Category Archives: All Politics is Local

All Politics is Local, Crime & Punishment, Technology, The District, WTF?!
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Does the House Misunderstand Technology?

Dusk on the National Mall

The answer’s probably yes. I know, I know, traditionally it’s the Senate that is the home of the whackjobs like Ted Stevens who claim that the Internet is a series of tubes, and not a truck. But, here’s the deal. Representative John Culberson (R-TX) seems to think that the House has it out for Twitter and all of the various video services. Specifically, he’s pointing to a letter written by Chair of the House Franking Committee Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) which suggests that any member of the House who conducts anything related to official business be done only on the House.gov domain.

That means any member of the House who embeds YouTube, Blip.tv, Qik, or any other video on their website is doing so in violation of the regulations of the Committee on House Administration. That also means that microblogging via a service like Twitter (Hey, follow us!) But, the letter that Rep. Capuano has written is actually promoting the changes necessary to allow for such a service to be used, but in exposing the current regulations, he’s putting current House members in jeopardy of disciplinary action for using social networking technologies like YouTube, etc.

Nice work, guys. Nice work.

Dusk on the National Mall originally uploaded by spinfly.

Alexandria, All Politics is Local, Arlington, Technology, The District
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Why I Love DC: Tom Bridge

This is the first of a series of posts from our authors, designed to give you a peek into who we are, beyond what you’ve read from us in the past. We’ll be featuring two authors a day for the next week in this space, as well as our usual features. We hope you enjoy!

I never intended to fall in love with DC.

Hell, I never intended to stay here so long. I got here in July of 2000, eight years ago this past weekend, after being offered a tech job in Courthouse. I was supposed to be working with a little startup, my own little piece of the dotconomy. Until they went broke. Before I even started. I asked the leasing office what my options were. The secretary snapped her gum, and said, “Well, there are provisions for death or bankruptcy.”

Neither was appealing.

Clock (Closeup)

Continue reading →

Alexandria, All Politics is Local
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A Toast to the Flag

A Toast to the Flag. This is one piece of poetry, though a bit syrupy for my usual taste, and more patriotic sounding than I am known to go for, that always makes me feel good to be here in this great country and gives me pride in the flag. I first heard it in a very moving public ceremony at the Alexandria Scottish Rite Temple about a year and a half ago.

What is a flag? What is this thing I don’t mind people burning in order to express themselves, yet gets me choked up when presented by a National Sojourner and toasted in public? I have a strong sense of patriotism and national pride, yet I have never thought of myself as a flag-waving jingoistic person. I guess when it comes to the flag, things get a bit complicated.

The flag is a symbol of many things – democracy, truth, freedom from oppression – and yet it is still a symbol, meaning that it represents an idea and possibly different ideas to different people. People talk of the flag as if it is sacred. How sacred can something be if it simply represents an idea? The destruction of the cloth is not a destruction of the idea, yet people get quite upset when the flag is burned for some reasons but not for others. When I was a child it was more or less common practice to burn the flag if it touched the ground. This seems okay to most people but burning it in protest is not okay. To me, it’s the same thing.

Anyway, we have a pretty cool flag, get it now at the link.  But where did it come from?  And is it really based on George Washington’s coat of arms, as the legend goes?  Or is it the basis for the original United States ‘stars and stripes’? This week’s Mythbusting gets to the bottom of the DC flag.

 

As I think about the flag and the great meaning it has for me, I grow concerned about its use as a political tool, especially as election season is rearing its campaign-hatted head. Those of us in the DC area are no strangers to this. A common mistake is to assume that the guy with the flag is what we label “patriotic” and that patriotism has a standard, common definition we all agree with. Not much can be farther from the truth. Again, symbols have differing, even changing, meanings.

Let’s take a moment on this July 4th and consider what it means to revere a symbol as much as a lot of our culture respects the flag. What does it mean to you?

All Politics is Local, News
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Welcome to We Love DC!

freedom_1.jpg Welcome, everyone, to We Love DC!

We’re going to be doing this a little bit differently than other blogs have done it. We’re going to be focusing on feature length content for our site, with an emphasis also on the hyperlocal microblogging. You can see that we have two columns here. The column in which this post is listed will be for featured entries, many of which are in the style of a recurring column, but there will also be coverage of news & events as they happen here.

The second column, called the Daily Feed, will be more oriented around the little local things we see happening all the time. The great photos we capture on the street, the news stories that just need to be posted. But sometimes, that picture’s just worth all 1000 words, and we won’t go all James Joyce on some of those posts.

Who are we, exactly? Well, most of us have been DC Bloggers in one form or another for years. This blog is the result of some hard work by a lot of people. We’ll have full introduction posts for each author (we’ve got a special feature planned) in the next week, starting Monday. You’ll recognize a lot of familiar faces if you’ve been reading Metroblogging DC. Don, Tiff, Max, Wayan, Ben, Carl, and others. You’ll also get to meet some new folks, including Paulo (our awesome WordPress master) and John Athayde (whose design is represented here).

We’re not finished implementing features and design elements just yet, but we felt we have a pretty good start here already. If you’ve got suggestions, or, even better, want to join us, please put something in the comments. If something’s not working right for you, please let us know.

And Happy Independence Day, everyone!

Armed Freedom, courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol