Falls Church News-Press Oct 30

of the Weekly Standard magazine, and Michael Gerson, former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush and a Washington Post columnist, were among two groups of archconservatives who visited Gov. Palin in Alaska in the summer of 2007, bringing back to Washington, D.C. rave reviews

Despite poll numbers showing Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama with a solid lead over his Republican rival Sen. John McCain in Virginia, and nationally, the army of organizers and volunteers for the Obama campaign insist they are taking nothing for granted going into the final days before the election next Tuesday, Nov. 4.

A “get out the vote” rally has been set up for tonight, Thursday, Oct. 30, in the gym at George Mason High School in Falls Church, which will feature Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, beginning at 7:30 p.m.

It is expected to be filled to overflowing.

In southern Fairfax County Saturday, McCain, battling to keep Virginia in the GOP presidential column as it has been for 40 years, will appear at a rally at 11 a.m. on Rolling Road in Springfield.

The slated Obama rally is not far from Obama’s Falls Church headquarters on S. Washington St., volunteers continue to jam the large ground floor office space, flooding the region with phone calls about tonight’s rally, information about absentee voting and Tuesday’s election, and lining up leafleting and other activities at the Metro station and other locations.

Organizers there report that more than 800 new registered voters have been signed up in the City of Falls Church, proper,

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FALLS CHURCH’S FIRST ANNUAL “Halloween Paint In” changed the look of its commercial downtown last Sunday, as over 50 people took their brushes and buckets to paint Halloweenthemed works of art on the windows of more than 20 retail businesses on Rt. 7 and Rt. 29. Twenty-three student painters from third grade through high school partook, as did Mayor Robin Gardner. Organizer Marty Behr (above, right) elicited the support of Falls Church Arts, Creative Cauldron, the F.C. Chamber of Commerce, the City schools’ Business in Education alliance and the City’s Department of Recreation and Parks for the novel event. (Photo: Shaun Van Steyn)

Index

Two prominent Falls Church members among those who voted to defect from the Episcopal Church in 2006 played a major role in promoting Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be selected as the GOP vice presidential candidate, according to an article in the Oct. 27

issue of the New Yorker magazine. The revelation also comes amid new information about the prominent role of a clandestine Christian fundamentalist political action organization among the defectors’ ranks.

According to the New Yorker article, “The Insiders: How John McCain Came to Pick Sarah Palin,” by Jane Mayer, Fred Barnes, executive editor

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October 30 - November 5, 2008

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Leading into perhaps the most important election of our lifetime, with the contrast so stark between the directions the nation will head under one or the other of the presidential candidates, the News-Press reiterates its wholehearted endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama for President of the U.S., of Mark Warner for the U.S. Senate, and, for the three congressional districts in our immediate distribution area, of Rep. Jim Moran, Chairman Gerry Connolly and Judy Feder for Congress.

The electricity we’ve experienced every time visiting the large campaign headquarters of Sen. Obama blocks from our office in downtown Falls Church only confirms for us that the nation is veritably on fire with enthusiasm for a fundamental change in the course of the nation’s political and social leadership. In the closing weeks of the campaign, Sen. Obama has strengthened his image as a mature, intelligent leader committed to steering the nation through tough economic times in a dangerous world, including by drawing around himself a team of first-rate economic and foreign policy advisers, while his opponent, Republican Sen. John McCain has, in our view, disgraced himself with a sequence of bad and ill-conceived decisions. Those began with the naming of a politically expedient, but patently unqualified person as his running mate, with his reaction to the onset of the financial meltdown (just after insisting the economy was sound) by calling for the firing of Christopher Cox of the Securities and Exchange Commission, an intemperate move he swiftly withdrew, and especially with his decision to go negative, to the extreme, with a vicious attack campaign against Obama. In the meantime, he’s offered nothing positive of his own but worn-out Republican anti-tax rhetoric.

In the case of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, an intelligent and innovative thinker who is a rising star in American politics, he brings a distinctive outlook ready and capable of tackling the new problems and opportunities of the 21st century. His opponent, former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, proved he was incapable of running Virginia as its governor, leaving it with a crushing deficit, and he is stuck, like McCain, in the ideological and dogmatic stagnation of a calcified GOP. Rep. Jim Moran remains one of the most principled and effective lawmakers in Congress as he moves into his tenth term representing the 8th Congressional District. Best, by far, for filling the 11th District House seat vacated by Rep. Tom Davis this fall, is Fairfax County Board Chair Gerry Connolly with a proven record of bright, innovative leadership in the county, by contrast to the socially and fiscally right wing and backward promises of Republican Keith Fimian. In the 10th District, it is time for the arch-conservative Bush ally, Rep. Frank Wolf, to go. In her second run against him, Judy Feder has shown the grit, determination and expertise, to make a fine representative.

How can we be a businessfriendly city if we award a tax break to a would-be competitor to existing city businesses?

George Southern Falls Church

Editor, I, for one, have no objection to seeing BJ’s locate in Falls Church, and in fact probably would purchase some items there that I currently buy at Giant or Staples. Many other shoppers might do the same if BJ’s offers lower prices. But if I were a competitor of BJ’s I would be very upset by a city plan that effectively lowers BJ’s cost of doing business.

The key sentence in the city’s proposal is: “There is a significant delta between market rent that the owner can obtain for leasing the site and the rent that BJ’s can pay to make their

ground lease economically feasible.” In other words, although on paper the $3 million tax subsidy goes to the developer, in reality it goes to BJ’s in the form of lower rent. Apparently it is only “economically feasible” for BJ’s to offer lower prices if they enjoy lower costs than their competition.

The claim of “extraordinary site preparation and related costs” is simply a red herring: If the Noland site requires a lot of money to convert it into a highrent property, you can be sure that the developer obtained the site for a comparatively lower cost.

Editor, Over the years there have been several issues that “got my dander up” and I declared that I’d write about it. Well, this is actually the first time I’m actually doing so.

The idea that residents in our quaint burb want a BJ’s Warehouse is absolutely ludicrous. This City’s Economic Development Office is leading our wonderful city in a horrible direction.

I would urge our leaders to think and act long term for our residents. A BJ’s is the opposite of what a quality neighborhood desires: big box, low end, high traffic, chain shopping with no charm or heart.

I think our leaders could learn from Vienna or Great Falls, cities that consistently receive “most livable city” recognition.

We don’t want a big box.

Falls Church has so much potential. But with leaders who make such poor decisions, I’m afraid this “bonanza” will be the beginning of our decline into a typical soulless suburb.

It’s a real shame considering our proud American history since the early 1600’s. A BJ’s low end discount warehouse in our early American colonial settlement: how permanent and sad.

Cy Simonsgaard Falls Church More Letters on Page 6

October 30 - November 5, 2008

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an 11.6 percent increase among the jurisdiction’s 11,000 citizens. It’s a remarkable number in a city where voter turnout is already historically the highest in the state.

Absentee voting has also been at far higher levels than usual, according to Falls Church’s voter registrar office at City Hall. The ability to vote absentee continues through this Saturday, Nov. 1, at 5 p.m. at City Hall in Falls Church and at all eight district government centers in Fairfax County.

On Tuesday, polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., and long lines are expected throughout the day. Very preliminary forecasts are for sunny weather. The City of Falls Church’s five polling places will be at their usual locations: Thomas Jefferson Elementary School at 601 S. Oak St., the Boy Scout

October 30 - November 5, 2008

House at 128 S. Spring St., the Oakwood Apartments at 501 Roosevelt Blvd., the American Legion Hall at 400 N. Oak St. and the Community Center at 223 Little Falls St. The Falls Church League of Women Voters have produced a Voter’s Guide with profiles and position statements of all the candidates on the ballot in Falls Church, as well as voting information, and can be accessed at www.lwvfallschurch.org.

In addition to President of the U.S., voters will decide who will replace retiring Sen. John Warner in the U.S. Senate between former Virginia governors Mark Warner, the Democrat, and Jim Gilmore, the Republican, and who will represent them in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In Northern Virginia, for the 8th Congressional District that includes mostly Arlington and the City of Falls Church, Rep.

Jim Moran will be seeking a 10th two-year term against Republican challenger Mark Ellmore. In the 10th District including parts of McLean and Loudoun County, GOP incumbent Frank Wolf is facing a challenge from Democrat Judy Feder, and in the 11th District of eastern and southern Fairfax County, (which The Hill newspaper claims is, based on census data, the wealthiest district in the nation) Democrat Gerry Connolly is vying with Republican Keith Fimian to fill the seat being vacated by Rep. Tom Davis.

In addition to Democratic and Republican candidates, minority party and independent candidates are also on Tuesday’s ballot. For U.S. President, they include with their running mates Independent Green candidate Chuck Baldwin, Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr, Green Party candidate Cynthia

McKinney and independent Ralph Nader. For U.S. Senate they include Independent Green candidate Glenda Gail Parker and Libertarian candidate William B. Redpath. In the 8th District House race, Independent Green J. Ron Fisher is also on the ballot, in the 10th District independent Neeraj Nigam is on the ballot, and in the 11th District

Independent Green Joseph Oddo is on the ballot.

The News-Press has endorsed Obama for President, Warner for Senate and Moran, Connolly and Feder in the three Congressional districts of its primary circulation (see Editorial, on Page 2 of this edition).

Warner is given a large lead in statewide polls over

October 30 - November 5, 2008

Gilmore, and the level of activity in each’s Northern Virginia office is reflective of that.

Gilmore’s Alexandria campaign office was manned by one person when visited by the News-Press last week, while Warner’s Alexandria office was teeming with dozens of volunteers.

In that office, Warner met with the News-Press for an exclusive interview earlier this month, citing five priorities for domestic economic recovery action and growth in the coming period, including education, technological and scientific innovation, expanded health care coverage, infrastructure development and energy independence.

On the latter, he advocated a three-year program to demand of, and incentivize, the nation’s auto industry to produce vehicles capable of going 100 miles on a gallon of gas.

Warner said he’s also supportive of immediate action to place stiff limits on federal spending, institution of a new version of national service, and more innovative ideas to “shake things up.” He said he wants more attention paid to high-speed rail, broadband, ports and intermodal transportation, noting that “no holistic approach” to domestic infra-

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BURSTING WITH ENERGY, these Obama campaign field organizers took a moment out of their busy afternoon at the campaign’s Falls Church headquarters Tuesday to pose for this photo. With Kyle Lierman at the office’s helm, they are all leaders of the campaign’s activities and the hundreds of volunteers who operate out of the office every day. (PHOTO: NEWS-PRESS) structure priorities currently exists.

There needs to be a “more comprehensive view,” he said, adding that a “new mindset on all these issues” is required.

Warner also laid out his priorities for addressing the banking, financial and mortgage crises in the 30-minute exchange.

Warner was slated to march in the annual Vienna

Halloween Parade last night, and will host a Democratic victory party at the McLean Hilton next Tuesday night.

However, for many of the volunteers jamming the Falls Church Obama headquarters every day, and their supporters, their preference may be for the victory party slated for the Dogwood Tavern in downtown Falls Church when the polls close Tuesday.

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October 30 - November 5, 2008

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Editor, I was surprised that the Falls Church News Brief entitled “Flaw in F.C. Voting Machines Detected” was placed on page 7 and not on the front page!

Mr. Morrison, who reported the flaw, noted “This could be a monumental problem on election day”. I agree! This needs to be investigated thoroughly and reported, on the front page of the News-Press. Imagine going to vote and your candidate’s name is reduced to “three or four letters of the first name”!

The E-Slate machines manufactured by Hart Interactive should be banned in the three jurisdictions (Falls Church City, Alexandria, Charlottesville, and anywhere else) and replaced by .. plain paper ballots, dropped in sealed boxes, counted by hand, supervised by a panel of citizens from all parties.

I look forward to your

report on action(s) taken by the Virginia Secretary of State, or the Electoral Boards of the jurisdictions Danielle Greene Falls Church

Editor, Jim Scott. Al Gore. Creigh Deeds. Ken Cuccinelli.

What do we have in common? Our elections were decided by very small margins.

I won my first election by one vote. Proportionately, Gore (in Fla.) and Deeds’ losses were even smaller margins and Cuccinelli’s winning margin (102 votes) was slightly larger.

Only by voting do you bear no responsibility if your candidate loses.

My candidate for President is Barack Obama. Here’s why.

On issue after issue, Obama and McCain differ.

Health Care: Obama will make available an optional, national health care plan similar to the one available to members of Congress. It will reduce family health care costs up to $2500 per year, and require health care for all uninsured children.

McCain proposes to tax health care benefits for the first time in history.

Taxes: Obama will eliminate capital gains taxes on Virginia’s 643,000 small businesses and provide tax credits for small businesses that access new insurance pools.

He will cut taxes for 95 percent of working families, and will expand the tax credit for working women.

McCain will provide $200 billion in tax breaks to corporations, but no relief to the overwhelming majority of middle class families.

Equal Opportunity: Obama will fight for equal pay for equal work; McCain opposed legislation that would help women achieve pay equity and repeatedly voted against funding for child care.

On issue after issue, Senator Obama has a plan to move this country and Virginia in a new direction. John McCain simply offers four more years of the same failed policies of the past eight years.

On Nov. 4, Virginians will have the opportunity to cast a vote for their next President. I am voting for Barack Obama because I believe that he is the leader we need to bring this country back together.

Del. Jim Scott Virginia House of Delegates

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Editor, Falls Church had a great day last Sunday. Because of the rain-out on Saturday the first “Halloween Paint-In” in Falls Church took place Sunday afternoon on a glorious sunny day.

There were 25 student painters from 3rd grade through high school. Many parents, adult artists, a few grandparents and teachers came and the Mayor also took time from her busy schedule to paint some of the windows at the Dogwood Tavern. More than 50 people participated.

The businesses that were open benefited from hungry artists and I especially want to thank the Original Pancake House for their gift certificates for the painters. They were greatly appreciated by the students. We painted more than 20 businesses.

The “Paint-In” was co-sponsored by Falls Church Arts, the Chamber of Commerce, the BIE Partnership, Recreation and Parks and Creative Cauldron. Thanks also to the teachers for promoting this event at the schools. It was delightful to have so many enthusiastic participants.

The day was about fun, community, family togetherness and arts awareness. Everyone had a good time and based on the enthusiastic e-mails I have received, this will not be the last time we host this event.

This is what Falls Church is about and why I feel especially happy for the experience. Be sure to check the art before it disappears next weekend.

Marty Behr Falls Church

Editor, This is the second year in a row that my Halloween decorations have been vandalized.

Some person(s) came into our yard and stabbed the blow up pumpkin that was in front of our house. They then walked four houses down and stabbed a decoration in their front yard.

I would like to know if they could please explain to the four year old and his siblings why they would destroy their 10-foot inflatable spider. This completely ruins the spirit of Halloween and is ridiculous.

Catherine Gilley Falls Church

October 30 - November 5, 2008

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10/27/08

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City of F.C. Retains Top Bond Rating In a critical development amidst the crisis in the credit markets, the City of Falls Church learned the good news that Fitch Ratings has confirmed the City’s “AA-Plus” bond rating, the second highest possible for municipalities, and declared its outlook “Stable.” According to Fitch’s report, as announced by City Hall, the City’s debt is “moderate and manageable,” and reflects the City’s “solid general reserve levels, including strong financial management and sound economic indicators such as low unemployment rates.” The statement from City Hall reported, “While the City is not intending any major bond issues in the coming year, maintaining a high credit rating by the rating agencies ensures that interest rates for future debt will remain relatively low.” Other major credit rating agencies, including Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s, are expected to include Falls Church in their annual surveillance reports in coming months.

F.C. Council OK’s Moving Ahead With BJ’s Deal By a unanimous vote of all four members present Monday night, the Falls Church City Council agreed to task City Manager Wyatt Shields and the City staff with crafting a memorandum of understanding that would lead to a formal agreement with the JGB Company for the construction of a BJ’s Wholesale Warehouse on 8.4 acres fronting on Wilson Blvd. in Falls Church. While no official zoning changes or special exceptions are required for the construction and operation of the enterprise, the City has come forward with a preliminary offer of a tax sharing deal with JBG to make its extensive land fill and preparation of the property for a “big box retailer” such as BJ’s possible. City officials told the News-Press that if all goes smoothly, construction could commence by late spring, and the new store, estimated capable of bringing up to $1 million in new tax revenues to the City’s coffers, will be open for business by late summer 2009.

F.C. Council Restores $50k for Arts Center A full-court press mobilization of Falls Church citizens and patrons of the arts won over the Falls Church City Council, which gave final approval to restoring $50,000 it had originally promised to help complete an arts center at the new Pearson Square mixed-use complex on S. Maple Avenue. The Council’s second and final vote was unanimous, based on an appreciation for what the center could offer the City, culturally, and for the added revenues it could attract. The Falls Church Arts and the Creative Cauldron will now be launching a capital fundraising campaign to attract the $100,000 needed to complete the center by next spring.

Next Budget Cycle Begins in F.C. Monday With a joint work session involving the Falls Church City Council and the City’s School Board, the parameters of the next fiscal year budget cycle will be roughly defined for the first time. The budget promises to be the most difficult ever for the City due to declining residential real estate values, City Manager Wyatt Shields has already warned. The City Council and School Board shaved $800,000 off of the current year’s budget, without layoffs or cuts in programming, with a final vote of approval by the Council last Monday. But Shields has said he doubts the next budget, for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2009, can be achieved without some major cuts. The News-Press has learned that the School Board may be expecting to achieve a zero-growth budget, a first for the continually growing F.C. school system. On the plus side, the City will have to estimate two new sources of revenue that will begin to flow during the next fiscal year, the BJ’s Wholesale Warehouse store and the Hilton Garden Inn Hotel.

