Kennedy Center Spring Gala

Celebrating its 35th birthday this year, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday presented its annual spring gala, which brought in $2.8 million in funds to underwrite the performing arts and performing arts education.

After a really big show in the Concert Hall, featuring the National Symphony Orchestra Pops, the Ailey II dancers, the kids from Mad Hot Ballroom, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, the Master Chorale of Washington, and many more stars of past, present, and future, gala-goers and celebrities mingled on the Kennedy Center's Rooftop Terrace, enjoying cocktails and desserts. Here are a few of the shots I snapped at the party.


The Honorary Chair of the evening's festivities was Angela Lansbury, Oscar-nominated and Tony-winning actress and star of the musical theatre milestones Anyone Can Whistle, Mame, Gypsy, and Sweeney Todd. (We'll pass by Dear World for the moment.)



Tony-Award-winning actor George Hearn, Broadway's original Albin in La Cage Aux Folles, was Angela Lansbury's costar in the national company and television productions of Sweeney Todd -- by many accounts, the best of the many Sweeney Todds to play the role. He and Lansbury sang "A Little Priest" on the Concert Hall stage Sunday night, to rousing applause. Mr. Hearn told me he will be doing an evening of Sondheim songs at Ravinia this summer, and he also plans to perform in a concert version of Frank Loesser's The Most Happy Fella.



One of the young artists featured at Sunday's gala was trumpeter Brandon Ridenour, a third-year student at Juilliard, who was recommended to NSO Pops conductor Marvin Hamlisch by Juilliard's president, Joseph W. Polisi, and the chair of the brass department, Raymond Mase. He has a new recording with his pianist father (Rich Ridenour), called Trumpet Invasion, (which his mother was kind enough to give to me, drawing it from her purse like a magician pulls a rabbit from his hat).



Speaking of musicians, the aforementioned Marvin Hamlisch -- who has brought home Oscars, Tonys, Grammys, Emmys, Golden Globes, and even the Pulitzer Prize -- was on hand as well. Maestro Hamlisch was credited with directing the whole amazing show, whose music spanned the spectrum from opera to Broadway to salsa to tap to spirituals to tango to the Bruch violin concerto.



Amidst all this star power, it was Charlottesville's own Big Ray and the Kool Kats that provided the dance music for the post-gala reception!



Some people are not old enough to remember Angela Lansbury from Gaslight or The Manchurian Candidate or as Auntie Mame or Mama Rose. But they do, as George Mason University student Richard Morrison does, remember her as Jessica Fletcher on TV's long-running Murder, She Wrote. (That's Richard to the right, the one not wearing diamonds.)

Update: I have posted the review I wrote about the Gala performance for the Metro Herald here.

The Odd and the Inscrutable

It has been a while since I last looked at the odd, eccentric, and simply inexplicable search terms that lead people to this blog.

The top fifteen search terms that bring people here are all fairly straightforward, but they also fall into two main categories: "Dave Moffatt" and "Aaron Carter." (Thanks to all their fans for driving my traffic upward.) Here are the top fifteen in order:

dave moffatt

dave moffatt gay

rick sincere

aaron carter drugs

aaron carter pot

scott moffatt

sincere

dave moffat

aaron carter marijuana

dave moffatt nude

karen hospital

dave moffat gay

aaron carter smoking pot

dave moffatts

aaron carter on drugs

Truth be told, some of the strange searches also include these teen-idol celebrities, and certainly many more in that broad category of The Young and the Cute and the Talented.

I've alphabetized the list except for one group of terms, which you will see at the end.

"a Priest and a Rabbi are on an Airplane"

aaron carter circumcised

adam smith dueling banjos

aluminum christmas tree rage

america's fungible humans: females and tin soldiers

Ayn Rand "does not understand socialism"

boxer fraud voting 2006 taxes iraq

cheats on senior seminar intent papers literature restaurant

circumcised celebrities

criminal laws are they real orare they fiction

Daniel Radcliffe is attending UVA in 2007

Dave Moffatt Gay Porn

did Tom Lehrer inspire Mel Brooks and hitler

Frankie Muniz circumcised

funerals advantages and disadvantage

gay people named arlene

gregory pecks gravesite

hooters fairfax hillary

hot gossip on Ronald Reagan

Is Rex Smith circumcised??

