Updates: Radio, Energy Rant, Light Rail

Michael Giberson

A few items from yesterday and today’s Washington Post caught my eye and relate to topics on our mind here.

Yesterday the Post profiled Mojo Nixon, the eighties camp rocker (“Elvis is Everywhere”), who has landed a gig deejaying for Sirius Radio. In my view among the biggest of the short-run losses from the proposed merger would be a cooling of the competitive drive to find and fill these kind of musical niches. Still not convinced that consumers will be worse off in the long run if the deal goes through.

Arriving in time to revive the flames of my energy-independence rant from last week, today the Post highlights the grand scheme of the Mayor of Warrentown, Virginia to make the town of 8,000 energy independent. If the projected cost of $30,000,000 comes from private investors, I say “go for it.”

A local issue, though U.S. tax dollars are involved, concerns dueling plans for an extention of the Washington D.C. area’s Metro Rail from Falls Church out to Dulles Airport. The duel is over whether to underground the portion of the route planned through the Tyson’s Corner area or to have a raised rail through the densely developed commercial area. Interesting, as the article points out, that the McLean, Virginia chamber of commerce is favoring the more expensive underground plan while the Reston-area chamber of commerce supports the cheaper above ground option. I didn’t know until I read the article, but the Reston-area is in a special tax district that will help pay the costs of the project, but the McLean area is not. Perhaps the McLean chamber of commerce would like to join up?

And finally, appropos of nothing in particular that we’ve discussed around here lately, but also in this morning’s Post was a review of the Taj Mahal and Los Lobos concert of last Friday night. As the Post say’s: a spectacular show.