Apparent Suicide Victim in F.C. Identified The victim of an apparent suicide reported earlier this week in Falls Church was Doug Benge, a well-liked frequent customer at downtown Falls Church restaurants.

Friends gathered informally at the Dogwood Tavern to mourn his passing Monday.

He was pictured with members of the Ireland’s Four Provinces staff on the front page of the News-Press last month when that restaurant was named the winner of the Taste of Falls Church.

Brian Moran Named ‘Legislator of Year’ The Commissioners of Revenue Association of Virginia named Del. Brian Moran of Alexandria to 2008 “Legislator of the Year” at an awards ceremony Tuesday in Norfolk.

He was recognized for “fiscally responsible leadership and support for local government priorities.” Moran is a likely candidate for governor of Virginia next year.

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October 30 - November 5, 2008

October 30 - November 5, 2008

of the then barely known governor as potential v-p material.

Both Barnes and Gerson are high-profile members of the socalled Falls Church Anglican, the name the defecting members gave themselves after voting to leave the Episcopal Church in December 2006.

In that congregation, they are closely aligned with a highlysecretive right-wing Christian fundamentalist political activist network known as “The Family,” or “The Fellowship,” many of whose leading members are active among the Falls Church Anglicans. Among The Family’s closest allies is the congregation’s rector, the Rev. John Yates, who spearheaded the defection movement, ostensibly in reaction to the Episcopal Church’s elevation to standing as a bishop of an openly-gay clergyman in 2003.

While the 70-year history and objectives of The Family have focused on advancing unabated American multi-national corporate interests by insinuating the Christian right into American and global politics, it has also been responsible, with other right-wing organizational and funding sources for sewing division within all the mainstream Protestant denominations, including the Methodists and Presbyterians, in addition to the Episcopalians and others, since the early 1980s.

Jeff Sharlet, author of a 450page expose of The Family in a book by the same name published earlier this year (“The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power,” New York, Harper’s, 2008), confirmed this in an interview with this writer near his Brooklyn home last summer.

So did Jim Naughton, director of communications of the Episcopal Church’s Washington, D.C. diocese, in an

earlier interview with this writer.

Naughton has published a number of research tracts, including “Follow the Money,” published in the Washington Window, to document the arch-right wing individuals and foundations that have bankrolled the fomenting of schismatic movements within mainstream Protestantism.

A third source, Wayne Madsen, author of the 65page “Expose: The ‘Christian’ Mafia,” published on the InsiderMagazine web site, concurs, and goes on to say that The Family considers the Falls Church one of its own, having targeted it for a “take over,” along with the Cherrydale Baptist Church in Arlington, and to a lesser degree the Potomac Falls Episcopal and the McLean Bible Church.

The authors’ research confirms that although an aversion to homosexuality runs deep within their ranks, the elevation of the gay bishop, the Rev. Gene Robinson, was only a convenient flash point for their movement, which remains intent on its objectives whether or not another gay person is ever ordained to the ministry.

Their movement will have dire consequences for mainstream Protestantism in general if, for example, the claim to the church property by the defectors at the Falls Church is upheld in the courts, something which may not be resolved eventually, short of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

But the connection of the Palin selection as the GOP vice presidential candidate with Gerson, Barnes and the rightwing schismatic efforts within mainstream churches, generally, finds its broader expression in the mission of The Family, which has had as its objective since its founding as an antilabor movement in 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression, to influence the political corridors of power in Washington, D.C. and globally.

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Its core motive, as reflected in its activities over more than 70 years, is the intermingling of a shallow, unquestioning Christian fundamentalism with radical free trade, antiNew Deal, anti-trade unionist and anti-liberal passions. It has worked overseas to prop up dictators and mass murderers in support of big oil and other American multi-national corporate enterprises, as Sharlet documents in his book.

The defectors occupying the Falls Church are a regional microcosm of The Family’s conspiratorial approach, worldwide, mingling powerful political figures with fundamentalist religion and a passion for wresting control of religious, as well as political, institutions from the control of moderates or liberals by questionable means.

This became evident, in the case of the Falls Church Anglicans, only recently with information provided about Yates’ close personal ties to The Family, with its headquarters at unmarked locations in North Arlington known as Ivanwald and The Cedars, and names of top Family members who are active among their ranks.

Barnes’ Weekly Standard magazine is well-known in Washington, D.C. circles as the mother of the so-called neoconservative Project for a New American Century (PNAC) crowd, whose promotion of aggressive global unilateralism, exemplified in its push for the invasion of Iraq, parallels The Family’s so-called “worldwide spiritual offensive, whereby Jesus must rule every nation through the vessel of American power,” as Sharlet documents.

PNAC operatives currently hold key advisory positions with the McCain/Palin campaign.

Gerson, known for inventing the term, “axis of evil,” as a Bush speechwriter, assailed Sen. Barack Obama relentlessly in his Post columns as Obama

moved from an idealistic message to one of economic justice last spring, paralleling The Family’s insistence that the world’s problems are moral, not economic.

Other high-profile members of the church involved prominently in matters of the U.S. government include former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Secretary of the Army Peter Geren, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Porter Goss, and former U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.

Another is Dennis Bakke, former CEO of Advanced Energy Systems (AES), who resigned after allegations he’d funneled AES revenues to The Family, according to Madsen. He founded the Mustard Seed Foundation that funnels millions to select evangelical causes annually, and resides near The Cedars in Arlington.

Like almost 90 percent of the members of the Falls Church Anglican, he does not live in Falls Church.

Key operational heads of The Family, which at its core is a small cadre organization that wields uncomely influence over a wider membership of mostly right-wing elected officials and others in Washington and key international capitals, are also members of the Falls Church Anglican group.

One Northern Virginia politician not a member of the Falls Church but deeply entrenched here is the Rep. Frank Wolf of the 10th District. On the other side of the Potomac, in addition to a long list of current and former congressmen and former Republican administration officials like Dick Thornburgh, John Ashcroft, Ed Meese and James Watt, The Family claims sway over President George W. Bush, himself, from times in the 1970s when he was involved in a Family-run prayer group as part of his struggle against alcoholism.

Over the years, The Family, according to Sharlet’s research Continued on Page 19

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October 30 - November 5, 2008

NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

Roughly speaking, there are four steps to every decision. First, you perceive a situation. Then you think of possible courses of action. Then you calculate which course is in your best interest. Then you take the action. Over the past few centuries, public policy analysts have assumed that step three is the most important. Economic models and entire social science disciplines are premised on the assumption that people are mostly engaged in rationally calculating and maximizing their self-interest.

But during this financial crisis, that way of thinking has failed spectacularly. As Alan Greenspan noted in his congressional testimony last week, he was “shocked” that markets did not work as anticipated.

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.”

So perhaps this will be the moment when we alter our view of decision-making. Perhaps this will be the moment when we shift our focus from step three, rational calculation, to step one, perception.

Perceiving a situation seems, at first glimpse, like a remarkably simple operation. You just look and see what’s around. But the operation that seems most simple is actually the most complex, it’s just that most of the action takes place below the level of awareness. Looking at and perceiving the world is an active process of meaning-making that shapes and biases the rest of the decision-making chain.

Economists and psychologists have been exploring our perceptual biases for four decades now, with the work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, and also with work by people like Richard Thaler, Robert Schiller, John Bargh and Dan Ariely.

My sense is that this financial crisis is going to amount to a coming-out party for behavioral economists and others who are bringing sophisticated psychology to the realm of public policy. At least these folks have plausible explanations for why so many people could have been so gigantically wrong about the risks they were taking.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has been deeply influenced by this stream of research. Taleb not only has an explanation for what’s happening, he saw it com-

ing. His popular books “Fooled by Randomness” and “The Back Swan” were broadsides at the riskmanagement models used in the financial world and beyond. In “The Black Swan,” Taleb wrote, “The government-sponsored institution Fannie Mae, when I look at its risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup.” Globalization, he noted, “creates interlocking fragility.” He warned that while the growth of giant banks gives the appearance of stability, in reality, it raises the risk of a systemic collapse – “when one fails, they all fail.”

Taleb believes that our brains evolved to suit a world much simpler than the one we now face. His writing is idiosyncratic, but he does touch on many of the perceptual biases that distort our thinking: our tendency to see data that confirm our prejudices more vividly than data that contradict them; our tendency to overvalue recent events when anticipating future possibilities; our tendency to spin concurring facts into a single causal narrative; our tendency to applaud our own supposed skill in circumstances when we’ve actually benefited from dumb luck. And looking at the financial crisis, it is easy to see dozens of errors of perception. Traders misperceived the possibility of rare events. They got caught in social contagions and reinforced each other’s risk assessments. They failed to perceive how tightly linked global networks can transform small events into big disasters.

Taleb is characteristically vituperative about the quantitative risk models, which try to model something that defies modelization. He subscribes to what he calls the tragic vision of humankind, which “believes in the existence of inherent limitations and flaws in the way we think and act and requires an acknowledgment of this fact as a basis for any individual and collective action.” If recent events don’t underline this worldview, nothing will.

If you start thinking about our faulty perceptions, the first thing you realize is that markets are not perfectly efficient, people are not always good guardians of their own self-interest and there might be limited circumstances when government could usefully slant the decision-making architecture (see “Nudge” by Thaler and Cass Sunstein for proposals). But the second thing you realize is that government officials are probably going to be even worse perceivers of reality than private business types. Their information feedback mechanism is more limited, and, being deeply politicized, they’re even more likely to filter inconvenient facts.

WASHINGTON – Oh, how the mighty Alan Greenspan has fallen!

The former head of the Federal Reserve Board, who served as chairman from 1987 to 2006 and was viewed for years as the oracle on monetary policy, now seems shell-shocked about the nation’s financial crisis.

In congressional testimony last week, Greenspan admitted that his disdain for regulation of banks and other financial institutions had been a “mistake.”

A man who was renowned for being able to read future clues about economic boom and bust was mystified over the global debacle.

Lawmakers who once worshipped at his shrine now seemed to be eager to blame Greenspan for the current economic meltdown.

Greenspan was once a disciple of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged,” whose philosophy was laissez faire in the marketplace. Greenspan did not go that far and he now claims that he

supported every market intervention approved by Congress.

Greenspan told the House Oversight and Government Committee that the current financial crisis has shaken his understanding of how markets perform and indicated that more regulation is needed. A belated welcome to the club, Mr. Chairman.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the committee, told Greenspan: “You found your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working?”

“Absolutely, precisely,” Greenspan replied.

“You know that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going more than 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working considerably well.”

The roof apparently fell in for Greenspan when he found out that markets were not about to exact self-discipline when they were riding high.

It apparently was a blow to such an influential man to admit a mistake in his financial haste.

Cutting interest rates was Greenspan’s stock solution to problems when he headed the Fed. “I made a mistake,” Greenspan said, “in preContinued on Page 38

Economic data rarely inspire poetic thoughts. But as I was contemplating the latest set of numbers, I realized that I had William Butler Yeats running through my head: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.”

The widening gyre, in this case, would be the feedback loops (so much for poetry) causing the financial crisis to spin ever further out of control. The hapless falconer would, I guess, be Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary. And the gyre continues to widen in new and scary ways. Even as Paulson and his counterparts in other countries moved to rescue the banks, fresh disasters mounted on other fronts. Some of these disasters were more or less anticipated. Economists have wondered for some time why hedge funds weren’t suffering more amid the financial carnage. They need wonder no longer: investors are pulling their money out of these funds, forcing fund managers to raise cash with fire sales of stocks and other assets. The really shocking thing, however, is the way the crisis is spreading to emerging markets – countries like Russia, South Korea and Brazil.

These countries were at the core of the last global financial crisis, in the late 1990s (which seemed like a big deal at the time, but was a day at the beach compared with what we’re going through now). They responded to that experience by building up huge war chests of dollars and euros, which were supposed to protect them in the event of any future emergency.

And not long ago everyone was talking about “decoupling,” the supposed ability of emerging market economies to keep growing even if the United States fell into recession. “Decoupling is no myth,” The Economist assured its readers back in March.

“Indeed, it may yet save the world economy.”

That was then. Now the emerging markets are in big trouble. In fact, says Stephen Jen, the chief currency economist at Morgan Stanley, the “hard landing” in emerging markets may become the “second epicenter” of the global crisis. (U.S. financial markets were the first.) What happened? In the 1990s, emerging market governments were vulnerable because they had made a habit of borrowing abroad; when the inflow of dollars dried up, they were pushed to the brink. Since then they have been careful to borrow mainly in domestic markets, while building up lots of dollar reserves. But all their caution was undone by the private sector’s obliviousness to risk.

In Russia, for example, banks and corporations rushed to borrow abroad, because dollar interest rates were lower than ruble rates. So while the Russian government was accumulating an impressive hoard of foreign exchange, Russian corporations and banks were running up equally impressive foreign debts.

Now their credit lines have been cut off, and they’re in desperate straits. Needless to say, the existing troubles in the banking system, plus the new troubles at hedge funds and in emerging markets, are all mutually reinforcing. Bad news begets bad news, and the circle of pain just keeps getting wider.

Meanwhile, U.S. policy makers are still balking when it comes to doing what’s necessary to contain the crisis.

It was good news when Paulson finally agreed to funnel capital into the banking system in return for partial ownership.

But last week Joe Nocera of The Times pointed out a key weakness in the U.S. Treasury’s bank rescue plan: it contains no safeguards against the possibility that banks will simply sit on the money. “Unlike the British government, which is mandating lending requirements in return for capital injections, our government seems afraid to do anything except plead.”

And sure enough, the banks seem to be hoarding the cash.

There’s also bizarre stuff going on with regard to the mortgage market. I thought that the whole point of the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the lending agencies, was to remove fears about their solvency and thereby lower mortgage rates. But top officials have made a point of denying that Fannie and Freddie debt is backed by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. government – and as a result, markets are still treating the agencies’ debt as a risky asset, driving mortgage rates up at a time when they should be going down.

What’s happening, I suspect, is that the Bush administration’s anti-government ideology still stands in the way of effective action. Events have forced Paulson into a partial nationalization of the financial system – but he refuses to use the power that comes with ownership.

Whatever the reasons for the continuing weakness of policy, the situation is manifestly not coming under control.

Things continue to fall apart.

October 30 - November 5, 2008

The United States is on the verge of perhaps the most profound cultural sea change in its history. Were Sen. Barack Obama to win the U.S. presidential election Tuesday, it would usher in an entirely new social paradigm, realizing the worst fears of those who’ve opposed it so vociferously since it was manifested in the civil rights and anti-war struggles of the 1960s.

The import of this cannot be overstated, and will take years if not decades to fully sink in. It represents far more than the election of the nation’s first Afro-American president, although that is, of course, a profoundly significant element of it.

It represents, to put it succinctly and as we used to say in the 1960s, the overthrow of “The Man.” The architect of the Vietnam War and racial hatred, “The Man,” back in those days, was also known as a “WASP” (white Anglo-Saxon protestant) and “Male Chauvinist Pig.” He, whose military-industrial complex, multi-national corporate institutions of natural resources looting and human exploitation, and imperial military forces, ran America, which included defining the reigning paradigms of its political, cultural and religious institutions.

He raised boys to be battlefield fodder for his wars, and girls to raise more boys. He ruled by imposing economic apartheid, including by undermining organized labor, exacerbating division and hatred among the masses, insisting that morality was personal and not economic, diverting attention by offering “bread and circuses” Roman Empire-style (sports and entertainment), and controlling major sources of news and information.

He hated homosexuality, feminism and abortion, because they threatened to knock his warrior culture priorities off track. He insisted on the right to beat his children into fearful, slavish compliance with his wishes, and as for abortion, in general, he demanded that women worship the sacred nature of everything that issued from his loins.

He imposed the religion of an angry, judgmental God, a big man with a long beard and a booming voice that demanded obedience, and threatened hell.

Many of us who fought for civil rights and economic justice, for equal rights and respect for all, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation, in the 1960s and early 1970s knew that our enemy was not a set of bad laws or mere ignorance, but was “The Man,” himself. In the last 35 years, those enforcing the social paradigm of “The Man” have fought viciously against the social tendencies set in motion back then, with a ferocity that can only be understood by appreciating what was really at stake for them.

But in an almost underground way, the much-maligned “baby boomer generation,” in addition to evolving the computer, the Internet and the information revolution, steadfastly advanced the values of social and economic justice, respect and equality, even as “The Man” held sway in the official corridors of power.

In the last eight years, “The Man” was virtually unchecked imposing his will within those corridors, proving incapable of restraining his own greed and penchant for deceit in the process.

He feasted on the global economy by lifting all regulatory limits on predatory selling and lending practices, duping not only unwitting middle class folk with false promises and subprime loans, but also global investors with smoke and mirrors obfuscating securities instruments leveraged up to 40 times their actual value.

“The Man,” therefore, had sewn the seeds of his own destruction by such wanton gluttony and excess.

A new generation, born into a world that the “baby boomers” caused to include a tenacious respect for the rights and freedoms of all, has seen the patent deceit and injustices contained in the invasion of Iraq, the brutish American unilateralism in foreign policy making sworn enemies out of former allies in ethnically and culturally diverse parts of the planet, and most recently the torching of its parents’ and their friends’ American dreams through the real estate and financial markets collapses and specter of recession and mass unemployment.

With their parents, these young insurgents have stormed into the campaign offices of Obama over the last year, taking to the barricades, as it were, to once and for all liberate society from the festering sores of destruction “The Man” created.

Were it to happen Tuesday, Obama’s election would affirm every value of social and economic justice that “The Man” has angrily fought to suppress in my lifetime, and by so doing, it will be a whole new day in America.  Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com.

