Potomac Confidential

Marc Fisher (The Washington Post)

Potomac Confidential fills the midday lull with discussion of the latest news and a rigorous slicing and dicing of the issues that define who we are and where we live.

Recent Columns:

Talking Turkey -- Or Tuna (Post, April 20)

Trying Hard To Help Moran Self-Destruct (Post, April 15)

In his weekly show, Washington Post Metro columnist Marc Fisher veers wildly from serious probing to silly prattle, and is open to topics local, national, personal and more.

A transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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Marc Fisher: Welcome aboard, folks. Thanks for joining me on an unusual Wednesday edition of Potomac Confidential. We return to our regular noon Thursday spot next week.
Lots going on today, but let's get right to the Yay and Nay of the Day:
Yay: To the D.C. Council for a strong and clear stand for parents and children in the District. Yesterday, the council resoundingly rejected Mayor Williams' grab for control of the public schools. The council decided that it was time to stand against the "A King Shall Save Us" mentality that has driven a number of cities to strip democracy from school governance and turn mayors into virtual superintendents of schools. (Ah, if we only had a superintendent in Washington....)
Nay: To the Lowdown County supervisors who have decided that if the facts do not conform to their Sprawl At Any Cost bias, then off with the heads of those who traffic in facts. The board's Republican majority are in a hurry
to build thousands of new houses in what is already the nation's fastest growing county--and warnings from the county staff that the next wave of construction will lead to higher taxes, massive congestion and thick pollution have been met with threats to have the responsible staffers fired. Isn't that special?
Your turn starts right now....

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Rockville, Md.: I am happy to see that Mayor Williams lost his bid to run the D.C. school system. Although I live in the suburbs, one cannot help but notice the disrepair the D.C. school system is in. He can barely handle the responsibilities of the mayor's office, how can he expect to handle the school system. The question is: what is his motive? I don't think he has the respect of enough people in the District to run the school system.

Marc Fisher: I think his motive is good--he is exasperated by the lack of progress in the city's schools and he is sick of hearing about all the talented leaders who don't want anything to do with running the system. So he figures since his own hybrid appointed/elected school board hasn't made any progress, maybe he can emulate what other cities have done and try a top-down solution.
But of course that has been tried here, with disastrous results. Remember General Becton, the control board's appointed savior of the system?
No, what works is much simpler to conceive, yet harder to achieve, and that is bottom-up change--growing and installing great principals and putting them in position to improve their schools and fight the system.

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Washington, D.C.: I am an big fan of your column. However, after reading your chat from last week Potomac Confidential (washingtonpost.com, April 15), I was upset that you did not note Banneker, School without Walls, Jefferson JHS, Oyster as high-performing schools in D.C. DCPS needs a lot of help, but it is worth noting that there are a few excellent schools in D.C. In addition, parents who are interested in moving to D.C. from the suburbs, need to actually research schools here, instead of just writing off an entire school system as poor.

Marc Fisher: Thank you, and yes, you're right, there are some schools that manage to do well in the District, but even those schools face enormous obstacles from the central office and from the culture of a school system that seems dead set against achievement. Banneker, the system's academic high school, is the perfect example: It is regularly starved of resource and struggles in a sub-par building in large part because of the antipathy from administrators and politicians toward the idea of an elite school. It's nothing short of astonishing that anyone could oppose Washington having a school like New York's Bronx Science or Boston Latin or Philly's Northwest, but you wouldn't believe the slurs you hear against Banneker from within the DC system--and Banneker has never been permitted to be selective in its admission policy.

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Gaithersburg, Md.: Mr. Fisher,
My kids attended schools in beautiful Mo.Co., and I never heard of the absurd scrambling of the alphabet that kept poor "Z" kids from being psychologically scarred for life. Of course, as an "H" we are squarely in the middle of the pack. Maybe we should have complained of "middle child syndrome".
This policy smacks of the same foolishness that exists in kids' sports: Every child must play, regardless of talent level; and of course you can't keep score. No child can be allowed to be a "loser"!
When I played little league baseball, too long ago to mention, I did not play one inning my first year, and in my second year I was sent down to a 'farm team' (yes, we even had a farm system). In my third and fourth year I made the all-star team. Challenge produces effort, which produces results. Despite this 'inhuman' treatment by the coaches, I grew up to be a productive member of society. I have never committed a mass murder or even ended up in a mental ward.

