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.

This Week's Columns:

Adult Films Show Another Side of D.C. (Post, June 17)

Solving City's Problems Starts At the Top (Post, June 15)

On the Mall, A Full Measure Of Devotion (Post, June 12)

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, all. These are days of striving and reaching, as the Washington area holds out its last hope for a baseball team, a renewed Wizards hoops team, voting rights for the District, and even the possibility of a school superintendent for the city.
You'd have to be a hopeless optimist to believe that any three of those items will ever come to fruition, but we might well see a couple of them, and soon.
What do you make of the continuing slide in the city's population? Does it mean that the bloom is off the District's renaissance, or is it evidence that the transformation of the city continues apace?
Will you change your habits after next Thursday, when the District's hands-free, no cell phones while driving law goes into effect?
And six years for Tractor Man--a fair sentence?
Your thoughts, but first, the Yay and Nay of the Day:
Yay to Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, whose bill granting the city a voting representative in the House is the best, most realistic chance we have of gaining voting rights in many years. The purists want to hold out for the whole tamale--the two Senate seats and the House seat, but that is simply not going to happen. This deal could.
Nay to the architects of the new Virginia bid for a baseball team at the Dulles site in Loudoun County. It's a nice piece of land for a big town center development, but the idea of Loudoun turning its back on the rest of the region and ceding Montgomery, Prince George's and the District to the Baltimore Orioles is a cynical and ghastly non-starter.
Your turn starts now....

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Springfield, Va.: Thanks for your column on the Loudoun County baseball stadium. I gave up on week night Camden Yards games several years ago and I don't see how a stadium in Loudoun County will be any better for me. I love the idea of baseball on the Metro.

What I don't understand though is why the two markets don't work together and market the teams together. Think about it -- put together packages with weekend games in Baltimore (when the traffic is bearable) and week night games in D.C./Arlington. Reverse it for the Baltimore fans. Everyone wins. Right?

Until then - go Cannons!

Marc Fisher: Thanks--the baseball executives I've heard speak on this very much do see a way for the Orioles and the Washington team to help each other make lots of money. There's talk of sharing profits from the two cable sports channels that would be necessary to cover the two teams for both cities. Obviously, there'd be extended interleague competition between the two. And with the right marketing, two teams can thrive, as the Angels have recently proven after many years of living in the Dodgers' shadow.

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Del Ray, Alexandria, Va.: Can you think of anything, I mean anything, stupider than building the stadium at Dulles? Would they have hovercraft service from downtown? I know that Mr. Pollin ran two franchises into the ground. However, he should be given ENORMOUS credit for rebuilding downtown. Building the stadium in Loudoun is insane!

Marc Fisher: The sports world needs more Abe Pollins, despite the sad nature of his franchises. From an urban development and civic involvement perspective, he is a historic and important figure.

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Washington, D.C.: "If Angelos succeeds in saddling Prince George's with slots -- stomping all over the county's ambitions to join other Washington suburbs in creating a family-friendly, affluent atmosphere -- he'll make massive mountains of moola."

Um ... isn't this the same Prince George's County that wanted not just slots, but a full blown casino? Convenient for your column to overlook that one, no?

Marc Fisher: Well, no, actually Prince George's has been quite deeply split over slots, at every level of its politics. Elected officials, influential clergy, rank and file residents--all have been all over the board on the issue, with some craving the tax revenues and expanded retailing that slots could produce, and many others worrying that slots would bring exactly the wrong kind of development, along with crime and other social ills.

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Washington, D.C.: Can the Post provide a link to the GAO report on D.C. Homeland Security? The article said we are misspending the money.

washingtonpost.com: D.C. Area Anti-Terror Spending Criticized (Post, June 24)

Marc Fisher: The rush to spend megamillions on security after 9/11 could hardly have had any result other than what's now coming out--the rush to spend was uncoordinated and resulted in a hodge-podge of security and holes that any lunatic could drive a truck through. Meanwhile, the monumental core of the city remains an aesthetic mess because of the security hysteria. And do you really feel more secure?

