Moon Restaurant (7260 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). Dinner costs $11 and visitors are welcome. For more information, visit www.falls churchrotary.org.

Arlingtonians Named to Dean’s List Arlington natives Nathan Johnson from the Class of 2012 and Aaron Keller of Arlington from the Class of 2011 were recently named to the dean’s list of Providence College in Rhode Island. To qualify for the dean’s list, students must achieve at least a 3.55 grade point average with a minimum of 12 credits.

Cherry Hill’s Great Strides Registration Open The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has announced it will once again host the Annual Great Strides Campaign Walk Day in Cherry Hill Park (312 Park Ave., Falls Church) on Saturday, May 15. Walk day is a familyoriented celebration that includes a 10-kilometer (6.2 miles) walk, Kids’ Corner activities, food and festivities.

This will involve a number of local families and require the support of the community to successfully raise funds to help advance the promising new potential therapies in the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s drug development pipeline. On-line registration is now open at www.cff.org/chapters/metrodc/ greatstrides.

Washington Ballet Director To Speak at Langley On Thursday, Jan. 21 at 7:30 p.m., The Langley School will host its first-ever Distinguished Speaker Series featuring Septime Webre, artistic director of The Washington Ballet. This free event is open to the public and will be held in Langley’s Jeffrey J. Sherman Arts Center (1411 Balls Hill Rd., McLean).

During his talk, titled “Learned Leadership Skills Through Performing Arts

January 14 - 20, 2010

Education,” Webre will discuss how a strong education in the arts prepares children to excel on any “stage” they pursue in life, whether on the athletic field, in the courtroom or in the boardroom.

He will also share strategies for parents to help build “performing arts intelligence” in their children, encouraging them to develop a lifelong appreciation of all performing arts.

While this event is free and tickets are not required, attendees are encouraged to RSVP at w w w. l a n g l e y s c h o o l . o r g .

Seating will be available on a firstcome, first-served basis. For more information, call 703-356-1920.

NOVA Model Railroaders Hold Open House This Saturday, Jan. 16, the Northern Virginia Model Railroaders Open House will be held from 1 – 5 p.m. at the W&OD Depot (231 Dominion Rd., Vienna). An operating HO-scale layout depicting the Western North Carolina Railroad (a portion of the Southern Railway) will be on hand for viewing.

While this event is free, donations are accepted. For more information, visit www.nvmr.org or call 703-938-5157.

‘Gizmo Guys’ Juggle Their Way to MCC Suitable for children ages 5 and up, the McLean Community Center (MCC) (1234 Ingleside Ave., McLean) will host the Gizmo Guys this Saturday, Jan. 16 at 2 p.m. These jugglers will present a rapid-fire act paired with a comedy routine. The cost is $14, or $10 for MCC district residents.

A Tennis Ball Juggling workshop will be held afterwards at 3 p.m. for ages 9 through adults. The

Page 11

basic lesson, taught by the Gizmo Guys themselves, costs $10 per person. For more information, call 703-790-0123.

Vienna Restaurant Maple Ave Goes ‘Green’ Maple Ave Restaurant (147 Maple Ave. W, Vienna) recently became the first and only greencertified restaurant in Vienna.

The mom-and-pop restaurant opened its doors for the first time last August. Maple Ave was awarded green certification due to its daily green activities, i.e. recycles used cooking oil into biodiesel fuel, eliminated usage of Styrofoam, use of biodegradable carry-out containers and bags, implementing a recycling program, using natural lighting, and purveying local, sustainable and organic food.

Chef owner Tim Ma emphasizes the use of local organics, which can be seen throughout the menu from the organic beet salad to the butternut squash soup and the pulled-pork sandwich.

FOUR OF THE EIGHT BOY SCOUTS from Falls Church Troop #895 who earned Eagle Scout rank are (left to right) Will Doty, Matthew Rollo, Noam Terman and Simon Farrow. All eight boys achieved a noteworthy record with their 2009 achievement. (Photo: Courtesy Kevin Drawbaugh)

International Motorcycle Shows Roars Into D.C. The International Motorcycle Show comes to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center (801 Mt. Vernon Pl., Washington, D.C.) this Friday, Jan. 15 from 4 – 9 p.m. It will also run Saturday, Jan. 16 from 9:30 a.m. – 8 p.m. and Sunday, Jan. 17 from 10 a.m.

– 5 p.m. Every major motorcycle manufacturer will have bikes on display, many of which visitors will be able to get a feel for themselves.

Tickets start at $12 for adults, $6 for children ages 6 – 11 and are free for those under the age of 5.

For more information, visit www. motorcycleshows.com.

NEW BOARD AND COMMISSION MEMBERS gave their oath of office at Monday night’s Falls Church City Council meeting. Pictured (left to right) are Tom Kaye, Long Range Financial Working Group; Phil Duncan, EDA; Mary Anne Ralls, Public Utilities Commission; Lindy Hockenberry, Planning Commission and Richard Sommerfeld, Long Range Financial Working Group. (Photo: Courtesy Hyun June Lee)

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January 14 - 20, 2010

The Tel Aviv Cluster Jews are a famously accomplished group. They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates.

Jews make up 2 percent of the U.S. population, but 21 percent of the Ivy League student bodies, 26 percent of the Kennedy Center honorees, 37 percent of the Academy Awardwinning directors, 38 percent of those on a recent Business Week list of leading philanNEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE thropists, 51 percent of the Pulitzer Prize winners for nonfiction.

In his book, “The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement,” Steven L. Pease lists some of the explanations people have given for this record of achievement. The Jewish faith encourages a belief in progress and personal accountability. It is learningbased, not rite-based.

Most Jews gave up or were forced to give up farming in the Middle Ages; their descendents have been living off of their wits ever since. They have often migrated, with a migrant’s ambition and drive. They have congregated around global crossroads and have benefited from the creative tension endemic in such places.

No single explanation can account for the record of Jewish achievement. The odd thing is that Israel has not traditionally been strongest where the Jews in the Diaspora were strongest. Instead of research and commerce, Israelis were forced to devote their energies to fighting and politics.

Milton Friedman used to joke that Israel disproved every Jewish stereotype. People used to think Jews were good cooks, good economic managers and bad soldiers; Israel proved them wrong.

But that has changed. Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic reforms, the arrival of a million Russian immigrants and the stagnation of the peace process have produced a historic shift. The most resourceful Israelis are going into technology and commerce, not politics.

This has had a desultory effect on the nation’s public life, but an invigorating one on its economy.

Tel Aviv has become one of the world’s foremost entrepreneurial hot spots. Israel has more high-tech start-ups per capita than any other nation on earth, by far. It leads the world in civilian research-and-development spending per capita. It ranks second behind the U.S. in the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq.

Israel, with 7 million people, attracts as much venture capital as France and Germany combined.

As Dan Senor and Saul Singer write in “Start-Up

David Brooks

Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle,” Israel now has a classic innovation cluster, a place where tech obsessives work in close proximity and feed off each other’s ideas.

Because of the strength of the economy, Israel has weathered the global recession reasonably well. The government did not have to bail out its banks or set off an explosion in short-term spending. Instead, it used the crisis to solidify the economy’s long-term future by investing in research and development and infrastructure, raising some consumption taxes, promising to cut other taxes in the medium to long term. Analysts at Barclay’s write that Israel is “the strongest recovery story” in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Israel’s technological success is the fruition of the Zionist dream. The country was not founded so stray settlers could sit among thousands of angry Palestinians in Hebron. It was founded so Jews would have a safe place to come together and create things for the world.

This shift in the Israeli identity has long-term implications. Netanyahu preaches the optimistic view: that Israel will become the Hong Kong of the Middle East, with economic benefits spilling over into the Arab world. And in fact, there are strands of evidence to support that view, in places like the West Bank and Jordan.

But it’s more likely that Israel’s economic leap forward will widen the gap between it and its neighbors. All the countries in the region talk about encouraging innovation. Some oil-rich states spend billions trying to build science centers. But places like Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv are created by a confluence of cultural forces, not money. The surrounding nations do not have the tradition of free intellectual exchange and technical creativity.

For example, between 1980 and 2000, Egyptians registered 77 patents in the U.S. Saudis registered 171. Israelis registered 7,652.

The tech boom also creates a new vulnerability.

As Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic has argued, these innovators are the most mobile people on earth. To destroy Israel’s economy, Iran doesn’t actually have to lob a nuclear weapon into the country. It just has to foment enough instability so the entrepreneurs decide they had better move to Palo Alto, where many of them already have contacts and homes. American Jews used to keep a foothold in Israel in case things got bad here. Now Israelis keep a foothold in the U.S. During a decade of grim foreboding, Israel has become an astonishing success story, but also a highly mobile one.

The Threats From Terrorism & Bubbles WASHINGTON – No one in the Obama administration is going to acknowledge that our foreign policy in the Middle East has alienated many Arabs.

The U.S. proIsrael policy and our shocking neglect of the beleaguered Hearst Newspapers Palestinians underlie almost every initiative or tactical tilt that comes out of Washington.

President Obama and his predecessors in the White House have scored domestic political points by embracing this world view. This is one vantage point that is truly bi-partisan, to the point where no one discusses it.

Helen Thomas

Michael Scheuer, a former CIA specialist on the al Qaida terrorists, complained on C-SPAN recently that any debate about American support for Israel is “normally squelched.”

“For anyone to say our support for Israel doesn’t hurt us is to just defy reality,” he added.

Another former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern, says the 9-11 Commission report noted that Khalid Sheikh – the mastermind of the 9-11 terrorist attacks – cited his violent disagreement with U.S. support for Israel as the motivating dynamic behind the attacks.

Obama knows enough about the Middle East that tightening airport security is not the whole answer to fighting terrorism. He should try a more even-handed Continued on Page 36

Learning From Europe As health care reform nears the finish line, there is much wailing and rending of garments among conservatives. And I’m not just talking about the tea partiers. Even calmer conservatives have been issuing dire warnings that Obamacare will turn America into a European-style social democracy. And everyone knows that Europe has lost all its economic dynamism.

Strange to say, however, what everyone knows isn’t true. Europe has its economic troubles; who doesn’t? But the story you hear all the time – of a stagnant economy in which high taxes and generous social benefits have undermined incentives, stalling growth and innovation – bears little resemblance to the surprisingly positive facts. The real lesson from Europe is actually the opposite of what NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE conservatives claim: Europe is an economic success, and that success shows that social democracy works.

Actually, Europe’s economic success should be obvious even without statistics. For those Americans who have visited Paris: did it look poor and backward? What about Frankfurt or London? You should always bear in mind that when the question is which to believe – official economic statistics or your own lying eyes – the eyes have it.

In any case, the statistics confirm what the eyes see.

It’s true that the U.S. economy has grown faster than that of Europe for the past generation. Since 1980 – when our politics took a sharp turn to the right, while Europe’s didn’t – America’s real GDP has grown, on average, 3 percent per year. Meanwhile, the EU 15 – the bloc of 15 countries that were members of the European Union before it was enlarged to include a number of former Communist nations – has grown only 2.2 percent a year. America rules!

Or maybe not. All this really says is that we’ve had faster population growth. Since 1980, per capita real GDP – which is what matters for living standards – has risen at about the same rate in America and in the EU 15: 1.95 percent a year here; 1.83 percent there.

What about technology? In the late 1990s you could argue that the revolution in information technology was passing Europe by. But Europe has since caught up in many ways. Broadband, in particular, is just about as widespread in Europe as it is in the United States, and it’s much faster and cheaper.

And what about jobs? Here America arguably does better: European unemployment rates are usually substantially higher than the rate here, and the employed fraction of the population lower. But if your vision is of millions of prime-working-age adults sitting idle, living on the dole, think again. In 2008, 80 percent of adults aged 25 to 54 in the EU 15 were employed (and 83 percent in France). That’s about the same as in the United States. Europeans are less likely than we are to work when young or old, but is that entirely a bad thing?

And Europeans are quite productive, too: they work fewer hours, but output per hour in France and Germany is close to U.S. levels.

The point isn’t that Europe is utopia. Like the United States, it’s having trouble grappling with the current financial crisis. Like the United States, Europe’s big nations face serious long-run fiscal issues – and like some individual U.S. states, some European countries are teetering on the edge of fiscal crisis. (Sacramento is now the Athens of America – in a bad way.) But taking the longer view, the European economy works; it grows; it’s as dynamic, all in all, as our own.

So why do we get such a different picture from many pundits?

Because according to the prevailing economic dogma in this country – and I’m talking here about many Democrats as well as essentially all Republicans – European-style social democracy should be an utter disaster. And people tend to see what they want to see.

After all, while reports of Europe’s economic demise are greatly exaggerated, reports of its high taxes and generous benefits aren’t.

Taxes in major European nations range from 36 to 44 percent of GDP, compared with 28 in the United States. Universal health care is, well, universal. Social expenditure is vastly higher than it is here.

So if there were anything to the economic assumptions that dominate U.S. public discussion – above all, the belief that even modestly higher taxes on the rich and benefits for the less well off would drastically undermine incentives to work, invest and innovate – Europe would be the stagnant, decaying economy of legend. But it isn’t.

Paul Krugman

January 14 - 20, 2010

Page 13

Big Steps to Avert The Depression Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under President Clinton and one of the most candid, accurate and reliable commentators on the current economic situation, stated on national TV Sunday that “the data are terrible,” the situation is “scary,” and “we’ve never been here before.”

How right he is. The latest data coming from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is downright ominous. As the Associated Press and Huffington Post reported this week, an under-appreciated statistic buried in the report revealed that the differential between the number of unemployed and the number of jobs available in the economy is at an alltime high.

Whereas in December 2007, there were 1.7 people unemployed for every Falls church news-press one job opening, in November 2009 there were 6.4 unemployed people for each available job. That’s counting unemployment at 10 percent, not the 17 percent number that counts those no longer looking for work, or in part-time jobs when they need full-time ones.

The number of jobs open in the U.S. economy plunged from 4.7 million in June 2007 to half that number, 2.4 million, last November.

Ironically, both Wall Street and the Obama administration have vested interests in keeping this kind of data under wraps. For Wall Street, it threatens to discourage investors, heightening the likelihood they will either stay out of the market or leave it soon. For President Obama, the realities of the economy careening toward a double-dip plunge into an even deeper recession will hurt his standing in the eyes of the public, as well as his chances to keep strong Democratic control in Congress as a frightened and struggling U.S. population threatens to erupt in revolt against any and all incumbents.

There is a fundamental reality underlying the current situation that has apparently been missed in all this, and as a result the nation still runs the risk of sinking into a full-blown Depression. While Wall Street and Obama are on the same page when it comes to worrying about the economy, they are on entirely different pages when it comes to fixing it.

Wall Street wants a return to the approach of the pre-crash days when solutions involved reaching ever deeper into consumer wallets and purses to revive the economy. Sorry, you greedy fools, that simply won’t work now.

For Obama to fix this situation, he needs to understand what must happen on the most fundamental level. That is, the U.S. economy must make a difficult, paradigm shift away from a consumer-oriented economy to a production-oriented one.

In the explosive growth years of the U.S. economy that drove the nation from a colonial backwater to the most powerful country on earth, the U.S. Was a production-oriented nation, as China is today. Only after the Great Depression and World War II did a shift begin to occur in the U.S., and the concept of a citizen as a “consumer” emerged along with Madison Avenue and individual credit in the 1950s.

The economy shifted toward convincing these new “consumers” to buy everything from homes and cars to TV sets and sneakers, each new model more expensive than the last. Leveraging the profits from this led to not just a housing bubble, but a consumer bubble, overall.

The consumer bubble has burst. Not the housing bubble or the debt bubble, but the all-subsuming consumer bubble. Consumers are being revealed as citizens again, albeit as unemployed, underemployed, debtswamped and truly struggling.

The consumer, as he or she was just two years ago, is gone and will not be coming back.

What is to be done? The nation needs to stoke the engines as never before of productive infrastructure and energy development with massive, gargantuan job and wealth-creating federal stimulus programs.

Don’t worry about the debt. If the debt is incurred in the process of creating wealth, it will be repaid. The issue with debt is always the purpose to which it is being put. If it generates growth, it is good. If it is squandered on greedy indulgences or a worthless war in Iraq, it is bad.

Finally, if the banks won’t lend, the government needs to lend directly to get this done.

Nicholas F. Benton

 Nicholas Benton may be e-mailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com.

The Biggest Loser LOS ANGELES – Maybe America just didn’t want to look at a redhead at that hour.

“For the record,” Conan O’Brien wryly noted in a statement addressed to “People of Earth” outlining his refusal to host NBC’s “The Tonight Show” if it was shoved back half-an-hour, “I am truly sorry about my hair; it’s always been that way.”

This is the week of the television winter press tour from Pasadena, when the networks traditionally roll out their offerings for midseason replacement shows. But there’s only one replacement show that anyone here is talking about: an NBC family drama bloodier than “The Tudors” and more inexplicable than “Lost,” a tragedy about NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE comedy featuring an imperious emperor and his two dueling jesters in a once-mighty and now-blighted kingdom.

