Love the Game, But Change the Name

Despite protests of varying degrees, no professional sports team with a Native American-focused nickname has ever changed their name. Of course, that means the Indians in Cleveland and the Braves in Atlanta are still playing baseball, the Black Hawks are still skating in Chicago, and the Chiefs are still playing football in Kansas City. And then there is the special case of the Washington D.C. football team, which calls itself the Redskins, a name that carries the same demeaning connotation to many Native Americans that the n-word does with African-Americans.

"Redskins is most egregious except when applied to potatoes," says USA Today sports reporter Erik Brady. "It is disparaging and it is offensive."

Brady was one of 4 panelists who opened a community conversation about the Washington NFL team name at the symposium on Racist Stereotypes and Cultural Appropriation in American Sports held at the National Museum of the American Indian.

To date, neither former owner George Preston Marshall or current owner Daniel Snyder has shown any willingness to drop the offensive term. But Brady believes a renaming of the franchise is inevitable. "Rich owners are accustomed to hearing what they want to hear and not doing what they don't want to do, but this is a racial epithet and he (Snyder) can't change the meaning," he said.

Native Americans have been protesting the name for decades and Washington Post sports columnist Mike Wise has made his feelings on the issue clear for 10 of those years. He said he believes Snyder needs to be forced to change his stance. "He needs to be embarrassed into it," Wise said. "I'll write my butt off if you show up at the practice facility (to protest). Symbolism is so important in this culture and in this country. People say there are bigger things to worry about than names and mascots. But there is a reason to do this - it is called human compassion."

Rev. Graylan Hagler agreed that the name change is long overdue. "If someone says 'ouch' you don't ask them to define how its hurts and how much it hurts," Rev. Hagler said."You can't make something that is racist not racist. They (native Americans) say 'it takes away our humanity'. We should respond to their truth as truth."

Hagler, a long-time community activist, said that a boycott of team products could be an effective method of pressure. "We need to stop buying things that have the logo," he noted. "We need to withhold the cash."

District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff said the team name degrades the city of Washington. "The most prominent symbol of the real Washington is the football team and when you hear the fans, what they are screaming is a racial slur," Bartnoff said. "It is disrespectful and derogatory to Native people and undermines the community itself."

Robert Holden, the Deputy Director for the National Congress of American Indians, said "it's a local issue but it's being played out on a national stage. I don't think the owners understand that they are not honoring us. Honor like that - we don't need."

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
Obviously, given the popularity of professional sports, the symposium was widely reported in the media. Click here for The Washington Times account of the event. And, if you read the entire article, you can see my question which I posed at the symposium.

The Washington Darkies? I Don't Think So.

Forrmer U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell

For Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the former U.S. Senator from Colorado, there is a moral imperative to change sports team names like Redskins or Savages that Native Americans find offensive. "These are derogatory words that simply should not be used," Campbell, the only Native American to serve in the Senate in the modern era, said. "Would you call the (professional football) team the Washington Darkies?  These words are wrong at the beginning and they are wrong at the end."

Campbell was one of more than a dozen speakers at a symposium on Racist Stereotypes and Cultural Appropriation in American Sports held at the National Museum of the American Indian.

There are other problems with appropriating Indian names for sports teams, Campbell contended. "They are named for us and use our image, but we don't get anything from it," he said. "Of course, we have been used a lot in American history."

Campbell described a dispute he was involved in to change the name of a Colorado high school from Savages. "We were not savages. We were the Indian people. I said if you want to use savages use your own picture. That's fine, but don't use our people."

"I know a little about sports," said Campbell, who was a member of the 1964 U.S. Olympic team. "And I often wonder about the difficulty of changing names.

The former senator noted that sports is not the only area with a naming problem. "There are more than 100 locations that use the word Squaw. Squaw comes from a part of a woman's anatomy. Nobody would want that name if they knew what it meant," Campbell noted.

In his remarks, Campbell commended Washington D. C. Mayor Vincent Gray who maintains that the Washington football team (who now plays its games in neighboring Maryland) would need to change its team name if it ever wanted to return to the district. But he had some harsh words for politicians who don't support such name changes. "I think there is a lot of cowardice on the part of elected officials," he said.

Campbell, an engaging speaker who interspersed his serious remarks with humor, drew laughter from the large crowd when he briefly described his work to change the name of the historic Custer battlefield in Montana to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. "I think that was the only battlefield in the whole United States named after the loser," Campbell said.

"We've come a long way, but we still have a long way to go," Campbell said. "It's a long process, but I think part of it is a forum like this."

Campbell said some of the problems center around the differing outcomes of the American Dream concept. "For the immigrants coming here, there was a position of upward mobility. This was the land of opportunity. This was Eden. But the Indians had everything to lose and almost did lose everything. But 500 years before Columbus fell off the boat, there were sophisticated societies here. They didn't have writing or recording, but they didn't have many of the societal problems we have today. We could learn something from those people; we could be better."

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
This is one of 3 posts dealing with the topics explored at the Racial Stereotypes and Cultural Appropriation in American Sports symposium. Campbell was part of the program entitled Case Studies on Addressing Indian Stereotypes in American Sports.The others posts deal with Mascot Origin Myths and a Community Conversation about the Washington NFL team name.

Examining the Myths About Mascot Origins

It happened decades ago, but for Dr. Manley Begay Jr., it is as fresh as today. Begay, then a graduate student at Harvard University and a Native American, was asked to address the North Quincy High School Board of Education and the Boston-area community concerning the demeaning aspects of their high school team name, the Red Raiders and their mascot, Chief Yakoo.

Now a senior lecturer at the American Indian Studies program at the University of Arizona and co-director of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, Begay became involved in the controversy after 2 Native American students at the high school claimed that they were offended by the high school's nickname and the depiction of its mascot.

But the board and the community had a different belief. "They all said 'this is not racist; this is not a Native American," Begay said. "They claimed that the mascot was actually based on an Armenian dentist and school benefactor Mr. Yacubian."

Begay said the vehemence of the adamant local stand was astonishing. "I remember one older woman literally clinging to me and pleading 'Please don't take our Yakoo.' It was as if, if Yakoo was eliminated from North Quincy High School, she would cease to exist."

"You could see the entrenched feeling of tradition was very difficult to change," he added.

Begay was the moderator of the 1st of 3 panels which offered thoughts at the all-day symposium Racist Stereotypes and Cultural Appropriation in American Sports held at the National Museum of the American Indian. Joining Begay on the panel charged with the topic Mascot Myth Origins were:

• Dr. E. Newton Jackson, professor of Sports Management at the University of North Florida
• Dr. C. Richard King, professor and chairperson of the Department of Critical Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University
• Dr. Ellen Staurowsky, a professor of Sports Management at Drexel University, and
• Linda Waggoner, author and lecturer at Sonoma State University.

"Words and stories begin to matter when people say that mascots are hurtful. That mascot is bad. It can dehumanize and it can desensitize," King said. 

False origin stories of mascots and team names like Redskins, Indians, or Braves "let people off the hook," King contended. "People say 'if I am honoring you, then I can't be racist. White Americans need to reflect on what they have done."

