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3-17-2016

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Ma rc h 1 7 - 23, 2016

FA LLS CHUR C H, V I R G I NI A • WW W. FC NP. C OM • FR EE

FOU N D ED 1991 • VOL. XXVI N O. 4

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George Mason’s varsity boys basketball team’s dream season ended in a 66-63 overtime heartbreaker to Greensville County High School in the 2A State semifinal last Friday. SEE SPORTS, PAGE 16

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Shields Proposes $87 Million FY17 F.C. Budget With 2.5 Cent Tax Hike A ��� � H ���������

Says Large-Scale Projects Keeping Tax Rate Lower

BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS

grew up in the City schools’ inclusion programs are now in their 30s. Former Falls Church Vice Mayor Hal Lippman said it would be very important for children with disabilities raised in Falls Church to remain in the communities where they grew up and with families nearby. Ed Salzberg, long-standing member of the City’s Economic

Falls Church City Manager Wyatt Shields presented his recommended FY17 budget to the F.C. City Council Monday night calling for a 2.5-cent real estate tax increase and a total budget of $87,345,420, an increase of 5.1 percent over the current year, that includes, as required by law, the full School Board request. It now awaits City Council action that will culminate with the budget’s final adoption on April 26. Shields’ proposed budget calls for a 1.2 percent ($438,421) increase in the general government operating fund and a 5.4 percent ($2,065,130) increase in local funding for the schools. Shields set his budget proposal in the context of a number of strong developments in the City, including new private investment, in which three new large scale mixed-use projects have contributed five percent of the City’s total added value on only six acres, a “growing and vibrant city” with 10 percent population growth between 2010 and 2013, new projects underway, including new public safety, park and stormwater improvements, investment in new public facilities, and a commitment to service. He said despite major investments in capital improvements that are coming up the pike, including a new high school at above $100 million, the City will stay within the parameters of its fund balance and debt policy guidelines and enjoys a much stronger position with its pension plan, prospects for continued robust economic growth

Continued on Page 4

Continued on Page 5

A 17-year-old male from the McLean area was charged with Threats to Bomb in connection with a bomb threat made against McLean High School on Wednesday, March 2. SEE NEWS BRIEFS, PAGE 9

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In 1987, Allan Bloom wrote a book called “The Closing of the American Mind.” The core argument was that American campuses were awash in moral relativism. SEE PAGE 12

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Celtic rock band Enter the Haggis got together for the first time 21 years ago for a St. Patrick’s Day show in 1995. Now, the

group has just wrapped up a new seven-song, yet-to-be titled album due out in the fall.

SEE PAGE 25

SWORN IN TOGETHER to the City of Falls Church’s newly-named Arts and Humanities Council at Monday’s City Council meeting were members (left to right) Marybeth Connelly, Letty Hardi, Laura Hull, Lindy Hockenberry, Ellen Gross, Barbara Cram and Ron Anzalone. (P����: N���-P����)

F.C. Council Displays Strong Support for Miller House Plan BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS

INDEX

Editorial.................6 Letters...............6, 8 News & Notes 10-11 Comment ........ 12-15 Sports ............16-17 Business News ...19

Calendar ........20-21 Food & Dining.....22 Classified Ads ....28 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword ..........29 Critter Corner......30

Although no action was scheduled and taken Monday night, the Falls Church City Council expressed positive support for proposed plans to convert a Cityowned home on N. Washington St. known as the Miller House into a group home for five persons with disabilities. If approved by the Council in late April after a period for

public comment, the plan would create the first such group home for intellectually disabled persons in 20 years. In the early 1970s, there were three such homes in the City. The most important need for families with disabled offspring is for housing, stated City resident and former Planning Commission resident Mark Gross at Monday’s hearing, especially as both children and parents age. A number of the City’s disabled persons who


PAGE 2 | MARCH 17 – 23, 2016

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LO CA L

PAGE 4 | MARCH 17 – 23, 2016

Plans Heard to Raze Miller House for New Group Home Continued from Page 1

Development Authority, and Irene Williams also spoke in support of the project. Williams noted that there are 20 persons attending a support group in the City for parents of children with intellectual disabilities. She added that Virginia is 41st among 48 continental U.S. states in providing for services, but suggested that in the City, it may not be unrealistic to envision a mid-rise to address the need. The Rev. Michele Morse, pastor of the Christ Crossman United Methodist Church, said that the Miller House project was originally her church’s idea. The house is bounded by that church, one side, and the Sunrise Retirement Home on the other, foreclosing any chance that it would be rolled into some kind of a land-merger deal for a larger commercial development, even though it is on a commercial “transitionally”zoned strip.

Julio Idrobo, chair of the Falls Church Housing Commission, spoke out in support of the plan. The City is currently unaffordable to many people, he said, adding, “It is the responsibility of the community to provide for and protect these people. If the community doesn’t do it, no one else will.” Mayor David Tarter concluded the hearing by saying, “The Council can support this. We will be happy to advance this cause.”

The plan would be for a “public-private educational facility,” as provided for by state legislation passed in 2002 (the “PPEA”), built in partnership with the Community Residences, Inc. (CRI), to raze the existing structure, construct a group homel for five persons with disabilities, and provide services to those individuals. The CRI won out over two other groups that presented proposals to the City for the project. It has a newly-constructed group home, the Lincoln Street Home,

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM an initial 40 year period of $1 per year. CRI shall agree to demolish the existing building and build the new facility that will be open no later than June 30, 2017. The City will continue to own the property, thus maintaining its tax exempt status. CRI will agree to staff and operate the group home and to provide high quality services during the entire term of the lease at no cost to the City. The project has been three years in the making to this point. The Miller House site has been owned by the City since 1973 and was previously used as a group home. But it has been vacant for several years and an inspection of the structure by City staff yielded a recommendation that it be demolished.

in a residential neighborhood in Arlington County that houses five residents from the recentlyclosed Northern Virginia Training Center. The plan that CRI presented to the City includes 1,500 square feet on the 7,514 square foot site for landscaped green space, including a street tree. There will be separate bedrooms for each resident, a common gathering room, dining room and kitchen, and space for meetings. It will be designed to serve low to moderate income persons at or below 80 percent of the area median income. There will be tenant selection plan that will give priority to Falls Church residents. In terms that are now being hammered out with CRI, the City will lease the property to CRI for

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LO CA L

MARCH 17 – 23, 2016 | PAGE 5

Shields Proposes New Budget With 2.5-Cent Tax Rate Boost Continued from Page 1

and strong financial management from the City staff and City Council. The budget calls for no new positions in the city government in the coming year, while retaining the new positions added last year and projecting four new police officer and two new dispatcher positions for the near future. Employee compensation will involve a three percent merit increase and three percent step increase for police officers, and covering premium increases for health insurance. Calling for a two-cent real estate tax rate hike to $1.34 per $100 assessed valuation, Shields also called for a 16-cent increase in the personal property tax (the car tax) for transportation and an increase of ten cents in the cigarette tax also for transportation. While real estate assessed values barely grew in the last year, a trend experienced throughout the

region, they were offset by the boom in the contribution of new mixed-use projects (the Lincoln at Tinner Hill, the 301 W. Broad and the Kensington) to ameliorate the pressure on residential taxpayers. Shields noted that even with the two-cent increase, the City’s tax rate falls in the middle of the list of jurisdictions in the region, and cited the example presented by former Council member Kieran Sharpe that Fairfax County, for example, hides a lot of the taxes it imposes by separating them out as separate costs from the core real estate tax rate. Commercial properties in Tysons Corner, he noted, pay a total tax rate of $1.491, far above the county’s base tax rate of $1.13 and the proposed rate for Falls Church of $1.34. Presenting the School Board’s requested transfer from the City, Board Chair Justin Castillo cited the continued trend of record enrollment growth that has taken the system from 1,874 students in the 2006-07 school year to

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2,600 projected for the coming school year, an increase of 729 students. The growth has required nine new teacher positions and salary increases averaged out to two percent in order to bring the system’s teacher salary levels within three to five percent of neighboring Arlington. Mandates have added another $650,000 in costs to account for the 5.4 percent overall budget increase to $48.6 million. The Capital Improvement Program (CIP) in the budget contains significant projects totalling $112 million, and the subsequent four year planning period for a five year total of $128 million. Projects include the high school and middle school, improvements for Big Chimney Park, Cherry Hill Park and Herman Stream Valley Park, and fire station improvements. Two new projects are the downtown West Broad Street Plaza and funding for land acquisition.

FALLS CHURCH CITY MANAGER Wyatt Shields presented his recommended FY17 budget to the City Counil Monday. (Photo: News-Press)

Transportation projects totaling about $6 million are largely grant funded, and include Oak Street and Sherrow Avenue bridge repairs, Roosevelt Boulevard roadbed reconstruction, intersection improvements, and bicycle and pedestrian improvements. Shields recommended to the Council that it advertise a tax rate increase to $1.36 per $100 assessed valuation at its next work session to give it options for flex-

ibility. This is a standard practice, and does not alter his recommendation for $1.34. A public open house and town hall on the budget recommendations will be held at the Community Center this Saturday at 10 a.m., and there will be three public hearings on the budget beginning March 28 and a second town hall meeting on April 9. The City Council will finalize the budget on April 26.


PAGE 6 | MARCH 17 - 23, 2016

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Vol. XXVI, No. 4 March 17 - 23, 2016 • 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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WWW.FCNP.COM The Falls Church News-Press is published weekly on Thursdays and is distributed free of charge throughout the City of Falls Church and the Greater Falls Church area. Offices are at 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church, VA 22046. Reproduction of this publication in whole or part is prohibited except with the written permission of the publisher. ©2016 Benton Communications Inc. The News-Press is printed on recycled paper.

E D I TO R I A L

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More Than a Day To Fix Metrorail

Yesterday’s unprecedented closure of the full D.C. regional Metrorail system to examine and make critical fixes to the system certainly disrupted the routines of many thousands in the region. While the move was affirmed by every responsible public official, even seasoned commuters who’ve grown dependent on the system have had to concede that there can be no serious complaining about fixes done in the name of safety. But the one-day interruption could be raising more questions than it answers. Can WMATA’s new general manager Paul Wiedefeld say with confidence that the corrections made in that one day were really sufficient to fix everything wrong or potentially dangerous that should require attention? Concerns may actually arise in the face of this action that it was merely a band aid, or even simply cosmetic. It cannot be stressed too much that the public must demand the WMATA leadership not try to cover up for the stingy U.S. Congress that needs to bear the burden for keeping the system going. Underfunding on infrastructure in this nation is a scandal, whether it is in Flint, Michigan or anywhere else. The idea of burdening local jurisdictions with the cost of maintaining vital components of major infrastructure projects is also a joke. Passing the buck like that is almost like not funding at all. Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, said this about yesterday’s closure of Metro: “It took years for Metrorail to end up in this situation, where maintenance underfunding left us with the problems we see today. Clearly, we have a ways to go to repair Metro’s aging systems....We hope that the ongoing challenges facing Metro will prompt our elected leaders to work together to provide the funding necessary to fix longstanding maintenance and rehabilitation problems. Failure is not an option.” Underfunding has not only led to an aging system sorely in need of rehabilitation and maintenance, it has also led to the general underperformance of the system from the start. The system has been held back terribly by underinvestment, especially to be able to provide the necessary frequency and extension of hours of operation to make it a genuine alternative for many, many more in the region than use it, or rarely use it, now. The biggest difference between the Metrorail here and the subway system in New York, where it really works for a population five times larger than here, has nothing to do with the amount of graffiti on its station or rail car walls. It has to do with the fact that the system is extremely passenger-centric, offering a frequency of trains and expanded hours of operation to make it indispensable to the average New Yorker. The problem with WMATA and other mass transit options and plans around here is that they pull their punches badly and thereby present a shadow of what the region really needs. No one-day patchwork fixes can solve this endemic problem.

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F.C. Schools Not Initiated Due to Bigotry, Racism, Fear Editor, I am writing in response to a letter published in the March 10-16, 2016 edition of the News-Press, titled “Why Support a Costly & Outdated School System?” In particular I would like to address the question, “Why support a school system that was initiated due to bigotry, racism and fear?” That statement represents a common misconception about the creation of the City of Falls Church, and

its school. My father was chair of the committee that wrote the original Charter for Falls Church. My mother was president of PTAs before and after the creation of Falls Church, and an early school board member. They, and other residents of the then town were dissatisfied with the quality of education their children were receiving, and with the dismissive tone of the Fairfax School

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administrators at that time. They broke away from Fairfax County, a fully segregated school system at that time, in order to create quality public schools for their children. When the City of Falls Church was incorporated, the boundaries followed the boundaries of the Town of Falls Church, which were set in 1887. While the 1887 boundaries were established to exclude “the colored settlement” south of Lee Highway, there was no racial motivation in the establishment of the City of Falls Church in 1948. Falls Church attempted to integrate its schools during Virginia’s Massive Resistance, but was blocked by the State Government.

In 1961, the schools were among the first in the Commonwealth to integrate. In 1963, the senior class voted overwhelmingly to move the senior prom at the last minute, when they discovered that their venue would not allow a black student to attend. The City no doubt has its share of problems with “bigotry, racism and fear” but the school system has never been a part of that problem. Suggesting that the City and its schools were initiated due to “bigotry, racism and fear” couldn’t be farther from the truth. Keith Thackrey Falls Church

More Letters on Page 8


FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

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MARCH 17 - 23, 2016 | PAGE 7

New Startup Gives Straight From the Heart B� D��� N������ P������

Social media has created a bridge where one previously didn’t exist – its interconnectivity means that “haves” and “have nots” now live in world where they are directly connected to one another. As one of the most efficient, effective ways to connect people and ideas across the world, social media presents an unparalleled opportunity to go beyond observation and take direct action. Content that has gone viral in the past few years reveals our hunger for positive news – from Humans of New York posts about a Syrian refugee known as the “Scientist” to the “Batkid” who took over San Francisco – and demonstrates our desire to do good and help others. So, how can we make it as easy as possible for people to do so? My company, GoodWorld, is a tech startup fueling a generosity movement on social media by making it possible to give instantly to causes with just a hashtag: #donate. Launched in October 2014, our #donate technology blows open social media as a fundraising channel for nonprofits and allows social media users to directly contribute to the causes that they care about the most, turning engagement into impact. As the pioneer of hashtag donations, GoodWorld makes it possible for anyone – individuals, businesses, influencers and more – to add a charitable component to their social network and turn giving into a fun, interactive experience. In 2016, Fast

Company recognized GoodWorld as one of the Most Innovative Companies in Social Good; we have also received a TIMMY Award for Best DC Tech Startup and were named part of DC Inno’s 50 on Fire.

“Content that has gone viral in the past few years reveals our hunger for positive news.”