As NBC reeled from the fallout of Jeff Zucker’s tacit admission that his attempt to refashion the customary way Americans watch prime time had failed, Hollywood was ablaze with baldenfreude.

In a town where nobody makes less than they’re worth, and most people pull in an obscene amount more, there has been a single topic of discussion: How does Jeff Zucker keep rising and rising while the fortunes of NBC keep falling and falling?

The 44-year-old is a very smart guy who made a success as a wunderkind at “The Today Show,” but many in the Hollywood community have always regarded him as a condescending and arrogant East Coaster, a network Napoleon who never bothered to learn about developing shows and managing talent.

At a moment when Zucker’s comedy double-fault was smashing relationships in L.A., he showed the talent of a Mafia boss for separating himself from the hit when he went and played in a New York City tennis tournament. (He lost in the first round.)

“Zucker is a case study in the most destructive media executive ever to exist,” said a honcho at another network. “You’d have to tell me who else has taken a once-great network and literally destroyed it.”

Zucker’s critics are ranting that first he killed comedy, losing the NBC franchise of Thursday night “Must See TV,” where “Seinfeld,” “Friends” and “Will & Grace” once hilariously reigned; then he killed drama, failing to develop successors to the formidable “ER,” “West Wing,” and “Law & Order”; then he killed the 10 o’clock hour by putting Jay

Maureen Dowd

Leno on at a time when people expect to be told a story; and then he killed late night by putting on a quirky redhead who did not have the bland massmarket appeal of Leno and who couldn’t compete with the peerless late-night comedian NBC had stupidly lost 16 years ago, David Letterman.

Zucker is a master at managing up with bosses and calculating cost-per-hour benefits, but even though he made money on cable shows, he could not program network to save his life. He started by greenlighting the regrettable “Emeril” and ended by having the aptly titled “The Biggest Loser” as one of his only winners.

Certainly, Zucker greatly underestimated the deeply ingrained viewing patterns of older Americans, who have always watched the networks in a particular way. The kids come home, do their homework, the family has dinner. They’re in front of the TV by 8, and 8:30 is known as the dog-walking slot. At 9, it’s time for more comedy. As they get tired, they like to watch a fictional drama that leads into the real drama of the late local news. And then they like to laugh again so that those images of war or a local murder are not the last thing they see before bed.

America has been watching a very specific sort of guy at 11:35 p.m. for half a century, who chuckles as Mary Tyler Moore or Sarah Jessica Parker tells an amusing story and lets us drift off by the time some stand-up comic or blow-up starlet tells a salacious joke.

Zucker rolled the dice because he wanted to show Jeff Immelt that he could get beyond his Ben Silverman debacle and get prime time to stop bleeding money (a problem he created). But he learned the hard way that it is a lot to undo.

As Mark Harris wrote in New York magazine in November, “Zucker has often behaved like the grudging caretaker of a dying giant. ... As much as Jeff Zucker would like to cast the blame elsewhere, substituting number-crunching defensiveness for enterprise, adventure, and showmanship is what helped get NBC into this mess.”

Consumed with the NBC game of musical latenight chairs, Hollywood machers play a game of trying to figure out the last time there has been a blunder of such outlandish proportions. Despite everything, Zucker just got his contract renewed for three years with the Comcast acquisition of NBC. “Not since J. Pierrepont Finch in ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’ has an executive failed upwards in so obvious a fashion,” marveled one TV writer.

Page 14

January 14 - 20, 2010

History & Context No one doubts that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made a huge gaffe when he said that Barack Obama could become the nation’s first African American president because he was “light skinned” and had “no negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Obviously, this was a poor choice of words and Reid expressed immediate regret – offering an apology that was accepted by President Obama. Reid will continue his efforts this week to be contrite and make things right, as he should.

However, the reaction by leading Republicans who called for Reid to resign was nauseating. It was astounding to witness a party built on a “Southern Strategy” of appealing to disaffected white males suddenly pretending to be the NAACP. On ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Liz Cheney called nything Reid’s comments racist and played the tiresome conservative victim card. ut traight “Can I just point out, I think one of the things that makes the American

By Wayne Besen people frustrated, time and time again, liberals excuse racism from other liberals,” Cheney said. “The comments were outrageous…I don’t think racism is OK, George, whether you’re saying it in private or in public…”

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said that Reid should resign from office and accused the Democrats of hypocrisy, because Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) was forced to step down from his perch as Senate Majority Leader in 2002 after he had made racially insensitive remarks.

“There is this standard where Democrats feel that they can say these things and they can apologize when it comes from the mouths of their own,” said Steele in an interview with Fox News Sunday. “But if it comes from anyone else, it is racism.”

In today’s Republican Party, all is cynical and nothing is sacred.

There is little profound and much that is profane. Such political pathology is reflected in the mindless attacks on Reid. To buy the GOP’s indignation, one must be completely ignorant of history, devoid of basic reasoning and have no understanding of context.

In the case of Reid, his comment was an aberration that contrasted with his history of supporting equality. Indeed, the actual comment was in favor of Obama’s candidacy and spoke to his viability. A true racist would never have endorsed the idea of an African American president, because by definition such a person believes that other races are inferior.

Conversely, Sen. Lott had a history of flirting with racism and other forms of bigotry. He began his political career in 1968 working for Rep. William M. Colmer, a segregationist from Pascagoula.

The Washington Post revealed that Lott had appeared as the keynote speaker at a 1992 meeting of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) in Greenwood, Mississippi. This was a racist organization that barely concealed their belief in white supremacy. The organization’s magazine, The Citizens Informer featured a large photograph of Senator Lott at the CCC conference and quoted him as telling attendees that “we need more meetings like this” and “the people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy.

Let’s take it in the right direction and our children will be the beneficiaries.”

So, by the time Lott appeared at former Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond’s (R-SC) 100th birthday party on December 5, 2002, an unmistakable pattern of intolerance had already been established. At this celebration, Lott said: “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him.

We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.”

Thurmond’s presidential campaign in 1948 had explicitly been about racial segregation. So, there was no way that Lott could have been “proud” of this presidential run and conclude that America would have been better off with a Thurmond victory unless he believed that segregation was good for America. This was more than simply a poor word choice. It was the seeming endorsement of a noxious worldview that nearly destroyed this nation.

Lott denies that he supports discrimination and is a racist. However, one cannot separate his comments from the context in which they came.

Compare this to Reid, who did no more than use an old fashioned, anachronistic vocabulary word. His comments were regrettable for sure, but certainly not part of a pattern of racism.

To criticize Reid in a vacuum is vacuous and the histrionics of Liz Cheney and Michael Steele blatantly ignore history. The GOP has long trivialized genuine racism and used crass political opportunism to exploit race for political gain. Now, they are doing the exact same thing, except this time they are pretending to be the guardians of diversity.

A B

S

Congressman Moran’s News Commentary

By James P. Moran

Virginia’s 8th Congressional District Representative in the U.S. House of Representatives

Last year, the H1N1 virus, more commonly known as the “swine flu,” swept across the country.

Between April and November 2009 alone, it infected approximately 47 million Americans, contributing to more than 200,000 hospitalizations and nearly 10,000 deaths.

But the public-private sector response to the outbreak has been equally sweeping. Local, state and federal officials joined forces with scientists, manufacturers, and health providers in the Commonwealth to distribute the H1N1 vaccine and educate the public about the flu and ways to prevent its spread.

These efforts are working.

According to Center for Disease Control, the virus is on the decline in Virginia and nationwide. Still, flu season is unpredictable (it usually lasts until May), so it’s important that all Virginians remain vigilant about preventing its spread.

The best way you can do this is to get vaccinated. Extensive testing and monitoring have shown that the H1N1 vaccine is not only safe, but is also an excellent match for combating the most common strain of the virus. Over 110 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine are now available, with more coming every day.

While adults only need one

dose of the H1N1 vaccine, children 9 years of age and younger will need two doses to be fully protected. Children ages 2 to 8 will need two doses of seasonal vaccine as well if they have never received the seasonal flu vaccine before.

Make sure your child has

received his or her second dose of the vaccine, and if you have not already, go to your local clinic, doctor’s office or pharmacy and get vaccinated. You can locate a provider near you through the easy-to use search engine at www. flu.gov or call 1-800-CD-INFO (800-232-4636).

January 14 - 20, 2010

Page 15

A Penny for Your Thoughts

News of Greater Falls Church

By Supervisor Penny Gross

Mason District lost a generous benefactor and environmentalist last week with the passing of Margaret Keister White, just weeks before her 104th birthday. Mrs. White’s 13-acre property will become the John and Margaret White Horticultural Garden under the auspices of the Fairfax County Park Authority (FCPA). In 1999, Mrs. White sold the property to the Park Authority for $600,000, retaining a life estate so she could remain in the home she and her husband built in 1938. At the time of the sale, similar properties could command $250,000 an acre, but she told friends and neighbors that she never wanted the property developed into more housing. She preferred to preserve it as a public place for horticultural enjoyment of beautiful plants.

In a 2006 interview published in the newsletter of the Friends of the White Horticultural Park, Mrs. White remembered being captivated by the property’s huge oak tree, still standing, when she and her husband were looking for a home to purchase. John White, known as JC, was the gardener, while Margaret was the “go-fer.”

She also scouted the area for new plants, and rescued a collection of laurel that was in the way of Route 50 improvements. Although the garden is filled with azaleas and rhododendrons now, it wasn’t always that way.

Fruit trees, yews, and small deciduous trees on the property were very small, and some plantings died. JC and Margaret replaced brush and “wilderness” with azaleas, and later added rhododendrons. The hybrid version developed by Joseph Gable was good, especially for this area, according to Margaret, and JC learned how to propagate plants. Eventually some of his creations

Week of January 5 - 11, 2010

Destruction of Property, 200 blk. E Fairfax St., between January 4, 9:30 p.m. and January 5, 7:25 a.m., unknown person(s) slashed all four tires on two vehicles and shattered the right passenger side window.

Destruction of Property, 1100 blk. Offutt Dr., between January 4, 5:30 p.m. and January 5, 8:24 a.m., unknown person(s) slashed two tires on the left side of a vehicle.

Larceny, 1000 blk. W Broad St., January 5, 3:41 p.m., unknown person(s) stole victim’s identity and withdrew $9875.00 from the victim’s savings account; and $30,000 from the Money Market account. Incident to the case, suspect(s) also opened an account in the victim’s name using a fake identification.

Larceny from Vehicle, 100 blk. N Washington St., January 5, 10:18 p.m., unknown person(s) broke out the passenger side window of a vehicle and stole a GPS and cell phone charger from inside the glove department.

Larceny from Vehicle, 100 blk. N Washington St., January 5, between 8:15 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., unknown person(s) smashed the rear driver’s side window of a vehicle and stole a Perry Ellis briefcase containing $400.00 cash.

Destruction of Property, 600 blk. Park Ave., January 5, 11:03 p.m., unknown person(s) slashed the two tires on the left side of a vehicle.

Larceny from Vehicle, 100 blk. S Maple Ave., January 5, 11:58 p.m., unknown person(s) smashed the driver’s side window of a vehicle

were named after him, and some beautiful examples still remain on the property.

JC died in 1978, but Margaret continued the work they started together, and the garden today is an exquisite legacy to their devotion. Anyone who has visited in late April and early May can attest to the incredible beauty of the flowering plants, and the rustic and shady trails that wind through the property. “Thank you” seems inadequate to acknowledge such a wonderful and long lasting gift to future generations, but Margaret White often told visitors that was all she wanted.

Memorial contributions in Margaret White’s memory can be made to the Fairfax County Park Foundation, Inc., 12055 Government Center Parkway, Suite 404, Fairfax, Virginia 22035. Indicate “John and Margaret White Garden” on the memo line of your check.

The Virginia General Assembly began its 2010 session yesterday. Among the new faces is 38th District Delegate Kaye Kory, who was elected in November.

Delegate Kory represents 17 precincts in the Mason District, and three in the Providence District. Prior to her swearing-in at the Capitol in Richmond, she tendered her resignation as the Mason District representative on the Fairfax County School Board. At press time, a special election date to fill the school board seat had not been announced. Good luck to Delegate Kory, and to all the Northern Virginians who represent portions of Mason District: Delegates David Bulova (D-37); Vivian Watts (D-39); Charniele Herring (D-46); Adam Ebbin (D-49); Jim Scott (D-53), and Senators Mary Margaret Whipple (D-31); Chap Petersen (D-34); and Dick Saslaw (D-35).

and stole a GPS and (2) IPODS. Larceny from Vehicle, 100 blk. S Maple Ave., January 6, 12:20 a.m., unknown person(s) smashed the driver’s side window of a vehicle and stole an IPOD and charger.

Destruction of Property, 1100 blk. Offutt Dr., January 6, 12:38 a.m., unknown person(s) slashed two tires on the left side of a vehicle.

Destruction of Property, 700 blk. Randolph St., January 6, 7:53 a.m., unknown person(s) slashed two tires on the left side of a vehicle.

Larceny from Vehicle, 900 blk. W Broad St., between January 4, 12:00 p.m. and January 6, 10:42 a.m., unknown person(s) cut the catyllic converter off a vehicle.

Destruction of Property, 300 blk. N Virginia Ave., January 6, 10:46 a.m., unknown person(s) slashed two tires on the left side of a vehicle.

Larceny, Shoplifting, Virginia ABC, 167 Hillwood Ave., January 7, 5:50 p.m., unknown person(s) entered the establishment and stole a bottle of Brandy valued at $13.50. Suspect #1 is described as a B/M, medium complexion, 5`8” - 5`10” tall, 35 - 45 years of age, slender build, with no visible facial hair. He was wearing a dark jacket possibly black, black knit hat, light colored hooded possibly gray, blue jeans and white sneakers. Suspect #2 is described as a B/M, medium complexion, 5`8” - 5`10”, 35 45 years of age, heavy build, with mustache and either a goatee or light beard, and short cropped hair. He was wearing a blue jean jacket, blue jeans, white gloves and dark shoes.

Destruction of Property, 100 blk.

Rees Pl., between January 6, 7:00 p.m. and January 7, 7:28 p.m., unknown person(s) slashed all four tires on a vehicle.

Larceny, Shoplifting, CVS, 134 W Broad St., January 7, 8:09 p.m., unknown person(s) entered the establishment and stole two 6 packs of Hurricane and a can of Pringles.

Suspect #1 is described as a B/M, thin build,

17-18 years old, wearing red and white Nationals top with jeans and dark baseball cap. Suspect #2 is described as a H/M or M/E, thin build, wearing burgundy and gold Redskins sweatshirt with gray hood and jeans.

Destruction of Property, 400 blk. S Maple Ave., January 8, between 1:00 a.m. and 6:34 a.m., unknown person(s) slashed all four tires on a vehicle.

Destruction of Property, 400 blk. N West St., btwn January 7, 4:00 p.m. and January 8, 8:13 a.m., unknown person(s) slashed three tires on a vehicle.

Destruction of Property, 300 blk. N West St., between January 7, 6:00 p.m. and January 8, 8:37 a.m., unknown person(s) slashed two left tires on a vehicle.

Destruction of Property, 300 blk. Pine St., btween January 7, 4:00 p.m. and January 8, 9:30 a.m., unknown person(s) slashed two left tires on a vehicle.

Destruction of Property, 300 blk., Riley St., between January 7, 6:00 p.m. and January 8, 4:24 p.m., unknown person(s) slashed all four tires on a vehicle.

Drunkenness, 6700 blk. Wilson Blvd., January 9, 1:38 a.m., police arrested a male, 21, of Arlington, VA for DIP. Driving under the Influence, 6700 blk.

Wilson Blvd., January 9, 2:19 a.m., police arrested a male, 29, of Lansdowne, VA for DUI. Drunkenness, 1100 blk. W Broad St., January 9, 2:40 p.m., police arrested a male, 48, of Vienna, VA for DIP. Drug/Narcotic Violation, 400 blk. S Maple Ave., January 9, 11:45 p.m., police arrested a male juvenile for Possession of Marijuana.

Driving under the Influence, 400 blk.

Roosevelt Blvd., January 10, 4:18 a.m., police arrested a male, 31, of Fairfax, VA for DUI. Larceny from Building, 100 blk. Smallwood Way, between December 28 and January 10, unknown person(s) stole a delivered package from the front porch of a residence.

News from the Coffin Corner: Bob Hull’s

Richmond Report This Is It! After a total of 17 years and 8 full days in office, my term has expired, and this is the last “News From The Coffin Corner” column.

I have written this column for the News-Press since I was first sworn-in on January 4, 1993. I had red hair then; it is all gray now.

My original district included Falls Church, two other precincts in Providence District, and the Bailey’s, Skyline, and Culmore areas. It changed after the 2001 redistricting.

The district lost those places, but gained the 7-Corners area, communities adjacent to Annandale and Springfield, and the entire Edsall Road corridor.