Marc Fisher: I'm with you. I rode the bench for years in Little League, and while I won't pretend that I liked sitting there, I nonetheless loved being at the game and on the team. And I would have been horrified if some well-meaning coach had insisted that I take the place of the kid who might have been able to win us the game.

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Hunter Mill: Marc,

Did you notice that not long after your column ran, that the Moran camp was forced to admit that yes, Moran did in fact express that hateful bile in Reston last year? Now, Moran is promising to fire his campaign manager if it turns out he called Andy Rosenberg a "crook" (He did: Jim Moran For Congress Site). Think he'll live up to his word, or will he only do it if backed into a corner like he was with his Reston remarks?

Marc Fisher: Moran has now made it clear that he did indeed make those controversial comments last year, and he says his campaign manager's denials were a result of a misfire of communication between Moran and Dan Lucas, the campaign chief. There is an apology on the Moran campaign website from Lucas, who says he went too far in trying to deny the Moran comments.

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Alexandria, Va.: Just wanted to comment on your Jim Moran column. Like Pres. Clinton, I do not admire Jim's personal conduct but as far as I'm concerned he's right on all the issues -- funding for health care, education, low income families, etc. I think your column denigrates the voters in his district by overlooking his positions and emphasizing his personal weaknesses, some of which are build on pretty flimsy evidence (e.g., the long-ago episode with the child at Cora Kelly).

Marc Fisher: Well, you've put the dilemma facing voters very well. They have to choose between the Jim Moran who is an effective and appealing advocate for the positions they share, and the Jim Moran who has a knack for getting into all sorts of trouble because of his emotionalism and financial problems. The ideal solution--and this is something even Moran sounds sympathetic to--would have been if a respected, experienced challenger with similar politics had come along. But the big names all faded from the campaign scene, so now voters have a tougher choice--vote for the nice, smart nobody or stick with the problem they know.

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Arlington, Va.: Marc,

So now Jim Moran is making public threats to fire Dan Lucas, his campaign manager, if allegations that he accused opponent Andy Rosenberg of being a crook prove to be true.

On the Moran for U.S. Congress weblog dated 30 March:

"Jim Moran is an honorable man who cares about the citizens in the 8th district. Our opponent is a lobbyist, not a civic association person, a non-profit person; someone who actually knows about the community. He's a commuter to downtown D.C. who makes more money than you and I combined, shilling for the highest bidder."

Lucas than added: "I think the real crook here is our opponent who is trying to be something he's not ... a concerned citizen."

Will Moran follow through with his promise? Or will he keep Lucas around for a few more laughs?

Marc Fisher: My sense from talking to Moran is that he is not about to dump his campaign manager; rather, the congressman has told Lucas to stop spending so much time and effort on talking to a relative handful of people on the web log and devote more attention to grassroots campaigning. But if this controversy over the web entries persists, all bets are off.

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Arlington, Va.: Thanks again for your column last week on the Andy Rosenberg-Jim Moran race in the Northern Virginia Democratic primary. I hope people turn out in record numbers to vote on Tuesday, June 8. Two follow up questions: Have you received a lot of feedback on the article, outside of last week's Live Online discussion, and will the Post be covering Andy's fund raiser in Olde Town tonight?

Marc Fisher: Thanks--I don't get the sense that many voters are hugely engaged on that race. I've heard from quite a few people, but most seem to be partisans for either Moran or Rosenberg, people who are generally very politically involved. I'm not getting much of the response that I get when a campaign is heating up and reaching people outside the usual political circles.

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Washington, D.C.: After reading Weingarten's chat yesterday, what class do you teach - Princeton?

