Gerrymandering for the People: Census figures out yesterday meant two things—one, the decennial shock that the city's demographics changed, and two, we now know what wards need to grow or shrink as the city redistricts its political boundaries. (Alas, we also know that despite gaining nearly 30,000 residents, we will continue to have a grand total of 0 voting members of the House of Representatives.) But there are some advantages to living in modern times. This is the first Census since Google Maps debuted, which means you don't have to wait for the Wilson Building wonks to draw ward boundaries anymore, because Greater Greater Washington has hatched a tool to crowdsource redistricting. Now you know what you'll be doing all weekend! +2

Read My Lips—New Taxes!: The District's budget deficit for this year is projected to be $322 million, a sum city officials seem to think would be best made up by cutting services to residents (and of course, fighting the never-as-plentiful-as-predicted "waste, fraud, and abuse"). Of course, for a city where the top 1 percent of wage-earners have an average income of $2.7 million and the top 4 percent earn an average of $443,700, there's probably room for higher brackets at the top of the tax structure. Which a group of protesters tried to tell Mayor Vince Gray today at the Wilson Building. Gray sent an aide, who promised to take the protest into account while the budget is written. We're not holding our breath, but we're glad someone's trying. +1

If You Don't Get It, You Don't Get It: Life in the news business is tough; there's layoffs, and pay cuts, and declining ad sales, all because no one really reads, well, anything except Twitter anymore. Life in the for-profit educational business, however, is not so tough, which we assume explains why the Washington Post Company reportedly paid Post publisher Katharine Weymouth $2 million last year. (And, apparently, paid her mother Lally Weymouth more than $300,000 to write a column.) We're envisioning a pile of eight million quarters, fresh from the newspaper boxes, being delivered by dump truck. -1

The Ron Brown-ing of America: Nearly 15 years ago, then-Commerce Secretary Ron Brown died in a plane crash in Croatia. This morning, a stretch of road near the Commerce Department was permanently given his name, thanks to legislation introduced by Brown's son, D.C. Councilmember Michael A. Brown. "Ron Brown Way" on 14th Street NW joins other memorials to the late, elder Brown, a D.C. native—including Ronald H. Brown Middle School here in the District; a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research ship, Ronald H. Brown; the Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights at St. John's University law school; and, later this spring, a new annex to the United Nations building in New York. Which puts our street in pretty good company. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 60 Today's score: +3 Friday bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 65

When it comes to late-night weekend ridership, Metro's most popular stops are not surprising: Dupont Circle, U Street, and Gallery Place. (If that raw data's hard to grasp, Greater Greater Washington made this very handy graph.) While that's probably not all late-night revelers, all those stops are inside the District—so some District officials don't want to give Metro its $50 million in dedicated funding if late night service on the weekend is cut in order to save money, according to WTOP.

That itself could set off a whole chain reaction of funding problems. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia are all supposed to chip in $50 million every year to keep Metro running. There's no telling what would happen if Metro were to lose all that funding—the $150 million pays for 42.4 percent of Metro's daily operations cost. Any recovery from a funding loss that extreme could involve even larger service cuts. Which is sort of a catch-22 for the transit agency.

Late-night businesses in D.C. could lose, too. Saturday night travel has been increasing far faster than ridership for the rail system overall. The number of people entering Metro after 7 p.m. on Saturdays has increased 142 percent between 1995 and 2010. In the same time period, commuter growth only increased 43 percent.

D.C. Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), who's a new addition to the Metro board, has been against the proposal since the beginning. At a committee meeting in February, TBD reported he found the whole idea "foolish":

We're a world class city... To be a world-class city you have to support nightlife. We don't shut the lights off anymore at 5:30 in Washington. It does not make sense to believe Metro is merely for commuters.... We want conventions here, we want tourists to stay here. But it's more than that. It's [about] being taken seriously as a city that has nightlife.

Wells continued his argument at a hearing this Wednesday. "I am strongly opposed to cutting back the night hours of Metro," he said. "It would not only economically injure the District of Columbia substantially, but it would decrease our status as a major city in this country."