GoodWorld and #donate were born of my personal experience seeing stories on Facebook and Twitter that inspired me to take action; however, the long, frustrating process to support these causes took me off of Facebook and onto a long website form. As it turns out, I’m not alone: The average clickthrough-rate of links posted on Facebook is less than one percent, and donation pages are abandoned at a rate of 50-70 percent. The Ice Bucket Challenge resulted in ten billion video views, reached over 440 million people, and raised $115 million – yet it had a conversion rate of less than two percent. We developed #donate to fill this gap. Commenting “#donate” on a GoodWorld partner charity’s Facebook page or tweeting “#donate” at the charity’s Twitter handle triggers an instant donation that is shared with a

social media user’s entire network. The first time you #donate, you’ll receive an instant reply to complete your donation. After completing your registration, you can #donate to thousands of charities anytime without having to fill out forms or leave social media. Today, GoodWorld has over 1,500 nonprofit partners using #donate, including the United Service Organizations, Human Rights Campaign, Autism Speaks, GreenPeace, United Way, Save the Children, PETA, National Geographic and UNICEF. We’ve also developed an extension of our technology that allows influencers, businesses, corporations and others to activate #donate on their own social media channels to support the causes they care about. The band American Authors used it to raise funds for Autism Speaks, and the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team fans supported Cure Kids through its #KiwisCureBatten campaign. We also look forward to some of our upcoming partnerships showing the power of businesses and nonprofits uniting to garner support for causes. King Street Blues, a local bar and restaurant, is using #donate in a campaign to support Rebuilding Alexandria to do its part to ensure Alexandria remains a vibrant community. Yuengling Brewery will partner with the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States to benefit veterans, service members and their families through a #LagersforHeroes campaign. Brands Alba Botanica, Avalon Organics, and JĀSÖN

Brands have partnered with nonprofit CARE to use #donate in a matching campaign supporting the Qach’Umilal Girls’ Education and Leadership Project, a program empowering and educating indigenous girls and adolescents in western Guatemala. Additionally, GoodWorld focuses on the “gamification” of philanthropy to show that giving – especially on social media – can be a fun, engaging activity. We’ve hosted a “Dogs vs. Cats” showdown asking fans to cast their votes by supporting charities that service these animals. Right now, our first annual “March Matchup” is underway, with a fierce competition between nonprofits to advance in through a bracket by gaining the most points (each dollar #donated is a point) from their fans. More than anything, we’re trying to help the way we give to catch up to the way that we live. For a generation known for selfies and oversharing, social media holds the power to transform our vanity and need for status into a generosity-based financial movement. Previously, philanthropy involved checkbooks and a select number of wealthy individuals – today, it is more accessible than ever. Our goal is to continue to make social giving simple and help even more individuals give in a way that is meaningful to them. No matter how much or how little, every dollar makes an impact, especially when it comes straight from the heart.  Dale Nirvani Pfeifer is founder and chief executive officer of GoodWorld.

Q������� �� ��� W��� Should F.C.’s proposed new tax rate increase be lower or higher than 2.5 cents? • Higher

• Lower

• It’s just right

• Should’t be an increase

Log on to www.FCNP.com to cast your vote

Last Week’s Question:

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[WRITE FOR THE PRESS] The News-Press welcomes readers to send in submissions in the form of Letters to the Editor

& Guest Commentaries. Letters to the Editor should be no more than 350 words and writers are limited to one appearance every four weeks. Guest Commentaries should be no more than 800 words and writers are limited to one appearance every four months. Because of space constraints, not all submissions will be published. All submissions to the News-Press should be original, unpublished content. We reserve the right to edit submissions for length, grammar and accuracy. All submissions should include writer’s name, address, phone and e-mail address if available.

Email: letters@fcnp.com | Mail: Letters to the Editor, Falls Church News-Press, 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church 22046 | Fax: 703.340.0347


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TO LETTERS THE EDITOR Continued from Page 6

New F.C. Pub Owner Insults Former Patrons Editor, I would like to respond to the article in last week’s News-Press regarding the Seven Corners Pub which refers to the previous customers at Public House No.7 as “drunken buffoons.” This is insulting to those who patronized the old establishment not to mention the previous owner and staff. Public House No.7 was not for everyone, but it was friendly, the food good and it had a nice atmosphere. The previous owner went out of his way to accommodate his customers by opening at 5 a.m. for the royal wedding, Sunday brunch, New Year’s Eve celebrations, etc. Our local civic association met there for informal “fish ‘n’ chip” evenings. Does this sound like a bunch of “drunken buffoons?” I wish Mr. Cooley all the best

with the new Seven Corners Pub.... J. Riddoch Falls Church

Something Must Be Done to Close Gender Pay Gap Editor, On April 12, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) will recognize Equal Pay Day, the symbolic day when women’s earnings finally catch up to what men earned in 2015. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median earnings for women working full time, yearround is only 79 percent of the earning of men working full time, year-round. And, it’s even worse for women of color. Latina women make only 54 percent of what white men make, and African American women make just 63 percent. In Virginia, the statistics are only slightly better: median earnings for women are 80 percent of men’s. The pay gap is not caused solely

by women’s different career and lifestyle choices. AAUW’s 2012 report, Graduating to a Pay Gap: The Earnings of Women and Men One Year after College Graduation, controlled for many factors such as college major, occupation, industry, region, workplace flexibility, parenthood, and hours worked. The study found that one year after graduating from college, women still earned seven percent less than their male counterparts. This wage gap isn’t just a number; it’s an economic issue for many families. A 2013 Pew Research Center study found that in 40 percent of households with children, the mother is the sole or primary wage earner. Pay equity is the key to families making ends meet and moving working families into the middle class. Something must be done to close the gender pay gap. The Paycheck Fairness Act, introduced on March 25, 2015, in the U.S. House and Senate, is an important step in that direction. The measure updates and strengthens the Equal Pay Act of 1963 by creating stronger incentives for employers to follow the law, enhances federal enforcement efforts, and prohibits retaliation against workers who ask about a company’s wage practices. Mollie Jewel President, AAUW Falls Church

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM


FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

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Fa l l s C h u r c h

NEWS BRIEFS Arrest Made in McLean High School Bomb Threat Detectives from the McLean Police District Station pinpointed the source of a bomb threat made against McLean High School on March 2 and obtained a petition to charge a 17-yearold male from the McLean area with Threats to Bomb, according to the Fairfax County Police Department. Police were called to McLean High School on Wednesday, March 2 for a report of a bomb threat after, according to police, school staff received an email communicating the threat shortly after 8 a.m. that morning. McLean Station detectives assumed the investigation from that point. According to the Fairfax County Police, this case is not related to any other threats that have been received throughout Northern Virginia between February 29 and March 4. On Friday, March 4 seven high schools in Northern Virginia, including McLean High School, received bomb threats through robocalls to the schools. Fairfax County Police considers all bomb threats serious matters and any suspect developed through an investigation will be charged. Threats to Bomb is a Class 5 Felony and if found guilty, carries a term of imprisonment of not less than one year nor more than 10 years, or in the discretion of the jury or the court trying the case without a jury, confinement in jail for not more than 12 months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both. Police ask that anyone with information about this or any similar case contact Crime Solvers electronically by visiting fairfaxcrimesolvers. org or text-a-tip by texting “TIP187” plus your message to CRIMES (274637) or by calling 1-866-411-TIPS(8477) or 703-691-2131.

F.C. Council Gives Initial OK to Parking Restrictions The Falls Church City Council Monday night voted unanimously to give a “first reading” approval to an amendment to the City code that would allow the City Manager to issue residential parking permits. The immediate objective is to develop parking restrictions on the streets in the Winter Hill Homeowners and Winter Hill Condominium association areas that are currently heavily pressed to provide resident parking and will face added pressures with the opening of the rental units at the 301 W. Broad (Harris Teeter) project in the coming months. Overall, according to a City memo, with higher density development, the City is increasingly hearing from residents of nearby established neighborhoods. In addition to the two Winter Hill organizations, residents on Park Avenue (Mason Row project), and E. Jefferson St. (Northgate) are other recent examples. Daytime permit-only parking permits are already in effect in residential street zones of the City on W. Greenway, W. George Mason, W. Marshall, S. Lee, S. Oak, E. Jefferson and Birch Streets, and the City has commuter parking restrictions in place on residential streets near the East Falls Church Metro station. The City staff is currently working with the Winter Hill organizations to craft new parking regulations this spring.

MARCH 17 – 23, 2016 | PAGE 9

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Falls Church GOP Chair Ken Feltman Retires March 17 Ken Feltman of Hillwood Avenue will retire this month after four years as chair of the Falls Church City Republican Committee. Members of the FCCRC will elect a new chairman at the annual mass membership meeting tonight, March 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the American Legion, 400 N. Oak Street. The committee will also choose delegates to the 8th Congressional District Convention, that will be be held Saturday, May 7, at Kenmore Middle School in Arlington and delegates to the Republican State Convention in Harrisonburg on Friday and Saturday, April 29-30. The District Convention elects the Eighth District Chairman, the Eighth Congressional District Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, three members of the State Central Committee, three delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on July 18, and a GOP member of the Electoral College. The State Convention elects the State GOP Chairman, a national committeeman and committeewoman to represent Virginia on the Republican National Committee, 13 delegates and alternates to the Republican National Convention and two presidential electors. To vote or be a candidate, a Republican voter must be a resident of Falls Church City and a member of the Falls Church GOP Committee.

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F.C. Mayor Endorses ‘Earth Hour’ This Saturday A proclamation issued and signed at Monday’s F.C. City Council meeting by Mayor David Tarter designated this Saturday, March 19, between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. as “Earth Hour” in the city, urging all citizens, businesses, organizations and government agencies to turn off all non-essential lighting for one hour, and to commit to actions they can take in the coming year to reduce their carbon footprints and conserve energy. “Climate change and the need to take action to mitigate it are recognized as a global priority and our vision of environmental harmony in the City of Falls Church is supported by our long-standing commitment to an environmentally-sustainable future,” the proclamation read. The ‘Earth Hour’ event is organized by the World Wildlife Fund.

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News-Press

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Community News & Notes Mary Riley Styles Public Library Hosts Puppet Show Mary Riley Styles Public Library at 120 N. Virginia Avenue is hosting Rainbow Puppet Productions for a puppet show on Saturday, March 19 from 2 – 2:45 p.m. Rainbow Puppet Productions will present its latest musical, “Creatures Great and Small.” In the puppet show, there’s an acrobatic flea, a giant stegosaurus and practically everything in between. There’s no registration necessary. For more information, visit fallschurchva.gov/Library or call 703-248-5034.

Columbia Institute of Fine Arts Starts Concert Series Columbia Institute of Fine Arts is starting a free monthly concert series on Saturday, March 19. The first concert in the series, scheduled for 7 p.m. in Columbia

Baptist Church’s Hoge Chapel, will feature acoustic and folk rock from the 60s and 70s. Columbia Institute of Fine Arts faculty member Scott Scwertfeger is presenting songs from James Taylor, Harry Chapin, and Seals and Croft, among others. Columbia Baptist Church is located at 103 W. Columbia Street. For more information, visit columbiabaptist.org/ cifaevents.

Local Residents Can Receive Tax Assistance on March 19 Local residents can receive help with their taxes at Thomas Jefferson Library’s Viva Tax Assistance event on Saturday, March 19 from 9:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. at the library, located at 7415 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church. Volunteers certified by the Internal Revenue Service will be available to help taxpayers who earn up to $54,000. The event will be

held in Thomas Jefferson Library’s Meeting Room 1/2. For more information, call 703-573-1060.

Woodrow Wilson Library Hosts 3-Part ‘StorytimePlus’ Woodrow Wilson Library, located at 6101 Knollwood Dr., Falls Church, is hosting StorytimePlus for Preschoolers and Parents starting on Monday, March 21. The event, which runs through Friday, March 25, is a three-part storytime series for children ages 4 and 5 and their parents or caregivers that uses books, songs and activities to encourage the development of early literacy skills. Registration is required for children only and each child must be registered separately. The registration deadline is Friday, March 18 at 6 p.m. The storytimes take place from 11 – 11:45 a.m. on Monday, March 21, Wednesday, March 23 and Friday, March 25. For more

THE FALLS CHURCH LEAGUE of Women Voter’s panel on the security implications of global climate change March 6 included moderator Dr. Richard A. Meserve, president emeritus of the Carnegie Institution for Science, John C. Gannon, former CIA deputy director for intelligence, Mona Sarfaty of the George Mason University Climate Change Communication Center, and former U.S. Rep. Phil Sharp, all City of F.C. residents. (Photo: News-Press)

information, call 703-820-8774.

Plot Against Hunger Kicks Off At St. Andrew’s Episcopal The Arlington Food Assistance Center’s annual Spring Garden Kickoff for its Plot Against Hunger program will be held at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 19. The event will feature talks and demonstrations on basic gardening techniques, the kickoff will provide information and free seeds for those interested in starting a Plot Against Hunger to produce fresh produce for the Arlington Food Assistance Center, located at 2708 S. Nelson St., Arlington. The event is free and open to the public, but the Arlington Food Assistance Center asks that prospective attendees RSVP at plotagainsthunger@afac.org. For more information about Plot

Against Hunger, visit afac.org/ plot-against-hunger.

Arlington County Gears Up For Four Mile Run Cleanup The 28th Annual Four Mile Run Cleanup is slated for Saturday, March 19 from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. at five different locations along the Four Mile Run Stream in Arlington County. Volunteers will join Arlington County Park Rangers in cleaning up the following spaces along Four Mile Run: Madison Manor, Glencarlyn and Barcroft Parks, Shirlington Dog Park and Arlington Mill Community Center. Volunteers should wear waterproof boots and bring gloves. Bags will be provided. An adult must accompany children under six years of age who want to take part in the clean up effort. For more information, call 703-525-0168 or email parkrangers@arlingtonva.us.

AT ART AND FRAME OF FALLS CHURCH, Michael Clem and some of his friends performed for a packed house on Saturday, March 5. Clem’s concert was part of the Monroe Bay Concert Series. Clem recently put out Fifty Clementines, his sophomore release, ten years after his debut album. Bikenetic, located down the street from Art and Frame, hosted a concert in the Stone Room Concert Series on Sunday, March 6. (Photo: Courtesy of Dan Lehman)

Send Us Your News & Notes!

The News-Press is always on the lookout for photos & items for Community News & Notes, School News & Notes and other sections of the paper. If you graduate, get married, get engaged, get an award, start a club, eat a club, tie your shoes, have a birthday, have a party, host an event or anything else you think is worth being mentioned in the News-Press, write it up and send it to us! If you have a photo, even better! Because of the amount of submissions we receive, we cannot guarantee all submissions will be published, but we’ll try our best!

