Maryland State Del. Bill Frick (D-Montgomery County) sent a letter Monday to the superintendent of Rock Creek Park as an appeal to close Beach Drive to car traffic for an extended period. Currently, the park road popular with cyclists, Rollerbladers, runners, etc., opens at 7 p.m. That's all well and good when it's winter, but with an early Daylight Savings upon us, Frick wanted to throw his weight, or at least his letterhead, behind keeping cars off for longer.

This is not an original idea. Frick came to it as a regular reader of everyone's favorite anti-car blog, Greater Greater Washington. The blog aggregated a rant from Mount Pleasant ANC Commissioner Jack McKay:

Read More "Maryland Delegate Reads Blogs, Tries to Influence Rock Creek Park" »

Morning, all. Fresh, local content out today. In case you missed it: Our cover story looks at the lonely life of the D.C. bike helmet. Amazing what you all will risk for good hair. Also: Housing Complex's Ruth Samuelson takes a drive over to fantasyland, aka Brightwood; The Sexist's Amanda Hess explores your conscience; Young & Hungry's Tim Carman takes on the double-edged sword that is the gift certificate; movie critic Tricia Olszewski reviews Witch Mountain and Robert Blecker; theater critic Trey Graham on After the Garden and Pumpgirl. All that and more also available in paper.

The B1 news  today: Marc Fisher finally cuts through the B.S. and gets on board with getting screwed by the feds---as long as the feds give us our voting rep. District politicos playing chicken with both the suits on the Hill and the gun lobby are going to lose, he argues. And, yes, yes, we all know it's about principle and the gun rider essentially takes away the autonomy we want in the effort to give us autonomy. But let it go. Gun laws can change. The vote is forever. Fisher, there's a reason you're our favorite local columnist.

* Making a bid to be our favorite senator who knows what's good for us is Nevada's own John Ensign. Politico teases us with its salacious headline (D.C. Mayor Ensign?) and then offers up a boilerplate rundown of Ensign's meddling. But this quote is pretty choice: “People in the District are really happy that I’m standing up for them on school choice,” he said. "And the ones who care about the Second Amendment love the fact that I’m sticking up for their rights as well."

Less venting after the jump.

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: Give ‘Em the Guns, Take the Vote Edition" »

Yesterday I took a bread class at CulinAerie, the sort-of new cooking school near McPherson Square, and was totally impressed. And not just because TV stars like Top Chef's Carla Hall Lyons and our own Tim Carman teach there.

The founders of this place, Susans Holt and Watterson, did it right. They created classrooms that are for teaching, not showing off (see Sur La Table for evidence of the latter); the classes are hands-on instead of mostly demo; and, if my class is an indication, they've hired engaging, knowledgeable instructors who make you want to go home and cook your ass off, or in my case, knead it.

Cookbook author and lecturer Amy Riolo, who specializes in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking and food history, taught my class. About a dozen fellow food nerds and I (in two separate groups) made focaccia, simit (sesame bread rings that look like bagels), fougasse (Corsican olive bread), and semolina griddle bread. Three of them were total winners (the semolina bread, a bit bland, needed a bowl of beef stew to make the effort worth it). All in all, it was the best cooking class (of a whopping three) I've taken in my lifetime and I felt like a better yuppie for having spent my Sunday learning yeast is not the enemy.

Recipe after the jump.

Read More "Yuppie Cooking School Is Off to a Great Start" »

Despite yet another sighting, the dog whose image can be found all over the District remains at large. The latest credible tip has Lucy the Ninja Dog on Blagden Avenue yesterday, between Allison and 17th Streets, which is near a well-known sighting of her on 18th Street. All of the tips have been plotted on a map.

"Of course," blogs Lucy's owner, Dan Wood, "she disappeared a few minutes after the man saw her. And since I happened to be out at that time (around midnight) checking traps, I drove over to Blagden about 20 minutes after he saw her. No dice. Her ninjary is strong."

Read More "Lucy Update: Still Lost, Search Party Convening This Weekend" »

Post Editor Brauchli writes about Phil Bennett leaving:

To the Staff:

I’d like to thank Phil Bennett for his extraordinary contributions to The Post newsroom and in particular for his assistance in helping to smooth the leadership transition over the last several months.