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S.E. Washington, D.C.: Hi Marc -- Did you know that Waterside Dr. between Massachusetts Ave. and Rock Creek Dr. was finally paved (after umpteen years) in preparation for the Reagan funeral procession? Pretty sad that that's what it took to make it happen. I use it every day to get to work on Wisconsin Ave. But I must say that since I'm neither white nor wealthy, I've FINALLY benefited from something that Reagan was responsible for. So here's a belated 'thanks' to Ronnie.

Marc Fisher: Hey, I'd love to join you in blaming Reagan, but in fact, I saw the notice about the repaving before he died. Sorry.

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Mt. Pleasant, Washington, D.C.: Marc,

The Post has been focusing on D.C. Council member Harold Brazil: a few weeks ago there was an investigation about his use of government lawyers to do work for his private law practice, and this Tuesday another investigation surrounding the "close personal relationship" Brazil was having with a staff member and her getting a better job in a different D.C. agency. All this and it's reelection year for Brazil. What should we read into this? Is the Post saying that it's time for Brazil to go? And if that's the case, who can beat him?

Marc Fisher: The Post isn't saying anything other than Here's some information about a public official who seems to have well more than his share of questionable activities. It's up to the public and the politicians to decide if this means Harold has to go. And amazingly, council member Jim Graham, who was about to run against Brazil a few months ago, is still clinging to the fence about whether to get back into the race. He's very quickly running out of time, if it isn't too late already, but unless Graham or someone of similar stature jumps in, Brazil will surely win reelection.

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Vienna, Va.: Hi Marc,

A friend of mine died in D.C. on Friday night. He fell out of a window. He was clinical psychologist, 33 years old, who worked for the city. The police were investigating it as suspicious. The Post had a tiny blurb and then nothing else.

Why wouldn't this story be considered newsworthy? Is it because the police or his family won't release information? Do you have any suggestions as to how we, his friends, could find out the results of the investigation?

Thank you.

Marc Fisher: It's generally not the policy of news organizations to make much of accidental deaths unless there's a larger story to be told. I don't know a thing about this particular case, but if you think we're missing something important, please send me an email and I'll see if our editors can take a look at it. Thanks.

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Washington, D.C.: What's up with the coronation ceremony for Reverend Moon? I alternately laughed and shook my head in disbelief when I read the story. And then all the politicos claimed they were set up! In all seriousness, I am appalled by how much influence Reverend Moon seems to have over our lawmakers of both parties. He's a lunatic.

Marc Fisher: It's all about the Benjamins. Moon and his followers pay clergy and politicians and other prominent folks to appear at the cult leader's events. It's a simple matter of buying credibility. But it is amazing that congressmen routinely show up at these things and act as if Moon is some legitimate religious leader. The image of that clown congressman wearing white gloves and putting the crown on Moon is a real keeper. I wonder how that's playing back home.

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Glover Park, DC: So what is Walter Fauntroy doing socializing w/the Moonies? Stallings and the neo-cons, no surprise there. But Fauntroy? What's going on?

Marc Fisher: Fauntroy is the ultimate in rentable clergy. He's been taking Moon's gifts for many years, and he's a regular at Moon's events.

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Springfield, Va.: Do you see the statement by the Loudoun County people basically giving Montgomery and PG Counties and to some extent D.C. to the Orioles, hurting the D.C. baseball bid?

Marc Fisher: Yes, I wrote on this on Tuesday--it's a fascinating move, and it speaks to the growth and importance of Loudoun as the fastest growing county in the nation. But it's hard to imagine baseball accepting the idea of putting a team in a place where barely half a million people can get to the stadium in 40 minutes, and more than half the metro area is dismissed as not part of the market for this Virginia-only team.

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Fairfax, Va.: A sports complex in Loudoun would be a DISASTER. There are three main roads out there (28,7, 267) that can barely support the traffic there now. The infrastructure is in place in D.C. While it is true that NOVG is not the same as 25 years ago and is booming, D.C. has also changed in the last 25 years.

Marc Fisher: Right--if the Loudoun site already had Metro service, this might be an intriguing bid, but the Virginia baseball authority is predicating the bid on the idea that Metro is right around the corner from getting to Dulles, and that's not even close to true.