The 38th district has always been diverse economically and ethnically, and I am sure that diversity will continue when it is redistricted in 2011.

Only Male & Longest Serving I am the only man to ever represent the 38th district. Created in 1981, three women served before me and another woman represents it now.

With over 17 years of service, I also represented the 38th district longer than anyone. I do not expect that to be equaled any time soon.

I checked the records and found that I served with 218 separate people in the House of Delegates over those years.

Sink or Swim Following the special election in which I was first elected in December 1992, another was held for a vacant House seat the day before the 1993 session.

Both Democrats, we were a freshman class of two. Neither of us was given an official orientation and the Democratic caucus did not assign mentors in those days.

My orientation consisted of the Clerk showing me my desk, pointing out the men’s lounge, telling me not to be late to committee meetings, and wishing me good luck.

It was sink or swim. But, after serving on Fairfax County commissions or committees for about 19 years, I took to it like a duck to water.

I have prided myself in diligent committee and subcommittee work, and tried to become a legislative craftsperson who could clean up poorly written legislation.

Notable Successes I introduced bills on various

subjects over the years, achieving unanimous or near unanimous votes on the vast majority of the bills that passed.

Three notable successes come immediately to mind. As a freshman legislator in 1993, I was able to achieve what a number of more senior members could not.

My legislation creating carjacking as a separate felony in Virginia, punishable by up to life in prison, passed and became law.

I won legislative approval the next year authorizing construction of the Virginia Tech-UVa Northern Virginia Center.

It was my bill in 2002 that created the “Fight Terrorism” license plate in Virginia. More of those special license plates have been sold in a shorter time than any other.

Helping the Little Guy I was always mindful of the unintended negative consequences of changes to the law and regulations on the average Virginian.

I also worked hard to help constituents with their problems, doing whatever I could to help cut red tape, including once personally installing a stop sign for a community.

I was ably assisted over the years by some outstanding Legislative Aides, including Marcia Jay, Jackie Dilley, and Bette Doranz.

It Was My Honor The Virginia House of Delegates is the successor to the House of Burgesses, the first legislative body in the English speaking New World.

So many great people served there before me, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Mason, and Patrick Henry.

I never forgot that I stood on their shoulders and it was truly an honor to serve in such a legislative chamber.

No one is successful without the support of their family and I thank my late mother, Lillian, my wife, Laura, and my two children for putting up with it all.

It has been a pleasure to serve the people of the 38th district.

Thank you!  Delegate Hull represents the 38th District in the Virginia House of Delegates. He may be emailed at delrhull@state. house.va.us.

Page 16

January 14 - 20, 2010

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News Falls Church Cabinetry, winner of the Falls Church City’s Most Improved Commercial Property Award in March 2008, has closed its doors at 1001 S. West Street in Falls Church.

The business relocated from the Merrifield area to Falls Church in the fall of 2007.

Falls Church Cabinetry, which was independently owned and operated, offered custom, furniture-quality, in-set panel cabinetry at production pricing. The phone number has been disconnected but the web site, www.fallschurchcabinetry.com, is still up. Parties interested in leasing the space can contact 781-254-2038.

The Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce elected six new members to its Board of Directors. Kenneth Burnett from AXA Advisors, Barbara Cram from Greenscape, Greg Hassett from Wells Fargo Financial Advisors, Mary Lynn Hickey from the Falls Church Housing Corporation, Lyly Hoang-Kuo from Hoang’s Grill & Sushi Bar and Joe Wetzel from Jefferson One joined the Chamber Board this month. 2010 officers include Dr. Ralph Perrino from NVA Tutoring Service as Chairman, Michael Ankuma from Joint Technology Solution, Inc. as Chair-Elect and Treasurer, Dr. William V. Dougherty, III DDS as Vice Chairman of Membership, Christopher Bergin from Tax Analysts as Vice Chairman of Fund Development, John Rodock of Ober|Kaler as Vice Chairman of Legislation, Karen Akers as Vice Chairman of Programs and Marina Westbrook of Burke & Herbert as Secretary. For information, visit www.fallschurchchamber.org.

Virginia Commerce Bank has opened its 28th branch in Dumfries. The full service, Arlington-based bank, with $2.7 billion in assets, serves the Northern Virginia and Fredericksburg markets with 28 branches, a mortgage lending office and an investment services department. The Falls Church branch is located at 7115 Leesburg Pike. For more information, visit www.VCBonline.com.

Historic “Walnut Hill” Open Sunday January 17, from 1-4 p.m.

2603 Faber Court Falls Church, VA 22046 Offered at $749,750

Events Falls Church Jazzercise is competing for the best fitness program, one of NBC4 Golden Awards created to recognize D.C. area businesses for outstanding quality. Votes can be cast at the Fitness Challenge booth (#948) at the NBC4 Health & Fitness Expo Saturday, Jan. 16 and Sunday, Jan. 17 at the D.C. Convention Center. The winner will be announced on TV in February. Jazzercise demo classes will be taking place on both days from noon – 12:45 p.m.The event is free and open from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. both days. For directions, visit www.dcconvention.com.

Matt Smith of the Falls Church-based advertising agency SmithGifford will be the featured speaker of the Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce’s Networking Luncheon on Tuesday, Jan. 19. Smith will present on “The Little City”, the branding effort conducted on behalf of the City of Falls Church. The Luncheon will take place from 11:30 a.m. – 1:15 p.m. at the Italian Café located at 7161 Lee Highway, Falls Church. RSVPs are required. Tickets are $27 for members, $32 for nonmembers. An additional $5 is charged for walk-ins. Contact the Chamber at info@fallschurchchamber.org or 703-532-1050 for reservations.

From Route 7 (Broad Street) and West Street, travel Southwest on West Street; turn left onto Faber Court to 2603 on left.

The original portion of this historic Falls Church home dates back to the early 1800s and has heart-ofpine wide-plank flooring; some of the original log beams were left exposed. The owners have achieved a seamless interface between the original home and the addition, completed by Rixey Rixey Architects in the late 1980s. A two-car garage, charming entry/foyer and a family room/library were created. The house now also has four bedrooms and four full baths (one on the main level). A large dining room and living room allow for ample entertaining and guest flow into the adjoining family room and kitchen.

Outside, the owners have created intimate spaces for gardening, reflecting, or dreaming in a cul-de-sac location. In the McLean High School pyramid.

See photos at www.DebMiller.com or call Debbie for a showing at 703-241-0223.

Debbie Miller

Associate Broker Lifestyle Transition Specialist ® Certified Senior Advisor Seniors Real Estate Specialist 4720 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22207

Gerald L. Gordon, Ph.D, President & CEO of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, will present at the Greater Merrifield Business Association’s Luncheon at 11:30 on Thursday, Jan. 21 at the Italian Café. Dr. Gordon will address the EDA’s efforts to attract major businesses to Fairfax. Tickets are $25 for members, $30 for nonmembers. Reservations are required by 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 20. Email nikki@hammondagency.com.

Bisnow is hosting “Where do Women Stand II” featuring a panel of some of the most powerful women in the Washington area on Friday, Jan. 22. Panelists, including BET Networks’ Chairman & CEO Debra Lee, Microsoft’s U.S. Federal Government Vice President Theresa Carlson, and the American Bar Association’ President Carolyn Lamm, will discuss the state of women in business today to take a look to the year ahead. The event will take place at Sequoia Restaurant, 3000 K Street, NW. Networking will begin at 7:45 p.m. The panel discussion is scheduled from 8:30 – 9:30 a.m. Go to www.bisnow.com for more information or to register.  The Business News & Notes section is compiled by Sally Cole, Executive Director of Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce. She may be e-mailed at sally@fallschurchchamber.org.

January 14 - 20, 2010

Page 17

THE PEAK OIL CRISIS

Gasoline Prices Revisited It has been 18 months since we all worried very much about high oil prices. Starting in July 2008 gasoline prices took an historic plunge dropping from a U.S. average high of $4.11 a gallon all the way down to $1.70 in January 2009. In retrospect this price drop was a good thing for it did more to slow the downward spiraling recession than most people realized. In the last 12 months however, the situation has reversed and the average price for gasoline is pushing $2.80 a gallon. An increasing number of commentators are starting to talk of the return of $100 oil and $3+ gasoline.

The problem of course is by now everybody knows gasoline prices always rise in the winter and spring leading to a peak around June. In 2008 and 2009 we had unusually large increases with average gasoline prices going up $1.20 a gallon in 2008 and 90 cents a gallon in 2009. These increases, however, took place under unusual circumstances and as yet there is no reason to believe that we will see gasoline pushing $4 a gallon again this summer. In fact some are arguing the case that gasoline prices are currently too high and will be going down shortly.

There are numerous factors that will affect the balance of forces determining gasoline prices six months from now – the economic situation in the OECD nations, the pace of economic growth in China, India, and several other Asian countries, the stability of the U.S. dollar, the weather, stability of Iran, and perhaps even an OPEC decision to increase oil production if prices get too high.

While it is difficult to foresee clearly the interaction of all these factors, the conventional thinking is that U.S. and OECD oil consumption will remain flat, the Saudis will continue to withhold a couple of million b/d from the markets, and China will continue to grow rapidly in 2010. Many believe the Chinese are coming up on a massive real estate bubbleburst one of these days, but this still seems to be a couple of years

away and is unlikely to have much to do with gas prices next July.

While it is impossible to predict whether Iranian or Iraqi oil exports will be disrupted by political developments in the next six months or whether another six weeks of unusually cold weather in the northern hemisphere is really in the offing, there are several key events scheduled that could have some sort of impact on where gasoline prices are next July.

Perhaps the most important of these are the announced plans of the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury to stop supporting the

‘‘ A

ity for the past nine months.

We are already getting some numbers showing that the demand for gasoline in the U.S. is slowly dropping – this probably has something to do with the unemployment rate is which is realistically over 20 percent. As gasoline is so important to the average person in the U.S. reductions in automobile use will likely be slow and undertaken reluctantly. The inconveniences of less driving still outweigh the cost of gasoline for most.

While global oil supply has some room to grow in the next six months, much more cheating on OPEC quotas is unlikely as the cheater countries don’t have much more room to cheat.

The Saudis and their Gulf brethren have some more productive capacity, but continue to maintain that they are happy with $7080 oil and there is no need to increase production. There are a number of looming problems in the next six months one of which is Venezuela.

It seems to be on course to lose about 75 percent of its electricity supply due to a massive drought emptying a hydro-electric reservoir.

Unless there is a major geopolitical upheaval in the next six months, oil prices are likely to creep up as they have been doing since last May. Gasoline prices will continue their tradition winter/spring climb likely passing the $3 per gallon mark which seems to be psychological point that impedes the sale of large cars.

How much further prices will go is impossible to responsibly forecast for there are simply too many unknowable variables involved.

The only thing we can be sure of is that this increase is going to damage, perhaps fatally, prospects for a U.S. economic recovery.

With more and more money being sent away to pay for “essential” gasoline supplies, there is going to be less and less to pay for everything else.

drop in oil prices in the

next six months seems

”

unlikely without a major untoward development. financial industry, the housing industry, low interest rates, and whatever else they are overtly or covertly subsidizing by the 1st of April. The idea would be to let the U.S. economy try to stand on its own feet prior to the November mid-term elections without the help of hundreds of billions in government subsidies. Whether this plan actually comes to pass is problematic, another couple of months worth of bad economic news may lead to a decision to continue the programs.

The greatest danger from hasty removal of government intervention is the likelihood that interest rates will increase substantially and that the U.S. dollar will fall thereby sending dollar-denominated oil prices higher no matter what happens to supply and demand.

At the minute, a substantial drop in oil prices in the next six months seems unlikely without a major untoward development.

Shortages from insufficient global oil production are still a few years away, so for the time being the value of the dollar and the demand for oil will be the controlling factors. A Chinese economic meltdown still seems to be some years off. A better bet is the collapse of the U.S. equities markets which have been disconnected from real-

 Tom Whipple is a retired government analyst and has been following the peak oil issue for several years.

Page 18

January 14 - 20, 2010

After Slow Start, Lady Mustangs Top Rams in Bull Run Opener

by Alex Prewitt

Falls Church News-Press

A soft bank shot. A slicing layup. Three transition buckets. And just like that, the George Mason High School varsity girls’ basketball team was back on top.

After a sluggish start to Thursday night’s Bull Run District opener with Manassas Park (7-5), one in which the Mustangs fell behind 5-0, Mason finally found its groove, recovering thanks to a deft combination of speed in the open court and timely defense.

Shortly following Coach LaBryan Thomas’ quick-triggered timeout, the Mustangs cashed in on three consecutive baskets, surging to a 19-12 margin at the end of the first quarter.

“We don’t have our focus when we first come out at the beginning of games. It’s been like that all year,” Thomas said. “I don’t know if it’s nerves, but once they get it together, it’s hard to stop us.”

From there, it was all Mason.

The defending single A, DivisionTwo state champions opened up a 40-14 lead at halftime and never looked back, coasting to a 75-36 final margin against the Cougars at Mary Ellen Henderson Gym, the first time the Mustangs have cracked the 70-point plateau all year.

Mason used a swarming fullcourt pressure defense to limit Manassas to just one second-quarter field goal, and held an opponent to under 40 points for the fifth time this season. The Mustangs finished with 27 steals overall, as the Cougars were able to score over 10 points in a quarter just once.

Mason’s victory came thanks to an offense propelled by a substantial speed advantage, which allowed Thomas’ squad to turn its 18 total offensive rebounds into numerous transition buckets. Sophomore point guard Leah Roth, for one, capped off the Mustangs’ slow first quarter with a coast-tocoast layup as time expired.

“That’s something we really try

to focus on is intensity, because that’s something that’s been lacking in the past few games,” senior Nicole Mitchell said. “We usually have that slow start, that’s something we really need to eradicate from our routine. We got refocused and just went out there and did what we needed to do.”

At halftime, three Mason players – Mitchell, senior Chantal Thomas and sophomore Lauren Kane – all had nine points, as the Mustangs built a comfortableenough margin to allow them to coast throughout the second half.

But coming out of the break, Mason had its best eight minutes of basketball, building up a 63-23 lead by the end of the third period.

With the bench emptied in the fourth, the Mustangs were able to withstand a bevy of Cougar threepointers thanks to a comfortable then-40-point margin.

Mitchell, despite a lackluster shooting night from beyond the arc, finished with 16 points on 6-for-16 shooting and 12 boards.

Kane shot 67 percent from the field, tallying 13 points and two blocks.

According to Coach Thomas, a large portion of Mason’s offensive success came thanks to attacking to the basket, catalyzed by Roth and Chantal Thomas’ perimeter play.

Freshman Stepanie Cheney came off the bench to contribute 12 points and four assists and improved on her team-leading free throw percentage by canning all four attempts from the charity stripe.

The Mustangs, currently ranked fourth in the state in VirginiaPreps.com’s AP Poll, took a journey to the beach Saturday, rolling over Region A’s Colonial Beach, 48-20, improving their overall record to 9-2.

The rare weekend slate served as ample opportunity for Thomas’ starters to see limited game action, resting up for the lengthy grind of district play. Against the injurydepleted Drifters, the Mustangs’

strong reserves took center-stage.

“The latter part of our bench played early and did really well,” coach Thomas said. “It’s great to have our bench stay involved because we may need that down the line. They became battle-tested thanks to this game.”

With this Wednesday’s nondistrict match-up against Briar Woods, whom the Mustangs beat on the road last week 54-32, paired back-to-back with Thursday night’s Bull Run home contest with Madison County, Mason has little time to rest easy. Coming off a 44-31 loss to Strasburg, the Mountaineers are struggling and sit at 2-9 overall. Mason’s history versus Madison County, though, indicates far less than an expected cakewalk.

“We have a curse,” coach Thomas said. “Ever since I’ve been coaching on the girls’ side, we’ve never played Madison County well, so I expect nothing different. We have to come to play because they will.”

Mason Boys Throw Up Clunker In Final Game Before Districts

by Alex Prewitt

Falls Church News-Press

All season long, third-quarter struggles have proven to be the biggest demon for the George Mason High School varsity boys’ basketball team. Turns out, the fourth quarter can be just as nightmarish.

Looking to secure their first three-game win streak since Feb. 2008, the Mustangs (6-8) instead succumbed to a lackadaisical final eight minutes, squandering a ninepoint comeback to lose at home to Freedom South-Riding High School (3-11) in their final nondistrict contest, 59-46.

Down 26-17 late in the second quarter, Mason roared back to take a 37-36 lead midway through the third period. After a 6-0 Freedom run in the first 1:10 of the fourth quarter, the Eagles garnered the lead necessary to hold off the stagnant Mustangs.

“Quite honestly I’m questioning how we can come out and play a game like this before district play,” Mason Coach Chris Capannola said. “We come out and just threw up a total clunker in our last chance to get it right. It’s a terrible

way to enter the district season, it couldn’t have been worse.”