Marc Fisher: I'm teaching a seminar called The Journalism of Daily Life; it's a Humanistic Studies course that focuses on literary non-fiction writing as a way of telling stories about those of us who live outside the celebrity/politician vortex. It's a joy and a half to teach, and I'm learning tons about those proverbial kids of today.

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Washington, D.C.: Hi Marc - Once again a majority of the City Council has demonstrated why they will NEVER be anything more than just lowly and useless city council members. No vision, no guts, no fortitude- just the usual idiocy. The mayor wants to try something different for the schools and the council wimps out. Something has got to change if the schools are going to improve and going back to an all-elected school board sure isnt going to do it. Time for these guys to wake up.

Marc Fisher: Well, ok, but exactly what is it that is supposed to give council members the notion that this mayor could turn around the school system? After all, this is the mayor who has declared himself to be the Education Mayor for about five or six years in a row; he's the mayor who forced a new kind of school board on the city and then showed no interest in communicating with the very board members he had appointed; he's the mayor who has often promised to push to get the school system to give up its throat-hold on dozens of unused buildings, but nothing ever gets done. Not exactly inspiring stuff, is it?

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Springfield, Va.: Are you following the planning shenanigans in Loudon County? The new board members are running hog-wild accusing(implicitly and/or explicitly) county employees in the Planning Office of being political. I've read the reports, they are grounded in sound planning doctrine. Why are these new board members being so brusque? It would serve them right if the Planning Office quit wholesale. Actually that's probably what they want, since it would silence everyone who dares to say or write anything that conflicts with their vision of how Loundon should grow.

Marc Fisher: The situation in Loudoun--see today's Nay of the Day, and Michael Laris' story, which appears only in the Virginia Edition of today's paper, but which you can find online on our Metro page--is chilling. It's as if the board majority believes it can suppress reality just long enough to build tens of thousands of new houses. Someday, of course, residents of Loudon will wake up and realize that the county simply cannot meet their basic needs for schools, sewer, water, etc.

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washingtonpost.com: Chatological Humor (Gene Weingarten) (washingtonpost.com, April 20)

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Arlington, Va.: Hi, Marc.

Thanks for taking my question.

I've been reading your column and chats for several years and enjoy both. I've noticed an increasing amount of attention by the press and chatters concerning Metro's deteriorating service. What I haven't noticed is anyone demanding a serious change in management, whether it's personnel or management structure. I won't repeat the litany of complaints, but would any other government agency with so many problems be immune to serious reform? Is this a result of three jurisdictions being in charge, making accountability more difficult?

Marc Fisher: The multi-headed governance structure is part of the problem, but the deeper problem is the lack of a dedicated funding source. Metro has to make its case anew every year, and the suburban and city governments have to buy into the program. So fare-card purchases make up much more of the budget than they do in most other cities, and the system strains to come close to meeting demand, which of course keeps growing.

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Washington, D.C.: I think singling out of the principal with the "phoney" degree for having the degree was mean-spirited. The reason those diploma mills exist is because school systems pay more for degrees, so there is a market. Underpaid educators and administrators are just taking advantage of the system the way anybody else would. So please save the self-riteousness about that and stick to the issue.

Marc Fisher: Wow. So it's not a problem when the principal of a school is a fraud? School systems pay more for advanced degrees on the theory that people who hold those degrees have gained some knowledge and wisdom as they've pushed ahead in their studies. If the people touting themselves as doctors and masters of their fields are phoney, that hardly helps anyone, does it?
And the administrators in the school system are hardly underpaid--there are dozens and dozens making six-figure incomes. The differential for holding a doctorate is barely more than $1,000 a year--is that worth committing fraud?

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Washington, D.C.: Whatever happened to that fake principal? Dissertation Abstracts on Firstsearch list all the dissertations.

Marc Fisher: I'm sad to say that there has been no action taken against the principal, and that top DC schools administrators have been telling callers that they have no intention of doing anything. A group of parents at Walker-Jones Elementary school have started a petition asking for the principal's removal.