Community News & Notes: newsandnotes@fcnp.com | School News & Notes: schoolnews@fcnp.com Mail: News & Notes, Falls Church News-Press, 200 Little Falls St. #508, Falls Church, VA 22046


FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Passport to the World Kicks Off on April 2 with OCEAN

Creative Cauldron recently announced the lineup for its 6th Annual Passport to the World Concert Series, which starts on Saturday, April 2 at 7:30 with a performance from OCEAN Celtic Quartet. The series will run from April 2 – April 23 at ArtSpace Falls Church at 410 S. Maple Street, is presented in collaboration with the Folklore Society of Greater Washington and is curated by Lynn Véronneau and Ken Avis of the acclaimed Jazz fusion group Veronneau. Passport to the World will highlight music and dance performances from a broad spectrum of genres and styles, including Jazz, swing, Latin, classical, opera, klezmer and folk music. “Passport to the World is a festival rooted in worldly traditions,” Véronneau said. “Yet it’s decidedly modern. It’s thrilling and electrifying.” Tickets for the performances, except for Urban Arias on Friday, April 22, range between $18 –$24 and can be purchased online at creativecauldron.org or by calling 703-436-9948. Tickets for the Urban Arias show range between $22 – $24. For a full list of performances, visit creativecauldron.org/passport-to-the-world.html.

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MARCH 17 – 23, 2016 | PAGE 11

Entries must be submitted to the Mary Riley Styles Public Library Youth Services Department by 9 p.m. on Thursday, March 31. Prizes will be awarded on Wednesday, April 27 at 7 p.m. For more information and submission rules and guideline, visit fallschurchva.gov/1687/TeenTime-at-MRSPL.

Schrock of Shepherd’s Center Speaks to F.C. Rotary Club Ed Schrock of the Shepherd’s Center of McLean-ArlingtonFalls Church will speak at the Falls Church Rotary Club’s weekly dinner meeting at Harvest Moon Restaurant, located at 7260 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, on Thursday, March 17 at 6:30 p.m. Schrock will speak about the Shepherd’s Center, an organization that serves older people in the region by assisting them in maintaining an independent and safe lifestyle. The first Shepherd’s Center was created in 1972 in Kansas City, Mo., and was among the early voices in America to advocate a new model of aging. Today there are over 59 centers in 16 states affiliated with the Shepherd’s Centers of America – a network of interfaith community based organizations that provide meaning and purpose for senior adults. For more information, visit fallschurchrotary.org.

Teen Poetry Contest Runs Through Thursday, March 31

McLean Community Center Board Holds Public Hearing

Mary Riley Styles Public Library at 120 N. Virginia Avenue is currently holding its annual Teen Poetry Contest for young writers in the area, which runs through Thursday, March 31. There are two age groups in the contest: middle school and high school. The contest will be judged by community members and prizes are provided by the Mary Riley Styles Public Library Foundation.

The McLean Community Center’s 11-member governing board is inviting residents of the center’s special tax district, Small District 1A-Dranesville, to share their thoughts on Center programs and services at a Public Hearing on Programs to be held at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 30 at the center, located at 1234 Ingleside Ave., McLean. The regular monthly meeting of the governing board will fol-

U.S. REP. DON BEYER (right) was welcomed by Greg Williams, director of the Bailey’s Community Center last Friday to kick off a seminar on how to �ile IRS and Virginia state taxes for free. The “Free File” programs are open to anyone earning under $62,000 a year, and also to provide information on the “earned income tax credit” program that can save taxpayers up to $6,000 but 75 to 80 percent of eligible citizens miss out on. (P����: N���-P����) low the hearing. These meetings were originally scheduled for Wednesday, March 23. Residents of the Center’s tax district who attend the meeting can voice their opinions on current Center offerings and make suggestions for improving current programs or adding new initiatives. The hearing is one step in planning for the FY 2018 budget cycle, which begins July 1, 2017. FY 2018 programs may be offsite, as the Center’s main facility is scheduled to be renovated during that budget year. Residents who would like to speak at the hearing may call the Center at 703-790-0123, TTY: 711, to have their names placed on the speakers’ list so that a schedule may be established. Residents may submit written comments by mail, fax at 703556-0547, email at george.sachs@ fairfaxcounty.gov or in person up to seven days after the hear-

ing. For more information, visit mcleancenter.org.

Master Gardeners of NoVa Present 2 Workshops Virginia Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners of Arlington/Alexandria have two gardening workshops planned to help beginner planters learn the basics of gardening. The first workshop, scheduled for Saturday, March 19 at 10:30 a.m. – noon at the Burke Branch Library, located at 4701 Seminary Road, Alexandria, is on plant propagation. At that workshop, the Master Gardeners will share tips and techniques for propagating plants from seeds, division and cuttings. The program will cover the basics of how to start seeds and transplant seedlings, make stem and leaf cuttings, divide plants and use air layering to propagate difficult-toroot plants.

On Tuesday, March 22 from 7 – 8:30 p.m., Master Gardeners of Arlington/Alexandria will present a program on Managing and Maintaining the Vegetable Garden at the Fairlington Community Center, located at 3308 S. Stafford St., Arlington. The program, the second in a series for new gardeners, will emphasize best management practices for a healthy garden. Topics will include the importance of pollinators and other beneficial insects and how to identify them; how crop rotation and intercropping can help control the challenges of garden pests; how to identify diseases and weeds; and how to maximize harvests with space-saving techniques. Both programs are free and open to the public, but advance registration is requested. For more information, visit mgnv. org.


PAGE 12 | MARCH 17 – 23, 2016

NATI O NA L

The Shame Culture

In 1987, Allan Bloom wrote a book called The Closing of the American Mind. The core argument was that American campuses were awash in moral relativism. Subjective personal values had replaced universal moral principles. Nothing was either right or wrong. Amid a wave of rampant nonjudgmentalism, life was flatter and emptier. Bloom’s thesis was accurate at the time, but it’s not accurate anymore. College campuses are today awash in moral judgment. Many people carefully guard their words, afraid they might transgress one of the norms that have come into existence. Those accused of incorrect thought face ruinous consequences. When a moral crusade spreads across campus, many students feel compelled to post in support of it on Facebook within minutes. If they do not post, they will be NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE noticed and condemned. Some sort of moral system is coming into place. Some new criteria now exist, which people use to define correct and incorrect action. The big question is: What is the nature of this new moral system? Last year, Andy Crouch published an essay in Christianity Today that takes us toward an answer. Crouch starts with the distinction the anthropologist Ruth Benedict popularized, between a guilt culture and a shame culture. In a guilt culture you know you are good or bad by what your conscience feels. In a shame culture you know you are good or bad by what your community says about you, by whether it honors or excludes you. In a guilt culture people sometimes feel they do bad things; in a shame culture social exclusion makes people feel they are bad. Crouch argues that the omnipresence of social media has created a new sort of shame culture. The world of Facebook, Instagram and the rest is a world of constant display and observation. The desire to be embraced and praised by the community is intense. People dread being exiled and condemned. Moral life is not built on the continuum of right and wrong; it’s built on the continuum of inclusion and exclusion. This creates a set of common behavior patterns. First, members of a group lavish one another with praise so that they themselves might be accepted and praised in turn. Second, there are nonetheless enforcers within the group who build their personal power and reputation by policing the group and condemning those who break the group code. Social media can be vicious to those who don’t fit in. Twitter can erupt in instant ridicule for anyone who stumbles. Third, people are extremely anxious that their group might be condemned or denigrated. They demand instant respect and recognition for their group. They feel some moral wrong has been perpetrated when their group has been disrespected, and react with the most violent intensity. Crouch describes how video gamers viciously went after journalists, mostly women, who had criticized the misogyny of their games. Campus controversies get so hot so fast because even a minor slight to a group is perceived as a basic identity threat. The ultimate sin, Crouch argues, is to criticize a group, especially on moral grounds. Talk of good and bad has to defer to talk about respect and recognition. Crouch writes, “Talk of right and wrong is troubling when it is accompanied by seeming indifference to the experience of shame that accompanies judgments of ‘immorality.’” He notes that this shame culture is different from the traditional shame cultures, the ones in Asia, for example. In traditional shame cultures the opposite of shame was honor or “face” – being known as a dignified and upstanding citizen. In the new shame culture, the opposite of shame is celebrity – to be attention-grabbing and aggressively unique on some media platform. On the positive side, this new shame culture might rebind the social and communal fabric. It might reverse, a bit, the individualistic, atomizing thrust of the past 50 years. On the other hand, everybody is perpetually insecure in a moral system based on inclusion and exclusion. There are no permanent standards, just the shifting judgment of the crowd. It is a culture of oversensitivity, overreaction and frequent moral panics, during which everybody feels compelled to go along. If we’re going to avoid a constant state of anxiety, people’s identities have to be based on standards of justice and virtue that are deeper and more permanent than the shifting fancy of the crowd. In an era of omnipresent social media, it’s probably doubly important to discover and name your own personal True North, vision of an ultimate good, which is worth defending even at the cost of unpopularity and exclusion. The guilt culture could be harsh, but at least you could hate the sin and still love the sinner. The modern shame culture allegedly values inclusion and tolerance, but it can be strangely unmerciful to those who disagree and to those who don’t fit in.

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

David Brooks

Trump Is No Accident Establishment Republicans who are horrified by the rise of Donald Trump might want to take a minute to remember the glitch heard round the world – the talking point Marco Rubio couldn’t stop repeating in a crucial debate, exposing him to devastating ridicule and sending his campaign into a death spiral. It went like this: “Let’s dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.” The clear, if ungrammatical, implication was that all the bad things Republicans claim have happened under President Obama are the result of a deliberate effort to weaken the nation. In other words, the establishment favorite NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE for the GOP nomination, the man Time magazine once put on its cover with the headline “The Republican Savior,” was deliberately channeling the paranoid style in U.S. politics. He was suggesting, albeit coyly, that a sitting president is a traitor. And now the establishment is shocked to see a candidate who basically plays the same game, but without the coyness, the overwhelming front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Why? The truth is that the road to Trumpism began long ago, when movement conservatives – ideological warriors of the right – took over the GOP. And it really was a complete takeover. Nobody seeking a career within the party dares to question any aspect of the dominating ideology, for fear of facing not just primary challenges but excommunication. You can see the continuing power of the orthodoxy in the way all of the surviving contenders for the Republican nomination, Trump included, have dutifully proposed huge tax cuts for the wealthy, even though a large majority of voters, including many Republicans, want to see taxes on the rich increased instead. But how does a party in thrall to a basically unpopular ideology – or at any rate an ideology voters would dislike if they knew more about it – win elections? Obfuscation helps. But demagogy and appeals to tribalism help more. Racial dog whistles and suggestions that Democrats are un-American if not active traitors aren’t things that happen now and then, they’re an integral part of Republican political strategy. During the Obama years Republican leaders cranked the volume on that strategy up to 11

Paul Krugman

(although it was pretty bad during the Clinton years too). Establishment Republicans generally avoided saying in so many words that the president was a Kenyan Islamic atheist socialist friend of terrorists – although as the quote from Rubio shows, they came pretty close – but they tacitly encouraged those who did, and accepted their endorsements. And now they’re paying the price. For the underlying assumption behind the establishment strategy was that voters could be fooled again and again: persuaded to vote Republican out of rage against Those People, then ignored after the election while the party pursued its true, plutocrat-friendly priorities. Now comes Trump, turning the dog whistles into fully audible shouting, and telling the base that it can have the bait without the switch. And the establishment is being destroyed by the monster it created. Things are very different on the other side of the aisle. I still sometimes see people suggesting an equivalence between Trump and Bernie Sanders. But while both men are challenging a party establishment, those establishments aren’t the same. The Democratic Party is, as some political scientists put it, a “coalition of social groups,” ranging from Planned Parenthood to teachers’ unions, rather than an ideological monolith; there’s nothing comparable to the array of institutions that enforces purity on the other side. Indeed, what the Sanders movement, with its demands for purity and contempt for compromise and half-measures, most nearly resembles is not the Trump insurgency but the ideologues who took over the GOP, becoming the establishment Trump is challenging. And yes, we’re starting to see hints from that movement of the ugliness that has long been standard operating procedure on the right: bitter personal attacks on anyone who questions the campaign’s premises, an increasing amount of demagogy from the campaign itself. Compare the Sanders and Clinton Twitter feeds to see what I mean. But back to the Republicans: Let’s dispel with this fiction that the Trump phenomenon represents some kind of unpredictable intrusion into the normal course of Republican politics. On the contrary, the GOP has spent decades encouraging and exploiting the very rage that is now carrying Trump to the nomination. That rage was bound to spin out of the establishment’s control sooner or later. Donald Trump is not an accident. His party had it coming.


FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

NATI O NA L

From Bad to Worse For the GOP

Between the events of Tuesday night and yesterday, the final nail into the coffin of the Republican Party establishment has been hammered. Tuesday the fact that Donald Trump, horribly mortified beyond belief by that Republican establishment, will run away with the large majority of delegates to the Republican presidential nominating convention this summer was sealed. Yesterday the reason why that has happened was also sealed. In the wake of all that’s happened, the GOP leadership found itself locked into the obstructionism of its own making. They insisted that President Obama’s nomination of the imminently qualified Chief Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court would not even enjoy the courtesy of an informal interview by any Republican lawmaker. FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS From the standpoint of a wider historical view, this behavior by the GOP will go down as one of the most inept, most stupid lock-step march over the cliff in American history. Republican intransigence in Washington since Obama first took office in 2009 has led to the rise of the Trump insurgency as an expression of anger primarily at the inability of Washington to function. While the populist Trump rage is directed against Obama, it is now extending its focus to also include the Republican establishment. The moronic GOP leadership seems incapable of doing anything about, or even recognizing, this. (It should be noted that the GOP’s own postmortem internal assessments following their loses in 2008 and 2012 stressed the need for the party to become more open, more embracing of minorities, Hispanics in particular, even if in the guise of a more flexible bipartisan approach. This advice of the party to itself, of course, has been angrily rejected even to the point that its nominal Hispanic presidential hopeful, Marco Rubio, has been humiliated and sent packing.) So, now the options for the GOP are all bad. Establishment leaders, including the likes of silver-haired Mitt Romney and the silver-haired heir to the ugly legacy of William F. Buckley, Weekly Standard magazine’s William Kristol, and those who coughed up the millions of dollars in just the last week for a flood of negative “Stop Trump” TV ads, are in a state of stunned paralysis. If they decide to continue their efforts to cut off Trump’s pathway to the GOP nomination, they are running headlong toward a total breakup of their party. Trump threatened this himself yesterday morning. Coming off his four big primary victories Tuesday, he issued a warning to the establishment GOP leadership by saying “bad things would happen” if he went into the convention with a sizable lead in delegates and tricks and technicalities were used to snub him at that point. He said he’d not lead them, but that “riots, problems like you’ve never seen” would ensue. Most likely, it would also result in a third-party effort by Trump and a total shattering of the GOP effort to stop the inevitable perpetuation of the Democratic Party juggernaut. Even more, it will extend far down election day ballots beyond the presidential race to U.S. congressional and state races, as well. This election year was perhaps the GOP’s final opportunity to reverse the trend that was set into motion by the mass public reaction against the horrible years of George W. Bush. The 2008 electoral outcome was inevitable, and hopes of the GOP to recover were still premature in 2012. But this, with the two-term limit rule forcing an end to the Obama era, was the GOP’s big, most necessary chance. Without a GOP ability to thwart that trend, demographic shifts being hardwired into the U.S. electorate, such as the rise of Hispanics in Texas and Florida, promise to turn the nation “blue” for good. The appalling failure of the establishment GOP to rise to this challenge has been stunning to the extreme, astonishing to watch. Trump is Bill Kristol’s worst nightmare. Kristol, whose Weekly Standard was treated like the Bible in the George W. Bush White House, devoted his latest cover to an image of a quietly weeping Alexander Hamilton observing a railing, red-faced Trump. But it’s now all but too late for all the king’s horses and all the king’s men.