Despite 15 second-half points from freshman point guard Aaron Young, who only played sparingly early on due to foul trouble, Mason was unable to light a fire under its offense, just days removed from a 70-point performance.

Their 0-for-5 slate from the charity stripe in the fourth quarter and 28.6 percent first-half field goal percentage didn’t help.

“We can settle for Aaron being a jump shooter, but the other guys weren’t getting to the line, settling for contested 15- and 18foot shots,” Capannola said. “We said that you have to go to the rim and get the clock stopped, but everyone doing their own thing leads to anarchy and then outcomes like this.”

Senior center Jordan Cheney found the looks he needed in the post early on but was unable to convert as the game wore on, finishing with eight points, all of which came in the first half.

Young ended with 18, including four three pointers, while junior Brandon Alexander tallied seven. All together, the Mustangs

shot just 44 percent from the freethrow line while the Eagles nailed 65 percent.

The loss to the Eagles came on the heels of Mason’s first 70-point game since Dec. 20, 2007, a 7362 win last Friday over Avalon School. The Mustangs rebounded from a three-game losing streak thanks to a 12-2 run over the final three minutes of play, withstanding a late charge by the Knights and successfully avoiding a thirdquarter collapse.

Young finished with a teamhigh 17 points, including six in the final minute. Seven of Capannola’s players tallied at least seven points, as the Mustangs shot 74 percent from the charity stripe.

Last Wednesday, the Mustangs scored a victory in their Bull Run District-opener at Manassas Park.

Similar events as the Avalon unfolded, with Mason ceding a ninepoint halftime lead to edge out the 64-60 victory. The Cougars led by seven midway through the fourth quarter, though two dagger threepointers by Young helped the Mustangs open up district play on a winning note.

Versus the Cougars, Cheney

MASON FRESHMAN Aaron Young (right). (Photo: News-Press) finished with 19 points, 12 boards and four blocks, while Young added 18. Sophomore Jeremy Stewart, who tacked on 10, combined with Cheney and Young to score all 20 of Mason’s fourth-quarter buckets.

Given its third-quarter issues against Avalon and Manassas, it was ironically the fourth quarter that gave Mason the most trouble against Freedom, issues it now must figure out before Friday’s

date with defending Region B champions Madison County, undefeated and ranked first in VirginiaPreps.com’s latest AP poll.

“We have to find a way to compete for four quarters,” Capannola said. “It only takes a couple possessions where we don’t know what’s happening on either end and the game gets away from you.

We have no chance for error on Friday.”

January 14 - 20, 2010

Page 19

U.S. Figure Skating Championships Underway, Locals Aim for Olympics

by Lois Elfman

Special to the News-Press

What will be perhaps the longest U.S. Figure Skating Championships on record (11 days) gets underway today in Spokane, Washington. Due to a request from NBC, the senior events will be divided over two weekends, with the men and pairs competing this weekend and the ladies and ice dancers competing next weekend.

“I think it’s so incredibly stupid that the national championships are spread over two weekends,” said three-time U.S. Men’s Champion Johnny Weir, who will be trying to regain a spot on the podium after finishing fifth last year.

“I definitely think not competing in the World Championships last year was a terrible thing for my career,” Weir said. “At the same time, I think it was very good for me. It kind of knocked me off the cloud I had been riding and made me pull myself back up again. That’s something that I’ve made a career out of.”

The men’s competition will be fierce as Weir and reigning World

Men’s Champion Evan Lysacek attempt to earn return visits to the Olympic Winter Games. Lysacek finished fourth and Weir fifth at the Games in Torino in 2006.

Their sights are set on the top step for the upcoming Games in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

Other top contenders for the podium in Spokane and a trip to Vancouver include defending U.S. Champion Jeremy Abbott, last year’s silver medalist Brandon Mroz and veteran competitor Ryan Bradley.

There will also be two Northern Virginia residents in the senior men’s event, Tommy Steenberg of Annandale and Armin Mahbanoozadeh of Fairfax.

“My goal is to do my best short and long program of the year,” said Steenberg, 21, who has a new short program this season choreographed by 2008 World Men’s Champion Jeffrey Buttle of Canada. Steenberg is using music from “Don Quixote” again for his free program. “I expect myself to keep a steady, positive mentality while I am at the arena.”

Helping him live a balanced

Ashley Wagner. (Photo: Paul and Michelle Harvath/USFS)

life, Steenberg is currently attending George Mason full-time in the honors program, pursuing a double major in business and dance.

“I start my schedule of six classes the day after Nationals, so I better enjoy the vacation to Spokane,” he said with a laugh.

Mahbanoozadeh, 18, will be making his senior national debut in Spokane after competing in two senior Grand Prix events this past fall.

“Competing against the world’s top skaters certainly makes me want to work harder and push myself to improve. Being included as one of them tells me that my efforts through the years are certainly paying off,” he said.

As for his goals and expectations in Spokane, Mahbanoozadeh noted, “I don’t think I can hope for anything other than to be happy with my performances at Nationals. I want to show that I have improved year after year and can be a serious competitor on the national and international stage. I believe that if I end up happy with my skate at Nationals those things will follow.”

In the pairs, Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker are favored to win their third U.S. title and earn one of the two U.S. pairs berths. They have been training with legendary coach John Nicks since last year, and although somewhat inconsistent as of late, have shown signs of being the best U.S. team since Nicks’ former students Jenni Meno and Todd Sand.

Speaking of Meno and Sand, they will likely see their former coach at the boards, as they are now coaching former U.S. Champions and 2006 Olympians Rena Inoue and John Baldwin. Inoue and Baldwin made history four years ago becoming the first pair to successfully land the throw triple axel, but last year they lost their spot on the World team to newcomers Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett.

In what is a first since ice dancing became an Olympic sport in 1976, the U.S. has three Olympic berths in ice dance but only two in ladies. Both Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto, the reigning Olympic silver medalists and World silver medalists, and Meryl Davis and Charlie White, currently the top ranked team in the world Continued on Page 20

Keiyon Tyler (left). (Photo: Courtesy John Pitas)

Mustangs Veiga-Diaz & Dittmar Go 4-0 in Saturday Dual Meet

by John Pitas

Special to the News-Press

Home sweet home. At least that’s how Manuel Veiga-Diaz and Sam Dittmar must feel. In celebration of George Mason’s first home meet of the year both wrestlers took the opportunity to display their prowess in front of the home fans this past Saturday and came away with perfect 4-0 marks.

In doing so, they led their Mustang teammates to a 3-1 dual meet mark for the day as Mason ran its season dual meet record to 7-4.

After a slow start and a first round 46-26 loss to Lee High, Mason ran off three straight victories, downing Fauquier 43-32 and Kettle Run 54-25, before finishing the day with a dramatic come from behind 35-32 victory over Mount Vernon.

In that match-up, Mason entered the final bout of the event trailing 32-29 and needed at least a major decision by 112-pound wrestler Danny Seidita to claim the team victory. Knowing what was on the line, Seidita came through with a fall at the 1:40 mark of the first period to send the Mason fans home happy and run his day’s record to 3-1 and his season mark to 13-4.

Several other Mustangs also did well, with Natan Lailari, Mikey Larcamp, Keiyon Tyler and Jackson Thomas all going 3-1 for the day. But it was Dittmar and Veiga-Diaz who stole the show.

Wrestling up at 215, Dittmar had perhaps his finest day as a Mustang wrestler, going 4-0, of which two victories were pins.

But it was the 13-8 decision that

turned the tide in the Kettle Run match and most impressed Coach Bryan Harris.

“I’ve never seen Sam look better,” said Harris, “He battled a really good kid back and forth and finally came out on top. I think he won that one on sheer determination.”

He added, “That match really got us going and the momentum it generated carried over into our match with Mt. Vernon.”

In that final match-up of the day, Dittmar capped his perfect day with a pin in the second period.

Veiga-Diaz, who is beginning to hit his stride, also went 4-0 and came up just short of a wrestler’s hat trick, having to settle for a 16-1 technical fall to go along with his 3 pins. In doing so he ran his season record to 14-3.

“Manuel improves with each match.” said Harris. “He learns something every time he steps on the mat and today he looked really comfortable and confident. I don’t think there is a 189 anywhere who is looking forward to meeting him now.”

Saturday also saw the Varsity debut of sophomore Keiyon Tyler, a summertime transfer to Mason.

Tyler ended up going 3-1 on the day and his efforts had Harris in a good mood.

This Friday and Saturday, Mason will travel to Spalding High School in Maryland for the “Cavalier Duals,” a two-day dual meet tournament which includes a number of Maryland’s top schools. The Mustangs will wrestle eight dual matches over the course of the tournament.

Page 20

January 14 - 20, 2010

Mason Swimmers Move to .500 in 1st Year in Dulles District Meets

by Alex Prewitt

Falls Church News-Press

It’s something the members of the George Mason High School varsity boys and girls swimming team have known all along: they belong in the Dulles District.

Mason’s girl’s team reeled off its second consecutive victory Friday against Loudoun County at Sterling’s Claude Moore Rec Center, returning to the form it displayed last season when the Mustangs went 12-0. Shortly after having lost back-to-back meets for the first time since Jan. 2008, coach Jon-Michael Lemon’s unit found its stroke against the Raiders, trumping host Loudoun County, a school with nearly double the students of Mason, 150-136 on the road behind 22 personal-best times.

“After having time off from competition I was really happy to see we didn’t have any type of let down,” coach Jon-Michael Lemon said. “The swimmers know that they’re in a good position to do well in this district.”

Leading the way for the Mustangs was senior captain Kelley Frank, a dual winner in the 100and 50-yard freestyle events. In the 50, Frank beat classmate and teammate Karen Hamill by .57 seconds and also bested her teammate, sophomore Leah Thirkill, in the 100-yard freestyle, winning in 1:01.77 by under two seconds.

“We have consistently been getting better since the beginning,” Frank said. “I feel like all of our hard work is coming together and week by week we’re getting stronger. This victory on Friday was great because

US Skaters Vie Continued from Page 19

and winners of the Grand Prix Final, are legitimate contenders to become America’s first Olympic ice dance gold medalists. First they have to establish who’s the best in the U.S. at Spokane.

The battle for third place will be equally tight between former World Junior Champions Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates, U.S. bronze medalists Kimberly Navarro and Brent Bommentre and reigning World Junior Champions Madison Chock and Greg

we knew it was coming.”

Frank, on the mend from bout with strep throat, also served as the third leg of the victorious 200-yard medley relay, teaming up with Hamill and sophomores Gen Jordan and Carolyn Schmitt, outdistancing Mason’s second-place “B” team by over 17 seconds. Schmitt, Thirkill, Hamill and Frank, despite falling to Loudoun’s “A” unit in the 200yard freestyle relay, still managed to qualify for states in 1:50.25.

Jordan took first in the 100-yard backstroke, improving on her seed time by three seconds to best Raiders senior Julia Strange in 1:11.42.

Jordan also swam as the second leg in the winning 400-yard freestyle relay, joining Hamill, junior Alicia Pierce and freshman Julia Estrada to win by over 12 seconds in 4:20.11.

Other winners for the Mustangs included Pierce, who took first in the 500-yard freestyle, and Schmitt, who won the 100-yard breaststroke by under five seconds in 1:18.43.

Mason’s boys’ team fell to 2-2 after losing 148-137 to the Raiders.

Junior Will Doty broke his own 100yard butterfly record via a six-second victory in 56.53. Though Doty finished 24 seconds worse than his state-qualifying seed time in the 500-yard freestyle, he still managed to win the event versus Loudoun County by over nine seconds.

Junior Sam Butler scored a pair of close wins, eking out a victory in the 50-yard freestyle by .39 seconds and taking the 100yard by six-tenths. Seven seconds separated the winning 400-yard freestyle relay team, as Butler and Doty joined sophomore Alex Val-

entino and junior Dane Warner to improve on their seed time by .03 seconds.

The Mustangs also enjoyed victories by senior captain Sam Parker in the 100-yard breaststroke, and freshman Lucas Cherry in the 100yard backstroke, who edged out Warner by 1.3 seconds in the event.

Cherry, Parker, Doty and Warner also took first in the 200-yard medley relay, and the quartet has qualified for the AA state meet.

“I was very impressed,” said Lemon, particularly noting the efforts of senior Emilio Ramos and sophomore Reid Back. “Going into the meet, Loudoun had been a competitive team in the district and I thought that we out-performed our expectations. We had some really impressive times across the board.”

Mason returned to the pool Tuesday night against former Bull Run District and single-A rival Clarke County at Signal Knob pool. Both the boys and the girls won handily n the road, the former securing a 119-59 victory while the latter won 119-51. Doty qualified for states in the 100-yard backstroke and also won the 100yard butterfly. Hamill and Frank each won two events as well.

The Mustangs’ final home meet of the season at the Dunn Loring YWCA will take place Friday versus Park View High School.

“I think we’ve handled the AA transition very well, much better than I thought we would,” Frank said. “We were ready to step up our competition, to handle the AA teams. We have just as much talent and just as much depth to match up with them.”

Zuerlein. Virginian Lauren Corry and partner Alexander Lorello will also be competing.

In the ladies, the favorites for the top two spots are probably Rachael Flatt and Ashley Wagner from Alexandria, Va., whose younger brother Austin will be competing in novice men. Wagner qualified for the Grand Prix Final (Flatt did not), finishing fourth above World silver medalist Joannie Rochette of Canada.

“I think my consistency is an advantage, but at the same time I certainly have to prove myself and Nationals,” said Flatt. “I’ve been training very well leading up to Nationals, so I’m confident in my training, but there are always ex-

terior distractions when we arrive.

I’m preparing myself for that.”

Joining them in the battle for the two U.S. berths are reigning U.S. Champion Alissa Czisny, former World Junior Champion Caroline Zhang, former U.S. Champion Mirai Nagasu and 2006 Olympian Emily Hughes, who took off the year from Harvard to focus on training. Former U.S. Champion, two-time Olympian Sasha Cohen, who announced her return to competition last summer, has said she will also be there.

“Sasha is an incredible skater,” Flatt said. “She certainly has incredible style when it comes to skating. I’m looking forward to competing against her.”

Mapping the Hoyas Ahead About this time last season Hoyas. A turnover when you’re the Georgetown Hoyas scored an averaging 100 possessions per improbable win over the UConn game, like North Carolina, doesn’t Huskies. About a month later, the matter as much. When you have Hoyas began a downward spiral 35 percent fewer possessions, each that didn’t strike bottom until a missed opportunity is a bigger deal.

It’s here that the Hoyas still have first-round ouster in the N.I.T. What made the collapse so more work to do. This season, GU’s painful was the immense potential turnover rate has increased to 22.4 last year’s Hoyas team possessed, percent. The Hoyas have faced two beating two Final Four teams teams ranked in the top 25 for steal (Villanova, UConn) one Elite Eight percentage, matchups with which roster (Syracuse) and another that you’d expect them to struggle. They did. Georgetown dropped both conreached the Sweet 16 (Memphis). tests, to Marquette That potential and Old Dominion, returned in force this season, but the last Picking Splinters combining for 31 turnovers in the two year’s scars are still By games. fresh. Even ardent Mike Hume Flash to this past supporters flinch Saturday’s game at the possibility it could happen again. So let’s take against UConn. The Huskies forced a look at how the Hoyas can avoid the Hoyas into eight first-half turnovers and raced out to a 19-point repeating recent history.

Two major factors contributed lead. Georgetown committed two to Georgetown’s undoing last sea- in the second half. The second half son — rebounding and turnovers. brought a more favorable result.

Ball control will likely be a There were times last season when the Hoyas were flat key in the days ahead, with a out allergic to the ball. Against pair of games against Villanova Pittsburgh, the Hoyas were out- and Syracuse. The Orange have rebounded 43-17. The Panthers suddenly become a roster of ball had more offensive rebounds (18) hawks, ranking second in the than Georgetown had total boards. nation in steal percentage.

Now here’s what I think are In a regular-season loss against St. John’s, Georgetown allowed 13 the two difference-making factors offensive rebounds, which helped that will lead Georgetown back to offset 19 Red Storm turnovers. the NCAA Tournament: Patience When the teams matched up again and versatility. This season, even in the Big East Tournament, the in the two losses, GU has shown Hoyas ceded 12 more offensive discipline in their offensive sets, caroms. Even the Marquette working the ball for the highest Golden Eagles outrebounded the percentage shot possible. That is the key of John Thompson III’s boys in Blue and Gray.

On the season, opponents snared offense. Without it, Georgetown an offensive rebound 36.2 per- loses the strategic advantage it cent of the time after a miss. That road to the Final Four in 2007.

Also last season, after Greg placed the Hoyas 292nd out of 344 Division I teams in that category. Monroe’s breakout game against It’s flat out tough to win games UConn, it felt like the rest of when you’re giving the opposition the team deferred to either the an opportunity for an extra shot talented center or junior forward DaJuan Summers. The result? every third time down the court.