jamaican bobsled 2006 fiat video

jeremy sumpter in emergency room

middle school student models nude

milton friedman prostitution

national underpants

No one in France wears their underpants

older porn sample pics over 40

oliver wendall holes jr. on court management
(Yahoo: Did you mean: oliver wendell holes jr. on court management)

photos when thomas jefferson was a baby

pronouncing sommelier

public sex with old lady pics

really like dick

rumors of elephant man being gay

scared plant traditions, charlottesville virginia

Sodomizing a child tips

spongebob at tinky winky pool party

Swedish bestiality clips

teenagers who want to be gay

Who is hotter? Jesse mccarthy Or daniel Radcliffe

And in the similar patterns category:

"lou taylor pucci" shirtless

"hunter parrish" shirtless

Josh Hutcherson Shirtless

"joshua bell" shirtless photo

daniel bruhl shirtless

aaron carter shirtless

"rick santorum" "shirtless"

I recognize all of the names there but "Josh Hutcherson." But really -- Rick Santorum?!

'Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me'

Funny thing -- in all the years I've lived and worked in Washington, D.C., I never attended an event at Lisner Auditorium, one of the area's biggest performance venues. Until tonight.

Funny thing -- in all the years that I have listened to radio programs, been a guest on radio programs, and even (on one rather unmemorable midnight-to-dawn shift) co-hosted a radio program, I never saw a radio program performed. Until tonight.

Tonight I attended a taping of the National Public Radio news quiz show, Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me. WWDTM is one of my favorite weekend listening habits. I used to listen on Saturdays on WMRA out of Harrisonburg, but that station no longer carries it. Even when WMRA broadcast the program, I also listened a second time each Sunday on WVTF out of Roanoke. The problem is, WVTF plays the show at 10:00 a.m., when I need to be getting ready to go to church. So I often find myself simply listening on line at the Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me web site. (In the D.C. broadcast area, WAMU-FM carries the show at 11:00 a.m. on Saturdays. WAMU was a cosponsor of tonight's taping.)

As I suspected, the hour-long program takes longer than that to record. Tonight's performance lasted about 90 minutes, which included some "re-dos" that provided a surreal, disjointed quality to the end of the evening.

The panel tonight consisted of regulars Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts of the Washington Post (the hometown favorite), and Tom Bodett (who did not tell us "we'll leave the light on for you.").

Of course, Chicago Public Radio's Peter Sagal was the host and compere while NPR Morning Edition's venerable Carl Kasell was announcer, official judge, and scorekeeper.

The "Not My Job" segment guest was -- as I might have predicted -- D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, who arrived wearing a Nationals' baseball cap, which he had to remove when he donned his headphones. Williams was quizzed on odd facts concerning the president of Turkmenistan.

Why would WWDTM visit Washington when it could just as easily tape the show back home in Chicago? Peter Sagal said that, when coming to Washington every two years, as they try to do, "we feel like big bacon fans do when they get to visit a swine farm." "We take so much from Washington" in the form of material for questions and jokes, Sagal said, "we feel we should give something back."

Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me claims to have about 2 million weekly listeners. (Most of them, said host Sagal, "socially unsuccessful in high school.") If tonight's audience is evidence, that claim is true -- the part about 2 million, not the nerd factor. Lisner Auditorium was stuffed to the gills with fans of all ages, from grammar-school kids to their grandparents. And the audience was enthusiastic, engaged, and happy, too. (The person sitting next to me, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune Washington bureau, said that a friend of his calls Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me "Hollywood Squares for smart people." How true.)

I'll be writing a full-length article on the show for The Metro Herald next week. I just wanted to get the basics down on pixels before driving home to Charlottesville. I'm looking forward to listening this weekend to see how the edited version of Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me differs from the live performance. (I can think of a few hilarious off-color remarks that won't make the final cut ... but beyond that?)

I have to add that it seems odd, in answer to the question, "What were you doing tonight?", to say, "I was watching a radio program." Odd, but oddly satisfactory.

Update, May 5 @ 3:47 p.m.: "Galileo" has a LiveJournal entry on the same performance I saw, with the amusing title "Bong Hits for Jesus." (I have to go back to my notes, but I know that was the punchline to one of the jokes last night.)

