V.w.verweij

Independent Arlington County Board candidate Stephen W.C. Holbrook doesn’t like a plan to use public land for affordable housing, and made his opinions known in a strongly-worded email to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York.

Holbrook wrote the email, a copy of which was also sent to ARLnow.com, following his participation last week in a forum for County Board candidates organized by the faith-based social justice group Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement (VOICE).

The forum, held Thursday at St. John’s Baptist Church on Columbia Pike, was intended “to call on the four candidates in the April 8 special election for County Board to commit to a bold a bold new plan for using public land to develop 1,000-1,500 units of affordable housing on a 3-5-year timetable for families earning $30,000-$50,000 a year,” according to VOICE, which collected more than 10,000 petition signatures for the plan.

In his letter to Dolan, Holbrook, a retired FBI agent, let it be known that he thought the plan was not in keeping with church teachings.

“GOD’S house is a place to talk to your GOD and not a place to gather people to form a plan to lay out how you will steal from other people,” Holbrook wrote. “I am a Catholic and that meeting in that church was the first time I ever went into a church and came out feeling dirty and that there was evil in that church. I thought that God was going to send down a lighting bolt unto those church leaders and their people and I didn’t want to be around them.”

“It took me two days and several baths to get the smell of greed and sin off of me but the other people there will go to hell for what they do and their church leaders are to blame,” Holbrook continued.

Asked by ARLnow.com to clarify his remarks, Holbrook suggested that those who vote for his three opponents – who support the creation of additional affordable housing — will be guity of theft by association.

“The voters that will go to HELL are the ones that trade their vote for stolen assets and those assets did belong to a person and or group of people that collectively did not want those assets given away,” he said via email. “GOD gave us all the TEN COMMANDMENTS. One of those Commandments was ‘Thou shall not steal.’ When you take assets for example from a group of people that did not want to give those assets away… [those] who gave their votes for them are just as guilty for receiving those stolen assets as the person that stole those assets.”

In his letter to Dolan, Holbrook requests that Catholic churches in Arlington read to its congregants and employees a speech he had prepared for the VOICE event but was not given the opportunity to read. That speech also took aim at the Arlington Education Association — Holbrook blames the teachers group for the county’s increased spending on public schools, which he opposes.

“The teachers’ union has already bitten the forbidden apple by showing their willingness to take unearned taxpayers’ assets for their vote for the Democratic candidate here and they will burn in Hell for their sinful deeds,” he writes.

The full prepared speech, after the jump.

GOD gave us all Ten Commandments. One of those commandments was “Thou shalt not steal.”

We all know what we are here for tonight and that is to select the best candidate for the empty Arlington County Board Seat. However, some of you here, are here only to accept something from one of the candidates here so you can meet your GROUP’S goal of building more affordable housing for people you think deserve them. In essence these same people are looking for the thirty pieces of silver for their vote come April 8, 2014.

My three opponents here want you to vote for them and they are willing to steal the taxpayers’ land and tax dollars and give them to you for your vote. I am not willing to commit that sin. Even though you don’t directly steal the taxpayers’ assets you will receive that stolen asset which makes you just as guilty in GOD’s eyes as if you stole them without help.

Arlington County’s leaders and my three opponents here are, or want to lead us all down the path that Detroit, Michigan has taken and that is into bankruptcy by having you commit a sin against your GOD.

If you vote for any of my three opponents just remember when you see you’re GOD you will still have those thirty pieces of silver tired around your neck and he will know your wrongs.

The teachers’ union has already bitten the forbidden apple by showing their willingness to take unearned taxpayers’ assets for their vote for the Democratic candidate here and they will burn in Hell for their sinful deeds.

We all have dreams in our life. But who must pay for those dreams, you or other people. Which unfilled dreams must go by the wayside so yours can be fulfilled, yours or others? We had a Revolutionary War in this country where many of our citizens died fighting for your individual freedoms guaranteed to you in our Constitution. In our U. S. Constitution all of us are guaranteed only Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Everything else we must earn. Our forefathers didn’t form a government to do charity work but it did form in our U. S. IRS Tax Code charities to do the LORD’s work. That is what a free county offers you no more or no less. If you all want a different kind of government that takes care of you and the people you think need help in their life’s but takes away your individual rights granted to you in our Constitution than you must chose a socialist form of government and move to one of those counties. Once you take away the incentive to work and be rewarded for your work than you don’t have true freedom of self.

