No Pains No Gaines » 2006 » September


September 23, 2006
  Category: Photos Around Washington DC   |     Posted By: David Gaines @ 12:35 pm  

Miniature Smithsonian Castle

Toshio took this photo of “Tilt-shift miniature fake of the Smithsonian Castle, Washington, DC.”

   Speak Your Mind
September 21, 2006
  Category: Our Elected Officials, Elections   |     Posted By: David Gaines @ 11:52 pm  

Adrian FentyAs we wait for Fenty to officially become the next mayor, there is no doubt that he put the beat down on the other mayoral candidates during the primaries. As a matter of fact, no mayor has ever destroyed their opponents as soundly as Fenty did with an unprecedented sweep of all the wards, the precincts (all 142!) and essentially the entire city.

Even in Linda Cropp’s backyard Fenty got twice the number of votes than she did. In his backyard, he took home almost 70% of the votes.

With the city’s endorsement, what should he do next? Jonetta Rose Barras of the Examiner gives some suggestions as far as who should join Fenty as he ushers in the “new guard.” And she doesn’t just hint at who.

Try Brenda Donald Walker, deputy mayor for children, youth, families and elders. And DPR Director Kimberley Flowers. Then she writes, “Don’t forget Anne Witt at the Department of Motor Vehicles or Chief Technology Officer and serial District law violator Suzanne Peck. Dr. Gregg Pane is a nice guy; the health department needs more. Patrick Canavan’s magic might return if he were moved from the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs.” She would’ve suggested Deputy Mayor for Operations Herbert Tillery, but he already submitted his resignation.

Well, she was right when she said she wasn’t shy.

Michael Brown is also speaking up. He’s one of several hopefuls for Fenty’s soon-to-be former Ward 4, but anyone who’s been paying attention knows the odds are slim. It’s one thing that Fenty apparently is going to endorse Muriel Bowser who was in his camp during the campaign. Brown? Well, when he decided to quit, he threw some cheap shots at Fenty on his way to endorse Linda Cropp. And now Brown thinks Fenty’s neighbors might want him to replace Fenty? Amazing.

September 17, 2006
  Category: Our Elected Officials, Education/Recreation   |     Posted By: David Gaines @ 4:18 pm  

Before he’s officially declared the next mayor of Washington, DC, Adrian Fenty is already all over the school system. Hoping to emulate the same program that improved the New York City school system, Fenty may bid to take over direct control of the schools and get his hands dirty.

Throughout his campaign for mayor he stressed his top priority will be improving a school system that has seriously taken a beating for a while. One of the ideas floating around is moving the school system’s administration to Southeast DC which would save the District millions of dollars a year. And of course put them closer to the worst schools in the system. Though I wonder what affect that might have on the administration, I like the idea. What better way to fix a problem than to be face-to-face with it? Well, sort of.

September 13, 2006
  Category: Elections   |     Posted By: David Gaines @ 9:50 am  

Adrian Fenty wins the DC mayoral primariesIn a nutshell it wasn’t even a race. It was just a formality. Adrian Fenty is essentially a lock to be the next mayor of Washington, DC after winning 57% of the votes in yesterday’s primaries. Linda Cropp did muster up 31% but without anyone else running with enough substance to steal some of Fenty’s votes, she fell 26 points behind.

Fenty now has to beat Republican challenger David Kranich and Chris Otten of the DC Statehood Green Party. District residents are something like 102% Democrats, so the odds of an upset is about as good as Michael Brown running as an Independent.

September 10, 2006
  Category: Elections   |     Posted By: David Gaines @ 8:03 pm  

Toucan Printing and Promotional Products has again sent out over voter guides to DC residents that with inaccurate information. Over 150,000 voters guide were sent out instructing citizens to go to the wrong precinct to vote. Makes you wonder who they endorse, huh?

To find out your correct precinct, call the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics at (202) 727-2525 or visit its Web site, dcboee.org.

