Marc Fisher

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Potomac Confidential
With Marc Fisher
Post Metro Columnist
Thursday, March 6, 2003; Noon ET

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.

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.

The 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.

Marc Fisher: Good dreary day, friends. As we dive headlong into war, visions of retaliation and terror remain high in many minds. Today's column continues our conversation about whether it makes more sense to prepare for an attack or to sally forth. The Sunday column visited pro- and anti-war demonstrations downtown and found no one speaking to the conflicted majority of Americans who accept that Saddam is very bad but wonder why this is the right moment and whether we have a strong handle on what would happen after a war.
The Maryland slots show continues to surprise and delight politics fans. Gov. Ehrlich's late night release of his new plan has all sides puzzled and plain skeptical that any slots plan can pass this year.
The District has now made its support known for the New York Avenue baseball stadium site--an unfortunate choice that falls well short of the splendid opportunities posed by the two downtown sites on the initial list.
Let's hear what's on your minds (we're starting and ending just a few minutes early today.)

Mean Streets of Washington, D.C.: Great column about the FRS emergency radio network. My personal experience on Sept. 11, 2001 leads me to believe that cell phone service is probably the least reliable form of communication in an emergency. It will probably only be worse next time there is a mass panic because government officials now have priority codes that will clear a space for their call on a cellular network by dumping an call in progress by a "non-priority" user. My cynical prediction is that telemarketers start broadcasting add over to FRS radios when they figure out that everyone has them on!

Marc Fisher: Thanks. I hope you're wrong about businesses leaping onto those Family Radio frequencies--the FCC specifically prohibits any business use of the FRS radios and so far, they seem to be used as intended, by families talking to one another--parents checking up on kids and the like.

Emergency radio network ... : The Family Radio Service is not the proper place for an emergency radio network. There already is an emergency network run by individual ham radio clubs. The amateur radio community trains with emergency personnel and are equipped with radios that can get at least five miles on their own and half-way around the world with powerful antennas.

If you'd like to be a part of an emergency radio network: get a ham license and join a club. Leave the FRS frequencies open for the families.

Marc Fisher: Ah, but hams need licenses and more expensive equipment. Hams provide invaluable services during disasters by keeping emergency workers in touch with other agencies and with the public at large. But these two-way radios would serve a different purpose--keeping neighbors and friends in touch with each other so they can pass along information if the power and cell phones go out. FRS radios, because they are cheap and don't require a license, have far more potential to create that sort of informal network.

Washington, D.C.: Hi Marc,

Thank you for sharing the benefits of two-way radios in emergencies. While FRS is useful and available to a wide range of people, you might also want to consider a column on amateur radio sometime.

Amateur radio operators (also known as Hams) regularly hold regional on-air networks to specifically practice relaying messages. This gives the amateur the opportunity to pass messages efficiently, but also how to be a part of a well-run net, both vital in providing fast communication of information. They were a big help in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

They practice these skills by providing communications for marathons, charity walks, and other public events. They hope that disaster communications are never needed, but feel confident that, should something occur, they can step in and do what's needed. During the recent large snowstorm, two amateurs packed up sleeping bags and food, and spent two days at the National Weather Service, in Sterling, Va., taking information provided via radio and relaying it to the meteorologists.

One does need a license to operate on the amateur frequencies, but the entry level license is not difficult to obtain, and does not require knowledge of Morse Code, a signal that is far reaching and does not require any special equipment. The radios are 5 watts, and have a wider coverage area. They reach repeaters, which re-transmit low-power signals over an even wider area (like, from West Virginia to the Bay Bridge). For more info, check out Northern Virginia Traffic Net, Amateur Radio Association, or Virginia Races">Northern Virginia Traffic Net, Amateur Radio Association, or Virginia Races.

Marc Fisher: Many thanks for the info--the more hams, the merrier. But as I said above, different frequencies for different purposes.

