Whereas last week we tackled the vicissitudes of male pregnancy, this week everybody’s en fuego. Watch as Erik and Ruth dole out generous felicitations to El Pregonero, The Examiner, and the Post.

Got a story you’d like to see discussed on the next Fuego/Frío? Let us know in the comments.

Our look-back at the weekend starts with the Washington Post’s look-back at the MLK Jr. riots of 1968. A perfectly fine story, but one that the Post has done so many times, not just on riot anniversaries, but every time a city-in-transition story comes about. I’m sure I’ve read it at least 20 times–always a variation on this: “Gloria Robinson, 55, an office administrator, grew up in Columbia Heights, where a new shopping center and condominium apartments stand on a street devastated by the riots. She is convinced that the promise of rebirth eludes poor and working-class African Americans.”

*Check out the Washingtonian’s top blog post of last week.

*The latest Department of Public Works newsletter provides tips for recycling, plus: Don’t forget that the special springtime hazardous waste throwout day is…..April 26 at the Carter Barron Amphiteater!

*For years, area residents have been sending back the D.C. Examiners that wind up on their lawns. Well, now the paper is fighting back, with sex!

*Not a lot cooking on the Washington Times site, so might as well read about the impact of tax rebates on tourism.

Thanks for checking in. And stay tuned to our blog today! Among other things, there’s big stuff going down in the media world, as the Pulitzer Prizes are awarded. The Post is a shoo-in for one prize, for the series on Walter Reed. But what about the Cheney series? The coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre?

It’s not every week that Washington, D.C., gets a new baseball stadium. I realize that. But please, local publications, get this baseball-crazy bug out of your system as soon as possible. I’m tired of seeing some new iteration of the same story, over and over again. Here we go, prime example: stories about the stadium food.

Jeff Dufour of the Washington Examiner, I’m talking to you! We almost featured your story “Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,” which ran yesterday, on the latest Fuego/Frio episode. The Post wrote about stadium food on the front page of their Food section on March 5. They talked prices and vendors and overall provided way more information than your piece. Sorry.

But then, the Post re-wrote their own stadium food story in today’s Food section. This time, they judged rather than just reported on the food, with the oh-so-cute labels of “Home Runs,” “Runs,” “Hits,” and “Errors.” But come on, if I’m in the mood for a Kosher hot dog, I’m going to get that hot dog, even though the Post gave it the lowest rating. I’m at the game! Who cares if it’s rubbery?

Maybe, I’m just jealous because I didn’t get to run around gorging myself on junk food in the name of work. Or, maybe, I’m grouchy because enough is enough…it’s time for a new story.

It’s chilly today, folks. The Post, el Pregonero, and the Examiner are all under the weather. Black Lips? I’m sure the band’s feeling healthy enough after Saturday’s show at the BLACK CAT.

Got a story you’d like to see discussed on the next Fuego/Frío? Wondering if you’re the only one who didn’t know breakfast was important? (You might be.) Let us know in the comments.

As we all know, Ruth Samuelson and Erik Wemple have been taking the local media’s temperature on Fuego/Frío for two decades now. But the following episode, in this viewer’s humble opinion, is the all-time best.

Who’s hot? The Post, el Comercio, the Washington Times, and Express, who took home this week’s award for Outstanding Selection of an AP Wire Story.

And who ain’t? Ryan Lizza, Harry Jaffe, the Current and the InTowner’s headline writer.

Got a story you’d like to see discussed on next week’s Fuego/Frío? Think cupcakes are not, in fact, “so over”? Let us know in the comments.

Pretty uneventful weekend on the news front. Highlights include winds and a dashing former AFC quarterback getting his second promotion of his offseason. On that latter front, let’s just take you “around the Zorn”:

*Wilbon says an important Redskins moment without fanfare, without great expectations, is a good thing.

*Wise writes that…well, actually what DOES Wise say? (Reading again to see what Wise actually says.) OK, checked again, and Wise doesn’t actually say anything. No thing linkworthy, at least.

*Smart poster on extremeskins.com says that if Zorn had been all that, they would have given him the same deal they gave to Mora–i.e., taking over the reins when Holmgren steps down.

*The Washington Times sounds like some announcer on CBS’s JV team in the broadcast booth: “But like most coaching hires, it all depends on the quarterback. And for Zorn, his stamp on the Redskins will be Campbell’s development. As it should be — that’s how he got the job. ” Real original analysis there, Moonies!

*The Examiner reports on a council bill to limit noise levels. Yeah, like the cops and the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs will go out and enforce that!

*On other D.C. news fronts, the Post on Saturday reported on the resolution of its mysterious Friday scoop about the D.C. tax-office servers that showed up in a Columbia Heights alley. In the end, nothing doing here: Servers were properly disposed of by the gov’t and had lame data on them to begin with.