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Washington, D.C.: Speaking of D.C. public schools, I'm hearing ads on the radio (black radio stations, FWIW) about McKinnley Tech accepting applications? Is the school really opening? What's the status of it?

Marc Fisher: Yes, after all too many years, McKinley is scheduled to reopen in the fall as a science and technology magnet school. Alas, admission is not by test scores, so it's not clear how well the District will be able to position McKinley as the marquee school it so desperately needs. But the school has a dynamic principal and an impressive physical plant, so let's be hopeful for its success.

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Cleveland Park, Washington, D.C.: Are you going to the City Council hearing, Friday, 4/23, about rescuing the city's libraries?

Marc Fisher: Sorry, I'm otherwise engaged, but I hope there's a good turnout.

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Myersville, Md.: I too am a proponent of letting the "best" kids play in sports; however, I also feel that at the beginning levels (ages 5-7) it is important that all kids get to play in order to learn the game (baseball, football, etc.) and get familiar with it so that they can decide which positions they want to work for. Later, when they are more familiar with the game/positions, coaches should be able to choose who should and shouldn't play at any given time. That is the way baseball and football work out here and we like it!

Marc Fisher: I like that system too, and that's how it works in my kids' Little League, to good effect.

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Glad I'm Not In Loudoun: I think it was Yogi Berra who said "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

Wouldn't it be a hoot if they got what they wanted and built their thousands of houses, only to find people agreeing with Yogi?

Marc Fisher: It would indeed, but you and I know it won't work that way--sprawl works because the houses are cheaper and the prospect of a new, inviting community is enticing to a great many folks who have been stuck in neighborhoods they don't care for. Unfortunately, the people moving in fail to realize that they are the problem, that their collective presence is creating the strains that they will turn around and complain about within a couple of years of arriving.

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Cuckoo, Va: Don't weep for the cash starved bureaucrats of Virginia state government. Budget or none, one of our agency directors should be returning today from a three-day conference in Palm Springs, Calif. We're doing okay, but we'd still like the extra swag the Senate wants to give us. We promise it'll all go to the good stuff, like education and transportation.

Marc Fisher: Do I detect a bit o' sarcasm? Sure, government agencies love to flush away the public's dollars on retreats and other such slush, but there's no denying that Virginia's government is stretched awfully tight. Just look at the schools, universities, health services and so on.

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Olney, Md.: Marc, how did Loudon County's threats to fire public servants who tell the truth win the Nay of the Day over the Maryland PSC commissioner's actual firing (without the advice or consent of the commission, of course) of public servants who tell the truth?

(I'm just giving you a hard time. I don't disagree, I'm just more upset about the PSC commissioner's action for personal reasons.)

Marc Fisher: Good point. The Committee of the Yays and Nays look ashen with guilt and regret; they could have had a twofer and they missed the chance. Consider the committee duly chastened, and outraged over the PSC firings.

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Washington, D.C.: I bet PG County would love to get that fraudulent principal. Over there, a fake degree is better than no degree at all.

Marc Fisher: Ouch!

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Arlington, Va.: As I recall, in the last few years D.C. removed a debarmentrment official (chief or an assistant?) for fabricating credentials on his resume and application. I think we all agree what while fire protection is valid and important, the educational system is no less so. It is absolutely mind-boggling that the D.C. schools would let a fraud like that principal continue in her work unpunished.

Marc Fisher: I am so vastly far from understanding how anyone could condone such behavior that I naively thought the principal would resign in shame the day the story appeared. But you have to have that kind of naive optimism to do this kind of work, I guess.

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Anonymous: Kudos on this comment in yesterday's piece: "I try to ignore hysterical health warnings from scientists whose primary objective is to score headlines." Does that astute observation also apply to the scare-mongering chicken-li"environ-kooks"kooks who have browbeaten formerly respectable scientists into taking on the global warming myth as an article of faith?