Herndon, Va.: Mr. F: Well, you sure hit a nerve with your comments about slots and horse racing in Maryland. Post columnist Andrew Beyer did everything but accuse you of being a horse hater. I'm on your side -- if the horse tracks can't stand on their own, then good-bye. If fans quit going to see the Ravens, can Modell demand slots at the stadium? Of course he already got a sweetheart deal from the state government. By the way, I also agree horse doesn't taste half bad -- better than dog, anyway -- and no, I'm neither a horse or dog hater.

Marc Fisher: I have heard from some horse lovers who really didn't like my line about trying horse steak, but I've heard from far more people who don't understand why it's in the state's interest to subsidize the horse industry.
And Ehrlich's latest move--cutting the proposed flow of money from slots to schools in order to give a larger share of the profits to race tracks--seems destined to further reduce his plan's chances of passage.

Rockville, Md: So, it didn't even take a year for Gov. Ehrlich to renege on his plan to use slot machine money to finance part of the public education plan in Maryland. Perhaps he'll find a way to use the money not just for race track owners but for private, religious schools as well. Didn't it seem too easy to rely on people's greed and desire to fund public education? If he continues on this path, I see him voting for another Republican candidate in 2006.

Marc Fisher: Well, he hasn't entirely reneged on the slots for schools plan, he's just reduced the percentage of the take that would flow to the schools. But you're right, he has handled this whole situation rather haphazardly and he is already paying a considerable political price. The row over the rejection of his environment secretary has its own issues, but it's also a reflection of the governor's overall political weakness--which has been demonstrated most powerfully on the slots issue.

Alexandria, Va.: Marc, who would win if the Maryland governor's election were held today? Do you think that the school children will ever see any money from slots? The voters were blinded by a smile and a two-word slogan: "Slot Machines!" and expected that all their budgetary troubles would disappear. I can certainly sympathize. In Virginia it took three words to do the trick: "No Car Tax!" Next time you enter the voting booth, folks, I recommend the following mantra: "There is no free lunch, there is no free lunch, there is no free lunch." Repeat until sanity is restored.

Marc Fisher: Quite true. Virginians showed that perhaps they had learned their lesson about excessive tax cutting zeal by electing Mark Warner, who unfortunately has not shown the courage necessary to roll back the mistakes of the Gilmore years.
In Maryland, however, it was interesting and somewhat encouraging that Ehrlich last night actually used the T word, saying he'd be open to tax hikes if this slots fantasy does not come true by some miracle in the next couple of weeks.

Laurel, Md.: Marc,

Was on vacation last week when slots were dicussed. I have strong feelings on both sides of this issue -- was a racing fan until the quality of Maryland's sport deteriorated because it couldn't compete with Delaware and West Virginia; on the other hand, I'm concerned about the possible deterioration of my home town (see address above) by introducing more gambling.

Anyway, one point I want to make about slots. They're sometimes called "the crack cocaine of gambling" because they're something to which new gamblers become quickly addicted. Part of the reason is that slots are played with small amounts of money, making it cheap to place one bet, and depend on volume to produce revenue.

But there's one other factor about modern slot machines that I think is pretty insidious -- they present a deliberately deception image to the player of being a better bet than they are. Most machines have three reels with 22 spots -- 11 blanks alternated with 11 symbols. A popular machine called "Double Diamond" includes two each of single bar, double bar, triple bar, seven, and Double Diamond (a wild card that doubles the payoff) and one cherry. But these symbols do NOT have the same probability of coming up!

Slot machines in the pre-computer age used the reels themselves as a primitive random number generator. Modern ones have a computerized one, whose outcomes are "mapped" into the 22 possible reel-spots. But the mapping is NOT uniform. Good symbols (like Double Diamond) do not have the same probability of occuring as does any individual blank space. Further, the actual probabilities of the symbols are not shared with the public. They are shared with the Gaming Commission, who has to approve the machine.

Using the reel layouts from a slot computer game I own (whose documentation claims to accurately represent the machine) I calculated that if Double Diamond's reels were fair, the pay ratio (the average return on a wager) would be about 250 percent. Obviously, no slot machine returns 2.5 times as much as it takes in.

