VIA DCIST:

The Post reported earlier that the very first gay couples to get legally wed in the District of Columbia this morning were Jeremy Moon and Bryan Legaspi, a pair of White House staffers, and James Betz and Robert Hawthorne. The two couples appear to have held their marriage ceremonies nearly simultaneously, one inside the courthouse in judges chambers, and the other just outside the building.

Meanwhile, three of the couples we talked to last week, who were among the first to apply for their marriage licenses, were wed at the Human Rights Campaign headquarters in Washington, D.C. this morning. HRC has released video of all three ceremonies, between Angelisa Young and Sinjoyla Townsend, Reggie Stanley and Rocky Galloway, and Darlene Garner and Candy Holmes, which we’ve posted below (note the running time is over 40 minutes).

Source

VIA DCIST:

Plenty of local love from Michelle Obama, as the White House announced today that two out of three commencement speeches the first lady has agreed to make this year will be right here in the District.

The biggest news from the local perspective is that Obama will address graduating seniors at Anacostia Senior High School on June 11. This will mark the second time the first lady has chosen to deliver a speech at a D.C. public high school. Last year, she spoke at the commencement ceremony for the Washington Mathematics Science Technology Public Charter High School.

Before she goes to Anacostia, Obama has also pledged to address graduates at The George Washington University on May 16 — but only if they complete 100,000 hours of community service before then. GWU students have been working toward fulfilling the first lady’s service challenge all year, and we seriously doubt they’d let her down.

Obama will also speak at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff on May 8.

Source

Click flier for larger version.

For more information, visit www.NEWorks.us.

Set Your Mind Higher

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE

“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things”
(Colossians 3:2, NIV)

TODAY’S WORD from Joel and Victoria

Sometimes when people look toward the future, they don’t see how they will ever rise higher or fulfill their destiny. That’s because they are looking at things in the earthly, or natural, realm. But if we’ll set our minds higher, if we’ll set our minds on things above, we will have a different perspective.

The Scripture says in Second Corinthians that we walk by faith and not by sight. In other words, we have to believe it before we’re ever going to see it.

When we set our minds higher, we walk by faith. We see things God’s way. But when we walk by what we see in the natural realm, we can easily allow circumstances and fear to keep us from moving forward.

Make the decision today to set your mind on things above. Focus on the good things God has in store. Be determined to close the door on fear and doubt and choose to listen to that inner prompting of the Holy Spirit. As you walk and live by faith, you’ll see His promises come to pass, and you’ll move forward into the destiny He has prepared for you!

A PRAYER FOR TODAY

Father God, thank You for Your Word which lights the path You have for me. I choose today to keep my heart and mind focused on You. I choose to meditate on Your Word knowing that it feeds my faith and sets me in a position to receive every blessing You have in store for me. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Don’t let anybody steal your joy.
Get your mind set that no matter what anybody says or does, it won’t effect you in a negative way.
Don’t give people permission to control you.
Always keep control of you!

Courtesy of Niecy Davis

VIA FORBES:

The country may have started its long haul back to economic recovery — if recent news that consumer spending increased slightly in January is any indication. But even so, most Americans still aren’t ready to brag about their paychecks.

Except, perhaps, in Loudoun County, Va., where median household incomes are higher than anywhere else in the country. This affluent suburb of Washington, D.C., where families take home a median $110,643 annually, tops our list of America’s 25 richest counties.

Loudoun is emblematic of the counties where the highest incomes are found. The country’s riches tend to trickle away from big cities. It’s not major metro areas raking in the biggest salaries; rather, it’s the tony suburbs just outside big-industry centers that soak up big-city money.

Glitzy Southern California and big oil states are largely absent from the list: 19 of the 25 richest counties in the country are on the East Coast. In part, that’s because our list looks at the middle incomes, and counties in the East tend to be smaller, thereby allowing for less of a spread between the richest and poorest workers.

Data for our list come from the U.S. Census Bureau, which conducts the annual American Community Survey, a smaller-scale version of the decennial census. The most recent data are from the calendar year 2008 and include 1,889 counties.