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Screenplay by Maureen Dowd Revised third draft © Oct. 29, 2008 FADE IN: INT. A HOTEL SUITE – in the middle of the day in the middle of Ohio.

NICOLLE WALLACE, a slender, preppie-looking blonde wearing a string of pearls is pacing and frantically thumbing her BlackBerry. She is a top McCain adviser under STEVE SCHMIDT who has been seconded to SARAH PALIN. On the TV, MSNBC’s DAVID SHUSTER is asking ANNE KORNBLUT about rumors that PALIN has gone AWOL after McCain advisers anonymously labeled her a rogue “diva” and a “whack job.”

NICOLLE (hissing) How’d she get away?

TRACEY SCHMITT, another blonde sorority type in pearls, also a Bush person who became a McCain person who was then sent over to manage PALIN as her press secretary, sits slumped in a chair, dejectedly checking her BlackBerry messages.

How the heck should I know? She told me she was going to the bathroom to change out of the Jimmy Choos into something more Target for the Joe the Plumber “They’re Not Smears, They’re Just Facts” Bus Tour. She never came back. I called Todd. He’s not picking up.

NICOLLE Steve’s freaking out. You know how he is about message discipline, much less completely losing a candidate. He’s got enough on his plate scaring the nursing-home Jews in Florida and painting Obama as a Palestinian Marxist Madrassa Child. Maybe all of those dudes painting their chests for Sarah and screaming “2012!” have her looking past the old man.

Steve says he will annihilate her if she sabotages this campaign to get started on the next one, or if she plants negative stories about me – I mean McCain – with the base. Are the clothes gone from the belly of the plane?

TRACEY It’s not like we were ever gonna return them anyway.

NICOLLE Think like a diva. Where would you go rogue?

TRACEY Sean Hannity’s pocket. Could he pant over her more? Or maybe she’s hiding in Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s dressing room at “The View.”

NICOLLE She’s probably at The Weekly Standard, plotting her shining city on the tundra with Fred Barnes and Bill Kristol. I can’t believe Barnes called me a coward because I tried to update that $30 Wasilla beehive that

made her look like the girlfriend in an Elvis movie and upgrade her from pleather to leather.

And besides, she’s not going to find real Americans at Saks and Neiman’s. She’s got to go to Barneys and Armani for that.

TRACEY Between us, Nicolle, she doesn’t look $150,000 different. Maybe we should have spent that money on getting Henry Kissinger to put on his snowshoes and best leer and tutor her.

NICOLLE Look, Tracey, maybe Sarah doesn’t know who Berlusconi is, but she does know who Valentino is. She saw those labels. She knew we were being sartorial socialists and spreading the wealth to Neiman’s and Saks. She liked being pampered like a movie star. We should have learned from W. If you can keep a war off budget, why can’t you keep a wardrobe off budget? I told the press if someone wants to throw me under the bus, my personal belief is that the most graceful thing to do is lie there.

TRACEY That’ll be the day.

NICOLLE I’ll be glad when this blind date from hell is over and I can get away from the dysfunctional Palin clan and back to walking my dog, Lily, in Central Park with my pinko liberal friends. I knew Katie would be brutal, but thank God I arranged that interview because now I can go back to my gig as a political analyst at CBS. TRACEY I’m gonna miss Todd. He’s hot.

NICOLLE I won’t miss him or his 20 calls a day playing stage dad. He’s probably the one who masterminded her breakout.

(Her BlackBerry rings to the tune of “Eye of the Tiger.”)

Uh-oh, it’s Steve.

(She listens and then hangs up.)

TRACEY (sardonically) Does McCain know the maverick’s maverick has gone all mavericky on him?

NICOLLE McCain is calling off the search.

TRACEY (shocked) Huh? NICOLLE He’s fed up with her getting bigger crowds and contradicting his message. He’s fed up with her interrupting him on TV interviews and taking them over. He’s fed up with her drilling him on drilling. He’s fed up with never being able to discuss anything with her, like the latest violence in the Congo. He’s weirded out by the way she keeps trying to explain the Rapture to him. His exact words to Steve were: “For my End of Days, I’d prefer to finish the race with Lieberman.” So forget Sarah. Let’s find Joe. TRACEY You betcha!

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To fight her culture war, Sarah Palin needed a cultured wardrobe. The Main Street hockey mom wasted no time trading up to 5th Avenue and found the attire much nicer at Saks. Dressed in her Sunday best, Palin pried herself away from Bergdrof Goodman and ventured into the “real America,” where she promptly announced her support for a U.S. constitutional amendment prohibiting gay people from marrying.

Cinderella then appeared on James Dobson’s Focus on the Family radio show. Dressed in her exotic new duds, she explained that the McCain/Palin dud of a campaign was on track because she was “putting this in God’s hands.” Well, if the Lord doesn’t come through, at least she has discovered the joys of Lord & Taylor.

While all politicians have skeletons in their closet, finding a walk-in closet stuffed with $150,000 in new GOP-financed clothing, was seen as obscene by voters already furious at Republican excess in a time of economic duress. Scrambling to excuse the inexcusable, the Palin campaign said the clothes would all be donated to charity after the election. So, if you see a bag lady with a Gucci bag in December, you can thank Sarah Palin.

The great irony of wardrobe-gate is that most of Palin’s remaining fans are sexually repressed Evangelical men who are undressing the VP candidate with their eyes. The New York Times reports that her rallies are overrun with “dudes” who wear buttons that read, “Proud to be voting for a hot chick.”

As Palin brilliantly played the role of Imelda Marcos, her fellow Alaskan, Sen. Ted Stevens, stepped on stage as 2008’s Jack Abramoff.

At the very moment the McCain campaign was desperately trying to distance itself from corruption on Wall Street, Stevens was convicted of failing to report tens of thousands of dollars in gifts, including extensive renovations on his house. Between Palin’s self-improvement and Steven’s home improvement, the image of the Republican Party has been solidified one week before Election Day. On the cusp of a defeat, the GOP ticket has gone from avaricious to just plain vicious. McCain is using so many code words one might think he was running for director of the CIA. For example, he shamefully claimed that Obama would turn the IRS into “a giant welfare agency.”

Palin, meanwhile, mocks Obama as a socialist who sees this nation differently from true Americans and pals around with terrorists. With such a frightening portrait of Obama, is it any surprise that two white supremacists were arrested this week in Tennessee for plotting to assassinate the Senator? The McCain campaign obviously does not wish Obama harm. But, they have irresponsibly pandered to extremists and stoked the passions of violent, angry “patriots” to win their votes.

The specter of an Obama presidency has anti-gay forces in a swivet.

Focus on the Family’s Dobson sent out a paranoid “hypothetical” letter from the year 2012 that said the election of Obama could lead to terrorist strikes on four U.S. cities, Israel being hit by a nuclear bomb, Gay marriage in every state and hospitals refusing service to anyone over 80.

Meanwhile, in California, a jowly Rick Warren of Saddleback Church, literally morphed into the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. In a video that distorted history and stretched logic, the phony “moderate” strongly urged voters to pass Prop. 8 because, “we should not let two percent of the population determine the change of definition of marriage…that has been supported for 5,000 years.”

Of course, this is roughly the same percentage of people who identify as Christian in China. Based on Warren’s mob rules philosophy and respect for historical precedent, he should find China’s persecution of Christians acceptable in the nation’s efforts to uphold and protect thousands of years of Asian history.

No sooner did Warren dehumanize gay people and demean their relationships then new FBI statistics were released showing that hate crimes against gays increased in 2007, up 6% from 2006 even though the overall numbers of hate crimes slightly dropped. We can only look forward to more of Warren’s contrived compassion after his religionbased bigotry trickles down like a drop of blood into our lives.

With Republican losses likely, the Los Angeles Times reports that ambitions social conservatives are already plotting to take over the RNC. Like vultures circling the walking dead, these rapacious and repugnant culture warriors are already poised to foist blame on McCain - if he loses - for not being conservative enough.

Palin, it seems, is already laying the groundwork for a presidential run in 2012. With a huge portion of the GOP base and talk radio already in her pocket, she will likely get the nomination. Clearly, Sarah is all dressed up, because conservatives think she has someplace to go. What amazes me about her is that she is a filthy campaigner who is most comfortable in the mud, yet her designer clothes always look fabulous.

October 30 - November 5, 2008

Metro is facing a crisis and quick action by the U.S. Department of Treasury is needed to avert sending the economic and commuter transit system that drives our economy into bankruptcy. The global credit crisis affects states, local governments and public agencies – with major implications for the commuting public and taxpayers.

Earlier this week, I led the the Washington area delegation (Reps. Hoyer, Davis, Van Hollen, Wolf, Norton and Donna Edwards) in sending a letter to Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Reserve Chairman Bernanke, requesting they step in immediately and act as the insurer of last resort for so-called “sale lease-back transactions.”

These transactions -- in which transit agencies purchased rail cars, sold them to select banks who then leased them back to the agencies -- have become technically insolvent because of the lowering of insurance giant AIG’s credit rating. The sale lease-back arrangements were contingent on the transactions’ insurer maintaining an AAA credit rating.

It’s a confusing financial arrangement, one designed to provide Metro with an upfront cash infusion while giving banks a depreciable asset for tax purposes and a steady stream of lease payments.

Our Metro system has until Thursday to find a solution to this crisis or it could face up to $400 million in direct payments

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

to banks on 16 sale-leaseback transactions that were completed and reviewed by the Federal Transit Administration between 1997 to 2003. Metro does not have access to such large amounts of capital in the near term because of the international credit crisis and could face insolvency if forced to pay.

Metro, however, will merely be the first system tested by this crisis. 31 transit agencies, from LA to Atlanta, face similar if not worse emergencies. How we deal with the situation in our nation’s capital will provide the guidance for how we proceed in dealing with the other 30 transit agencies around the country.

Allowing these agencies to default in these sale lease-back transactions would cost state and local public transit systems hundreds of millions of dollars, forcing sharp reductions in tran-

sit services and potentially large fare increases, deferred maintenance and a halt to new construction projects (think Dulles Rail) in the nation’s largest urban areas. It would also have large repercussions for state and local credit markets…even as these governments confront the bleakest revenue situation in the last half-century.

The Treasury Department has been responsive to this crisis even as they are focused on getting the TARP rescue plan implemented. On Tuesday they planned to meet directly with Metro and APTA, the Association for Public Transit Agencies. I am confident they will do the right thing and step in to insure these contracts to keep Metro and other transit systems across the nation from defaulting on their financial obligations. Troubled times call for measures that would normally be less than preferable.

But we cannot allow our transit system to be grounded. The impact of inaction would grind our economy to a halt. Our regional delegation is following this issue intensely and will do what is necessary to keep Metro running at full speed.

October 30 - November 5, 2008

It’s almost over – hundreds of political commercials on the airwaves, “robo” call messages on answering machines, mass mailings from candidates and campaigns, op-ed columns with your morning coffee – but what has been called “the most important presidential election in several decades” won’t be complete without your vote. Although the absentee vote in Virginia has been huge (Fairfax voters may still vote absentee in person at the Mason District Governmental Center today and tomorrow from 1 until 8 p.m., and Saturday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.), an even larger turnout is expected at your regular polling place on Tuesday, where polls will open at 6 a.m., and remain open until everyone still in line at 7 p.m. gets to vote.

The ballot in Fairfax County is relatively short this year: President; United States Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, and a Park Bond Referendum, so the actual process of voting should be quick. It’s the wait in line that may prove frustrating, so voters are encouraged to bring reading material, needlework, or other quiet pastime just in case. Don’t forget your photo ID. According to nearly every political poll and pundit, Virginia is a battleground state. Both the Obama and McCain campaigns are targeting Virginia and its 13 electoral votes in the “must win” column if they are to be successful in their quest for the presi-dency. It’s an interesting position for Virginia voters to be in, since the last time a Democratic presidential candidate won the state was Lyndon Johnson in 1964. A flurry of activity in 1996 when Bill Clinton was president was followed by another flurry with John Kerry in 2004 but, when the votes were counted, neither Democratic candidate won in Virginia.

That may change this year. Virginia is turning blue in vote-rich Northern Virginia this year, and other parts of the state are becoming shades bluer.

Former Governor Mark Warner has an insurmountable 30-point lead in his quest to succeed Senator John Warner as United States Senator, and the polls

Arlingtonian Rufus Phillips has written a great book on Vietnam that should be on your must read list.

Phillips got an early start in Vietnam. As an Airborne ichard IOnff fa inct er yr Barton detailed to the CIA, he joined the Saigon Military Mission in 1954, where he served as advisor to two Vietnamese Army pacification operations and received the CIA Intelligence Medal of Merit. He returned to Vietnam in 1956 as a CIA civilian case officer.

At the request of President Kennedy in 1962, he organized a counterinsurgency effort in the Agency for International Development’s (AID) Saigon Mission, working with major Vietnamese officials up to and including President Diem. From 1964-1968 was a consultant to AID, the State Department, the Johnson Administration, and V.P. Hubert Humphrey, making five trips to Vietnam.

Ambassador Richard

R

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are indicating that Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama is likely to eke out a victory in Virginia. Regardless of the outcome, the Virginia election landscape will be evaluated and re-evaluated for months and perhaps years because of the significant shift from politics as usual.

Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden campaign on messages of hope, unity, and change in their quest for election. Their thoughtful approach to governance contrasts sharply with the relentless message of division and destruction from Senator McCain and his curious selection of a running mate in Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who must be the best dressed pit bull in the nation! We’ve had enough division and dissembling during the past eight years. It’s definitely time for a change – to Obama and Biden.

For Congress, Virginia will be well-served by Mark Warner, whose business sense and ability to work across party lines is needed in today’s U.S. Senate. On the other side of Capitol Hill, the 8th Congressional District’s Jim Moran deserves re-election. His powerful position on the Appropriations Committee pays dividends to all of Northern Virginia.

In the 10th District, Democrat Judy Feder gave incumbent Frank Wolf a vigorous challenge in 2006, and can win this year with her expertise on health care policy, an issue that Congress must deal with in the coming term. In the 11th District seat being vacated

by Rep. Tom Davis, Fairfax County Board Chairman Gerry Connolly has a wide lead over Republican Keith Fimian, but Gerry has an even wider lead in the realm of ideas and action. Gerry’s knowledge of our needs, especially transportation, will serve us well in Congress. Also, vote yes on the Fairfax County Park Bond referendum, which will support acquisition of open space and development of addi-tional recreation facilities for both the Fairfax County Park Authority and the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority.

Penny Gross is the Mason District Supervisor, in the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. She may be emailed at mason@fairfaxcounty.gov 

Holbrooke calls him “the most knowledgeable civilian official then in Vietnam…”

Phillips went on to a distinguished career as president of a consulting engineering firm, involved in planning and designing airport projects in over forty countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Though Rufus and Barbara lived in or around McLean for forty years, they have been well known to Arlingtonians through both politics and business, and they moved into Arlington two years ago.

Barbara was a prominent realtor in the region, and Rufus was active in Democratic politics, and served as a member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors for four years.

Many will remember he ran against Joe Fisher in the 1974 Democratic primary. Joe won the primary and went on to defeat long-time incumbent Joel Broyhill. Rufus, however, remained close to many Arlington Democrats, and has

become even more active in Arlington politics since he and Barbara moved here.

His new book is “Why Vietnam Matters” published

by The Naval Institute Press.

Holbrooke says the book “..is a major contribution to the history of Vietnam. It contains important lessons for the wars America is currently fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The reviews so far have been stellar. Joseph Galloway, coauthor of the superb We Were Soldiers Once … and Young, says, “Read Rufus Phillips’ brilliant memoir and find out why those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are doomed to make the same mistakes, with much the same results, endlessly.”

Phillips is giving a lecture on the book at the Arlington Central Library at 3 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 16. I strongly urge you to attend the lecture!

Richard Barton may be emailed at rbarton@towervillas.com 

Positive Power As an elected official, it is always a pleasure to be able to honor one of your constituents for their outstanding accomplishments. This year, it was my privilege to introduce a resolution in the General Assembly to honor Paul Berger.

Paul suffered a stroke in 1985 at the age of 36.

Initially devastated, he overcame his disability through determination and positive thinking. While Paul still has some paralysis, he was able to regain much of what the stroke took away from him.

What never left him was his intelligence and creativity, and he was inspired to create a publishing company, Positive Power Publishing, in 1998.

Paul’s first book, “How to Conquer the World with One Hand...and an Attitude,” was published that year to inspire others through his example.

He has since produced two other books and numerous other materials. Paul’s message is that having a disability does not mean giving up.

Although Paul has aphasia, a condition that impairs one’s language processing skills, he knows how to communicate quite well. His message of hope and encouragement has also led him to advocate for other people with disabilities.

To honor his efforts, he was named “Virginia Advocate of the Year” for 2007 by the American Heart Association.

It was because of this award and his commitment to inspiring people with disabilities that the General Assembly honored him this year.

I was able to recently present Paul with a framed copy of the resolution. A photograph of that can be seen elsewhere in this issue.

It Starts at the Top Recently, Georgia Congressman John Lewis issued a statement in which he said that he was “deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign.”

I am sure that he was talking not just about the harsh cries from the crowd that can be heard in the video clips of the Republican rallies. He was also talking about the choice of words used by Senator McCain and, in particular, Governor Palin in their speeches.

Governor Palin has talked to rural white crowds about them living in “the real America” and the “pro-America areas of this great nation.”

After Congressman Lewis’

statement was issued, Senator McCain said that it was “outrageous” to be compared to George Wallace.

Well, Congressman Lewis did not exactly make that comparison. If he had, then I would also take issue with his comment.