The effect of this non-randomness is to make the game look to the player as if he's closer to getting a good hit than is actually true. The "blank" below a wild card might come up twice as often as the wild card itself, creating the illusion that the player is frequently just a little off from hitting something. I think that if slot machines were required to give each reel-spot an equal probability, payoff tables would have to be adjusted downward, and slots would lose almost all their popularity for the best of possible reasons -- a better-informed public would not be presented false illusions about the degree of unfavorability.

Marc Fisher: Thanks for that edifying post--I have never understood why the gambling public is so willing to accept that computerized slots are as random as the old mechanical ones were. Watching those video images "spin" provides no sense that there is an equal chance of the bars or cherries lining up as there is of landing on nada. And as you say, it's just not true that each combination has an equal chance of appearing on the victory line.

Washington, D.C.: What do you think about the apparent decision to eliminate the baseball stadium site closest to Union Station from consideration, simply because people don't want to close one street (New Jersey Avenue)? That seems stupid to me -- as you have pointed out, it's pretty clearly the best site (close to Metro, downtown, and will spur growth in the area) and now we're going to spend hundrends of millions of dollars to put a stadium somewhere it may not succeed and won't lead to surrounding development, just because one street would have otherwise been closed? Ugh -- such shortsightedness!

Marc Fisher: This decision to eliminate the best stadium site simply because of fears of opposition to closing a block of New Jersey Avenue NW is sad and indefensible. That site, just behind Gonzaga High School and north of Mass Ave., is the perfect opportunity to extend downtown's retail, office and residential mix to the north and east. The site preferred by the mayor--near New York and Florida avenues--is simply too much of a jump from existing development to expect that downtown will flow into that neighborhood.
There is (or will be) good transit at the New York Avenue site, but the street traffic there is a mess already. And there is no opportunity for ancillary growth to the west (New York Avenue bridge) or to the north (already developed industrial/office/residential).
It's a bad decision.

Ex-DCer in Philadelphia: Marc,

I actually like the New York Ave. stadium idea, and I dispute your notion that it's not "downtown." It's an area which is easily accessible by public transportation (of multiple sorts, including the MARC Camden line), the space is there for serious economic development, and I can't imagine the views over the jumbotron being all that bad (unless they screw it up and turn it the wrong way).

Marc Fisher: The only room for development from that site is south toward Union Station, and the ATF headquarters is already going in just south of the proposed ballpark site. I have a friend who walks up that way from Union Station every day and she says there's already a growing number of pedestrians and businesses, but it's still a pretty desolate area, and it's hard to imagine that people would walk from there down to the East End and its restaurants and clubs. A stadium should extend downtown gently in a new direction, like San Francisco's has so successfully. This site is just too far away to do that.

Wheaton, Md.: I've lived in the area for almost 10 years, Marc. And everyone I know pronounces the road I live near "VEERS Mill Road." But today I rode on the Wheaton Metro's new escalator (which now talks to you) and when we reached the bottom, the voice said "Level one, VIRES Mill Road."

Does the elevator have information we don't? Have we all been pronouncing it wrong for all these years? And how the heck do you spell this road, anyway? I've seen signs for both "Viers Mill Road" and "Veirs Mill Road."

Marc Fisher: VIRES is new to me. I've always heard VEERS. And the proper spelling is Viers.
Any VIRES fans out there who can argue otherwise?

Arlington, Va.: Washington, D.C. -- the town that likes its memories short and its hypocrisy thick.

I wish I could be feel less skeptical over such a critical issue, but it seems that kneejerk politics (as opposed to politics in the elevated sense of the word as a forum for mediating and accomodating interests) best explains current reactions to the war. Those on the left who are rallying around the slogan "war is never the answer" marched lockstep behind Bill Clinton when he sent U.S. troops to bring about regime change in Haiti. Similarly, the Republicans supporting the war, in part due to the evil nature of the Iraqi regime, are the same lot who screamed and whined that "it's none of our business" when Clinton browbeat NATO into confronting Slobodan Milosevic over his genocidal policies in Kosovo.