WTOP reports preliminary figures suggest weekend service on midnight could save Metro between $3 million and $5 million, as well as giving it an "8th Day" for track repair. That's a far cry from the $50 million they'd lose if the District follows through on its threat. (Not to mention the $7 million some estimate D.C. late-night businesses could lose if the cuts are approved.)

Though, hey—at least Metro General Manager Richard Sarles wouldn't have to worry anymore about drunk people riding Metro.

Photo by isuperwang via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0

"It's not that deep," says Veronica Davis. "All I said was black people don't like the cold."

But the blog post in which the Greater Greater Washington contributor (and Life in the Village blogger) made that observation brought on some criticism. "I was basically called racist," Davis says. In her Monday post, Davis sought to explain why Capital Bikeshare usage is low east of the Anacostia River. Davis, who lives in Hillcrest, wrote the piece in response to a Bikeshare trip map that showed the service wasn't popular on her side of the river.

Responding to the map, some commenters had suggested moving the Bikeshare stations. An African American, Davis pointed to various reasons the community's majority-black population might not have taken to the big red two-wheelers. She listed things like "start-up costs"—the bike renting program requires a $75 annual fee—and topography: "East of the river also has many steep hills, making bicycling along some major corridors more difficult."

The last reason on her list, "seasonal usage," prompted Davis to write a sentence that eventually earned a strikethrough from GGW editors: "In general, African-Americans, which make up the large majority of the residents east of the river, are averse to colder temperatures."

A number of the 120 comments that followed took offense to Davis' assertion, which she followed up with a salient point about the futility of introducing Bikeshare stations during the latter part of the year. "Because relatively few residents were cyclists prior to the introduction of CaBi, the chances that the uninitiated bike rider is going to start cycling in late fall or the winter are relatively low."

As an African American who appreciates both a good cold snap and bikes, I'm not sure about being genetically predisposed to shunning Bikeshare stations during the cold months. In fact, as long as there's a bike available and no snow on the ground, I prefer pedaling to riding public transit.

But Davis explains she wasn't positing a scientific theory when she mentioned African Americans not liking the chill. It's just something that's said among black people, she says: "If I had said that to an entirely black audience, no one would have been offended." The small piece of controversy might have overshadowed the core of Davis' piece, which, more than simply explaining a lack of enthusiasm for Bikeshare East of the River, sought to combat an emerging perception Davis doesn't like– that District blacks are and will remain anti-bike.

One thing that may solve the east of the river Bikeshare problem is adding more stations, as opposed to taking them away. As Washington City Paper's Lydia Depillis points out: "The more stations there are, the more valuable the whole system becomes to its users, since they can access bikes in more places and get closer to where they need to go." According to Davis, currently there are 11 stations east of the Anacostia, with two out of commission.

Another thing that might help marketing Bikeshare to a community with fewer resources than the population as a whole is taking pains to convince potential riders their foray into bicycling won't end with them reeling from a financial hit. Besides the annual fee, a user can end up being charged $1,000 if a bike goes missing.

Photo by James D. Schwartz via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic

Now That It's Raining More Than Ever: First, we need to preface this item by saying we do know there's nothing more annoying than breathless news reports telling you what the weather's doing. You know what the weather's like! You have windows! That said... Have you noticed it's been raining? The District, predictably, fell to pieces; manholes started smoking on H Street NE, accidents snarled traffic everywhere, the Redskins had to practice in a hangar at Dulles. Nearly half a foot of rain could fall by the end of the day. But the weekend looks nice! -4

Metro Fights Back: Every now and then, another story pops up about how none of the members of the Metro Board of Directors ever actually ride any subways or buses. Now we know why: Alexandria Mayor Bill Euile, a member of the board, was injured today trying to take the train to a Metro board meeting, falling while boarding a subway at Braddock Road. He'll need surgery. Yes, really. There was a time when Metro was the pride of the D.C. region. But now, raise your hand if you'd trade a working, 24-hour, if dirty, New York subway system for our clean, but utterly dysfunctional one? -3