Jackson, himself a Native American, said that problematic myths about Indians began with Christopher Columbus. "You don't pull up to a place and the people are waving and then you say you discovered it," Jackson contended.

"Native Americans are not a mascot. It is not honoring," he added. The professor was the 1st of many symposium participants to point to economics. "It is about revenue. It's about money. It's about marketing and promotion," he said..

Jackson acknowledged the difficulty in getting high schools, colleges, and professional franchises to change long-held team names. "For change to occur, it requires the dominant group to be supportive and participate. It requires the dominant to buy in," he explained.

Staurowsky said the danger with poorly chosen mascots is the misinformation such mascots promulgate. "If, as an entire nation, we know our American Indians by mascots, then we don't know about (real) American Indian history. It allows us to manipulate a group," she said.

Waggoner said the false story behind the naming of the local Washington football franchise, the Redskins, was typical of the process. For decades, there has been an ongoing battle over changing the team name. Current owner Daniel Snyder claims the name Redskins is not derogative and is intended to honor characteristics of Native Americans. However, the history behind the name tells a different story. The team was named for one of its coaches Will "Lone Star" Dietz. However, court trials proved that Dietz was not native American, but had claimed such ancestry to avoid being drafted in World War I.

The fierceness which makes many hold onto nicknames demeaning to Native Americans is understandable, Jackson said. "We're caught up in loyalty to a team and we don't understand that there are side effects," he said. 

Begay pointed to new studies that are substantiating the deleterious effects of Indian nicknames on Native American youngsters, who have high suicide and addiction rates. "There is a psychological effect of mascots on the self-esteem of young American Indians. We now have proof and evidence that mascots can be quite harmful," he noted.

King said that there is a hesitancy to act on the renaming controversies because "we believe as a society we have made more progress than we actually have."

Often wrong stands are reinforced by authority figures in power, Staurowsky said. "Using names like Redskins allow us to engage in casual racism," she said. "We need to disrupt the dynamics that are going on. We need to rethink what is going on with our fun and games."

Tales,Tidbits, and Tips

This is one of 3 posts dealing with the topics explored at the Racial Stereotypes and Cultural Appropriation in American Sports symposium. The others deal with Case Studies Addressing Indian Stereotyping in American Sports and a Community Conversation about the Washington NFL team name.

March to Justice

Freedom riders escape their burning bus 

On Feb. 25th, the Investigation Discovery Channel will air the powerful, engaging documentary March to Justice: A Film That Chronicles the Fight for Equal Rights and Justice ... For All. Earlier this week, the film received its world premier at the Newseum here in D.C. The showing was followed by a panel discussion featuring 3 primary figures in the documentary, Kerry Kennedy, a social justice advocate and the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy; John Seigenthaler, the founder of the First Amendment Center and administrative assistant to Robert Kennedy in the 1960's; and Carolyn McKinstry, a minister, who, as a teenager, survived the Birmingham bombing which claimed the lives of 4 of her friends.

The documentary is really the story of 2 journeys - the 1st is the dangerous one undertaken in the 1960's in  a racially explosive, violent south for Civil Rights and a modern one by living members of that fight and 3 generations of the Kennedy family who revisited the sights made famous in that struggle.

Kennedy said she was so glad that her family, especially some of its youngest members, participated in the historical project. "It opened their eyes to what I think is the most important thing that happened in the United States in the last 100 years," Kennedy told the audience that filled the Newseum's main screening room.

And I am so proud of my father's role in it," she added, noting that some of the earliest memories of her father was going to see him in his U.S. Justice Department office. Those memories were tragically cut short as her father was killed by an assassin's bullets, just like fellow crusaders John, his brother and his friend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were before him.

Rev. McKinstry, who was 15 at the time of the fatal church bombing, said "we have really good memories of that (the Civil Rights) time, but it was not the best time."

"It is very special to share what happened in the 60s with young people," she said. "They are puzzled, but the kids can handle it. We all need to learn to live next to someone who is different than us."

She says she has never forgotten the sermon that was scheduled on the day of the bombing: A Love that Forgives. "People respond to love; people respond to forgiveness," McKinstry said.

Siegenthaler, like many of the freedom protesters he was charged with protecting, was severely beaten in the bloody Alabama streets. He says he is still amazed that the marchers, both old and young, were able to stay nonviolent surrounded on every street corner by such raging hatred and violence.

"Where the courage came from, to this day I can't imagine," Siegentahler said. "That nonviolent character of that 2nd American revolution was preached from the pulpit and it was preached from the (black) street corners."

"I think about Sandy Hook and I think we need to remember nonviolence even more," he added.

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
The Newseum routinely records portions of their programs. To see a video clip featuring Ms. Kennedy, click here.

The Many Facets of Freedom,

Freedom in many forms for African-Americans during the Civil War era was explored in an engaging panel discussion at the National Archives tonight. Among the topics examined were the freedom procured by successful runaway slaves, the freedom some slaves were able to purchase from white masters, the freedom secured by southern blacks reaching Union lines, the freedom offered by the Emancipation Proclamation, and the freedom that could come with education.

Slave Hunt Dismal Swamp by Thomas Moran was used to highlight Johnson's story

Michael Hussey, an Archives historian, presented the most harrowing tale of the night when he recounted the chilling experiences of Octave Johnson, a New Orleans slave who escaped from a master who was planning to deliver 50 lashes to Johnson for falling asleep at his barrel making job. Hussey learned of Johnson's story through personal records and letters held at the Archives.

Fleeing into the Louisiana swamps, Johnson joined with 30 other slaves who were hiding out there for about a year-and-a-half. However, Johnson's master, angered by the escape, finally hired a group of slave hunters to bring his property back. The hunters tracked the escaped slaves and sent hounds out to capture them. The slaves killed some of the pack, but the rest of the hounds refused to quit. The escapees soon found themselves in a seemingly impossible situation. In front of them, was water populated by alligators. Behind them were the hounds.

"It was the alligators or the hounds," Hussey said. "They made the decision to proceed ahead."

The choice was the correct one. "The alligators began eating the dogs and left us alone. It seems the alligators preferred dog flesh to human flesh," Johnson wrote in the records stored at the Archives. Eventually, he joined the Union Army. He made it thorough the Civil War and died in 1924.

"Reading these records, you can really get a better sense of what his life was like," Hussey said.

Much of the evening was devoted to exchanges between Hussey with his Archives documents and related art work presented and explained by Eleanor Jones Harvey, a senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, who is responsible for The Civil War and American Art exhibition now on display at the museum. Additional context was provided by Ira Berlin, a history professor at the University of Maryland.

The program, entitled The Emancipation Proclamation in Art and Documents, was part of an ongoing series of events celebrating the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's historic decision to free America's slaves.

"This (the Proclamation) was a revolution," Berlin said. "The world at the time was turned upside down. This made for an enormously different America. Black people, who had been dealt out like so many cards, now had their freedom."

Berlin said black freedom brought many changes, but the greatest was in the area of work. "Previously, the (southern) labor was owned and now it was free," he noted. "A master was now an employer and a slave was an employee. This caused a real contestation which lasted well into the 20th Century."