“My statement,” Congressman Lewis later said, “was a reminder to all Americans that toxic language can lead to destructive behavior.”

I agree. What’s more, he should know. Then divinity student John Lewis was beaten senseless for riding on an intercity bus with white college students in 1961.

It was at the Greyhound Bus Terminal in Montgomery, Alabama, which I visited this summer during my civil right pilgrimage.

As Chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, he was also beaten during the1965 Selma-toMontgomery Voting Rights March.

That was while trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which I also visited this summer, and being met by Alabama state troopers.

No Place in the 21st Century Through the 1950s and 1960s, Southern leaders, including those in Virginia, as well as Governor Wallace in Alabama, made inflammatory racial statements.

Those comments, in turn, served to encourage individuals and mobs to attack people of color to prevent them from exercising the constitutional rights granted to all Americans.

I know that neither Senator McCain nor Governor Palin support such actions or want any of that to happen now.

But, as political leaders, they have to be cognizant at all times not to say anything that would encourage violent or racist behavior.

To their credit, Senator McCain and Governor Palin have toned down this type of rhetoric. But, I believe that she still accuses Senator Obama of “palling around with terrorists” and he claims that the Obama economic plan is “socialist.”

Red baiting was used in the 1920s and 1950s, but I thought its time had passed.

I do know that racially tinged comments have no place in the 21st century.

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October 30 - November 5, 2008

F.C. Rotary Discusses Youth Programs John Freeman will be speaking on “Kingsley Commons Youth Programs” at the Falls Church Rotary Club meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 30 at the Harvest Moon Restaurant (7260 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). Dinner costs $11.

For more information, call Joe Scheibeler at 202-268-5089.

AT A MEETING OF the Westlawn Civic Association, Falls Church businessman and stroke survivor Paul Berger, left, with wife Stephanie Mensch, accepted a framed resolution from Delegate Bob Hull on behalf of the Virginia General Assembly, commending his advocacy work for stroke survivors and people with disabilities. Hull also congratulated Berger for winning the 2007 “Virginia Advocate of the Year” award, given by the American Heart Association. (PHOTO: COURTESY RICHARD LOBB)

Saint Luke Festival Choir Sings for All Souls Day

Clare and Don’s Beach Shack will transform into “The Spook Shack” for Halloween from 9 p.m. – 1 a.m. on Oct. 31. DJ Puerto Roc will be mixing the music for the evening party. Join the Halloween night activities at Clare and Don’s Beach Shack (9130 N. Washington St., Falls Church).

For more information, call 703532-9283.

The Saint Luke Festival Choir, led by artistic director Paul Skevington and conductor Cheryl Branham, will perform “Rutter Requiem” and “Barber’s Adagio” for strings to honor the deceased on All Souls Day. The program features choir, organ, cello, oboe, flute and harp. The concert will be held at Saint Luke Catholic Church (7001 Georgetown Pike, McLean) at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 2. Admission for adults is $15, and $10 for seniors or students is $10. For more information, call 703-356-0670 or visit www.musicinmclean.org.

M.C.C. Invites Children to Flea Market

Dominion Hills House Presents Craft Show

Children ages 3 – 12 can sell new and gently used toys, clothes and other household items at McLean Community Center’s Flea Market. Children will be able to set up their own booths from 9 – 11 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 1. Registration costs for selling space includes an 8 by 3-foot table and a 7 by 8-foot booth. The cost is $50 for general registration and $45 for McLean residents.

Registration is on a first-come, first-serve basis.

The sale will be held at 11 a.m. at the McLean Community Center (1234 Ingleside Ave., McLean). Admission is free.

The Fifth Annual Dominion Hills Fall Craft Show will present 12 local artisans featuring water-media paintings, jewelry, fine woodturning, paper-cutting, table linens, mosaics and stationery, decoupage boxes, handbags, pottery, home accessories, body care products and gourmet foods. Some refreshments will be available.

The show will be held at the Dominion Hills Community House (6000 Wilson Blvd., Arlington) at 10 a.m. on Nov. 1. The show is open to the public, and admission is free.

For more information, call Julie Jernigan at 703-533-0957 or

Come Shake Your Bones At The Spook Shack EVAN JONES WON a ride with Captain John Snider and his crew to school at Mt. Daniel Elementary School. Jones scored the ride as part of a raffle that benefited the Falls Church City Elementary schools. Connie Keith came upon the idea of the drawing and approached Arlington Firehouse Number Six, which agreed to participate. (PHOTO: COURTESY CHRISTINE JONES)

For more information, contact Sharon Harrison at Sharon.

Harrison@fairfaxcounty.gov or Michael Fisher at Michael.

Fisher@fairfaxcounty.gov or call the Center at 703-7900123, ext. 711.

email jules@julesjewelsjewelry.com.

Bear Rock Café Holds Benefit Dinners Bear Rock Cafe has announced plans to sponsor a series of six evening dining events to benefit the band program at Yorktown High School. The local restaurant has agreed to donate 10 percent of the proceeds from each dinner ticket on Friday evenings starting Oct. 24 – Nov. 28. For the band to receive credit, patrons are asked to mention their support of the Yorktown Band program when placing their order.

The family friendly restaurant features a variety of hot and cold sandwiches, salads, soups and desserts. Attend benefit nights at the Bear Rock Cafe (2200 N. Westmoreland St., Arlington). Free on-site parking is available. For more information, call Bear Rock Cafe at 703-532-0031.

Wakefield High Graduate Completes Internship Tsion Tsegaye is a 2006 graduate of Wakefield High School in Arlington. Now a Lafayette College junior, Tsegaye completed an internship with the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University in August.

A double major in engineering studies and economics and business at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., Tsegaye worked with directors to organize seminars focused on free market economics and civic liberties.

Tsegaye is currently studying abroad in Madrid, Spain, an

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October 30 - November 5, 2008

opportunity that many engineering majors do not have. At Lafayette, she serves as vice president of Minority Scientists and Engineers and is a member of numerous organizations, including the Association of Black Collegians and the Investment Club.

McLean Rotary Presents Talk on Machine and Man David Mercado will present “The Art of Troubleshooting (Machine and Man)” at the McLean Rotary club meeting at noon on Tuesday, Nov. 4 in the Fellowship Hall of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer (1545 Chain Bridge Road, McLean).

For more information, visit www.mcleanrotary.org.

Mary Riley Styles Holds Book Discussion “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA,” a book by author Tim Weiner, will be the subject of a free and open to the public book discussion at the Mary Riley Styles Library (120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church) at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 6.

Page 15

For more information, call 703248-5031.

Arlington Resident Enrolls At Amherst College

Animal Welfare League Promotes Senior Pets

Timothy D. Prowitt, son of Nancy and Peter Prowitt of Arlington, has enrolled as a first-year student at Amherst College in Amherst, Mass.

Prowitt is a graduate of The Potomac School in McLean and is one of 438 new students entering the independent liberal arts college in western New England this fall. Founded in 1821, Amherst is a selective, co-educational liberal arts college with approximately 1,730 students from 46 states, D.C. and 28 countries.

This November the Animal Welfare League of Arlington celebrates “Adopt a Senior Pet Month” with reduced adoption fees for “senior” cats and dogs.

The reduced fee is $50 for cats that are at least 5-years-old. The adoption fee is $75 for dogs that are at least 5-years-old.

All cats and dogs receive vaccinations, microchips and are spayed or neutered before going to their new homes free of charge. Staff and volunteers are available to help arrange meetings with cats and dogs before adoption.

Visits can be on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, noon – 7 p.m. or Saturday and Sunday, noon – 4 p.m. at the Animal Welfare League (2650 S. Arlington Mill Drive, Arlington).

To see all available pets for adoption and for more information about the program, visit www.awla.org or call 703-9319241 ext. 200.

Fredericksburg will be from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 4 and costs $35 for tax district residents and $40 for nontax district residents. Children should bring a bag lunch and beverage each day.

Parents or guardians must fill out emergency contact forms available at OFTC from Mike Fisher; children must bring the form with them on the day of the trip. If the trip does not meet the minimum enrollment, the trip will be canceled. Trip schedules are subject to change. For more information, contact Michael.

Fisher@fairfaxcouny.gov.

Teen Fiction Author to Hold Book Signing Laurie Halse Anderson, author of teen-fiction novels “Speak,” “Fever” and recently published “Twisted,” is holding a book signing at the Barnes and Noble on the second floor of the Tysons Corner Center mall (7851 Tysons Corner Center, McLean). Anderson will also host a discussion with audience members. The event is free and open to the public at 7 p.m. on Nov. 3. For more information, call Barnes and Noble of Tysons Corner at 703-506-2937.

Teacher Work Day Field Trips Offered to Students The Old Firehouse Teen Center (OFTC) will be open 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. on Fairfax County Public School Teacher Work Days. A trip to Massanutten Indoor Water Park is available for sign-up. The trip is from 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 3 and costs $45 for tax district residents and $50 for non-tax district residents.

A second trip to Funland in

VIRGINIA GOVERNOR Tim Kaine (right) appeared with 11th District Congressional candidate Gerry Connolly at a pizza lunch for police and firefighters supporting Connolly in Annandale last Saturday. Connolly, a Democrat, is vying with Republican Keith Fimian for the eastern Fairfax County district seat being vacated by Rep. Tom Davis. (Photo: News-Press)

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PREPARING TO LEAD a barefoot walk of hundreds of their young fans through downtown Falls Church Tuesday, brothers Taylor, Isaac and Zack of the band, Hanson, showed off their feet in the lobby of the State Theatre, where they performed for the second time in five months Tuesday night. The one-mile walk, done before all the concerts on their latest national tour, is the band’s effort to focus attention of poverty in Africa. Fans are urged to buy shoes, contribute to the construction of clean water wells, a new school in Kenya, an AIDS research hospital in Soweto, South Africa or to a program allowing Africans to stay in touch with their doctors via text messaging. Also, the band donates $1 for every fan who walks with them. Details are on their web site, www.hanson.net. (Photo: News-Press)

October 30 - November 5, 2008

Thus far, last week’s OPEC production cut of 1.5 million barrels a day (b/d) has done little to stem the slide in oil prices.

Immediately after the cut, prices went down another $4 on the theory that the cut was too small.

OPEC of course is trying to maximize its revenue in real dollars.

If they cut oil production more slowly than world demand slows then oil prices will continue to slide and revenues will go down.

If they can agree on more substantial cuts, then they will almost certainly drive prices back up hurting demand and eventually setting off a round of inflation that will reduce the value of their revenue. For OPEC, it is a tough call.

At the minute, the oil and other commodity markets seem seized with the notion that a rip-roaring, world engulfing depression is on the way that will demolish oil consumption.

People are actually starting to talk about oil falling all the way to $20 a barrel again. Is this likely or even remotely possible?

Start with the International Energy Agency, which is still forecasting that worldwide demand for oil will grow during 2008 and 2009. They have of course reduced their growth estimates in the last six months, but they still are talking about actual growth in world consumption – not declines.

In thinking about who might slow their use of oil in the world these days, let’s start with the oil exporting countries as this is where consumption has been growing the fastest. Most of these sell their oil products domestically at discounts, some substantial, to world prices. Their foreign exchange earnings are obviously hurting from much lower prices at the minute and they are starting to talk about slowing economic development projects, but there certainly has been no sign of lower domestic consumption for now.

Oil consumption is so ubiquitous today that, somewhere, oil is used by people in all walks of life – from multi-billionaires to those who are just getting by. As hard economic times descend, it is obvious that people at the bottom of the economic scale will stop consuming oil first.

Reduced consumption then will climb right on up through the several billion of us who are at least moderate oil consumers until we get to those who are so

Page 17

rich there is almost no price that would force them to lower their consumption.

Where do we find lots of people who are not particularly well off, are likely to be hit hard by the coming economic problems and who use lots of oil? The answer, of course, is in North America where we consume on the order of 1,000 gallons per capita per year largely because most of the transportation is by automobile. While the rest of the world drives private cars too, they are more likely to be in

ation becomes far more precarious. Discretionary driving such as lengthy motorized vacations and aimless driving by teenagers seems to have declined in the U.S. in recent months. There has been some reduction in the transport of goods due to the weakening economy. We may however be deceiving ourselves that oil consumption is going to drop precipitously in the near future.

Oil has become so ingrained in our lifestyles and economies that it may take months or even years of harsh economic conditions before we see significant drops in worldwide demand.

The other side of the coin is oil production.

Hardly a day goes by now without a report of some major oil development project being cancelled or placed on hold due to high costs and the unavailability of capital. While these delays may have little immediate impact, a few years down the line the results will be disastrous as world oil production will be declining very rapidly.

Always keep in mind the basic proposition of peak oil that the world is still burning oil at the rate of 31 billion barrels a year. Seventy five million barrels a day are coming from currently producing fields that with each passing year will produce anywhere from 4 to 8 percent less oil. It is simple arithmetic to show that with current production declining, fewer new oil producing projects under construction, and major declines in demand a dubious proposition, shortages are in the offing. Thanks to the worsening economic situation the effects of declining oil production – much higher prices and shortages – look to be even closer and more severe than before the financial crisis emerged. Falling prices at the gas pumps are only a temporary distraction: the real troubles are getting closer all the time.

.

economically stronger hands, get much better mileage, and are not driven very far. Thus it is not surprising that in the last 12 months of increasing economic difficulties and much higher gasoline prices, consumption of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel fell by nearly nine percent in the U.S. while consumption in the rest of the OECD countries where they consume about half the oil per capita as in the U.S., consumption was basically flat.

Another place where oil products, especially kerosene and propane, are consumed by relatively poor people is for daily cooking fuel across the underdeveloped world. While this fuel is nearly essential to sustaining life once one is trapped inside a city, in most cases, it is subsidized by the national government and is not consumed in particularly large quantities per capita. There are, of course, millions of small gasoline-powered bicycles and scooters across the world, but most are using small amounts of subsidized fuel.

The message here is that as oil prices drop, it is not at all clear that there will be large reductions in the demand for oil products – at least until the economic situ-

Broad Street

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

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October 30 - November 5, 2008

Art Off à la Noir “Black,” at G Fine Art (1515 Fourteenth St NW, Washington D.C.) The exhibit runs through Nov. 15, and is open from Tuesday – Saturday, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. Call 202-462-1601, or visit www.gfineartdc.com.

‘Tis the week for black. O.K., so every week in the art world is a week for black... work with me here. One of the most intelligent shows around town is G Fine Art’s current medley of artists riffing on the theme of black. Sorry, Marion, but what makes this show cool isn’t a “black thing.” What makes this show sing is the way it pits artists from New York and Los Angeles up against several artists from D.C. I’ve long maintained that just because it carries a New York zip code doesn’t make it good art and design. However, there is a certain duality to this notion. Art is an exercise in individual expression, surrounded by a community of influences.

Everything is tied to its context.

In our modern mass communication society, physical location seems less and less important... yet New York is still looked upon as the premier art center in the U.S. No matter how loosely organized, virtually all art shows carry some thematic constraints.

“Black” levels the playing field in a highly entertaining and rarely seen way. In a room full of heavy hitters generally limited to one piece per artist, the wheat separates from the chaff

like oil and water in this show.

It’s the closest thing to an “art off” you’re likely to ever see.

Oh, how we’d all like to be in a show with the likes of Frank Stella, Franz Kline, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Richard Serra, Ad Reinhardt and Ed Ruscha. Short of surreptitiously hanging our work on some museum wall, for most of us showing with the likes of these folks will remain nothing but a dream.

However, rooting for the home team won’t leave you feeling like an old Senator’s fan at a Yankee’s game. Satisfyingly, the D.C. crowd holds up quite well against this withering onslaught.

On the other end of the quality spectrum is Richard Serra’s etching entitled “Extension #3.”

It’s an easy piece to walk past dismissing it as another minimalist riff on the completely mundane. At first blush, this print seems at odds with Serra’s trademark mammoth curving steel plate sculptures. Close and careful examination reveals a surface texture akin to rough steel painted black. The ink runs off the paper at top and bottom, but stops tantalizingly short of the edge on the left and right.

The right and left edges are arced as if we are looking at a highly magnified cross section of one of his trademark steel plates, and thus fits quite comfortably within his oeuvre.

Simple as the notion is, those two arcs are quite entertaining.

The one on the left is insanely subtle. You desperately want to grab a yard stick and throw it

up there to quiet your brain in its looping struggle to decide if the line is straight or curved. For such a simple piece, this one is a masterful delight.

Not to go unanswered, native Washingtonian and fellow sculptor Martin Puryear provides a small series of rectilinear prints.

Largely black, they also feature violet, purple, and blue blocks of color. Some appear to be pure black, and only under extreme scrutiny reveal their subtle play of color. While lacking the textural qualities of Serra’s work, the color play is enough to give Serra a good run for his money.

Second generation Washington Color School artist Sam Gilliam gives us a high gloss look at two stacked rectangles, with the smaller top one off-set to the left. The two forms

create a sort of tension in their intertwined relationship, while the extreme gloss is a contradictory answer to Serra’s pithy surface. This trio of artists work well together, and shows just how much you can accomplish with so little.

Another D.C. artist, Linn Meyers, provides us with a four panel series of inked images on clear frosted mylar sheets.

The square panels are obsessively marked with flowing lines that revel in motion. At times seeming like cascading hair, at other times like wind whipping through a twister at far too close of a range. The lines stop at points of Meyers’ physical limitations in mark-making, forming a dot, shadowed with a tiny blank speck and start up again on their journey across the image.

Their movement is a stand out in this show that could almost have been as easily entitled “stasis” as it was “black.”