Election May Day

Charlottesville held a historic election today: Its first for a school board, at last jettisoning one of the remnants of Jim Crow; and its last to take place in May, since local elections will move to November in 2007.

It was a long day and a busy one, but I had a chance to take a few photos along the way.

It was still dark in the morning when election officials reported to work. The three presidents on the facade of city hall stood watch in an almost preternatural predawn glow.

Signs near the voter registration office point potential voters toward the Recreation Precinct, the city's largest by number of registered voters.

Delegate David Toscano (D-57) campaigns with former Charlottesville Fire Chief Julian Taliaferro. Toscano told me he enjoys reading this blog (Taliaferro did not).

Joan Schilling shares a laugh at Jefferson Park Precinct with School Board candidate Leah Puryear.

I found this portrait of Young Mr. Jefferson on the way out of the voting area of Alumni Hall Precinct.

City Councilor Rob Schilling with School Board candidate Vance High outside Jefferson Park Precinct.

Campaign signs were everywhere you turned.

City Council candidate Dave Norris (right) with some College Republicans at Alumni Hall. Norris also told me he enjoys reading this blog. (Is there some secret, liberal Democrat code embedded in my prose?)

Turnout for this election was slightly more than 25 percent of registered voters. The day ran smoothly and was virtually incident-free. Chief election officials returned their documents and equipment to the Voter Registration Office along with raves about how good the day was in comparison to past elections. They were especially full of praise for the first-time election officials (including 27 University of Virginia students recruited through a special program organized by Deputy Registrar -- and UVa alumnus -- Evan Smith) who demonstrated dedication, competence, and interest in their (largely) volunteer positions.

At the end of the day, Julian Taliaferro and Dave Norris were victorious, with incumbent Councilor Rob Schilling coming in third. Despite strongly-worded endorsements for Schilling by the Daily Progress and the Charlottesville-Albemarle Tribune (an African-American weekly), the Democrats once again took monopoly control of City Council, using their well-practiced get-out-the-vote machinery and sheer numbers to their advantage. (Unofficial election results can be found on the Charlottesville City web site.)

Winners of the School Board race were incumbent Ned Michie and the team of Leah Puryear and Juandiego Wade. Bob Gibson has that story here.

As usual, there were a handful of write-in votes cast by those who were dissatisfied with the options on the ballot. No votes for Mickey Mouse of Daffy Duck, but a lot of scattered votes for people whose names don't make the front pages. (Apparently a number of people wrote in their own names or those of close friends.) Still, a few Charlottesville "names in the news" show up in the write-in category: Blair Hawkins, Jon Bright, Coran Capshaw, Peter Kleeman, Tom McCrystal, Shirley Presley, and Waldo Jaquith all got votes for City Council. Write-ins for School Board included Andy Warhol, Bill Igbani, Dede Smith, Ho Chi Mama, and Karen Waters.

A quick glance at the numbers shows that the Schilling campaign's decision to encourage "single-shot" voting ("Vote for Rob and Rob alone") had an impact, but was not sufficient to overcome the Democratas traditional advantages. It looks like more than 1,700 Charlottesville voters chose to vote only for Schilling, with about 600 voting for Schilling and one of the other two candidates. (It will take a thorough examination of the Cast Vote Records -- snapshots of how each individual voter combined his or her voting choices -- to determine the precise numbers of single-shots.)

Speaking of single shots, in a letter to the editor published in Tuesday's edition of C-VILLE, Gene Fifer simultaneously insults elementary school teachers, musicians, property managers, entrepreneurs, web designers, and real estate salesmen. He does so in an efficiently-delivered, multipronged calumny directed at Councilor Schilling, who (Fifer asserts) "has never had to work a day in his life." Since Schilling has held all of those named jobs over the years, one can logically infer from Fifer's rhetoric that he believes nobody who does those jobs works hard for a living.

Tomorrow is the canvass, when the official election results will be certified. Now it is time for bed.

Jose, Can You See?

There's an old joke that goes something like this:

A visitor from Latin America attends his first major league baseball game in the United States. When he gets home, a friend asks him what it was like.

"Americans are so friendly and caring," he replied.