Google This: Readers of Greater Greater Washington noticed updated Google Maps satellite photos of the D.C. region recently—and promptly set about figuring out when they were taken: Between 1 p.m. and 1:35 p.m., on Sunday, Aug. 29. Clues that tipped them off included Metro track work (naturally), farmers markets in Dupont Circle and Greenbelt (which only meet on Sundays), and the lack of some Capital Bikeshare stations installed not long afterwards. Behold the power of crowd-sourcing! There is nothing that the hive mind cannot conquer! (Well, nothing mostly trivial, at least.) +2

Players Win and Winners Play: Glebe Road turns out to be a rather lucky place—Pura Valdez bought her first-ever Virginia Lotto Ticket at a Giant Food there recently, and won $1 million. (Certain City Paper editors have been buying Powerball tickets once or twice a month for years now and never won anything more than a lousy $3!) The store got $10,000 for selling the winning ticket. Valdez says she's been crying, sleeping badly, and not eating since she won; maybe being a millionaire isn't all it's cracked out to be. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 42 Today's score: -4 Today's Needle rating: 38

By now, you have at least skimmed the stories on the NTSB's findings concerning the fatal Metro crash. Before we forget about the NTSB's report until the next crash, let's take a moment to debate whether we should put some of the blame on the Metro Board. The only thing the board knows how to do is vote on fare hikes. Ensuring your safety as you commute to work? Forget it.

WaPo reports:

"The NTSB found that nearly half of the 3,000 track circuit modules that Metro uses could seriously malfunction and that a quarter of its rail cars, the oldest in the fleet, offer little protection in the event of a crash, posing an "unacceptable risk to Metrorail users." Although Metro is monitoring the problem circuits much more aggressively to manage that risk, the board recommended that the troublesome equipment and old rail cars be permanently removed as soon as possible. The NTSB has no statutory power to enforce its recommendations, which it makes without regard to cost."

[NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P] Hersman denounced Metro's failure to apply lessons from a near-crash by the Rosslyn Station in 2005, which she said could have prevented the June 22, 2009, accident near the Fort Totten Station, in which one train crashed into another, killing the driver and eight passengers and injuring scores of others.

'Metro was on a collision course long before this accident,' Hersman said in an opening statement to the public meeting, attended by senior Metro leaders and safety oversight officials, as well as families of the crash victims. 'The only question was when Metro would have another accident — and of what magnitude.'"

Shouldn't the board be punished for ignoring that earlier NTSB report? The problem isn't that Metro leadership ignored just that one report. Metro has a history of ignoring NTSB reports.

On the evening of the fatal crash at Fort Totten in June, our former LL Mike DeBonis was able to pull together previous crashes that appeared to foreshadow this tragedy—the 1996 train collusion at Shady Grove, and a 2004 crash in Woodley Park. DeBonis found in each case, the NTSB released a report that appeared to go ignored by WMATA. This is the NTSB in response to the Woodley Park crash:

"In WMATA’s March 2002 response to the Safety Board’s recommendation (R-96-37) to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of Metrorail cars and make modifications to improve their crashworthiness, WMATA stated that its consultant determined that it was neither practical nor desirable to add underframe reinforcement and that such modification possibly could result in more injuries. WMATA also stated that it would have been impractical to modify the 1000-series Metrorail cars before they are scrapped and it would be prohibitive to modify the 2000, 3000, and 4000 series when they are refurbished. As a result of this response, the Board classified Safety Recommendation R-96-37 “Closed—Acceptable Action” based on the information that WMATA’s position on the existing fleet was reasonable and that the intent of the recommendation had been met.

The Safety Board concluded that the failure of the carbody (underframe) end structure of the 1000-series Metrorail cars may make them susceptible to telescoping and potentially subject to a catastrophic compromise of the occupant survival space. WMATA’s evaluation, which determined that it was impractical to modify the 1000-series cars and their crashworthiness performance in collisions, in effect validates the scheduled retirement of the cars. Any replacement car should be designed with crashworthiness components for absorbing maximum energy in a collision and to transmit minimum acceleration to passengers without override or telescoping, as found in the current 5000-series railcars and specified for the 6000-series cars."