It is important that you vote with your mind, heart and your GOD and not with your organization, political group and or unions. You all are the children of GOD and I hope you act accordingly. MAY GOD bless you all?

On the April 8, 2014 election date only about 10 % of Arlington REGESTERED VOTERS will vote for the other three candidates up here with me. The other 90 % would never vote for them or their ideas on how to ruin Arlington County with unjustified tax rates and unethical spending.

Stephen W. C. Holbrook
Candidate for Arlington County Board

326 T Street, NW (Old Maple Ave)

We first wondered about this house back in 2008. Sad to be reminded it’s still in the same shape as it was back then. The Post published an interesting history on the home over the weekend:

“The home’s owner, Howard University, has halted its plans to rehabilitate the Terrell House as a local museum and community space. That movement lost its momentum during the Great Recession, and there has been little effort to resuscitate it since.”

Check out a Mary Church Terrell tribute in Bloomingdale after the jump.

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please shoot me an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 3-4 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit.

“Snow days in DC are rare — Abby of Ledroit Park has no regrets.”

“Mr. Misty (The O Street Alley Cat) keeping a close eye on his alley in Shaw.”

“Truman camped out in the coffee table”

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 3-4 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit. Please try to send horizontal photos 640×480 (medium size on your iphone) if possible.

“Pepper striking a most regal pose in Dupont on an early Sunday morning.”

“Rosa standing guard on T Street.”

“This is Dexter in Columbia Heights. He’s part pug and part crazy.”

There is a tendency in all things to see them only from our unique position and be done with it.  A man will look at a woman and expect her to think manly thoughts and live by manly rules.  A woman will do the same, thinking that he is simply a more hairy version of herself.  Pet owners will look at a cat or dog and apply their own human emotions and reasoning to the behaviors of a beast.  One culture will look at another culture and be baffled by their choices, customs and traditions.  Most of us would admit that wisdom is born out of a healthy ability to see outside of ourselves.  We would also agree that doing so is one of life’s greatest challenges because it requires growth, and growth always hurts.  

I think that in most cases, people are at least willing to entertain the idea that they cannot apply the reasoning of a man to a woman, or a man to a cheetah, or a man to a dandelion.  Many will resist this at first because life would be easier and simpler if your world was THE world, but in that view all we do is make the world small.  So small, in fact, that our life becomes a never-ending cycle of running into walls and then cursing at them.  Most of us, to some degree, will begin to remedy the problem by simply admitting that there is a lot to learn outside ourselves (or our walls).  I would say that those who never begin to learn this are bound to live the most miserable of lives.  But as willingness to look outside ourselves goes, there is one area I feel this is not so readily accepted:  Little boys.

Having been in the unique position of creating a comic and TV series with my much younger brother, who was 5 at the time we started, I’ve experienced a lot of opinions and reactions to the way a little boy thinks.  On one hand people marvel at the freedom, creativity and wonder that pours out of that active imagination at a seemingly endless rate.  On the other hand, they are often horrified by the results.  They see a five year old talking about lopping the heads off of evil men and they shudder.  They think something must be done immediately.  This child must be corrected before he becomes the next Charles Manson.

But just as a man means something totally different than a woman when he speaks of sexual attraction, and a human means something totally different than a horse when they say “neigh”, a 5 year old boy means something completely different from an adult when he says “kill”.  The idea of killing, thus far in his life has mostly been limited to what happens routinely in a game of Super Mario Brothers.  And in that context, if we were to be so literal and adult about things, a bloodbath has ensued and the body count is breathtaking.

What a little boy actually means when they talk of killing bad guys is another huge topic for another time. I do not claim to have it all figured out.  But when we claim to know what they mean because they are kids and we are adults, we have simplified them.  We have taken them for granted because they are small.  Understanding the world of a child is as deeply and widely complex as trying to understand the opposite sex.  That is why I will not try to dive into it too much here.

I write this only to make this first point.  When you look into the world of a child, look into it with the same awe and wonder with which you would look into an alien world, or a mystical world inside of a Wardrobe.  Assume, from the start, that words and ideas have different meanings.  Humble yourself before that little mind and it will become vast before your very eyes.  There is a reason Christ said that “anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will not enter it” (Luke 18:17).  He is telling us that most of us, as we grow, lose the thing we needed to hold onto the most.  What was it?  That is the question, and the answer is in your four year old son who day dreams of battle with monsters and defeating every kind of evil.

