C A P I C O S T I A

by Mel Dyer I think that what Dr. Michio Kaku is saying in this YT video is that America's education system doesn't prepare us to compete, at the college level, in math and the sciences. I would have to, however reluctantly, ..agree with him. I wasn't exposed to the celebrated 'British system' for math education, until I was in my sophomore year of high school - summer school, in fact - and easily performed at the highest level, after having struggled with math for years, in American schools, making Cs and Ds. The following fall, I went back to performing poorly in math - the American system having pretty much destroyed my confidence, in my natural mathematic abilities. Wondering what any of this has to do, with living in Capicostia...with you or your family, specifically? How are the kids of (ANC) Seven Bee measuring up? Are they ready to dominate [Yes, liberals... dominate. It's what every other nation is striving to do.] the Global Marketplace? ...

by Mel Dyer Just finished browsing  DCLofts.com  and found one--ONE--converted loft property in Southeast, on Capitol Hill (of course) called the  Bryan School Lofts , ..which are all  sold out .  The Bryan School  was done by award-winning  Abdo Builders , and probably cost a vital organ AND a limb to own. Frankly, they are a little too polished for my tastes--scrubbed of all the rugged, Industrial Era charm that ought to be evident in converting an old school, garage, trolley car barn or factory into functional living space. These Abdo lofts look like the  Sex In The City  ladies hang out there. They're sissy lofts, and I hate'm. Lofts used to be the large, unattractive, slate gray ruins of an obsolete industrial era that no style-conscious yuppy would be caught dead in. In the 1950's, lofts were places, where a  large , lower income, working class or struggling immigrant family could stake a claim in the steamy, jazz-scored urban e...

Brangler Oppossum (above) is the only thing gathering in these hills, my friends. (Originally published, July 23rd, 2009) If it seems some Penn Branch folk are always bellyaching about the lack of quailty retail in our neighborhood, don’t judge us too harshly. It’s more than just bellyaching. Prior to the Reagan Era 80s and the Inflation that preceded it, this neighborhood had plenty! I remember drugstore diners with GREAT coffee, movies at the Hyland Theatre (at the Hyland Cinema , once located next to the Pope Funeral Home) and, with valet, at Coral Hill . There were even several restaurants, a cocktail lounge or two, a bowling alley, ..and all right here, in and around Penn Branch. I remember seeing my neighbors at these places and the feeling of relaxed belonging and protection it gave me. I remember hearing my father laugh about bumping into Mr. Such N. Such at that cocktail lounge, and how, after the encounter, he’d decided that Such N. Such probably wasn’t such a bad guy, after...

(Above, from Flickr ) Columbia Heights after dusk. Clearly, River East doesn't have the lock on dark, unsafe streets OR violent crime. Violent Assault on Tape | NBC Washington

If you blinked in the early Nineties, you may have missed this techno/rap/R&B combo platter--probably dismissed it as hallucination, if you did see it! The video of this KLF song, featuring [I swear!] Tammy 'Stand By Your Man' Wynette, is beyond imaginative. It is absurd, nonsensical and brilliant, and the coolest thing about the song itself is that it takes the sweet, creek-clear vocals of a country music legend, like Wynette (a grandmother, in her Seventies), whom you wouldn't expect to find within a hundred and fifty miles of this pop experiment, and marries them perfectly to KLF's fully-loaded urban, hip-hop-inspired sound. Ingenius.

(Yahoo! News) "Radio host Rush Limbaugh poked fun at Michelle Obama's waistline Monday; the latest entry in a string of conservative attacks on the First Lady's anti-obesity campaign. During his show yesterday, Limbaugh pounced on a report that the Obama family (minus the president) had dined on ribs while vacationing in Vail, Colo.: The problem is -- and dare I say this -- it doesn't look like Michelle Obama follows her own nutritionary, dietary ..." Can somebody tell me what in the hell this guy is talking about? What are 'First Lady' and 'swimsuit model' even doing in the same sentence, ..without mind-warping drugs that make you bounce up and down at CPAC being involved? There was a time, some twenty years ago, when my late granduncle and I (listening to Limbaugh's show on tape) were occasionally awakened to something sensible or even clever from Rush Limbaugh's radio program. Something about integrity and the patriotic dignity of i...