"Why do you say that?," his friend asks.

"Well, when I got to the baseball stadium, almost all the tickets were sold out. I was only able to get a seat in the top row of the highest set of bleachers. The baseball players looked like ants from that distance."

"So?," his friend remarks. "How does that make Americans friendly and caring?"

"Just before the game began, to my great delight, the whole crowd stood up and looked at me and sang, 'Jose, can you see?'"

I'm sure I am not the only person to remember that story -- which I swear I first heard in fifth or sixth grade -- during the current kerfuffle about whether the "Star-Spangled Banner" should be sung in Spanish. This has been Topic A of the blogosphere and talk radio, and it has even reached the nosebleed section of American politics: the White House and the U.S. Senate.

Last week, according to Saturday's Washington Post,

President Bush yesterday said "The Star-Spangled Banner" should be sung in English, not Spanish, and condemned plans by some immigrant groups to stage a work protest on Monday to sway the debate over the nation's immigration laws.

With passions running high over the release of "Nuestro Himno," a Spanish-language version of the national anthem, Bush told reporters that people who want to be citizens of the United States should learn English and "ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English."

Today in Congress, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), proposed a resolution that would prohibit the singing or recitation of the words to the "Star-Spangled Banner" in any language but English.

According to The Chattanoogan, a Tennessee newspaper, Alexander said in a floor speech:

“Mr. President, across the country today, thousands and thousands of immigrants – legal and illegal – are marching in a nationwide rally. Many are saying that they, too, want to be Americans.

“But, Mr. President, I’m afraid the message is, quite literally, getting lost in translation. As part of these demonstrations, a new version of our national anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner, has been produced – in Spanish.

“According to an article in the Washington Post last Friday, at least 389 different versions of our anthem have been produced over the years, in many musical styles, including rock and roll and country. But, the Post also noted, never before has it been rendered in another language."

I'm not sure who was wrong first -- The Post or Senator Alexander -- but that statement is simply, flat-out, factually wrong. There have been plenty of translations of the "Star-Spangled Banner" into other languages, and "Nuestro Himno" is not the first.

Let's just look at a few random Google hits.

There's a Scottish Gaelic translation of the song by Catherine McInnis, called "A' Bhratach Breacadh Nan Reul."

An article dating from 2002, entitled "The 4th of July - Polish-American Style" has this to say about Polish-American patriotic customs:

The vast majority of Polish Americans have celebrated the Fourth of July in various ways for generations. At times of heightened anti-Polish and general anti-foreign sentiment (late 19th/early 20th centuries), the occasion provided our immigrant ancestors with an opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty to their adopted American homeland. To this day, Polonians observe the Fourth of July by holding their own parish or club festivities as well as family picnics and outings. The Scranton, Pennsylvania-based Polish National Catholic Church holds a major annual Fourth of July celebration that begins with an open-air Holy Mass under a tent, followed by refreshments, folk-dance performances, music, games and other attractions for the entire family.

A fitting tribute to the occasion might be a Polish-American patriotic commemoration which could showcase the contributions of Kazimierz Pulaski and Tadeusz Kosciuszko to America's independence and honor other Polish-American soldiers who gave their lives in America's defense. Such an observance could include wreath-laying at Kosciuszko, Pulaski or Revolutionary War monuments or war memorials, a dual Polish and American flag-raising and the playing of both countries' national anthems. If your community has the choral capacity, an interesting twist might be the public performance of a Polish-language version of the "Star Spangled Banner."

The only known translation of the American national anthem into Polish was the work of Chicago lawyer and life-long Polish National Alliance activist, Walery J. Fronczak (1893-1886)[Note: I think this should read 1893-1986 -- RS]. The text, published by Chicago's Polish-language "Relax" magazine (March 28, 1987) and reprinted in Wojciech Bialasiewicz's "W kregu Chicagowskiej Polonii", went as follows:

Gwiazdzisty Sztandar
O, czy widzisz Ty - wczesny swit spedza mrok.
Sztandar, co duma nas napawal przy zorz sklonie
I czarem swych barw, gwiazd, gdy go przez wa_ strzegl wzrok,
Lsnia, chociaz krwawy boj nikl w wieczora oslonie?
Przez cala noc ryk dzial, i blysk rakiet wiesc slal,
ze jeszcze ten nasz pelen sily znak stal.
O, czy gwiazdzisty sztandar powiewa jak wprzod,
Kedy wzrosl wolny kraj, gdzie wzniosl dom dzielny lud?