For many Northern whites, the slaves who fled to their lines were the first blacks they had ever encountered. Instead of being just an abstract cause, the blacks, who at first took on menial jobs in Union camps and, after Emancipation, were able to bear arms and fight, displayed their humanity and heart. "They became real human people," Harvey said. "For many, it was their first contact with blacks and they were impressed with their willingness to help prosecute the war. They came to realize that this war was about freedom."

Another avenue to freedom came through education. "The alphabet was an abolitionist," Hussey said. Berlin concurred.  "They (the blacks) wanted to master the word. The word had been used against them," he said.

Supported by the power of many of the art works she displayed, Harvey contended that the cause of black freedom was aided by many art works of the time. "Art is an uncontrollable force that is often at odds with popular culture," she said. "Art has the power to change the way we see things."

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
As part of the ongoing anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Archives has released a free e-book entitled The Meaning and the Making of Emancipation. You can download the book for Android, Nook, Sony REader, PC or Mac by going to the site www.archives.gov/publications/ebooks. You can download for the iPad, Ipod, or iPhone by searching "National Archives" in the iBook store.

Civil Rights at the Newseum

Without the American press, the civil rights movement would have been like a bird without wings.

-- U.S. Rep. John Lewis, one of the 1961 Freedom Riders

Image of Greensboro protesters

If you are looking to to expand your knowledge of the Civil Rights struggle in America, you should consider a visit to the Newseum where a special tour highlighting images and artifacts from that time period is now being offered.

In the Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery, you can view images of the 1966 shooting that wounded civil rights pioneer James Meredith, as well as a picture of Coretta Scott King at the funeral of her husband, Martin Luther King Jr., taken by Moneta Sleet Jr., the 1st African-American journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize.

The Internet, TV, and Radio Gallery offers:

• Jesse Owens in the 1936 Berlin Olympics
• The forced integration of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957
• Martin Luther King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech  at the March on Washington
• The 2008 election of Barack Obama as the 1st African American president of the United States

In the News History Gallery, you can see:

• The Greensboro, N.C., lunch counter where students protested whites-only sections in 1960
• Journalist Moses J. Newson's camera which was burned in the 1961 attack on the Freedom Riders
• Copies of abolitionist newspapers from the 19th Century
• Original front-page coverage of such ground-breaking events as Jackie Robinson breaking baseball's color barrier in 1947, James Meredith enrolling at the University in 1962, Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips

All of the above are part of the Newseum's permanent collection. To celebrate Black History Month, the Newseum is offering "Jailed in Birmingham," a new special exhibit featuring a casting of the original jail cell door behind which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was confined after his April 1963 arrest for leading nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Ala. It was in this cell that the civil rights leader penned his historic letter defending civil disobedience. The "Letter From Birmingham Jail," written in response to a statement by a group of eight white Alabama clergymen, includes the now-famous quote, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." The door on display is a bronze casting made from the original door to King's cell in the Birmingham city jail. The exhibit also features one of the first publications of the letter, a 1963 pamphlet published by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group.

Of Presidents, Skeet Shooting, Incas, and Conquistadors

Dear President Obama:

I'd like to talk to you about this skeet shooting photo flap. I would have written earlier, but my wife and I just got back from a 3-week trip to South America. (By the way, our journey meant we had to miss your inauguration, but that appears to have gone well. Belated congratulations.).

The highlight of our adventure was the 6 days we spent in Peru, including 2 days at Machu Picchu. Obviously, we learned a lot there about the conquest of the Incas by Francisco Pizarro and the rest of the Spanish Conquistadors. And I think some of those lessons apply to your attempt to introduce rational restrictions to reduce the gun violence that is threatening our American way of life.

When the Spanish arrived, the Incan King Atalhuapa believed he could appease the Conquistadors by offering them gifts and concessions. However, he severely underestimated the Spanish, whose greed knew no boundaries. They didn't want to share the Incan wealth; they wanted to possess it all. They believed that God was on their side. They were blinded by conviction, unable to comprehend any positions other than those they held. Compromise wasn't in their vocabulary or their actions. The choice was simple: accept the  Spanish way or suffer death and destruction.

In many of those ways, those Conquistadors of old remind me of the spokesmen for the National Rifle Association today. Apparently, compromise isn't in their vocabulary. They, too, blinded by conviction, appear to want it completely their way and believe they are on the side of the protecting angels (although I find it hard to seriously envision angels, or, for that matter, teachers, brandishing semi-automatic weapons).

I assume you allowed the picture of you shooting skeet at Camp David to be published in an effort to enhance the credibility of your arguments for gun restrictions. But I don't think that strategy will work. You can't reason with the unreasonable; you can't compromise with those who believe any compromise represents an evil greater than the deaths of innocent 6- and 7-year-olds. For what it's worth, Mr. President, I urge you not to get trapped in the world of visual spinning. Keep the issue clear and your eye on the real target. Continue to appeal to reason. I believe reasonable people believe reasonable gun restrictions can, and will, reduce gun violence. And I also believe that despite the unreasonable positions promulgated by the NRA leadership, there are more reasonable people in America than there are weapon zealots who believe any new restrictions will lead directly to the confiscation of every single gun in the United States. Therefore, please forget the media photo war. There are much more important battles to win.

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
P.S. Mr. President:
Jon Stewart of The Daily Show also has some thoughts on this issue. As is usually the case, I agree with Mr. Stewart and, as is always the case, Mr. Stewart states his position much better than I can. You may have seen the video clip, but, if you haven't, you can click here to see what Mr. Stewart had to say

Insane City

Dave Barry has long been called the funniest man in America. And while that title could be debated, there's no doubt that Barry was the funniest man in Washington D.C. last night as he appeared at Politics and Prose to promote his new novel, Insane City, the story of a Miami destination wedding gone horribly and hilariously wrong.

Whether he was talking about the Miami that serves as his fictional book setting and also his real-life home or answering questions from the audience, Barry kept his fans in fits of convulsive laughter.

"I have a theory about book tours and why publishers want you to go on them," Barry said. "Your book will be worth more if you are dead." But despite his tongue-in-cheek claim to the contrary, Barry appeared to be enjoying his night with his fans, many of whom have been reading his books and humor column for decades.

Speaking of Miami, Barry said he "moved there in 1986 from the United States." He said polls such as one that revealed that 67% of Americans view Miami as a dangerous place bother local residents. "It hurts," he says. "We want to track those people down and kill them."

One of his favorite Miami pastimes is watching local drivers. "They appear to be observing the driving rules of their individual country of origin," Barry noted. He said he is particularly fascinated by the legions of New York City residents who now make Miami their home. "They come from New York where they never drove a car. Then they retire to Miami and after they have lost most of their sight, hearing, and the rest of their senses, they decide to start driving. Of course, it's pretty easy to get a driver's license in Miami; it comes with a Happy Meal."

He said every week there is a story about an elderly driver crashing into a building or a swimming pool. And the reason is always the same - the driver confused the gas pedal with the break. "Now, we've all had that happen to us, but how long does it take you to figure it out," Barry said.