Joyce Pensato also embraces movement in her energetic charcoal drawing entitled “Dark Side of Mickey.” Like many, we thought Mickey had sold out to corporate influences long ago.

Seems putting on the happy face has taken its toll and Mickey’s come a bit unhinged here. It’s a refreshingly humorous spin on what has become little more than a nauseatingly inane corporate cash cow.  The Northern Virginia Art Beat is compiled by Kevin Mellema. See www.fcnp.com for photos and more. To e-mail submissions, send them to kevinmellema@gmail.com.

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(which included a stint infiltrating the group and interviews with its leaders), and its cohorts aided the efforts of such foreign tyrants and butchers as Duvalier in Haiti, Selassie in Ethiopia, Suharto in Indonesia, Savimbi in Angola, Franco in Spain, Marcos in the Philippines and Pinochet in Chile.

The Family was founded by a Norwegian immigrant preacher, Abraham Vereide, in Seattle in 1935 as a businessman’s anti-labor alliance. He met the president of U.S. Steel and convinced him to help strengthen, through an uncomplicated brand of Christian fundamentalism, a network of “believing” industrialists, organized through prayer groups to bind together and take on the striking unions.

His earliest arch-enemy was Harry Bridges, head of the San Francisco longshoremen’s union, who led a “mass strike” in 1934. Prayer breakfasts including the head of Standard Oil and Folger’s Coffee led to the creation of the Industrial Association of San Francisco to defeat the unions. They also went on to be staunch opponents of almost every aspect of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal.”

“The divine will is revealed in the working of Christian businessmen unhindered by regulations,” they claimed, as contrasted to “godless organized labor.”

Having grown his influence among industrialists and other enemies of the “New Deal,” Vereide moved his operation to Washington, D.C. in 1945, preaching that the essence of faith is wrapped up in author-

THE REV. JOHN YATES, leader of the congregation of defectors at the Falls Church, and wife Susan, shown here, are very close to the covert Christian fundamentalist political activist network known as ‘The Family.’ (Photo:

News-Press)

ity, obedience, conformity, discipline and slavish loyalty to the nebulous notion of the “person” of Christ, rather than to any particular religion, theology or dogma. This Christ “person” is big, burly and manly, a CEO, a “man without hymns and sob sisters,” who functions on behalf of a God “not of ethics, or of morality, but of power.”

Its intellectual heart is “dominionism,” to replace the rule of law and its secular contracts with God’s rule. “We are here to learn how to rule the world,” Family leader David Coe said at an Ivanvald meeting that Sharlet attended. It is also the “theonomy” of the crackpot theologian Rousas John Rushdoony, and goes by “Biblical capitalism,” as well. As Marsden quoted one Pentagon official, The Family “has nothing to do with God or Jesus, it is a capitalist cult.”

In the late 1940s, Vereide became friends with Sen. Frank Carlson (R-Kansas), who called Roosevelt a “dictator” and a “destroyer of human rights and freedom.” While the isolationist and pacifist old Republicans gravitated to Sen. Robert Taft in the 1952 election, who lost his party’s nomination, Carlson became a major influence on Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower, who won.

Vereide organized the first ever Presidential Prayer Breakfast held on Feb. 5, 1953, but his biggest catch was to have the newly sworn-in Eisenhower attend, thanks to Carlson’s efforts. With 400 in attendance, it had the theme, “Government Under God,” and a poster showing Uncle Sam on his knees submitting to God. Eisenhower resisted Carlson’s urgings to attend, complaining that it compromised the separation of church and state. But he relented, and the president of the U.S. has attended them, now called the National Prayer Breakfast and all organized by The Family, ever since.

Congressional friends of The Family pushed through the addition of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, and of “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins. They pushed, but failed, to pass a Constitutional amendment saying, “This nation devoutly recognizes the authority and law of Jesus Christ.”

In 1966, with The Family under the leadership of David Coe, it suddenly went covert and underground in reaction to growing public scrutiny, operating without letterhead or any overt identity, but working through political contacts and prayer circles.

Its fellow travelers, such as Nixon administration felon Chuck Colson, organized violence against anti-war demonstrators and lashed out at the “moral decadence” of the civil rights struggle. As Martin Luther King began to shift his message

Page 19

from racial equality to economic justice, anti-Black Power “buffers” were organized to contain and defuse the movement.

The right wing and existentialist theologies of Francis Schaeffer and Paul Tillich (replacing the focus on political freedom with individual freedom) were unleashed to pacify the anti-war and civil rights ferment. In the wake of Watergate, and the resignation of Richard Nixon (who was no friend of The Family), the Republican Party was dissembled and became vulnerable to the rise of the political Christian right. Now, arch-conservatives in Congress

are mobilized through the Senate Value Action Team, led by The Family’s Sen. Brownback of Kansas and dozens of others.

In 2000, friends and members of The Family wielded influence in Florida to hand the election to Bush and in 2004, they cooked up a strategy to bring the gay marriage issue to the forefront of the presidential campaign, which along with indications of massive vote fraud in Ohio, a bastion of The Family, helped assure Bush’s re-election.

Dick Foth has succeeded Coe at the helm of The Family. Now, while its influence has spread as rapidly in recent decades as

highly-leveraged securities did in the last four years, its continued progress will be tested not only by the current collapse of radical free enterprise, but by presidential election next Tuesday, when the wisdom of Gerson, Barnes and others in the choice of Sarah Palin, among many other things, will be called into question.

While The Family’s Falls Church Anglican defectors could win the next round in court in the battle for control of the historic Falls Church property soon, they may lose their grip on the entire nation, and much more, next week.

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October 30 - November 5, 2008

Both of George Mason High School’s cross country teams made statements at the Bull Run district championship meet in Rappahannock County last Wednesday. The girls team edged out district rival Clarke County High School to capture their first-ever Bull Run title, while the boys placed second, only behind the fore mentioned Clarke.

Both teams finished in the top two of the district, allowing them to advance to the regional finals which took place this Wednesday at Panorama Farms, but results were too late for press time. The teams would have to finish fourth or higher at regionals in order to move on to the state finals the following week.

Clarke County continued their dominance at states in the boys division, coming within two points of a sweep. The point system in high school cross country is similar to that of golf where the lowest point total wins; first place receives one point, second receives two, and so on. As a team, Clarke’s score totaled just 17 while Mason was a comfortable second with 62.

Behind Mason was Madison County High School with 76.

The girls meet was much closer as George Mason and Clarke battled for the title. Led by freshmen Eva Estrada and Natalie Young, the Mason girls

came out on top with a combined score of 39. Clarke was two points behind with 41 while Madison and the rest of the district were no less than 46 behind each.

Head Coach Julie Bravin expressed humble confidence in both groups, noting that she likes her team’s chances to make the cut for states.

“Anything can happen, but the boys’ best competition at regionals will be Alta Vista and you have to throw Goochland in there too,” said Bravin, under the assumption that Clarke would once again finish at the top.

Clarke took five of the six top spots at the district meet, and was the heavy favorite by all of those heading into the regional meet.

The girls also approached the regional meet with expectations of a top-four finish. After establishing themselves as the top team in the Bull Run, they went into Panorama anticipating a state meet berth.

“We hope for the best and we are going to run hard and work together to achieve our goals,” said a modest Courtney Ready, a junior.

In addition to team success, six runners earned individual all-district honors. Freshmen Natalie Young and Eva Estrada were among the first team allBull Run winners while Ready, Mollie Breen, Brandy Arredondo and Abbey Perez took secondteam honors. Another noteworthy performance was that

Page 23

of junior Karen Hamill, who placed 17th, just 16 seconds away from making the cut for second-team all-district.

On the boys side, sophomore Jordan Robarge was the only Mason runner to capture firstteam honors, while Miles Butler also a junior, Matt Baker and junior Teddy Rueckert were among the second-team winners.

GMHS’ Kelley Frank competed at the district tourney last Wednesday. (Photo:

Courtesy Karen Hamill)

Entering this season, most of the attention on the Washington Capitals focused on Caps wing Alex Ovechkin.

After his record-setting 65-goal season, his unparalleled skill was acknowledged. His prowess was a given. Another stellar performance this season was seen as a sure thing.

The uncertainty surrounding the Washington’s Stanley Cup chances centered on the Caps’ crease and the newly acquired Jose Theodore.

Could Theodore replace Cristobal Huet and his stellar play down the stretch last season? Could Theodore put the erratic play of the past several seasons behind him? Could Theodore recapture the form that won him the Hart Trophy for the league’s MVP? Since the ink dried on his two-year free agent contract, Theodore bore the brunt of the scrutiny — scrutiny that was seemingly legitimized when he was pulled from the season’s first game after allowing several soft goals. Another weak goal at the start of the Caps’ home opener against Chicago added to the evidence that Theodore’s enigmatic past is far from behind him.

Talk is already swirling, however, that the Theodore signing has been a bust. Let’s nip that in the bud right now.

Martin Biron, Marty Turco, Evgeni Nabokov, Chris Osgood — all of them have worse save percentages than Theodore’s not-great mark of .887. For the uninitiated, that list comprises the goalie who outdueled the highly regarded Huet in last year’s playoffs (Biron), another with a career goal against average of 2.19 (Turco), a 2008 finalist for the Vezina trophy — given to the NHL’s best goalie — (Nabokov) and the Stanley Cup winner (Osgood). Just ahead of Theodore on the Save Percentage list is Flames AllStar standard Miika Kiprusoff, and also under the .900 mark is the Canucks’ perennial top stopper Roberto Luongo and ... wait for it ... Cristobal Huet.

It’s a cliché, but it’s true — the season is young — and young seasons yield wildly varying results. Already, we’ve seen one of the worst defensive performances the Caps have ever turned in — their 7-4 opening-night loss to Atlanta.

Likewise, we’ve seen one of Washington’s best-ever showings — a 5-1 pounding of Vancouver in which the Caps allowed a franchise-low 10 shots on goal.

You won’t find anyone claiming that Theodore’s play has been exceptional this season, but the evidence is still too small to dump the team’s faults entirely in his crease.

Against Dallas Saturday night, Theodore was charged with five goals allowed. The score sheet doesn’t tell you that awful defense accounted for two of those and a fluky bounce contributed to a third. The score sheet also doesn’t assess degree of difficulty for the saves Theodore does make, such as the several times this season he has slung his body across the crease to stop shots in midair.

Within the game, there are subtleties belied by statistics.

Such a small sample is not necessarily indicative of an entire season. Just ask Ovechkin.

The Great 8 has just two goals this season, both scored in the home opener against Chicago. Based on that, you could presume the left wing is heading for a disappointing season. Does anyone really think the reigning goal-scorer who averaged over 100 points in his first three seasons is going to fall flat on his face this season?

Neither do I. Theodore’s recent track record is nowhere near as consistent as Ovechkin’s, but he is through the hard part of the acclimation process now and the Caps are still leading the Southeast Division. From here on out, he’ll continue to build a rapport with the Caps defensemen when he plays pucks in his own zone. He’ll start to put the nerves behind him and start to eliminate those soft goals. And he’ll benefit from an improved defensive corps.

Tom Poti’s absence has badly hurt Washington. Poti is another player whose contributions go far beyond his statistics, leading the Caps’ blueliners in ice time last season.

Callup Tyler Sloan and veteran Sergei Fedorov have performed well, but Sloan’s miscues have been costly, as have Fedorov’s propensity to take penalties. His eight penalty minutes already equal his total from the entirety of last season.

Is there a guarantee that Theodore will improve? No. However, he has never looked as bad as he did in his Caps debut and the defense has often looked worse. I’m betting on both to improve as the season moves forward.

October 30 - November 5, 2008

While Falls Church local Chuck Hobbie’s family was thrilled about his decision to join the U.S. Peace Corps back in 1968, only his mailman seemed to have qualms about his plans to teach English to Korean students in Seoul.

“He was an older man of course – had fought in the Korean War – said it was too cold and that I’d be miserable,” said Hobbie.

The mailman lost that battle, to say the least, and Hobbie started an intensive, four-month training program in Hawaii before heading to East Asia, where he volunteered until 1971 before becoming a Peace Corps staffer.

Nearly 40 years on the dot from when he first said his goodbyes to the U.S., Hobbie has recently returned from a visit back to Seoul, where he and more than 30 other former volunteers were honored with the James A. Van Fleet Award Citation from the Korea Society.

Invited on the behalf, and at the expense, of the Korean government under the administration of President Lee Myung-Bak, the Peace Corps veterans were honored for playing a significant role in supporting U.S.-

Korea relations.

“They said that our presence had given them a perspective of the United States they had never seen before and an opportunity to learn about average, non-missionoriented Americans, contrary to the soldiers they had seen during the Korean War,” said Hobbie.

It was also discovered during his visit that many of the current higher-level Korean government officials, including President Myung-Bak’s chief of staff Yu Woo-ik, were former students of the Peace Corps volunteer teachers.

Page 25

Hobbie’s wife, Young, and son, Jason, joined him on the trip, meeting his former Korean colleagues, some of whom still work at Kyungpook National University, where Hobbie was assigned to teach in 1969.

However, it was Hobbie’s 29year-old son who caused a stir.

“He was very much the focus of attention when I met my former Korean colleagues. The eldest son is a big deal in Asian cultures, so they wanted to know how old he was, what he did, whether or not he was single – everyone had a girl they wanted

Jason to meet [laughs] so he left with about a dozen marriage proposals,” joked Hobbie.

Perhaps it was a “like father, like son” expectation, as Hobbie and his wife met while he was serving in Korea through mutual friends, though they were not romantic until reuniting years later in Germany. A few months following their reunion, Young ventured to the U.S. for a visit, and Hobbie proposed.

Korean culture has influenced the couple’s life ever since, from at-home cuisine to their children’s education.

Hobbie said he misses the fellowship the most from his time spent overseas, but finds it now at Korean events in Washington, D.C., where he works as the Deputy General Counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees.

Hobbie said after seeing Korea again, with its plethora of technological and academic advancements, the country he temporarily called home was almost unrecognizable.

“I wouldn’t have known I had landed in Korea unless someone on the plane told me,” said Hobbie. “Forty years ago, people didn’t care about leaving something on the streets and now, it’s probably one of the cleanest countries I’ve ever been in.”

Hobbie said he’s even considering moving back for a few years after he retires, saying that until this trip he had never seriously considered it.

As for follow-up reunions, the Korean government hopes to host one annually for the next five years.

“I think they were waiting to see how this one went, and from my point of view, it went wonderfully,” said Hobbie. “It was a trip of a lifetime and I really can’t say enough good things about it.”

Page 26

October 30 - November 5, 2008

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Kevin Smith begins with the advantage of being raised with deeply embedded senses of sin and guilt. He’s 38, and he still believes sex is dirty and that it’s funny to shock people with four-letter words and enough additional vulgarisms to fill out a crossword puzzle. This is sort of endearing. It gives his pottymouth routines a certain freshness; we’ve heard these words over and over again, but never so many of them so closely jammed together. If you bleeped this movie for broadcast TV, it would sound like a conga line of Iron Men going through a metal detector.

“Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” as the title hints, is

Zack ....................... Seth Rogen Miri Linky ......... Elizabeth Banks Delaney ........... Craig Robinson Lester .................. Jason Mewes Deacon ............... Jeff Anderson Bubbles .................. Traci Lords Stacey ................. Katie Morgan Barry ....................... Ricky Mabe

about Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) making a porno. “I don’t know bleep about directing,” Smith once confided to me. “But I’m a bleeping good writer.” He is.

Since he likes to eat, I will describe him in food terms. He isn’t a gourmet chef, supplying little nuggets of armadillo surrounded by microscopic car-

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The Weinstein Co. presents a film written, directed and edited by Kevin Smith. Produced by Scott Mosier. Photographed by Dave Klein.

Running time: 101 minutes.

Classified: R (on appeal for strong crude sexual content including dialogue, graphic nudity and pervasive language).

rots and curlicues of raspberryavocado-mint juice. He’s the kind of chef I’ve valued for a lifetime, the kind you see behind the ledge in a Formica diner, pulling down new orders from revolving clips. The kind of diner where the waitresses wear paper Legionnaire hats, pop their gum and say, “What ya having’ today, hon?”

In Kevin Smith’s fantasy diner, the waitresses at this joint strip naked and have noisy lesbian sex, and then Jose the busboy joins in the fun. They all scream loudly: “Bleep, you bleeping bleep! I bleep your bleep! Bleep! Bleep! I’m bleeping bleeping!” Variety, the showbiz bible, trains its critics as keen observers of detail, and their alert senior critic Todd McCarthy observes: “There’s scarcely a line of dialogue that doesn’t feature the F-word, Aword, one of the C- or P-words or some variant of them.”

Zack and Miri are povertyrow roommates who have lived together for years, I guess, but never have sex because you might feel funny around a good friend if you bleeped them, and a good friend is so much harder to come by than a bleep. Now they face eviction and ruin, and might have to become bleeping sidewalk-mates. After some little jerk videotapes them (not bleeping but looking like BleepingLFs), they become superstars of the nether lands of YouTube, and have a brilliant idea: They’ll cash in on their fame by making a porn film.

Of course this will require them to bleep on camera, a sacrifice they are willing to make, as long as what happens in the porno, stays in the porno.

They enlist aid from a kid (Jeff Anderson) who videos football games, the abundantly tumescent Jason Mewes (Silent Bob’s friend Jay), and the well-known Traci Lords, who at last is the only grown-up in a movie.

As they edge uneasily toward their big scene, Miri and Zack pull off the complex feat of being unfaithful to each other with themselves, who they meet on the set. This does not happen easily, and is accompa-

October 30 - November 5, 2008

Page 27

each other, and about a “femme fatale� accountant who’s cooking more than the books. It’s a circular con job. Tom Wilkinson stars as a gangster who controls large parts of London and gets in deep trouble with a Russian mafioso as the same stolen money seems to circulate forever one step ahead of everyone. With Gerard Butler and Thandie Newton. Rating: Three stars.

