DCDL

From the Washington Post:

District-based TechAssist LLC will provide free wireless Internet access in Dupont Circle starting Friday, the information technology consulting firm said yesterday.

The wireless access will work inside the area and may work on surrounding blocks, said Nick Vossburg, president of TechAssist.

Ladies and gentlebloggers, start your laptops.

As part of the reworking of washingtonpost.com, some of what used to be eColumns are now blogs. For example Campaign for the Supreme Court, covering the Supreme Court nomination, should be interesting.

Now that I’ve made at least a minimal attempt to blog this afternoon, I have a favor to ask. Can anyone recommend a good Mexican restaurant? Of the places I’ve tried so far: Alero, Guappo’s, the Cantina (next to the National Cathedral), the location has always been pretty good, but the food itself has been pretty unremarkable. The Cantina at least has draft Dos Equis, which counts for something in my book.

I ask hoping that you commentors-in-waiting, who no doubt have been intimidated by Keith and myself, will get whipped into a frenzy, and burn up the thread.

Latest news from DC Vote:

WASHINGTON — A gigantic 10 foot by 20 foot DC Vote banner with the phrase “Go Nats!” and the District’s motto “Taxation Without Representation” was permanently fastened to the west side of RFK Stadium in early July.

Made from a durable material, DC Vote hopes that the banner will act as a means to support the team and support the cause of DC voting rights at the same time.

“The first place Nationals have garnered attention from sports fans around the country,” said Ilir Zherka, executive director of DC Vote. “Our hope is that the DC voting rights movement message and history travels with the team from city-to-city.”

The Nationals and the issue of DC voting rights are significantly tied to one another. The decision to name the team the Nationals as opposed to the team’s former name, the Washington Senators, came as a request from the District’s Mayor, Anthony Williams.

“We don’t have senators here [in Washington, DC],” the mayor said in October of 2004. “Give us two senators and I’ll be happy to call them [DC’s baseball team] ‘the Senators.’”

Okay, there’s a dangling participle there, but I say it’s a good thing that DC Vote is made of durable material, because DC residents have still got a long road ahead of us before we obtain the rights that other American citizens have.

Just got this in the mail:

With overwhelming support, the Third Committee of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly passed a resolution that calls on the United States Congress to grant the residents of Washington, DC, equal voting rights in Congress in accordance with its OSCE human rights commitments. The United States is the only country in the OSCE where residents of the nation’s capital are denied full representation in the national legislature.

What does this mean practically speaking? I doubt that Denny Hastert and Bill Frist lose any sleep over an OSCE resolution.

Yet, it does keep the question visible: why doesn’t DC have the right to vote? It would appear on the surface it’s because the DC community would vote for Democrats. If that’s the case, I don’t see any way you could argue that this is consistent with democratic principles. I don’t see how you could see this as other than legalized voter suppression.

Congressional Republicans are engaging in one of their periodic encroachments on the District’s right to local government — though local government is something Republicans supposedly favor in general. This time it’s yet another attack on DC’s gun laws, which has passed the House but with luck will still be defeated in the Senate, as similar bills have been before.

It was interesting to see that we do have a Wisconsin Democrat on our side:

During the debate on the gun law, Rep. David R. Obey (Wis.), senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, proposed his own change to the city budget: forcing members of Congress to draw their pay from D.C. funds and cut their annual salary to that of D.C. Council members, from about $162,000 to $92,500.

“The citizens of the District of Columbia have no vote in this body, and as long as that is the case, we have no right to tell them what their laws are going to be,” Obey said, adding that he opposed the city’s handgun ban but found opponents’ tactics “ridiculous and abusive.”

“If the people in this House want to act like your D.C. city councilman, then they can be paid like a D.C. councilman,” he said. Obey withdrew his amendment after a procedural challenge.

Check out Guerrilla Film Fest 6, July 16 at the Lisner Auditorium, George Washington University, 730 21st, NW (21st and H), DC.

DCist reports on tensions between DC Vote and DC Watch. What it boils down to is that DC Vote has been offered a cool $1M to educate people outside of DC on the lack of voting representation here in the nation’s capitol. DC Watch learned about this and thought that was swell and everything, but how come this was offered as non-competitive grant? DC Watch’s other issue is that the director of DC Vote has moved out of DC into Montgomery County, MD.

Nice reporting job by DCist. Netroots journalism should be like this more often.

Here’s my take on the situation. While DC Watch is right in principle, I’m just having a hard getting worked up over this. Most people don’t understand how frustrating it is not to be able to vote for a member of Congress, or to have someone to turn to when action is needed. I just don’t have a problem throwing a few bucks to an organization dedicated to changing this.

In case you happen to be reading this, and live outside the area, here’s a few fun facts:

• Washington, D.C. has a population of 572,059.
• Wyoming has a population of 493,782.
• DC has no Senators, and a shadow Representative in the House. The shadow Representative, Eleanor Holmes Norton, votes in comittee, and does not return phone calls or emails.
• Wyoming has two Senators and one “normal” Representative.
• All of Wyomings Representatives are white, Protestant, and Republican.
• Funding for DC is controlled by the Senate Appropriations Committee for the District of Columbia.
• The chairman of this committee, Sam Brownback, is objectively christofascist.

One of the great things about summer in DC is the indy film scene. And one of the major events has to be Silver Docs, 6 days and nights of documentaries starting this Tuesday through Sunday at the AFI Silver.

Under the politics category you may notice a film called Being Caribou (Diana Wilson, Leanne Allison Canada, 2004, 72 minutes) playing this Saturday at 1:00 pm. More details later, but I’ll be setting up a free screening in July at Mark and Orlando’s, Dupont Circle.

Showing before Being Caribou is Getting Through to the President (Emily Kunstler, Sarah Kunstler USA, 2004, 7 minutes ):

A payphone becomes a medium for providing the White House with comments from average citizens, who are encouraged by the filmmakers to mouth off.

That’s a great premise.

Via dcist we learn that free wifi is coming to Old Town:

The one-year pilot program provides outdoor wireless service in an eight-block zone stretching from Washington Street to the Potomac River along King Street — the Old Town main drag that attracts tourists and residents with its shops and restaurants.

If you’ve got a bike, I’ll add that the Mount Vernon trail takes you from downtown DC to Old Town along the Potomac in what can only be called a classic piece of Americana.