O, niech tak bedzie wciaz, gdy stanie wolny lud,
By uchronic swoj kraj od zniszczen wojny, glodu!
Niech z niebios laska kraj triumf swieci przez trud,
Niechaj slawi te Moc, ktora Stra__ Narodu.
W proch pasc musi nasz wrog.
Bo prawa bronim drog.
To haslo tkwi w nas:
"Wiara! Z nami wciaz Bog!"
O, niech gwiazdzisty sztandar powiewa jak wprzod,
Kady wzrosl wolny kraj, gdzie wzniosl dom dzielny lud.

And at a very interesting web site called "NationalAnthems.us Online Forum," one finds translations into Swedish, Indonesian, Finnish, German, and even Esperanto.

On the same site, you can find a facsimile of an original Yiddish translation dating to 1943, and a facsimile of the sheet music for a Spanish version dating to 1919! At least two German translations can be traced to the Civil War -- and somehow I can't imagine President Lincoln tut-tutting about German soldiers fighting for the Union who wanted to sing "O! sagt, könnt ihr seh'n."

Ignorance does not mix well with xenophobia, though the two far too often walk hand in hand.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

During a floor debate on immigration on April 6, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) -- perhaps inspired by the Dada exhibition at the National Gallery of Art -- waxed poetic on the existential realities of the World's Greatest Deliberative Body. I have taken a few liberties by turning his words into blank verse, but (aside from one ellipsis) this is what he said, which can be found in the pages of the Congressional Record:

Mr. President, I will say a few words.
I wasn't planning on saying anything,
but I think I must say something.

Mr. President, no matter how many times I call this lectern a car,
it does not matter,
this is not a car.
This is a lectern,
used here in the Senate for us
to put our papers on
and deliver a speech.
This is not a car.
If I come to the Senate floor and,
day after day,
hour after hour,
call this a car,
it is not a car.
It is a lectern.

If I come to this Senate floor
day after day
and say
what the Democrats have done is unusual,
unwarranted,
unbelievable,
it is wrong,
it is as wrong as this lectern
being called a car....

I know people feel that this lectern is a chair,
but it is not.
This is the Senate.

(Hat tip to The Washington Post's "In the Loop" columnist Al Kamen, who read this speech in an impeccably deadpan tone on WTWP Radio yesterday afternoon.)

London in the Rain

My last full day in London was drizzly and overcast -- undeniably English weather. Of course, a little rain never stops anyone from walking the streets of London, or enjoying an afternoon in the park.

My hotel was not far from the Marble Arch tube station and its eponymous arch

A short walk from Marble Arch is the famed Speaker's Corner at Hyde Park, where people literally stand on soapboxes to have their say to whomever might listen. The speakers I saw that day were mostly Marxists (www.marxist.com?) and Muslims.

As explained at SpeakersCorner.net, "Speakers Corner has been a place of assembly for those battling for their rights since the middle of the 19th Century. It was here that the Chartists, the Reform League, the May Day demonstrators and the Suffragettes held many of their greatest battles, tens of millions have assembled here and many have won reforms!"

Hyde Park is not short of attractions, as you can see.

This statue of Peter Pan in Hyde Park doesn't quite match the image we remember from Mary Martin, Cathy Rigby, or (especially) Jeremy Sumpter.

London at Night

More photos from my recent trip to London. There's not a lot you can do with a camera at night, but there are some pretty bright lights in the West End.

The statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus

At the Piccadilly Theatre (in Denman Street, where I first lived in London almost 20 years ago), a new production of Guys and Dolls ...

... from another angle ...

... and as the audience files out to grab a taxi or a pedicab

The signage may be high-tech these days, but the effect of the bright lights of Piccadilly Circus is much the same as it was in the 1940s ...

... but things go better with Sanyo (or is that Coke?)

Images of Sunny London

A weekend in London is such a disappointment -- but only because it is so short.