This season GU has trimmed Monroe seemed unwilling to that figure to 29.3, the 50th best accept that burden and Summers mark in the nation. Considering wasn’t capable of stepping up the Hoyas average roughly 65 in the clutch. This season, every possessions per game, that’s 4.5 member of the Georgetown startfewer second chances for the ing five could lead the team to opposition. Cutting those points victory on any given night.

The remaining schedule is no out of the box score helps a lot.

If only they could make the cakewalk, with only five games same progress with turnovers. I’d be willing to put in the “should Georgetown lost the ball on 21.6 win” column. But there are fewer percent of possessions last season. troubling signs warning of an This was particularly problematic impending slide. And right now, in that possessions are more valu- I’ll lift a half-full glass to the able to slow-paced teams like the Hoyas’ 12-2 start.

January 14 - 20, 2010

Fairfax County Sets Public School Budget Hearings Fairfax County Public Schools announced two public hearings, Jan. 25 and 26 at 6 p.m., for the FY2011 school budget.

The hearings will be in the auditorium of Jackson Middle School (3020 Gallows Rd., Falls Church).

Residents can reserve a spot on the speakers list by signing up online or calling 571-423-1075.

Page 21

Art Reflections Contest reception at ArtSpace (410 S. Maple Ave., Falls Church) at 7 p.m.

Wednesday, Jan. 20.

The contest drew from artists ranging from preschool to fourth grade, and received 42 submissions. The theme this year was “Beauty is...” and allowed participants to interpret the theme in several categories, which included drawings, paintings, photos, litera-

ture and musical composition.

The judges panel is comprised of Shaun Van Steyn, Liz Day and gallery owner Mary O’Donnell, as well as other community notables. The reception will recognize the winners in each category. Food and beverages will be provided.

For more information, please contact Tiffany Cureau, the chair of the Art Reflections program, at 703-434-2800.

Art Reflections Contest Concludes With Reception The Falls Church Elementary School Parent–Teacher Association (PTA) is holding an

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Falls Church High Hosts Gang Awareness Seminar The Falls Church High School Parent Resource Center is hosting a gang awareness seminar in the school’s Little Theater (7521 Jaguar Trail, Falls Church) at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 20.

The presenters are Special Agent Eric Vega from the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force and Robert “Tito” Vilchez, Gang Task Force coordinator for Arlington County and the City of Falls Church. The presentation will explore the gangs active in this area, why youth participate in gangs, warning signs and available resources. The public event will be translations in Spanish and Vietnamese. Refreshments and child care will also be available.

Dr. Leila Saba, DDS Proudly Announces the Opening of Her Falls Church Office

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Creative Cauldron Guest Artist Music Series FALLS CHURCH’S JESSIE THACKERY, a key figure in the creation of Falls Church City’s independent school system, visited the kindergarten class of teacher Nan Hof on Monday, and received the honor of “Star of the Week.” Thackery, who is 96, shared stories from her childhood and her favorite book growing up, “The Perhappsey Chaps,” first published in 1918. The classroom was named in her honor last year through a fundraising campaign for the Falls Church Education Fund. (Photo: Courtesy Karen Acar)

January 15, 2010 - 8 PM Randy Barret and The Barretones

January 16, 2010 - 2 PM Hui O Ka Pua ‘Ilima January 17, 2010 - 2 PM Mpingo Clarinet Quartet

THE MARY ELLEN HENDERSON band performed their Winter Concert last Thursday in the middle school cafetorium, under the direction of teacher Connie Jenkins. (Photo: Courtesy Karen Acar)

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Page 22

The newspaper, yes the newspaper, is still America’s best portable information device.

In these complex times, newspaper newsrooms continue to produce the most trusted journalism available anywhere, thanks to teams of dedicated, professional reporters and editors. That’s why more than 100 million Americans pick up a newspaper every day. So impress your family, friends and co-workers by enjoying the most portable, easy-to-use information device available anywhere. No charger required.

January 14 - 20, 2010

Page 23

Weighty Fotos CHAW’s Fourth Annual Photography Exhibit, at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (CHAW) (545 7th St. SE, Washington, D.C.).

The exhibit runs through Feb. 4. The gallery is open Monday – Friday, 9 a.m. – 9 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. For more details, call 202-547-6839 or visit www.chaw.org.

Capitol Hill Arts Workshop is one of many small art venues around town. Small in the sense of how well it’s known around town.

Occupying the no doubt century-old B.B. French School building, the physical structure is anything but small. Inside you’ll find a dance studio/recital hall, paint studio, black box theater, art gallery, complete ceramics/pottery studio, a photography darkroom and private music instruction studios.

Now in its 30th year, CHAW’s mission is to serve both children and adults within the community.

It’s a big player in the immediate area, as opposed to other art spaces around town that reach out to the entire metro area.

CHAW hosts monthly membership art shows, much in the format of the Art League at the Torpedo Factory. Once a year they have an open call photo show, this being the fourth one.

The 16 photographers contributing the 32 photographs shown, were selected from a scant 39 entrants. We must say, considering the limited number of entrants, this is an especially strong exhibit.

That virtually every one of the 16 has at least one pithy image worth consideration is truly remarkable.

Patricia Goslee has two pieces here, both printed on aluminum plates. One, a diptych of shimmering concertina razor wire juxtaposed with shimmering light off of calm waters, the other a triptych of beach photos dealing with sand patterns at water’s edge.

At first blush, it’s easy to dismiss them both as yet another vapid compare-and-contrast photographic exploration of pattern and texture. Which is not to denigrate Goslee’s work, it’s just that virtually every photographer who

January 14 - 20, 2010

has ever lived has done some of that work.

Titles can give you hints at the artist’s intentions, but rarely does a title have such magnitude as Goslee’s razor wire and shimmering water diptych titled “Self Portrait.”

Immediately, you have to toss aside all preconceived notions of superficiality, and give this one some serious consideration. It’s also fairly unusual for an artist to take such an aggressively metaphoric stance, literally challenging the viewer to decode the visual riddle before them.

Goslee is a fairly calm and collected individual. The calm waters seem an apt metaphor for that aspect of her personality. But what to make of that menacing winding razor wire atop chain link fence?

There is a visual connection between the two in that the shimmering water reflections have a loosely winding pattern of their own. You could guess as much, but it would help to know that Goslee by her own admission tends towards the shy side of the personality spectrum. As such, the combination of razor wire and calm waters seems the perfect metaphor for a shy person.

In the end, the work is challenging, entertaining and quite informative – anything but superficial.

Leland Bryant’s power point slide show titled “Views from the Parking Lot” does seem to be a strictly superficial exposé in form and texture. Focusing up close on the texture of asphalt and the often worn paint applied over it, Bryant’s images recall abstract expressionist paintings. The one of a worn white stripe over tar drippings is especially good. The compositions here could at times be pushed a good bit further, which would take them from the excellent to the great level.

Kristoffer Tripplaar has a series of five documentary images of Galveston, dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane. “Galveston #18” features a torn up church facade and spire knocked askew. It seems to strike a wry note, saying, in effect, that this act-of-God tore up his own house.

Michael Stargill offers up another dash of humor in his “Gonzaga v. DeMatha” image of four soccer players who have all jumped in the air to head a loose ball. The ball hangs above them in mid air while every last one of them grimaces with eyes closed waiting for the ball to bonk them in the head. All of them want to hit the ball, and none of them are too wild about the personal conse-

DETAIL OF PATRICIA GOSLEE’S photograph “Self Portrait,” on display at CHAW through Feb. 4. quences if they do.

Mark Issac has two blurry black and white motion studies.

The “House” image, while ultimately inscrutable, is quite evocative. You can’t help but think that this is a dangerous, foreboding place, from which you’d be wise to run from or drive past hurriedly.

Jared Raglan offers up three of

the most complex images here, all using a digital form of photo collage. “Miss Americana” seems the weightiest of the lot.

Here we find a mid-20th century leggy snapshot of a woman with head and shoulders scratched out. Under her arm, Raglan has pasted a photo of a Thompson Submachine gun. Replacing her

head and shoulders is an image of the Capitol dome, with white stars at her feet. Sex, guns, and politics ... a portrait in American power.  The Northern Virginia Art Beat is compiled by Kevin Mellema.

See www.fcnp.com for photos and more. To e-mail submissions, send them to kevinmellema@gmail.com.

Page 24

January 14 - 20, 2010

Community Events Thursday, January 14 Rotary Presentation. Former Rotary Club district Governor George Atwell speaks about the club’s antipolio efforts worldwide. Visitors welcome. Harvest Moon Restaurant (7260 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church).

Dinner is $11. 6:30 p.m.

Friday, January 15 Yoga For Charity. 100 percent of proceeds will go toward local charities, giving a way for Falls Churchites to lend a hand and relieve some stress along the way. Every Friday till March 26.

Sacred Well Yoga Studio (450 West Broad St., Suite 320, Falls Church).

Suggested donation, $10. 6 – 7:15 p.m. 703-989-8316. www.swys.net.

Midnight Madness. 5th – 7th graders can eat, play games and hang out in a chill atmosphere with movies, tournaments and more. Falls Church Community Center (223 Little Falls St., Falls Church). $3. 7 p.m. – midnight. 703-248-5307.

‘Play On!’ Continues. Creative Cauldron presents local bluegrass band, Randy and The Barretones,

Send community event submissions to the News-Press by e-mail at calendar@fcnp. com; fax 703-532-3396; or by regular mail to 450 West Broad Street #321, Falls Church, VA 22046. Please include any photos or artwork with submissions. Deadline is Monday at noon for each week’s edition.

part of its month-long celebration of music. Falls Church ArtSpace (410 S. Maple Ave., Falls Church). $15 per adult, $10 per student. 8 p.m. www.creativecauldron.org.

Saturday, January 16 Falls Church City Farmers Market.

City Hall (300 Park Ave., Falls Church). Free. 9 a.m. – noon.

different reed instruments to create a unique musical sound.

Falls Church ArtSpace (410 S. Maple Ave., Falls Church). $10 per adult, $5 per student. 2 p.m. www. creativecauldron.org.

Monday, January 18 MLK Day Columbia Pike CleanUp. Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment head up an early spring cleaning around Arlington.

Arlington Mill Community Center (4975 Columbia Pike, Arlington).

Free to register. 10 a.m. – noon.

703-228-6406 or volunteer@ arlingtonenvironment.org.

Polynesian Dancing. McLean-based Polynesian dance troupe, Hui O Ka Pua ‘Illima, performs. Falls Church ArtSpace (410 S. Maple Ave., Falls Church). $10 per adult, $8 per student. 2 p.m. www. creativecauldron.org.

Tribute to King. Arlington County celebrates the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. The program includes a proclamation, musical performances and more. Thomas Jefferson Community Center Auditorium (3501 2nd St. S, Arlington). Free. 6 – 9 p.m.

Model Railroad Exhibition.

The Northern Virginia Model Railroaders will display a large-scale model of the Western rail in Vienna along the bike trail. W&OD Depot (231 Dominion Rd., Vienna). Free (donations accepted). 1 – 5 p.m.

703-938-5157 or www.nvmr.org.

Sunday, January 17

Wednesday, January 20

Clarinet Performance. Area quartet Mpingo utilizes a variety of

&

Dancing Extravaganza. The Boomerangs Square Dance Teaching Council invites all, regardless of

experience, to come down, grab some partners and dance. Lincolnia Center (4710 N. Chambliss St., Alexandria). Free. 7:30 – 9:30 p.m. tom.nancystafford@cox.net.

Gang Awareness. The Parent Resource Center hosts an informative seminar on identifying and combating gang activity.

Refreshments and child care provided. Falls Church High School (7521 Jaguar Trail, Falls Church).

Free. 7 p.m.

PTA Art Contest Reception. Young artists will display their 42 works, and winners of the Art Reflections Contest will be announced. Falls Church ArtSpace (410 S. Maple Ave., Falls Church). Free. 7 p.m.

Thursday, January 21 One-Year Anniversary. The Holistic Moms Network of Arlington/ Alexandria celebrate one full year with refreshments and entertainment. Musical guest, Groovy Nate. Arlington United Methodist Church (716 S. Glebe Rd., Arlington). Free & open to the public. 7 – 9 p.m. arlalexva. holisticmoms.org.

Theater Fine Arts Thursday, January 14

‘Show Boat.’ Signature Theatre’s director Eric Schaeffer presents its version of the classic musical set on the Mississippi, featuring songs such as “Make Believe,” “Bill,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ ‘Dat Man” and “Ol’ Man River.” This is the musical’s final week. Signature Theatre (4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington). Starting at $30.

Today and Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 & 8 p.m. and Sunday, 2 & 7 p.m. 703-820-9771. www. sig-online.com.

Friday, January 15

Brian Posehn. Part nerd and all comedian, Brian Posehn, known for his roles on “The Sarah Silverman Show” and “Just Shoot Me,” brings his edgy stand-up act two nights in a row. Arlington

Cinema ‘N’ Drafthouse (2903 Columbia Pike, Arlington). $22. 9:45 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 16, at 7:30 p.m. 703-486-2345.

Saturday, January 16

‘The Killers of Comedy.’ The Reverend Bob Levy and his entourage of quirky companions from the universe of shock-jock Howard Stern take the stage with their unique brand of crude, off-the-wall humor. The State Theatre (220 N. Washington St., Falls Church). $30 general admission, $50 for the Meet and Greet package.

Doors open at 9 p.m. 703-237-0300. www. thestatetheatre.com.

Sunday, January 17

‘Stick Fly.’ Things go awry on Martha’s Vineyard

in this family comedy when an African American man, Kent LeVay, brings his white girlfriend home to meet the family at their summer home. The Chicago Tribune called “Stick Fly,” “an impressively ambitious play.” Arena Stage in Crystal City (1800 S Bell St., Arlington).

Tickets range from $50 – 55. 2 & 7:30 p.m. 202488.3300. www.arenastage.org.

‘Will Success Spoil Rocker Hunter?’ American Century Theater presents a modern adaption of Faust, the classic German tale of a man who sells his soul to the devil for success and happiness.

In this modern reinvention, the setting is 1950s Hollywood. Gunston Arts Center (2700 S. Lang St., Arlington). 2:30 p.m. The 8 p.m. performance on Thursday, Jan. 21, includes an after-show talk with the cast. 703-998-4555. www.americancentury.org.

January 14 - 20, 2010

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live_music&nightlife THURSDAY, January 14 Cracker & Camper Van Beethoven.

9:30 Club (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $10 – 20. 7 p.m. 202-265-0930.

Mid-Atlantic Band Battle II. Various bands from the East Coast compete.

Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $10. 7:30 p.m. 703-255-1566.

Dean Fields. With David Shultz and The Skyline. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $12. 9 p.m.

703-522-8340.

Joan as Police Woman. With Carol Bui. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $12. 9 p.m. 202667-4490.

Friday, January 15 Tony Doggett. Bangkok Blues (926 W. Broad St., Falls Church). $7, includes later show. 7 p.m. 703-534-0095.

Eddie From Ohio. With The Honey Dewdrops. Birchmere Music Hall (3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria). $35. 7:30 p.m. Also performs on Saturday, same time & price, with Jake Armerding. 703-549-7500.

My Favorite Highway. With Chelsea Lee. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $15. 6 p.m. Repeat performance Saturday, Jan. 16. 703255-1566.

The Junior League Band & Justin Jones and The Driving Rain. With Luke Brindley. 9:30 Club (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $10 – 15. 8 p.m. 202-265-0930.

The Smithereens. The State Theatre (220 N. Washington St., Falls Church). $20. 9 p.m. 703-237-0300.

MN8 Presents King Chango. With Nayas, The Sessions. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $15 in advance, $18 at door. 9 p.m. 202667-4490.

Movits. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $12. 9 p.m.

703-522-8340.

Outta Scope. Bangkok Blues (926 W. Broad St., Falls Church). $7, includes earlier show. 10 p.m. 703-534-0095.

Sonos. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $15. 10 p.m. 703-2551566.

Timbaland. With Honor Society. 9:30 Club (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $10 – 35. 7:30 p.m. 202-2650930.

Brian Fallon. With Dave Hause. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $15. 9 p.m. 202-667-4490.

The Iternals. With I and I Vibrations.

Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $10. 9 p.m. 703522-8340.

Focus. Bangkok Blues (926 W. Broad St., Falls Church). $7, includes earlier show. 10 p.m. 703-534-0095.

John Eddie. With Dreaming of Eden, Redshift. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $18. 9:30 p.m. 703255-1566.

Blowoff. DJs Bob Mould and Richard Morel. 9:30 Club (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $10 – 12. 11:30 p.m. 202-265-0930.

SUNDAY, January 17

SATURDAY, January 16 Real Diamond. Tribute band to Neil Diamond. The State Theatre (220 N. Washington St., Falls Church). $15.

5:30 p.m. 703-237-0300.

Ron Kronz and Traffic Jam. Bangkok Blues (926 W. Broad St., Falls Church). $7, includes later show. 7 p.m. 703-534-0095.