Marc Fisher: I'm an agnostic on the global warming business. I've seen purportedly good science that makes me believe the planet is indeed warming up, yet I've also read interescounter argumentsments, even from folks who are not politicnutsnutsy on the topic. I think the important thing here is to do what makes sense environmentally, regardless of the ultra-long-term outlook. That is, even if we can't definitively say that the Earth is warming unacceptably over the centuries, we know that SUVs are not good for our air, and we ought to do something about it for that reason.

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Sprawl Used To Be Called Economic Growth: So what do you propose? Limiting immigration? Limiting offspring, as they do in Stalinist China? You're either against population growth or you accept it, and the housing needs that come with it. Stop trying to hide behind the "smart growth" euphemism and say what your real position is.

Marc Fisher: We've already done a terrific job of limiting family growth in most of this society, but since we are a nation of immigrants, we accept that our population will continue to grow. So ok, here's my real position: Growth is part of life. But a society chooses how and where to grow. It's clear that unchecked sprawl has devastating results for our enjoyment of open spaces, for the environment (our water and air, particularly), and for how we live. Answer: Promote vastly higher density in the cities and close-in suburbs.

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Washington, D.C.: "Banneker, the system's academic high school, ..."

That has to be the most pathetic thing I have read. Are the other high schools non-academic? Wait, perhaps you shouldn't answer that.

Marc Fisher: Academics are not very high on the list of what happens at most American high schools. The District is far from unusual in that regard.

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Brookland, Washington, D.C.: You're right about the starvation of schools seen as elite. Bunker Hill, in Brookland, was a primo school for a long time, thanks to good principal, good staff, parent involvement.

But it's been sliding a bit, in part because they simply can't get the plant taken care of. Work orders just disappear.

Right now, there are popped tiles set to trip kids in the hallway, an unusable teacher bathroom (mold), several floods so bad that many classrooms had to be closed and THERE WAS NO HOT FOOD FROM THE CAFETERIA.

This despite clamoring parents. HOW can this happen? Is there no accountability?

Marc Fisher: I don't know the situation there, but I do know that physical plant has very little to do with quality education. There are terrific schools in awful buildings, and utterly mediocre schools in spanking new buildings. What counts is the culture and atmosphere of the school, as set by its principal and played out by its teachers, parents and students.

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Clarksburg, Md.: Marc, have you seen the TV ad promoting the Asbestos Settlement Fund? There is a woman bemoaning the fact that the courts are so clogged with asbestos cases they can't file suit on behalf of her father who allegedly was exposed during WWII, but died 60 years later. Maybe I'm being obtuse, but I'm finding it hard to find sympathy for a woman who is trying to gain compensation for losing her father, despite her father living into his late 70's/early 80's. Maybe he smoked those cigarettes with asbestos filters, back in the day....

Marc Fisher: Haven't seen the ads, but it's a good rule of thumb that any time a lawyer appears in a TV ad, you'd better grab hold of your wallet.

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Washington, D.C.: Why pooh-pooh letting 'all' kinds play sports? Given how fat kids are getting, and how idle they are, is it really worth it to have them learn lessons about winning and losing by sitting on the bench because they're not that good, instead of getting off their butts and getting some exercise? Otherwise, they can learn lessons of winning and losing sitting on their butts with a videogame at home ...

Marc Fisher: Because the kids know phony egalitarianism when they see it. Because it sends all kind of wrong messages about how the world really works. Because adults need to butt out of kids' games and let children be children.
I can't count the number of games I've been at where the adults refused to keep score--"so we can play just for fun, not to compete"--so the kids of course keep score themselves, and have a vastly better time because they do--win or lose.

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Anonymous: You wrote, "Answer: Promote vastly higher density in the cities and close-in suburbs." But what if people don't want to live in boxes on top of transit stations? Should they be forced to?

Marc Fisher: No, they should be invited to, and even enticed to, with all of the transportation advantages, cultural amenities and other extras that come with density. Then, those who prefer to live a quieter life can do that, without so much competition from folks who feel forced to head out to the edge of development simply because they have no affordable choice.