And its recommendation:

"Either accelerate retirement of Rohr-built railcars, or if those railcars are not retired but instead rehabilitated, then the Rohr-built passenger railcars should incorporate a retrofit of crashworthiness collision protection that is comparable to the 6000-series railcars. (R-06-2)"

Greater Greater Washington thinks the board should get a pass. The blog argues today:

"NTSB staff also blamed the Board for not doing more on safety. NTSB member Robert Sumwalt also repeatedly brought up the Board's role during questioning. According to one presentation by Loren Groff, they felt the Board should have not only asked tough questions of top management, but gone around them to conduct their own investigations into the safety operation of the organization.

That seems unrealistic. It's probably true the Board could have asked more tough questions. They could have commissioned an Inspector General's report. But they asked safety questions of the General Manager and got what seemed like satisfactory answers.

According to the NTSB discussion, the Board asked the General Manager to explain the top safety incidents and what was being done about them. The Board sees itself as a policy-making body, and doesn't meddle in day to day operations. Asking the GM for a safety summary seems like the right approach. If the GM's summary was misleading, it would be nice if Board members had psychically divined this, but it's hard to see how exactly they could have."

The board needed no such psychic powers. All they had to do was read previous NTSB reports. The same reports that they ignored over and over again.

*file photo by Darrow Montgomery.

Yesterday John Catoe, the suddenly retiring general manager of Metro, sat down with 11 local bloggers, including folks from Greater Greater Washington, We Love DC, and Prince of Petworth. Some of these people have already written up their meetings.

"I'm a little dumbfounded," says We Love DC's Tom Bridge of Catoe's resignation. "We had no indication at all that he would even consider it."

"I'm sort of speechless right now" says Prince of Petworth's Dan Silverman. Catoe, he says, sat down with the bloggers at around 5:15 last night and talked with them until about 6:30. Silverman says they talked "about everything under the sun." There wasn't, he says, "the slightest indication of an announcement of a retirement."

At one point, Silverman says, Catoe told the group about a new program to move Metro supervisors to "at will" status, meaning they can be fired more easily if they screw up.

"There was a point where he kinda jokingly said 'some people might ask why am I not at will,'" Silverman says.

"On a scale of zero to very very strange, I would say we’re at the top of that scale," says Bridge.

Dave Stroup, who has called for Catoe's resignation on why.i.hate.dc, says he was initially surprised at Catoe's candor yesterday. "I thought maybe they decided they should put a human face on himthat drone," he says. [15:59: Stroup says I misheard him.]

"I will say he did seem genuinely bothered—like it was getting to him," Stroup says. "That he was taking it personally that the system was not running. References to the June 22 crash, you could tell it got to him and it was hard for him to deal with that."

Stroup's been pounding on Catoe for a while, putting a ticker on why.i.hate.dc dating from last June's Red Line crash with John Catoe's picture below it. He didn't talk about this with Catoe yesterday, even as the two shared an elevator on their way out of the building. "I’ve definitely learned tact can wait," Stroup says.

Matt Johnson of Greater Greater Washington says he's pleased that Catoe's resignation didn't come up yesterday. "I'm sort of glad," he writes in an e-mail. "It would have dominated the conversation otherwise."

You mean you're pleased you could talk about fares and at-will employment policies instead? I replied.

"I think so, yes," Johnson writes. "While Mr. Catoe's vision for Metro is no longer as relevant, we were able to discuss how the situation of the present will affect any possible future Metro can have."

He adds: "I am concerned about how a replacement will deal with the budget crisis. It certainly a situation no one wants to come into as a GM."

Since it's been established here, here, and here that terminology matters, it seems worth pointing out the screaming language on the front page of the Washington Examiner yesterday: "Suburban dreams turn into ghettoes." The headline inside the paper said: "Foreclosure crisis creating suburban slums."

The story by Bill Myers and David Sherfinski began:

Two years of economic collapse have pockmarked the D.C. region's affluent suburbs with blight, and experts are worried that the foundering cul-de-sacs and towns are on the verge of becoming the region's next ghettoes.

Here's another term – "ghetto" – that gets thrown around far too much, and too casually, in talking about urban (and, in this case, suburban) problems.