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Arlington, Va.: So what can we, the little people, do to stop this trainwreck of an idea, i.e., AOL Stadium, from going forward? Should we undertake a letter-writing campaign to Bud Selig promising NOT to go to any games way out there?

Marc Fisher: I don't think there's much need to get all riled up--this idea will die of its own dead weight. The more important question is whether the District is doing everything it can to sell MLB on the city's bid. And that I'm much less confident about.

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Tenleytown, Washington, D.C.: Marc: I am less than enthralled about the idea of Atlantic City reborn on New York Avenue. Dorothy Brizill's strategy for getting it disallowed as an initiative sound pretty convincing. What has happened to John Ray? At one time he seemed to be a fairly admirable, albeit timid, politician. This type of client is not exacting enhancing his stature even though it may be enhancing his pocketbook.

Marc Fisher: Ray, as my colleague Lori Montgomery reports today, has already billed the slots advocates $106,778 for his time, so that explains that.

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Washington, D.C.: Hi Marc -- I'm appalled that "tractor man" was given a six-year prison term the other day. Sure, he should have gotten some kind of stiff penalty -- maybe a year or two. But guess who's going to be paying the keep him behind bars for six years -- we, the taxpayers. With outlandishly tough sentences like this, no wonder America's prison budgets are soaring and our jails are overfilled.

Marc Fisher: Outlandishly tough? He did tie up the capital of the free world for a couple of days and he did threaten to blow the city sky high. Doesn't that deserve some punishment?

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Arlington, Va.: I don't know about sentencing regulations, but I'd say six years, maybe with a few years of probation tossed in, is a good punishment. People have to know that there are serious penalties for the yahoos going around using violent tactics (in this case, bomb threat) to promote their cause. Oddly, this guy might've just ruined a legitimate cause because now anybody who is for the same cause will be associated with Tractor Man the Lunatic.

Marc Fisher: I'd probably have let him go with something a bit shorter than six years, and in all likelihood, he will indeed be out in well under that time. But I agree that it's essential to make it clear that that sort of behavior is not legitimate protest. Now, if he'd driven that tractor up to the Capitol and gummed up traffic without the bomb threat, I'd be saluting him.

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The HOV State: I think I see a pattern of considerable new sprawl developing in what's left of commonwealth.

1. Virginia builds a new water intake system in the middle of the Potomac under the guise that the water in the middle of the river is cleaner.
2. A Metro extension to the Dulles corridor becomes a priority regardless that the airport has its own private four-lane access road. This looks pretty likely now.
3. A bogus traffic study is released claiming a second river crossing is needed.
4. A new baseball stadium (far enough from the Orioles) and gargantuan housing/retail/office development is proposed for the Dulles corridor.

So my question to you is, where do you think they'll build the new NASCAR track, Sterling or Manassas?

Marc Fisher: More likely in Loudoun, even if Prince William's demographics are more supportive of NASCAR. Loudoun is the hot spot for development, though of course the NIMBY forces are stronger there too.
But your overall theory is quite right, and there's actually far more evidence than that. The push for an Outer Beltway and the Western Transportation Corridor is heating up, and the progress toward building the Intercounty Connector in Maryland only strengthens Virginia's case for a new Potomac River crossing. I'd still bet big money that a new bridge will not happen in the next generation, but as for those other roads, give them better than even money.

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Washington, D.C.: Hi Marc, thanks for doing this chat. I recently noticed that Congressional House Office Building cafeterias do not charge tax on food items, while the State Department cafeteria indeed charges such tax. What gives? Is this some special Congressional perk?

Marc Fisher: Sounds like it, unless the tax is worked into the price of each item. Anyone know?

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Washington, D.C.: Marc,

They're putting up a new flag pole at Union Station -- any idea why? Could it be that D.C. is finally getting their flag with all the others?

Marc Fisher: News to me--anyone?

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D.C. Baseball: With Angelos essentially owning a gambling facility and lobbying to have the place expand gambling options with slots, shouldn't baseball use this information to stick it to Pete Angelos?

Marc Fisher: Angelos is no dummy. He's been busy repairing and improving his relationships with the other baseball clubs' owners, and word is that very few of them still harbor grudges against him for his breaking ranks with them back during the baseball players strike of '95.
And Angelos has been especially solicitous of commissioner Bud Selig of late, and that cannot bode well for Washington.

