Although the prognosis was positive a few months ago when Obama took office and the Democrats swept Congress, it looks like the quest for D.C. voting rights has been derailed once again.

Caught between a rock (the Ensign amendment that was tacked onto the bill and would have undermined the District’s gun control regulations) and a hard place (the ongoing slight to democracy that is D.C.’s lack of representation), Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton has decided to kill the D.C. House Voting Rights Act for now, according to City Desk.

In a statement to legislators and voting rights advocates, Norton said:

[T]he Majority Leader and I met on Friday afternoon to discuss our bill, a draft of a compromise gun amendment from his office, and other options for moving the voting rights bill to the House floor now.

We sent a memo summarizing the content of the meeting with the Majority Leader and of the compromise amendment and shared the memo before a conference call on Sunday with the bill’s major advocates whom we could reach, including the DC vote coalition. The conference call discussed in detail all of the options available to us at this time, none of which would result in the elimination of the Ensign amendment, as well as the split in opinion in the city about attaching a bill that carries a danger to public safety and elimination of the city’s authority over gun legislation. All agreed that there were good reasons to wait for now. Please understand that we are holding the bill for now, not giving up on voting rights.

Photo from Flickr user ellievanhoutte, used under a Creative Commons license.

Brace yourselves, it’s that time of year again…

With intern season officially upon us, it’s about time the local blogosphere came out with its annual anti-intern novelty blog (because what’s a D.C. summer if not a chance to hone your superiority complex?). Last year, it was the short-lived but stupendous M4Intern (“D.C.’s most common sexual preference”), a compilation of the best intern-directed Craigslist solicitations. This year it looks like the mantle will be taken up by Spotted: DC Summer Interns.

The blog got off to a rocky start, initially plagiarizing from the brilliant Look at My Striped Shirt! in its intro post, earning demerits from DCist (the intro has since been re-written), but it seems to have bounced back from the false-start by relying on crowdsourced intern call-outs.

Posts range from stories of unmerited self-importance (“Intern 1 to Intern 2: ‘Aren’t there places for staff like me to watch the House floor, you know, where I don’t have to sit with the general public?’”) to sartorial snark (“[T]he worst of all was the Skintern wearing a zebra print tank top, with soaking wet hair. I guess she spent so much time on her Friday-night-going-to-McFaddens-makeup that she didn’t have time to dry it?”) to tales of woeful ineptitude (“We asked an intern to summarize a book we received for the Member … The summary he turned in three days later was off the inside of the book’s jacket. Verbatim.”).

Of particular interest to Georgetown students, though, might be this post from yesterday afternoon:

People come from all over the country to work on the Hill, but a good chunk of Hill staffers attended college right here in the nation’s capital. Georgetown interns: yes, we all know your school is hot shit, and it goes without saying that Georgetown is the top name school in Washington, DC.

However, before proceeding to rip mercilessly on GW, AU, and CUA, you might want to do a little research to see if any of your superiors attended GW, AU, or CUA. There’s a good chance at least one if not a few of them did.

Photo from Flickr user jGregor, used under a Creative Commons license.

Fun Fact: Everyone in D.C. looks like this

In its annual American Fitness Index the American College of Sports Medicine reported that Washington, D.C is the healthiest city in the United States. The D.C./Alexandria/Arlington area ranked 1st on a list of the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan cities, beating out other top contenders like Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland.

The index takes into account a range of health and wellness factors: from fruit and vegetable consumption and exercise to the number of parks and doctors in each city. The Capital area’s full report scored a total of 74.4, buoyed by a physically active population with relatively low levels of obesity (21.5%), diabetes (6.6%) and smoking (13.7%). The District also has a high percentage of parkland to city area (19.4%) and health insurance coverage (89.7%).  According to the report, the major area D.C. could improve on is parkland per capita (whether that be dog parks, playgrounds or golf courses).

On a related note: it looks like Georgetown’s doing its part to contribute to a healthier city, recently winning the gold status designation from the American Heart Association for its GUWellness program.

Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla., left) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio,right), totally more qualified to make laws for D.C. than people elected by D.C. residents

Just a few weeks after the D.C. Council almost unanimously passed a bill recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) introduced the “D.C. Defense of Marriage Act” yesterday, which would define marriage in D.C. as “a union of one man and one woman.” The bill has thirty co-sponsors, including one Democrat besides Boren.

So what are the bill’s chances of success? According to an aside in the Politco article on it, not so hot, thankfully:

It’s not clear if there’s any legislative vehicle for the anti-gay-marriage bill or whether Democrats would even allow a vote on the measure.

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), for one, seems skeptical about the bill’s prospects. When asked about the bill, Norton’s spokesperson said her May 5th statement—”I do not believe a serious attempt to overturn the council bill will be made or would be successful”—still stands.

Progress!

It’s been a big week for same-sex marriage. On Friday, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled the state’s same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional. Today, as the Vermont Legislature overrode their Governor’s veto of a bill legalizing gay marriage, the D.C. council unanimously passed a bill to legally recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

Predicting big Democratic wins in November, many speculated last fall that the Council would introduce a same-sex marriage bill of its own. However, after the passage of California’s Proposition 8 and D.C. voting rights hanging in the balance, the Council has been cautious about provoking Congress’s ire.

When he spoke at Georgetown a few weeks ago, Councilmember and Georgetown alum David Catania (I—At Large) said introducing a gay marriage bill would jeopardize the success of voting rights, but also added that “It’s the undying civil rights issue of our time and I intend to go forward with it.”

Photo from Flickr user M.V. Jansen used under a Creative Commons license.

A Guerilla Queer Bar event

The Washington Post reports that Guerilla, the LGBTQ group that hosts Guerilla Queer Bar parties in D.C., has retired. Over the past five years, the group pulled off 48 events in which groups of LGBTQ activists “invaded” a straight bar in the District for a night.

Now, the co-founders’ lives don’t allow them to plan enormous monthly parties anymore. The group threw its last party at Rhino on Friday, and celebrated their five years of success with lots of booze, “Single Ladies,” and Kenny Loggins.

It’s a shame they’re retiring, because they sound like a whole lot of fun. And what an obit!:

After five years, 43 bars, 48 events, and at least one instance of a guy whipping his shirt off and gyrating to Madonna in front of confused Georgetown University parents, it was time for a beloved gay and lesbian institution to end.

So on Friday night, an estimated 200 members of the GLBT community headed to Rhino Bar and Pumphouse for the District’s very last Guerilla Queer Bar, the friendliest of activist movements, in which gay men and lesbians descend on a typically “straight” bar for the evening and mingle among the regulars (motto: “We’re here! We’re queer! We want a beer!”).

Shirtless gyrating in Georgetown, you ask? Why yes, the group hit up Tombs during its lifetime, too.

Georgetown alumns do us proud, after the jump.

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Great minds think alike.

Response to yesterday’s news about Georgetown Gmail has been generally positive. What does everyone think? While it’s good of the school to offer a way to opt out of the Google machine, the choice–Gmail or old-school 10 mb–isn’t exactly an equal one.

Via DCist