Of Shaved Ice, Barking Dogs And Baseball

While nothing happens at the Democratic convention, there's plenty to report on several stories I've been covering:

The Ice Man stayeth. John Styer, the shaved ice vendor whose Clayboy's pushcart is a mainstay of street life in downtown Bethesda, was just days from a hearing at which Montgomery County was going to try to strip him of the right to park his cart in front of the Barnes & Noble bookshop. His crime: Not moving his cart frequently enough.

But after a flurry of publicity and an icy reprimand from County Council member Howard Denis -- who told me that "the county bureaucracy has created a problem where none exists" -- the county miraculously renewed Styer's license for a year.

The Ice Man is back, just chilling.

No such luck when it comes to Peter Angelos, the man who stands between Washington and Major League Baseball. In his pathetic quest to stop baseball from moving the Montreal Expos to the District or Loudoun County, Angelos went on Baltimore radio station WBAL-AM and pronounced that "there are no real baseball fans in D.C."

If that's the case, then we're good to go. The Orioles owner can't claim damage to his business if a place that has no potential customers is removed from his customer base.

Angelos might be surprised to know that Washington fans are already eagerly forming groups to pool money for season tickets. But we don't have a team quite yet.

That's why the competing bidders from the District and Virginia should put aside their animosities and issue a joint statement warning Commissioner Bud Selig that this is the last time Washington or Northern Virginia will have the funding or political will to make this happen. Now is the time to stop begging and serve notice that this is baseball's last chance to get a piece of the action in the nation's most affluent and best-educated market.

Our money and knowledge have done little to ameliorate the violence in Sursum Corda, the Northwest housing complex where 14-year-old Princess Hansen was murdered in January, when this year's rash of youth murders was still shocking.

Last week, I watched as a bit of hope arrived in Sursum Corda in the form of a bright new playground, built in a remarkable six hours by an army of volunteers from Americorps, businesses and KaBoom, a nonprofit that provides play equipment to troubled neighborhoods.

With '70s and '80s soul blaring, neighbors danced as an urban dead space, one of all too many hideouts for drug dealers, was transformed into a place for children.

But some residents worried that the playground would benefit more well-to-do families after this valuable property is gentrified. "Everything's in discussion," said D.C. Council member Sharon Ambrose (Ward 6), noting that Sursum Corda and the projects around it are likely to give way to a mixed-income planned community.

"People feel like they're setting it up for somebody else," said Mark Dixon, the area's advisory neighborhood commissioner.

In fancier parts of town, strife is born of barking dogs, not shooting thugs. Last summer, I wrote about a revolt in Dupont Circle against Wagtime, a kennel on an otherwise quiet block of rowhouses. After ugly confrontations between the kennel's workers and neighbors driven nuts by noise and other byproducts from the facility, a year of bureaucratic battle ensued. Now, city zoning officials say the District should not have let Wagtime board dogs on a residential block. The dispute's not over, but neighbors say it's a step in the right direction.

No such progress on Principal Watch, tracking the D.C. schools' response to the phony doctorate held by Wilma Durham, principal at Walker-Jones Elementary School, which serves Sursum Corda: In Georgia, a state ethics committee voted to revoke the teaching certificates of 11 teachers who got bogus advanced degrees from a mail-order university. No such luck here: No change.

Speaking of eternal stories: Six years after he announced that he was looking for a home to buy in the city he runs, Mayor Anthony Williams is still looking. He crows about adding 30,000 units of housing since taking office. But the mayor can't find one in the bunch suitable for his honorable self and the city's first lady. Maybe he'll find one in Boston this week -- or perhaps he figures he can buy a house with frequent flier miles.