Happy NaBloPoMo! Or for the less tech-savvy: National Blog Posting Month. Apparently, there are bloggers who have vowed to post every day for the month of November! Don’t worry, slacker-bloggers with other responsibilities—City Desk has plenty of posts to go around. That’s what interns are for.

The New York Times is asking readers to look back at the year since President Barack Obama’s election and sum up their mood. As of Tuesday night, Democrats are “hopeful,” “proud,” and “thankful.” Republicans are “suspicious,” “depressed,” and… “unsurprising.” Please assign grammar lessons to those unsurprising Republicans. Also, Republicans can add some new words today after last night's election returns. Bob McDonnell!

At 12:01 a.m., the National Park Service debuted its new online lottery for the National Christmas Tree ceremony tickets. There are some 10,000 tickets available, and the lottery closes Friday. On the plus side: No more fending off tourists and huddling in the cold for hours to see a tree lit. On the downside: Did anyone actually think this through? Thousands upon thousands logging into one government-run Web page? I’d start bundling up the kiddies.   Read More "Our Morning Roundup: The “Thrilled, Hopeful, and Unsurprising” Edition" »

"Someone is missing." Anyone else think the latest Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle, Shutter Island, has the worst tagline ever?

A senior at George Washington University was reported missing last weekend—prompting a Facebook group, a front-page GW Hatchet article, and a citywide police search. The girl who reported his absence said: “I could possibly see him [skipping their event] and sleeping in—but I couldn’t see him not texting me and apologizing.” The student turned up safe and sound Monday morning, having gone with another girl to Virginia. Draw your own conclusions.

On Monday, the National Capital Planning Commission approved a new security plan for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial - so construction can now begin. According to the Associated Press, the memorial—which consists of an island and two elm trees—will have fewer metal posts than initially proposed. Expect to see the memorial (missing security posts) in 2011.

Help the Metropolitan Police find a missing 12-year-old. She was last seen at the Minnesota Avenue Metro Station on Friday.

Central Intelligence Agency funds missing? Say, maybe for the last eight years? Try checking the pockets of the Afghan president’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai. Or just ask the opium dealers. Read More "Our Morning Roundup: The “Someone is Missing” Edition" »

Since its founding last year, the Amethyst Initiative, a campaign to initiate a public debate about the merits of a 21 year old drinking age, has been growing every day.  The Initiative, started by John McCardell, President Emeritus of Middlebury College, now boasts the support of the Presidents and Chancellors of a whopping 135 colleges and universities across the country.

But where do local schools stand on the initiative's goal of lowering the drinking age?

Read More "Where Do Local Schools Stand On the Amethyst Initiative?" »

Has Dan Snyder figured out how to hold events at FedExField?

Well, special correspondent J.P. Szymkowicz says that while he can't vouch for everybody, his U2 experience was uneventful, other than the show itself.

Szymkowicz says he left DC via Metro at 3 p.m. yesterday and arrived at the Morgan Boulevard station quickly and without any problems. He went into the stadium at 5 p.m. when the gates opened and with his general admission tickets got to the spot on the field that he desired. He got a ride home and found that the drive took "30 minutes from the stadium to the Rte. 50 exit," which is acceptable.

Szymkowicz, an expert on Snyder's parking methods and U2's discography, left so early because he feared the crowd would be too much for the stadium operators to handle.

The show, he says, "was great," and featured a sound system "as good as any of the other shows I have seen dating back to Unforgettable Fire."

Any other travel tales from u2 goers?

***

The Great Dan Steinberg mulls an issue that will likely get more timely as the 2009 season wears on: What do you do if you're mad at the Redskins, but get offered free tickets?

(AFTER THE JUMP: Paper or plastic for Sunday at FedExfield? DC football recruiting star in trouble? DC basketball recruiting star in trouble? Maryland hoops recruit in trouble? Stubblefield 2.0 in domestic and non-domestic legal and financial trouble? Sean Taylor's survivors in some money trouble?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Will Fanimosity Rear Its Covered Head at FedExField This Weekend?" »

The Issue: The old Foggy Bottom Grocery at 21st and F Streets was known by most George Washington University students as “the sketchy purple place”- perfect for last-minute beer runs, and little else. In June, a former GWU Student Association president bought the place and started renovating it with the intention of serving pizza and sandwiches at "FoBoGro” until 2 a.m. weekdays and 3 a.m. weeknights. But the West End Citizens Association (WECA) isn’t thrilled about catering to the late-night munchy crowd; they filed a petition and argued in an ANC meeting last week that the new owner is ignoring D.C. zoning regulations and is likely to disrupt the neighborhood.

Read More "Neighborhood Watch: GWU Students Need Late-Night Food, Residents Need Quiet" »

George Washington University has pulled up its grade in a national environmental group's annual college ranking. Then again, there really was no place to go but up after last year, when the Sierra Club named G.W. one of the five least sustainable universities in the country, the student-run GW Hatchet, pointed out in its front page coverage today.