Wealth Radiates From the Capital

It’s not surprising that workers in Loudoun do well. The federal government generates a wealth of jobs, keeping unemployment in the D.C. metro area at a low 6.2% (the national average is still near 10%). The best-paid workers from D.C. take their money home to Loudoun, where jobs have grown 4% between the second quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But a big chunk of that healthy income goes toward maintaining the good life. Loudoun homeowners pay a median $4,844 per year in property taxes. Tax burdens are similarly high in a lot of well-off counties.

Like Loudoun, a number of the country’s wealthiest households are tightly concentrated in counties around the nation’s capital. Six of the richest counties lie on the outskirts of Washington: Fairfax County, Va., Arlington County, Va., Stafford County, Va., Prince William County, Va., Charles County, Md., and Alexandria City, Va.

Not far from D.C. lies another cluster of wealthy counties. Howard County, Md., a suburb of Baltimore, has a standout school system with standardized test scores that consistently beat out the national average, and median household incomes of $101,710. In nearby Montgomery County, where 59% of residents over 25 have an advanced degree, households bring in a median $93,999. Historic Calvert County, Md., has profited from its roots as a tobacco-rich farmland as well as its proximity to Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, and claims a median income of $89,049.

Read more here.

VIA GOSPEL FLAVA:

The 41st Annual GMA Dove Awards are asking fans to weigh in on their two significant awards categories. Fans can now vote for the categories of “Artist of the Year” and “New Artist of the Year” once online and via text message. Nominees for the “Artist of the Year” category include Mary Mary, Francesca Battistelli, Casting Crowns, Jason Crabb, Jars of Clay, tobyMac, and Skillet. “New Artist of the Year” nominees include Kari Jobe, Crystal Aikin, Brian Courtney Wilson, Jonny Diaz, Revive, Sidewalk Prophets, and Bluetree. Voting takes place at the GMC website, with polls closing on April 20, 2010 at midnight ET. This year’s GMA Dove Awards airs on April 25, 2010 at 8p ET on GMC.

Source

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

Turn in a pothole. The District Department of Transportation has launched its second Potholepalooza campaign to attack the ruts created by the harsh winter.

In last year’s month-long campaign, the District patched more than 6,000 potholes that were either reported by the public or discovered by the city’s crews of pothole patchers.

This year’s campaign began over the weekend and will continue through April 5. The goal is to fix potholes within 48 hours after they are identified. People can add to the list by phone, online report, Twitter or e-mail.

Some of the fixes are quick and simple. They involve an application of a cold mix that hardens quickly in a small pothole before it has time to get bigger. Some are more complicated, and require a crew of workers to clear debris from a large area — perhaps half the size of a bus stop — then pour and spread a pre-ordered amount of asphalt.

When you contribute your nomination, be ready with the location, including the NW, NE, SE or SW quadrant in the District. Give as much detail as possible, including the approximate size and depth of the pothole. (But don’t stand in traffic and measure it.)

How to Report a Pothole
– Phone the Mayor’s Call Center at 311.
– Use the Online Service Request Center at 311.DC.Gov.
– Tweet to www.twitter.com/DDOTDC.
– E-mail to Potholepalooza@DC.Gov.

Source

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

For Susan Williams, the road to working as a serial temp for the U.S. Census Bureau ran through law school and a recession that has stalled many a professional career.

After just two years as an associate at a small firm in the District, Williams was laid off in November 2008. She assumed she would land another job within four months. When that didn’t happen, her brother mentioned seeing an ad that the Census Bureau was hiring.

In short order, Williams, who had specialized in food and drug law, became a census crew leader, training and supervising 20 other temporary field workers canvassing addresses for the 2010 Census. That $21.50-an-hour job lasted just 10 weeks, but the census called her back for another six-week stint, canvassing shelters and dormitories. After that ended, she was rehired to recruit other temps for the census. Now she is working on technology operations in the District’s census office.

“I’m still putting out applications for attorney positions,” said Williams, 30, whose census job is helping her pay down her student loans. “But right now, I like that it’s a steady paycheck. It’s nice to get out of the house and have something to do.”