MARCH 17 – 23, 2016 | PAGE 13

Nicholas F. Benton

 Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com.

Rubio’s Exit & The GOP’s Spoiled Buffet Remember the euphoria with which the race for the Republican presidential nomination began? Such a buffet of political talent! Governors and exgovernors galore! By Tuesday those high spirits had deflated to a mewling plea for some indication whether the party’s aghast traditionalists would have to make up with Donald Trump, make nice with Ted Cruz or make plans for bedlam at the convention. “Clarity” was a wish they kept uttering, a word I kept hearing. It made them sound like fog-enveloped travelers or stuffed-up flu sufferers waiting for the Sudafed to kick in. But Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Illinois and Missouri weren’t at all certain to bring relief, not even with Marco Rubio’s devastating loss to Trump in Florida and suspension of his campaign. It was a mesmerizing development, given how long many Republican leaders and pundits clung to their forecasts of his eventual transcendence, which was like Godot: right around the bend, coming at any minute, just a matter of waiting, waiting, waitNEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE ing… Florida significantly bolstered Trump’s lead and showed that the turmoil of recent days – and the violence at his rallies – didn’t scare off his fans. But it didn’t cinch things for him. And beneath, behind and beyond Tuesday’s results is a knot of calculations, compromises and capitulations that demonstrate what a mean season this turned into for many Republicans, who traveled a surreal arc from such hope back in August and September to such despondency in mid-March. They look across the aisle and see a probable Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, who is so personally flawed, politically clumsy and out of sync with this anti-establishment moment that she’s ripe for defeat. Then they look at their own contest and see an outcome that might well ensure her victory. Without doubt, John Kasich would be her fiercest rival, but even a victory in Ohio wouldn’t likely translate into his party’s nomination. He’s too many delegates behind, and party donors and leaders who oppose Trump and have been supporting Rubio won’t necessarily flee to Kasich; many will go to Cruz, because he’s more conservative or, in their view, the better bet. With Rubio gone, Kasich could do well enough in the states ahead to prevent Trump from getting a majority of delegates. He can’t do well enough to get

Frank Bruni

a majority himself. There are Republican traditionalists rooting for Trump over Cruz, and the thinking of some goes like this: Neither candidate can win the presidency. But while Cruz has almost no crossover appeal beyond committed Republicans, Trump might draw enough independents, blue-collar Democrats and new voters in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania to buoy Republicans in tight Senate races there. He’ll embarrass the party and roil the country but maybe not cost Republicans key congressional races. Besides which, he scrambles all rules and all precedents so thoroughly that you never know. Victory isn’t unthinkable, and better a Republican who’s allergic to caution, oblivious to actual information and altogether dangerous than a Democrat who’ll dole out all the plum administration jobs to her own party. Republican traditionalists who prefer Cruz are no more ebullient in their outlooks. “Cruz is a disaster for the party,” one of them told me. “Trump is a disaster for the country.” “If Cruz is the nominee, we get wiped out,” he added, with a resigned voice. “And we rebuild.” The party needs that anyway. In fact, a few Republican traditionalists have insisted to me that a Cruz nomination and subsequent defeat would have a long-term upside. It would put to rest the stubborn argument, promoted by Cruz and others on the party’s far right, that the GOP has lost presidential elections over recent decades because nominees like Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney weren’t conservative enough. This is Cruz-serving hogwash: If anything, those nominees weren’t sufficiently moderate. A Cruz wipeout would prove as much. Whatever the case, he has moved assertively over recent days to send a message to Republican leaders who have long loathed him that a partnership is still possible – that love could yet bloom! The talk of Trump’s culpability for his menacing rallies has given Cruz a new opening and fresh cause to encourage supporters of other candidates to take the Cruz plunge. “Come on in,” he said at a rally in North Carolina on Sunday. “The water’s fine.” Sounds like something someone in “Jaws” blurted out right before the shark made an appetizer of her ankle. The water’s fine only if the alternative is the River Trump, a bloody churn of piranhas and Palins. Like I said, what a journey. Republicans started out with what they thought was a feast of possibilities. Now they’re poised to be eaten alive.


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PAGE 14 | MARCH 17 - 23, 2016

A Penny for Your Thoughts

News of Greater Falls Church By Supervisor Penny Gross

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! The “wearing o’ the green” is a popular way to celebrate the day, but few people probably know that the song and its lyrics actually date back to the Irish Rebellion of 1798, against British rule. While everyone may be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, everyone also can be “green” during the other 364 days (365 days this year). Here’s how… • Recycle, recycle, recycle. Fairfax County’s Solid Waste Management division oversees the recycling and disposal of more than 4000 tons of waste per day. Only about 10 percent of county residents receive fee-paid trash collection from Fairfax County; the majority of trash hauling services are privately owned and operated, and set their own fees. The county’s waste-to-energy plant (the large smokestack you can see from I-95 at Lorton) incinerates municipal waste, and generates 80 megawatts of electricity for re-use. • Household hazardous waste (motor oil, oil paints, antifreeze, electronics) is accepted at the I-95 plant, as well as the I-66 transfer station, daily now. Log on to www.fairfaxcounty,gov/dpwes/trash to learn more. Proper disposal is easy, and protects our environment. • Wise water use means shorter showers, less lawn watering, fuller laundry loads, and more care when you flush. Expired or unused medications should not be flushed in our water systems. Mix old prescriptions with wet coffee grounds or kitty litter, bag or cap them carefully, and dispose of them in your regular household trash. Better yet, look for a prescription

take-back event in your community to deposit old and unused medications safely. • Get a rain barrel to catch runoff from roofs and downspouts to use in the garden or during dry spells for your foundation plantings. Decorating your own rain barrel also provides a bit of whimsy for your home and yard, and can be a family activity. • Install CFL or LED bulbs in your lighting fixtures. Costs are coming down for these bulbs, and the long-term benefit will save energy, as well as overall costs. And think of the time and effort saved changing the bulbs in your stairwell. One CFL can last 10 years or more. A CFL I installed in our stairwell in 2000 finally gave out in 2012! • Keep a close eye on your thermostat. A degree or two up or down can make a big difference in your monthly energy bill. Granted, as winter creeps toward spring, it is difficult to accommodate an 80 degree day followed by 40 degree days, and back up to 80 during the same week. Find your comfort level, set it, and avoid the temptation to adjust too often. You probably have many more green ideas that can be implemented on St. Patrick’s Day, or any day. It takes very little effort to go green, and the rewards are both tangible and intangible. Lower bills are great, but doing something good for the environment can be even more satisfying. .  Penny Gross is the Mason District Supervisor, in the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. She may be emailed at mason@fairfaxcounty.gov.

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Delegate Marcus Simon’s

Richmond Report I wrapped up my third legislative session in Richmond last week. Virginia’s General Assembly meets for 60 days every even numbered year, and 45 days every odd year. This being 2016, we adjourned at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, March 11, 2016 after adopting a biennial budget, 59 days after we started. So technically, a day early. And not a moment too soon. It’s never been easy to be a progressive Democrat in Richmond. Even when the Democratic Party controlled the state legislature as recently as the 1990s, they weren’t what most of us in Falls Church think of as forward thinkers. In 2016, with both the House and State Senate controlled by Republican majorities, including a near super-majority in the House, things got downright ugly. Legislation to repeal Virginia’s unconstitutional ban on same sex marriage, and prevent discrimination in employment and housing based on sexual orientation were tabled by a voice vote in committee. The same thing happened to bills to prevent gun stores from locating next door to schools and to improve wages and benefits for working families. Instead, we got a so-called religious freedom bill which grants a license to discriminate against same-sex couples. We got bills to reverse the Governor’s ban on firearms in state buildings. And we got a state budget that stripped out $3 billion worth of health care for the working poor that is available from the Federal government for Medicaid expansion. During the waning days of the legislative session we spend a lot of time on the floor of the House of Delegates “at ease” while we wait for conference committees to iron out differences between House and Senate versions of bills. I passed only one bill this session, and it made it through both houses exactly as I introduced it, no need to conference on it. So I had some time. While I waited, I chatted with one of the more senior members on the other side of the aisle. He told me some-

thing I already knew, but was important to hear again, and I think he meant it as a compliment. As a Democrat in a Republican dominated legislature, he told me, you have to decide who you want to be. Do you want to be one of the ones that speaks up a lot, fights us on the floor, in committees, and in the press? Or do you want to keep quiet, keep your head down, and be allowed to be slightly effective, to get some of your bills passed, and get yourself better committee assignments? For those of you reading this column for the first time, who don’t receive my e-mail newsletters or follow me on Facebook, I fall into the first category. If I were you, he said, I’d do it exactly the way you are doing it. I’d be throwing the bombs, I’d be giving ‘em hell, and I’d be asking all the hard questions. That’s why I voted No on the biennial budget, that doesn’t include Medicaid Expansion for the third straight year, at the staggering cost of over $6 million per day. That’s why I stood up and spoke out against efforts to undermine our strong public school system in Virginia, against making it easier for more people to carry more guns more places, and against efforts to derail a great bill (introduced by a Republican) to make it illegal to smoke in cars where small children are strapped into car seats. It’s why I spoke up for funding mental health programs in our state’s prisons and jails. It’s why I spoke up for student borrowers who are stuck with bad loans on bad terms they can’t afford and can’t refinance. It’s why I spoke up for victims of domestic violence and their families – and for keeping dangerous weapons out of heated domestic disputes. I am going to keep fighting because we’ve seen what the other side will do if they think they can get away with it. They’ll nominate someone like Ken Cuccinelli to the Supreme Court.  Delegate Simon represents the 53rd District in the Virginia House of Delegates. He may be emailed at DelMSimon@house. virginia.gov


FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

A nyt hing

b ut

S traigh t

Trump vs. Hitler

During my daily talk radio show in Chicago, a Donald Trump supporter called to ask me if it was fair to compare The Donald to Adolf Hitler. I replied that it depended on which Hitler he was referring to. It was wrong, I said, to compare Trump to 1933-45 Hitler. Trump has not hunted down, rounded up, and slaughtered millions of people. However, it is fair to compare Trump to 1920’s Hitler in Munich. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica: “The SA (brown shirts) was founded in Munich by Hitler in 1921 out of various roughneck elements that had attached themselves to the fledgling Nazi movement. It drew its early membership largely from the Freikorps (Free Corps), armed freebooter groups, made up largely of ex-soldiers, that battled leftists in the streets in the early days of the Weimar Republic. Outfitted in brown uniforms after the fashion of Mussolini’s Fascist Blackshirts in Italy, the SA men protected Party meetings, marched in Nazi rallies, and physically assaulted political opponents…. During the early days of the Nazi regime, the SA carried out unchecked street violence against Jews and Nazi opponents.” This certainly does seem to describe the inchoate outlines of Trump’s increasingly thuggish campaign. The narcissist is calling on his know-nothing Neanderthals to inflict terror against those who have the gall to speak out against his disjointed, capricious ideas masquerading as a platform. The hate violence began in late August in Boston after two hoodlums beat up a Hispanic homeless guy. According to CNN, “Donald Trump was right,” the two men said as they beat the man with a metal pipe and then urinated on him. “All these illegals need to be deported.” Since this alarming incident, the hooliganism has only intensified. At a rally in North Carolina a black protester was sucker punched by Trump follower John McGraw, who later said, “Yes, he deserved it. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him.” A man at a Donald Trump rally in Cleveland this week made a Nazi salute to protesters and yelled, “Go to Auschwitz. Go to f….ng Auschwitz.” At a Chicago Trump rally that was cancelled on Friday, Birgitt Peterson of Yorkville, IL was caught on camera with her right arm raised skyward in a Nazi salute. This ignominious behavior is not surprising, considering former KKK Grand Dragon David Duke gave Trump his stamp of approval, followed by the imprimatur of Nation of Islam bigot Louis Farrakhan. Trump defender Ann Coulter tried to justify the attacks in a pathetic Tweet: “I would like to see a little more violence from the innocent Trump supporters set upon by violent leftist hoodlums.” In Chicago, two Northwestern University freshmen were accused of spray-painting racist and homophobic messages along with the name of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump inside a nondenominational chapel on the university’s campus. The lowlifes spray-painted an expletive and a slur against African-Americans with a swastika on the chapel hallway. They also spray-painted a disparaging word for gay people on a wall, along with lines spray-painted over photos of Muslim students. On numerous occasions, Trump has incited the violence. At one rally, in response to a protester, Trump bellowed: “I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks…I’d like to punch him in the face, I tell you.” The apparatchiks who defend Trump’s menacing behavior have one problem. These vicious scenes aren’t playing out at other political rallies. This violent vaudeville only occurs in the glow of Trump’s radioactive campaign rhetoric. The heinous words spewed by the candidate are more befitting a prisoner than a president. The Democrats reacted to the ugly onslaught: “It is clear that Donald Trump is running a very cynical campaign pitting groups of Americans against one another. He is trafficking in hate and fear,” Hillary Clinton said during an event at Ohio State University hosted by CNN and TV One. “He actually incites violence in the way he urges his audience on, talking about punching people, offering to pay legal bills.” Clinton charged that Trump was guilty of a case of “political arson” by throwing fuel on political divisions in the country. “He has been incredibly bigoted towards so many groups. You don’t make America great by tearing down everything that made America great.” “I hesitate to say this because I really don’t like to disparage public officials, but Donald Trump is a pathological liar,” Bernie Sanders said. “I would hope Mr. Trump tones it down big time and tells his supporters that violence is not acceptable in the American political process.” Comparisons to Hitler’s early Munich days are legitimate. Trump is running a fascist campaign that targets opponents for violence. If you disagree, the chances are your shirt is brown.

