BrambleDirt returns, for a second

BrambleDirt has been on indefinite hiatus. (Note: We are still NOT Ashburn.  If anything, we are even more NOT Ashburn now.) But since some of you may have found your way here through Brambleton's 15th anniversary marketing, I'd like to say a few words about the recent Donald Trump rally and the arrest of LCPS School Board member Joy Maloney.  She is not my representative, but I know her, and she is great.  The rally was on August 2, at Briar Woods High School, which is in Brambleton but which only serves the small part of Brambleton north of Ryan Road.

Joy was in line like everyone else when a reporter from Voice of America started talking to her.  The line started moving behind them. Here is the video:

Posted by Voice of America - VOA on Tuesday, August 2, 2016

After the reporter wraps up, the video ends. You cannot see what happened next, which presumably is that both Joy -- and the Trump supporter who also lost his place -- tried to return to their original places in the line.  Joy's attorney said in an article that someone in line behind her didn't like that and flagged down an event organizer, who had LCSO deputies try to remove her.

Lots of people were quick to spread the story that Joy was trying to stop people from going in, including various Republicans holding elected office in this county.  And now Brambleton's representative, Jill Turgeon, has co-authored a resolution to have Joy censured by the School Board, which, like this entire situation, is ridiculous.  The majority of the School Board voted against discussing the incident, but Jill is pressing onward, adding the motion to the board meeting's agenda on September 13.

I'm just a taxpayer with children in LCPS, so who cares what I think, but you know what I'd like to see the School Board spending their time on instead of this?  How about mental health policies and procedures?  Five LCPS students committed suicide in the 2015-16 school year, including Jay Gallagher, a student at Potomac Falls High School.  Following the district's suicide prevention protocols, his friend e-mailed a school counselor in January about her concerns that he was suicidal. This should have triggered a series of escalation steps, including contacting the principal and his parents.  NOTHING HAPPENED.  Jay killed himself in February.  (The other Potomac Falls student committed suicide in the fall of 2015.) The district's suicide prevention plan disappeared from the county website.  LCPS attorneys say one thing, the superintendent says another.  Families want answers.  So yeah, stop worrying about picking a partisan fight over Joy's arrest, let the courts handle it, and address this ACTUAL ISSUE.

More about Jay's family's mission at https://www.facebook.com/ifyoulovejay/

P.S. Thanks to At-Large representative and Brambleton resident Beth Huck for voting against discussion of Joy's arrest.

Demur this!

Oh, yeahhhhhhhh...
http://www.leesburgtoday.com/news/judge-rules-court-should-review-school-attendance-changes/article_ce09d9a8-10f1-11e3-804f-0019bb2963f4.html

Witch hunt

Last week, a white man wearing a white bandanna was spotted entertaining himself with, um, himself in his car outside Harris Teeter. Someone saw and called the police. They were too bewildered/disgusted to get the license plate, but they did note the color and type of car. Let the witch hunt commence!

I'm not going to say the real color and type of car here, because I don't want to add fuel to the fire.  It wasn't a silver Honda Odyssey or Toyota Sienna, so already it was a real freak show here in Brambleton.  It was a noticeable color of a slightly unusual sedan.  Let's say it was a red PT Cruiser.  Oh, and with a white stripe.  So, anyway, the police were called, and someone sounded the alarm on the B_Alert Facebook group...with unsurprising results:

"I will be more aware of [PT Cruisers] from now on"

"There was one of those in the Harris Teeter lot last night maybe around 7 pm or so"

"If anyone sees the [red PT Cruiser] with a white stripe again, please write down the license plate number. It might not be him, but it could be."

"[Original Poster], do you know if the car had a vertical white stripe on the right side? Back in March of this year, I took a picture of a license plate of a [PT Cruiser] in Harris Teeter because it shocked me that someone had a plate that said something sexual in Spanish. There was a man in the driver's seat. I still have the pic. I can send it to you."

"[Original Poster], do you know if any of the witnesses recall any part of the license plate? I pulled up behind a car matching this description on Loudoun County Parkway about 30 minutes ago and was able to snap a picture of his license plate. It's a little blurry because of the rain but you can still make out the numbers. I'm just a little reluctant to forward the photo because there may be more than one car in the neighborhood matching this description and I'd hate for an innocent person to be tagged for such a creepy offense. Unfortunately I was not able to get a look at the driver."

