ABCDE METRO sunday, december 26, 2010 LOCALOPINIONS 28, 9 a.m. 28, noon 28, 5 p.m. 28, 9 p.m.


A Local Life John Cross, a parasitologist who worked with the U.S. Navy, solved a mysterious illness in the Philippines in the 1960s. C6


Keep moving Dr. Gridlock has the latest on routes in, out of and around town. Get all your information from his blog. PostLocal.com


The year in greaterWashington Readers write the story of what went right and what went wrong in the region in 2010. Think Dulles International Airport, volleyball courts, the Washington Redskins and Metrorail. C5


Part prayer, part pep rallywithWuerl


Thousands pack basilica to soak in


new cardinal’s message BY MICHELLE BOORSTEIN For thousands of Washington


areaCatholics, going to churchon Christmas doesn’t mean seeing tons of familiar faces at the place where your child goes to Sunday school. Instead, the holiday is markedbystreamingwithstrang-


ers into the largest Catholic church in North America — the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Northeast Washington — and watching Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl greet television viewers around theworld. Morethan4,000peoplepacked


the huge, soaring basilica Satur- day afternoon to hear Wuerl, the Washington archbishop whom Pope Benedict XVI elevated to cardinal lastmonth inRome. Seeing one of the Catholic


Church’s most prominent men wasoneof the reasonsworshipers said they came, along with the basilica’s dramatic architecture andwell-known choirs. Just seeingWuerl, wearing the


red hat of a cardinal, climb the basilica’s steps andpass aNativity scene inside prompted some to snap photos and even sob. The prominence of his new position, combined with the religious heft of the holiday, wasmoving, some said. Otherswere sort of star-struck.


“Who is that?” whispered


Hermie DeGuzman, 41, who was markingher firstChristmas inthe United Stateswith two friends. All three had come in October


from the Philippines to live in NorthwestWashington and work as preschool teachers. The women said they came to


the basilica to see the inspiring building and services that are broadcast to Roman Catholic au- diences around theworld.


wuerl continued on C6 MELINA MARA/THE WASHINGTON POST


After ChristmasMass, Cardinal DonaldW.Wuerl dropped by a dinner for those alone or needy and then joined in a fewsongs.


Exiting D.C. mayor advanced predecessor’s reforms but, some say, alienated the ‘common man’ PETULA DVORAK


No pat-downs for little Sally


O


ver the river and through the body scanner to Grand- mother’s house we go!


What a fun, new twist on trav-


eling with the kids this year. And you thought getting them to take their shoes off and let Bunky the Bear go through the dark tunnel was hard. For this holiday season, par-


ents get to choose between a scanner that will generate por- traits of your kids looking like nude ghosts and, according to some reports, give off question- able levels of radiation, or they can take the little ones for a rubber-glove pat down that will upend years of stranger-danger training. After the Transportation Secu-


rity Administration announced these more invasive pat-downs as an alternative and sometimes in addition to the body scanners, dozens of stories of groping and humiliation have surfaced online from adults. Upon hearing these stories,


parentworld, predictably, went bananas. On playgrounds, at playdates and across e-mail groups, parents railed against the TSA, wondering whether its per- sonnel are pedophiles with badg- es.Many even canceled their holi- day travel plans with righteous indignation. (This had NOTH- ING to do with that spat over the health-care debate with Aunt Edna last year, right?) This is fertile ground for a millennial mom and dad’s worst fears. The TSA backpedaled after


that first wave of parental blow- back. Not long after the “don’t touch my junk” dude dethroned JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater in air travel folklore, the TSA announced that children who didn’t go through the body scanners would undergo “modi- fied” pat-downs. Officials provid- ed limited detail — for security reasons — of just what that means.


Without those details, parents


were left to imagine that kids will dvorak continued on C4


l Despite concerns about effectiveness, the


TSA plans to continue installing full-body scanners at airports. A3


As need rises, two Fairfaxes emerge


CHARITIES CITE DEEPER CRISES


Gap between richest, poorest residents widens


BY FREDRICK KUNKLE Frosted glass on the storefront


windows allows customers to shop in privacy. Each has 15 min- utes to collect items from the small store’s three aisles of gro- ceries: a green section with cans for peas and beans, yellow for corn, and so on. Each shopper may take one of each, unless otherwise marked. The sort of holiday shopping