Wayne Besen

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Our Man in Arlington By Charlie Clark

Could it happen here? Last year’s eruptions of street violence between police and minorities in not-so-distant places like Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore rocked the nation’s policy discourse. Arlington, however, is an unlikely setting for such socially combustible clashes, according to three who would likely play a role in any response if that dark day came. But none ruled it out. The Arlington Committee of 100 banquet March 9 aired differently shaded perspectives from our county’s top law enforcement authority, chief prosecutor and a key African-American leader. They reflected on how Arlington’s thin blue line grapples with the “guardian/warrior” dilemma in confronting potentially deadly tensions. “Arlington is an incredibly strong community, and in its worst times is stronger than others elsewhere,” said Arlington Chief of Police Jay Farr. He cited our school systems, relatively healthy economy and social safety net that “provides human services that fester elsewhere.” The clashes in Ferguson and Baltimore “didn’t happen overnight, but were the result of years of policy,” he said. But Arlington is by no means unsusceptible. “Arlington is a target-rich environment, and “it only takes one bad thing to upset” the equilibrium. Our police are “trained to go fully tactical if there’s a quick turn, and protocols are in place,” Farr said. “But cops are people,

too. They make mistakes.” Commonwealth’s Attorney Theo Stamos said Arlington is “ready for any tension—we’re in a good spot, but not a great spot. Anything could happen.” She mentioned the 2014 Eric Garner case on Staten Island, in which police put a black man selling illegal cigarettes in a chokehold that was caught on video, yet the officers were not indicted. “I don’t think that would happen in Arlington because we’re lucky to have well-trained police,” Stamos said. She described her office’s investigation of the May 2015 shooting of a Ballston man by Arlington police during a domestic dispute, concluding it “was an unfortunate but necessary response.” Rev. Dr. Leonard Smith, pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church, said, “Arlington is wonderful place, with world-class diversity, a great place to be born and die in.” Then came the however: ”We cannot ignore the truth, not always recognized when we’re shielded by our perspectives, of some realities if they don’t take place our neighborhood.” While many Arlingtonians have good government jobs, or work for tech firms or for lobbyists, others are minimum-wage day laborers “with a totally different perception,” Smith said. “We have to do a good job managing the perceptions.” Yet what makes violence unlikely here is proactive collaboration, Smith said – judges getting out in the community, the commonwealth’s attorney and himself lunching together. Farr described Arlington’s

MARCH 17 - 23, 2016 | PAGE 15 community policing efforts, which started in the early 1990s cleaning up Nauck’s open-air drug markets. His recruiting efforts for diversity have produced a force that is 8 percent black, 7 percent Hispanic, 3 percent Asian, and 17 percent female. Police are mulling giving bodyworn cameras a try in a pilot program. But there’s a downside. ”What problem are we trying to solve?” Farr asked. Only a tiny fraction of the population has filed a complaint against police. The units cost $800 apiece for 220 officers and up the recordkeeping. Policymakers must decide how often officers turn them on (at home? when interviewing a victim?). Plus, their limited view range requires interpretation by prosecutors who must handle the evidence. *** The death of novelist Pat Conroy this month brought a dramatic letter of regret from Arlington/Falls Church Clerk of the Court Paul Ferguson. The southern-baked author of “The Great Santini” and other gems lived in Arlington for two years, near Wakefield High School while attending Gonzaga High School downtown, the clerk noted. Ferguson had tried desperately to get Conroy – who played pickup hoops at Barcroft Park – to come here to speak, he revealed in a let— EINSTEINBut it never ter to the Sun-Gazette. happened. adopted 12-09-10 I’d like Paul to know that I got to hear Conroy speak at the Smithsonian back in the 1990s. Not only did he acknowledge the two years his military family was stationed in Arlington, he thanked his high school English teacher for her influence. She sat beaming on the front row.

SURE, AT FIRST I WAS A LITTLE TAKEN ABACK BY THE WHOLE PEEING STANDING UP THING. BUT I TAUGHT HIM TO THROW A STICK AND NOW HANGING OUT WITH HIM IS THE BEST PART OF MY DAY.

C i t y o f Fa l l s C h u r c h

CRIME REPORT Week of March 7 - 13, 2016 Larceny from Building, 400 block S. Washington St. On Mar. 7, police received a report of theft of motorcycle parts which occurred on Mar. 5. Larceny from Building, 1000 E. Broad St. (24 Hour Fitness) On Mar. 7, an unknown suspect stole items from the victim’s locker. Domestic Assault and Narcotics Violation, 300 block S. Maple Ave. On Mar. 11, a male, 32, of Washington, DC, was arrested for

Assaulting a Family Member and Possession of Marijuana. a male, 27, of the City of Falls Church., was arrested for Assaulting a Family Member. Assault and Disorderly Conduct, 220 N. Washington St. On Mar. 12, a male, 33, of Centreville, was arrested for three counts of Assault and one count of Disorderly Conduct. Sexual Assault, 421 W. Broad St. (Inns of Virginia) On Mar. 13, police received a report that a sexual assault had occurred.

Save a life. Don’t Drive HoMe buzzeD. BUZZED DRIVING IS DRUNK DRIVING.


SPO RTS

PAGE 16 | MARCH 17 – 23, 2016

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

First Mason Loss of Season Comes in State Semifinal

by Matt Delaney

Falls Church News-Press

As Greensville County High School’s final shot arced into the basket, its swish served as the curtain call for George Mason’s varsity basketball team’s storied 2015-16 season. Finishing the year at 29-1, the Mustangs suffered their lone defeat against Greensville County in a 66-63 overtime heartbreaker during Virginia’s 2A State semifinals. The loss had a bite to it. Not only because defeat was alien to Mason’s campaign and concluded their historic run, but because the manner in which it came about was upsetting. Greensville County’s star center Jordan Peebles’ fouled out to end the fourth quarter, carrying Mason to overtime and a 6-0 run to start the extra period. The Mustangs were in full control of their destiny, but with barely a minute left a three-pointer, threepoint play and a final bucket from long range to beat the clock gave Greensville County the win. “Hung in there and kept on fighting, as if [Peebles] was right there with them,” Greensville County head coach Antwan Walton said. “And my shooter finally came through for me at the right time. Just proud of these guys right now.” Just as Mason benefitted from having the last possession against Graham High School last week, they faced the consequences for losing it against Greensville County. Senior guard Elliot Mercado turned the ball over with 48 seconds remaining, opening the team up to Greensville County’s eventual dagger. “We’re [both] here for a reason, you’re not gonna get kids who’re

gonna fold up,” head coach Chris Capannola said. “They knew who they needed to go to, we knew who we needed to go to. They hit that huge shot and that was it.” That mistake was the coup de grâce in a game filled with them. Uncharacteristic errors pestered Mason from the opening tip and prevented the usual crescendo in performance that carried their 29 victories. Statistics reinforced the abnormality of Mason’s play. Their dependable bench was outscored by Greensville County’s 14-9 and the Mustangs shooters were frigidly cold from beyond the arc, making just 16 percent (3-19) of their three-point attempts. It was clear the Mustangs were dwarfed by the moment. Virginia Commonwealth’s Siegel Center paled in comparison to the high school gyms Mason frequented all season and the players acted their age for the first time this year. Nerves forced the team to face an old foe – a deficit – as they trailed for more than half of the 36 minutes of game time. However, despite rarely lagging behind for most of this season, the familiarity with losing in years past made it surmountable on the big stage. “We weren’t used to losing these past couple of years, but before that it was a struggle,” Mercado said. Senior forward Robert Tartt added, “Nah, I don’t think [trailing] had anything to do with it. We made some careless mistakes that in 29 games we haven’t done…we just messed up and let them get ahead.” Friday’s loss ended Mason’s landmark year. The Mustangs tore through the regular season, conference and regional tournaments undefeated and won their first ever Joe Cascio Holiday Classic. Tartt earned the school’s all-time scoring record and Falls Church

MASON SENIOR ELLIOT MERCADO hoists a shot against Greensville County High School during the Virginia High School League’s 2A state semifinal. (Photo: Carol Sly) witnessed the most dominant basketball team in city history. All the hype fed into players and Capannola claiming it was “states or bust” for the seniorladen roster since November, an ambitious sentiment for a team that failed to make it out of the regional tournament under its current iteration. Even after falling a game and two victories short of their goal, players had no regrets professing their championship intentions in recent months. “We felt like we could do it,” Tartt said. “So we’re gonna go out and do it. It’s not something we felt held down by, it was a goal.” “It was something that motivated us,” senior guard Josh Allen added. “More than burdened us.”

GMHS Spring Sports Teams Ready For the New Season, New Coaches by Matt Delaney

BOYS TENNIS

The spring sports season is underway at George Mason High School this week with all ten teams playing their opening slate of games. Teams’ objectives vary from defending state titles to refining skill sets, but all share a mutual enthusiasm over the upcoming season and what it holds.

Entering his first season as head coach for the Mustangs boys tennis team is Mason Assistant Principal Matt Hills. Hills seeks to replicate the success from former tennis coach Matt Sowers, who guided Mason to Single A State championships from 2010 to 2013. Those’re some big shoes to fill, but Hills believes improving the Mustangs mental

Falls Church News-Press

game will help them qualify for the State tournament in June. Mason’s mentality is seeking upgrades in two areas: confidence and tactics. Confidence is important because, as Hills stated, “You’re not going to play your best match every time,” intending for Mason’s group to embrace adversity and learn from it. Better tactics refer specifically to understanding the geometry of tennis and how to rely on angles instead of power to win matches.

Mature perspectives are the real jewel of this team. Mason was hardened by defeat during the two seasons after their previous trip to states (back in 2011-12) before finally breaking the mold with last year’s 24-2 record. They’d experienced the lows, making the highs that much sweeter, and that outlook is why they can find the silver lining in such a bitter loss. “We yell at each other, we fight, but we love each other because we’re just like a family,” Tartt said. “Amazing chemistry,” Allen added. “This was the most fun basketball I’ve ever played because of the team I played with.”

When Capannola made Mercado the Mustangs new starting point guard as a freshman, it was the first step in a major rebuilding process for the program. Now four years later and with their run officially over, the two could sit back and appreciate how far they’ve come. “After four years with this guy,” Mercado said cheekily, gesturing to Capannola seated to his right. “This was quite the team. We all knew coming into it, just didn’t work out in the end.” “I told these guys, ‘the sun comes up tomorrow,” Capannola said. “This’ll sting for a while, but they’ll realize once everything’s over this was a hell of a run. They need to be real proud of that.”

The Mustangs won their first match of the season, 8-1, against Potomac Falls High School on Tuesday, March 15.

coach’s dream come true.” Bravo said. Seniors pitcher Julia Ferris and catcher Annie Ferguson along with junior infielders Juliann Carter and Tea Abbracciamento round out a speedy roster aiming to put Mason’s softball team on the same level as the school’s other perennial state-title contenders. The Mustangs won their first game against Riverside High School 8-0 on Monday, March 14.

SOFTBALL The Mustangs softball program also begins anew with first-year head coach Antonio Bravo. While in his inaugural year at Mason, Bravo has been involved in youth, high school and collegiate softball throughout his life. Bravos’ passion for the game is unquestioned and is glad to say the same for Mason. “I am delighted to see that the girls are enthusiastic about learning softball at a higher level, and approach each practice hungry to learn something new. This is a

BASEBALL Mason’s baseball teams looks to pick up where they left off last spring and make a run toward Virginia’s 2A state finals in Radford. Despite falling short of that


FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM same goal in 2015, head coach Adam Amerine feels the team gained a valuable lesson during the postseason. “The learning experience to take from last spring is just how difficult it is to reach the finals and how you have to improve each day of the season and play your best in June,” Amerine said. The Mustangs boast a hearty pitching rotation and a defensive leader behind the plate in senior Marsden Davis, but will be searching for offensive production out of their line-up after key contributors graduated last year. Mason plays their first game at Woodrow Wilson High School on Friday, March 18. BOYS LACROSSE The Mustangs boys lacrosse program has a unique challenge. They’re classified as a 2A school but compete at a 4A level. Higher-numbered classifications mean larger school populations, so Mason’s opponents can be more selective and demanding with their rosters. Basically, Mason’s the underdog in most games, but head coach Marc Mesmer doesn’t endorse excuses on the subject. “Last year we played tough against a lot of the bigger opponents and look forward to doing the same this year, too,” Mesmer said. Riding the high of 2015’s eightwin season, the largest win-total in the past five years, the Mustangs have a good mix of seniors and underclassmen that’ll keep raising the bar for Mason’s boys lacrosse program. The Mustangs lost their first game of the season 13-2 at Stafford High School on Monday, March 14. GIRLS TENNIS Ending 2015’s season in the 2A state semifinals at Gate City High School, Mason’s varsity girls tennis team understands that, to take

the next step, they need to sharpen their craft. Luckily the Mustangs have the tools to do just that. Head coach Alex Ware gushed about how dedicated the team is as well as how talented they are. So talented that Ware had to re-adjust her own plans for the season to accommodate the surplus skill. Mason is invested in their betterment so progress is guaranteed, right? Wrong. Poor court conditions have nagged the team since the season began. “Our tennis courts [can’t] be played on because of the damage from this winter,” Ware said. “So this year it’s just planning and finding different locations to practice.” The team has found refuge at the Tuckahoe Recreation Club in McLean for now. Even with the program being displaced from school grounds, interest in tennis remains high. The Mustangs won their first match of the season 8-1 at Potomac Falls High School on Tuesday, Mar. 15. GIRLS LACROSSE Another program on the rise is Mason’s varsity girls lacrosse team, who made it to the Virginia state semifinals last year for the first time in school history. The team is centered around a strong core of juniors and sophomores who, along with a small contingent of seniors and freshman, have their sights set on a state title. Another appearance at the state tournament seems certain for the Mustangs, but winning the title is a whole different story. Head coach Courtney Gibbons believes a greater sense of commitment to lacrosse is needed for Mason to turn their dream into a reality. “We need to work really hard every day at practice and put in the extra time outside to achieve our goal,” Gibbons said. “Our team knows what we need to do to get back to States. It’s a matter of how bad they want it!”

Mason Girls Lax Beats O’Connell High 12-9 by Jeffrey Wojtala

Sppecial to the News-Press

The George Mason High School girls varsity lacrosse Team notched their first win of the season Monday night by posting a 12-9 win over crosstown rivals Bishop O’Connell High School. After finishing the preseason with one win and one loss, the Lady Mustangs were ready to begin their quest for a successful run to the

post season. The game started on the cool damp March night against the Bishop O’Connell Knights with a slow rain drizzle falling on the field. Play started slow with the Mustangs maintaining a presence in the Knights’ end of the field. Junior midfielder Sarah Lubnow began the scoring for the night and sophomore midfielder Amy Roche followed quickly after by putting the ball in the back of the net for a Mason 2-0 lead.

