A People's History of the United States author Howard Zinn appeared at Busboys & Poets Monday night to promote and and search for investors for his film The People Speak. Zinn's appearance proved so popular that the progressive hot spot on 14th Street filled up 1 hour and 15 minutes before Zinn took the stage at 6:30 p.m.

Here are the highlights (after the jump): Read More "Howard Zinn @ Busboys & Poets: ‘Democracy doesn’t come from the top, it comes from the bottom’" »

Outside of the Busboys and Poets coffeeshop at 14th and V Streets NW, there's a large plexiglas box filled with shoes. It's called "The Empty Shoes of War," and each pair of shoes symbolizes an Iraqi civilian killed in the war. As a volunteer for Code Pink, local blogger and activist Nikolas Schiller had helped out with the event where the memorial was unveiled.

So when Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi whipped his shoes at President George W. Bush yesterday, Schiller was struck by the podiatro-political nexus. As he writes on his blog, "Last night I was reminded of the shoes in the memorial and conceived the idea of putting up a small guerrilla thank you note as a way to publicly thank al-Zaidi for doing something millions of people around the world would love to do if they were given the opportunity."

He put it on the plexiglas box:

Busboys & Poets at 14th & V Sts. NW is at capacity and ready to party, just in time for the first polls closing. There's a line snaking down the block to get a table. My view was from the outside in:

Read More "Party Time, Excellent" »

Tonight at 6 p.m., Busboys & Poets hosts a reading and discussion of Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives, a collection of interviews with the people who make up the latest wave of immigrants to the United States. Justin Moyer recently reviewed the book for City Paper.