Read More "Marcus Brauchli’s Follow-Up Memo" »

Washington Post Managing Editor Phil Bennett is stepping down. The memo:

To the Staff,

Four years ago, Len asked me to become managing editor. It was an invitation to help create great journalism, and to guide the newsroom through our own story of change and renewal. The challenges and rewards of this incredible job were bigger than I could have imagined; so has been the honor of working with you. Now that the transition between Len and Marcus is complete, I've decided it's the right moment for me to move on to new things. I will step down as managing editor at the end of the week.

Read More "Phil Bennett Leaving Washington Post" »

Bad news for all those downtowners dreaming of having a source of quail eggs within walking distance. The deal in which Douglas Development would land Balducci's specialty store in Penn Quarter isn't going to happen. (And maybe that's a good thing--check out how Tim Carman gets treated at the Balducci's in Bethesda.)

Douglas Jemal, owner of Douglas Development, seems a bit sour about the outcome of his negotiations with the high-priced specialty market to set up shop on 7th Street NW. "It was nip and tug all along, we all tried hard and the city and developer took out the red carpet and gave them [Balducci's] the kitchen sink to make a deal..."  But, Jemal says, the whole thing "turned out to be a waste of time".

This is the second time Balducci's has flirted with occupying the downtown space only to disappoint. Agreeing to move into the spot in 2005, the corporation reneged in 2006 with, as the Washington Post reported, "Balducci's saying it wanted to focus on its existing stores."

Douglas Development and the Downtown Neighborhood Association began courting the corporation regarding a new deal about a year ago. The latter got involved because, according to a letter sent to Balducci's CEO Barbara Parasco by DNA President Miles Groves, quality food shopping in the downtown area is sparse to non-existent: "We are Desperate for a Quality Grocery Store,"  reads one of the letter's subheads.

The company's CEO, asked about the failed talks, has this to say via email: "Over the last 62 years, Balducci's has grown from a single produce stand to become a gourmet powerhouse on the eastern seaboard. We are constantly looking at new opportunities that make sense for our customers and our business, but our policy as a company is not to comment on speculation or rumors."

*Photo by dogfrog

Sometime Sunday night, City Desk noticed that the photos section of Bob Woodward's Facebook profile was displaying three cartoons by conservative political-cartoonist Dana Summers. All three toons were a satirical look at President-elect Barack Obama's relationship with the media. In one, a cop commands a gaggle of spectators fawning over Obama to "Stop throwing your underwear at him and make way for the media." "We are the media," comes the punchline.

Though the journalist who helped take down Nixon has, at points, been accused of pandering to President Bush, such uneven sentiments about Obama and the media seemed out of place.

We were right to be suspicious. Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that Woodward hadn't posted the drawings, instead, one of his 2,886 Facebook friends-- a conservative named Michelle Jennifer R. Santos-- tagged the cartoons with the reporter's name ("...for debate purposes," she explains), a move that effectively presented the political propaganda alongside pics (a head shot and a candid) available on Woodward's page. The preeminent Postie confirms this in an email. " I did not post [the cartoons]. Apparently someone has tagged them for me and others."

A while after Woodward's email arrived the cartoons were gone, leaving us to conclude that the journalist had figured out what every person who has ever had a badly-lit, drunken, half-naked photo of him or herself uploaded to the social networking site by a supposed friend has. You can un-tag.

In any event, the ink-slinger isn't sweating it. Just another example of an Internet world that offers less privacy and less control over your life, he writes, "But no big deal."

The memo that Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth sent to her colleagues on Wednesday is titled "The Road Forward." It's a title that summons expectations of a strategic map, complete with directions, specifics: After going 10 miles on Print Highway, take the first exit for Internet Boulevard, etc., etc.