SPO RTS

MARCH 17 – 23, 2016 | PAGE 17

MASON SENIOR MARSDEN DAVIS is anchoring the Mustangs’ baseball team’s defensive effort behind the plate at catcher this season. (Photo: Carol Sly) Mason won their first game of the season 12-9 at Bishop O’Connell High School on Monday, Mar. 14. See story below. BOYS SOCCER Claiming three consecutive state championships from 20132015, Mason’s varsity boys soccer team seeks to become the first team in VHSL history to win four straight state titles. The goal seems lofty, but not when you look at the statistics. Last year the Mustangs set state records in goals scored (160), least goals allowed (3), goal differential (+157) and were the first team VHSL history to finish their season 26-0-0. Players who contributed to 136 of the 160 goals scored in 2015 return to the squad so talent remains in-house, but Mason must avoid the one thing that plagues all dominant teams: complacency. Thankfully, head coach Frank Spinello knows how to root out the problem. “Our short term goals The Knights countered with their possessions and Mason freshman attack Alex Biggs scored to make it a 3-2 game. Both Sarah and Amy scored again before Bishop O’Connell countered with two of their own goals to make it a 5-4 game at half time. Both teams played outstanding defense in the first half with sophomore goaltender Annette Schlitt making outstanding save after save. The see-saw defensive battle continued in the second half with Coach Courtney Gibbon’s defensive squad limiting the Knights’ offense chances. Lubnow continued her first half attack of the goal by netting her third of the game and Mason’s six

are always the same every year – to get a little bit better every week,” Spinello said. “We create that atmosphere by constantly challenging players and having high intensity practices that are well defined and mimic game situations.” Mason plays their first game at home against Mount Vernon High School tonight.

we need to take to get us there.” The Mustangs lost their first game of the season 5-1 against Yorktown on Tuesday, Mar. 15 TRACK & FIELD

State champions for eight years running, former assistant turned head coach Allison Klink doesn’t take running Mason’s varsity girls soccer team lightly. Even with 13 of the 17 players on the team having a championship on their resume, Klink knows never to undermine success with laziness. “We need to go into every game with a high level of intensity and we need to leave every game with something to improve on,” Klink said. “Yes, we hope to have a chance to defend our state title, but we can’t overlook the process that

Mason’s varsity track & field team looks to improve on a respectable showing in 2015. The girls placed strongly in conference (1st), region (4th) and states (5th), now head coach Jeff Buck aims to bring the boys up to speed who finished third, 18th, and 27th, at conference, region and states, respectively. “On the girls side we are looking to continue our success from last year,” Buck said. “On the boys side we want to be at the conference level as a team and have more individual qualifiers at states.” A strong mix of seniors and underclassmen prime Mason for promising 2016 season. Mason will run against conference 35 foes at an invitational at Strasburg High School on April 2.

the goal. But due to some Mason miscues and yellow card penalties, the Mustangs saw their lead deteriorate with the Knights scoring three unanswered goals to take the lead 7-6. The loss of the lead seemed to inspire the Lady Mustangs and Sarah Lubnow scored her fourth goal of the night to knot up the score at seven. The Knights continued to press the Mustang defense but with miscues and yellow card penalties this time by the Knights, the Mustangs began to find the back of the net, first by junior attack Maeve Donnelly then by Sarah Lubnow, followed by two from Roche. Lubnow completed the Mason scor-

ing with her sixth goal of the game. The Mustangs were now holding a 12-7 lead with one minute left in the game. But the Knights did not lose their spirit and on the ensuing draws took the ball down the field to score two goals with twenty seconds left in the game. O’Connell did maintain ball possession in their own end as the clock counted down, but the length of the field was too great to overcome in the remaining seconds and the horn sounded with Mason posting the 12-9 win. The Lady Mustang varsity and junior varsity teams next travel to Tuscarora High School in Leesburg on Thursday to take on the Lady Huskies.

GIRLS SOCCER


PAGE 18 | MARCH 17 – 23, 2016

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City of F.C. Sidewalks to Get Powerwashed Thursday, Friday The City of Falls Church Department of Public Works has contracted Stanley T. Naudus to power wash City owned sidewalks in the north side of the 100 and 200 blocks of W. Broad Street on Thursday and Friday, March 17 and 18 beginning at 7 a.m., weather permitting. They will work along W. Broad St. from Washington St. (Brown’s Hardware) to Little Falls (Stifel & Capra). The contractor will clean city owned sidewalks to the back of the curb and concrete aprons. They will not be cleaning up to the door of the businesses as that is not City property. They will also be cleaning the wall at the mini park by The Unity Club and power washing the trash and recycling containers in those two blocks. The contractor will go back and gently power wash any windows which may get dirty as a result of their work. The City will assist the contractor by providing a lane closure beginning at 9 a.m. to minimize any vehicles in the travel lanes getting sprayed.

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Levine Music Celebrating 40 Years with Concert at F.C. Episcopal Levine Music is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a special concert at the Falls Church Episcopal on Saturday, March 19 from 7 – 10 p.m. The concert will feature Fedor Ouspensky on violin, Anna Ouspenskaya on piano and Igor Zubkovsky on cello. The Falls Church Episcopal is located at 115 E. Fairfax in Falls Church. To RSVP, contact Rebecca Collaros at rcollaros@levinmusic.org or 202-686-8000, x1002.

F.C. Chamber Networking Mixer at Wellness Institute March 22 Bonita Woods Wellness Institute is hosting a networking mixer for the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, March 22 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. The institute is a nonprofit nutrition and wellness education center that provides a variety of free and affordable programs to help clients take charge of their personal wellness and well-being. The event will be catered by the gluten-free Chef Bon’s Yum Truck. Beverages will also be served. Following the mixer, attendees are welcome to stay for The Power of the Healing Touch: A Hands On Workshop. The event, which is free and open to chamber members and those interested in learning more about the Bonita Woods Wellness Institute or the chamber, will take place at 140 Little Falls Street in Falls Church. For more information about the Bonita Woods Wellness Institute visit www.bonitawoods.org. For more information about the event, visit www. FallsChurchChamber.org.

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PAGE 20 | MARCH 17 – 23, 2016

Community Events

THURSDAY, MARCH 17

Early Literacy Center. Explore educational and manipulative items to teach early literacy through play on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday every week. This program is for ages birth to 5 years. No registration required. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 11 a.m. – noon. & 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. 703-248-5034. Spanish Language Storytime with Communikids. Children ages 2 – 5 can drop-in for Spanish storytime with Communikids. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 3 – 3:30 p.m. 703-248-5034. Author Talk. The Washington Post national baseball correspondent Barry Svrulga will celebrate the paperback release of The Grind: Inside Baseball’s Endless Season. One More Page Books (2200 N. Westmoreland St. #101, Arlington). Free. 7 p.m. onemorepagebooks.com. Teen Time Friendship Bracelets. Children in grades 6 – 12 can make friendship bracelets with your BFFs. Registration required. Participation limited to 15 participants. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth

Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 7 p.m. 703-2485034.

FRIDAY, MARCH 18

McLean Art Society Meeting. Linda Maldonado, a painter who uses mixed media and creative collage, will be presenting at the McLean Art Society’s meeting. In addition to the presentation there will be artists sale of materials and publications. McLean Community Center (1234 Ingleside Ave., McLean). Free. 10 a.m. – noon. 703-790-0123.

SATURDAY, MARCH 19

F.C. Farmers’ Market. Vendors offer fresh locally grown fruits and vegetables, cheeses, meats, baked goods, plants, and wine. City Hall Parking Lot (300 Park Ave., Falls Church). Free. 9 a.m. – noon. 703248-5077. Book Sale. Used adult and children’s books for sale. Book sale open Sunday, March 20 from 1 – 5 p.m. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Conference Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. 703-248-5034. Open House and Town Hall Meeting. Join City of Falls Church staff, City Council and School Board officials to discuss budget priorities and how your tax

&

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Send community event submissions to the News-Press by e-mail at calendar@fcnp. com; fax 703-342-0347; or by regular mail to 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church, VA 22046. Please include any photos or artwork with submissions. Deadline is Monday at noon for each week’s edition.

dollars are used, learn about the proposed tax rate increases on real estate, personal property and cigarettes and comment on the FY 2017 budget. Falls Church Community Center (223 Little Falls St., Falls Church). Free. 10 a.m. – noon. fallschurchva.gov/ Budget. Rainbow Puppets. There’s an acrobatic flea, a giant stegosaurus and practically everything in between in Rainbow Puppet Productions’ latest musical, “Creatures Great and Small.” For children ages 5 and up. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Conference Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 2 p.m. 703-2485034.

SUNDAY, MARCH 20

Author Talk. Lesley Francis talks about You Come Too: My Journey with Robert Frost, a personal and well-researched portrait of her famous grandfather and the women whose lives he touched. One More Page Books (2200 N. Westmoreland St. #101, Arlington). Free. 3 p.m. onemorepagebooks.com.

MONDAY, MARCH 21

Little Lego. Children ages 3 – 5 can gather for Lego play time. Must be accompanied by a caregiver. Registration required.

Participation limited to 15 participants. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Conference Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 10:30 a.m. 703248-5034.

TUESDAY, MARCH 22

Wii Game Day at the Library. Children in grades 2 – 5 can gather at Mary Riley Styles Public Library to play their favorite Nintendo Wii games. Registration required. Mary Riley Styles Public Library (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 3 – 4 p.m. fallschurchva.gov/Library. Managing and Maintaining the Vegetable Garden. Master Gardeners of Arlington/Alexandria will present a program on Managing and Maintaining the Vegetable Garden. The program, the second in a series for new gardeners, will emphasize best management practices for a healthy garden. Fairlington Community Center (3308 S. Stafford St., Arlington). Free. 7 – 8:30 p.m. mgnv.org.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23

Bingo at the Library. Children in grades K – 5 can drop in to play bingo. Mary Riley Styles Public Library’s Youth Services Room (120 N. Virginia Ave. Falls Church). Free. 7 p.m. 703-248-5034.

Theater Fine Arts THURSDAY, MARCH 17

“Constellations.” On paper, the romance between Marianne and Roland seems improbable, if not impossible: she’s a theoretical physicist; he’s a beekeeper. If there were only one universe, they might not be together. But in a quantum multiverse, unlimited versions of their relationship can unfold. Written by Nick Payne, one of Britain’s most innovative playwrights, “Constellations” plays with choice and chance, and charts the limitless possibilities of one relationship. Through March 20. Studio Theatre (1501 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $20 – $50. 8 p.m. studiotheatre.org.

FRIDAY, MARCH 18

“Flick.” Set in the popcorn-strewn, empty aisles of a crumbling Massachusetts movie

theater, this 2014 Pulitzer Prize winner exposes the surprising tenderness and comedy in the everyday. Spilled soda on the floor. Leftover food wrappers stashed in the seats. Three minimum wage employees perform the humdrum labor necessary to keep one of the last 35 millimeter projectors running. Through April 17. Signature Theatre (4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington). $99. 8 p.m. sigtheatre.org.

SATURDAY, MARCH 19

“The Dancing Princess.” A group of princesses, each more beautiful than the last, are locked in their room each night, but in the morning, their dancing shoes are completely worn through as if they had been dancing all night! Join Creative Cauldron’s Learning Theater Ensemble as a young knight attempts to �ind out the

princesses’ secret in a musical adaptation of this classic Grimm tale. Through March 20. ArtSpace Falls Church (410 S. Maple St., Falls Church). $14 – $16. 7:30 p.m. creativecauldron. org.

“Romeo and Juliet.” Synetic’s landmark production of Romeo and Juliet returns. In this passionate and lyrical piece, set among the gears of a giant clock, the greatest of Shakespearean lovers race against time itself to outrun their fate. One of the original “wordless Shakespeares”, this production received six Helen Hayes Award Nominations and two wins – one for Outstanding Resident Play and another for Outstanding Ensemble. This production will not have dialogue. Through March 27. Synetic Theater (1800 S. Bell St., Arlington). $20 – $60. 8 p.m. synetictheater. org.


CA L E NDA R

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

live_music&nightlife THURSDAY, MARCH 17

FRIDAY, MARCH 18

S�. P������’� D�� P���� ��������� B���� M�����, T�� F��� A�� ��� D��������� �� O��. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $10 – $20 in advance; $15 – $20 day of the show. 6 p.m. 703-255-1566. C����� M���� ���� D���������� D������. 9:30 (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $25. 7 p.m. 202265-0930. D����. The Birchmere (3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria). $45. 7:30 p.m. 703-549-7500. R���� CPR P�������: A K������ B������!. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $7 (Backstage). 7:30 p.m. 202-6677960. J�� H������ Q������. Blues Alley (1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.) $20. 8 p.m. 202337-4141. S�. P������’� D�� P���� ��������� W�������. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $10. 8 p.m. 703-522-8340. A��� K���� G���. Wolf Trap (1645 Trap Road, Vienna). $25 – $27. 8 p.m. 703-255-1900. S���� U� C����� �� ��� S����. Clare and Don’s Beach Shack (130 N. Washington St., Falls Church). 8 p.m. 703-532-9283. S�. P����’� D�� ���� T�� A��� S���� B���. Dogwood Tavern (132 W. Broad St., Falls Church). 8 p.m. – Midnight. 703-237-8333.

Z���: T�� U������� L�� Z������� E���������. The State Theatre (220 N. Washington St., Falls Church). $17 in advance; $20 day of the show. 7 p.m. 703-237-0300. M������� C������� � T�� B����� R������. The Birchmere (3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria). $29.50. 7:30 p.m. 703-549-7500. T�� S�����������. Wolf Trap (1645 Trap Road, Vienna). $27 – $30. 8 p.m. 703-255-1900. G������� ���� T�� B����� L���� S����� H���. 9:30 (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $30. 8 p.m. 202265-0930. B��� � G����� II: A B�������� T������ �� ��� W������ D���. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $15 in advance; $17 day of the show (Backstage). 9 p.m. 202-667-7960. M����� �� M����� F���� ���� J����� ��� T�� T�������� ��� T�� F���. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $10. 9 p.m. 703-522-8340. N�� O���� D���� P���� ��������� DJ� M���������, K���� K ��� S���� EP. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $10 (Mainstage). 9:30 p.m. 202-667-7960.

SATURDAY, MARCH 19

J�����’ J��� P������� A N������ F���� T������ �� T�� E����� B������� ��������� D���� � G����� K������, J���� R��� M������, R����� � T�� W��������, T�� L������ B������� ��� W����� B����. Jammin’

Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $20 – $25. 6 p.m. 703-255-1566. G������� ���� T�� B����� L���� S����� H���. 9:30 (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $30. 8 p.m. 202265-0930. T������� ���� M��� O��� M������. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $15 (Mainstage). 9 p.m. 202-667-7960. B���� T������� ��� F������ ��������� R�� H������� ���� B���� E����� S����. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $12. 9 p.m. 703-522-8340. S������ M����. Clare and Don’s Beach Shack (130 N. Washington St., Falls Church). 10 p.m. 703-532-9283.

SUNDAY, MARCH 20

T�� O�� R���� B���. Wolf Trap (1645 Trap Road, Vienna). $55. 2 p.m. 703255-1900. A� A�������� ���� D�� R���. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $20. 3 p.m. 703-255-1566. M���’� B���� S����. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $15 in advance; $20 day of the show. 6:30 p.m. 703-255-1566. T�� O�� R���� B���. Wolf Trap (1645 Trap Road, Vienna). $55. 7 p.m. 703255-1900. A������� K��� ���� A�� ��� W�� �� W������. Galaxy Hut (2711 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $5. 9 p.m. 703-5258646.

MONDAY, MARCH 21

B�� O������� ���� D���� M�M�����.

MARCH 17 – 23, 2016 | PAGE 21

Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $15. 6 p.m. 703-255-1566. B������� B��� B���. Iota Club and Café (2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). 8 p.m. 703-522-8340. D���� F���������. Blues Alley (1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.) $20. 8 p.m. 202-337-4141. I���� G��� ���� M�����. Galaxy Hut (2711 Wilson Blvd., Arlington). $5. 9 p.m. 703-525-8646.

