It's Good Friday and that means Shrine of the Sacred Heart church on 16th and Park will do the traditional procession through Mt. Pleasant and Columbia Heights. The procession begins at the church at 8:30 p.m. Darrow Montgomery has a great set of photos from last year's procession, but it's worth seeing for yourself.

The procession starts at the church, heading west on Park Road:

View Sacred Heart Church Good Friday Procession in a larger map

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

U.S. Capitol, September 16

After Moten's confrontation fail with D.C. Council Chairman and mayoral hopeful Vincent Gray, Moten—whom Mayor Adrian Fenty wants more citizens to emulate—told a bunch of sweaty journalists that a) he's not a crook, and don't you dare call him a crony; B) Gray is a crook, and he will release the emails that prove it shortly; C) he has set up a Google alert of his own name; D) no, he doesn't think he's behavior is hurting Fenty's campaign, why would you ask that?

Check out our video after the jump.

Fenty doesn't seem to have any problem with Moten doing what he's doing, but remember, this is the guy who compared the mayor to Jesus, getting national notice—something tells LL most campaigns wouldn't exactly want Moten running around freelancing. (He's on the verge of becoming Fenty's own Terry McAuliffe!) Then again, as LL noted in this week's paper, the Green Team isn't paying much attention to the things most campaigns pay attention to—like, for instance, whether one of the candidate's friends is stepping all over the campaign's message.

The whole thing happened, conveniently enough for LL, on the steps of the City Paper office, since 'PFW is on the second floor of the building we occupy the third floor of. (Enjoy that walk back to 15th and L, DeBonis!) Here's the video of Moten chasing after Gray, following an appearance by both Fenty and Gray on Jonetta Rose Barras' radio show:

We'll post more videos shortly—check back soon!

Columbia Heights, April 2

Did you rage this weekend? If not, did you get your living room spackled, sanded, and primed? Did you spend so much time listening to 105.9 the Edge that you found yourself thinking things like, On third listen, I adjudge that the bass line of "Living on a Prayer" is the most important part of the song? Are you me?

No? THEN LET'S RAGE!

1) RAGE AGAINST HEALTHCARE; RAGE AGAINST ANTI HEALTHCARE RAGERS. Universal-healthcare proponents had two victories this weekend, one courtesy a vote and another courtesy some Tea Party protesters who went Mel Gibson on members of congress. It reminds me of what a friend said about John Rocker after he flamed out: "Put a redneck in front of a microphone, this is what happens." This friend lives in the same town as John Rocker and avoids microphones.

2) RAGE AGAINST IMMIGRATION NONACTION. Of all the things Obama hasn't gotten done, this is...one of them.

3) RAGE AGAINST THE WARS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. And yes, in case you were wondering, this protest did bring out the guy on stilts dressed like Uncle Sam.

4) RAGE IN RUSSIA. This was rage against Putin, in 11 cities, but they called it Day of Wrath because dayofrage.com was taken.

5) RAGE AGAINST THE WASHINGTON POST Oh my god if I read one more Andy Alexander item about this I'm gonna write in to complain. March 9. March 11. Today. I am not celebrating this celebration of the "celebration" of gay marriage!

6) MARYLAND RAGES AGAINST WINNING. On the plus side, no reports of a riot as of Sunday night at 11:13.

7) RAGE AGAINST OUTSIDE-THE-BELTWAY TYPES: Arlington man wins National Marathon. Arlington way to go!

8) NATS RAGE AGAINST JESUS and send him to Pennsylvania. Hope you like pretzels, Jesus!

9) NOT RAGE BUT FASCINATING: T.C. Williams in Alexandria sends 80 percent of its students to college. It's in the top 4 percent of U.S. high schools for AP placement. And it's been deemed "persistently low achieving" and faces radical surgery. In today's Outlook, T.C. teacher Patrick Welsh writes a typically sharp column about the school, torching Alexandria for enrolling "newly arrived" 18- to 20-year-old immigrants in high school; "Had we done as Arlington and Fairfax counties do and offered them enrollment in an adult education program, their Standards of Learning scores would not have counted, and it's very unlikely that T.C. would have gotten the 'persistently low achieving' label. We would also be serving those students better." He also briefly tells the story of Alexandria's star-crossed effort nearly 13 years ago to create an alternative school for kids who aren't making it in T.C. Activists thought it was racist; the plan sunk.

Photo by Flickr user ep_jhu

So much for the Brauchli Doctrine!

Moving to the subject on the minds of all those who pay too much attention to the Washington Post, Brauchli e-mailed City Desk a statement saying the following about Quinn's execrable column, "The Party": "Sally and I have agreed that the column will return to what had been its original focus on faith, family and entertaining and will appear online at "On Faith," a section of washingtonpost.com that Sally guides."