Weymouth's work product, however, had no such utility. More an iteration of the paper's current direction than a departure therefrom, the memo featured the following graph as its central strategy point:

Being for, and about Washington, means addressing our local readers’ core needs. Strong news coverage, enterprise and investigative reporting, expert analysis and informed commentary will continue to be important tools in making sense for local readers of the world around them. On washingtonpost.com, we will need to up our efforts to cover breaking news, and to use video in that coverage, if video is how our viewers wish to follow the story.

A few points about this very paragraph. Let's get into it:

Read More "Weymouth’s “Road Forward”: Low Visibility" »

Today's new strategy memo from Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth filled its quota of bland and unspecific principles. And on the specifics front, it left quite a deficit.

Yet if you poke around the Post newsroom a bit, you can find an initiative or two that has some beef and some direction. Take the Book World project. A component of the Sunday Post package, Book World, like book sections everywhere, isn't exactly lighting up the revenue sheets, thanks to the longrunning bad fortunes of the book industry.

So the Post is trying to sell its book fare to newspapers across the country that've either bagged or drastically reduced their own coverage.

Here's Book World Editor Marie Arana on the matter:

"We're looking at the possibility of launching a Book World Digest, which will be a single
broadsheet page, which we'll place in papers around the country. The papers
seem to be very eager to get it, given the paucity of book editorial staff
to fill the readers' interest. It will probably be done on a special
syndication basis."

More to come.

As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT---"Schwartz Aide Moves to OCTO"; "Blagojevich Complaint: Just Read It"

Morning all. How's this for bipartisanship: Neither Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) nor Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) is happy with the District's extended bar hours around the inauguration. "The plan...could seriously strain law enforcement resources that need to be focused on the large crowds and security requirements of the Inaugural," David Nakamura quotes them writing in WaPo. "There is great cause for celebration at this historic event. But we believe that the benefits of this emergency legislation, passed with little public notice, are far outweighed by its possible consequences." Meanwhile, Mary Cheh says get a grip: "The prediction of dire consequences is a little over the top." Jim Graham tells WaTimes: "This is a local issue and is not a matter for the United States Senate." That's what Marc Fisher thinks, too. Here's the hometown story for Bennett.

Says blogger, "Screw them and this posturing bullshit. If they can't find better things to do with their time they should both resign in shame!"

AND---Terry Lynch is on the case! From a letter sent by the Downtown Cluster of Congregations head: "The residents and surrounding businesses of the areas most impacted had little to no opportunity to comment on this proposal. It has been known for some time the Inaugural dates, and yet this has been enacted on an emergency basis?....I would note that two months ago Chief Lanier responded to what was described as a crime emergency in Adams Morgan owing to impacts from the night life venues, with a large increase in robberies and assaults. In response MPD dramatically increased coverage for the area. Yet now the proposal is to increase the hours and length of service of alcoholic beverages in a neighborhood with a history of safety problems?"

WHAT CAN CONGRESS DO?---Well, the council passed 90-day emergency legislation, which includes no built-in congressional review period. But Congress could take a timeout from crafting an auto bailout and pass a resolution disapproving of the council's law any time before the new hours begin.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty required at least 178 man-hours in police security while riding his bike, Bill Myers reports in Examiner. "The records are incomplete---some of the data is illegible and at least two months of data are missing---so it is likely that the total hours are much more." The records were released "after the city's police union sued the department to secure their release. Union Chairman Kris Baumann told The Examiner the extra hours were 'an embarrassment and a waste.'"

Read More "Loose Lips Daily: The Booze Backlash Begins" »

Next week, the Washington Post's top managers will meet for a big briefing on the paper's new strategy, an exercise that'll inevitably lead to a skinnier paper. But one part is being subtracted even before the big hubbub. It's among the skinniest of the paper's constituent parts. Here's the memo from newsroom leadership on the matter, followed by some extensive analysis.

Sunday Source
More than five years ago we launched Sunday Source as a fresh addition to our weekend entertainment and lifestyle coverage. That run is now coming to an end. As we take a hard, deep look into strategic areas of The Post's journalism we've decided to move Source's innovative staff and redistribute the best of its content to other precincts of the newspaper, and to end publication of the section on Dec. 21.
From its inception, Sunday Source was an innovation of design and content. The small Source staff and a dedicated band of freelancers created some popular features, including Road Trip, EcoWise, TrendSpotter and listings. We plan for these to live on in new homes in the new year. The Sunday Source staff will move to Style.

