alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

July 2, 2008

Freaky

by AltHippo @ 4:35 pm. Filed under Life in D.C.

From TPM:

Well Known Liberal Blogger Shot In Washington, D.C.
By Greg Sargent - July 2, 2008, 3:33PM

Brian Beutler, a well-known progressive blogger, was shot and seriously injured during a mugging last night in Washington, D.C.

One bullet damaged Beutler’s spleen, and he had it removed during surgery this morning at Washington General Hospital. He’s expected to make a “pre-trauma” recovery, which is to say, a completely full recovery.

The shooting was confirmed to us by Tracy Van Slyke, the project director of the Media Consortium, a network of leading progressive news organizations (TPM is a member) for which Beutler was the Washington correspondent.

Some of the details of the incident are still sketchy. According to Van Slyke, Beutler was walking with a friend after leaving a bar in Washington’s Adams Morgan section when the two were confronted by a man demanding their cell phones near 17th Street and Euclid Avenue.

While I don’t know Brian, I know of his work, and am fairly sure we’ve run into each other here and there. What the progressive blogosphere likes to call “The Village” is a small place, and we tend to rub elbows pretty often. So, all this is pretty shocking.

While some of the bickering in the Democratic party is still going on, I wanted to take five, and talk about aspects of the area that make DC a great place to live. Like skateboarding. As I spend time investigating, I’ve learned a great deal about where to go to skateboard. Or, whatever it is that I do, which is more correctly called “urban longboarding.”

While I’d like to talk about that, I can’t help but observe that the city is becoming more violent. I’ve noticed more car break-ins of late, as well as confrontations on the street that are on the cusp of turning into death matches. The last event like this was the lethal mugging of NYT writer David Rosenbaum (WaPo). Both events were in nice neighborhoods that I’m in pretty often. Friendship Heights is an upscale part of upper NW reminiscent of Fifth Avenue in NYC; Adams Morgan is our equivalent of Greenwich Village.

I think it may be that as times get tougher, and they are, the violence escalates. The current climate is such that having more guns on the street, which is what the Supreme Court’s decision calls for, will only make things worse.

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