He said his favorite real-life driving adventure involved a 78-year-old man in a Chevy Cobalt who was ...... wait for it ... discovered driving on the runways of the Miami International Airport. "That's not something you want to find at an airport," Barry said. "I can't get near a plane with a bottle of shampoo and this guy is driving between 747s."

Barry just started his book tour and already 2 only-in-Miami stories have hit the headlines. The 1st focuses on the 10-year-old daughter of a narcotics officer who submitted a science project determining which of 3 dogs was the best at sniffing out cocaine. "The school officials were upset, but apparently there was no prohibition against using cocaine in a science project," Barry said. "I don't think that would happen in Cleveland."

And then there is the ongoing story of the Python Challenge. It seems that some people (and by these people "I mean idiots," Barry says) believe that pythons make great pets. When they realize the error of their ways, they dump the snakes in the Everglades, which, since there are no predators for them, has become "Disney World  for pythons. I mean, they eat alligators. There are probably 100,000 pythons out there now."

The situation became so dire that authorities came up with the idea of the Python Challenge - a contest where people could be licensed to hunt pythons after they took (and here Barry is not making this up) an online course in how to kill pythons humanely. More than 1,000 hardy hunters signed up. To date, a whopping 37 pythons have been killed. "Basically, the pythons are winning the Python Challenge," he said.

Barry says the wild times in Miami made it relatively easy to come up with the situations in Insane City. "There really isn't much of a stretch anywhere in the book," he claimed. Barry cited his friend and fellow humor writer Carl Hiassen who claims "you don't need an imagination to write a novel about Miami. You just need a subscription to The Miami Herald."

The author says he never knows how much to reveal about a new book at a book talk because "I am here to sell the things." However, after reading a short passage from the novel, Barry said an orangutan is intricately involved in the plot. "When they make the movie, I think the orangutan should be played by somebody important like Brad Pitt," he said.

During the extended question-and-answer period, Barry was almost upstaged by 10-year-old Neil, who had 2 questions for the author, who after hearing both questions, said he was sure Neil's parents would be putting him up for adoption soon.

"You said you are proud of Miami and yet you called your book Insane City. So which one is it?," Neil asked.

"Well, it's called sarcasm which is something you will learn about right after sex," Barry, who couldn't contain his own laughter, said. "In fact, those 2 things are close."

But Neil wasn't finished. "My parents told me you used to be a comedian (howls of laughter from the crowd). Do you have any advice for a young comedian?," he asked

"You're doing pretty well right now," Barry responded. "I wouldn't change a thing."

One woman asked how he continued to be funny. "The key to humor writing," Barry deadpanned, "Is - if you can't think of another joke, then you might have to get a job"

Another woman asked him if he had always been funny. "I know this is going to come as surprise to you, but I've always been something of a wise-ass. If I could say something that would make kids laugh, I would say it. Some teachers liked it; some didn't. I had 2 different teachers who told me the same thing in pretty much the same words - 'that's funny, David, but you can't joke your way through life."

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips

Two Daves together.

I think Dave Barry is uproariously funny. In fact, my wife has banned me from reading Barry in bed because I laugh too loudly. Obviously, I was excited to see him at Politics and Prose. But in addition to being a wildly popular writer, Barry was also a founding member of The Rock Bottom Remainders, the greatest (and indeed the only) rock band every made up of best-selling authors. In addition to Barry, the group also included such writers as Stephen King, Mitch Album, Ridley Pearson, and Amy Tan. A few years ago, Judy and I saw the Remainders at the Electric Factory just before they decided to retire. After his book presentation, I got a chance to talk to Barry about his 2nd career as a 3-chord rock and roll guitarist. I asked him if there was any truth to the story that jealousy between Album and him over Tan had led to the break-up. "No, really it was just a lack of talent," he said. "Amy put it best - 'some bands sing to save the whales; our singing would kill the whales.' We were a different kind of band. Some bands rehearse a lot before they play. We didn't. We would get together at the bar after and talk about how we should have played. We used the rumor method. There were rumors that some of the songs contained chord changes. And sometimes we would change chords. But we didn't usually change to the same chords at the same time." For a long period of time, Warren Zevon played with the Remainders. Zevon, who died in 2003, is one of my favorite song writers. So I was interested to know about Zevon's time with Barry. "Warren was, how shall I put this, crazy," Barry said. "The thing I remember most is that Warren could never find anything. He would be driving and he would be lost and he would call us and I would put my wife on the phone and she would ask 'Warren, where are you?' and Warren would tell her the street and she would say 'you're going the wrong way; turn around and then call us.' And, in a few minutes, he would call back and my wife would ask "what street are you on now?' and he would tell her and she would say "Warren, you're still going the wrong way." I told Barry I knew his musical career began with a band - Federal Duck -that he was in when he attended Haverford College on Philadelphia's Main Line. "There were people in Federal Duck who could really play. I wasn't one of them." I told him I attended Villanova University, which is located just down the road from Haverford. "We played at Villanova a lot," Barry said. "Those Villanova frat boys could vomit better than anyone else." I asked him if there was any chance the Rock Bottom Remainders would reunite. "We're waiting for a groundswell or even one request," Barry said. I said, if the reuniting was a question of money, I would contribute a quarter to the effort. "That might do it," Barry said. "That's about what we got for every job."

Dining in DC: Comet Ping Pong

How is this for a combination - wood-fired pizza, ping pong, and punk rock? Well if all, or any, of these subjects interest you, you will want to check out Comet Ping Pong on Connecticut Avenue, just a few doors down from DC's greatest bookstore, Politics and Prose.

Here's what David Sax of New York Magazine had to say: "Get served at Comet Ping Pong, a hipster-heavy pizza parlor in the Upper Northwest with rough concrete walls, bathrooms hidden behind secret panels, and table tennis galore. Thin-crust pies from the wood-burning oven are as much of an attraction as the regularly scheduled live bands."

We often eat here before or after a book talk at Politics and Prose (we went before tonight's Dave Barry appearance). Invariably, we get the same thing - the Jimmy pizza, a pie featuring the best meatballs ever to be placed on a pizza. They are so good that many people often order an extra side of meatballs. I would like to try the other pizzas on the menu, but, as Judy insists, why mess with a sure thing.

While the pizza is great, the interior decor is just as much of a draw. Each table is painted green to mimic a ping pong table. Classic ping pong matches are often shown on the giant screen. There are 3 ping pong tables in the back (and 1 out front in warm weather) if you want to work off your calories from your meal. In a neat touch, your check comes clipped to a ping pong paddle.

Then, of course, the venue morphs into a punk rock palace on certain weekend nights. The walls of the backroom near the stage are covered with posters of bands who have performed here.

We really like this place, but we are certainly not alone. Over the years, Comet Ping Pong has picked up a lot of street cred from an impressive number of publications. You can find out what they had to say by clicking here.

This month, Comet Ping Pong adds to its eclectic mix when it hosts a Politics and Prose book talk by Matt Kepnes about his new work How to Travel the World on $50 a Day: Travel Cheaper, Longer, Smarter. Now great pizza and good prose - that's 2 things I can really sink my teeth into.