*Inane Outlook piece of the week: Ya know, on Friday Slate columnist Jack Shafer wrote an awesome hit on the Newseum, saying that with all the money spent on this lavish monument to a dying profession, hey, perhaps it could be used to actually save the profession, or at least a newspaper. Well, I feel the same about all that cash that funds stupid stories glorifying the wonders of French living. Yeah, resveratrol, pedestrian living, moderation, and so on. We know, we know, we know too well.

Now here comes Pamela Druckerman pointing out that French women continue having sex late into their lives, whereas American women don’t.

Druckerman says that if she is to grow old, she wants to do it in Paris. What’s stopping you, Pam? Visa troubles?

The Washington Examiner doesn’t like the crime-fighting gimmicks of D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier. Today the almost-daily free paper fronts this big headline: “‘All Hands’ effort fails to curb violent crime.” The story, by Examiner staff writer Scott McCabe, does a nice job of nailing the issue—namely, that Lanier’s attempts to depress crime by dispatching virtually her entire force to the streets ain’t working. McCabe reports that on Saturday night, robberies were taking place even as the streets were mobbed with cops.

The weekend crime tally: Two homicides, several shootings and robberies.

Says a cop in McCabe’s account: “Chief Lanier has had some good ideas and is a breath of fresh air,” one detective said. “[But] honestly, this takes many of us away from our daily duties, personally for me it takes me away from working my open cases.”

Sure, the story relies on anonymous cops, but what do you expect—no one’s gonna go on record slamming a popular police chief early in her tenure. Even if she’s short on crime-fighting ideas.

For years, residents of D.C.’s tonier neighborhoods have traded tips on how to get the Washington Examiner to stop throwing its free papers on their front yards—often with spotty results. Now an upper Northwest man is actually inviting the paper into his environs—again, with spotty results.

Shepherd Park resident Ralph Blessing wants the Examiner to put copies of its D.C. edition at the Takoma Metro stop, a request he made in early June. The paper’s Maryland edition has long been available at the station, but Blessing wants news on his town. “Let me see if I can have a few copies of the D.C. edition there for our loyal readers such as you,” Thomas F. DeSimone, the paper’s vice president for circulation, responded two weeks later. “I will get them there.”

District editions have yet to show up at the station. The problem is all about boundaries: The publisher and distribution contractor may have crossed signals on whether the Takoma Metro was in D.C. (correct) or Maryland (incorrect). John Cannady, a delivery contractor, says he’s received no request for the D.C. edition at Takoma. “We all have bosses. I take my marching orders from them.”

A while back, the Post’s Neely Tucker wrote an in-depth Style piece about the legal troubles of famed Washington stylist Andre Chreky. The story essentially replayed the sexual harassment allegations of former Chreky colleagues and generally tried to add a bit of gel and highlights to an old story. Shortly after the story hit, Chreky sent out a letter to his customers saying, in part, “You may have seen the recent Washington Post coverage reporting on two lawsuits that have been filed against our salon spa. We hope that you will understand, with the cases pending in court, we are unable to comment specifically on them.”

Not much news there.

But the Examiner saw something and in its Wednesday editions, listed Chreky among “Today’s Newsmakers.” The blurb reads as follows:

Andre Chreky, whose ritzy downtown salon has been hit by two lawsuits alleging sexual harassment, sent out letters to customers last week asking for support. Chreky, whose salon employees have styled hair for several high-profile customers including first lady Laura Bush, sent a letter July 10 saying that because of the pending lawsuits, it could not comment on them. “We have tremendous faith in the legal process and believe we will be vindicated,” wrote Chreky and his wife, Serena.

Now, Chreky and Serena sent that letter solely because of the Post story. Think the Examiner could swallow just a bit of pride and mention that fact?

From Page 4 of today’s Examiner:

“District intends to build new bridge at S. Capital Street”

Good on the Washington Examiner for going (relatively) in depth about the pension benefits for employees of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). The two-parter reveals that calculations for transit workers’ pension benefits include overtime earnings, a practice that the paper notes is not common among transit agencies in other cities. It also takes aim—rather justifiably—at the secrecy that WMATA maintains with respect to the pension plan. It’s not subject to any reporting requirements, according to the Examiner, and no freedom of information laws apply.

But don’t expect outrage to come billowing out of the blogosphere and the John A. Wilson Building. After all, the big bombshell in the series is that…bus drivers and train operators are getting a good deal. Who’s going to come out against the working man? Especially a working man putting in insane hours?

Here’s a telling graph from the series:

A recent Examiner report…found that hundreds of hourly Metro employees, including bus drivers and train operators, make six-figure incomes when overtime is included, which is significantly higher than the regional average for the private sector.

Tracking the City Paper softball team’s pursuit of a perfect season

Current Record: 0-6 (.000)

The bad news arrived even before the first pitch, when RF Matt Hollis suffered a blow to his right cheek after stepping on a field rake. (I was busy during warm-ups, so I didn’t see it happen, but I gather it went down a lot like this.) Hollis is recovering just fine from his Sideshow Bob moment, and says he’s been happy to learn that he’s not the only person to survive a rake-based injury. “I have found out how many others this senseless tragedy has befallen,” he says. “Unless they are lying to make me feel better.”