We grow up and we get jaded.  We learn that flight is impossible, super powers are imaginary, guns are bad and the only real ultimate good is to put your pop cans in the proper container and don’t judge anyone or anything.  We may get bigger, but our world gets smaller.  We shrink.  We carry our withered and jaded view of reality like a badge of wisdom and we try to force kids to accept it before their time, and it is in that moment that we rob them of what being a kid really ought to be.

I want to make it clear that I am not one who thinks that kids possess wisdom and should be our teachers.  All I am saying, truly all I am trying to say in this posting, is that it is a mistake to view a child through an adult filter and act like you have them all figured out.  If it were so easy, Christ never would have had to utter those words that surely shocked the monocled know-it-all’s of his time.  A child is not only a wonder because they inhabit a different world than adults.  They are an even greater mystery because they possess a world we once inhabited ourselves, but lost along the way.  Like with all wisdom, there is a paradox at the heart of the matter.

It is not enough to say we should give up our world to regain theirs.  We need to remain adults.  But to really see a child and accept their world beyond the confines of our adult perception expands our world.  Just as when we really work to let go and see the opposite sex on their terms, or to love someone for the sake of who they are and not what they can be for us… our world is inevitably made more robust, deep, meaningful and those little walls of our own world broaden.  Seeing a child’s world does not make us kids again, it makes us better adults.

I would like to get into the specifics of my own observations on the philosophy of why little boys obsess over battling bad guys, but for now I will leave it at this.  Look at your kids, and all kids, with humility.  You do have something to offer them, but they have something to offer you too.  When we try to turn kids into little adults we make the whole world grow up too fast, and in so doing, it shrinks.

From my 4 year old step son’s 94 page story book titled “Stories That Knock You Out”.  Available on Lulu in print or digital.

The post An Introduction to the Book I May Write Some Day About Kids and Creativity appeared first on AXE COP.

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 3-4 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit. Please try to send horizontal photos 640×480 (medium size on your iphone) if possible.

“Moses Moose in Dupont”

“Professor Fuzzy Ears in Shaw”

“Here’s a picture of BigFoot, my new baby umbrella cockatoo. He likes to terrorize my TV remote and random buttons on my computer.”

“Peyton Lee visiting the Capitol. Our neighborhood is H St NE.”

Editor’s Note: This sponsored column is written by Mathew B. Tully of Tully Rinckey PLLC, an Arlington firm that specializes in federal employment and labor law, security clearance proceedings, and military law.

Q. I work for a real estate company and my boss keeps calling me “cutie” and “sexy,” though he has not made any sexual advances toward me. Is that enough to support a hostile work environment claim?

A. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employers from discriminating “against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” Without question, a supervisor’s sexual harassment can negatively impact a subordinate’s conditions of employment. But a few tasteless comments made by a supervisor alone may not create a hostile work environment. It may be a different story if the comments are extremely disturbing, incessant and clearly unwelcome.

“Not all sexual harassment that is directed at an individual because of his or her sex is actionable. Title VII does not attempt to purge the workplace of vulgarity,” the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals said in Hopkins v. Baltimore Gas & Electric Company. In this case, a male employee claimed his supervisor of the same gender harassed him and created a hostile work environment by making inappropriate comments such as, “You only do that so you can touch me” after they bumped into each other and “Ah, alone at last” when in the bathroom together. However, the 4th Circuit affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of the case. “A handful of comments spread over months is unlikely to have so great an emotional impact as a concentrated or incessant barrage,” the appellate court said.

Hostile work environments involve unwelcome, sex-based conduct that “was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of her employment and create an abusive work environment,” and it can be linked to the employer, the U.S. 4th Circuit noted in Colie et al. v. Carter Bank & Trust, Inc. (2010). Colie, for example, involved a female bank supervisor who repeatedly called female employees “baby” and told them, among other things, they looked “sexy,” had “sexy” legs and looked “sexy” with their hair down. And even though the employees complained to bank executives about this inappropriate, unwelcome conduct, it continued.

While the employer claimed the employees alleged “nothing more than the sporadic use of rude language and occasional teasing,” the court found this characterization to be “in sharp contrast to the factual allegations.” It noted, “When the workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment, Title VII is violated.” Consequently, the court refused the employer’s request to dismiss the case.

Employees should not let employers get away with sexual harassment that changes the conditions of their employment. They should not tolerate a hostile work environment and should immediately contact an employment law attorney who can prepare for them a discrimination lawsuit.