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Washington, D.C.: Keep hitting Angelos. The truth -- blunt instrument par excellence. Nothing else works against evil, avaricious egotists like him -- the people who should be checking him are equally avaricious, but weak and fearful. Will they have the guts to keep him out of the Hall of Fame like Pete Rose (who at least contributed something to the game)?
It's time for D.C. and PG/MoCo baseball fans to boycott Camden Yards. Go see the Baysox or the Keys. Better baseball than the O's and we won't be contributing to the "Make-Pete-Angelos-even-richer" fund.

Marc Fisher: The boycott continues, and I think it's been very effective. It's shown that Washingtonians truly do not consider ourselves to be part of the Baltimore market, and the Orioles' continued strength in attendance has helped to show that these really are two separate markets and that the O's would do just fine if Washington had a team.

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Arlington, Va.: The buildings of Congress are exempt from all local taxes, and federal laws -- which is why there are still smoking sections in the cafeterias, while other federal buildings are not.

Marc Fisher: Thanks.

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Clifton, Va.: Problem with Homeland Security in general is you have fed, state and local law enforcement agencies trying to stop and apprehend terrorists. A terrorist and a criminal are two totally different animals psychologically. You can't expect a local cop who has spent his time chasing common criminals to stop or even warn of a terrorist attack. It is so far removed from what they deal with and their mindset is such they can't deal with terrorist. Murder for money is very different than murder for a cause.

Former terrorist catcher

Marc Fisher: But there are interesting overlaps, as we've seen with the raids in Adams-Morgan on the identification card rings that operate there--this was once seen as a purely local crime, but has now drawn extensive attention from the anti-terrorism forces, who correctly see this as a big fat opportunity for terrorists to sink into our society.

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Silver Spring, Md.: There is no "time off for good behavior" in the federal system. Absent clemency or a motion to reduce sentence by the government, he's in for six years.

Marc Fisher: Thanks--good to know.

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Washington, D.C.: Any updates with the principal and the fake Pd.D? Dr. Cohn seemed to have a suspicious educational background too. Maybe that is why he is hesitating to come D.C.

Marc Fisher: Alas, there is no news about Wilma Durham, the District's principal with a fake doctorate. The current interim superintendent, soon perhaps to be replaced by yet another interim superintendent, seems to think it's just fine to have a phony doc running a troubled elementary school.
What makes you think Cohn's background is fishy? Do you have any specifics on that, because I've heard nothing of the kind.

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Norfolk, Va.: On a different baseball topic, I thoroughly enjoyed your story on the Valley League (and it looks like that led to an equally interesting column on the Shenandoah radio station). I used to work for a weekly paper in Luray and would catch games in Newmarket. Your description of the sun setting and the mountains darkening behind the playing field brought back memories. Here's to hoping the Valley League doesn't go the way of the Martinsville team.

Marc Fisher: Wasn't that a superb story on yesterday's Page One about the loss of the minor league team--as well as so many textiles jobs--in Martinsburg, VA?
I think the Shenandoah teams are considerably more secure because theirs is an independent league not under the control of the major league apparatus, and because there are so many retirees moving into the Valley who have proven so supportive of that little college league. Thanks for your kind remarks on the story. More coming in the column from the Shenandoah in a couple of weeks.

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Woodbridge, Va.: Marc, I saw in yesterday's Style section a couple celebrating their 75th wedding anniversary. Wouldn't that make a great interview? The gentleman is 102 years old and served in WW I. I really think you should talk to him -- there aren't many his age who are still around and might remember what it was like back then, with silent movies and such.

Marc Fisher: As it turns out, I know that gent--he's the grandfather of a friend, and a classy man. The grandson works here at the paper, so I'll send him your suggestion.

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Washington, D.C. Thurgood Marshall Bldg. Tenant: No question, just comment:

The National Park Service is installing a new flag pole for the District of Columbia along Columbus Circle. The construction starts on Monday, June 14, and is expected to be completed in a month. The sidewalk around the flag poles will be unavailable during construction

Marc Fisher: Excellent--thanks.