The Census Bureau expects to hire at least 700,000 people throughout the spring and summer for part-time jobs, paying $10 to $25 an hour, mostly to knock on the doors of people who don’t send in forms that will arrive in mailboxes this month. Many of the expected 3 million to 4 million applicants will be like Williams: highly educated and in the prime of their working life but sidelined by a recession that has driven the unemployment rate to almost 10 percent.

The field of candidates was dramatically different for the 2000 Census, which was conducted during a boom with record low unemployment of 4 percent. Competing against the many businesses that had “Now Hiring” signs out front, the Census Bureau spent $9.5 million on “help wanted” ads, sent recruiters to job fairs and pushed wages to record levels.

Still, some offices didn’t meet hiring goals, and the Census Bureau ended up with a temporary workforce with an average age in the mid-50s and composed largely of retirees.

“This time around, it’s a new ballgame,” said Wendy Button, a hiring specialist with the Census Bureau. “We’re seeing professionals with advanced degrees taking temporary jobs part time. It’s incredible.”

In the Washington region, many churches have offered their fellowship halls as sites for the written test that all applicants must take. Throughout the winter, hundreds of job applicants have arrived at many testing sites hours before they open.

Wayne Hatcher, director of the region that includes Virginia and now working on his fourth decennial census, said both the number and caliber of applicants are noticeably higher this year.

“Sometimes in the past, we were only able to find folks available on a part-time basis,” he said. “This time, people are available to work pretty much full time.”

The Commerce Department said last month that it expects the temporary spurt of census hiring to probably knock several tenths of a percentage point off the unemployment rate.

Most of the jobs will be what Census Bureau Director Robert Groves has called “tough work,” making house calls on nights and weekends to people who haven’t returned their forms. Census takers may make as many as six visits to each house to determine whether the residents have moved or if they just aren’t answering.

Ten years ago, about one in three households did not respond. Groves estimates that every 1 percent of households that don’t answer the questionnaire cost taxpayers $85 million to send workers looking for them.

The exact number of census takers needed to make those visits will not become clear until next month, when the forms are due. The Census Bureau estimates that by the end of summer, it will have hired 4,500 people in the District, 19,000 in Maryland and 22,000 in Virginia. Wages vary but are $20 an hour in the District and Alexandria, $18.50 in Rockville, $18 in Manassas and $15.50 in Frederick. Most people will put in 17 to 19 hours a week, Groves said.

Applicants must be at least 18 and pass a background check that includes FBI fingerprinting. People convicted of serious felonies are not eligible.

One of the most important factors in hiring is where an applicant lives. The agency favors hiring census takers from the neighborhoods where they will be making house calls, thinking that people are more apt to open their door to someone they recognize. In some neighborhoods, language skills are also a priority.

“When we hire, we’re hiring local people,” Hatcher said. “We like people to generally work within their neighborhood or close to it so they’ll have a certain comfort level and know some of the people in the community.”

Valerie Mann is hoping she gets tapped to be a census taker in her District neighborhood, Shepherd Park. An independent business consultant who works out of her home, she said that her workload is down in the faltering economy and that she has more spare time than she has had in years.

A friend in Baltimore told her about census-taking jobs, and Mann, 57, thought it would be a good way to earn some money, get some exercise and meet people, all while performing a service that will benefit her community.

Being a bit of an overachiever, with a master’s degree in public relations and marketing from American University, she took the application test twice, just so she could improve her score from 18 correct answers out of 28 to 24 correct answers. “I knew I could do better,” Mann said.

Now she is waiting for a callback, confident that she will stand out among the competition.

“I could be a supervisor,” she said, citing her experience managing as many as 45 people as executive director of three nonprofit organizations with budgets of $5 million and $6 million. “Perhaps those skills would be useful.”

Source

Angels of Hope Ministries, Children’s Outreach of Anacostia SE, D.C., is reaching out to the children of Haiti through practical Packages of Hope.

Packages of pampers, under garments and feminine sanitary items, will be personally distributed during a missions tour in Port Au Prince.

If you would like to donate items, drop them off Wednesday, March 10 and Thursday, March 11 from 6pm-8pm both days at 2430 Elvan Road SE, Washington, D.C. 20020 or call 202-344-6656. You can also contact Rev’s Alfred and Claudia Harrison via email at alharrison1@verizon.net.