Mathew B. Tully is the founding partner of Tully Rinckey PLLC. Located in Arlington, Va. and Washington, D.C., Tully Rinckey PLLC’s attorneys practice federal employment law, military law, and security clearance representation. To speak with an attorney, call 703-525-4700 or to learn more visit 1888law4life.com. 

This week’s Pet of the Week is an Australian Shepherd mix who has taken to rock climbing.

Here’s what Emma’s owner, Elizabeth, had to say about her adventurous Aussie:

Emma is our rascally 1-and-a-half-year-old Aussie-Shepherd mix. My husband and adopted her as a puppy from Lost Dog Rescue in December 2012, and our lives have been forever changed!

Emma is a very unique-looking dog. With a grey-spotted coat and ears that stand erect, people often confuse her for a wolf or hyena. It’s not uncommon for us to be stopped four or five times during a walk around the neighborhood to be asked if she’s part African wild dog!

Always an active pup, Emma loves the outdoors – she often accompanies us on rock-climbing excursions, and is quite good at scrambling over boulders (we keep meaning to buy her a dog climbing harness). Though she loves to play in the water, she hasn’t quite figured out how to swim. With the weather this winter, she’s discovered a new favorite activity – burrowing and sliding in the snow.

We often joke that Emma has two speeds — on and off. Despite filthy floors and almost weekly baths (she’s a dog that just loves to get dirty), Emma always knows how to make us laugh. We couldn’t have asked for a more lovable companion.

Want your pet to be considered for the Arlington Pet of the Week? Email office@arlnow.com with a 2-3 paragraph bio and at least 3-4 horizontally-oriented photos of your pet.

Each week’s winner receives a sample of dog or cat treats from our sponsor, Becky’s Pet Care, along with $25 in Becky’s Bucks. Becky’s Pet Care provides professional dog walking and pet sitting services in Arlington and Northern Virginia — “Quality Service from a Trusted Friend.”

The mini houses from Boneyard Studios in Stronghold.

1216 18th Street, NW at the corner of Jefferson just off Connecticut Ave

When we learned the Sauf Haus Bier Hall + Garten was opening above the Dupont Shake Shack this summer I didn’t realize how big the garten part would be. Though we knew it would have a summer garden with 210 seats I had a tough time conceptualizing that space. But walking by it yesterday you can see how huge it’ll be – this has the potential to be very very awesome:

1122 Connecticut Ave, NW

From an email:

“Have you ever looked at your cell phone case and wondered how it was made? There’s a good chance it was made from a 3D printer… The same kind of machine that can “print” a jet engine thanks to advanced manufacturing. For the next two weeks, GE is coming to town to show the District how these types of advanced manufacturing machines work. And we’d like to show you before the rest of the public gets to see it… You’ll get to engrave your iPhone or iPad and print your own phone case, if you want! There will be a lot of fun things to photograph.

Part of a global tour, each Garage is a pop-up lab that provides really neat hands-on experience with manufacturing technologies that most of us don’t have access to (e.g., laser cutters, 3D printers, injection molders, etc.). Throughout the next two weeks, Garages will be open to the public, so people can walk through the space and actually use these machines that are revolutionizing the country’s manufacturing processes.

For a closer look at a past GE Garage, please watch our video here.

The general public will be invited to visit the space and interact with the technologies starting Friday the 21^st and running through April 9, 2014. Visitors will be able to engage in on-site activities, ranging from building a case for their smartphone using GE’s 3D printers to attending 101 workshops held in the space. ”

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 3-4 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit.

“Ray Charles from Dupont Circle”

“Bodhi, enjoying a windy walk in NoMa”

“Logan Circle area cat spotted bird watching. Saucer is a 3 year old bengal. And she’s a good girl, yes she is.”

“Melpomene in Snow, Capitol Hill”

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 3-4 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit.

“Mugs, of Bloomingdale, just before he asked me to hand him that thing over there.”

“This is Bubs from Petworth. His hobbies include hunting mice on 9th street and sniffing out chicken bones on Georgia Ave.”

“Ms Marvel keeps watch over Grant Circle in Petworth. Adopted 2/16 from WARL.”

zooborns:

African Red River Hog Piglets Are a First for Zoo Miami

Zoo Miami is celebrating the birth of five African Red River Hogs! The three males and two females were born on February 28 and are the first of this species ever born at Zoo Miami. The piglets and their mom, Penny, are behind the scenes for now, until keepers are confident that the family has bonded well.

See more of the piglets at Zooborns