The author gives tips for restaurants in the area -- including restaurants in the Dupont Circle neighborhood, which he affectionately calls "Dupont Circle, gay area."
He also posts a link to a website in which a "Libertarianish Virginia economics professor extensively explores and reviews restaurants, especially Northern Virginia Asian fare." Because you just can't trust restaurant reviews from anyone on the non-Libertarianish scale. And is Asian fare particularly Libertarian friendly or something?
The author then writes:
DC's population includes refugees from every country, as the families of embassy staffs of third world countries tend to stay in DC whenever a revolution in their homeland means that anyone in their family would be in danger if they went back.
So you should assume that anyone living in DC that is originally from another country is a refugee. And the refugee policy in the US is that you are only grated asylum if you are the family member of someone that works at an embassy.
Most taxi drivers and many waiters/waitresses (especially in local coffee shops like the Bread and Chocolate chain) are immigrants, frequently from east Africa or Arab countries. As a rule, African immigrants do not like for you to assume they are African Americans and especially do not like for you to guess they are from a neighboring country (e.g., Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia) with whom they may have political or military tensions. It's rare to meet anyone who gets really offended, but you can still be aware of the issue.
First, for best results one should avoid Bread & Chocolate, local coffee shops (hell, pretty much just waiters in general), and taxis. Got it.
Second, I assume the man is speaking from experience when he says these African immigrants do not like it when people assume they're African American. Which I assume means he has expressed that assumption verbally. Does the author of this piece have a history of seeing a black person and saying something like "Look kids! It's an African American!" or "Are you one of those African Americans?" or "Are you proud to be an African American?" or "As an African American, what do you think about..."?
Third, a lot of these Tea Party types think all people from Latin America are Mexican. So I can't imagine too many are asking these African immigrants, "You definitely look like you're from Eritrea. Are you?" I doubt they could discern the physical features enough to recognize that this African immigrant is even from the Horn of Africa -- let alone pinpointing a single country. And how many of these Tea Party types have even heard of Eritrea? Or know that it's an African country? [Hell, how many 'regular' Americans even know Eritrea is an African country?] I would imagine a more accurate encounter would be "Oh you're from Africa?! Are you related to Shaka Zulu? Do you know Nelson Mandela? Have you ever seen elephants before?"
Then the author goes on to list a bunch of areas in DC that people should NOT go to because it's unsafe. This is pretty detailed and is probably only funny to people that live in DC and know the neighborhoods and streets well -- but the basic gist of it is that he pretty much says everywhere but the western part of Northwest DC and Northern Virginia is unsafe. Which is ridiculous. And he says to pretty much avoid the Green and Yellow metro lines completely (even in the day time)! This assertion is even more ridiculous. He says the only places you're safe to be on foot, in a cab, or on a bus is one neighborhood in Maryland, five neighborhoods in Virginia (and they even specify northern Arlington. As if southern Arlington is a ghetto because it has fewer Crate & Barrel stores...), only 14th and 16th street in NW DC, and only the 7 blocks near the Capitol. Then they say at the end "Or stay on the Mall and at the various monuments." Haha.
Avoid the Green and Yellow Lines of Death
Alright! My neighborhood got a shout-out as a "lovely place". But he says that visitors won't know where they are [I guess because I don't live on the Mall?], and so they cannot go unless the author goes with them. (Plus, good luck getting to my neighborhood considering the author said they shouldn't ride the metro north of Union Station!).
He also listed other "bad places". These are the places where Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Robert Bauer/Anita Dunn, and Tom Daschle live. And he lists their addresses (!!) and encourages people to protest there. Wow.
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