Even though the school's environmental record doesn't suck quite as much this year, it hasn't exactly entered the “ivy league,” so to speak, of eco-friendly campuses. It is now ranked 81 out 135 universities around the country; hardly a passing score even with grade inflation so common at colleges these day.

Still, the Sierra Club’s third annual Cool Schools report didn’t even consider other D.C. colleges such as Georgetown University, American University and the University of the District of Columbia. So, there is no way to establish the true pecking order, environmentally-speaking, of D.C.  higher-learning institutions. The only other area schools included in the ranking also received uninspiring grades: The University of Maryland beat G.W. with a 67, while George Mason University brought up the rear with an 89.

The name of Tee Guidotti, the George Washington University health professor who penned a 2007 study on waterborne lead in the District, has been dragged through the mud in recent weeks, and the professor has now hired a top litigator to help clean it up again.

The controversy originated in articles by Environmental Science and Technology and the Washington Post holding that Guidotti had an undisclosed contractual obligation to the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority to allow the utility to approve his study's results, a serious ethical violation. Guidotti's study found "no identifiable public health impact" from waterborne lead---a conclusion that came under fire this year when another team of researchers contradicted that finding.

Guidotti holds that the agreement with WASA required no such approvals. He had denied the charges personally in an e-mail to LL, who had linked and commented on the stories about the study. And now he has retained Elizabeth G. Taylor, partner at high-stakes litigation boutique Zuckerman Spaeder, to press efforts to clear his name.

Read More "Embattled GWU Lead Researcher Lawyers Up" »

George Washington University is raising its notoriously high tuition. We are gonna have to update our story on the institution. Can someone please explain to me what GW is known for? Is it really worth the money? It can't possibly be worth money.

Read More "GWU Doesn’t Think There’s A Recession" »

Darrow Montgomery / City Paper

College Rag Wrap-up: Your weekly roundup of what’s new(s) in D.C. college papers (and blogs). Each Monday, City Desk summarizes the most interesting stories from college oriented newspapers and blogs in the area. Links are compiled by City Paper intern Ryan J. Reilly, who is an editor at Catholic University’s student newspaper, the Tower.

Read More "College Rag Wrap Up for Feb. 9" »

GW Hatchet editor Eric Roper (Darrow Montgomery)

College Rag Wrap-up: Your weekly roundup of what’s new(s) in D.C. college papers (and blogs). Each Monday, City Desk summarizes the most interesting stories from college oriented newspapers and blogs in the area. Links are compiled by City Paper intern Ryan J. Reilly, who is an editor at Catholic University’s student newspaper, the Tower.

Read More "College Rag Wrapup: Constructive Criticism Edition" »

As you may have heard, some smart guy who helps give out the Nobel Prize in literature recently said that Americans are simply too "insular" and possessed of a restricting "ignorance" to produce great writing. So we have much to learn from the arrival of Suhayl Saadi, who's here for a month of readings and lectures at George Washington University. Saadi, who according to a press release is "known throughout the UK as the preeminent Scottish-Pakistani writer," has received much acclaim for his 2004 debut novel, Psychoraag, which he'll be reading from tonight. The book doesn't have a U.S. publisher---we're insular and ignorant, remember---but copies will be available for purchase at his D.C. readings and at the campus bookstore. Or you can just legally read the whole thing for free. Americans like free stuff.

Tonight's reading from Psychoraag is at 8 p.m. in the City View Room, seventh floor of 1957 E St. NW. A second event, during while he'll discuss "the role that memory, time, place, and multiple voices play in 'destabilizing' literature," takes place Monday, Oct. 13, 8:15 p.m. in room B07 of the Media and Public Affairs Building at George Washington University.

Last year, Mount Pleasant restaurant Tonic opened another outpost in Foggy Bottom, smack in the middle of The George Washington University's creeping campus sprawl. Despite the name of the joint, Tonic co-owner Jeremy Pollok had a hard time getting the okay to use his beautiful new bar to serve campus regulars anything stronger than grape juice.

"We were open for the first six months with nothing," says Pollok, who graduated from G.W. in 1994 with a Psych degree. Last winter, though, Tonic was freed to sell some tonics---beer, wine, and Bloody Mary's for brunch. "We got a full license from the city, but we had agreed with the University to start off with just beer and wine to see how the students reacted and to see what sort of purveyors we were," says Pollok.

After a successful semester, Tonic has finally earned a passing grade with the U., and is free to start stocking the harder stuff. Still, the Foggy Bottom outpost won't offer up all the options of the Mount Pleasant location.

"We won't be carrying Red Bull, we are not going to be serving shots, and we won’t have things like Jagermeister---you know, the foo-foo stuff," says Pollok. "We are trying to reduce the risk of students---or anybody, for that matter---over-indulging. We are aware that we’re on a college campus, so we want to keep that at the front of our minds."