Criticism
In early 2005, Graham was accused (allegedly by Washington businessman Sinclair Skinner) of driving historically African-American businesses from the neighborhoods of Columbia Heights, Shaw, and the U Street corridor. The Washington City Paper reported on the accusation:
In early 2005, just as the Club U issue was heating up, posters portraying Graham as a reptile holding a pitchfork labeled "Grahamzilla" appeared on light poles and street signs around the ward. Another set of posters depicted Graham standing on a porch partying with young white men at the Graham "plantation." The latter included an illustration showing "Graham opponents" hanging from a gallows. The posters stretched the limits of political speech and disappeared quickly after they were put up.
On September 24, 2009, Graham's Chief of Staff, Ted Loza, was arrested by the FBI and charged with two counts of accepting bribes. The indictment alleges that Loza accepted two payments and promised to promote the legislation and policies concerning D.C. taxi cabs that the alleged briber wanted. Mr. Graham is the chairman of the committee that oversees taxi cab regulation, but he voluntarily gave up oversight of cabs after Loza's arrest.
Read more about this topic: Jim Graham
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“Nothing would improve newspaper criticism so much as the knowledge that it was to be read by men too hardy to acquiesce in the authoritative statement of the reviewer.”
—Richard Holt Hutton (1826–1897)
“It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)