My top choices for musicals to see -- Billy Elliot and Mary Poppins -- were sold out (and are sold out, months in advance). I tried to see Hay Fever with Dame Judi Dench, but she was ill and the performance was canceled. So I saw Guys and Dolls, in a new production from the Donmar Warehouse at the Piccadilly Theatre. (Full review to follow.) This was the first time I have ever seen Guys and Dolls on stage, although I was in the show in high school and I have known the score backwards and forwards for almost 30 years.

The weather in London was lovely in that way that London has: drizzly Friday, sunny Saturday, rainy Sunday, and then sunny again on Monday morning, when I had to leave.

Here are some images of London, more or less random, reflecting the sunny Saturday of my whirlwind trip.

The view from my room in The Leonard Hotel, looking north into Old Quebec Street

Westminster Cathedral, whose Byzantine style seems to belong more to Venice than to England . . .

. . . especially this campanile

Up the street from the Catholic cathedral is the Anglican Westminster Abbey . . .

. . . with its statue of St. George, high upon a pedestal

Just beyond the Abbey is the Palace of Westminster, seat of the British Parliament . . .

. . . which makes it a natural magnet for anti-war protesters, just like Lafayette Park in Washington

In the center of the theatre district is Leicester Square; in the center of Leicester Square is a statue of William Shakespeare; makes sense.

London Calling 2

I arrived in London early Friday morning after a flight that was a bit longer than expected. By strange coincidence, my initial seatmate was a fellow Charlottesvillian -- a French teacher from William Monroe High School in Greene County, who was chaperoning a group of 14 students on a trip to London and Paris. She explained that their original flight was canceled (or for some reason their seats were unavailable) and they had to wait six hours to catch the next one, which was mine. That may explain why the 777 was packed to the gills.

Today was all client meetings, not much time for fun. We did have lunch at a nice restaurant, La Genova, and dinner at an even nicer one, Matsuri St. James's. (Odd how nobody traveling to London chooses to eat English food.)

The weather here has been lovely and Londonish all day long -- mostly overcast with a steady drizzle. Ah, home!

Despite what the posting time says (below), it's actually 12:48 a.m. here. And it's Saturday, April 8. My birthday ended almost an hour ago.

But a shout-out to my college friend, Tony Mallerdino of Chicago, who celebrates his own birthday today!

London Calling

Tomorrow is my birthday, so I've decided to spend the weekend in London to get a theatre fix. (It helps that I have to go there for a few business meetings.)

I plan to see at least two shows, if not three. I'm not sure which ones, but I'm hoping to see at least one from among Stephen Daldry's Billy Elliot, Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls, or Walt Disney's Mary Poppins. There's also a fringe play I might see Sunday evening if the timing is right.

Full report to come upon my return.

Payback Is a Bitch

The names of two of the "mad bombers" of the Albemarle County government schools have been revealed by the Daily Progress. One of the boys, who was found guilty of conspiracy charges, has a curious link to the schools in the past.

Alan Newsom, a 15-year-old football player and one-time missionary to Uganda with no criminal record, successfully sued the Albemarle County School Board in asserting his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and of expression. He did this when he was a student at Jack Jouett Middle School and a teacher ordered him to take off an NRA t-shirt. (Alan engaged in target practice at the Rivanna Rifle and Pistol Club but otherwise did not use guns.) Support for the Second Amendment is not popular among government school administrators, who are among the whiniest liberals one can find.

To top it off, the Albemarle schools were embarrassed by receiving a 2004 Muzzle Award from the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression:

In 2002, while enrolled in the sixth grade at Jack Jouett Middle School in Albemarle County, Virginia, twelve-year-old Alan Newsom attended a weekend shooting sports camp sponsored by the National Rifle Association. Among the topics taught at the camp was gun safety. As a souvenir of the experience, Alan took home a t-shirt which depicted three silhouettes of men holding firearms superimposed on the letters "NRA" and positioned above the phrase "Shooting Sports Camp." In April 2002, Alan wore the t-shirt to school. During the lunch period, an assistant principal approached Alan and gave him the choice of removing the shirt or wearing it inside out. Alan chose the latter course. Although at the time there was nothing in the school's written dress code policy that prohibited clothing depicting weapons, it was the assistant principal's opinion that the shirt was inappropriate for a middle school setting. According to Alan, the shirt elicited little response from other students until he was forced to wear it inside out. "It was really embarrassing," said Alan. The assistant principal later acknowledged that the only disruption caused by the shirt that day was the time she had to take away from her other duties to discuss the inappropriateness of the shirt with Alan.