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Washington, D.C.: Here's a question for you and the chatters (I'll submit the answer in a separate posting):

All 50 states are represented among the flag poles at Union Station, however there are only 49 flags.

How is this?

Marc Fisher: Hmmm--consider me stumped. Do tell.

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Washingotn, D.C.: I've noticed flags all over D.C. and MoCo still at half-mast. Is that still for Reagan, or did something else happen? How long do flags have to fly at half-mast after a president dies? (Not to be insensitive -- I was just wondering ...)

Marc Fisher: We got into this last week on the show, and the answer was that the federal period of mourning is 30 days and so the flags will remain at half-mast for Reagan til July 4.

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Sterling, Va.: To all the "Virginians" who don't support a Virginia team, maybe they should move into the city they think they live in so that their tax dollars will be used to support the District and its superior infrastructure and government. Or maybe its government/infrastructure (education, etc.) is the reason they live in the suburbs in the first place.

Marc Fisher: Please explain why supporting the idea of a downtown stadium is evidence of insufficient loyalty to one's home community or state. As the chart in today's Metro section shows, every single baseball stadium built in the past decade--all 12 of them--are either smack downtown or within two miles. It's the Loudoun location that seems so strange, not the presence of a team in Virginia. A location in Arlington or Alexandria would likely have been embraced by folks in Virginia, the District and Maryland.

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Falls Church, Va.: I agree with you and the other writers that the Loudoun stadium idea is a disaster and that downtown is the place to be. But I hate to see you being so hard on Bill Collins -- during the 90s he almost single-handedly restored MLB's opinion of the Washington market as a viable home for baseball. If the D.C. group ends up with the team, they and all area baseball fans will owe Collins a lot of gratitude for getting us back in the game.

Marc Fisher: I admire Collins for his fortitude and his work on behalf of restoring this area's image in the baseball world. That said, I don't think he is a realistic contender to buy a team. His company's financial troubles and his ownership group's repeated failure to bring home a team have damaged him, and from what I hear, Major League Baseball is likely to look toward other ownership groups if a franchise is awarded to this region.

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Arlington, Va.: My enthusiasm for today's chat is, er ... flagging. Back to baseball! or Jim Moran! or fake Ph.D.'s!

Marc Fisher: Ok, then, just one more flag item--the answer to the above challenge:

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Washington, D.C.: Here's the promised answer to the Union Station flag question:

Ohio is not represented by a flag. Technically, it is a pennant.

Marc Fisher: Ok, you win. Sort of.

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washingtonpost.com: Va. Ballpark Would Buck Close-In Trend (Post, June 24)

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SW D.C.: Hi Marc, I work in SW and live in Gaithersburg, as rental in safe areas of D.C. is too steep for my blood. I don't know exactly where the baseball stadium would go if in SW, but I understand it would be near here (4th and Va. Ave). I supposed I wouldn't mind the increased traffic if it brought more money into the city, but would it help those of us who would love to live here but cannot afford to?

Marc Fisher: It would certainly help businesses along the waterfront, and it would jump start the waterfront renaissance that the mayor is touting. But I wouldn't expect it to make housing any more affordable--quite the contrary, most likely. That said, the mayor's economic development folks would argue that it's exactly this kind of development that would boost the tax base to a point that the city could better afford to support the building of more affordable housing.

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Washington, D.C.: Will you look into the issue of Metrobus drivers using cell phones while they are driving? I see it all the time. In my opinion, these drivers should be considered "out of uniform" for even having the cell phone on their person(as in, attached to the belt). These drivers think talking with hands free is okay, even when they are actually driving the bus with passengers.

Marc Fisher: I bet there are rules about that--anyone from Metro with us today?

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Alexandria, Va.: Re: Virginia Baseball -- I work in the telecommunications industry and I watched firsthand how Bill Collins took the nation's 2nd largest paging company and drove it into the ground. And this guy thinks he can successfully run a baseball team? I can't believe anybody would want to partner with this guy. I think this aspect of the story has been neglected.