Read More "WaPo Kills Sunday Source" »

A belated kudos to the Washington Post editorial page, for nailing a thoroughly reported editorial-cum-investigative piece on the DeOnte Rawlings situation. Though we've already cited the piece in our fabulous Loose Lips Daily, a more complete breakdown is in order.

Rawlings, 14, was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer on Sept. 17, 2007. Subsequent investigations by the U.S. attorney's office and the police department have concluded that the officer, and another off-duty police official, broke no laws or departmental rules. They returned to their jobs.

The Post editorial concerns itself with the city's handling of the case, a response characterized by secrecy; details of the investigations have not been released to the public. Here are some of the shocking-but-then-again-not-so-shocking revelations in the Post editorial:

---James Haskel, the officer who shot Rawlings, pursued the youth after he found a minibike missing from his garage. Haskel and another officer spotted Rawlings riding it and testify that Rawlings shot at them. So Haskel fired back, hitting Rawlings with a fatal shot to the head. Though the U.S. attorney's office exonerated the officer, the Post points to some holes in the case: "No gun was ever found, the minibike went mysteriously missing and the officers, who at the time did not identify themselves as police, left the scene -- issues that have never been adequately addressed."

Read More "DeOnte Rawlings in Mid-Morning Blog Post" »

Now, we all know that the former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright is an accomplished individual. She skillfully handled the powder keg that was the parts of the former Yugoslavia and coined perhaps the boldest rationale ever for using the U.S. military, in a discussion with Colin Powell: "What’s the point of you saving this superb military for, Colin, if we can't use it?"

All of which is fine and good. But now Albright has somehow stretched her skill set, for the purposes of pre-inauguration happy talk. Let the Washington Post take it away:

Former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright said that the body language of Obama and Clinton, as well as the public statements they have made since the primary season concluded, suggest that the partnership will work. "I think they are both highly professional and highly respectful of each other," she said. "I am sure that in fact that they have worked out a way that she will have the kind of access she needs. She will give him her opinion unvarnished, but she will also be a very good team member."

The one-drop rule of classifying race gets a drop-kick in the Washington Post, courtesy of Marie Arana, the editor of the Post's Book World section.

And the big news for the next couple of days will focus on the playoff chances of the Redskins, who lost to this blogger's favorite team on Sunday at FedEx Field. The sports commentariat will make much of the Skins' continued offensive woes and perhaps a little bit about the Giants very good offensive line. But to me, the story line is Clinton Portis. Here's a phenomenal back, a team-first sort of fellow, who this week showed his dedication by playing banged up. Specifically, sore ribs, sprained knee, and a bum hip. After Portis suffered a tough hit in the Giants game, commentator Moose Johnston said something to the effect that Oh, he'll be back. He's a warrior. That's high praise from a former baller, and Portis no doubt basks in the adulation of everyone who says he's such a tough guy.

But when is all this madness going to end? When will people wake up and say, hey, this is exactly the scenario, and the mentality, that lands former NFL players in arthritis wards and psych wards for the rest of their natural lives. I mean, yeah, sore ribs--everyone's gotta play with those. But the hip and the knee? Those are joints, people, and joints are delicate affairs. Going hard against Justin Tuck and Kenny Phillips with already bad joints will do two things: Shorten Portis' career and make it more likely that he'll feel every step he takes for the rest of his life. I look forward to the day that teams recognize that their backups are generally worth more than their injured starters, and that it's inhumane to cast them as heroes for risking lifelong injuries.

Post riffs on the odd fate of the acorn.

Key point for motorists around town: Alternate-side street-sweeping-related ticketing is over for the winter. Park on either side, despite what the signs say. Here's the quirky part of the DPW announcement: "Residents and business owners will be notified when street sweeping resumes again in the spring of 2009." Hey, DPW, can't we agree on a date certain for the resumption of the ticketing? Can't we agree on, like, March 16 or something. Or does City Desk have to break the news of the resumption, just as we did this year's suspension date?