Absent in all of this is an intelligent debate over the responsible and effective use of military power as a means for achieving a more stable international community.

Marc Fisher: Very good observations. Pretty much all of the most important questions in this whole situation have been left on the wayside--what happens after the war, why does Bush II so disdain the sort of diplomatic niceties that Bush I took so seriously before the Gulf War, what will the next moves be in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after Saddam is gone, why isn't it important to achieve buy-in from Turkey, Europe, Russia, etc?

Los Angeles, Calif.: What was your opinion of Colin Powell trying to tell the world that Saddam was tricking them into not going along with Bush? The part about Saddam trying to split the Security Council was so contrived I blushed. Does Bush realize that the rest of the world is educated? He needs to work on his spin approach, as it is too hokey for words. YOUR OPINION?

Marc Fisher: I don't entirely agree with Powell's view on that, but I think it is remarkably shortsighted and selfish on the part of the Germans and the French to have revved up this war of words against the U.S. initiative when it was at least possible that a united rhetorical front over the past six or eight months could have helped push the Arab countries into helping to press Saddam from power without a war.

Arrested for Wearing a T-Shirt??: Where is the buzz on the guy arrested for wearing an anti-war t-shirt in upstate New York? This is unbelievable to me, and I can't believe there's nothing in the Post about it.

Marc Fisher: News to me. Anyone know anything on this?

Washington, D.C.: Doesn’t this proposed World Trade Center with its remnant of the ground zero pit have the appearance of an open wound? Here in the capital we’ve rebuilt the Pentagon and long ago when the British burned Washington all the damaged buildings were rebuilt or razed. The New York approach bespeaks a culture of victims, but whose culture is it?

Marc Fisher: No, I find Daniel Libeskind's building design for the WTC site to be interesting and even moving (though highly derivative of his Berlin Jewish museum), but the most effective part of his plan is indeed maintaining that retaining wall from the old World Trade Center. That's not celebrating victimhood, but rather preserving memory. It promises to be as powerful as the bombed out remains of the Frauenkirche in Dresden or the similar war ruins that have been left standing in Nagasaki and Berlin. And yes, the Pentagon was quickly and appropriately rebuilt, but a memorial will be placed directly in front of where the plane hit.

Olney, Md.: In case there are any Metro workers lurking on this chat, can they PLEASE work to finish clearing the snow from the Metro parking garages? At Glenmont, there are at least 20 parking spots that are still piled with snow and taking valuable spots from a garage that regularly fills before 7:30!

Thanks!

Marc Fisher: It is amazing how many mini-mountains of snow remain in parking lots and on streets throughout the area. This week's warm weather has taken care of some of them, but those big loads could survive a few more weeks without some help from plows and trucks.

Crystal City, Va.: After reading the letter from Metro in last week's Post, I have even less confidence in their leadership. Evidently service for the 10,000 fools who ventured out into the storm was more important than service for the 500-800,000 who were stranded by Metro on Wednesday/Thursday/Friday. Still nothing from Metro about refunding the rush-hour fares charged for less than rush-hour service. Who do we talk to about cleaning house at Metro and starting over?

Marc Fisher: You can talk to your local elected officials who sit on Metro's board. You'll find a list at www.wmata.com
Don't hold your breath for any refunds--ain't gonna happen.

Arlington, Va.: Marc -- tell me I was imagining things. This morning when my alarm was going off, I thought I heard a news report that said the powers that be were considering shutting down Gravelly Point and other parks near National's flight path ... but I've seen or heard nothing about it in the paper. Was I dreaming an awful dream or is this true? And if it IS true ... whose stupid idea was this? Thanks!

Marc Fisher: I heard something along those lines on the radio, but don't have any details. Anyone?

Del Ray, Va.: I have a question about the viability of an evacuation of the city in the case of emergency. Is it one little bit realistic to think that we can all get to our supposedly designated evacatuation spots that we're supposed to be picking out? I think that telling people to make sure they find a place they can go is insane. Even on Sept. 11 the gridlock getting out of the city was amazing, and that wasn't nearly everyone trying to go. Isn't it more realistic to just make your way home if at all possible?