Hungry for Roots Rock. Benefit concert for charity Hungry for Music, with Memphis 59, Jon Carroll, Billy Coulter and a surprise guest.

Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $12. 7 p.m. 703-255-1566.

Blues Jam. With Hot Rods and Old Gas and Hot Roddess Lisa Lim. Bang-

kok Blues (926 W. Broad St., Falls Church). Free. 6 p.m. 703-534-0095.

Joe Pernice. With John Cunningham.

Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $15. 8:30 p.m. 703522-8340.

Reaction 2010. Ages 21+. 9:30 Club (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $10 – 35. 10 p.m. 202-265-0930.

Monday, January 18 Punk Bunny. With Black Barbie, Bleak End at Bernie’s. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $8. 8:30 p.m. 202-667-4490.

Vetiver. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $15. 8:30 p.m.

703-522-8340.

Tuesday, January 19 The Cribs. With Adam Green, The Dead Trees. 9:30 Club (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $10 – 20. 7 p.m.

202-265-0930.

Chris Merritt. With Gills and Wings, Greg Holden, Ian Axel. Seated show.

Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $13. 7 p.m. 703-255-1566.

Little Pink. With John Lilly, Stella Schindler. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $12. 8 p.m.

703-522-8340.

Planning Ahead...

N

ot for the faint of heart, but Saturday’s show at the State Theatre promises to be a memorable one. The Killers of Comedy, the self-proclaimed “group of poorly adjusted and crude, yet hilarious, comedians,” are coming to town. The group, led by the Reverend Bob Levy, is a motley crew comprised of regular guests of The Howard Stern Show touring the country with their absurd brand of comedy. Saturday’s show at the State will feature Bob Levy, Yucko the Clown, Beetlejuice and the Iron Sheik. Die hard fans, check it out: a Meet & Greet ticket gets you early admittance, a signed copy of the tourbook and 30 minutes of hanging out with the Wack Packers. While this unique performance isn’t for everybody, fans of Stern and, I’m betting more than a few others, will thoroughly enjoy the experience.

What: The Killers of Comedy When: Saturday, January 16, 2010, 9 p.m.

Where: The State Theatre, 220 N. Washington St., Falls Church, VA See thestatetheatre.com for tickets and more info

Sunday, Jan. 24 – 2010 Relay For Life Kick-Off. Last year, hundreds of area citizens gathered to fight cancer by spreading awareness and raising funds. Relay For Life returns to Falls Church, and invites new and old members to learn more about the cancer research fundraiser’s goals in 2010, which will run May 22 – 23. Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School (7134 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church). Free. 2:30 – 4 p.m. www.fallschurchrelay.org.

Saturday, Jan. 30 – The Legwarmers. Metro D.C.’s most popular 80s retro dance party returns to Falls Church. Their performances usually sell out to crowds of fans across the material generations. Ages 21+. The State Theatre (220 N. Washington St., Falls Church).

Doors open at 8 p.m., with the performance at 9 p.m. $16. www.thestatetheatre.com.

Calendar Submissions Be sure to include time, location, cost of admission, contact person and any other pertinent information.

Event listings will be edited for content and space limitations. Please include any photos or artwork with submissions. Deadline is Monday at noon for the current week’s edition.

Email: calendar@fcnp.com Fax: 703-342-0347; Attn: FCNP Calendar Mail: 450 West Broad Street, #321, Falls Church, VA 22046

January 14 - 20, 2010

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Jan

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Jars of Clay Birchmere 7:30 p.m.

3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria 703-549-7500 • birchmere.com

Dean Fields Iota Club & Café 9 p.m.

2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington

703-522-8340 • iotaclubandcafe.com

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Smithereens State Theatre 9 p.m.

220 N. Washington St., Falls Church 703-237-0300 • thestatetheatre.com

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My Favorite

by Mike Hume

Falls Church News-Press

If you want a fun new way to try to count to 100, try singling out the individual instrumental sounds on Freelance Whales’ debut album.

Admitted “hoarders” of interesting instruments, nearly every song on the Queens, New Yorkbased band’s freshman effort, Weathervanes, due out March 16, is awash in a plethora of sounds.

As the 13-track album progresses, you can pick out a few of the more common — the synthesizers, guitars, drums, bass — and maybe a trained ear can even finger a few of the more exotic — a glockenspiel, harmonium and waterphone. But every once in a while something foreign strikes your ear, something indescribable, something you could probably only label with one word: “Wonderful.”

On Tuesday, the fledgling band that formed via Craigslist in 2008 packed up the musical arsenal and is heading west to a show in Cleveland. To hear the wide array of instruments packed into Weathervanes, it’s amazing the fivesome, consisting of Judah Dadone, Kevin Read, Doris Cellar, Jake Hyman and Chuck Criss, has any room to move around the vehicle.

“It’s a pretty big inventory, but we somehow managed to fit it in without a trailer,” Dadone says.

Apparently the band is as adept at handling the musical arsenal in the tour van as it is on their album.

All fans of the minimalist movement, Dadone and his bandmates stitch together a lyrical narrative chronicling a boy’s romance with a female phantasm using a variety of

Freelance Whales (Photo: Courtesy Tell All Your Friends PR) genres and a full palate of sounds from their musical menagerie. It’s the overall cohesiveness of the album when taken as a whole that is so captivating. It’s a kind of musical pointillism. Listen closely and you’ll appreciate the thoughtful details. Step back, and you’ll be wowed by the collective beauty.

“A lot of these songs were born out of little parts,” Dadone says. “Short, little interactive rythmic parts, quick polyrhythms and little melodies. We’ll start with one instrument, then we’ll have our other instruments set up in our rehearsal room and once someone else has an idea that complements the first, they’ll go over to another instrument and add to it. Everything’s just set up and ready to go and people just bop around to whatever they feel like playing.”

The constant dabbling with different instru-

Highway Jammin’ Java 6 p.m.

This week, News-Press staffers had seconds of these singles:

227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna



Nicholas Benton- Reason to Believe by Rod Stewart

703-255-1566 • jamminjava.com



Jody Fellows- On the Bus Mall by The Decemberists



Natalie Bedell- The Way We Were by Barbara Streisand 

Dean Edwards- Human by Goldfrapp

ments performs two helpful functions for the group. For one, Dadone is not technically trained on any instrument, actually making it easier for him to piece together several simple arrangements than to compose a song in its entirety on piano or guitar. But Dadone says the experimentation also keeps the band’s creative process fresh.

“It’s part of our philosophy that if you approach the process differently from song to song, they’ll end up sounding differently. And we like having songs that sound different and complement one another in different ways,” Dadone says.

However, one thing that particular approach complicates is the job of categorizing Freelance Whales’ sound. You’ll get hints of everything from Paul Simon to Sufjan Stevens to Postal Service. What you won’t get is much direction in defining the band’s sound from Dadone.

“People sometimes say post-folk.

Sometimes we say it’s experimental pop music.

Sometimes we just describe the instruments that are used,” Dadone says. “If you asked us to describe our music, we would try not to. We’d rather just play the songs.”

Fans in the D.C. area will get the opportunity to piece together their own descriptions by attending the group’s performance Jan. 21, Backstage at the Black Cat. I’d bring a thesaurus.

• For more on Freelance Whales, visit www. myspace.com/freelancewhales.

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Also weekdays: Free Wi-Fi Try a Bahn Mi sandwich on a fresh baguette! at selected locations and a new Senior Menu!

Four years later, and nothing has changed.

Only $2.50 to $3.00 per sandwich, MANY OF WASHINGTON'S 7700 Wisconsin Ave. 12224 Rockville Pike BEST RESTAURANTS Boasting a solid four-out-of five-star rating based onCenter more locations: at the following Eden 1201 S. Joyce St. Bethesda, MD Rockville, MD WASHINGTONIAN MAGAZINE AND than 100 Yelp.com reviewers, Bangkok 54 definitely isn’t lack301-986-0285 301-468-0886 WASHINGTON POST REVIEWED ing any buzz among local diners, or trendy ambiance for that matter. From flower-shaped garnishes carved out of carrots to coconut shells-turned-ice cream bowls, it’s no wonder the local establishment, dripping in red walls and lush décor, is sparking Authentic Afghan Cuisine Call for Reservations conversation.

An admitted favorite, the Stir-fried Spicy Eggplant doesn’t 124 N. Lunch: 11 am-2:00 pm skip a beat with its colorful offering of green peppers, onions, Washington St. Dinner : 5 pm-10 pm Falls Church, VA chillies sweetonbasil, 105 W. Broad St.• Falls Church, VA 22046 fried-to-perfection purple eggplant, Tryred a Bahn Mi and sandwich a fresh baguette!

By the intersections Sunday 5-10 • all tossed in a spicy black bean sauce.Only One$2.50 of eight hot-wok to $3.00 per sandwich, of Rt. 7 & 29 specialties, this and others can be paired with chicken, pork, Free Parking in Rear at the following Eden Center locations: Phone: (703) 536-4566 beef or tofu for $9.95, shrimp for $12.95 or a seafood combo (703) 534-1033 924 W. Broad Street Falls Church, VA 22046 for $14.95. Served up with a side of white rice, the hearty helping packs enough flavor to satisfy anyone’s Thai craving two times over.

Another standout is Bangkok 54’s Butternut Squash Red Curry ($15.95). Jumbo shrimp, simmered in a southern classic curry, come served with mixed greens, brown rice and crunchy cashews. Lest we not forget the headliner ingredient here. Known for its nutty, pumpkin-like taste, the butternut squash is an Restaurant & Lounge absolutely genius pairing with the spicy red curry, which lends a creaminess to the shrimp that echoes the smooth texture diners taste in the squash slices — aesthetically placed in a circular frame around Call for Reservations the seaside treat.

1/2 OFF ENTREE Though normally wary of over-the-top food displays, which only begs this writer to see a lively www.theharvestmoonrestaurant.com Buy One Entree, Get A 2nd Of Equal Or Lesser Value 1/2 OFF. distraction from potentially lackluster flavor, one of the most impressive things about Bangkok 54 is 105 W. Broad St. Falls Church, VA 22046 (Graham Center across from Loehmann’s Plaza) One coupon per party. Not valid with any other offer.

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The show kicks off with an opening act of Spring Rolls ($3.95 for 2) — arriving stood up in a chic BISTRO martini glass atop a bed of carrots julienne, with sweet chili dipping sauce resting in the bottom — and des Célestins closes with equally-sweet encore of Young Coconut Ice Cream ($6.50). The frozen treat, topped with a sprinkling of shredded coconut mixed into a touch of coconut milk, comes stuffed inside an actual coconut shell for a little something extra.

CA F È And if that creativity isn’t enough to put a smile on diners’ faces, maybe Bangkok 54’s happy hour Tel: (703) 538-3033 will. Each weekday, from 4 – 6:30 p.m., patrons can save 50 percent off their cocktail tab and choose Fax: (703) 573-0409 from an array of low-priced (starting at $4) appetizers. Lounge reservations for dinner or events are also 6876 Lee Highway available.

Arlington, Virginia 22213 Easily topping the list of quality Thai food up for grabs in this area, Bangkok 54 knows how to please www.lacotedorcafe.com locals’ palates.

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January 14 - 20, 2010

Poker Players Give Back Annie Duke showed that professional poker players have heart when it comes to raising money for charity. In last season’s Celebrity Apprentice which she won – okay, she finished second to Joan Rivers – Annie raised about $500,000 in charitable contributions from the poker world. Way to go, Annie!

In that same spirit, I hosted and/ or emceed four charity tournaments in a single week last month. In Montreal for an event benefiting the Starlight Foundation, we raised over $250,000 for children in need.

Then, in Manhattan, I helped emcee Roy “The Oracle” Winston’s charity event on Wall Street. The next night, at an event in Philadelphia, we raised $1 million in one night for the Children’s Hospital.

Finally, I was joined by twenty other pro poker players and a slew of big-name celebrities for a weekend of poker and golf in Phoenix to benefit the Fallen Officers Foundation.

We raised about $500,000 for this

organization that supports families of officers killed in the line of duty (www.holdemforheroes.com).

Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari won the main event in Phoenix and fellow poker pro Jeff Madsen finished second.

Then came the so-called Winners Tournament where the top two finishers in each of the four charity events and I squared off for a $10,000 seat at the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event.

Blinds were $100/$200 when I opened for $600 with 6-6 from early position. Jeff Madsen, sitting directly to my left, called with A-A. The flop came 7-7-6. Bingo! I checked and so did Jeff.

A deuce hit on the turn and I bet $800. Madsen called.

A ten popped off on the river and I tossed in $1,200. Jeff studied the situation. Even though he recognized that I only had $2,200 left, he just called.

I told Jeff that he played the hand masterfully, managing to lose only the absolute minimum.

Let’s break this hand down.

My opening $600 raise was standard however Madsen’s smooth pre-flop call with pocket aces was a very advanced play. He was attempting to trap one of the players behind him – including me.

I like Jeff’s play, especially because the table was filled with aggressive players. Jeff reasonably expected that one player would reraise or at least overplay his hand after the flop.

My check on the flop was just okay. A bet might have been better as everyone seems to expect a continuation bet these days. As it turns out, my check probably revealed some of my strength to Jeff.

Madsen’s check behind me on the flop was solid. He checked for the same reason I did on the flop; he was trying to trap. His check was designed both to signal weakness and tempt me to bet on the turn with a weak hand, or even bluff.

On the turn, I like my smallish $800 bet. I was trying to make it easy for Jeff to call with a hand like A-Q, or even give him a chance to attempt a bluff.

His smooth call on the turn was a good play. He probably thought he had the best hand and that I may have been bluffing.

My $1,200 bet on the river was decent. How could I know that he had an overpair and that he’d only call with A-A? My bet was designed to get maximum value for my full house.

Madsen’s smooth call on the river was great but I’d never recommend that sort of play unless you’ve got an unbelievable read on your opponent. Obviously, Madsen had that kind of read on me.

An all-in raise was the standard move for a player in Jeff’s position, especially considering that I only had $2,200 remaining. I definitely prefer the all-in move unless you possess Jeff Madsenlike reading skills!  Learn more about Phil Hellmuth at www.PhilHellmuth. com and www.PokerBrat.com. . © 2009 Card Shark Media. All rights reserved.

January 14 - 20, 2010

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ACROSS 1. Long arm?

6. Verdi classic 10. Dud 14. Best imaginable 15. Potential atty.’s exam 16. Carpet calculation 17. 1970 Joni Mitchell song, with “The” 19. Beatty and Kelly 20. Virgil epic 21. Expedition’s cry at the top of a mountain 23. Tone-____ 25. Gush 26. Modern navig. tool 29. Wine glass part 31. Seer 35. Wife of Jacob 37. Alternative to Israir 39. Got a good look 40. Prefix with sphere 41. Deep-____ (threw away) 43. The triple in a triple play 44. Shaggy’s dog, to Shaggy 46. Home (in on) 47. Hawaii’s state bird 48. Lather 50. “What did I ever ____ you?”

52. Spain’s Costa del ____ 53. Neatnik’s opposite 55. Desires 57. Eater’s digest?

61. ____ Tomb 65. Hyatt alternative

THE QUIGMANS

(1960 Burl Ives movie) 34. 1957 Detroit debut 36. Dress for Scarlett O’Hara 38. Painter Neiman 42. “I’m all ears” 45. Light source 49. Not skilled in 51. What a recipe for steak tartare usually calls for 54. Capital city whose name means “wooded” in French 56. Motorist’s headache 57. Extension ____ 58. 1847 Melville novel 59. ____ empty stomach 60. Heal 62. Logical introduction?

63. Takes home 64. Sp. spouses 67. Verizon forerunner

66. Gang boss ... or what 17-Across, 10-Down and 36-Down each have 68. Serengeti sound 69. “____ stands ...”

70. “On the Record” host Van Susteren 71. “Cut it out!”

72. French noodle?

73. Lip cover Down 1. Costa ____ 2. Romeo’s last words 3. Nonflowering plant 4. Ripped (into) 5. Prestigious magazine awards 6. High school math subj.

7. “The First Time Ever ____ Your Face” 8. Matriarchs 9. At the original speed, on a score 10. It’s jumped on by followers 11. Willie ____, the “Jackie Robinson of the NHL” 12. Prefix with care 13. Rope fiber 18. Match.com meetings 22. Prefix with nautical 24. “____ Navidad!”