TUESDAY, MARCH 22

G�� C������ ���� P���� G��. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $20 – $22. 6 p.m. 703-255-1566. B�� B�� V����� D����. The Birchmere (3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria). $39.50. 7:30 p.m. 703549-7500. Donato Soverio. Blues Alley (1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.) $20. 8 p.m. 202-337-4141.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23

M��� O’C����� ���� M����� O’C�����. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $20 – $25. 6 p.m. 703-255-1566. P���� T ���� L�� ����� ��� G H����. 9:30 (815 V St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $35 – $99. 7 p.m. 202-2650930. M�� B��� ���� H������ ��� B�� M����. Black Cat (1811 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.). $12 (Backstage). 7:30 p.m. 202-667-7960. D���� P. S������. Blues Alley (1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.) $20. 8 p.m. 202-337-4141.

P������� A����... Thursday, March 24 – Teen Knitting Club. Children in grades 5 – 12 can gather to knit, crochet and work on other needle arts. In January, the club started

a group hat project. Registration required. Mary Riley Styles Public Library Conference Room (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church). Free. 7 – 8 p.m. fallschurchva.gov/Library.

Saturday, April 2 – Recycling Extravaganza. Recycle electronics, computers, eye glasses, medical equipment, sewing machines, bikes, clothing, textiles,

batteries and more. Recycling Center (217 Gordon Road, Falls Church). 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. fallschurchva.gov/RE.

Saturday, April 9 – Leaf Mulch Loading Day. City staff uses heavy equipment to load open bed vehicles with our high quality, free double-ground leaf mulch

and hard-wood mulch. Participants must sign a waiver prior to loading. Recycling Center (217 Gordon Road, Falls Church). 7 a.m. – 2 p.m. fallschurchva. gov/429/Leaf-Mulch.

C������� S���������� 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: Falls Church News-Press, Attn: Calendar, 200 Little Falls St., #508, Falls Church, VA 22046


FO O D &D I NI NG

PAGE 22 | MARCH 17 – 23, 2016

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

How to Eat Indian Food the Traditional Way (Hint: It’s With Your Hands) BY CAITLIN E. O’CONNER TAMPA BAY TIMES

If it’s bland, run. That’s my No. 1 rule for eating Indian food in restaurants. It’s self-explanatory. Rule No. 2 is a bit denser: Be adventurous and don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. Literally. Spoons and forks are all well and good. But when Indian food is involved, using your hands is the (traditional) way to go. Oprah landed in hot water a few years ago when, during filming in Mumbai, she disparagingly told an Indian family, “I heard some Indian people eat with their hands still.” The response was swift: Yeah, Oprah, plenty of people still eat with their hands. It’s just how things are done. The last time I was in New Delhi, in the northern part of India, meeting my Bihar-born boyfriend’s family, silverware was almost nonexistent. Instead of setting down utensils, hosts ask in Hindi, “Tumko kitni roti chahiye?” (“How many pieces of bread do you want?”) Chances are, unless you have your own desi cutie hanging around, restaurants are your main source of Indian grub. Indian food

is friendly to vegetarians (an estimated 40 percent of India’s population is vegetarian), vegans (most Indian vegetarians don’t eat eggs) and gluten eschewers (several nonwheat flours are prominent, such as ground chickpea besan). North Indian food is probably what you’re most familiar with from restaurants. Most local Indian restaurants focus on the cuisine of the north with a dash of some southern dishes such as spiced rice biryani. South Indian cuisine, is much more heavily based on rice. Embracing the traditional way to eat all Indian cuisine means forgoing silverware. In lieu of forks and knives, tear long chunks of bread (in restaurants, that’s usually naan) with your right hand, pulling with your thumb and forefinger while holding the rest in place with your other fingers. Wrap this around the food and gravy in your main dish and eat the whole morsel in one scoop. Rice, too, can go in the mix, especially with a thinner dish like daal, though rice’s primary function is to salvage any remaining gravies. “Chawal?” a host will offer when your rotis are gone but food remains. Fun facts: Leftovers are generally undesirable in India, and

the meal isn’t complete in many places until you’ve eaten your rice. In fact, in much of South India and parts of the east, you’d skip right to this step, not bothering with bread (unless you count the south’s dosa, which is a crepe made from rice batter). Rice, too, is traditionally eaten with your right hand as the utensil, working the grains and gravies – there’s no keeping your dishes separate at this point – into a sticky ball on your fingers and using your thumb to slide it into your mouth. The technique is a little more complicated and messy than the bread one, so in more formal cases, including in a restaurant, a spoon will usually suffice. Now that you know how to eat the food, what should you order? For the curious beginner (or the simply ravenous), a lunch buffet is the way to go, sampling things better understood by sight and smell than menu definitions like “with fragrant Indian spices,” which describes, well, everything. But when you order a la carte, dishes are meant to be shared family style – a little of what you ordered, a little of what your companion(s) ordered, a little communal rice. This means sharing a strategy with your

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EAT WITH YOUR hands. (P����: H����� M������/T�� N�� Y��� T����) co-diners is also best. My approach is someone orders vegetarian, someone else meat, and no two sauces should be alike. I cook more Indian food than the average American, so at restaurants I usually also go for the things I don’t make at home. (I have long since admitted defeat in the vindaloo category.) Even if you don’t cook it, do venture past the basic tandoori chicken or aloo gobi (literally “potato-cauliflower”) for things like complex sauces, goat and lamb that show the real breadth of Indian cuisine.

Intimidated by goat or lamb? Don’t be. You may have to do a little picking around bones, but goat curry is very savory and not so unlike a spicy pot roast; ground lamb seekh kebab has much more flavor complexity than chicken. And I can credit Indian cuisine with getting me to eat okra (bhindi do pyaza) and liver, something all the deep-frying in this country’s South has never managed to accomplish. Remember what I said about having a bit of adventure? It makes for good food stories.


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MARCH 17 – 23, 2016 | PAGE 25

March

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BY DREW COSTLEY

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS

Celtic rock band Enter the Haggis got together for the first time for a St. Patrick’s Day show in March 1995, 21 years ago, according to Mark Abraham, the group’s bassist. He said that group members – the band has undergone several lineup changes through the years – have had to learn each others’ personalities throughout the years. “We’ve worked out the kinks through the years,” said Abraham, who’s been with the group for 13 years. “And we’re not as busy the last couple of years as we used to be...people are busy with families and different things.” The group, which is based in Toronto, has just wrapped up a new seven-song, yet-tobe titled album that’s due out in the fall of this year. It’s a return to form for the band, whose previous album, Penny Black, was released under a completely different band name, Jubilee Riots. It wasn’t quite a quarter-life crisis as Abraham described it to the News-Press, but the sound of Jubilee Riots was a departure from the how the group usually sounds as Enter the Haggis, though the pacing and the energy of the songs were similar. “It arose out of a relaxed environment. Nobody was trying to push any ideas on us. It just kind of developed organically,” Abraham said. Whereas Enter the Haggis has a definite Celtic punk vibe, Jubilee Riots was much more pop oriented with scant Celtic influences. But the band’s desire to create that kind of music had been burgeoning for a while before they decided to do it. “It was a fairly gradual evolution over a few albums where songs were getting, I guess, less Celtic-centered. So, it wasn’t [premeditated] to release an album where the songs weren’t Celtic,” Abraham said. “But the way the songs came out sounding, there weren’t a lot of Celtic sounds on it. And

ENTER THE HAGGIS. (C������� P����) we kind of struggled with whether to attach those songs with the name Enter the Haggis, because it’s a Celtic band, and then we decided to change the name.” Although the group creates music heavily influenced by the Celtic tradition while playing under the name Enter the Haggis, their brief transformation to Jubilee Riots allowed some of the members of the group to display their chops in genres they were trained in. Abraham and Bruce McCarthy, the group’s drummer, both have Jazz backgrounds. For those who have followed the group throughout its career, Penny Black was more of a natural progression than a drastic change, Abraham said. But, starting with “Mrs. Elliott,” the first new single of Enter the Haggis’ 2015 20th anniversary retrospective album, Cheers and Echoes, there is an intentional return to

form with what they’ve recently created. “There’s two different reasons why we came back to the Celtic sound. Craig [Downie] and Brian [Buchanan] started playing [Celtic music] very young in competitions and they’ve always had that background and Craig, who started the band, is from Scotland,” Abraham said. “So they’ve always had those Celtic influences. The rest of us not so much. We’ve always brought different elements to the band... but over the last year or two we’ve come to appreciate the Celtic elements that we hadn’t been using as much. It’s definitely something that’s unique. You don’t hear a lot of rock bands with bagpipes in them.” • For more information about Enter the Haggis, visit enterthehaggis.com.

Pusha T with Lil Bibby 9:30 7 p.m.

These singles whet the appetites of the FCNP editorial team this week:  Nicholas Benton – Happy Days Are Here Again by Barbra Streisand 

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Jody Fellows – Cheap Beer by FIDLAR

Drew Costley – A Mess... by Shabazz Palaces


PAGE 26 | MARCH 17 – 23, 2016

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM


LO CA L

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

MARCH 17 – 23, 2016 | PAGE 27

F� � � � C � � � � �

S����� N��� � N����

A GEORGE MASON STUDENT cuddles up with a furry friend outside of the school on Thursday, March 10, when a group of therapy dogs from People Animals Love came to Mason’s campus as part of Stress Less, Laugh More Week at the school. (P����: C������� �� FCCPS P����/T� B���)

F.C. Residents Earn Academic Honors Across the Nation Several Falls Church residents recently earned academic honors from colleges, universities and other academic institutions across the nation. Matthew Beer and James Meeks made the dean’s list at Rochester Institute of Technology, where students must earn at least a 3.4 grade point average to make the list. Kathryn Colarulli and Camila Moscoso made the dean’s list at Lafayette College, where students must earn at least a 3.6 grade point average. Katherine R. Griswold, Jing Luo and Misha Vessali made the dean’s list at Boston University, where students must earn at least a 3.5 grade point average to make the list. Jacqueline Kleger made the honor roll at the University of Kansas. Kristina Skotte made the dean’s list at Azusa Pacific University, where students must earn at least a 3.5 grade point average to make the list. Tara Khanmalek Yazdi was named to the dean’s list at Bates College, where students must earn a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.71 to make the list.

2 F.C. Students Receive Research Grants at UVA Ella Shoup, of Falls Church, and Nebil Nuradin, of

CHARLIE ADAMS, a seventh grader at Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School, speaks with two women about his National History Day project, which was called “The (Camera) Shot Heard Around the World” and focused on the work of photographer Lewis Hein, whose work documenting child labor practices in the 1800s led to major reforms in the United States. (C������� P����) Washington, D.C. and formerly of Falls Church, are among students who have received research grants from the University of Virginia’s Center for Global Health to pursue projects around the world this summer. Shoup, a third-year political and social thought major, will research creating a virtual support

network for men living with HIV in South Africa. Nuradin, a firstyear medical student, will assess the effectiveness of simulation workshops in teaching surgery in low- to middle-income countries, using hospital records in Rwanda, where the workshops started in 2012. For more information, visit globalhealth.virginia.edu.

To hear the homeowners’ story, go to MakingHomeAffordable.gov

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PAGE 28| MARCH 17 - 23, 2016

BU S I N E S S & S E RVI C E DIR EC TORY

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Handyman Service All repairs, plumbing, drywall, doors, windows, rotted wood, siding, gutters, lighting + more FREE estimates, insured Call Doug (703)556-4276

Spring Quarter Registration is now underway! Classes begin April 4, 2016 Apply online, in person, or by contacting the Admissions Office at (703) 942-6200. www.acct.edu 803 W. Broad Street Falls Church VA 22046

ACCLAIMED CARPET CLEANING 5 Rooms Deep Cleaned: $135 Carpet Stretching 24/7 Emergency Water Damage We Clean the White House AcclaimedWaterDamage.com

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We come to your home and repair lawn mowers, chainsaws, snow blowers, weed whackers, generators, even small tractors!

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C L AS S I F I E DS Cemetery Plots SIX CEMETERY PLOTS National Memorial Park in Falls Church at bargain prices. Will sell for about half of going price! More information call 1-719543-0315.

Public Notice ABC LICENSE NGOC THUY, LLC , Trading as: Ngoc Thuy 6757 Wilson Blvd. #21, Falls Church, Virginia 22044-3387. The above establishment is applying to the VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL (ABC) for a Wine and Beer On Premises license to sell or manufacture alcoholic beverages. Phu Nguyen, Member. NOTE: Objections to the issuance of this license must be submitted to ABC no later than 30 days from the publishing date of the first of two required newspaper legal notices. Objections should be registered at www. abc.virginia.gov or 800-552-3200.

PUBLIC AUCTION

In accordance with the Virginia Self Storage Act, section 55-419 F, notice is hereby given that the contents of the following rental storage spaces located at Fort Knox Self Storage will be offered for sale: 137 Roger Pol, 165 Mark Beemer, 637 Baba Gueye, 644 Cindy Campbell, 1009 Michael Allen. Sale will be held at: Fort Knox Self Storage 2933 Telestar Ct. Falls Church, VA 703-698-0022 Thursday, March 24, 2016 1:00 p.m. TERMS: Cash/Credit Card Only Locks cut at auction.

classads@fcnp.com

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING CITY OF FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA The City Council will hold a public hearing on Monday, March 28, 2016 at 7:30 p.m., or as soon thereafter as the matter may be heard on the following: (TO16-01) ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 26, ARTICLE TWO OF THE CITY CODE WITH RESPECT TO RESIDENTIAL PARKING RESTRICTIONS

The HARB meeting will be held in the Oak Room of City Hall, 300 Park Avenue, beginning at 7:00 PM. Enter City Hall through the Police Department; take the elevator to Level 3; turn left. The Oak room is the 3rd door on the left. The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter and to the spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act. To request a reasonable accommodation for any type of disability, call 703-248-5040 (TYY 711).

This amendment would allow the City Residential Parking Permit Program to create zones where a parking permit other than the City Decal is used, and allow parking in such zones only when such alternate permit is displayed. All public hearings will be held in the Council Chambers, 300 Park Avenue, Falls Church, Virginia. For copies of legislation, contact the City Clerk’s office at (703-248-5014) or cityclerk@fallschurchva.gov. The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act. To request a reasonable accommodation for any type of disability, call 703-2485014 (TTY 711). CELESTE HEATH CITY CLERK

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING OF THE CITY OF FALLS CHURCH HISTORIC ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD The Falls Church Historic Architectural Review Board (HARB) will hold a public hearing on Thursday, 24 March 2016 to consider the following: Construct an attached structure measuring 26’6” x 49’x4” and 1-1/2 story woodframed over an unfinished basement. New construction will be attached to the protected structure by a breezeway connection at the front porch.

fcnp.com

We are pleged to the letter and spirit of Virginia’s policy for achieving equal housing opportunity throughout the Commonwealth. We encourage and support advertising and marketing programs in which there are no barriers to obtaining housing because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, elderliness, familial status or handicap. All real estate advertised herein is subject to Virginia’s fair housing law which makes it illegal to advertise “any preference, limitation, or discrimination 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 (804) 367-8530. Toll free call (888) 551-3247. For the hearing impaired call (804) 367-9753.