MICHAEL S. WILLIAMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST HStreet NE, home to the BiergartenHaus, left, and the Rock&RollHotel, continued to be revitalized underMayor Adrian M. Fenty. Fenty nears the finish line BY NIKITA STEWART I


n one term, the administration of D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty completed mas- sive construction and renovation proj- ects — 120 schools, recreation centers,


parks, playgrounds and athletic fields, accord- ing to city statistics. In some areas, Fenty outperformed his predecessors, including two-term mayor An- thony A. Williams, whom many credit with pulling the District back from the brink of financial collapse. Fenty is credited with driv- ing the transformation of several neighbor- hoods, securing mayoral control of schools and ousting perceived critics of reform. Dan Tangherlini, who served as Fenty’s city


administrator for2½years, said he thinks the mayor’s political epitaph is indelible. “He will be remembered in many ways as the mayor who built off the reforms begun underMayor Williams and took them to the next level,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s any one school or park or recreation center. . . . He should have his name chiseled on an awful lot of them.” Others see the departingmayor as a polariz-


ing figure, a cocktail of ruthless hypocrisy (he turned his back on some neighborhoods and wasn’t transparent,somethought),misguided loyalty (he awarded million-dollar contracts to fraternity brothers and unconditionally


fenty continued on C4


going on behind the frosted win- dows of the Western Fairfax Christian Ministries food pantry, and its thrift store next door, supplies a need in ways that the malls of Tysons Corner and other outlets in one of the nation’s richest enclaves cannot. “Inever askedfor food stamps,”


said FresiaHerrera, a naturalized citizen from Peru who has raised three children while coping with breast cancer, single parenthood and a temporary cut in hours at the hospital where she works as a nursing assistant. But she does come once a month to pick up some food to help make ends meet. “My situation made me,


pushed me, to come here,” she said, shortly after visiting the food pantry recently to pick up a gift card to help pay for her family’s Christmas dinner. Although the U.S. Census Bu-


MARVIN JOSEPH/THE WASHINGTON POST


Fenty, who has overseen construction and renovation of several schools during his tenure, visits the site of the newH.D.WoodsonHigh in August. It’s set to open for the 2011-12 year.


6 postlocal.com


As Mayor Adrian M. Fenty leaves office, The Washington Post Metro staff takes a look at his record in four years, including the areas of population, education, spending, quality of life,


health, economic development and public safety. Also featured is a photo gallery of memorable moments—including highlights and lowlights—from his term.


reau’s latest data again ranked Fairfax as one of the only two counties with a median income of more than $100,000 — Loudoun was the other — Fairfax social services agencies and nonprofit organizations continue to see a surge in requests from people needing emergency assistance with food, housing, utilities and transportation. “We’re seeing signs that need is


extremely significant,” said Dean Klein, director of the county’s Office to Prevent and End Home- lessness. He noted that 60 per- cent of adults in the county’s


fairfax continued on C6 Mild Christmas expected to give way to storm BY ANNYS SHIN


AND MICHELLE BOORSTEIN On Saturday morning, Wash-


TRACY A. WOODWARD/THE WASHINGTON POST


Joggers along theC&OCanal enjoy an early snow on Christmas Day. The snow began in the morning and tapered off by early afternoon.


ington welcomed its first Christ- mas snowfall—mostlygentleflur- ries — in eight years. But on Sun- day morning, a more powerful snowstorm is expected to hit the region and other parts of the East Coast as many holiday travelers headhome. The light snow that began


Christmas morning and tapered offby early afternoonofferedlittle


warning ofwhat couldcome. That,NationalWeatherService


forecasters said Christmas night, couldbetotalsof four tosixinches of snowintheDistrictandclose-in Virginia areas and four to eight inches to the east in Prince George’s County, and perhaps evenmore inAnnapolis. The forecasters upgraded a


winter storm watch to a winter stormwarning late Saturday after monitoring the paths of two weather systems — one from the north, another from the south — that they expectedtomerge.


Depending on where the two


systems come together, the result- ing storm has the potential to bring the first serious snow accu- mulation of the season to the Washington region, or just a glancing blow, saidWes Junker of The Washington Post’s Capital WeatherGang. “Veryminor changes inthecon-


ditions can give you a storm that tracks right up the coast or one thatdevelops furtherout,”he said. Junker said the combination of


the two systems, including one thatdumpedmorethannineinch-


es of snowon Iowa on Friday, had the potential to develop into a blizzard, especially in the North- east. The Sunday after Christmas


was expected to be a busy travel day.Airport officials saidtravelers should check early with their air- lines. As of Saturday afternoon, offi-


cialswiththeWashingtonregion’s airports said the light snow that hadbeenfallingoffandonhadnot caused much disruption. But


snow continued on C6 JOHNKELLY’SWASHINGTON


Trivia time Now that the holiday rush is over and you can relax, it’s the perfect opportunity to test your knowledge of D.C. C3


C EZ SU


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