(Biblical Evidence for Catholicism) "...It is commonly believed that clergy sexual abuse is an exclusively Catholic problem that does not happen in other churches. In a 1983 doctoral thesis by Richard Blackmon, 12% of the 300 Protestant clergy surveyed admitted to sexual intercourse with a parishioner and 38% admitted to other sexualized contact with a parishioner. [When Mentor Becomes Molester, by Alexa Smith. Reprinted with permission from Presbyterians Today, Magazine Of The Presbyterian Church, USA]. The Office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) estimates that there are about 50 clergy sexual misconduct cases every year. Although cases in the PCUSA tend to involve adult women and male pastors, there are sometimes cases reported that involve children and other..." from Dave Armstrong's It Ain't Just Catholic Priests: Resources on Shocking Statistics of Clergy Sexual Abuse Read more

(Yahoo! News) "NAIROBI, Kenya – Four Americans taken hostage by Somali pirates off East Africa were shot and killed by their captors Monday, the U.S. military said, marking the first time U.S. citizens have been killed in a wave of pirate attacks plaguing the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean for years. U.S. naval forces, who were trailing the Americans' captured yacht with four warships, quickly boarded the vessel after hearing the gunfire and tried to provide lifesaving care to the Americans, but they died of their wounds, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement. Two pirates died during the confrontation and 13 were captured and detained, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement from Tampa, Fla. The remains of two other pirates who were already dead for some time were also found. The U.S. military didn't state how those two might have died. Negotiations had been under way to try to win the release of the two couples on the pirated vessel Quest when the gunfire.....

(Yahoo! News) "George Washington's name is inseparable from America, and not only from the nation's history. It identifies countless streets, buildings, mountains, bridges, monuments, cities — and people. In a puzzling twist, most of these people are black. The 2000 U.S. Census counted 163,036 people with the surname Washington. Ninety percent of them were African-American, a far higher black percentage than for any other common name. The story of how Washington became the "blackest name" begins with slavery and takes a sharp turn after the Civil War, when all blacks were allowed the dignity of a surname. Even before Emancipation, many enslaved black people chose their own surnames to establish their identities. Afterward, some historians theorize, large numbers of blacks..." Then, came Jamal, Tyrone, Delante, Pookie, Booboo ...read more here

Yeah, after a week, Capicostia, successor to the irascible Penn Brangler and the frightfully irregular Mel's Penn Branch Life, is still floating in Cyberspace, undiscovered by her River East sister-blogs. I was warned, prior to The Big Move to this new blogspot, that this could happen, if I didn't mail out engraved invitations to our new location. I didn't. I did, however, post a thread pleading everybody, who carried PennBranch.blogspot.com, to change our listing to Capicostia.blogspot.com that would show up as a title on their blogs and hoping that would put our friends on notice. I was hoping, also, to spare them the unsightly matter of carrying dead links , which I hate to find in my own list. The press for the new direction of this blog, all created right here, toted the Capicostia idea as being a blog about Middle River Easters (D.C.'s Silver Coast), who identified more with the international, big city experience that 'Capitol Hill represents', t...

(Developmentally-Speaking.com) "“The TV is too loud!" "Turn it down!” “Turn it down some more!” “Turn it WAY down!” Ok. Now I can barely hear the TV, and am straining my ears to the point of getting a headache. But if I don’t turn it down, then I will hear the crying; loud cursing-like-a-sailor; banging on walls; stomping across the floor; banging doors; and maybe stomping down the stairs; then the glaring, unrecognizably large spirited eyes—all to demonstrate extreme..." Read more here

(MyFoxDC.com) "WASHINGTON - District officials have not decided yet whether to appeal the ruling of an independent arbitrator, who says 75 terminated teachers should be reinstated. The 75 teachers were let go in 2008 when Michelle Rhee was D.C. Public Schools Chancellor. The arbitrator said the fired teachers were not informed of the reasons for their dismissals..." Read more

Forget the COFFEE at Big Chair Coffee ! The food is unbelievable! Anacostia's BIG CHAIR COFFEE & GRILL is now THE east-of-river place to grab breakfast! The Bacon and Sausage Omelette (and I'm really not an egg-lover) is phenomenal--a spicy, juicy fiesta in your mouth! What I love about this dish is that the amazing spices light up your tongue, without overpowering the spiciness of the sausage or the smokey flavor of the bacon--genius! If you can't park, this is totally worth calling-in and orbitting the block for--seven or eight minutes, and you got crazy, freakolicious breakfast! Don't get me started on the BUFFALO CHICKEN SUB ! You will want to wear this thing around your neck , it's so GOOD! And yeah--the coffee 's great, too! That's kind of a given, considering it's coming from the same folks, who gave us MURKY COFFEE (a Dyer family favorite) on Capitol Hill! Great, great stuff! River East's only true coffeehouse is open on weekdays, ...