Greater Greater Washington looked at the use of the word and its social and racial implications a few months ago; City Desk followed up.

The Examiner story (the main online headline is "Bedroom community blues" instead) referenced dropping home values, falling tax revenues, the high foreclosure rate in some local jurisdictions, and the fact that some – many? it's unclear – former single-family homes are now being (gasp) rented out. It quoted the president of the Kettering Community Association in Upper Marlboro, Linda Crudup, describing the vandalism of some of those foreclosed properties, in the form of broken windows and doors kicked in. It vaguely spoke of "neighbors who just a few years ago worried about curb height or speed bumps" now finding themselves "fighting to keep drug dealers from setting up shop in boarded-up homes." The story also cited an increase in homelessness in Prince William and Loudon and noted one Fairfax County district is "littered with hundreds of boarded-up McMansions."

Those are real problems, to be sure. But they have nothing to do with the term "ghetto," or the actual thing.

Ideas? Comments? I’m at eniedowski@washingtoncitypaper.com, and on Twitter.

Connolly wrote:

Anyone who's lived in D.C. is aware of the city's dirty secret: it essentially operates under an unwritten form of apartheid. In general, affluent, college-educated white folks with decent, steady incomes are clustered in the northwest quadrant. Their needs are serviced by a massive underclass, consisting largely of underprivileged immigrants, African-Americans, and Hispanics, that inhabits the remaining three quarters. Visitors to the city rarely glimpse this side of the city because there's little reason to venture beyond the fancy hotels, restaurants, and attractions.

Apartheid? Her use of that term caught the attention of Greater Greater Washington readers today after that site linked to Connolly's post; several commenters suggested it was "extreme" and "horrendously oversimplified," and that seems about right to me.

If it was unintentional, it was, at best, a sloppy reference; if she meant it, it was hyperbolic and inaccurate (even with that "unwritten" thrown in there). Apartheid has a very specific meaning beyond just racial segregation. And what Connolly described: That's segregation.

There certainly is no disputing the segregated nature of this city (and many others). And there is no disputing all of the disparities, along racial lines, that exist within it, in areas ranging from education and income to health care and beyond. But let's not call that apartheid. Terminology matters.

Ideas? Comments? I’m at eniedowski@washingtoncitypaper.com, and on Twitter.

After a neighborhood blog pictured the mural of "Boxer Girl," a black woman clad in workout attire with her hands raised in boxer's gloves and sporting a black eye, at least one commenter expressed dislike for it by dubbing it "ghetto" – thus setting off a long (and unresolved) debate over the mural's artistic merits, what, exactly, it said about the neighborhood, and, now, the use of that descriptor.

Lynda Laughlin, a family demographer at the U.S. Census Bureau and resident of Petworth, weighed in at GGW, drawing heavily from the thinking of University of Chicago sociology professor Mario Small, who has argued that the term be abandoned, at least as a concept used in talking about black urban poverty.

Laughlin wrote:

The term "ghetto" has become such a common term in everyday language, it is hard to determine what we really mean when use the term. Even urban scholars are guilty of overusing and under-defining the term "ghetto." Many scholars use the term "ghetto" to describe a geographic area, such as a neighborhood or census tract that is characterized as having a high concentration of households in poverty as well as a high concentration of blacks, or any other racial/ethnic minority group. General public use of the term "ghetto" tends to assume such areas characterized by crime, slackers, Chinese take-out restaurants, store front churches, poverty, and racial/ethnic minorities. Unfortunately, for many individuals, their image of a "ghetto" is less from actual experience but influenced by the popular media.

... Clearly, we need a more sophisticated approach to how we classify the social and economic conditions of urban neighborhoods; one that does not demoralize a community and its residents. The current use of the term "ghetto" glosses over the real issues facing urban communities and allows individuals to hide behind racist and classist assumptions instead of engaging in productive conversations and actions. More importantly, it is on us to change or abandon the term "ghetto" because the cultural and ideological construction of the term has often shaped public policy. Stereotypes and sweeping generalizations should not be the basis for reform. The problems we face in urban America are complex and should be treated as such.