So, the wrapup:

1) The column is killed from the print edition. That's not to say that if Quinn gins up an incredible piece, it won't appear in the dead-tree version. But at the Washington Post, at least, a move to online-only counts as a significant demotion.

2) Sources consulted on the matter indicate that Brauchli wouldn't have taken kindly to the column if he had reviewed it before its launch. He likely would have killed it. But the Post has long given a nice amount of leash to its section editors—in this case, Style co-honcho Ned Martel, who was utterly unreachable on this matter today, as was Quinn and many others.

3) The column was originally supposed to be something that focused on holiday cheer. As Quinn put it in her opener back in November: "I originally thought to do a column for 'On Faith' called 'The Sacred Table' about entertaining. When you think about it, there is a sacred quality to the sharing of a meal. Just think of Jesus's last supper as an example. The table can be a kind of altar, with a cloth, candles, wine and bread. Every religion has some kind of 'breaking of bread' associated with its rituals and traditions. Many Christian denominations even call the bread itself 'the host!'"

Somehow, the thing survived into the doldrums of January and the squalls of February—just long enough, in other words, for Quinn to lay down an enormous turd that'll eventually get mentioned in another story about how the Post has lost its way.

John Feinstein doesn't like the way the Redskins complied with the NFL mandate to interview minority candidates before hiring a coach. Feinstein doesn't believe that Dan Snyder ever really thought Jerry Gray, a black defensive coach who reportedly has interviewed for Jim Zorn's job while Zorn still has it, could be a head coach for the Redskins. Gray was already turned down by at least one college, Memphis, before he was used to put the Redskins in compliance with the so-called Rooney Rule.

Feinstein writes:

Gray has as much chance of being the next Redskins coach as Mike Krzyzewski has of being voted Man of the Decade on the campus at the University of Maryland.

Feinstein, while blasting the way the Rooney Rule is administered, takes no position on whether the NFL should adopt the Clooney Rule, the Looney Rule or Soon-Yi Rule.

It's just a joke! Remember?

***

Bring Mike Leach to Redskins Park (cont.): Jerry Gray is from Texas Tech, same as Mike Leach, who would have met the criteria for the Looney Rule. Leach got fired yesterday after allegedly mistreating a player. (Hey, Dan Snyder: The greatest offensive mind in the game is still available, 24 hours after his firing! Get him!)

In today's Washington Post, Sally Jenkins jumps in ahead of the curve and takes up for the deposed coach.

"You can hear the sound of a railroading in Lubbock," Jenkins writes, "and it's not coming from the train station."

Leach had been taking a beating in the mainstream media before Jenkins talked sense here. But when everything comes out, everybody's going to be on Leach's side, or every football coach at every level is going to be fired.

Anybody who didn't love Leach before Craig James got him fired for (allegedly) mistreating the ESPN announcer's son should love him now. While most folks who have millions of dollars at stake keep their mouths shut about their ex-employers until the last check clears, Leach fired away at the school that John Hinckley made infamous.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Leach calls everybody "liar"? Craig James is the real villain in the Mike Leach Story? Craig James is the real villain in the Washington Federals demise? Awesome Trivia™: Craig James is the last white guy to do what? Annapolis' own Travis Pastrana's gonna jump what tonight? Is he crazy? Can the NHL take New Year's Day from college football? Is the NBA heading for a showdown with Jesus?)

A snippet of Leach's goodbye-for-now statement:

Over the past several months, there have been individuals in the Texas Tech administration, Board of Regents and booster groups who have dealt in lies, and continue to do so. These lies have led to my firing this morning. I steadfastly refuse to deal in any lies, and am disappointed that I have not been afforded the opportunity for the truth to be known. Texas Tech’s decision to deal in lies and fabricate a story which led to my firing, includes, but is not limited by, the animosity remaining from last year’s contract negotiations. I will not tolerate such retaliatory action; additionally, we will pursue all available legal remedies.

Not that it would excuse real player abuse if he is indeed guilty, but: Leach also pointed out in his letter that Tech has been to bowl games for 10 straight years, and claimed that the school "has the highest graduation rate for football players of any public institution in the country." ('Course, the same school gave me a diploma, and I didn't even buy a book my last year there, so that stat's worthless.)

The Leach story ain't going to go away, and when all is said and done, I'd bet real money the villain will be Craig James.

Maybe that's just a wish. But all you need to know about James to dislike him: His real name is "Jesse James." DC football fans of a certain age don't even need to know that to loathe him. They remember James as the guy who more than any other player helped quicken the demise of the Washington Federals of the USFL. He was the Federals top draft pick and marquee player in their inaugural year of 1983. But after one horrible season for James and the team, he used an injury to get out of his contract and move to the NFL. He went to the New England Patriots and immediately became the player he never was in a Federals uniform. Awesome Trivia™ about Craig James: His 1,227 yards rushing in 1985 makes him the last white running back to run for more than 1,000 yards in a season.

