C A P I C O S T I A

*He-Man knows how to handle a few barbarians at the gate, and so does Penn Branch. I hope. The delay in development at our delightfully decrepit Penn Branch Center, at the corner of Pennsylvania and Branch Avenues, is very frustrating to me. Though, in mere days, it will have been an entire year since construction was to begin on our shopping center, nothing resembling upgrades and infusions of new, dynamic retail has been initiated. Check the websites of the Penn Branch Civic Association website (on your left) and of ICG Properties , and you will not find news of any significant developments for PBC. We have THREE gateway areas developing in the River East area, each fully-loaded with upscale condos and retail, and I worry Penn Branch, virtually unchanged since the 80s, will soon fall behind in how efficiently the city delivers vital services. With the explosion of commercial and residential development on Martin Luther King Avenue, Howard Road and coming soon to Barry Farm,

My movie review blog at StudioJoeMovies.blogspot.com , after a year of virtual neglect except for spot-on reviews of the movies, A-Team [Loved it!] and Prince Of Persia, has taken a final bow into the twilight. I want to thank Joe's single follower, my blogger Obi-Wan, Carlos Quinoz of CarlosInDC , for his defiantly optimistic support. If you aren't reading his blog, you're missing a refreshingly unpretensious source of politics, world news and local cultural event reporting unparalled by a single journalist. So, get over there, already! What do you need--an invitation? Why I oughta'... I had big plans for Studio Joe and Joe-inspired merchandise and working with an old writer bud of mine from college. Never quite found the time or will to give this project the attention it deserved. Believe me; Joe will miss you, but not nearly as much as I will miss him. Get ready for a new blog soon to be launched from this account, called I Want You To Know, written by m

My Brangler spirit may be running a little low, right now. Exactly a year ago, in October of 2009, several reliable sources told Penn Branch and surrounding residents that construction was to begin on our weary old tomb of a shopping strip, Penn Branch Center , which is basically a big piece of crap that's been falling apart for the last twenty or so years. We've got sleepy, hum-drum retail that forces Penn Branglers to go spend our money in other communities, making them more economically viable, while our own neighborhood fades deeper into civic irrelevance with City Hall, and I was really looking forward to the end of that. But, the ending never arrived. In the meantime, Minnesota-Benning (Bennesota) and even Fairfax Village (where I have a condo) are witnessing the beginnings of exciting changes in their respective business districts, while Penn Branch, still the host of lots of dependable, law-abiding middle class tax payers, stays drearily and abysmally the same. Not po