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips

What Others Say

• Urban Spoon
• Washington Post
• Yelp

The Prices DO DC rating

• ***** 5 out of 5 pies (4 for the food, plus 1 for the fun)

We'll Be Back

Those of you coming to this page to read a new The Prices Do DC blog post will have a wait. Our blog is in hiatus while we travel extensively around South America. We will resume posting when we get back.

However, if you want something to read in the meantime, you might want to check out our blog on our travels to Cuba last year. You can access the Cuba blog by clicking here.

So it's Machu Picchu here we come. Please keep D.C. safe and we'll look forward to entertaining all you  readers again when return.

Peace --- Dave and Judy Price

Living with Guns

During his decades long career as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, Craig Whitney found himself time and again being asked 2 questions - how come America has so many shooting deaths and why do Americans feel they need so many guns?

"I couldn't really come up with an answer so I vowed that when I retired I would research the issue," Whitney says.

That research led to Whitney's latest book Living with Guns: A Liberal's Case for the 2nd Amendment, which was released one month before the shooting in Newtown, a tragedy that moved guns and violence to the forefront of national debate.

"The appalling mass murder there makes clear that the decades long stalemate we have had on guns has to end," Whitney told the audience assembled at the Cato Institute to hear the author and 2 attorneys who had argued the last important gun case before the Supreme Court discuss the issue.

Whitney said his book is framed around 2 basic ideas. First, it is clear that the 2nd Amendment mandates that individuals have the right as Americans to possess guns. But that individual right implies a social responsibility to answer the question - how do we keep guns away from violent criminals?

Despite opinions to the contrary, Whitney says he doesn't believe the 2nd Amendment forbids reasonable regulations. The problem becomes what regulations are deemed reasonable and who makes that decision.

"It's ridiculous to claim that any regulation is just the 1st step to seizing all guns," Whitney said. "The NRA (National Rifle Association) is still scaring people to death with the claim you must have a weapon to protect yourself."

"This is not a simplistic problem and I don't think there are any simplistic solutions. We need to reach across the ideological divide and come up with solutions that will work," he added.

Whitney listed several steps he proposed in his book. They include:

• filling in holes in background checks for guns. (It is estimated that as much as 40% of all legal gun exchanges in America are done without such checks).
• closing the gun show loophole which allows buyers to purchase guns too easily
• having states adopt better systems for licensing and registering firearms
• examine whether such proposals as banning the sale of semi-automatic assault weapons and clips that can hold huge numbers of bullets would be effective in reducing violence and then act accordingly
• increase penalties for straw purchases where people buy guns for people other than themselves
• increase state penalties for crimes committed using guns
• and better determine exactly who should and who shouldn't have the right to posses a gun

"I have a reasonable hope that we will come up with some thoughtful way to reduce gun violence. If not now, after Newtown, then when?," he concluded.

Whitney was joined on the panel by attorneys Alan Gura and Alan Morrison, who were opposing counsels in the landmark 2008 Supreme Court Case District of Columbia vs. Heller. The court held that the 

2nd Amendment protects an individual's right to posses a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. The Heller case was the first Supreme Court case in United States history to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individuals right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

Gura, who argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of Heller, indicated that gun ownership has come to symbolize freedom. "The question is - how do we balance freedom with responsibility?, he noted. Gura said that minimizing restrictions shows "we trust ourselves with freedom and we trust ourselves to be responsible."

Morrison, who was counsel for D.C. in the Heller case, said he believes more restrictions are needed, but the focus should be on laws that would prove to be most effective in reducing gun violence. As an example, he cited the current proposal in Congress to re-institute the ban on semi-automatic weapons. "There are already 3 million (such weapons) outstanding. Are we going to confiscate them?," Morrison said. A better approach, Morrison suggested, would be a tightening of background checks on prospective gun buyers, a move that polls show is supported by more than 90% of Americans. "Things like that could make a big difference," he said.

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips

When he speaks, Whitney, who served in the military in Vietnam, makes it clear he is no rabid anti-gun zealot. "I'm convinced we wouldn't have a United States of America without the facility that Americans had with firearms," he says. Obviously, Whitney points out, the 2nd Amendment had a political purpose. "There was a fear that government would be too powerful, too tyrannical, too despotic and would try to suppress American liberties. The militia would be the deterrent," he says. But even in colonial times guns and gun access was restricted. Gun owners had to give their names to local leaders. In fact, restrictions of some type have always been a part of America's gun history. In Dodge City of the Wild West, you were expected to check your guns upon entering town. In the 1930s, appalled by the increasing violence associated with gangsters, Americans agreed with the National Firearms Act, which made sawed-off shotguns and machine guns off limits. In 1968, an America shocked by the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy less than 5 years after Robert's brother John had also been gunned down in Dallas, Americans supported restrictions to prevent the escalating violence. "Now the question is - is Newtown, 2012, a moment like 1968?" Whitney asked.

Pot Policy: Who Should Decide?

When Colorado and Washington voted last November to legalize marijuana in defiance of federal drug laws, those results created a new states/federal government conflict that currently poses many questions, but offers few answers, a Brookings Institute panel agreed this week.

The panel acknowledged that the Constitution clearly rules that federal law supersedes state law. But in the case of  the marijuana issue, the main question becomes how should the federal government respond. After decades of fighting a war on drugs, should federal agencies ignore the drug consumption in the 2 western states? Or should it come down hard on users and sellers there?

"This is a contentious issue that has good and bad effects no matter how it turns out," says Troy Eid, a Denver lawyer, ex-U.S. attorney for Colorado, and a former member of the federal Advisory Committee on Narcotics and Drug Trafficking..

Eid was joined on the panel by Angela Hawken, a Pepperdine University professor who has co-authored the books Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know and Marijuana Legislation: What Everyone Needs to Know; Michael Greave, a George Mason University law professor and visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; and Jonathan Raush, a guest scholar at the Brookings Institute and one of the leading writers on gay issues, who served as moderator.

As a researcher, Hawken said she hoped the experiments in Colorado and Washington would be allowed to play out. "We're really in an information vacuum," she said. "We have a lot to learn about (legal) marijuana. Right now, we're just guessing."

Hawken presented a number of currently unanswered questions, the answers of which could be determined by studying the 2 states. She cited such questions as:

• What happens to drug use when you legalize a drug?
• Will young people start using the drug more or earlier?
• What happens to the number of cases of driving while under the influence of drugs?
• What is the relationship between alcohol and drug use when both are legal?

Panel members added several other questions including:

• How much marijuana tourism will there be?
• Should out-of-state marijuana advertising be banned?
• What tax level should be set on the sale of marijuana?
• How will current drug gangs and international cartels respond to the legal interruption of their lucrative business?
• Should levels of acceptable potency be established?
• How should marijuana be dispensed and who should sell it?
• Will the addiction rates rise? What about crime rates? Will they go up or down?
• Could state officials and residents be charged under federal aiding and abetting criminal laws?