Marc Fisher: Basically, your best plan is going to be to stay put wherever you are, because as you say, the steets will be jammed solid. It took much of the day on 9/11 to evacuate the city, and in that case, there was no real rush to exit town, just a lot of folks trying to get home to their kids or spouses. The good news is that there was no panic that day, but rather a very orderly and generally polite and helpful vibe on the streets. The bad news is that it's just wishful thinking to expect to be able to leave the city promptly in the event of an Event.

D.C. native living in Durham NC: Great column today, Marc. I wish I had known about the possibilities of a FRS neighborhood network earlier this winter. It would have come in quite handy with the massive ice storms we suffered through (and days and days of now power). I've passed the link on to my neighborhood association here in Durham and hope it grows wings here, too.

BTW, Cleveland Park was my old neighborhood in D.C. -- one of the few places I've actually loved living in.

Marc Fisher: Thanks--it'll be interesting to see how Bill Adler's citywide test goes a week from Sunday.

Alexandria, Va.: The guy arrested for wearing an anti-war T-shirt:

He's an attorney. He had the shirt made in a mall in N.Y. and wore it around the mall. It said "peace on earth" and "give peace a chance". Security got called and asked him to remove his shirt. He refused and got arrested for trespassing.

By the way, he's the chief attorney for the Commission on Judical Conduct in Albany, N.Y.

Marc Fisher: Oh, that's bad. But that's an easy case and the cops who made the arrest will be reamed out for embarrassing the city and the attorney will get to go on TV and have a whale of a time for a couple of days.

Frauenkirche:
Of course, they're in the process of rebuilding the Frauenkirche. They're keeping as many of the old bricks as possible, but its no longer in ruins.

Marc Fisher: True, and that was an unfortunate decision. Seeing that ruin in the center of Dresden was a powerful reminder of what war really is.

Washington, D.C.: Does Ehrlich have some master plan that involved alienating all centrist voters in Maryland?

I thought it was really weird that the race was so close when he was so clearly out of touch with most Marylanders (a testament to his opponent's weakness, I suppose). Maryland seems to have a habit of this, though -- it reminded me of the Glendening/Sauerbrey race with all those 'undecideds,' when you had a clearly liberal and very conservative candidate to choose from - hello?

I wonder about our neighbors to the north.

Marc Fisher: My sense was that he figured slots would appeal to exactly that middle of the road voter, and maybe they do. But he failed to do the political ground work necessary before pushing forward with his proposal.

Arlington, Va.: For the record, Andrew Beyer didn't call you a horse-hater, he called you a hypocrite who stereotypes all people who enjoy recreational gambling as pathetic losers.

Marc Fisher: And that's quite an overstatement of my position. I do observe--and the marketing studies back me up--that slots attract a lot of people who really can't afford to be dumping their money into those machines. Full-blown casinos draw a much broader cross-section of society--and I have no problem with them. But for the government to balance its budget on the backs of the poor is simply reprehensible.

T-Shirt Arrest: Here's a summary by the smokinggun.com:

"A New York lawyer was arrested Monday night (3/3) and charged with trespassing at an Albany-area mall after he refused to remove a t-shirt with the slogan "Give Peace A Chance" that he had bought earlier that evening. Stephen Downs was sitting with his son in the food court of the Crossgates Mall in upstate Guilderland when he was approached by two security guards who directed him to either remove the shirt or leave the mall. When Downs refused to comply, the rent-a-cops called the local cops, who hauled Downs away in handcuffs. The 61-year-old attorney--who had purchased the offending shirt in the mall--was released on his own recognizance and is scheduled for a March 17 court appearance on the misdemeanor rap. Below you'll find the criminal complaint filed against Downs, followed by reports from the Guilderland police."

They sure are talking about this in other parts of the world...

Marc Fisher: Thanks for the summary. Perfect fodder for a segment of Bill O'Reilly's show, but really, not much of a story. It's a quick and easy outrage, a stupid move by bozo cops.