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Washington, D.C.: What does this "Case of the Lying Principal" teach our children? That it is perfectly acceptable to lie to one's bosses and then get to keep your job? I tell my kids that lying has consequences.

Apparently, to this joke of an educator, lying has benefits.

Marc Fisher: Yes, but amazingly, the view that you and I share is by no means the consensus, as this next post shows....

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Washington, D.C.: "I am so vastly far from understanding how anyone could condone such behavior that I naively thought the principal"

Give me a break Marc! I put this in the same category as lawyers padding their billable hours, or hmm, maybe some Post employees fudging a bit on their expense reports. It's not like she was a fake MD operating on someone.

Marc Fisher: Wow! On the continuum of wrongdoing, I don't condone padding billable hours or fudging expense reports, but I put those petty wrongs on a wholly different end of the spectrum from the massive fraud of buying a fake degree. In fact, it is very much as if she were a fake MD in the operating room--that analogy is almost perfect.

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Washington, D.C.: Principal's jobs are going begging everywhere. It is a HUGE headache, and the administrative details have overwhelmed the rewards. The pay differential relative to experienced teachers is small.

D.C. principals spend almost as much time in meetings downtown (the sniper, the tests, everything else) as they do leading their schools.

And you get parents howling at you all the time.

Who except a power mad creep or a saint would want that?

Marc Fisher: Right--More saints, please.
Luckily, they exist! And there's even an exciting new training program in the city designed to cultivate principals and get them into the public schools to take over the system, one school at a time. Will it work? Who knows, but what a lovely hope that it might.

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Takoma Park, Md.: What now for the D.C. schools?

It spoke volumes that the interim superintendent didn't even finish her term, much less want the job permanently. Her parting shots were a blast against those in charge for putting politics before the kids.

But I still come back to the parents. They talk more than they contribute. I was listening to a call-in radio show on WPFW and the parents spent more time commenting on Tony Williams' sexual orientation that his work. As big as the problem is in the D.C. school sysparentsents' last concern should be who the people running the schoolssleepingeepng with. They should worry about their own lives.

And what is this I hear about kids slapping people on the Metro?

Marc Fisher: Slapping? News to me, though I have to say that I have received literally dozens of calls since that column appeared about the principal from parents and teachers complaining about other principals around the city who condone corporal punishment in their schools.

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Washington, D.C.: Marc,
Babe's Billiards -- historic Babe's Billiards -- is still standing and no condos are being built. What up? See you at our regular table on ThursBy the way, btw.

Marc Fisher: Last I read, the proposed apartment development for that piece of upper Wisconsin Avenue is tied up in NIMBY protests against the idea that you might want a little, tiny bit of density a block and a half from a Metro station.

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Bethesda, Md.: Re: D.C. politics. The problem is that D.C. has a provincial, small-town political establishment that is just not ready for prime time, and it's facing big-city problems. Ask yourself -- where are the honest-to-goodness, competent career politicians? Answer: In the suburbs.

Marc Fisher: Well, yes and no. Depends on the suburb. But you're right about the deep, abiding lack of competence in too much of the city's government. That's what Tony Williams promised to clean out when he was first elected. He's done many fine things as mayor, but cleaning out the staff is not one of them. He's tried to paper around those problems, with better computer systems and managers, but solutions don't work from above. At some point, those who cannot or will not do the work have to go, or else the system does not improve.

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Del Ray, Va.: Oh my god, I can't believe people are condoning this principal's fake degree. It's absolutely flabbergasting that she hasn't been fired. Who could possibly think this is okay? What can be done?

Marc Fisher: The only thing that will change the system's ability to just ignore this sort of scandal is public pressure, and that obviously does not exist to a sufficient degree in the city school system. That's because the usual source of such pressure--middle class families who depend on the schools and demand better services--are generally not in the public schools in Washington; they're either out in the suburbs or they've removed themselves to the parochial and charter schools. So the main task is to draw them back in, and that, to complete the circle with our earlier discussion about Banneker and McKinley, means creating marquee schools to which any parent would want to send their kids.