Opening in Theaters

B

ELIZABETH BANKS AS MIRI in “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.� (PHOTO: Š 2008 THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY) nied by a flood of scatological humor. Their producer is Delaney (Craig Robinson), a guy Zack works with at a Starbucks wannabe, and who is funny as he tries to responsibly perform duties he knows only in theory.

And of course, awwww, Zack and Miri admit they’ve been in love along, and achieve something you NEVER see in a porn film, lovemaking with barely visible sex and very genuine romance. Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks make a lovable couple; she’s pretty and goes one-for-one on the bleep language, and Rogen, how can

I say this, is growing on me, the big lug.

Will this movie offend you?

Somehow Kevin Smith’s very excesses defuse the material.

He’s like the guy at a party who tells dirty jokes so fast, Dangerfield-style, that you laugh more at the performance than the material. He’s always coming back for more. Once during a speech at the Indie Spirits, he actually sounded like he was offering his wife as a door prize. Anything for a laugh. Nobody laughed. They all looked at each other sort of stunned. You can’t say he didn’t try.

“AN INTENSE, SUPERBLY ACTED, AND RIVETING POLICE DRAMA.�

F

EARS(S) OF THE DARK (Animation, not rated, 85 minutes). An anthology by six animators, it involves untitled shorts, punctuated by segments featuring an aristocrat holding savage hounds straining at a leash.

Each time a hound breaks free, it leaps upon the next story, and occasionally a victim. I admired Charles Burns’ tale involving a nasty and vaguely humanoid insect that burrows under the skin.

Rating: Two and a half stars.

ALLAST (Drama, not rated, 96 minutes). The film observes three good people as they sink into depression and resentment. Then it watches as they help each other find their futures together. There is a bedrock reality to it that could not be fabricated. It was filmed on location in the Mississippi Delta, and uses actors who had never acted before, but who never step wrong.

It gathers enormous force and is one of the best films of the year. ROLAND (MACAULAY CULKIN) (LEFT), MARY (JENA MALONE), ’VE LOVED LONG (EVA AMURRIYOU ) IN UNITEDSO ARTISTS ' COMEDY Winner of the best director award AND CASSANDRA "SAVED(DRAMA, !" Š 2004 - UNITED APG-13, RTISTS - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 117 MINfor Lance Hammer, at Sundance UTES). Kristin Scott Thomas 2008. Rating: Four stars. in a strong performance as a woman released from prison after OOGIE MAN: THE LEE 15 years and returning to live with AT WAT E R S TO RY a sister and brother-in-law who do (Documentary, not rated, not greet her warmly. The event 86 minutes). A case can be made in her past is not widely known that Lee Atwater was the greatabout in the present, but presest single influence on American ents her with a social minefield politics in the last 40 years. He and employment problems. Set was instrumental in the elections in the French city of Nancy, with of Ronald Reagan and George Scott Thomas effortlessly acting H.W. Bush. Karl Rove and George in French. Rating: Three and a W. Bush were his proteges. It half stars. is universally acknowledged that he wrote the modern Republican OCKNROLLA (Crime playbook. This is a fascinating caper, R, 117 minutes). Guy portrait of a man who was gifted, Ritchie’s movie is about funny and charming, and also some very hard cases from the tortured and driven. Rating: Three London and Russian underworlds and a half stars. who are all trying to cheat on

I

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ET SMART (Comedy, PG13, 110 m., 2008). Steve Carell makes an ideal Maxwell Smart, the bumbling but ambitious and unreasonably selfconfident agent for CONTROL, a secret U.S. agency. Anne Hathaway is his sidekick, Dwayne Johnson is their fellow agent, Terence Stamp is the Russian villain and Alan Arkin heads the agency. It’s funny, exciting, preposterous, great to look at, and made with the same level of technical expertise we’d expect from a new Bond movie. Rating: Three and a half stars.

J

OURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (Adventure, PG, 92 m., 2008). There is a world inside our own, populated by glowing birds, man-eating plants, giant-fanged fish and a T-Rex. Reaching it via a series of dizzying falls, a geologist, his nephew and an Icelandic babe realize Jules Verne must have seen it before writing his novel. With Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson and Anita Briem. Rating: Two stars.

K

IT KITTREDGE: AN AMERICAN GIRL (Adventure, G, 104 m., 2008). Inspired by one of the American Girl dolls, and just about perfect for its target audience, with a great look, engaging performances, real substance and even a few whispers of political ideas, all surrounding the freshness and

Continued on Page 28

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Page 28

October 30 - November 5, 2008

but that’s why I liked it. Rating: Three and a half stars.

charm of Abigail Breslin. Director Patricia Rozema’s intelligent treatment doesn’t condescend, and her first-rate cast includes Julia Ormond, Stanley Tucci, Max Thieriot, Chris O’Donnell, Willow Smith, Glenne Headley, Joan Cusack and Wallace Shawn as the snarly local newspaper editor.

Rating: Three and a half stars.

T

HE STRANGERS (Horror, R, 90 m., 2008). Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman star as a couple with romantic difficulties who go for the night to their deserted summer cottage and are terrorized by home invaders.

Competently acted and directed, but what a despairing exercise in nihilism. Rating: One and a half stars.

T

HE INCREDIBLE HULK (Action, PG-13, 114 m., 2008). Less psychology and more action than the 2003 Ang Lee version, and not to its advantage: The movie sidesteps the fictional dilemma that when Bruce Banner (Ed Norton) becomes the Hulk, he doesn’t much know who he is, and thus his actions are simply anarchic. Lots and lots of CGI-generated action sequences, but a flimsy story. With Liv Tyler as Banner’s love interest, William Hurt as her father the general, Tim Roth as a Hulk clone, and Tim Blake Nelson as a scientist. Directed by Louis Leterrier.

Rating: Two and a half stars.

W

AR, INC. (Comedy, R, 106 m., 2008). Brave and ambitious but chaotic attempt at a political satire. John Cusack stars as a hit man sent to a Middle Eastern country to protect the interests of an American super-corporation. Marisa Tomei is a liberal journalist, Hilary Duff is a Mideast teen idol (!), Ben Kingsley is a shadowy manipulator, Joan Cusack is a P.R. whiz, and Dan Aykroyd seems uncannily like Vice President Cheney.

The elements are here, but the parts never come together. Still, an honorable attempt. Rating: Two stars.

M

ONGOL (Drama, R, 126 m., 2008). A ferocious film, blood-soaked, pausing occasionally for passionate romance and more frequently for torture. As a visual spectacle, it is all but overwhelming, putting to shame some of the recent historical epics from Hollywood.

If it has a flaw, and it does, it is expressed succinctly by the wife of its hero: “All Mongols do is kill and steal.� At the end of two hours, its hero, not yet known as Genghis Khan, has two more movies to go. Awesome, if you go for nonstop carnage. Rating: Three and a half stars. (c) 2008 The Ebert Co.

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Page 30

October 30 - November 5, 2008

Restaurant Spotlight

Lebanese Butcher

Anthony’s Restaurant 309 W. Broad St., Falls Church • 703-532-0100 • Type of Food: Greek, American & Italian Cuisine • Features: Breakfast (Sat. & Sun. Only) • Hours: Mon. - Thur. -10 a.m. - 11 p.m., Fri. 10 a.m. -12 a.m., Sat. 8 a.m. - 12 a.m., Sun. 8 a.m. - 10 p.m.

Argia’s Restaurant 124 N. Washington St., Falls Church • 703-5341033 • www.argias.com • Type of Food: Italian • Washingtonian’s 100 Very Best Restaurants, Zagat Rated, Full Bar, No Reservations • Hours: Lunch: Mon. - Sat. 11:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.; Dinner: Mon. - Thur. 5 - 9:30 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 5 - 10:30 p.m., Sun. 5 - 9 p.m.

Bear Rock Cafe 2200 Westmoreland St. (Westlee Condominium Building), Arlington • 703-532-0031; Catering: 703-532-0118 • Type of Food: American • Features: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Kids' Menu, Alcoholic Beverages; Catering, Free Indoor Parking • Hours: Mon. - Sat. 7 a.m. - 10 p.m., Sun. 7 a.m. - 10 p.m.

Bubba’s BBQ & Catering 7810-F Lee Hwy, Falls Church • 703-560-8570 • Type of Food: American/Family, Salads w/ Meat & Ribs • Features: Best BBQ East of Mississippi • Hours: Mon. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Dogfish Head Alehouse 6363 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church • www.dogfishalehouse.com • 703-534-3342 • Woodgrilled food, speciality ales • Hours: Mon. - Wed. 11:30 a.m. - 11 p.m., Thu. - Sat. 11:30 a.m. - 12 p.m., Sun. 11:30 a.m. - 10 p.m.

Harvest Moon Restaurant and Lounge 7260 Arlington Blvd. (Graham Center across from Loehmann’s Plaza), Falls Church • 703573-6000 • www.theharvestmoonrestaurant. com • Type of Food: Chinese • Features: Lunch / dinner buffets, banquet facilities up to 700 people • Hours: 11:30 a.m. - 9 p.m. daily.

Hoang’s Grill and Sushi Bar 502 W. Broad St., Falls Church • 703-536-7777 • Type of Food: Pan-Asian • Features: Single and Mingle Thursday Nights. • Hours: Mon. - Thur. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. - Sat. 11 a.m.

- 10:30 p.m., Sun. 11:30 a.m. - 9:30 p.m.

Hunan Lion 2070 Chain Bridge Road, next to J. Koons Buick Pontiac, Tysons Corner, Vienna, Va. • 703-734-9828 • www.hunanlion.com • Zagat Rated Best Peking Duck in Town, Top 100 Asian Fusion Restaurants in USA • Type of Food: Chinese • Featuring: Banquet Facilities, Catering, Carry-out • Hours: Mon. - Sat. 11:30 a.m. - 10 p.m.

and

of the

Week

Restaurant

Ireland’s Four Provinces 105W.BroadSt.,FallsChurch•www.4psfallschurch. com • 703-534-8999 • Type of Food: Irish • Features: Full Bar, Live Entertainment, Sunday Brunch • Hours: 11 a.m. - 2 a.m. daily.

Ledo Pizza Restaurant & Pub 7510 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church • 703847-5336 • Type of Food: Pizza & Pasta, American/Family • Features: Full Bar, Wine Menu, 5 TV’s-Sports • Hours: Mon. - Thur. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m.; Fri. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 11 p.m.; Sun. 12 - 10 p.m.

Narita Sushi & Rice Bowl 8417 Old Courthouse Road (accross from Residence Inn), Vienna • 703-893-2008 • Type of Food: Sushi • Features: Lunch & Dinner Box specials • Hours: Mon.–Thur. 11 a.m. - 2:30 p.m., 4 - 10 p.m.; Fri. 11 a.m. - 2:30 p.m., 4 - 10:30 p.m., Sat. noon - 10:30 p.m., Sun. noon - 9:30 p.m.

The Original Pancake House 370 West Broad Street, Falls Church • 703891-0148 • www.originalpancakehouse.com • Type of Food: American/Family • Features: Breakfast, Weekday Specials - Breakfast & Lunch • Hours: 7 a.m. - 3 p.m. daily.

Panjshir 924 W. Broad St., Falls Church • 703-5364566 • Features: Authentic Afghan Cuisine • Hours: Lunch 11 a.m. - 2 p.m., Dinner, 5 - 10 p.m.

Pie-tanza 1216 W. Broad St., Falls Church • www.pietanza.com • 703-237-0977 • Dine-in, Carryout and Catering • Gourmet Wood-fired Pizza and Italian Fare • Hours: Mon. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Pilin 116 W. Broad St., Falls Church • www.pilinthairestaurant.com • 703-241-5850 • Features: Authentic Thai Cuisine • Hours: Mon. - Thurs., 11:30 a.m. - 4 p.m., 5 - 10 p.m., Fri. - Sat., 11:30 a.m. - 4 p.m., 5 - 11 p.m., Sun. 5 - 9 p.m.

Sign of the Whale 7279 Arlington Blvd. (Loehmann’s Plaza), Falls Church • 703-573-1616 • Type of Food: American • Features: Seafood Night and Steak Night • Hours: 11:30 a.m. - 2 a.m., 7 days a week.

Sweet Rice Thai Restaurant 1113 W. Broad St. (next to Don Beyer Volvo), Falls Church • 703-241-8582 • Type of Food: Thai Cuisine • Features: Free delivery ($15 min., limited area) • Hours: Mon. - Thu. 11:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m., Dinner: 5 p.m. - 10 p.m.; Fri. 11:30 am - 11 p.m.; Sat. Noon - 11 p.m.; Sun. Noon - 10 p.m.

At first, I was slightly apprehensive visiting a restaurant with the word “butcher” in its title, but as soon as I walked in the door, I realized that the Lebanese Butcher and Restaurant is a cozy hideaway and a great place to eat and relax.

The venue is small, with less than two dozen sets of dark wood tables and chairs arranged neatly in the square space, filled with distinctly Middle Eastern touches, like the several hookahs placed throughout the room and four walls adorned with Arabic art and food critic award plaques.

The restaurant has been honored several times by a few area papers for its food, service and affordable prices. A massive stone fountain covers about one-third of one wall; long green vines spring from cracks in the stones as water gently travels down into a pool. The lighting is dim, but the large, bold English and Arabic menu that spans the top half of the back wall gives color and an edge to the décor.

Service is available at the counter or at your table. After sitting down, a polite server handed us colorful, bilingual menus.

The menu features Arabic appetizers, salads, entrée platters, sandwiches and desserts, along with various juices and sodas. Besides offering hummus, shawarma, falafel, shish kabobs and other distinct dishes like lamb ouzi – lamb meat, lettuce, tomato, onion, turnip pickles and tahini wrapped in pita bread – the Lebanese Butcher offers common American fare as well. The menu features hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken burgers, Philly Cheese Steaks, New York steak, hot dogs, prime rib and personal pan pizzas.

I ordered a beef and lamb shawarma sandwich, guava fruit juice to drink and a hummus with beef and lamb meat appetizer to split with my friend.

Shawarma, a popular staple across the Middle East, is typically made with a type of meat, pita bread, hummus, tomato and cucumber, sometimes tahini (a sesame paste) and amba, a mango pickle sauce found in the Middle East.

My delicious shawarma sandwich had juicy, tender slices of beef and lamb, slightly spicy tahini and turnip pickles all wrapped in soft, warm pita bread. The bread and the meat were cooked well and very delicious, and while the tahini was a bit salty, it didn’t overpower the meat or the other ingredients, and in fact, augmented the dish's flavors.

Served in a bowl, with thick hummus around the edges and lamb slices drenched in olive oil filling out the middle, the hummus appetizer was impressively tasty.

The portion was large, and my friend and I were only able to finish less than half of the dish.

The hummus had strong hints of lemon and garlic flavors, which boosted the less flavorful chick peas and the mild tang of the tahini. The olive oil moistened the small lamb slices, adding a bold taste to the sumptuous dish.

Finally, I tried the bottled guava juice for the first time and was pleasantly surprised by the extreme sweetness of the dense, pink beverage. I would like to have had more of the juice, but after consuming the hummus and the Shawarma, my stomach was making it clear it was full enough.

The prices for this enjoyable venue are low and affordable. My appetizer was $4.75, the large and very well prepared Shawarma sandwich was $5.25 and my guava juice was $1.75.

As I left the Lebanese Butcher and Restaurant, I chuckled at my initial unease with the restaurant’s name. It is a hidden jewel where you can try something new, and sample a diverse and appetizing cuisine, in addition to staying well within the tightest budget.

Page 32

October 30 - November 5, 2008

Level: 1 3

2 4

SOLUTION TO LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE

11/2/08

© 2008 The Mepham Group. Distributed by Tribune Media Services. All rights reserved.

1. Took a hit 6. “____ Language” (1993 sitcom star’s bestseller) 10. Celt opponent 13. Bandmate of Bob Marley 15. Big Apple sch.

16. New Year’s ____ 17. 1963 Jack Lemmon film directed by 59-Across 19. Ecru 20. 1960 Jack Lemmon film directed by 59-Across 22. Neighbor of Ga. 25. “Woe ____!”

26. One-named Art Deco artist 27. Designer Jacobs 29. War alternative 32. Dive like an eagle 34. Mechanic’s job 36. 1959 Jack Lemmon film directed by 59-Across 40. They may be picky 41. “Omigosh!”

43. Actress Annabella 46. Filmmaker Gus Van ____ 47. Better ____ 48. Town ESE of Turin 52. 2002 film “____ Mama Tambien” 53. 1974 Jack Lemmon film directed by 59-Across 58. Suffix with lunch 59. Director who once quipped “Happiness is working with Jack Lemmon” 63. Sock part 64. Intestinal parts 65. “30 Rock” or “3rd Rock From the Sun” 66. Sgt.’s superiors 67. 35-Down and others, once 68. Certain fisherman

1. Prefix with light 2. Crew’s control?

3. Basinger of “8 Mile” 4. Israeli resort 5. Indian city of 13 million 6. Check (out) 7. Quito’s country: Abbr.

8. Raise: Abbr.

9. Nikita’s no 10. Et ____ 11. 1972 Jack Lemmon film

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© 2008 David Levinson Wilk

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

1

directed by 59-Across Simpsons” 12. Blew off steam 43. Village in an Isaac 1. a hit John and others 14.Took Explorer Bashevis Singer story 6.