Eid said Colorado is working to resolve as many questions as it can, but added that he hoped Congress would take clarifying actions. "Cops need clear rules. They are not law professors, nor should they be," he said. "To have them do nothing would be a major shift in direction."

Greave, an admitted staunch Libertarian, said he doubted Congress would take action.  "Congress won't enact a law. Congress is just about impotent. And the federal government can't compel a state to enact or enforce laws," he maintained "The question is how far does - and how far should - federal power extend?"

With tongue-in-cheek, he said he would welcome the outcry of a strong federal reaction. "It would be great if we had swarms of federal officers breaking down the doors of pot smokers," he said. However, he agreed with the rest of the panel that federal agencies have neither the physical nor the fiscal resources to wage combat with every community in Colorado and Washington.

President Barack Obama is on record as saying his administration won't go after recreational marijuana users, telling interviewer Barbara Walters that "we have bigger fish to fry." However, the president admitted that a bigger issue is what the federal government will do about the new Washington and Colorado laws that  allow commercial production and retail sales of marijuana.

"This is a tough problem, because Congress has not yet changed the law," Obama told Walters. "I head up the executive branch; we're supposed to be carrying out laws. And so what we're going to need to have is a conversation about, How do you reconcile a federal law that still says marijuana is a federal offense and state laws that say that it's legal?"

Rausch said that marijuana is just one of many issues on which there is no national consensus and are, or will be causing state/federal conflicts. He added immigration, gay marriage, and Obamacare to that list. "Talk about putting the cat in the middle of the pigeons," he said. "We're in a period of ferment, the likes of which we have not seen since the New Deal."

Hawken concurred. "It's like Betty Davis said, 'Buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride,'".

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips

By completely legalizing marijuana, Colorado and Washington became the 1st political entities in the world  to do so. After years of America calling for international actions to halt drugs, that decision may not sit well with other nations. Representatives from the Netherlands, India, and Mexico all questioned the panel about the legalization issue. In an attempt to answer honestly, Eid said. "I don't think when the voters (in Colorado) voted, they were thinking about the Netherlands," he said.

Schoolhouse Rock: Still Rocking at 40

In 1971, jazz pianist and composer Bob Dorough received an odd commission - he was asked to set the multiplication tables to music. The request came from a top New York city advertising executive who was upset that his son could sing the lyrics of countless rock songs, but couldn't comprehend simple math. In a few weeks, Borough returned with a demo of  "3 Is a Magic Number."

With storyboards and music in hand, the agency approached one of its clients ABC television. And thus was born ABC -TV's Schoolhouse Rock!, a series of short educational videos that entertained and instructed youngsters in between Saturday morning cartoons from 1973 until 1985. The songs became burnished into the brains of their listeners. The short animated cartoons returned for 5 more years in the 90s and are now seen by millions on YouTube.

Last night, Dorough and the popular D.C area kids band Rocknoceros celebrated the 40th anniversary of Schoolhouse Rock! by performing songs from the series on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center.

Dorough, accompanied only by himself on a Steinway piano, opened the show with, as he says, "the song that started it all - 3 Is a Magic Number." He followed up in succession with other favorites such as "Conjunction Junction," "Figure Eight," and "I'm Just a Bill." The crowd, which literally ranged from infants to octogenarians, sang along with their favorites.

After Dorough's half-hour opening, Rocknoceros took the stage to perform a 4-song Schoolhouse Rock set: "Electricity, Electricity," "Energy Blues," "Fireworks," and "Unpack Your Adjectives." Dorough then returned to the stage to join in the finale - "Interjections."

On the way out, the delighted crowd was treated to video versions of "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here," "Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla," and "Verb; That's What's Happening."

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
If you would like to see the Schoolhouse Rock! concert in its entirety, you can do so by clicking here. You can view the original Schoolhouse Rock! videos on YouTube by clicking here.

The In's and Out's of 2013

Honey Boo-Boo in or out? What about Bilbo Baggins?

Do you know what will be in this year? What about out? If you're not sure, you can always check out the Washington Post's 2013 In/Out List, put together by Post reporters Monica Hesse and Dan Zak. Yesterday, Hesse and Zak appeared at an Inside Media program at the Newseum to talk about the in's and out's of compiling a widely-read in/out list.

Hesse and Zak acknowledge that the idea of a definitive list is silly, but say they take to their task with a sense of seriousness. ""For as stupid a thing as it is, we do put a lot of time into it," Zak said.

While the 2 reporters often filter the entire year through the idea of in and out topics, the process actually begins in earnest around Thanksgiving. Hesse says there is little reason to start any earlier. "Culture moves so fast today," Hesse said. "Something comes out and 3 days later, everyone is sick of it. Everything has to be able to be dead to you."

One of the first steps for the reporters is to head to a local Barnes and Noble book store, sit down, and scan as many magazines as possible. Hesse said the reporters don't buy the magazines,  but added "we figure all the coffee we drink and all the pastries we eat more than makes up for the cost," she said.

That is followed by more research."We then definitely reach out to colleagues and friends for things we don't know anything about," Zak added.

The pair then begin producing a 1st copy of the list. Some things they remove; others are removed by editors; some simply don't work. This year there were 68 paired items in the final article. That meant that more than 100 pairs never saw print.

Both reporters said they are more interested in the in's than the out's "We look at this as a year beginning list that predicts what will happen," Hesse said. Sometimes they are right on the money. Last year, they called Pippa's bum out and Kate's uterus in. In a related pairing this year, they are calling Blue Ivy out, Her Royal Fetus in.

To help the audience feel even more in, Hesse and Zak explained some of the more confusing or obscure of their choices. For example, they called pundits out and psephologists in. Basically, Zak said that was a way of dissing raving Karl Rove and his like and praising Nate Silver, a statistician who accurately called all 50 states during the recent presidential election. "Its kind of our way of saying that pundits don't matter; statistics give you a better grasp on reality," Zak explained.

Some of the items have a deeper meaning than just what appears on the surface. Take calling George Clooney out and Eva Longoria in. "George Clooney will probably never be out," Zak said. "But in context, of political celebrity advocates, this year will be more Eva than George." 

While many of the items are national in scope, some really only appeal to those living inside the Washington beltway. Hesse cited the 54 bus out, the 70 bus in as such an example. "I live on the 50 bus route. It runs through Columbia Heights and U Street and a lot of areas that have been hip. The 70 bus runs to the Southeast and the waterfront, which is becoming a happening place," she said.

The list is always backed up by some support. This year food trucks were deemed on their way out, to be replaced by hair salon trucks. "There is actually one coming to the city," Hesse said. "And if people are too busy to sit down at a restaurant for lunch, they are probably to busy to sit down in a salon for a styling. It makes you wonder what other type of trucks we'll be getting. The broader idea is that culture is becoming much more mobile."  Then there is the call for urban farming to be replaced with urban hunting. Zak said he read an article where Charlotte, North Carolina was being overrun with deer and would be issuing permits to thin out the herd. "Squirrels of the world, watch out," he said.

Zak and Hesse, as evidenced by their repartee at the Inside Media taping, have a lot of fun compiling the list. But they realize that some of their readers take The List, which they have been in charge of  for the past 4 years, much more seriously than they do.  Once published, complaints begin arriving.