Marc Fisher: Baseball has a history of making its decisions about where to put a team independently from decisions about which owners to sell to. It's entirely likely that we could get a team and that baseball would sell the Expos to someone from out of town who's been in the sport's ownership pipeline for a long time.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Re the cell phone ban -- I agree that the law does not address the distraction of dialing, or even of the conversation itself, but if it lessens the number of idiots driving one-handed around corners, backing up, even parallel parking, I will consider it a success. Of course since the D.C. Police show virtually no interest now in enforcing traffic laws, I wonder how many tickets will actually be issued.

Marc Fisher: That is the key point. In New York, there have been hills and valleys in the enforcement, but the result has been a considerable decline in the number of folks who drive and hold the phone at the same time. It is hard to imagine D.C. cops getting aggressive about this when there is so little that they bother to enforce, but we can hope.

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Alexandria, Va.: A Naval person would point out that flags fly at "half-staff," not "half-mast." (I am not a Naval person, but one corrected my error.)

Marc Fisher: Thanks.

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D.C. speed cameras: Hi Marc,

Two co-workers and I were recently nabbed by the new speed cameras stationed around the District. I can't even begin to imagine how much money D.C. is making off of these. The fines are extremely high, though they don't give points since there's no picture of the driver.

Marc Fisher: They are quite profitable indeed, but remember that a large portion of the profit goes not to the city but to the Lockheed Martin subsidiary that runs the camera system for the city.

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Bethesda, Md.: Any chance an Arlington location for a stadium will be resurrected after the election. After all, if they were so hot-to-trot for Loudoun they wouldn't have made so much of the "monument views" last summer.

Marc Fisher: Fraid not--the combination of a relative handful of NIMBY activists and a few cowardly folks on the Arlington board was enough to derail that possible location permanently.

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Washington, D.C. : Who cares about baseball? It's a waste of taxpayers' money, and I for one would be glad to see it go to Virginia or Las Vegas or wherever.
More importantly, what's the newest on the schools' superintendent search?

Marc Fisher: Mayor Williams had a new bit of spin on his WTOP radio appearance this morning--now he's saying that Carl Cohn is not necessarily coming to Washington for just one year, but rather he's just negotiating to sign a one-year contract, which Williams would have us believe could easily be extended. But of course that's not what Cohn has in mind at all. He wants to just drop in for a few months, hang out, maybe do a few things and then bail. That's worse than useless--it extends the misery of the system.

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Washington, D.C.: Marc,

Whatever happened to the kid who fled to Israel after killing his friend in Maryland? Is he still in prison?

Marc Fisher: Sam Sheinbaum--yes. And will be for a very long time.

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Chantilly, Va.: Marc: There would be no groundswell of support for a stadium out here in Loudoun if the D.C. baseball folks could have firmly and conclusively demonstrated that Angelos's arguments about the effect of a team in D.C. are full of crap.

Their failure to do so gives him more credibility, sad to say.

I'd love a NL team anywhere in the area (I'm a big Red Sox fan), but if it ends up out here the folks in D.C. have only themselves to blame.

Marc Fisher: The D.C. baseball group's survey on who really goes to games in Baltimore was quite persuasive--it showed that the percentage of folks who attend games at Camden Yards and come from the D.C. area is really quite small, and shrinking.

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Washington, D.C.: Marc, Have you opined on the union-induced move to keep non-union super stores (e.g., Walmart) out of MoCo? Please remind me why we need unions. -- Karl Marx

Marc Fisher: Hi Karl--I devoted some space on last week's chat to that, but my basic take is that if Giant and Safeway want to take on the competition from Wal-Mart, the way to do that is by providing better service and more attractive shopping experiences, not by abusing the legal and political system to redline Wal-Mart from entering Montgomery County.

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Alexandria, Va.: Any update on the community protests outside HUD for their failure to enforce the law so that people like Bush Construction get rich on Temple Court & Sursum Corda? Oh, wait, you never covered that. Typical.

Marc Fisher: Actually, I did write a column on that, and have written several columns on the situation facing those buildings.

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Arlington, Va.: A lot of affordable housing will be built because the county didn't waste its money on infrastructure costs for the stadium. That may hurt people like you're pal Andy Viola, but it makes Arlington a paragon of social justice in a sea of inequity.

