See something? Say something. And please, be precise.
It was just after 10 a.m. Wednesday when a Loop Fan, driving in from Virginia across the Memorial Bridge, noticed a red VW bug, blinkers flashing, stopped just about halfway across the bridge.
(Photo by Michael A. Kane) - The Memorial Bridge (official name: Arlington Memorial Bridge) caused a bit of confusion for one dispatcher.
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The car was abandoned, and that seemed a bit odd to her. So, being a good citizen and deciding to err on the side of caution, she dialed 911 at about 10:15.
The dispatcher asked the usual questions: kind of car, color and so forth. “Heading north or south?” she asked.
Uh, heading east, into the District, our source said, and the call ended.
The dispatcher called back at 10:20.
“Are you the person who called?” she asked. And then: “Which bridge was it? Many bridges have ‘memorial’ in their name.”
Our source explained she’d been in the area for some 20 years and ”it’s the only one I ever heard of that was called Memorial Bridge.”
The dispatcher again asked her to specify the name.
Our source said “it goes from Arlington Cemetery to the Lincoln Memorial.” (Indeed, the official name is the Arlington Memorial Bridge.)
“I need the name of the bridge,” the dispatcher said.
“I can’t help you any more,” our source said, and the conversation ended.
Well, we didn’t hear any explosions, so not to worry.
And just remember, don’t say “the 14th Street Bridge.” It’s the Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge. (He was on that Air Florida flight that crashed into the Potomac in 1982. He helped save other passengers but later died.)
And don’t say “The White House.” You know how many white houses there are in this town?
The folks at the D.C. Office of Unified Communications are looking into this, pulling the tapes, and will get back to us.
Off the record, we’re open
Our colleague Glenn Kessler on Thursday sicced his fact-checking prowess on two dueling videos, one by President Obama’s campaign and the other by Koch Industries, the company owned by two billionaire brothers, David and Charles Koch, who’ve bankrolled conservative causes. The Obama spot calls the Kochs “secretive,” which they say just isn’t so.
“We have always been open and direct about our free-market views,” the Koch video claims. And Kessler spoke to a company spokesperson to get to the bottom of the secretive-vs.-not-secretive question.
Okay, so the Kochs aren’t secretive, said a company spokesperson — who insisted on anonymity.
Um, what?
The gift that keeps on giving
Some Labor Department officials may remember longtime Loop favorite J. Davitt McAteer, former chief of the Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration.
McAteer worked his way into this column several times during his tenure. On one occasion he had his special assistant babysit his five kids for a couple of nights at his home in West Virginia while he and his wife took off for Eastern Europe. (Labor Department ethics folks dinged him for that.)
He was in the column again when he instructed staff members that money was tight and that they needed to cut travel, hiring and supplies. The staff derisively told us they thought he might want to cut back on his overseas travel.
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