"We might want to tweak the cultural nose, but we don't want to make people angry for no reason," Hesse said. "But we're always looking for backlash. That means people are reading (the list) and it is important to them."

Zak agreed. He said his favorite email ever had the subject line Just Quit. "The Washington Post would be better off printing a blank page," the succinct email said.

Tales,Tidbits, and Tips

The Post actually began printing the list in 1978. It was 1st put together by 2 fashion writers about what to wear and not wear and has grown detailed and diverse over the years. You can check out all the 35 copies of the list by clicking here and checking out the archive box at the top of the page. You can view a mockumentary about the list by clicking here.

The Ripple Effect: Socially Engaged Art

Miquel Luciano uses photo kites to
call attention to the problems of
a flawed immigration policy

Art can serve many purposes. One of those is to point out social problems in an effort to promote change. That is the focus of the exhibition The Ripple Effect: Currents of Socially Engaged Art now on display at the Art Museum of the Americas.

According to curator Raquel de Anda the exhibition presents artists who "participate in the growing practice of working outside the studio to engage with communities - a genre of art often referred to as Social Practice, Relational Aesthetics, or Dialogical Art."

"The artists advance public awareness of timely issues and expand the the potential of art to engage communities. Their work exposes flaws, experiment with social interactions, and beg for new imagined potentials," de Anda added.

Aschoy Collective's Masked Man

One example is the work of  the Bolivia-based Aschoy Collective which revolves around a public action in La Paz in which a masked performer went through the streets, accompanied by musicians. It was designed to call attention to the condition of about 2,000 shoeshiners -- many of whom wear ski masks to hide that they are professionals brought low by the economy.

A wall of postcards

Another example of this social practice art is Mark Strandquist’s “Write Home Soon.” That began as a series of photographs of encampments abandoned by “Occupy” protesters. But that’s not what you’ll see at the museum. His contribution to “The Ripple Effect” is a wall of handmade postcards, each sent anonymously by people who had seen the artist’s earlier photos when they were temporarily installed on the facades of abandoned D.C. buildings.

These postcards, many of which are heartbreakingly poignant, respond to a prompt: “Have you ever lost access to a place that was important to you? Please include a memory or story from that space.” The result is a commentary on housing access and homelessness.

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
You can still see the exhibition, but you will have to hurry. It is closing on January 13.

Dining in DC: Ollie's Trolley

It's a debatable claim, but some say that Ollie's Trolley is to DC hamburgers what Ben's Chilli Bowl is to DC half-smokes. But there's no arguing that the hamburgers at Ollie's are popular. In fact, in 2011, the eatery's burger bested those from such renown DC places as Ray's Hellburger, 5 Guys, and the Tune Inn to capture the title of producing Washington's top burger.

And although Ollie's has been in business for 30 years, it still is a place of secrets. First, there is the undisclosed sauce that is slathered over the eatery's flame-grilled signature Ollie burger. And then there are the 26 herbs and spices that are sprinkled over the seasoned fries.

Today, we visited the eatery for the 1st time for a late lunch. Judy opted for the non-seasoned quarter-pound burger with cheese. I chose the Ollie burger dressed the recommended way with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, and mayonnaise. We both got the seasoned fries. I added a chocolate milkshake for a true retro meal.

So how good was the burger? It was definitely tasty, but I would still cast my vote for my reigning favorite Ray's Hellburger. However, the seasoned fries live up to their reputation.

Now some words about Ollie's decor. The walls are light yellow and a trolley/train theme is apparent.  In addition, the windows and the inside hold antique dime games and Victorian merry go round animals. The old timey, kitsch feeling is heightened with the sound system that plays classic tunes from the 1930s and 40s.

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
What Others Say:

• TripAdvisor
• Urban Spoon
• Yelp

The Prices Do DC Rating:

• ***^ 3-and-and-1/2 plates out 5 (the seasoned fries added 1/2 plate)

13 in 2013: Coming to DC This Year

In addition to looking backward, the changing of a year also prompts views forward. So with that in mind, here are 13 things we are looking forward to doing or seeing in 2013 that are already on the calendar.

Art
1. Nam June Paik: Global Visionary at the American Art Museum (open now)
This exhibition offers an unprecedented view into video artist Nam June Paik's creative method.

2. Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art at the American Art Museum (opens Oct. 25) 
More than 70 works will show how Latino artists tackled classic American themes and actively participated in the artistic movements of their day.

3. Pump Me Up: DC Subculture of the 1980s at the Corcoran Gallery (opens Feb. 23)
The first exhibition to explore the thriving underground of Washington, D.C., during the 1980s, giving visual form to the raucous energy of graffiti, Go-Go music, and a world-renowned punk and hardcore scene.

4. Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop at the National Gallery (opens Feb. 17)
In the first major exhibition devoted to the history of manipulated photographs before the digital age, some 200 works will demonstrate that today's digitally altered photographs are part of a tradition that extends back to the beginning of photography.

History/Culture
5. Changing America: The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863 and the March on Washington, 1963 at the National Museum of American History (open now)
This exhibition explores the historical context of these two crucial events, their accomplishments and limitations, and their impact on the generations that followed.

6. Washington During the Civil War at the National Portrait Gallery (opening Dec. 13)
Photographs will reveal Civil War activities around the Patent Office Building -- now home to the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum -- and other locations in and around the District of Columbia.

7. Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond Villains at the International Spy Museum (open now)
Meet Bond's villains, discover their evil schemes, and see their exotic lairs and weapons in this special exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Bond films.

Theater
8. The Tempest at the Synetic Theater (opens Feb. Feb. 19)
On a water-filled stage, Synetic’s visual poetry will bring Prospero’s magical island to life.

9. The Book of Mormon at the Kennedy Center (opens July 9)
The musical, winner of nine 2011 Tony Award, comes to DC.

10. The Mountaintop at the Arena Stage (opens March 29)
Exhausted from delivering a significant speech, Dr. King rests in his room at the Lorraine Motel when an unexpected visit from a feisty, young maid compels him to confront his own humanity and the fate of our nation.

Music
11. Schoolhouse Rock 40th Anniversary at the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center (Jan. 7)
A celebration of the hit educational television series with legendary songwriter and former musical director Bob Dorough and award-winning D.C. children’s band Rocknoceros.

12. The Rolling Stones at 50 Concert at (to be announced on a date to be determined)
OK. This one hasn't been scheduled yet. But it appears that The Rolling Stones will be touring in 2013 and, if they do, we will be there.

Dining
13. Continuing our President Obama Ate Here and Now The Prices Have Too series of restaurant explorations.

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
As regular readers of our blog know, we spend a lot of time at book talks, none of which were listed on our looking forward to doing in 2013 list. We will be touring South America for most of January (that's also why the swearing in ceremonies for President Obama are not on our list) and book sites only list their talks for a month in advance. But you can bet we will be attending much of 2013 at these sites:

• Politics and Prose
• Busboys and Poets
• The National Archives
• The Library of Congress

We love D.C. and are planning on having a great 2013. We hope all our readers do too.

