The best of both worlds

Oh man... a couple of priceless articles in the Post yesterday.

Did you see the profile of my man Lee Van Cleef? I mean, Philip Van Cleave?

Something of a night owl, Van Cleave likes to take walks around the lake in his subdivision around midnight. When he does, he "double carries" in case an assailant knocks one weapon out of his hand. It's not about fear, he said. "Who would do that if they were afraid? The word is preparedness."

I nearly had a heart attack from laughing so much. He double carries in his subdivision. In case someone knocks the first gun out of his hand And I'm sure his subdivision is a war zone at midnight. Where does he live, A-Team Piney Forest Lakes?

The man has never even fired a gun outside a firing range, and has never been the victim of any crime worse than car stereo theft. And yet, he insists on getting open carrying of firearms legal everywhere in densely populated Northern Virginia, including airports and legistative chambers. Even the NRA thinks he should dial it down a few notches. Does that not tell you everything you need to know about the man?

Or, put another way...

DEAR FUCKING LORD. I can't believe this INSANE PARANOID FUCK-JOB is deciding this state's gun policies. Thank you, Philip Van Cleave, for putting the fear of God into me. Now please don't come shooting up my apartment.

Also putting the fear of God into me: the crowd at Big Ben Liquor in Northeast D.C.

"Why would you go over there and get a pack of potato chips when I said mints? He got a [expletive] bag of potato chips when I said mints. Why would he try to give me a pack of potato chips when I said mints?"

[...]

"Give me two packs of Dittos," another woman says. "No, I didn't say pickles, damn it."

Wow, these people get really cranky when they don't get their pickles. I mean Dittos! [BLAM BLAM] ARRRRGHH!

Singh bought the business -- not the building -- for $300,000 plus inventory from a man who was shot in a bloody robbery that left him paralyzed.

[...]

"Hey, mister," a drunk man says, trying to maintain what is left of his dignity. "Please let me go to the bathroom. I'm about to piss on myself."

A woman in a red coat who wants a $75 money order looks at the man, who races out of the store. "He done already peed," she says, like a narrator.

Who says comedy and horror don't mix?

They also talk to a man named RasD who captures the mood of the city perfectly.

He walks south on North Capitol. The Capitol's dome rises in the distance, looming like a mighty mecca, so far away from this corner and so close. RasD motions to the cars that whiz by. "The traffic flows through without any connection to the spaces and places," he says. "They just pass by. They would rather not see the obvious, the displaced, the homeless, the confused, the hungry. . . . There are brilliant minds at that vortex: incredible mothers, fathers. The homeless are no longer scorned and they are not faceless at that vortex. They are only a blur and an eyesore to those passing through."

Yep. Brilliant people; powerful people; they have the power to change the blight they see around them, but choose not to. They choose to ignore it. D.C. is what happens when good people do nothing.