We nearly had to forfeit due to our lack of the requisite number of female players, but happily SS Dot Steck arrived just in time. Less happily, we then proceeded to play the Associated Press. Final score: AP 25, City Paper 0. P Tim Carman left the game early after a liner struck his hand; X-rays proved negative, but Carman would like D.C.-area ER doctors to know that it’s not OK to inquire about good wine bars while assessing a restaurant critic’s injuries.

We buckled down against the Examiner in our second game, which featured some fine infielding from P Mike Kalyan, 1B Chris Coxen, 2B Kim Rinehimer, Steck, and 3B Jason Hutto. By the fourth inning we’d battled our way to a 6-6 tie, but the breaks then stopped coming our way. Final score: Examiner 17, City Paper 6.

Next up: Comcast SportsNet and Dow Jones. The DJ team is also 0-6; if we can take advantage of a weak squad that may be feeling a little demoralized, victory No. 1 may yet be ours.

So our man Jones is presently over in Tenleytown guest-hosting the D.C. Politics Hour With Kojo and Jonetta (Kojo’s sick) and pretty quickly James and Ms. Rose-Barras directed their attention to an editorial cartoon (pictured) that ran in the Washington Examiner earlier this week.

The cartoon, by Nate Beeler, was a riff on a missive recently sent out by the D.C. Board of Ed that misspelled “success” as “sucess.” Beeler took the school board’s spelling problems and ran with it.

Jonetta referred to a massive outcry about the unfairness of the cartoon and went on to call it “racially insensitive” and possibly “racist,” because both figures are portrayed as black even though Fenty’s top education aide is white not black.

Mark Tapscott, the Examiner ‘s editorial page chief, was invited on the show and didn’t give an inch.

As far as this disinterested observer goes, I’m closer to Mr. Tapscott than Jonetta. The bad spelling on the letter is certainly within the bounds of satire, and there’s nothing to indicate that the aide was supposed to be Victor Reinoso. Plus, the aide’s not made out to be a uneducated buffoon—just the school board! And OK, the school board’s not full of blithering idiots, but when you don’t run spell check, you give an inch—and don’t be surprised when editorial cartoonists take a mile.

Anyone in the teeming millions care to rebut?

Suzanne Peck, the city’s chief technology officer, has become a darling of the nation’s technomedia. Public CIO magazine, Federal Computer Week, and Government Technology are among the pubs that have rightly hailed her success in turning a municipal technological backwater into a model for other cities. Washington Examiner columnist Jonetta Rose Barras, however, took a pass on boarding this particular bandwagon, calling Peck a “serial District law violator” and a “serial law violator” in two recent columns. The pull-no-punches columnist also advocated Peck’s sacking as part of the mayoral changeover.

Vince Morris, a spokesperson for the Williams administration, rang up the Examiner to express his concern. “To call someone who’s worked in government and turned the city’s Web site into one of the best in the nation…a lawbreaker is pretty serious and completely unfair,” says Morris.

The Examiner responded with a “Clarification” stating, “In neither column was there any support for this phrase and it should have been removed from the column.” Barras offered her “support” materials in an e-mail to Morris that cited findings by city investigators who’d examined various practices of Peck’s office. “More has to be done to hold bureaucrats and people of Ms. Peck’s position accountable,” wrote Barras, a longtime Washington City Paper contributor. She would not comment for this story.

Peck & Co., meanwhile, are satisfied with the Examiner’s mea culpa. “It meets our needs to have false statements corrected,” says Christina Fleps, Peck’s general counsel.

In today’s Examiner, Harry Jaffe expended a good chunk of use of “goddamn it” to fend off political gadfly Mark Plotkin’s usual statehood hectoring this past Wednesday.

Jaffe, also a Washingtonian national editor, went three for four on the W’s: He got the who, the what, and the when correct. But he struck out swinging on where the incident actually took place. He wrote incorrectly that Williams dropped the g-bomb on Plotkin’s WTOP radio show. Williams’ momentary lapse into human feeling actually occurred during his weekly press conference at the Wilson Building.

“Oh, darn,” Jaffe said after being notified of his error by City Desk.

We then asked Jaffe to explain on how the error happened: “I just figured, hmm. That sucks, hmm. Plotkin…I just, let’s see…hmm. Because it was…I thought somebody told me that it happened on the radio program.”

“I saw it in the Examiner,” Jaffe went on to explain. “I saw it in my newspaper.…I call it my mistake.”

When City Desk informed Jaffe that the scene, complete with audio clip, had been reported by City Desk, Jaffe replied: “I don’t read your blog.”

Jaffe also failed to credit City Desk with exposing Bishop Alfred A. Owens Jr.’s homophobic sermon, which he also included in his column.