Washington, D.C.: Majority of reports on the Pledge of Allegiance controversy I've seen describe the court's decision as saying that the pledge was ruled unconstitutional. I thought that it was the organized (seen by some as coerced) recitation of the pledge by students was what was ruled as unconstitutional. People might still oppose that ruling, but I'm bothered if shortcut report leads to misrepresentation.

Marc Fisher: The original ruling did question the constitutionality of the "under God" portion of the pledge. The full appeals court scrapped that part of the ruling and concentrated, as you say, on the right of school systems to require kids to say the pledge.

Downtown D.C.: The ideal location for baseball would be downtown Baltimore.

Oh, wait ...

Marc Fisher: Yes, that is the ideal location--for a Baltimore team. And you know what? Philadelphia's team should be in Philadelphia. Which leads me to a conclusion about Washington's team--it should be in Washington.

Washington, D.C.: I agree that the New York Avenue site is not a good one, for the reasons you state -- and would emphasize that the NY-Fla-N. Capitol area is a horrible traffic mess that could only get worse with a stadium there.

Marc Fisher: Yes, though it's also important to note that baseball games don't interfere with rush hour traffic--games don't start til 8 in most cities, well after the evening rush has begin to thin out. And the ever-dwindling number of day games are almost exclusively on weekends.

Washington, D.C.: What about the older convention center? It's a great location and it's not needed anymore. Tear it down and put the stadium there! San Francisco did it with a small footprint.

Marc Fisher: That would have been a perfect solution had the city not allowed an office complex to go ahead immediately north of the old convention center. The old center's footprint is too small and the wrong shape for a ballpark, but with that patch just across New York Ave it might have been enough space.

College Park, Md.: It seems to me we, as Americans, should be considering the larger issue of our policies toward other countries. Why do we have to be the world's policeman? It seems to me a "hands off" policy toward other countries would go a long way toward lessening the hatred other people feel for us. We've gone from the country others want to emulate to the country others want to hate, and we need to consider why that is so. Our national defense should be just that -- to defend us against aggressors, and we need to stop being the aggressor. Why do we keep arguing over each fight instead of considering why we're doing all this in the first place?

Marc Fisher: That was the argument against going into Kosovo, and I agree that that problem should have been left to those same Europeans who are now claiming to know what's best. Certainly we have a greater interest in the Gulf region than we did in southeastern Europe. But you're right, this is the president who was elected on a platform of being more humble as a superpower. Obviously, 9/11 changed that, but it would nonetheless be good to remember why it was that Bush felt compelled in 2000 to urge humility upon us.

Wheaton, Md.: Marc, it was very interesting to compare the Post's editorial on the Maryland Environmental nominee with the Baltimore Sun. I was surprised the Post rolled over to Erlich's disasterous choice. The Sun points out how terrible a choice she is. And by the way -- I don't care that the cabinet choices have always been approved in Maryland -- that just shows a dereliction of duty by the Senate!

Marc Fisher: I don't pretend to know anything about our Editorial Board's decisions, but I think it's fair to say that most editorialists--like most legislators--generally believe that executives should be permitted to choose their own department heads, barring extreme cases of incompetence or corruption. This doesn't seem like such a case; rather, the Dems in Annapolis just have a wildly different philosophy about the environment than do Ehrlich and his enviro secretary. But Ehrlich made no bones in the campaign about being a pave-over-the-forests type. That's what the people wanted.

Washington D.C.: Re: T-shirt fiasco -- No, it's not the cops who are the bozos, it's the people running the mall that directed the cops to do the deed. I've always found it disturbing that for a country born from a revolution, so many people aren't willing to tolerate dissent.

Marc Fisher: Sure, the security guys and mall managers got the ball rolling, but police always have the discretion to make an arrest or not, and it's their role to enforce the law, not to make up new ones. You want to wear a shirt that says something on it, you can. It's as simple as that. You want to make this a more interesting case--put it in a school. Then you start to get into more subtle legal issues. But in a mall, there's just no question.