The Webster's New World College Dictionary defines "ghetto" as such: 1. in certain European cities, a section to which Jews were formerly restricted 2. any section of a city in which many members of some minority group live, or to which they are restricted as by economic pressure or social discrimination.

But the Urban Dictionary, a dictionary of slang written by its online users, offers several adjectival meanings as well. Among them: 1. urban; of or relating to (inner) city life 2. poor; of or relating to the poor life 3. jury-rigged, improvised, or home-made (usually with extremely cheap or sub-standard components), yet still deserving of an odd sense of respect from ghetto dwellers and non-ghetto dwellers alike (used in a sentence: "A TV Guide duct-taped to a 4 foot stick?! That's one hella ghetto 'mote control!").

The term, as noun and adjective, has come to be used in many ways and contexts: Frederick L. McKissack wrote an article in the Progressive in 1998 about the "cyberghetto," describing the technology gap that has left far fewer minorities with access to the Internet than their white counterparts. Albums by the former Master P include The Ghettos Tryin to Kill Me, Ghetto D, Ghetto Postage, and Ghetto Bill.

Recently, Belva Davis, blogging in the San Francisco Chronicle, recounted the controversy over the word's use in a June New York magazine story on the Obamas' decision to vacation in Martha's Vineyard, long a favorite spot for the black elite. One anonymous long-time islander was quoted as questioning Michelle Obama's place there, "calling her a 'ghetto girl,' one who did not belong in the august company of the regulars," Davis wrote.

But there was more: Davis' friend, Abigail McGrath, also a Vineyard resident, designed a T-shirt listing the names of a few dozen well-known women, from Rosa Parks and Sally Hemmings to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Oprah Winfrey, that declares: "GHETTO GIRLS ROCK. Life's not about where you're from; it's where you're going." It's supposedly on sale on the Vineyard now.

Writing a few years back at theblackcommentator.com, Harold M. Clemens called "ghetto" the "new N-word." "What does it mean to act 'suburban,' if acting 'ghetto' means unruly?" he asked.

He blogs at ghettouprising.

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:

Who decided on 7:00 p.m., and why? Why not 8:00 p.m., or even later, to make certain that recreational users are off the road before the cars are turned onto it? It’s Sunday, there’s no weekday rush of traffic, and there are no large numbers of automobile drivers needing to take Beach Drive through the park to the Maryland suburbs. The cars can take 16th Street and Connecticut Avenue, and don’t need Beach Drive on Sunday evening. Let the cars stay on those roads, and keep Beach Drive safe for weekend recreational use, at least until darkness falls.

Frick says he was moved by McKay's logic. In a phone call, he says he grew up in Kensington, "a stone's throw" from the park and Beach Drive, and has many happy memories of riding the road on a bike with his parents. "We should let other families enjoy their time there," he says. Plus: "It didn't take much effort on my part" to send the letter. (Read: ANC Commissioners' letterhead=not that impressive.)

• Greater Greater Washington has the scoop on an emergency tree removal last night that tied up some parking spaces on S St. NW between 15th and 17th:

Last night, residents of S Street NW between 15th and 17th discovered Emergency No Parking signs stating that the trees on the block would be removed. The residents had not known about any tree removal, nor had the local ANC commissioners. The blocks had already lost several mature trees in recent years, and residents worried about losing more.An hour, several DC Council staff, some representatives of the Mayor, and some frantic calls to DDOT's Urban Forestry Administration later, everyone found out the truth. Only three trees on the two blocks were coming down. These trees were either dead or seriously damaged in recent storms, but, according to ANC Commissioner Jack Jacobson, "There was evidently a problem that the contractor had decided timing on removing the trees and had not properly consulted with DDOT, much less the neighborhood."