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Fair Lakes, Va.: "The ideal solution -- and this is something even Moran sounds sympathetic to -- would have been if a respected, experienced challenger with similar politics had come along."

If you look at all the money Rep. Moran spreads around to the local Democrats (just check the FEC filings), it's no wonder why no other big names stepped up to challenge him. Why bite the hand that feeds you and risk becoming an apostate amongst the local p"aparatchiks"chiks? Only an outsider like Andy Rosenberg would be willing to take that kind of risk.

Marc Fisher: That seems to be the case, though the latest campaign finance filings indicate that Rosenberg is keeping pace with Moran in raising money. Though it should be said that neither side is in the stratosphere of campmoneymoola. Which, in the end, may be a good thing, because it might keep both sides off the TV ads and instead out in the community, talking to voters.

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Tired of Moran: The beauty of the Alexandria poster's self-confliction is that Moran's Democratic challenger, Rosenberg, is at least as progressive as he is on the issues, and more so on others. Unlike Moran, Rosenberg was against the Patriot Act. Moran voted four times to ban late-term abortions even when the woman's health is at risk, Rosenberg says he would never do that. Do you think people are unaware of the policy stances, or are Moran supporters just looking for a simple justification for an unjustifiable vote?

Marc Fisher: Both candidates agree that the policy differences between them are quite minor; the issue in this campaign is, from Rosenberg's perspective, Moran's character; and from Moran's view, Rosenberg's lack of experience.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Weingarten said you have interesting hair, though not much of it.

Marc Fisher: How can it be interesting if it ain't there? Unless you have a totally zen approach to judging hair (lessness).

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To Anonymous: Sprawl is subsidized. You whine about your lack of roads, and you get a highway spur from 'getaxationation'. Which means all of us pay for it, whether we live there or not. Your infrastructure (which initially can't pay for itself) is paid for by everyone. The initial infrastructure is paid for by everyone, via electrificationcation, etc. ...

In other words, your subdivision should really be called "Karl Marx Gardens".

Marc Fisher: Bam!

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New York, N.Y.: I agree the better players should play more -- but even the bad players should be guaranteed some game time. Otherwise how can they improve, if they're denied the opportunity to apply skills learned during practice, in the pressure-cooker of a game? I disagree with false egalitarianism in the name of "self-esteem" but I also think youth sports serve many functions, not just winning. Teamwork, good sportsmanship, self improvement ...

Marc Fisher: Yes, no one should ride the bench 100 percent of the time--we're talking degrees here, not either/or.

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Atlanta, Ga.: Really now, just because a kid doesn't play in a game doesn't mean that they are not practicing with the team -- so they are NOT sitting on the bench ALL the time -- just when they're playing another team, so obesity is hardly the issue. And if you feel as if you're part of a TEAM, then you want the best players playing, even if it's not you.

Marc Fisher: Right--that's the key, feeling yourself part of the larger effort, rooting for your group, doing your part, whatever that might be.

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Formerly in Penny Gross' district: Speaking of the Metro, can you believe the story that ran last week about Fairfax County wanting Metro to be responsible for (and pay for) trash collection of containers installed by the county on county property? What are they smoking?

And it's just adding insult to injury considering how underfunded Metro is by the area governments.

Marc Fisher: Yes, that was one of the sillier tiffs to come along in some time. Just empty the darn trash cans and stop making fools of yourselves.

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Brookland, Washington, D.C.: You're missing the point -- Bunker Hill is getting its maintenance ignored because of anti-elitism.

Yeah, you can overcome a bad environment and a good environment does not guarantee a good school.

But it is hard to keep teachers when they have no place to pee, and you can't expect kids to learn well if they can't get hot food. The message is loud and clear: you don't matter. Good luck!

Marc Fisher: Right--thanks.

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Marc Fisher: Thanks for coming along, folks. Back to the regular show time a week from tomorrow, Thursday April 29 at noon. And back in the paper and online with more columns of fun tomorrow, Sunday and Tuesday.
Stand tall and sally forth.

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