Burke, Va.: The Fairfax County Public Schools keep demanding more and more money. They say its to maintian a top notch education for the students. As a professor for 20 years formerly at Virginia Tech and now at GMU I have seen no difference in a student's abilities based on the county where they received their HS diploma. Students from Rockingham, Shendoah, Highland and Bath counties do just as well if not better than their counterparts from Fairfax. Sounds to me like propaganda from real estate agents and the teachers union.

Marc Fisher: Well, it's also the difference in the cost of living, the much larger number of children from homes where English is not spoken, the higher level of poverty requiring special services--running a semi-urban school system has a lot more costs. There are higher expectations as far as variety of programs--gifted, bilingual, magnets, etc.

D.C. - 20002: D.C. commuter tax -- most probably not going to happen politically, but GAO recently stated that commuters into D.C. cost D.C. an additional $3500 per commuter, and they pay an estimated $250 per commuter in D.C. taxes. If this is true, this would seem to be a pretty good argument for a commuter tax. The suburban jurisdictions are free to tax D.C. residents going there for work also.

Your thoughts?

Marc Fisher: Sure, a commuter tax makes sense, but as you say, it's not going to happen. Far more plausible is for the feds to direct a percentage of commuters' federal income tax to the District. But even that would be a huge political hurdle to overcome.

Falls Church, Va.: Marc -- How about doing a column on the Falls Church City school board's remarkably foolish proposal to stop allowing City students to attend Thomas Jefferson magnet school? The cost to the City is minimal when netted against the tuition the City charges to the out-of-City students who would readily fill the slots of the students departing for TJ. To have a facility like TJ available and not to take advantage of it is the height of irresponsibility.

Marc Fisher: See? People who pay high taxes to live in a densely populated metropolis expect--and deserve--a broader array of services, such as a top flight school like TJ.

Arlington, Va.: Arguments against the War state that we "can't be the world's policeman." But who can? The UN? Ask the relatives of the victims from Rwanda or Srebenica.

Many who oppose the current action claim that they are not unilaterally against any use of military force, but that Hussein "is no Hitler." My question to them is, at what point should we have confronted Hitler?

Marc Fisher: I was startled at the anti-war demo last weekend to find many people who said that it was right in the 1930s not to confront Hitler, that there is simply no justification ever to intervening before someone kills millions. Quite shocking to hear this from intelligent, thinking people.

Burke, Va.: THANK YOU for stating what we've all been thinking--that evacuating the city is just a ridulous notion. To anyone who doesn't believe it, think about your drive home on Halloween and multiply by 4. What do you think about the Red Cross advice to have 3 emergency kits: home, car, and office? (I'm still figuring out where to put my 3 days' of food at the office.)

Marc Fisher: No need to stock up. Most offices have loads of those wonderful orange cheez crackers tucked away in the backs of desk drawers. Should be enough to last a century or so.

Alexandria, Va.: Regarding shutting down the parks near National's flight path -- I heard on Channel 4 that the U.S. Park Police would be stepping up patrols of such parks and they were asking citizens to be alert. I heard nothing about shutting down the parks.

Marc Fisher: Thanks for the update.

Washington, D.C.: Re: The T-Shirt incident. This happened in my hometown so I've been following it. There is some question as to whether or not the people wearing the t-shirts were approaching mall patrons. Even if they were, the mall is looking very bad and is being accused of selective enforcement of their rules of "causing a disturbance." But the cops weren't at fault. They were called by mall security to arrest the t-shirt wearers for tresspassing after they refused to leave the mall. It was the mall management that used questionable judgement. Apparently now they have dropped the charges, but people are calling for additional protests, boycotts, etc.

Marc Fisher: That would be a different scenario. Malls are private property and have the right to restrict solicitation. The LaRouchies put that to the test in the 80s with their literature tables, but generally, malls have been very jealous of their authority to control behavior within their walls.

Marc Fisher: That wraps it up for this week. Thanks for coming along. Stay dry. Back next Thursday on this same bat-channel, and on Tuesday in the paper.

washingtonpost.com:

That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion.

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