The Wikipedia listing for Anacostia (here, meaning all of D.C. 'East-of-the-river' ) ends abruptly with the opening of an unnamed supermarket in 2007. So, where's the rest? There's Denny's (a Dyer family fave), the Fireside Resaurant, Honfleur Gallery, the River East Emerging Leaders, Ray's The Steaks, the Savoy, the Grays, Big Chair Coffee, Uniontown Bar/Grill, the Hive and two NEW libraries and a museum . All of that is happening right here, in River East, and everyone should know. So, if you already have a blurb somewhere on all of the above and any new developments I might have missed, send it to the people at Wikipedia, so they can get this right. Mel Dyer

"Artista. Intelecto. Periodista guerrero . We need more young writers like this, my friends..." I once used those words to describe a dedicated journalist, whose understanding and whose substantive and investigative reporting on complex D.C. issues, like poverty and gentrification, has been truly inspired and will be sorely missed on this weblog network. I once wrote that "anyone calling themselves a journalist in a city as diverse and (often) divided as Washington, D.C. will do well to follow Carlos In DC 's lead" and that, amidst "so much routine criticism of the blogosphere by established journalists and politicians, if you are not reading Carlos In DC , you are missing a fine example of how consistently relevant weblogs can truly be." For that reason and too many others to name here, this Brangler is a follower of the journalism of Mr. Carlos A. Quiroz, today, and will continue to be a follower of his work, now that he has left Blogger.com to co...

[Second Edition] A 'Capicostia' blog?  Again? Kinda trying this on. Feeling it out. Capitol Hill + Anacostia = Capicostia?! I think River East needs a blog that speaks to the frustration and quiet hysteria of what it's like to live here, but, sometimes, feel some small part of you might belong on the other side of the river, ..where political intrigue and urbanity slink down the sidewalks, stopping for the occasional latte or imported beer. Mmmm...I'll cop to the angst. Even if you won't. There's something about living here, ..in Penn Branch, Fairfax Village, Pope Branch, Dupont Park, Twining, Hillcrest, the Randall Highlands and probably Fairlawn, too, ..that's different than living in other parts of River East, and the culture-angst is something only we can understand. When you think about it the only thing separating us from Capitol Hill and everything the Hill represents--sophistication, culture, history, relevance, style--is a stupid b...

Just finished browsing DCLofts.com and found one--ONE--converted loft property in Southeast, on Capitol Hill (of course) called the Bryan School Lofts , ..which are all sold out . The Bryan School was done by award-winning Abdo Builders , and probably cost a vital organ AND a limb to own. Frankly, they are a little too polished for my tastes--scrubbed of all the rugged, Industrial Era charm that ought to be evident in converting an old school, garage, trolley car barn or factory into functional living space. These Abdo lofts look like the Sex In The City ladies hang out there. They're sissy lofts, and I hate'm. Lofts used to be the large, unattractive, slate gray ruins of an obsolete industrial era that no style-conscious yuppy would be caught dead in. In the 1950s, lofts were places, where a large , lower income, working class or struggling immigrant family could stake a claim in the steamy, jazz-scored urban experience...the Big City. They were open frontiers for the ...

If you are one of those people (and I'm not saying I'm one of them), who people say will sleep with anything--and I mean ANY-thing--and you've thought about changing your ways and cleaning up your reputation, ..maybe, you want to hold off on that. At least, until Saturday morning. Might need a cigarette, after this . Mel Dyer

What's the point of having a BC, if there isn't someone sitting on it, drinking steaming, hot coffee ..or eating a freakolicious Buffalo Chicken Sub? That's how the Brangler rolls... Big Chair Coffee n' Grill Open Daily 7am-9pm