  Category: Photos Around Washington DC   |     Posted By: David Gaines @ 3:52 pm  

The Code: 6&K

This photo titled “The Code: 6&K” was taken by KRWaltonDC.

September 7, 2006
  Category: Elections   |     Posted By: David Gaines @ 11:02 pm  

Michael BrownWith Fenty gobbling up major endorsements, Linda Cropp grabbing a couple more and hanging on, Marie Johns and Vincent Orange still in denial, mayoral candidate Michael Brown dropped out of the race to be Washington DC’s next mayor. In the process, he took a swipe at Adrian Fenty, not mentioning him by name, but alluding to “a political novice, a man without the courage and strength required to run the city…”

With Michael Brown dropping out, the question is who are his supporters going to vote for now. Brown endorsed Linda Cropp who can use the extra votes next Tuesday as Fenty leads her in the polls convincingly. But with Fenty leading the polls by at least 10 points and Brown only garnering around seven points, if everyone who was going to vote for him voted for Linda Cropp, she’s still going to need Marie Johns or Vincent Orange to drop out and hope their supporters to vote for her.

Next Tuesday will essentially determine our next mayor. Assuming Orange and Johns decide to ride out the storm, look for Fenty to ascend to the top and begin the next chapter in DC politics.

  Category: DC in General, Washington Nationals   |     Posted By: David Gaines @ 10:19 pm  

National Lacrosse LeagueIt looks like DC United may have to stay in RFK Stadium an extra year while their stadium takes a back seat to the $611 million home of the Nationals. The United are expected to be in their new home in 2009. By then the Washington Nationals should have completed a season in their new stadium off the Anacostia River. So what’s the point of going to RFK after Freddy and friends move across the river and the Nationals have moved on to greener pastures?

Well, there have been early talks about bringing a professional lacrosse team to the nation’s capital. Did you even know there was a such thing as the National Lacrosse League? If it wasn’t for Duke University, lacrosse would still be a foreign concept to most households. I wonder if there is a such thing as a lacrosse Hall of Fame? I see they have fantasy lacrosse off the league’s website. Interesting.

Anyway, as far as the progress of the National’s new future home, there are reports that everything seems to be on schedule (other than the parking decks). I’m curious to see what happens when Adrian Fenty becomes mayor and the project begins to fall behind schedule.

  Category: Health Care   |     Posted By: David Gaines @ 9:56 pm  

Next week DC CARE and the NIH Vaccine Research Center will be hosting a lunch forum about research currently underway to find a vaccine to prevent HIV infection. An HIV vaccine is still currently unavailable and the HIV rate in Washington, DC, is the worst in the country. This event is open to local AIDS Service Organizations and anyone from the community who wants to learn more about HIV Vaccine Research.

The free forum will be held 1:00pm to 2:30pm September 14 at DC Care, located at 15th and M Street NW (1156 15th Street NW Suite 500). You can register for the event by visiting their website via the link above by September 8. Afterwards, you can contact DC Care by calling (202) 223-9550.

  Category: METRO, Business   |     Posted By: David Gaines @ 3:55 pm  

Metro - Eastern Market StationBeing a regular Metro rider, any news about anything new at Metro is good news. Even if it’s something bad because it brings attention to the system and becomes a catalyst for change.

Though I don’t drive, just hearing about some ideas/plans Metro has for its parking spaces is good news. Imagine this: paying for your parking spot using your cell phone, credit and debit card machines at exit gates and setting up online transactions to reserve monthly spaces.

Also they’re talking about finding a business to manage all the parking lots and garages, including regular cleaning of the areas. Charles Deegan, a Maryland representative on the Metro Board, said he receives a lot of complaints about the trash cleanliness of the garages and the stairwells. Bringing in another company to handle the dirty work ideally will free up Metro to focus on other things, making them more efficient and hopefully help out financially. The contract for managing the parking spaces is expected to be around $4.3 million over 10 years. That isn’t expected to happen until next spring, though.