When Alan's father learned of the incident and the embarrassment it caused his son, he contacted the NRA. On Alan's behalf, the NRA wrote the school in May asking it to reconsider its position on the shirt and apologize to Alan. Rather than do either, the school instead revised its dress code policy to prohibit messages on clothing relating to "drugs, alcohol, tobacco, weapons, violence, sex, vulgarity...." Believing his son had been wrongly singled out and deserved an apology, Alan's father, represented by legal counsel for the NRA, filed suit on Alan's behalf in U.S. District Court. The suit included the Albemarle School Board among the defendants and alleged that the new 2002-2003 dress code policy was unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The district court denied a subsequent request to issue a preliminary injunction. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision, however, finding that there was a strong likelihood that Alan would prevail if the case went to trial. The Court of Appeals described the 2002-2003 policy as "practically limitless" in finding that it "excludes a broad range and scope of symbols, images, and political messages that are entirely legitimate and even laudatory." The Court noted that among the images that could be banned under the policy was the State Seal of Virginia for its depiction of a woman holding a spear and standing with one foot on the chest of a vanquished tyrant. The Court also noted the irony that Albemarle County High School (located across the street from Jack Jouett Middle School) uses the image of a patriot armed with a musket as its school mascot.

In awarding this Muzzle, the Thomas Jefferson Center is not insensitive to the difficult task that public school administrators face in preventing disruption of the school day. Decisions often must be made on the spur of the moment and that understandably may reflect errors in judgment. As such, the Center recognizes that school officials must enjoy a limited degree of discretion in making decisions about student expression.

Such discretion, however, is not absolute. Public school dress code policies should be drafted in a manner that minimizes the possibility of arbitrary enforcement by school administrators. Despite the fact the text of the 2002-2003 dress code policy extended to images such as the State Seal and the Albemarle County High School's mascot, it was clear that school administrators intended to disregard the policy text when it came to these and other "appropriate" depictions of weapons. Yet, the images on Alan Newsom's t-shirt were entirely lawful and non-disruptive, particularly when viewed in the context of the words "NRA" and "Shooting Sports Camp." Moreover, when an error is made in applying a dress code policy, it should be acknowledged rather than defended as a legitimate exercise of school authority. To date, the Albemarle County School Board has refused to apologize to Alan Newsom and thereby earns a 2004 Jefferson Muzzle.

It should be noted that none of the four students -- the others were two 13-year-olds and a 16-year-old -- were found guilty of any crime against persons or property. They did not actually blow anything up. They did not shoot anyone. They did not even hit anyone or steal someone's lunch.

They were all convicted of "conspiracy," which means all they did was talk about something that could be construed as a criminal act. And what they seem to have talked about -- the court proceedings being closed to press and public -- is a fantasy about blowing up a school building.

Put four people in a room to talk about a fantasy like that, have one of them type up their thoughts and turn it into a script, then put it on television, and you give them million-dollar contracts and an Emmy award. (Does anyone watch "24"?)

When one person has a fantasy about a crime, it remains personal. Unless, of course, he writes it down and publishes a book. Then he ends up like Dashiell Hammett or Mickey Spillane.

But when two people share a fantasy about a crime, that becomes a conspiracy. "Conspiracy" is a phony charge. It's what prosecutors reach for when they do not have enough evidence to sustain a conviction on an actual crime. Conspiracy charges are to the law what magic incantations are to ju-ju: Simply saying the words triggers the crime.

"Conspiracy" that involves crimes that are never realized (that is, never committed) should not by itself be a crime. Such a charge is simply a tool of intimidation for overzealous prosecutors.

After browbeating by police and the Commonwealth's Attorney -- who view sexy crimes like this as a real feather in their caps -- any teenager will buckle under pressure. And that's how four fresh-faced teenagers get sent to prison until they're 21 years old.

I can just imagine one of them facing his first job interview after being released.