26. It may be stained 27. San Diego’s ____ Park 28. Margaret Mead study site 30. At the limit, with “out” 32. This puzzle has 78 of them 33. “____ Man Write My Epitaph”

Last Thursday’s Solution T A R P

A G U A

U P I N

N O L A

J I B S

K O A L A

J E E R A G S A N Z I E T M H A I N M A O G M E

G A D D A F I T I D E

O L A N A N D R E I L E R M I C O E T H E Y G A D H A E E T T A S O T T E R L I B Y A S A L U S Q A R O S J A R A F Y O D D M P D I I M P A L A E V E N I F I R A N I

N O T I F

A M I C I

P A S S

T U T U

O R A L

W I R E

D R A M

D O L E

Y E A R

Buddy Hickerson

6. Verdi classic 10. Dud 14. Best imaginable 15. Potential atty.'s exam 16. Carpet calculation

Level: 1

2

3 4

17. 1970 Joni Mitchell song, with "The" 19. Beatty and Kelly 20. Virgil epic 21. Expedition's cry at the top of a mountain 23. Tone-____ 25. Gush 26. Modern navig. tool 29. Wine glass part 31. Seer 35. Wife of Jacob 37. Alternative to Israir NICK KNACK

SOLUTION TO LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE

1/17/10

Complete the grid so each row, column and 3-by-3 box (in bold borders) contains every digit, 1 to 9.

For strategies on how to solve Sudoku, visit www.sudoku.org.uk

© 2010 N.F. Benton

© 2010 The Mepham Group. Distributed by Tribune Media Services. All rights reserved.

Page 34

January 14 - 20, 2010

News-Press Classifieds For Rent

Public Notice

3 BR APARTMENT in Fall Church City

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING CITY OF FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

condo community. $1,500 plus utilities. Call 703 517 0115.

OFFICE FOR SUBLEASE, Lee High-

way & Glebe Road, available for professional. Privacy plus use of conference area.

One year lease; then month to month. Call Pete Corbino or Ray Shea: 703-522-1661.

SFH TYSON’S CORNER, 3BR, 3BA, walkout basement, hot tub, next to park, convenient location, freshly painted, new carpet. 1900/month 703-894-7601

Services CHILD CARE Experienced childcare provider provides quality care for your infant in F.C. home. (703) 241-0605.

CHILD CARE: EXPERIENCED College-educated nanny, CPR/First Aid certified, provides quality and loving care for your infant. Excellent references. Contact 703-533-0703 DOG SITTING in my home. Reasonable rates. Excellent references Call 703-577-1734 HOUSE CLEANING SERVICE Avail-

able 7 days a week. Week, biweekly, monthly or one time. Good references in Falls Church City. 10 years experience. For further information call me at 703-901-0596.

Senior discount, Ask: Susy.

Resolution (TR10-09) was given first reading by City Council on January 11, 2010.

Ordinances (TO10-03) and (TO10-04) were given first reading by City Council at the continuation of its meeting on Tuesday, January 12, 2010. All three items were referred to the Planning Commission for recommendations. The Planning Commission will hold public hearings on Monday, February 1, 2010 at 7:45 p.m. in Council Chambers on all three items, as follows.

(TR10-09) Resolution To Grant A Special Exception For Residential Development Within Mixed Use Projects Under Section 48-90 In A B-2, Central Business District On .64 Acres Of Land Located At 350 South Washington Street (Sue Cotellessa, GM Development Services) [FCHC Wilden] (TO10-03) Ordinance To Amend Chapter 48, Zoning, Of The Code Of The City Of Falls Church, Virginia, By Adding A New Section 48-455(3), Special Exceptions In The B-1, Limited Business District; Section 48-488(4), Special Exceptions In The B-2, Central Business District; And Section 48-523(3), Special Exceptions In The B-3, General Business District Uses; In Order To Allow By Special Exception, With Approval Criteria, Modifications To The Off-Street Parking And Loading Requirements. (Sue Cotellessa, GM Development Services) (TO10-04) Ordinance To Amend Chapter 48, Zoning, Of The Code Of The City Of Falls Church, Virginia, By Adding A New Section 48-1142(F) In Order To Provide For An Administrative Site Plan Amendment Process To Allow The Planning Director To Permit, With Approval Criteria, The Construction Or Modification Of A Patio Or Attached Open Deck Or Porch In Site Planned Communities Where Such Features Were Not Shown On The Approved Site Plan. (Sue Cotellessa, GM Development Services)

Request For Proposals (RFP) RFP No. 0105-10-FRS Water and Wastewater Financial Rate Study City Of Falls Church, Virginia Sealed proposals will be accepted by the City of Falls Church at the Purchasing Office, 300 Park Ave., Room 300E, Falls Church, VA 22046 for the provision of financial consulting services for a Water And Wastewater Rate Study.

Due date for the receipt of proposals: February 11, 2010 by 11:00 AM. All proposals must meet the requirements in the RFP which may be downloaded from the City of Falls Church’s website: http:// www.fallschurchva.gov; Purchasing and Procurement link. In addition, a copy of the RFP may be accessed via eVA, the Commonwealth of Virginia’s electronic procurement portal for registered suppliers: http://eva.virginia.gov.

For more information regarding this RFP contact: Faye Smith, Purchasing Manager; (703) 248-5007; fsmith@fallschurchva.gov.

To request a reasonable accommodation for any type of disability call 703 248-5007, (TTY 711).

Request For Proposals (RFP) RFP No. 0111-10-IAS Independent Audit Services City Of Falls Church, Virginia Sealed proposals will be accepted by the City of Falls Church at the Purchasing Office, 300 Park Ave., Room 300E, Falls Church, VA 22046 for the provision of Independent Audit Services for the City.

Due date for the receipt of proposals: Feb-

ruary 16, 2010 by 11:00 AM. We are pleged to the letter and spirit of Virginia’s policy for All proposals must meet the requirements achieving equal housing opporin the RFP which may be downloaded from tunity throughout the the City of Falls Church’s website: http:// Commonwealth. We encourage www.fallschurchva.gov; Purchasing and Procurement link. In addition, a copy of and support advertising and the RFP may be accessed via eVA, the marketing programs in which Commonwealth of Virginia’s electronic there are no barriers to obtainprocurement portal for registered suppliers: ing housing because of race, http://eva.virginia.gov. color, religion, national origin, All public hearings will be held in the Council Chambers, 300 Park Avenue, Falls Church, sex, elderliness, familial status For more information regarding this RFP Virginia. For copies of legislation, contact or handicap. contact: Faye Smith, Purchasing Manager; the Planning Division (703-248-5043). (703) 248-5007; fsmith@fallschurchva.gov.

All real estate advertised herein The City of Falls Church is committed to To request a reasonable accommodation is subject to Virginia’s fair the letter and spirit of the Americans with for any type of disability call 703 248-5007, housing law which makes it Disabilities Act. To request a reasonable (TTY 711). illegal to advertise “any preferaccommodation for any type of disability, call 703 248-5013 (TTY 711). ence, limitation, or discrimina- 127093 CLNTS 1 B/W 22:03 1/15/02 WV

tion because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, elderliness, familial status or handicap or intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination.”

This newspaper will not knowingly accept advertising for real estate that violates the fair housing law. Our readers are herby informed that all dwellings advertised in this newspaper are available on an equal opportunity basis. For more information or to file a housing complaint call the Virginia Fair Housing Office at WHAT A CHILD LEARNS (804) 367-8530. Toll free call ABOUT VIOLENCE (888) 551-3247. For the hearA CHILD LEARNS FOR LIFE. ing impaired call (804) 367Teach carefully. We can show you how.

9753.

Email: Call 877-ACT-WISE for a free brochure or visit www.actagainstviolence.org. fairhousing@dpor.virginia.gov.

Web site: www.fairhousing.vipnet.org

The News-Press Classifieds

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Please include payment (check or money order) with your ad or call us to arrange payment by credit card.

For public & legal notices, please e-mail legalads@fcnp.com

The Falls Church News-Press accepts no financial responsibility for typographical errors in advertisements. Advertising which has minor discrepancies such as misspelling or small type transposition, but which do not affect the ability of the reader to respond to the ad will be considered substantially correct and full payment is required. The Falls Church NewsPress is not responsible if the original copy is not typewritten or legible and clear. The Falls Church News-Press is not responsible for copy changes made by telephone.

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Page 35

Professional Services

Home Improvement

on-site computer repair

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Family Ophthalmology Exams, Glasses Prescription Medicare provider John Karickhoff, M.D. Board Certified 313 Park Ave Falls Church (703) 536-2400

Power Washing • Carpentry Wall Paper Removal & Installation Drywall Finishing • Tile Ceramic Deck • Fences • Housekeeping Services Great References Great Prices Quality Service

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www.novahandyman.com One of the Oldest Masonry Companies in NOVA

Local brick n’ stone mason installing patios, walkways, Masonry steps, chimneys, etc. SpecializSpecialist, LLC ingFor in All repairs.

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TAX ACCOUNTANT – IRS ENROLLED AGENT

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Gabriel Lawn Service Leaf removal • Tree S er vice Free Estimates

703-691-2351

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Cell: (202) 352-1429 Office: (703) 312-0032 In the City of Falls Church: 703-992-9255

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SAM'S CATERING Providing food for you and your guests up to 50 (home or office). Chef Sam preprares Persian, Afghani, Mediterranean, and American foods for your party.

Government contract law, health law, civil litigation, and all areas of business law.

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Mike’s Carpet Cleaning

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www.bpmlawyers.com

In the City of Falls Church: Phone # 703-848-8322 400 S. Maple Number 703-901-2431 6404-N SEVEN CORNERS PLACE FALLS CHURCHCell VA 22044 703-992-9255 In D.C.: 202-416-1660

RE/MAX Allegiance 5100 Leesburg Pike, Suite 200 Alexandria, VA 22302 mobile. 703-868-5999 office. 703-824-4800 ShaunMurphy@remax.net

JOSEPH HOME IMPROVEMENT Drywall • Paint Exterior / Interior, Bath & Kitchen Remodeling, Basements, Handyman, Moving, Clean Garage, All kinds of hauling

Food & Dining

SERVING, VA AND Interior & Exterior Painting THE DC METRO AREA In The Plumbing Biz YASMEEN HASSAN JONES Plastering & Drywall Repairs Beats TheACCOUNTANT Wiz! 703-268-4228 NobodayPRINCIPAL Wall Paper Removal 804-428-2907 THEWIZLLC@YAHOO.COM

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Page 36

January 14 - 20, 2010

BACK IN THE DAY laz y The dog. c k q u i fox sly p e d jum e r o v lazy the g . d o is Now time the all for o d g o to cows

15 s Yearo g A

to come aid the ir of there. pa stu is Now e the timall for o d g o to cows to come aid the ir of there. pa stu

10 & 15 Years Ago Falls Church News-Press Vol lV, No. 44 • January 19, 1995

‘Mayor Tarbert Bullish on Business In Speech to Chamber of Commerce’ “Falls Church Mayor Jeff Tarbert presented an optimistic picture of his city’s business development future and its government’s willingness to work with business in a gutsy talk before the largest turnout at a Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce luncheon in recent years at the Red Lobster restaurant Tuesday. Tarbert spoke at the meeting in the context of having publicly challenged last week the Chamber’s position favoring Gov. Allen’s...”

Helen Thomas Continued from Page 12

policy in the region.

Grievances of the Arab man on the street include bitter criticism of the U.S. for supporting harsh authoritarian regimes in the Arab world and the failure of those U.S.-backed regimes to help the Palestinians in Gaza.

Surely after several years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can dispense with the obfuscation

Continued from Page 2

So many memories and moments flooded my mind, all of them made by the wonderful parents and precious children that attended there from 19711988. We didn’t have a yellow brick road but we did have a

in the

News-Press

Falls Church News-Press Vol IX, No. 45 • January 20, 2000

It is no the timw e for g o all o cows d to go to the aid of the pa stu ir re. *** **

10 Year s Ago

Thro w it up.

Pour it up It now is the time for all go od cows to go to the aid

‘CBC Bares 3 Council Candidates Column Reveals Verbal Commitments to Run From 3 New Hopefuls’ “For the first time in the lead-up to this May’s Falls Church City Council election, some names of interested candidates have been committed to print. In this week’s Citizen’s for a Better City (CBC) column in the News-Press (see Page 6), author Phil Duncan identifies three citizens who will, if they wind up on the ballot, be seeking their first elective office in Falls Church. The column also mentions...”

and evasion that flood forth from official U.S. megaphones.

Terrorism spawned in the Middle East is not the only threat we face.

As the American economy digs out from the debris of the Great Recession triggered by the collapse of the housing bubble, we should think about what could happen about another bubble that invisibly chugs through the American economy.

I refer to our bloated defense spending.

The United States spends more black circular driveway that was magical. There was an aura about Valleybrook that I cannot put into words, but if you were there you knew what it was.

Last but not least was the staff of Valleybrook, all exceptional people. My love, gratitude and thanks go out to all the wonderful, special people who made Valleybrook the rare place that it was. I pray that it will live on in your hearts as it will in mine.

Bill Lucas Via the Internet

for its arsenal than any other 10 countries combined. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. accounts for more than 40 percent of the world’s total military spending. China is in second place, at a relatively puny 5.8 percent.

If the U.S. defense spending bubble were ever to deflate, domestic job losses would be catastrophic, a stunning fact that raises the question of whether we can ever afford peace.

The American people have long shown they can handle the truth. When it comes to the Middle East and to threats to our economy, so should our leaders.

FCNP.COM Get your fix.

Anytime.

Anywhere.

Meeting Santa was at the top of Koko and Ginger’s wish lists. They dreamed of getting meaty bones and bouncy balls under the tree. These two little helper elves are Koko, the Rottweiler and Ginger, the Catahoula. Koko wanted to be the one on Santa’s lap, but he declined that wish. Koko was the answer to her owner, Janice Adams’ prayer of owning a gorgeous Rottweiler. Adams adopted Ginger from the Humane Society.

Since then, the two have became lifelong pals and Adams’ best friends. Ginger is on YouTube under “Ginger Sings Superman.”

Look her up and watch as she sings to the theme song!

@ FCNP For the Best Updates on Falls Church, D.C. and Northern Virginia

Make Your Pet a Star!

Our Patients Make Us Smile Call Today to Make An Appointment

Just because you’re not famous doesn’t mean your pet can’t be!

Snap a pic of your critter and email it to:

New Smiles Always Welcome 200 Little Falls Street, Suite 506 Falls Church, VA

703.532.3300

www.DoughertyDDS.com

CRITTERCORNER@FCNP.COM OR mail it to Critter Corner c/o Falls Church News-Press 450 W. Broad Street #321

Critter

Falls Church, Va 22046

Corner

January 14 - 20, 2010

n

n

n

n

n

n n n

Page 37

Accounting

Diener & Associates, CPA. . . . . . . . . 241-8807 Eric C. Johnson, CPA, PC . . . . . . . . 538-2394 Mark Sullivan, CPA . . . . . . . . . . . 571-214-4511 Hassans Accounting & Tax Services . 241-7771 Hahn & Associates, PC, CPAs . . . . . 533-3777

ANTIQUES & cOLLECTIBLES

n

Catering

n

Cleaning Services

Sam’s Catering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580-7511 Pressure Washing/Deck, Siding . . . . 980-0225 Affordable Carpet Resoration . . . . . . 978-2270 Maid Brigade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823-1922 Carpets, Ducts, Windows . . . . . . . . . 823-1922

n

Computer services

Attorneys

n

Counseling

Automotive

n

Dentists

Falls Church Antique Company . . . . 241-7074 Antique Annex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241-9642 Mark F. Werblood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534-9300 Janine S. Benton, Esq. . . . . . . . . . . . .992-9255 Beyer Volvo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-5000 Integrity Tire & Auto Repair . . . . . . . . 639-0700

banking

n

Burke & Herbert Bank & Trust Co. . . 519-1634 BB&T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241-3505 TD Bank/www.TDBank.com . . . . . . . 237-2051 Acacia Federal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506-8100

book Binding

BCR Binders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534-9181

BUSINESS SERVICES

Jon Rizalvo, PAYCHEX . . . . . 698-6910 x27045

chiropractor

Dr. Solano, solanospine.com . . . . . . 536-4366

n

health & FItness

n

medical

n

home care

n

Music

n

home improvement

Fast-teks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496-7807 Carol S. Miller, LCSW . . . . . . . . . . . . 395-4980 Josette Millman, APRN . . . . . . . . . . . 855-0396 Dr. William Dougherty . . . . . . . . . . . . 532-3300 Dr. Nimisha V. Patel . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533-1733

Equipment REntal/Sale

VA Outdoor Power Equipment . . . . . 207-2000 Ace Tool & Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . 532-5600

n

Eyewear

n

FLorists

n

FRames

n

Gifts

Point of View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-6500

n n

n

Falls Church Florist, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . 533-1333 Art & Frame of Falls Church . . . . . . . 534-4202

n

Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536-0140 Sacred Well Yoga and Healing . . . . . 989-8316 Human Touch Home Health . . . . . . . 531-0540 Joseph Home Improvement . . . . . . . 507-5005 Ram Home Improvement . . . . . . . . . 641-5892 Doug’s Handyman Services . . . . . . . 556-4276 Ambassador Home Improvements . 499-7095 FC Heating & Air Service . . . . . . . . . 534-0630 N.G. Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312-0032 Millennium, USA Painting . . . . . . . . . 409-8563 The Vinyl Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 793-3111

insurance

State Farm Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-5105

lawn & garden

ophthalmology

n

pharmacy

n

Plumbing

n

real estate

masonry

Masonry Specialist LLC . . . . . . . . . . 443-2308 Jeff L. Cadle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 698-1390 www.healthybyintention.com. . . . . . . 534-1321 Sheraton Premiere Women’s Massage403-9328

Academy of Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938-8054 World Childrens Choir . . . . . . . . . . . 883-0920 Columbia Institute - Fine Arts . . . . . . 534-2508 Foxes Music Co . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533-7393

n

Morales Landscaping and Lawncare 502-3990 Sweet Garden Lawn Care . . . . . . . . . 627-7723 Gabriel Lawn Service . . . . . . . . . . . . 691-2351 Seven Brothers Landscaping . . . . . . 241-4990

massage

Dr Gordon Theisz, Family Medicine . 533-7555 The Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy . . . 536-4042

n

Stifel & Capra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407-0770

John Karickhoff, MD . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536-2400 Broad Street Pharmacy . . . . . . . . . . . .533-9013 The Wiz LLC Plumbing Services 703-268-4228 Merelyn Kaye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .790-9090x218 www.helpfulmortgage.us . . . . . . . . . . 237-0222 Casey O’Neal - ReMax . . . . . . . . . . . 824-4196 Rosemary Hayes Jones . . . . . . . . . . .790-1990 Kim Maller, kimworksforyou.com. . . . .606-2762 Leslie Hutchison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .675-2188 The Young Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .356-8800 Shaun Murphy, Realtor . . . . . . . . . . 868-5999 www.TheJeffersonatBallston.com . . . 741-7562 Susan Fauber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395-8741

tailor

Tailor Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534-8886

All numbers have a ‘703’ prefix unless otherwise indicated.