Language" 18."____ Water gate? (1993 sitcom star's 44.bestseller) Partnership 21. Celt Graceland’s 45. Actresses Kristen and 10. opponent home 22. Breakfast hrs.

Graff 13. Bandmate of Bob Marley 23. Criminals break them 48. 2007 reference book 15. Big Apple sch.

24. Suffix with buck published by the Onion with 16.

Year's ____ 28. New Succeed the come-on “Now With 30% 29. 1963 Singles Asia” 17.

Jack Lemmon film directedMore by 59-Across 30. Ecru Island garland 49. Sneak a peek 19.

31. Import tax 50. Verb for Tweety 20. 1960 Jack Lemmon film directed by 59-Across 33. Juicy fruit 51. “Uncle!”

22. of Ga. “____ 34. Neighbor Tony Orlando’s 54. Slugger’s stats 25.

"Woe ____!"

Yellow Ribbon” 55. Cooking aids 35. One-named Hung. neighbor 56. Card or Met 26.

Art Deco artist 37.

USPS delivery 57. “If all ____ fails ...”

27. Designer Jacobs 38. Up to snuff 60. USPS rival 29. War alternative 39. It’s pitched 61. Job ad abbr.

32. like an eagle 42. Dive Disco ____ of “The 62. 1980s presidential inits.

Across

34. Mechanic's job

36. 1959 Jack Lemmon film directed by 59-Across

R C P T

O H O H

S O N J A

O N F O O T

J U O R B E

A I R E

M R T O A L D O A N T I H N E I M P E O N D

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

P O U T

A S T H M H A O O U H R A I H E A R

N E S T

T Z I I T N I N G A C N A J A D T S E N S A P A C M C C K E E D R E

E R O R O N A T E T O E T A G

O K B Y M E

M E T E S

A I N N N Y N A S E S E

© 2008 N. F. Benton

October 30 - November 5, 2008

Page 33

“Just like honey from the bee ?” - Van Morrison, “Tupelo Honey” In the past few weeks, Georgia’s Terrapin Beer Co. has unveiled two new beers produced with one special ingredient - honey.

Gamma Ray is an 11 percent alcohol by volume “wheat wine” brewed with Tupelo and Sourwood honey from Savannah Bee Co. The latest entry (Vol. 3) in Terrapin’s experimental Side Project series, it was produced in such a limited quantity that there may not be much left by the time you read this. That’s a shame, because, like it or love it, Gamma Ray turned out to be something quite unique.

A relatively new style, wheat wine is a sort of strong ale takeoff on barleywine, but brewed with large quantities of wheat malt. In the case of Gamma Ray, the addition of some 700 pounds of honey takes it in a whole other direction - back to ancient and traditional beverages, mead (basically honey, water and yeast) and braggot (mead made with malt). The result is an appropriately honey-colored, creamy, sweetish brew that’s deceptively easy to drink.

Before Gamma Ray, there was Sun Ray, a lighter, German-style wheat beer with just a touch of Tupelo honey from Savannah Bee Co. In a bit of mad scientist brewing logic, Terrapin brewer Brian “Spike” Bukowski made Sun Ray first, then used the same yeast strain and doubled up with lots more wheat (and all that honey) to make Gamma Ray. Sun Ray drinks something like a cross between a hefeweizen and an American wheat beer - very refreshing, with classic banana and clove aromas, a mild, yeasty flavor, a bit of bubble gum and a hint of hops.

Right now, Sun Ray can be found only in Terrapin’s All the Hits mix pack, which includes three each of the brewery’s popular India Brown, Rye Pale and Golden ales. It’s also on draft at a few beer bars in its home, Athens. Look for a wider release in six-packs sometime in the spring.

As far as other beers made with honey, as well as mead and braggot, there are quite a few to look for in beverage stores.

• Dogfish Head Midas Touch Golden Elixir is based on the recipe for what is believed to be the oldest-known fermented beverage in the world. It includes barley malt, white muscat grapes, honey and saffron, with complex aromas and flavors that dance between wine, beer and mead.

• Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss, an American wheat beer, and Dundee Honey Brown, an American brown lager, are both widely available, year-round honey-flavored beers from a couple of big American breweries.

• On the more exotic side, Colorado’s Redstone Meadery is producing a really interesting line of mead called Mountain Honey Wine, all fermented to 12 percent alcohol by volume and bottled still (without carbonation). Purists may favor the Traditional Honey Mountain Wine, fermented with orange blossom honey. Other concoctions include meads fermented with the likes of juniper berries, black raspberries, apricots and vanilla and cinnamon.

• For something really different, search out Brother Adam’s Bragget Ale from Atlantic Brewing Co. It’s a big, bold beer that’s brewed with wildflower honey, and comes off like a cross between a mead and a Belgian-style strong ale.  Bob Townsend is editor of Southern Brew News, a bimonthly beer publication distributed throughout the Southeast.

Need Exercise?

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linda@lcsfitness.com www.lcsfitness.com

Call Linda for a Complimentary Consultation

No matter how many years you’ve played this game, it’s still important to review a personal checklist about your own game every time you sit down to play.

That’s how to know that you’re doing everything possible to play your best poker.

Make sure that your checklist contains these three subjects: playing fundamental poker, playing disciplined poker, and playing observational poker. If you are constantly aware of these topics, positive results will follow.

First, play fundamental poker.

The tactics and strategies you employ must fit the style and composition of the game that you’re playing.

Sometimes you’ll find that your actions are skewed by the playing style of others at the table, and that’s not good. It is, however, inevitable if you aren’t focusing on your personal fundamentals.

For example, say you’re playing in a tough game with several players bluffing and making sophisticated plays. Obviously, you’ll need to make some adjustments to deal with these players.

What often happens, though, is that when you return to facing weaker opponents, the adjustments you’ve made to hang with the better players will actually work against you.

You see, the same fancy plays used to deal with pros can lead to tournament elimination when used against amateur players.

When entering a new table, focus on playing an appropriate and fundamentally strong game.

If the table warrants a different approach, adjust your play accordingly. Realize, however, that you’ll need to return to basic ABC poker when that session ends. Trust me; this is a difficult but necessary change to make.

Second, play disciplined poker.

Okay, so you’re playing both fundamental poker and a style that is appropriate for your table.

Now, just stick with it.

When circumstances start to turn bad, some players get impatient and make ill-advised moves.

For example, one guy might constantly reraise you before the flop. Just because you’re fed up with his antics doesn’t mean you should make a silly play. Don’t panic. Instead, let him continue to push until you find the right situation to trap him for all his chips.

Remember, though, no plan is bulletproof. Still, it’s essential to have a plan and to stick to it, especially in the face of adversity.

Finally, be observant.

Don’t get lazy! Unfortunately, it happens to all of us. Remind

yourself to be observant every time you sit down at a table.

Playing fundamental and disciplined poker will only get you so far.

If you don’t pay full attention to what’s happening at the table, you’ll lose your edge, costing yourself valuable opportunities to make really good decisions.

It’s easy to play on autopilot.

But the simple truth is that you’ll win more often when you know exactly how your opponents play.

You can’t afford to miss the physical tells and betting patterns that you’d likely miss if you don’t pay attention.

It’s the power of observation that delivers that extra edge Observation skills are generally weakest among online players. These players are accustomed to frenetic internet action but bore easily in live tournaments where

the pace is much s l o w e r.

They just don’t pay as much attention as they should.

Having keen observational skills is what separates the best players in the world from everyone else. Make this your top priority.

Watch every action that occurs at a poker table -- in every single hand. Sure, you’ll miss some things. But if you strive for perfection and fall a little short, you’ll still end up with far better results.  Online poker training is now available from Daniel Negreanu.

Visit www.PokerVT.com. © 2008 Card Shark Media. All rights reserved.

October 30 - November 5, 2008

Professional Services

Page 35

Professional Services

Home Improvement

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Page 36

October 30 - November 5, 2008

Mayor Robin S. Gardner . . . . . . . . . .

Vice Mayor Harold Lippman. . . . . . . . . . .

City Council Nader Baroukh. . . . . . . . . . . .

Daniel Maller . . . . . . . . . . . . .

David F. Snyder. . . . . . . . . . . .

Daniel X. Sze . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Lawrence Webb . . . . . . . . . . .

City Manager Wyatt Shields. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Home Page <www.fallschurchva.gov> * Indicates TTY 711 Accessibility

OCTOBER

Halloween

novemBER 1

2 3

4

5

provided as a public service by the city of falls church

Questions or Comments? City of Falls Church, Harry E.Wells Building, 300 Park Avenue, Falls Church,VA 22046 703-248-5003 (TTY 711) The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act.This document will be made available in alternate format upon request. Call 703-248-5003 (TTY 711).

city calendar 30 Story Hour, 10:30 a.m.

31 Operation Safe Halloween, Sheriff’s Office

The Week

703-534-8644 703-237-9089 703-992-9433 703-731-8433 703-241-0419 703-538-5986 703-532-1043 703-248-5004*

Farmers Market, 8 a.m.-Noon Household Hazardous Waste

Collection Event, 9 a.m.- 1p.m.

Voter Registration Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. for Absentee Voting Daylight-Saving Time Ends Special Collections Story Hour, 10:30 a.m.

City Council Work Session, 7:30 p.m.

Planning Commission, 7:45 p.m.

Story Hour, 10:30 a.m.

Economic Development Authority, 6:30 p.m.

Election Day General District Court in Session Falls Church Cable Access Board, 7 p.m.

Recreation & Parks Advisory Board, 7 p.m.

Story Hour, 7 p.m.

Architectural Advisory Board, 7:45 p.m.

Sign up for e-FOCUS Today!

The e-FOCUS is the City’s online newsletter that highlights the City’s financial, environmental, transportation, economic development, public safety, and housing issues. Check it out or subscribe online at www.fallschurchva.gov.

Leaf Collection Schedule City crews are collecting loose leaves through Dec. 12, 2008. Residents who wish to have their loose leaves collected by the City are advised to rake their leaves to the curb, but avoid gutters and sidewalks wherever possible. Please allow one week (weather permitting) to finish each zone.

• Monday,Oct. 27 through Friday, Nov. 7. Areas north of Broad Street (Thursday and Friday Collection Zones) • Monday,Nov. 10 through Friday, Nov. 21. Areas south of Broad Street (Tuesday and Wednesday Collection Zones) Residents must keep all other collection material at least 5 feet away from leaf piles. Do not mix brush or other items with leaves. These items may injure City crews, damage equipment, damage private property, and cause delays.

For more information and to view the complete collection schedule, visit www.fallschurchva.gov.

Cast Your Vote Nov. 4 The City of Falls Church Voter Registration Office reminds City residents to head to the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 4. Polls are open from 6 a.m.-7 p.m.

Polling Places: Ward One - Thomas Jefferson Elementary, 601 S. Oak St. Ward Two - Oakwood Apartments, 501 Roosevelt Blvd.

Ward Three - Scout House, 128 S. Spring St. Ward Four - Falls Church Community Center, 223 Little Falls St. Ward Five - American Legion Post, 400 N. Oak St. All polling locations and voting machines are accessible to persons with disabilities.

Poll books will be split into two or three sections according to voters’ last names. Please be sure to enter the correct line. All voters in the City of Falls Church will vote on the eSlate electronic voting equipment, which has been in use since 2006.

Voters are also reminded they may not show, display or exhibit any advertisement or apparel that advocates the election or defeat of a candidate or issue within 40 feet of the polling place.

The Electoral Board and General Registrar are hiring, training and assigning almost 100 Officers of Election to run the City’s polling places and ensure that each and every voter of the expected 80-90 percent turnout is given the opportunity to vote in a fair, well-managed election.

If you have questions about your voter registration status, where you should vote, or how to use the voting machines, a variety of resources are available to assist you. For more information, visit www.sbe.virginia.gov, call the Voter Registration Office at 703-2485085 (TTY 711), or visit the Voter Registration Office in City Hall, 300 Park Ave., Room 101 East.

Voter Turnout Challenge 2008 We need your vote, Falls Church!

Charlottesville has challenged Falls Church to see which city has a higher voter turnout rate in the Nov. 4 election. The winning city will receive a prize from the other city. Charlottesville is putting up a souvenir bust of Thomas Jefferson from Monticello and Falls Church is offering a sapling of its 2008 Tree of the Year, the sassafras.

Keep Your Pets Safe This Halloween Follow these safety tips to make it a happy Halloween for you and your pets.

Keep your pets safely inside away from the festivities of the night. Your pet could become frightened or feel threatened by noisy, costumed trickor-treaters and all of the commotion of strangers knocking on your door.

They could bite or even escape the safety of your home. Cats, especially black ones, can become the target of pranksters. Keep your pets safely inside in an area where they can feel secure and cannot escape.

Keep pets away from candy and decorations. Chocolate is toxic to dogs,

cats and ferrets. Lit jack-o-lanterns and candles can quickly burn your pet or set their fur on fire. Pets can also become entangled in hanging decorations and will sometimes even eat decorations.

Resist the urge to dress your pet up and take it along for trick-or-treating. Most pets dislike the costumes and can become agitated and hard to handle. Keep them happy and safe by leaving them at home costume-free!

For more Halloween safety tips for your pet, contact Animal Control Officer Becky Keenan at 703-2485172 (TTY 711).

Save the Date—You May Save Your Life Register for the City’s Online Newsletter at www.fallschurchva.gov

Register to Receive Emergency Alerts

Life Line Screening will be at George Mason High School (7124 Leesburg Pike) on Saturday, Nov. 22 to perform non-invasive preventive health screenings. Five screenings will be offered to scan for potential health problems related to:blocked arteries,which is a leading cause of stroke;abdominal aortic aneurysms,which can lead to a ruptured aorta;hardening of the arteries in the legs,which is a strong predictor of heart disease;atrial fibrillation or irregular heart beat,which is closely tied to stroke risk;and a bone density screening,for men and women, used to assess the risk of osteoporosis.Register for a Wellness Package with Heart Rhythm for $149. Blood testing for lipids, glucose and CRP is available for an additional $70.Screenings take 60-90 minutes.Call 1-800-324-1851 to pre-register.

FOR THE WEEK of

Classes and Events Teen Center Activities

Paintball Trip (Ages 10-14) Monday, Nov. 3, 9 a.m.-7 p.m.

Enjoy a day of paintball at Hogback Mountain.

Rental equipment, paintball gun and balls are included in the $60 fee. Please bring $5 for lunch and money for additional paintballs. Waivers are required. Transportation is provided from the Community Center.

Midnight Madness (Ages 18 and younger) Friday, Nov. 7, 7 p.m.-midnight Join us at the Community Center for tournaments, games, a movie and more. Admission is free.

Ultra Zone (Ages 10-14) Thursday, Nov. 13, 3:30-7 p.m.

Join us for a laser adventure and arcade games at Ultra Zone. Please bring spending money and $11 for play.

Dance (Students grade 6-8) Saturday, Nov. 15, 7:30-10:30 p.m.

Enjoy a night of dancing, basketball and other fun games. Admission is $3 and refreshments will be sold.

Sport Rock (Ages 10-14) Tuesday, Nov. 18, 3-7 p.m.

Test your rock climbing skills at Sport Rock.

Climbers must wear sturdy, loose fitting clothes and must wear sneakers. Waivers are required.

Fee is $40.

ESPN Zone Thursday, Nov. 20, 3-7 p.m. for Ages 10-14 Tuesday, Nov. 25, 3-7 p.m. for Ages 14-18 Enjoy large screen televisions, air hockey, bowling, basketball, arcade games and great food! Please bring money for the metro, games and food. Fee is $20.

Teen Council Meeting (Students grade 5-7) Tuesday, Nov. 25, 3:30 p.m.

Community Center Become a member the Falls Church Teen Council and join in the efforts to help our community and improve teen programs. Meetings are held monthly and individuals should register through the Community Center. Membership fee is $15.

City of Falls Church Farmers Market Every Saturday from 8 a.m. - Noon

Growing Green City Wins 3rd Place in Green Government Challenge The City of Falls Church received a third-place award in the inaugural Virginia Municipal League (VML) “Green Government Challenge.”The City’s total of 130“green points,”out of a possible 200,qualified it for third place in the category for localities with populations less than 15,000.

Forty-one city, town and county governments participated in the challenge. Nineteen of them fell into the less than 15,000 population category.The cornerstone of VML’s Go Green Virginia environmental initiative,the “Green Government Challenge”is a friendly competition amongVML member local governments to encourage the implementation of specific environmental policies and practical actions that reduce carbon emissions.

The challenge evaluated local governments in the areas of policy adoption, energy efficiency, green buildings, waste management, vehicles, land use and transportation, water and air quality, employee incentives, education and community participation, schools and innovation.

The City was awarded a plaque, a check for $500, and a certificate proclaiming it a “VML-Certified Green Government.”

In remarks upon receiving the Award,Vice Mayor Hal Lippman underscored its importance to our citizens and city employees.“The Award,” he said,“honors and affirms Falls Church’s long standing belief in and commitment to policies and programs that protect the environment.Protecting the environment is quite simply an essential feature of our civic culture, our local government, and our everyday life.”

Members of City staff and the Environmental Services Council were recognized at the Oct. 27 City Council meeting for the City’s third place award in the Green Government Challenge.

Operation Safe Halloween The City’s Sheriff’s Office is taking action to make sure your kids are safe trick-or-treating this Halloween. Deputies will patrol residential streets and distribute small treat bags assembled by Sheriff’s Office deputies and their families and friends.

Deputies work from dusk into the late hours of Halloween night to help keep neighborhoods safe, a program in place since 1990.

For more information, contact the Sheriff’s Office at 703-248-5111 (TTY 711).