• Good, honest, hard-working people are turning into blathering idiots. No need to name names, because the Good, honest, hard-working people who have endorsed Rush Limbaugh know who they are (the absolutely batshit wackos, not so much.) Yours truly hasn't managed to put together a less-than-rabid post on Rush without punching himself in the groin–so he's going to stop. Last word: libertarians, classical liberals, et al., should distance themselves from the whole Republican party/Rush Limbaugh/Michael Steele debacle–and if they won't, at least have the good graces to stop bitching about being lumped in with those fucking idiots by the "mainstream media."
• Speaking of libertarians trying to ride the Republican gravy train (ugh), Pete Eyre of Bureaucrash has written a sycophancy-free recap of CPAC (Conservatives Putting Assholes in Charge/Conservatives Pecking At Ciabatta/Conservative Political Action Committee), of which there are very few.

OK, back to 2nd Best Of. (Y'all are gonna love this shit.)

• George Mason University's economics department (known for its unquantifiable love of freedom) is losing the very smart Peter T. Leeson to the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory at the University of Chicago, where he'll join the likes of Steve Levitt and Kevin Murphy. Leeson is the author of the sure-to-be-funny  Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates. [H/t to Tom at Fr33 Agents]

• Pete Eyre of Bureaucrash observed the anniversary of Ruby Ridge yesterday, and finished up his eulogy quite nicely: "This post touches on lots of factors but they all come down to one thing: That we, as individuals, should be free to act so long as we don’t initiate force against another. If we continue to stand idly by as our freedoms are usurped it’ll soon be too late. Because, as Thomas Jefferson noted, 'When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.'"

• Speaking of speaking up: This year's March on the Pentagon takes place on March 21 (which also happens to be the day that Rita's will be giving out free 10 oz. Italian ices!). Participants are meeting up at noon at 23rd St. & Constitution Ave. The theme is the same as last year: "Occupation is a crime!" Dress accordingly.

• In local news, Michael Perkins of Greater Greater Washington has an insanely thorough breakdown of proposed Metro service cuts. Here's just a taste of the proposed bus cuts: "Eliminate the 60 (Ft. Totten-Petworth) while keeping the 64; the L4 (Connecticut Ave) while keeping the L1 and L2; the N3 (Massachusetts Ave) while keeping the N2, N4, and N6; and the P2 (Anacostia-Eckington) while keeping the P1 and P6. Shorten the 42 bus between McPherson and Metro Center, and the 80 between McPherson and the Kennedy Center."

Have a good weekend, City Desk readers.

Good morning, City Desk readers! Not only is it Freedom Friday (again)–it's also pay day for yours truly, which means I'm going to blow a wad on Listerine and Slim Jims later tonight. And now, the news:

• I know, I know: podcasts are so 2006. But the good folks at Bureaucrash have posted one containing an interview with Robert R. Arthur, during which he discusses his book You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos. If you only listen to one podcast today, let it be this one. It's that good.
• Not Larry Sabato, blogging wunderkind and nancy-pantsed nanny-stater, is covering the forthcoming Virginia restaurant smoking ban with a bloodhound's nose. Yesterday he posted an update from Sen. Ralph S. Northam, who said, "I just wanted to jump on and update you on the progress of the restaurant smoking ban bill that I am sponsoring. We had a major breakthrough yesterday evening, and this morning Governor Kaine and I, along with a number of other Democrats and Republicans, announced compromise that would allow a version of the bill to pass the House General Laws Committee." The only exceptions to the law will be private clubs and cigar bars, which says that Virginia lawmakers "don't care about [rich old white] people['s health]." It also means I will have to drive that much further to patronize a restaurant where I can take puffs from a cigarette in between bites of bbq.
• Greater Greater Washington has the rundown on the residents of C St. NE, who are tired of drivers speeding through their neighborhood: "Instead of waiting for a streetscape project from DDOT, residents are proactively designing a better C Street. Resident Ken Granata created a blog for the street that explores potential redesigns. Granata, who also maintains the Rosedale Citizens' Alliance neighborhood site, advocates removing one lane between 16th and 22nd Streets. On this stretch, C is a divided highway of three lanes in each direction. Heading west on C, the road divides at 16th, with C continuing west as a narrower road and North Carolina Avenue heading southwest to Lincoln Park. This creates a bottleneck around 16th."
• Lastly, I'm thinking about buying one of these shirts. Is it too edgy? Too post-ironic? What do y'all think?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Leonid Mamchenkov