Cooler heads stepped in and suggested that any "helpful" information be submitted to the police and not forwarded around to random people. But already we have people taking pictures WHILE DRIVING IN THE RAIN of [red PT Cruisers]. And the stripe - the police only said it was a white stripe. Is it vertical? Horizontal?  WHO CAN SAY??!!

Wanna guess what the closest car dealership to our neighborhood is? And it's a stone's throw from a CarMax too.  There are more than a handful of [PT Cruisers] driving around here.

If the next perv to be spotted is driving a dark red Chrysler Town & Country, I'm in trouble. Will you be my alibi?

Hiatus over

BrambleDirt is back. I don't know if it needs me or not, but I need it.

So, what brought me out of semi-retirement? Some of you know that during the hiatus, I adopted newborn twins. They keep me a little busy. Sometimes, on our way out of Wegmans, as I'm grasping their hands so they don't fling wine bottles to the floor, I manage to grab some free reading material from the racks for later (Washington Parent, usually). This type of material is handy for quick stolen moments, but usually only makes me feel anxious. Is it too late for my kids to master Chinese if they didn't start with prenatal classes at Jabberu? How am I going to get my children into the best preschool in Bethesda? (Note: obviously I don't even live in Maryland.) Then I come to my senses and chuck it in the recycling.

Occasionally the magazine I grab is the glossy local quarterly I Am Modern. Started three years ago, it is billed as "Health - Beauty - Lifestyle for Modern Women." Interestingly, it also bills itself as "100% Reader Generated," and anyone is welcome to submit content.

Now, I consider myself pretty modern (I'm wearing a Metafilter t-shirt right now), but not by the definition of this magazine, with its ads for aesthetic dentistry, adult orthodontics, and plastic surgery. Sometimes, the profiles of local women are interesting, but the copyediting is poor, and I honestly don't care about integrating my holiday decorations with my established decor so that (God forbid) my overall personal style isn't compromised. It's not really a magazine for me, but someone must read and enjoy it, because it's lasted this long and has advertising support. (Let us not forget Ranganathan's Third Law of Library Science: Every book its reader.)

I picked up the Holiday 2010 issue a few weeks ago, and it was sitting on my nightstand with some other magazines. I read every night before I go to sleep, and I've been cranking through the complete Sherlock Holmes - all four novels and 50+ short stories. Once I finished those a couple of days ago, I started working through the magazines, and last night was I Am Modern's turn. I went to bed mad, and I woke up still mad.

The article that bothers me is Chic New Mom: Simple Tips for Always Looking Fashionable. If you go read it online, you'll note that the publisher has added a disclaimer. Apparently they've gotten a lot of comments about it. She writes, "I want to remind everyone, we do not endorse any of our contributors." Publishing them isn't an endorsement? Hmm.

I've never been a fashionable person, and I'm not a new mom anymore. I would have skipped the article, except the photo of the hipster-ish mom with accessorized baby caught my eye. She did not look like the usual target demographic for this magazine. I started reading, and came across this little gem:

You gained weight because you brought a little baby angel to the world, not because you ate too much cheese. There's no shame in that at all.

So I guess I should be ashamed because I'm fat and I didn't give birth. Okay, whatever. But then there's this:

Here are some of my basic fashion tips for new moms:

- Don't breast feed in public. I am sorry and feel awful saying it, but, to me, it really is unacceptable. I am glad that I don't see that very often, but when I do it makes me queasy. There is absolutely nothing beautiful or stylish about breast feeding in public.

This is terrible advice for new moms, I Am Modern. In my opinion, what makes it even worse is that this magazine is subsidized by lots of ads. Advertisers in this issue include Capital Area Pediatrics (my kids' doctor), Women Physicians of Northern Virginia (my OB-GYN), NOVA Pediatric Dentistry (my kids' dentist, who also has a paid advertorial about being an entrepreneur). I will be letting my medical professionals know that they may want to consider a better outlet for their advertising dollars.

Oh, and Brambleton is also an advertiser.