Falls Church Recreation & Parks Division 223 Little Falls Street Falls Church, VA 22046 703-248-5077* Phone Numbers Open Gym/Weather Hotline 703-248-5125* Special Events Hotline 703-248-5178* Fax 703-536-5125 Senior Center 703-248-5020*/21* Community Center Hours Monday-Thursday 8 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.

Friday 8 a.m. - Midnight Saturday 8:30 a.m. - Midnight Sunday Noon - 6 p.m.

Open Gym Hours Open Gym hours are updated on a bi-weekly basis and are also posted on the Open Gym Hotline, 703-248-5125*. All hours are subject to change. * Indicates TTY 711 Accessibility

October 30 - November 5, 2008

Page 37

ly Focus

Chairman: Ronald Peppe II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Vice Chairman: Susan Kearney . . . . . . . . . . .

School Board Rosaura Aguerrebere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kathryn Chandler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Charlotte Hyland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kieran Sharpe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Joan Wodiska . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Superintendent: Dr . Lois Berlin . . . . . . . . . . .

government and the falls church city public schools

october 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2008

Primary Focus for Next GMHS Leader – Students According to a recent survey of students, staff, parents and other community members, George Mason High School’s next principal should be a student-focused, motivational leader who communicates consistently with all stakeholders. The number one area of focus should be academic programs, followed by student relations and team-building with staff.

“Of all the choices survey participants were given, these qualities and attributes were the clear priorities selected by all survey groups,” Human Resources Director Lisa Richardson said. “Other qualities and attributes were also selected, but these emerged as the most highly desired by the majority of survey participants.”

The school’s International Baccalaureate Program was frequently referenced in comment areas. Some people suggested that

it should be a high priority, while others suggested that less emphasis should be placed on the IB program. Character education, student morals and a dress code were also repeatedly referenced in the comment section.

Richardson will share survey result details with the community and be available to answer questions during the George Mason High School PTSA meeting on Wednesday, November 5th at 7:30 p.m. in the school cafeteria. The meeting is open to the public.

Feedback from the survey and meetings with the community and staff will be used to help craft the GMHS principal job announcement. The job will be widely advertised in local and national newspapers and educational publications and on Web sites.

It will also be posted on the Falls Church City Public Schools Web site, www.fccps.org.

FCC-TV Spotlight: Spooky Movie Halloween Marathon Tune in to Falls Church Community Television (FCC-TV) to watch the Spooky Movie Halloween Marathon . It’s more than 36 hours of ghoulish fun with the Horror Host Underground .

The Spooky Movie Halloween Marathon begins at 3:00 p .m . on Friday, October 31st and runs through the weekend . Don’t miss it! It will be a scream!

FCC-TV airs on Cox Channel 12 RCN Channel 2 and Verizon Channel 35 . For a complete schedule of community programs on FCC-TV, visit www.fcctv.net or call (703) 248-5538 .

BIE Partner of the Week Richard Soto Applebee’s School Involvement: Sponsored GMHS music department fundraiser – “Flapjack Saturday”; donated lunch for a group of new teachers and their mentors; distributes “A is for Applebee’s” reward cards for student incentive programs .

Why Richard is a BIE partner: “At Applebee’s, we want to be good community members . We are glad to help George Mason High School music students raise funds for their trip to New York, and to welcome new teachers to the community .”

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

Foundation Footnotes

A golden Anniversary for gMhS’ class of 1958 The Falls Church Education Foundation hosted a 50th reunion reception for the Class of 1958 on Friday, October 17th at Don Beyer Volvo’s showroom . More than 60 graduates gathered together to reminisce and exchange news about their lives . Reunion events for the group continued throughout the weekend around Falls Church before the alumni returned home to California, Texas, New Mexico, Florida and other locales . For more information about GMHS alumni, please visit www.gmhsaa.org .

The Foundation is a registered as a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization . For information about the Falls Church Education Foundation, visit www.fcedf.org or contact Donna Englander at denglander@fcedf .org .

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

For more news about the Falls Church City Public Schools visit: www.fccps.org

703-534-4951 703-532-0321 703-536-8638 703-536-7564 703-237-6993 703-536-3130 703-533-1248 703-248-5601*

* Indicates TTY 711 Accessibility

GMHS M*U*S*I*C Days are Here

SCHOOL CALENDAR

Need some leaves raked? How about a babysitter or a birthday party helper? What about musical accompaniment for the event you’re planning?

City later this year. Mason musicians will be attending professional workshops aimed at improving their performance skills.

Testing now – 10/31 DRA Testing (grades 1-2)

M*U*S*I*C, which stands for Many Useful Students In our Community, is an annual fundraiser for the George Mason High School music department. Students from the GMHS Band and Choral programs are offering to work in the community each Saturday from Nov. 1st – Nov. 22nd and December 1st. The work is to raise money to offset travel expenses for their trip to New York

While the students do not charge standard fees for the work they do, they do encourage fair pay for good labor.

To request a student’s help, contact Lisa Ensign or Ann Divecha at fccmd08@verizon.net or Mary Jo Webster at 703-248-5500 x 3019.

Please make your request two weeks prior to the weekend you need help.

School Bus Safety – A Top Priority Before a Falls Church City school bus driver cranks the engine each morning, he or she conducts a pretrip inspection of his or her bus. The daily inspection ensures each vehicle is safe and road-ready.

“Our school bus drivers take their responsibilities very seriously,” transpor- FCCPS staff members wave goodbye to Thomas Jefferson tation coordinator Nancy Elementary students as they head home for the weekend.

Hendrickson said. “Student addition, new drivers receive 48 safety is their number one priority.” hours of extensive training and must Returning FCCPS school bus drivers pass several written and behind the take part in a day-long fall refresher wheel tests to obtain a commertraining session each year, which is cial drivers license before they are required by law. New drivers partici- allowed to transport children.” pate in a much more extensive trainDrivers and students also pracing and evaluation process. tice emergency evacuation drills “There are many hoops to jump throughout the year. through to become a school bus The FCCPS employs 12 school bus driver,” Hendrickson said. drivers. Collectively, they make 24 “Each driver must pass an exten- daily bus runs and travel nearly sive medical exam, a criminal back- 90,000 miles each year. ground check and a drug test. In

New Orleans Jazz at MEHMS New Orleans based jazz band “Papa Grows Funk” includes a Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School assembly performance in its current east coast tour . The quintet, led by lead singer and keyboardist John Gros, performed earlier this month at the invitation of the MEH Cultural Arts Committee .

2008 White House Ornament Sale Ends Tomorrow Only two days remain to place your order for the 2008 White House Christmas ornament . The George Mason High School All Night Graduation Celebration (ANGC) committee is offering the ornament as a fundraiser again this year .

The 2008 Official White House Ornament is a beautiful Christmas tree laden with toys under the tree and flags crossed at the top and honors President Benjamin Harrison, who started the tradition of decorating the first Christmas tree in the White House in 1889 .

Ornaments are $20 each with all profits from the sales to be used to support the 2009 ANGC, a safe and alcoholfree after-graduation event .

Order forms available at: www.fccps.org/ornament .

Deadline for orders is Friday, October 31st .

2008 White House Ornament

DATES ARE SubjEcT To chAngE

Q/SRI Testing (grades 3-5)

now – 11/7

PALS (Kindergarten)

October 31 1st Quarter Ends 9:00 a.m. Elementary PTA Assembly (TJ) 7:30 p.m. Mason @ Clarke Co. (Football) November 3 Professional Day (Schools Closed/ Day Care Open)

Parent Conferences (MEH) 6:00 p.m. School Board/City Council Retreat (MEH)

4

Professional Day (Schools Closed/ Day Care Open) Parent Conferences (MEH)

5

Second Quarter Begins 7:30 p.m. PTSA (GM)

6

7:00 p.m. College 101 (GM)

7

7:30 p.m. Mason @ Strasburg (Football)

10

7:00 p.m. Facility Study Design Committee (GM) 7:00 p.m. Special Education Advisory Committee (MEH) 7:30 p.m. Gifted and Talented Advisory Board (TJ)

11

7:00 p.m. School Board Worksession (City Hall) 8:30 p.m. School Board Regular Meeting (City Hall)

(MD) Mt. Daniel School (TJ) Thomas Jefferson Elementary (MEH) Mary Ellen Henderson Middle (GM) George Mason High (CO) Central Office Check the FCCPS Web site for more calendar information. www.fccps.org

Screenings for Preschoolers Wednesday A Child Find Day is held at Mount Daniel Elementary School throughout the school year on the first Wednesday of each month from 1:30-3:30 p .m .

Parents may have their children screened for suspected delays in speech/language, fine and/or gross motor skills, cognitive abilities and daily living skills . Children identified as eligible may receive special education services through Falls Church City Public Schools . Child Find is an opportunity for children with special needs to receive early intervention services .

Parents who have concerns regarding the development of their preschool age child (two years old by September 30, 2008) may contact Danielle Clark, Child Find Coordinator, at 703-248-5659 to discuss their concerns and schedule an appointment for the next Child Find Day .

Page 38

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15 s Yearo Ag

October 30 - November 5, 2008

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

Falls Church News-Press Vol lll, No. 33 • November 4, 1993

‘Another Top Department Head Resigns - Planning Director Says Differences With Lasso Were “No Secret”’ “The second head of a major department at City Hall has resigned. Mary Grace Fariello, popular head of the City of Falls Church Department of Planning, gave notice to City Manager David Lasso last Friday that she will be leaving as of Nov. 15 to accept an interim position as town manager of Dumphries, Va. In...”

-suming that the self-interest of organizations, specifically banks and (other financial institutions) were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.”

Greenspan started his career as a musician, playing saxophone and clarinet in a band in New York. His father was a

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

Falls Church News-Press Vol VIII, No. 34 • November 5, 1998

‘Rep. Moran Re-Elected Surprising Ease’

10 Year s Ago

Thro w it up.

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

With

“The new voting machines met with mixed reviews from voters in the City of Falls Church Tuesday, but they did not deter over 70% of those who used them to cast their ballots for incumbent Rep. Jim Moran. That was better than his overall margin of victory over Republican challenger Demaris Miller of 67% to 33%, just as Falls Church’s turnout registered voters of 59.9% was...”

stockbroker, and Greenspan displayed his talent with numbers by doing the income tax returns of his fellow band members.

A Libertarian turned Republican, he joined Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign in 1968, and became chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors in the White House.

President Ronald Reagan named him to the Federal Reserve Board in 1987, and with the exception of President Jimmy Carter, he has served every president since 1969. He

has pandered to every president, seemingly to keep his post, and notably backed President Bush’s biggest tax cut for the country’s richest people.

He also has a reputation for candor, admitting in his memoir, “The Age of Turbulence,” that the U.S. had invaded Iraq for its oil.

In 1982, Reagan chose him to restore the solvency of the Social Security system. He did so by raising the payroll tax.

On the human side, he showed some empathy to White House reporters when he came to Palm Springs, Calif., during the Gerald Ford presidency, and saw the “pool” of reporters roped in a corral to keep them as far away as possible from Ford at a golf course. The presiThink the Real Estate Market Has Gone to the Dogs?

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Help FIND LOST CAT in Falls Church. Titus, a large, shy orange tabby, pictured above, escaped from his home on the morning of Oct. 22. This 15-year-old cat, with striking gold eyes, may be wondering around West (south) and/or Ellison Streets. His collar was left in the driveway, leaving him with no identification. Also, Titus’ front paws are declawed, so he can’t protect himself in the wild. Please help this family find their kitty who is so greatly missed. All help is greatly appreciated. If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Titan, please call Colleen Bertrand at 703-992-8678. dent was about to tee off and even strangers on the course could get closer to him than we could.

“This is a disgrace,” Greenspan said. We nodded our agreement.

Greenspan was a man about town for several years, before marrying the talented television reporter, Andrea Mitchell.

On the professional side, he had been very supportive of the Bush administration’s tax cuts, but now he has distanced himself from them.

Greenspan is a product of Wall Street, and should have seen the storm coming.

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He testified that the Federal Reserve “had as good an economic organization as exists,” but if “all those extraordinarily capable people were unable to foresee the development of this critical problemwe have to ask ourselves: Why is that? And the answer is that we’re not smart enough as people. We just cannot see events that far in advance.”

Greenspan had the advantage of a deferential Congress when it came to financial regulation. Although he now sees the need for more regulation, he also warned against the dangers of going too far in that direc-

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Second Annual Yard Sale To Benefit Yard Feral Cat Vaccinate, SALE Spay and Neuter Program Saturday November 1, 2008 2:00 pm Until 6:00 pm

October 30 - November 5, 2008

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ACCOUNTING

n

Diener & Associates, CPA.. . . . . . . . . 241-8807 Eric C. Johnson, CPA, PC . . . . . . . . . 538-2394 Hassans Account & Tax Services . . . 241-7771 Mark Sullivan, CPA. . . . . . . . . . . 571-214-4511 Walsh & Associates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448-0073 Hahn & Associates, PC, CPAs. . . . . . 533-3777 n

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ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES

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Sunrise of Falls Church . . . . . . . . . . . 534-2700

ATTORNEYS

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n

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BUSINESS SERVICES CARPET CLEANING

n

CATERING

n

CHIROPRACTOR

n

Bubba’s Bar-B-Q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560-8570 n

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

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GIFTS

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MUSIC

Academy of Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938-8054 World Children’s Choir . . . . . . . . . . . . 883-0920 Columbia Institute - Fine Arts. . . . . . . 534-2508 CARR Piano Services . . . . . . . . . . . . 750-2256 Foxes Music Co . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533-7393

PET SERVICES

Dog Trainer - Nicole Kibler. . . . . . . . . 593-6340 n

REAL ESTATE

Merelyn Kaye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .790-9090x218 www.helpfulmortgage.us . . . . . . . . . . 237-0222 Casey O’Neal - ReMax . . . . . . . . . . . 824-4196 Rosemary Hayes Jones. . . . . . . . . . .790-1990 Leslie Hutchison. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .675-2188 The Young Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .356-8800 Shaun Murphy, Realtor . . . . . . . . . . . 868-5999 www.TheJeffersonatBallston.com . . . 741-7562 Susan Fauber. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395-8741

IMMIGRATION SERVICES INSURANCE

INTERIOR DESIGN JEWELRY

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LAWN & GARDEN

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TAILOR

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

TRAVEL

All Travel & Cruises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 970-4091 n

TUTORS

Your Computer Tutor . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204-2821 TCY Learning Solutions, LLC. . . . . . . 371-9067

MASONRY

Mottern Masonry Design . . . . . . 571-212-1711

Art and Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534-4202

MASSAGE

Healthy by Intention, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . 534-1321 Massage & Hair Removal . . . . . . .571-282-4522

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Caliber Mower Service & Repair . . . . 691-2995 Dragon Fly Farms . . . . . . . . . . . 240-353-8404 Weaver Enterprises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323-9251 Lawn Care Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691-2351 n

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Arlington Color Consultants . . . . . . . . 241-8548 Masonary Specialist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443-2308 Williams Remodeling . . . . . . . . . 571-263-6405 Andy Group Construction. . . . . . . . . . 503-0350 Joseph Home Improvement. . . . . . . . 507-5005 FC Heating & Air Service . . . . . . . . . . 534-0630 Shiner Roofing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560-7663 J & S Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448-1171 The Vinyl Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 793-3111

HOME IMPROVEMENT

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Galleria Florist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536-0770 Falls Church Florist, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . 533-1333

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Human Touch Home Health. . . . . . . . 531-0540

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FLORISTS

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MEDICAL

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

HOME CARE

Bob Snyder - Life/Health/Disability . . 449-0117 State Farm Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-5105

WERTIME FINANCIAL SERVICE . . . . 237-0003

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

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CGA Immigration Associates, LLC. . . 578-3556

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

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EQUIPMENT RENTAL/SALE

VA Outdoor Power Equipment . . . . . . 207-2000 EZ Tool Rental . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531-4700 Ace Tool & Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . 532-5600

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Oxi Fresh Carpet Cleaning . . . . . . . . 652-0675 Mike’s Carpet Cleaning . . . . . . . . . . . 978-2270 n

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BOOK BINDING

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

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CONSTRUCTION

Drs. William Dougherty, Julie D. Tran 532-3300 Drs. Mark A. Miller, Melanie R. Love . 241-2911 Dr. Nimisha V. Patel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533-1993

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

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Carol S. Miller, LCSW . . . . . . . . . . . . 395-4980 Josette Millman, APRN . . . . . . . . . . . 855-0396 n

Sheraton Premiere Women’s Massage 403-9328

HEALTH & FITNESS

Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536-0140 Sacred Well Yoga and Healing . . . . . 989-8316

Alba Construction, Inc . . . . . . . . . . . . 204-0733

AUTOMOTIVE BANKING

COMPUTER SERVICES

n

NADsys - Computer Sale & Repair. . . . . .534-3800 Systems Management Technology . 891-1491 x14 n

Burke & Herbert Bank & Trust Co.. . . 519-1634 BB&T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241-3505 Acacia Federal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506-8100 n

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ASSISTED LIVING

Beyer Volvo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-5000 Swedish Motor Cars . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237-0988

CLEANING SERVICES

Direct Cleaning Services . . . . . . . . . . 858-4589 Pressure Washing/Deck, Siding. . . . . 980-0225 Liberty Chem Dry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533-0239 Maid Brigade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823-1922 Carpets, Ducts, Windows. . . . . . . . . . 823-1922

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

Bose Law Firm: Former Police. . . . . . 926-3900 Mark F. Werblood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534-9300 Janine S. Benton, Esq. . . . . . . . . . . .992-9255 n

Page 39

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Page 40

October 30 - November 5, 2008

Falls Church City

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