Marc Fisher: The developers of the site where the Arlington stadium was to have been built plan a market-rate residential and office community--nothing at all about affordable housing. Sorry.

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Washington, D.C.: Nice column on Nap Turner. All those years listening to him on WPFW, I had no knowledge of the details of his life. It used to tickle me when listeners would call in and complain that he was talking to much over the records. Sometimes this was true, but boy did he make those Langston Hughes stories/vignettes come alive.

Marc Fisher: He was a rich and warm voice, something there's all too little of in our local media. Sadly, WPFW is moving ever farther away from its heritage and purpose as the protector of jazz, blues and other music you'll never hear on commercial radio. Next time you hear more political blather on 89.3 FM, think about the music that used to be in that spot and how many lives it enriched.

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Washington, D.C.: If The Post is so anti-gambling then why do you guys support the lotteries? I've read editorials encouraging playing when the pots get huge (just last summer) and the revenue The Post receives from advertising must be substantial. What gives?

Marc Fisher: Editorial folks lead lives entirely separate from the folks in our advertising department. Are you suggesting that the paper should only accept advertising from people whose views we share?

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Washington, D.C.: Regarding speeding/red light cameras: As a bike commuter, there can't be enough of those as far as I am concerned. I have noticed that on roads where the speed limit is enforced (e.g., Michigan Ave. for a while), traffic calms down noticeably within days -- the prominent flash seems to be enough. Although speed limits could be raised on certain D.C. streets (e.g., North Capitol, although even there people live close by), they are there for a reason: So you can safely stop and/or get out of the way in an unforeseen event, like a child jumping out between two cars.

Marc Fisher: The impact is dramatic, even on the many roads where drivers have figured out the location of the camera and slow down for that patch, then gun the engine immediately after passing the camera. The more cameras, the better.

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Washington, D.C.: You point out that there's been a significant drop in the rate of in-car cell phone use in New York, but that's just a matter of enforcement. Has there been a noticeable rise in traffic safety? In other words, is there evidence that the law is having the hoped-for effect?

Marc Fisher: There's evidence both ways, as you'd expect, and the only really independent studies I've seen make the more important point that it's the phone conversation itself, not the hand-held phone that is most distracting to the driver.

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U Street, Washington, D.C.: Have you ever seen an uglier Metro-related development than the atrocity at the U Street station? The Metro station used to have a small plaza, but the new property was built on the plaza. When you exit the Metro station, you smack into a Quiznos and a Starbucks. The Metro entrance is actually kind of obscured and scary at night. The building itself is as bland as a baloney sandwich.

Who designed, and who approved that monstrosity? It really makes me worry that WMATA may be the worst of the development agencies. And they still control a lot of key parcels.

Marc Fisher: It is an especially ugly bit of development. The only really impressive new thing in that stretch is the old True Reformer building, which has been very thoughtfully renovated. Most of the new construction along U is pretty mundane, alas. But the street life makes up for a lot of the blandness of the architecture.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Weren't you writing a book about radio? How's it going? What's the premise?

Marc Fisher: Thanks for asking--it's at least a year away from publication, but it's going well. It's a history of radio since the advent of television, covering the evolution of our pop culture in a time of enormous social and political change--the rise and fall of Top 40, the growth of FM radio, the cultural revolution that created generational identity.

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Flag, OH: The Ohio flag is actually a burgee, not a pennant.

Marc Fisher: Wow--that's WAY beyond me.

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Am I too late?: Affordable housing? Arlington? HA! Show me where, please ... I don't think a lack of a baseball stadium is going to do anything to lower the prices of the $500,000 one bedroom condos being built.

Marc Fisher: I'll sneak you in, but we gotta go. But first, this:

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Fairfax, Va.: I think a better sentence for tractor man would be for him to have to drive the Beltway every day at rush hour, for the next six years.

Marc Fisher: You get the last word.
Thanks for coming along, folks. Back in the paper on Tuesday and see you here again next Thursday.
I'll be joining Mark Plotkin and Kojo Nnamdi for their grand reunion broadcast tomorrow at 10 a.m. on WTOP (1500 AM, 107.7 FM)--should be a fun hour.

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