DC 2012 in Culture, Politics, and History

As the nation's capital, Washington D.C. is obviously a great place to observe politics and history. But it also provides many marvelous cultural experiences, too. Here is the list of our 2012 D.C. favorites in culture, politics, and history.

Favorite Art Exhibition - Major Museum Show

• Judy - Joan Miro: The Ladder of Escape (National Gallery)
• Me - The Shock of News (National Gallery)

Favorite Art Exhibition - Small Gallery Show

• Judy - First Ladies (The Fridge)
• Me - 13 Days, 13 Nights in 1962 (Civilian Arts Project)

Favorite Social Issues Art Exhibition

• Judy - Kathryn Cornelius: Save the Date (issues of women's roles and marriage at the Corcoran)
• Me - Manifest: Armed (issue of guns and violence at the Corcoran)

Favorite Art Talk by Exhibition Curator

• Judy - The Civil War and American Art (Smithsonian Museum of American Art)
• Me - Poetic Likeness: Modern American Poets (National Portrait Gallery)

Favorite DC Art Museum 

• Judy - National Gallery of Art
• Me - Smithsonian Museum of American Art

Favorite Cultural Exhibition

• Judy - Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion. Power at the National Museum of Women's Art
• Me - Pure Land: Inside the Magao Grottoes of China at the S. Dillion Ripley Center

Favorite Ethnic Exhibition

• Judy - African Cosmos: Stellar Arts at the Museum of African Art
• Me - The Golden Age of Muslim Civilization at National Geographic

Favorite Smithsonian Museum

• Judy - The American Art Museum
• Me - The Museum of American History

Favorite DC Museum (not part of the Smithsonian)

• Judy - National Archives
• Me - The Newseum

Favorite 2012 Historical Exhibition

• Judy - Every Four Years: Presidential Campaigns and the Press at the Newseum
• Me - On the Brink: JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis at the National Archives

Favorite History Tour

• Judy - The White House
• Me - The Great American Scandal  Tour (all the dirty secrets of  DC)

Favorite Panel Discussion 

• Judy - Past, Present, and Future of Political Campaigns at the National Archives
• Me - The 30th Anniversary of Watergate Break-in with Bob Woodward at the Newseum

Favorite Book Store

• Judy - Barnes and Noble at Potomac Yards
• Me - Politics and Prose

Favorite Book Talk (non-fiction)

• Judy - Mrs. Kennedy and Me by Clint Hill, former Secret Service agent
• Me - Fire in the Ashes by Jonathan Kozol

Favorite Fiction Book Talk (politically related)

• Judy - Jack, 1939 by Francine Matthews
• Me - The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen Carter

Favorite Book Talk about Presidents and Politics

• Judy - The Presidents' Club by Michael Duffy and Nancy Gibbs
• Me - Barack Obama by David Maraniss

Favorite Book Talk about local DC subject

• Judy - What It Was by George Pelecanos
• Me - Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City by Natalie Hopkinson

Favorite Recurring DC Event

• Judy - The Smithsonian Folkways Festival
• Me - The National Book Fest

Most Interesting Speaker of 2012

• Judy - Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
• Me - David Simon, creator of The Wire and Treme

Most Fulfilling Political Activity of 2012

• Judy - working for the campaign to re-elect President Barack Obama
• Me - same

Most Important Social Protest Activity of 2012

• Judy - participating in the 1st rally after Newtown against the NRA and its opposition to gun control
• Me - same

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips

Americans have an obsession with big anniversaries. And several of those were celebrated with multiple events in D.C. in 2012 which we attended. They included the 100th anniversaries of :

• the sinking of the Titanic
• The annual DC Cherry Blossom Festival
• the birth of social protest singer Woody Guthrie
• the birth of avant garde composer and artist John Cage

There was also a huge 200th anniversary series of events to commemorate the War of 1812.

2012 in Review: DC Dining and Entertainment

Welcome 2013. The beginning of a new year is always a great time for reflecting on the year that just concluded.  So here we present some highlights and choices in entertainment and dining from 2012.

Favorite Dinner Spot (big bucks)

• Judy - BLT (steak)
• Me - Vidalia (southern)

Favorite Dinner Spot (on the cheap)

• Judy - Florida Avenue Grill (soul food)
• Me - same

Favorite Lunch Spot

• Judy - Yo Sushi (at Union Station)
• me - SUN-de-VITCH (ethnic sandwiches in the Shaw District)

Favorite Iconic DC Eatery

• Judy - Busboys and Poets  (U Street)
• Me - Ben's Chili Bowl (U Street)

Favorite Ethnic Restaurant

• Judy - Rice (Thai)
• Me - Rasika West End (Indian)

Favorite Restaurant Where the Obamas Dined

• Judy - Eatonville (soul food) 
• Me - Art and Soul (southern) 

Favorite Crystal City Neighborhood Dining (attached to our apartment complex)

• Judy - Neramitra (Thai)
• Me - King Street Blues (barbeque)

Favorite Hamburger

• Judy - 5 Guys
• Me - Ray's Helburger

Favorite Pizza

• Judy - Comet Ping Pong
• Me - We, The Pizza

Favorite Concert (large venue)

• Judy - The Beach Boys (Meriweather Post Pavilion)
• Me - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (Verizon Center)

Favorite show (small venue)

• Judy - CTA with Danny Seraphine (original drummer for Chicago at the Hamilton)
• Me - Joan Osborne (with her band at The Birchmere and with Trigger Hippy at the Hamilton)

Favorite Theater Production (drama)

• Judy - War Horse (Kennedy Center)
• Me - Mr. Burns, a Post Electric Play (Wooly Mammoth)

Favorite Musical

• Judy - The Addams Family (Kennedy Center)
• Me - This Land is Your Land: A Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration Concert

Favorite Free Millennium Stage Show at the Kennedy Center

• Judy - Merry Tuba Christmas
• Me - The Tone Rangers

Favorite Synetic Theater Production

• Judy - Jekyll and Hyde
• Me - Home of the Soldier

Favorite Movie with DC Political Setting

• Judy - Argo
• Me - Lincoln

Favorite Documentary Film with DC Political Setting

• Judy - Electoral Dysfunction (America's broken voting system)
• Me - The House I Live In (America's failed war on drugs)

Favorite TV Series with DC Political Setting 

• Judy - The Newsroom
• Me - Homeland

Favorite DC Holiday Experience

• Judy - Zoolights at the National Zoo
• Me - Ronnic Spector's Best Christmas Party Ever (at the Howard Theater)

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips

Obviously, one of the great things about living in the DC area is the chance to see interesting creative people perform. Many times you get a chance to talk personally with them before or after their presentation. Here, in no particular order, are a half-dozen of my favorites that I got a chance to talk with privately in 2012.

• Jonathan Kozol (author,writes about education, poverty, social issues)
• Bobby Keys (sax player for The Rolling Stones)
• Ed Rendell (politician and author)
• George Pelecanos (writer of DC crime noir fiction)
• Douglas Brinkley (historian and author)
• Trevor Potter (political attorney and legal adviser for Stephen Colbert)