(more…)

September 6, 2006
  Category: Website Update   |     Posted By: David Gaines @ 11:02 pm  

The software I was using to post entries online went kaput, so I’m in the process of moving everything over to the new software. Though WordPress has an import feature, the software I was using wasn’t an option for importing. Even using the RSS import feature didn’t work. So, I’m manually doing the copy-paste thing to bring previous posts over, but there’s no promises I’ll get it done anytime soon or if I’ll even copy-paste them all.

They’re all still online, though, by clicking here.

[UPDATE: Actually, I reposted them all into this post. Clicking the link above takes you to a new blog I started. It’s a blog in which I post entries about whatever’s on my mind at the time.]

As far as the newly renamed blog, well, let’s just say I have some work to do. There are some small stuff I still have to tweak so bear with me as I get caught up.

David Gaines

September 4, 2006
  Category: Health Care, Business   |     Posted By: David Gaines @ 11:20 pm  

Greater Southeast Community HospitalHealth care east of the Anacostia River just may be seeing healthier days soon.

Two unnamed groups have submitted offers to buy Greater Southeast Community Hospital from Arizona-based Doctors Community Healthcare, according to councilmember Marion Barry. The current owners of Greater Southeast Community Hospital have owned the hospital since 1999 when they purchased the hospital out of bankruptcy for $22.25 million.

Since then, the hospital has still experienced financial and medical crises. From 2000 to 2002 while still in bankruptcy, the owners spent $675,000 in lobbying expenses and candidate contributions for city politicians. Whatever and whoever they were lobbying, the hospital still has had its issues. The hospital had been stripped of its national accreditation, dropped by medical insurance companies and was being investigated for six “preventable” patient deaths between 2002 and 2003.

The local candidates to purchase the hospital are thought to be George Washington University Hospital and its parent company, Universal Health Services, and MedStar Health, which owns Georgetown University Hospital and Washington Hospital Center. Maybe having local owners will benefit the improvement of the hospital, assuming one of them or someone local is bidding on the hospital.

  Category: Photos Around Washington DC   |     Posted By: David Gaines @ 6:16 pm  

Nikographer [Jon] shot this photo (and more) of Washington DC’s newest four-legged residents at the National Zoo. The three Sumatran Tiger cubs were born May 24 and debuted to the public this past weekend.

  Category: Our Elected Officials, DC Libraries, Elections   |     Posted By: David Gaines @ 8:22 am  

DC Public LibrariesThere’s only about a week to go before the Democratic primaries. The race has pretty much come down to Adrian Fenty and Linda Cropp, but I’m sure there are still a lot of undecideds out there still trying to figure out who to give their vote.

I was looking up some stuff online and came across a survey given to the candidates (mayoral candidates and other races) about the DC Public Libraries by the Federation of Friends of the DC Public Libraries. The libraries in Washington, DC, definitely aren’t what I consider world class, and electing a mayor who’ll actually do something about it is imperative to me. We recently welcomed Ginny Cooper, the new Executive Director of DC Public Libraries. Her arrival with a new mayor should bring fresh ideas and some kinetic energy to a neglected system.

Speaking of the libraries, one of the things I really was looking forward to is happening already. By mid-September all the neighborhood branches and all of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library will have wireless Internet access for anyone who has a laptop configured for wireless connection (in other words, a wireless Internet card). From Federation of Friends of the DC Public Library:

Wi-Fi Installation Project: We tested it at Georgetown. A couple of places in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library are “hot spots.” Now it’s time to make all of the D.C. Public Library Wi-Fi! Beginning next week and extending through mid-September, all branches and all of Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library will be brought online as wireless access hot spots. That means anyone with a laptop computer that is configured for Wi-Fi can walk into one of our libraries and log on without using a public access computer. It’s great news for DCPL and even better news for our customers. Once the installation is complete we will broadcast the news of our Wi-Fi availability to the entire Metro area. Signs and brochures for the public will come as Wi-Fi access is installed. Watch as we take yet another step toward being the library our public needs!