We are pledged to the letter and spirit of Virginia’s policy for achieving equal housing opportunity throughout the Commonwealth. We encourage and support advertising and marketing programs in which there are no barriers to obtaining housing because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, elderliness, familial status or handicap. All real estate advertised herein is subject to Virginia’s fair housing law which makes it illegal to advertise “any preference, limitation, or discrimination 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 hereby informed that all dwellings adverEmail: fairhousing@dpor.virginia.gov. tised in this newspaper are available on an equal Website: www.fairhousing.vipnet.org opportunity basis. For more information or to file a housing complaint call the Virginia Fair Housing Office at (804) 367-8530. Toll free call (888) 551-3247. For the hearing impaired call (804) 367-9753.


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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Crossword

ACROSS

By David Levinson Wilk 1

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© 2016 David Levinson Wilk

Across 1. "How low can you go?" dance

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1. “How low can you go?” dance 6. Crispy sandwiches 10. 1936 Oscar winner who played the title role in “The Story of Louis Pasteur” 14. University where Jimmy Carter became a distinguished professor in 1982 15. Suffix with concession 16. Hip to 17. When to celebrate National Poetry Month 18. Something to play at a casino 20. Spanish waterways 21. Singer whose video for “Chandelier” has over one billion views on YouTube 22. Shout at a rodeo 23. Self-exam requiring a handheld mirror and a glass of water that endocrinologists recommend for early detection of thyroid problems 26. Cara of “Fame” 27. One way to get meds, for short 28. Suffered from 29. Suffix with super 31. Jewish rights org. founded in 1913 32. Author Dostoyevsky 34. Bobby who was Sports Illustrated’s 1970 “Sportsman of the Year” 35. Fan mail recipient 36. Surprise punt in the NFL 39. Dot-____ (online businesses) 42. Rapper with the #1 album “Hip Hop Is Dead” 43. Bad stroke on the golf course 47. Band with 1999 hit “Summer Girls” 48. Dept. of Justice heads 49. Chard or cab alternative

MARCH 17 - 23, 2016 | PAGE 29

50. 1979 Yves Montand film “____ in Icarus” 51. 1997-2006 United Nations chief 53. Howard Stern, notably 56. Acting bullish? 58. Chemistry suffix 59. Voting no 60. Classic 1953 short in which Daffy is tormented by an animator who is revealed to be Bugs in the end 62. Colloquialism 63. Man or Manhattan 64. The first U.S. tennis player to win $100,000 in a year 65. Painter’s supply 66. Ball-____ hammer 67. Pigeon-____ 68. Playing costs

DOWN

1. Find out about 2. Charge brought against Socrates and Aristotle 3. Country that’s home to Mohammed V International Airport 4. Like a cool fall morning 5. Olive of comics 6. Spoon-fed, say 7. Pastel color 8. ____-la-la 9. Cabinet position: Abbr. 10. Grown-up chica 11. In the near future 12. “Sorry, ain’t gonna happen!” 13. Old-time desk accessory 19. Dullea of “2001: A Space Odyssey” 21. It’s caring, in a saying 24. China’s ____ En-lai 25. He yells “KHAAANNNN!” in

CHUCKLE BROS BRIAN & RON BOYCHUK

6. Crispy sandwiches 10. 1936 Oscar winner who played the title role in "The Story of Louis Pasteur"

Sudoku

“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” 30. It’s an opening 33. Places to get Blizzard Treats, for short 34. Permits 35. When doubled, a hit song of 1965 and 1989 37. Musical Mama 38. Bop 39. Seafood-based party food 40. Worthless 41. Accessory for Colonel Klink on “Hogan’s Heroes” 44. Theodor Herzl, for one 45. Source of some intolerance 46. First wearers of parkas 48. “Breaking Bad” Emmy winner Gunn 49. Totally wiped out 52. Poet Conrad 54. “Wag the Dog” actress 55. Son of Will and brother of Willow 57. MBA hopeful’s hurdle 61. Troop-entertaining grp. 62. Chicago-based supermarket chain Last Thursday’s Solution P E R I S C O P E

O N E C O U R S E

G S T A R

O W E T O

D P A N H I T E B I M H B M S Y A A K U E R B Y E B B N R A A D E B N M U Y D E E P A D D L E A V R I Z I Y A A L L L

D E E J A Y

A C R E

S H E L B Y L Y N N E

I S A L Y I N A O M B O L N E T E L A Y O S K L I A T E N G E R G R E N

S O N J A

L U N A R

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B A B Y B U M P S

S P A R E T I R E

S P R A Y E D O N

By The Mepham Group

Level: 1 2 3 4

14. University where Jimmy Carter became a distinguished professor in 1982 15. Suffix with concession 16. Hip to 17. When to celebrate National Poetry Month 18. Something to play at a casino 20. Spanish waterways 21. Singer whose video for "Chandelier" has over one billion views on YouTube

1

22. Shout at a rodeo 23. Self-exam requiring a handheld mirror and a glass of water that endocrinologists recommend for early detection of thyroid problems

LOOSE PARTS

26. Cara of "Fame"

DAVE BLAZEK

27. One way to get meds, for short Solution to last Sunday’s puzzle

NICK KNACK

1

© 2016 N.F. Benton

3/20/16

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. © 2016 The Mepham Group. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency. All rights reserved.


LO CA L

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

C������ C�����

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

20 s Yearo Ag

e c o mthe to of aid i r t h e re. pastu w N o the is e t i m all for o d g o to cows e c o mthe to

20 � 10 Y���� A�� �� ��� N���-P���� Falls Church News-Press Vol. VI, No. 1 • March 21, 1996

News-Press Completes Its 1st 5 years “Have you heard the news? Come March 28th, Falls Church is going to have its own newspaper,” was the rallying cry at this very time five years ago, when the frantic push was on to produce the very first edition of the Falls Church News-Press. Some doubts that even that first edition would make it were allayed following a non-stop effort through the night leading up to the first publishing deadline when its exhausted founder and staff of one looked out the window at the emerging dawn....

Falls Church News-Press Vol. XVI, No. 3 • March 23, 2006

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

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

F.C. Council Takes Aim at School Budget, McKeever Delivers Mixed Fiscal Signals While City Manager Dan McKeever laid out an unsettling forecast of alternative scenarios for Falls Church’s fiscal future, F.C. City Council members signaled their intent to defy McKeever’s FY 06-07 Budget recommendation and seek a substantial cut in the real estate tax rate at a Council work session Monday. The 10.1% increase in the City Schools’ budget request was suggested as a prime target.

HELP NEPAL NOW

A GROUP OF CARDINALS ON RIDGE PLACE in Falls Church didn’t mind the blizzard that came along with winter storm Jonas. Here is one of the cardinals chilling on a tree branch, outside of a window at the Nussbaum family’s home. Just because you’re not famous doesn’t mean your pet can’t be! Send in your Critter Corner submissions to crittercorner@fcnp.com.

WE EXIST TO MAKE SURE IT DOESN’T

OMAR HAVANA/GETTY IMAGES

Multiple sclerosis interrupts the flow of information between the brain and the body and stops people from moving. With the help of people like you, the National MS Society addresses the challenges of each person whose life is affected by MS and helps them stay connected to the great big moving world.

EARTHQUAKE IN NEPAL More than 1 million children need immediate aid. UNICEF is on the ground providing lifesaving supplies. Help now: Visit unicefusa.org

JOIN ThE MOvEMENT jointhemovement.org

Beverly, diagnosed in 2001

National Multiple Sclerosis Society


MARCH 17 - 23 2016 | PAGE 31

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Directory Listings: Call Us at 703-532-3267

n

ACCOUNTING

Diener & Associates, CPA.. . . . . . . . . 241-8807 Eric C. Johnson, CPA, PC . . . . . . . . . 538-2394 Mark Sullivan, CPA. . . . . . . . . . . 571-214-4511 HBC Tax and Accounting . . . . . . . . . . 459-6794 Hahn & Associates, PC, CPAs. . . . . . 533-3777 n

ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES

Falls Church Antique Company . . . . . 241-7074 Antique Annex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241-9642 n

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AUTOMOTIVE

Beyer Volvo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-5000 Koons Used Car Outlet . . . . . . . . . . . 533-3363 n

BANKING

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

BUSINESS DIRECTORY n

BOOK BINDING

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

CLEANING SERVICES

Maid Brigade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823-1922 Acclaimed Carpet Cleaning . . . . . . . . 978-2270 Claure. Zenia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571-235-4295 A Cleaning Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 892-8648 n

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DENTISTS

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ENGINES

George’s Small Engine Repair. . 571-212-0712 n

EYEWEAR

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

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FLORISTS FRAMES

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GIFTS

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

INSURANCE

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MASSAGE

MUSIC

Academy of Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938-8054

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

REAL ESTATE

Merelyn Kaye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .790-9090x218 www.helpfulmortgage.us . . . . . . . . . . 237-0222 Casey O’Neal - ReMax . . . . . . . . . . . 824-4196 Rosemary Hayes Jones. . . . . . . . . . .790-1990 The Young Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .356-8800 Tori McKinney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 867-8674 Shaun Murphy, Realtor . . . . . . . . . . . 868-5999 n

TAILOR

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

Dr Gordon Theisz, Family Medicine. . 533-7555 n

PHOTOGRAPHY

Gary Mester, Event, Portraits. . . . . . . 481-0128 Mary Sandoval Photography . . . 334-803-1742

LAWN CARE

MEDICAL

PHARMACY

Broad Street Pharmacy . . . . . . . . . . . 533-9013 n

www.healthybyintention.com.. . . . . . . 534-1321

Art & Frame of Falls Church . . . . . . . 534-4202 n

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PET SERVICES

Apex Pet Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532-8012 Feline Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 920-8665

Lawn and Landscape Services . . . . . 691-2351 n

Falls Church Florist, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . 533-1333 n

HOME IMPROVEMENT

Allstate Home Auto Life Ins. . . . . . . 241-8100 State Farm Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-5105

EQUIPMENT RENTAL/SALE

VA Outdoor Power Equipment . . . . . . 207-2000 n

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OPTOMETRIST

Dr. Alison Sinyai, Family Eye Care . . 533-3937 n

FC Heating & Air Service . . . . . . . . . . 534-0630 Joseph Home Improvement. . . . . . . . 507-5005 Picture Perfect Home Improvements 590-3187 One Time Home Improvement. . . . . . 577-9825

Family Dentistry, Nimisha V Patel . . . 533-1733 Dr. William Dougherty . . . . . . . . . . . 532-3300

Foxes Music Co . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533-7393 n

HEALTH & FITNESS

Vantage Fitness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241-0565 Jazzercise Falls Church. . . . . . . . . . . 622-2152 n

1 Line Maximum

(30 characters + Ph. #, incl. spaces)

HANDYMAN

Doug’s Handyman Service. . . . . . . . . 556-4276 Your Handyman . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571-243-6726

COLLEGES

American College of Commerce Technology 942-6200 n

ATTORNEYS

Mark F. Werblood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534-9300 Sudeep Bose, Former Police Officer. 926-3900 Janine S. Benton, Esq. . . . . . . . . . . .992-9255

3 months - $150 6 months - $270 1 year - $450

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TAXES

John Palmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-8780 Beatson Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 798-3590


PAGE 32 | MARCH 17 – 23, 2016

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Visit RE/MAX West End for all your real estate needs Open Sunday 2-4pm

Coming Soon

3427 Valley Drive Alexandria, VA 22302

Attention first-time home buyers! Almost 1000 sqft, 2 BD/1 BA, 2 levels,washer/ dryer, remodeled kitchen & bath, gleaming floors. newer windows, fantastic community, convenient location. Seller will pay $5K for your closing costs. Offered at $324,900

900 Park Avenue Falls Church City

Gorgeous historic home on almost 1/3 acre featuring 4 BD/3 BA w/stunning high-end renovations throughout. Walk to everything! Offered at $1,400,000

Lisa Young 703-505-2626

The Gates at West Falls

SOLD!

Great Location! 2 BD/2 BA condo (no steps), 2 garage spaces and storage, updated kitchen and large laundry room. Walk to WFC Metro and shops. Haycock, Longfellow, McLean Schools. Offered at $425,000

4112 Addison Road Fairfax

Representing Buyers Lovely 2 BD/2 BA home with finished basement and huge heated 2 car garage. Updated and situated mins from downtown Fairfax. Offered at $450,000

Kristin Sharifi 202-656-5206

Louise Molton 703-244-1992

Coming Soon

Under Contract

Under Contract ~ Representing Buyers

513 Broad St W #704 Falls Church City

1923 Kenilworth St, N Arlington

Representing Buyers Classic brick colonial featuring 3 BD/3 BA beautifully updated and walking distance to Westover and Lee Harrison shops. Offered at $824,900

Representing Buyers Incredible 2 BD/2.5 BA and den condo in The Byron,with beautiful tree to views. Walk to all FCC has to offer! Offered at $707,460

710 W Broad St, Falls Church VA 22046 ~ 571-282-3732 Each Office Independently Owned and Operated

Near Metro - Open Sunday 1-4

EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY

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REALTOR

Check Online for Open Houses Open Sunday 2-4pm

Open Sunday 2-4pm

158 Rees Place | Falls Church City

Elegant 3 BD/3.5 BA townhome overlooking Tripps Run. You won’t believe you are mins from DC! Peaceful and stunning views. Offered at $879,000

7025 Haycock Rd Unit F | Falls Church

Exceptional 2 level 2 BD/2.5BA townhouse style condo in the Gates of West Falls. Recently updated with gleaming hardwood floors, new appliances and an expansive private patio. 2 Garage spaces and storage. Offered at $595,000

Under Contract

Under Contract Multip le Offers!

Walk to Ballston Metro from this sun-filled 2 BR 2 bath end townhouse with parking space. Renovated kitchen w/wood cabinets, granite tops, s/s appliances; updated baths, wood floors on main level. Balcony off 2nd BR & grill area off kitchen. Loft is ideal for home office & adjoins walk-in attic for storage. 1101 N. Vernon, Arlington, $599,000

Merelyn Kaye

McEnearney Associates Home Office 703-362-1112 e-mail: merelyn@kayes.com

710 Villa Ridge Rd | Falls Church City

Absolutely beautiful 4 bed/3.5 bath colonial in desirable Broadmont.Beautiful private yard with stone patio and screened porch. Walk to Metro. Offered at $1,175,000

1027 Savile Lane | McLean

Beautiful stately colonial on 1.34 acres in the Langley District. Featuring 4 bed/4.5 bath, multiple reception rooms, pool and incredible views. Offered at $1,300,000

Voted Best Residential Real Estate Agent

Louise Molton Broker/Owner

Phone: 703 244-1992 Email: louise@moltonrealestate.com

www.LouiseMolton.com

EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY

®

REALTOR


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