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2008 17 - 23,

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FOUNDE 1991 • VII VOL. X NO. 46

WEEK INSIDE THIS

$ FOR UPPORTS NVTA S IN F.C. GARAGE PARKING Virginia

The Northern Authority met School Transportation Mason High all the at George and approvedFalls last week by projects submitted One of the Phase Church for massive transportation region’s plan.

SEE PAGE

City OK for New cil Preliminary ted by Coun Center Gran HER

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Vote Unanimous Plan Moves F.C. Reality Closer to

KATERS FIGURE S AUL NO. VA. ST. P at the LOOK TOWARD men’s event

Falls Churcha The ambitious project received thumbs-up City Center unanimous The senior Figure Skating Monday. critical, City Council 2008 Eastern looked like and resolufrom the ChampionshipsD.C.-area get 7-0 votes All six ordinances passed by only a Washington, skaters from tions were standing-room with together and before a in Council chambers Fairfax, Alexandria the medals. audience sweeping project Annandale at City Hall. million 19 feet of SEE PAGE The $317 of million square adding a to 8.7 acres : comHOMAS new development downtown HELEN T PLAY Falls Church’swill now undergo GENDER RACE & mercial area, review by various ROLES gender of 40 days POLITICAL and and commissions not, race City boardsof public hearings, choice Like it or the roles in the and a set back to will play The of a Democratic standard before coming approval. for final vote on the presidential Council can’t be hopes to 25. bearer. It Council even though

by Feb. gone avoided, final version which has leading candidates The project, of modifications hatchet. the party’s of series to bury the through a have decided original parameters the City 10 since the between SEE PAGE a partnership its Economic Church, and the & LATIFAH of Falls Authority was LANE, HOLMES MONEY’ Development a AD Realty Company, (right) addresson Atlantic out last fall.

GO FOR ‘M the new comedy Alex Ovechkin stars took time hammered building heights & Louise” “Mad Money,” (left) and even The Caps’ While by “Thelma follows Mike Green on its residential directed Arlington. of the game of hockey, $124 Khouri, CAPITALS’Middle School in came downbuildings, hotel plans 13-year, writer Callie Reserve employees signed a the intricacies and office recently commentary students to accommodate THE WASHINGTON at Williamsburg three Federal beat the Ovechkin the local player. For ) structure, students attempt to go were expanded to teach of the kids. crowd of 180-room to an NHL PHOTO: NATE TAYLOR and their afternoon could possibly with some ever given a first-class hall and banquet -PRESS Wednesday in a scrimmage system. What the largest page 18. (NEWS with meeting a six-level parking Capitals, on the and wrong? participating with Splinters” 26 facilities, thrown in. The numSEE PAGE million contractdeal, see “Picking rental units deck was on the historic 412, and ber of residential down to condominiwas scaled captured more age-restricted were added. the team twice ums, up to 134, six years cover both of last added to championship, the up and once Retail was Maple bringing the state almost unheard as runner of S. the team’s square feet, finishing has sides total to 53,000 place. streak fifth success. a little history straight in retail In winning of 17,000.

Here’s added to While the up from very proud Jamie Scharff: from coach years, the Mason made the coach not-so-secret These modifications INDEX Harris Teeter a high six won Spotlight kids, Scharff’s one — have the plans a major a six-story the last team has Restaurant smarter than and every his is a simple Are you High academic Editorial.................26 ............................32 supermarket 5 six strategy and practice. a George the district championship Sodoku ...............35 school student? on Page Letters...............2, in the past smart kids gather twice a week not, if it’s ........5 Continued Probably School academic year. Four times team has won Comics................35 Crime Report Students ..........35 of — 21 Comment.......10-13& CrosswordAds.....38 Mason High is the home So years, Mason’s on Page News championshipother Classified Continued Community regional athletes. the bowler. GMHS & Services academic record is the finished second the Notes .............14-15& Business .............39 in champion News Directory 1 Business season their though the they years. Three times Focus 40-4 far this 20-0, Notes ..................16 Weekly of two Corner......42 an impressive just a fraction Sports ............18-20 Critter are ...26-28 Business Listing .43 20 wins Roger Ebert

Mason’s

.........29 Press Pass Calendar........30-31

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stic Succes

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Page 38

January 14 - 20, 2010

for the week of January 14-20, 2010

Dog Licenses Due Jan. 31 Dogs must be vaccinated against rabies and licensed with the City. Dog licenses expired on Dec. 31 and licenses for 2010 must be obtained no later than Jan. 31 or within 30 days of moving into the City of Falls Church for dogs older than four months. Licenses are issued by the Treasurer’s Office; call 703-248-5046 (TTY 711) or e-mail treasurer@fallschurchva.gov for an application.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Schedule, Monday, Jan. 18 CITY HALL COURTS DMV SELECT OFFICE IN CITY HALL MARY RILEY STYLES PUBLIC LIBRARY SCHOOLS SENIOR CENTER SHERIFF’S OFFICE COMMUNITY CENTER GEORGE BUS YARD WASTE, BUNDLED BRUSH, CHRISTMAS TREE & SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

CLOSED Jan. 18

OPEN Jan. 18 NO SERVICE Jan. 18 NO PICKUPS Jan. 18 For information about collections, call 703-248-5316 (TTY 711) or 703-248-5176 (TTY 711).

Enjoy Saturday Craft and Story Times at the Mary Riley Styles Public Library Saturday craft is back at the Mary Riley Styles Public Library. Drop in anytime between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. this Saturday, Jan. 16 for the whole family to get creative with collage. Saturday drop-in crafts are held the third Saturday of every month.

Preschool story times have also resumed. Story times for children ages 18 months to three are held every Tuesday and Thursday at 10:30 a.m.

Twilight Tales for kids ages four to six is every Wednesday at 7 p.m.

The library is located at 120 N. Virginia Ave. Call Youth Services at 703-248-5034 (TTY 711) for more information.

city

Bring the Fun Indoors with Tot Time

Applications must be accompanied by a valid rabies vaccination certificate. The license fee is $10 for unaltered dogs or $5 for altered dogs.

Dog licensing is first and foremost a health issue.

Rabies is a fatal disease and dog licensing is the primary method for promoting and monitoring compliance with rabies vaccination laws.

Please note: Virginia law requires Treasurer’s offices to verify rabies vaccinations. Please bring the certificate to the Treasurer’s Office or mail it in with the application.

If you do not have a copy of the rabies vaccination certificate, the Treasurer’s Office will contact your veterinarian, or your vet can fax in the rabies certificate (703-248-5048).

If you apply by mail, the vaccination certificate will be returned with the dog tag.

City Offering Free Tax Preparation

If your income was less than $49,000 in 2009, you may qualify for free tax preparation. The Housing and Human Services Division is offering FREE tax preparation for eligible taxpayers who live or work in the City of Falls Church.

Jan. 25-April 13, Monday – Friday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m.

By appointment only. Call 703 248-5005 (TTY 711) Documentation required: • Photo identification • Social Security cards (or Individual Tax Identification Number, ITIN) for the taxpayer, spouse and all dependents • All wage and earnings statements: W-2, W-2G, 1099INT, 1099DIV forms • Other income documentation (unemployment or worker’s compensation, retirement, pension, Social Security) • Day Care expenses paid in 2009 and the day care provider’s name, address and federal ID number • Student loan interest payments, Form 1098-E • Student tuition and fees, Form 1098-T • Copy of last year’s (2009) federal and state returns • Banking information (voided check) for refund deposits

Recycling Christmas Trees The City collects Christmas trees for brush recycling at no charge on Mondays in January (except Jan. 18) and February.

Place the tree loose at the curb after removing plastic bags and all decorations, including tinsel. Condo, townhouse, and apartment residents receiving private trash and recycling service may take their trees to the brush collection area at the Fairfax County Citizens’ Disposal and Recycling Facility, located at 4618 W. Ox Road, Fairfax, for a small fee.

The Recreation & Parks Division brings the fun indoors with Tot Time every Sign up for e-FOCUS Friday through June 11. This indoor playground is open to preschoolers from The e-FOCUS is the City’s online 10 a.m.-noon in the Community Center newsletter that highlights the City’s gym (223 Little Falls St.). Tot Time is financial, environmental, transportaperfect for days when the weather is tion, economic development, public too cold or rainy to visit the City’s parks. safety, and housing issues. Check it out or subscribe online Time subject to change. Call the Gym Hotline at 703-248-5077 (Option at www.fallschurchva.gov.

1) for more information. www.fallschurchva.gov - The official site for City of Falls Church news

. p.m Questions or Comments? ll, e r, 7 Ha e Du . t City of Falls Church, Harry E. Wells Building . s n ity m . e y e m C . . p x 2 on a . n C noon r. D ct in ter, 30 0 p.m p.m 300 Park Avenue, Falls Church, VA 22046 h, s m. :30 p ed Ta : e Y . s o 7 e p J n u . e 7 , R T r , e , ,n 0 e) on at el m on n, 7:3 , 7:45 703-248-5003 (TTY 711) ssi UA xpressizens tee, 7:3 ppeals Estim ’s Offics at theet, 9 a. r KingDMV S enior C sed r Open ndled Bollecti Se issio ission N The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter r o t r E t e s C A k e S l i k u d i , e e r t r l e r , h JA eneu use C omm oning Quart easur adn s’ Ma Lut ourts hools ffice C y Cen aste, B pecia Close il Wo Comm omm and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act. c al r Ho C f Z th M er r C n C t c y S i i n p O , t T r y l W S t g n e l r u a d h This document will be made available in alternate ntr rora viso ard o Four aid in dnig Farm Mar y Ha rary, eriff’s mmu Yard e an Libr y Co storic nnin E format upon request. Call 703-248-5003 (TTY 711).

(P Ad Bo 15 Au Pla Mi Lib Sh Co Hi Cit Cit 14 16 18 No Tre 19

0 01

January 14 - 20, 2010

Page 39

Douglas wins GMHS Poetry Out Loud Support Employee of the Year “Every city in America is Nominations Open approached through a work of art,

FCC-TV Spotlight: George Mason High School Poetry Out Loud Tune in to Falls Church Community Television (FCCTV) to see the George Mason High School Poetry Out Loud. The program features a variety of poems recited from memory by the talented students of George Mason High School. You can catch GMHS Poetry Out Loud on FCC-TV at the following times: • Tuesdays at 1:00 p.m.

• Fridays and Saturdays at 5:00 p.m.

You can now see FCC-TV programming live at www.fcctv.net anywhere in the world! FCC-TV also airs in the greater Falls Church area on Cox Channel 12, Verizon Channel 35 and RCN Channel 2.

BIE Partner of the Week Hue-Chan Karels and Matt Finarelli Open Kitchen

School involvement: Donated gift certificate to the winner of the George Mason High School Poetry Out Loud competition.

Why Hue-Chan and Matt are BIE partners: “There’s no place like Open Kitchen – and there’s no place like Falls Church. Open Kitchen plans to be a key part of the Falls Church food community for a long time.

We have a great bistro, unique cooking classes for all ages and commercial kitchens for rent. We welcome everyone for a great meal or a cooking lesson.”

For more information about sharing your expertise through the BIE Partnership, visit www.fccps.org or contact Marybeth Connelly at connellym@fccps.org.

Foundation Footnotes New scholarship for teachers and students honors English teacher Cay Wiant The family of the late Cay Wiant recently established a new scholarship fund through the FCEF. The Cay Wiant Scholarship Fund for FCCPS students and teachers recognizes Cay’s personal and professional commitment to creative writing and her influence on young writers. The fund can be used by teachers and students at MEHMS or GMHS to pay tuition and fees for workshops at the Northern Virginia Writing Project. For many years Ms. Wiant was a consultant at the Northern Virginia Writing Project.

Selection of scholarship recipients will be made by the administration at Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School and/or George Mason High School.

The Foundation is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization. For information visit www.fcedf.org or contact Donna Englander at (703) 538-3381.

School content published in The Schools Focus is written and edited by the Falls Church City Public Schools. For more information, contact the Falls Church City Public Schools Communications Office. Phone: (703) 248-5699 Fax: (703) 248-5613.

Does your child’s school bus driver go above and beyond the call of duty? Do you know a school custodian, maintenance worker, day care staff member, clerical staff member or paraprofessional who provides exceptional service to the schools? Why not recognize that individual by nominating him or her to receive the 2010 FCCPS Support Staff Employee of the Year Award.

To qualify for the award, full or part- Larry Allen, band aide time employees must have at least five at both Mary Ellen years of service with the Falls Church City Henderson Middle and Public Schools. Candidates may be nomi- George Mason High nated by FCCPS staff, students and com- schools was the 2009 munity members. Former winners are not Support Staff Employee of the Year. eligible to receive the award.

Nomination forms are available online or by contacting the school board office at (703) 248-5600. Nominations are due in the school board office, 800 West Broad Street, Suite 203, Falls Church, VA, 22046, by February 26th. The winner will be recognized at a reception in May 2010, and will receive a cash award.

Mary Ellen Henderson student Soravit Sophastienphong performs a saxophone solo of the popular “Sleigh Ride” during last week’s seventh grade band concert. 5th and 6th grade bands performed earlier this week. All of the bands are under the direction of Connie Jenkins.

Calendar for January 14-21, 2010 January 14 7:00 p.m. IB Information Night (GM) 7:00 p.m. Florida Trip Parent Information Night (MEH) 7:30 p.m. Madison Co. @ Mason (GM) 15 2:00 p.m. Mason @ Spalding (Wrestling) 7:30 p.m. Madison @ Mason (B Basketball) 7:30 p.m. Park View High @ Mason (Swimming) 16 9:00 a.m. Mason @ Spalding (Wrestling) 7:30 p.m. Mason @ Battlefield Tip Off (G Basketball) 18 Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Schools Closed/Day Care Closed) 19 7:45 p.m. Mason @ Clarke Co. (G Basketball) 20 5:00 p.m. Mason @ Quad Meet (Wrestling) 6:00 p.m. Day Care Special Needs Subcommittee Meeting (TJ) 7:00 p.m. Extended Day Care Advisory Board (TJ) 7:00 p.m. Elementary PTA (TJ) 7:45 p.m. Mason @ Clarke Co. (B Basketball) 21 7:45 a.m. BIE Partnership Council Meeting 7:00 p.m. School Health Advisory Board (MEH) 7:30 p.m. Strasburg @ Mason (G Basketball) For more calendar information, visit www.fccps.org/calendar.

(MD) Mt. Daniel School (TJ) Thomas Jefferson Elementary (MEH) Mary Ellen Henderson Middle (GM) George Mason High (CO) Central Office www.fccps.org - The official site for Falls Church City Public Schools news

Schools

usually a bridge, but sometimes a road that curves underneath or drops down from the sky.”

Those are opening lines of Gerald Stern’s popular poem, “Kissing Steiglitz Good-Bye,” which steered George Mason senior Julia Douglas to top honors in this year’s Poetry Out Loud competition. Becca Ward and Claire Constance tied for GMHS senior Julia Douglas performs poems from Gerald Stern and George Bradley to win second.

The annual competition fea- the 2010 Poetry Out Loud competition. tured prizes donated by Open Kitchen, Falls Church ArtSpace and Stifel & Capra. Douglas now advances to the state competition and could ultimately go to the national finals in April.

Page 40

January 14 - 20, 2010

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