"So," says the potential employer, "what kind of extracurricular activities did you do in high school?"

"Um, none, sir."

"Why not?"

"I didn't go to high school."

"And what have you been doing for the past eight years?"

"I've been living with gang members and drug dealers and boys who molested their sisters -- but in prison, they molested me instead."

"Do you have any skills?"

"Well, I can turn a toothbrush into a shiv. I'm adept at hiding contraband in bodily orifices. And the boys on my cell block voted me 'fellator of the year' three out of the last four years."

"That's all very interesting, but I'm sorry, son, you have no education, no experience, and a criminal record. I can't hire someone like you."

I do not think it is a coincidence that one of the "conspirators" accused by the schools of wanting to detonate a schoolhouse is someone who openly challenged the authority of the school system, and who won because he was right.

Having Alan Newsom arrested and ruining his life sends a strong signal to other students: "Don't rock the boat. Don't assert your First Amendment rights. Follow instructions, don't look to the right or the left, don't be creative or show initiative. Students are sheep and government schools are the shepherd."

The arrest of Alan Newsom, and his conviction on flimsy evidence (the police removed "firecrackers" from his father's gun safe-- this is supposed to blow up a school?) is clearly meant to create a chilling effect against future uppity students who think they know more about the Constitution than school administrators do.

I am sure that I will be criticized by those who claim to know more about the case than I do. But if there really were convincing evidence that an actual crime was committed, or was about to be committed, the prosecutors would have made that public. They did not. What exactly do they have to hide?

Karen Hospital Opens Near Nairobi

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki was the featured speaker on Friday at the official opening of the Karen Hospital, described by the East African Standard newspaper as "a 102-bed private medical facility linked to his personal doctor Dr Dan Gikonyo." The Kenya Broadcasting Corporation reported that "other speakers included Health Minister Charity Ngilu who thanked President Kibaki for increasing her ministry's budget by 30 percent, the hospital's Chief Executive Dr. Betty Gikonyo and Deputy Chief Executive Mr. James Mageria."

Dr. Daniel Gikonyo, mentioned in the Standard's story, is a U.S.-educated (University of Minnesota) cardiologist who teaches at the University of Nairobi. Although he would be loathe to take credit, he was the guiding hand behind the Karen Hospital, the first new hospital built in Kenya since the colonial era. (Kenya gained independence from Britain on December 12, 1963.)

If you've seen the movie, Out of Africa, you know where Karen is -- it's the Nairobi suburb where Danish writer Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) lived and worked.

I had an opportunity to take a private tour of the Karen Hospital when I was in Nairobi in January, and I snapped a few pictures. This was the first time I ever had visited a hospital before it was open. Beds were still covered in plastic wrap and there was a pervasive aroma of fresh paint throughout the facility.

But nothing describes the Karen Hospital more than "impressive." It has state-of-the-art equipment, including MRI and CT-scan machines. It is especially well-equipped for treating diseases of the heart.

Here are a few of the photos I took while the hospital staff was preparing it for opening in January:

Main Entrance to The Karen Hospital



The Karen Hospital's Emergency Room Entrance



A CT-Scan Unit at the Karen Hospital near Nairobi



The Karen Hospital Has No Stairs, Just Ramps -- But It Has Plenty of Natural Light



A New Hospital Bed, Still Wrapped in Plastic



I'm Not a Doctor, So I Don't Know What This Is -- But It Looks Impressive, Doesn't It?



This Is a Nurses' Station



A Private Patient's Room



Another View of the Karen Hospital's Front Entrance

50,000

I wasn't paying attention when it happened, but yesterday this blog had its 50,000th visitor -- a milestone by any standard. (Still, I would have preferred it had come sooner.) This notable visitor found me because he (or she) was curious about the circumstances of the assassination attempt on the late Pope John Paul II.

It was no coincidence that yesterday, April 2, was the first anniversary of Pope John Paul's death and will, barring unforeseen circumstances, likely become the day in which St. John Paul the Great will be commemorated in the Roman church calendar.

Here's how visitor #50,000 looked on Site Meter:


So, if you live in Paradise Valley, Arizona, and you visited this blog on Sunday, I would like to hear from you. It would be nice to know who Number 50,000 is.