By then, the Federals were defunct. Thanks, Craig!

I can think of no better payback to Craig James for what he did to DC than for Dan Snyder to hire Leach as offensive coordinator or something bigger. Leach's teams score more points during timeouts than the Skins do in whole games.

***

Like a lot of guys on New Years Eve, Travis Pastrana is gonna get behind the wheel of a car tonight and put his life at risk.

All sorts of sports are claiming holidays as their own. It's getting like dogs peeing on a patch of grass. Tonight comes the latest example, as motorsports daredevils continue their attempted takeover of New Year's Eve: Pastrana, Annapolis' own former motorbike phenom turned suicidal entertainer, will take a long drive off a short peer tonight in Long Beach, hoping to fly a Subaru about 250 feet onto a barge while the television cameras roll. It's all sponsored by caffeine-pusher Red Bull. Last New Year's Eve, Robbie Knievel jumped the fiery fountain (or did he?) at the Mirage in Las Vegas before a national TV audience.

America loves the sports/holiday nexus. For most of the last century the whole country linked Memorial Day Weekend and the Indy 500. Football and Thanksgiving have been paired forever, too, first with high schools and then the pros.

And, as college football stupidly let its grip on New Year's Day slip — the big games won't be played until next week — hockey steps up and says, "Thank you very much":  The NHL makes a power-play for New Years Day, promoting the crap out of a Boston Bruins/Philadelphia Flyers game to be played outdoors tomorrow at Fenway Park.

This is the NHL's third stadium-hosted Winter Classic, and good for Gary Bettman for coming up with an idea that is simultaneously stupid and cool.

But, I see trouble ahead for some sports/holiday pairings. Because America also loves Jesus, here's a New Year's 2010 Prediction: The grumbling about the NBA taking Christmas as a day to hypermarket itself is gonna get louder soon. The NBA started putting a marquee matchup or two on Christmas during the Michael Jordan Era, but really kicked its holiday promotion into overdrive this year, with five games telecast nationally this Christmas.

Even some of its own were blasting this year's tacky tack. "I actually feel sorry for people who have nothing to do on Christmas Day other than watch an NBA game," Orlando Magic Coach Stan Van Gundy told the Associated Press, in a story that appeared in the Washington Post. Van Gundy's complaints were about family issues. I bet if the NBA doesn't tone down its Christmas blowouts, this'll become a Jesus issue. I can't wait!

Though, it's hard to deny that the Christmas games do get basketball attention the game wouldn't otherwise get. Should the WNBA to plan an Easter Eggstravaganza or somesuch? Looking at my sportswatching calendar, Easter's still pretty open.

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

Dashboard, 1988

Click image to enlarge

A sampling:

This is Snyder's team; he was intimately involved in assembling it. He keeps his favorite players on speed dial, watches practices on the sidelines and demands face time and explanations from the coaches he personally hired. Whatever you think of Zorn, he is Snyder's own selection. It was Snyder who told Joe Gibbs, "He would make a great head coach." He is personally responsible for naming Vinny Cerrato, a proven failure, executive vice president of football operations, for the Redskins' lack of core strength, for their inability to power the ball in the red zone, which is thanks to his decade of neglect of the interior lines in favor of big free agent signings.

But no sampling can do the column justice. It's all wondrous.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Reading recommendations? Nats give fans an unforgettable "Bang! Zoom!" when down to last strike? Thom Loverro says forget "Bang! Zoom!" Ted Leonsis says Caps better than Jesus? When's the wake for Hoop Dreams? Say it ain't so, Susie Kay?)

My only problem with Jenkins' article is that nowhere in the piece is there a disclosure that she has written books with Lance Armstrong, or any mention of all the allegations that Armstrong doped while winning all those Tour de Frances.

(Whoa! Where'd that come from? Enough with the Lance Armstrong! Innocent til proven guilty! Heard of it? Geezus Chrysler! Let Sally do God's work!)

OK, OK! Go read Sally Jenkins' column again!

***

Sure, it's early in the football season, but I'm certain that nothing the Redskins do this year will wow their fans as much as last night's Nats' win over the Mets wowed those spectating or otherwise watching or (in my case) listening.

Justin Maxwell's grand slam with his team down a run in the bottom of the last inning of the last home game of the year—Maxwell was down to his last strike, in fact—gave me the sort of thrill chills I hadn't gotten since Boise State beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl a few years ago.

Sure, the game meant nothing in the big scheme—the Mets are huge losers, and the Nats have already wrapped up not only last place in the division for 2009, but the worst record in the majors. But the rest of the season meant less than nothing while Charlie Slowes called Maxwell's HR with the fans going crazy crazy crazy in the background. Sports magic, it was.

No matter how lousy this team is, the ending was enough to make you think: Wait 'til next year!

***

Thom Loverro, alas, says don't wait 'til next year.

Loverro predicts very dire times for the Washington Nationals, at least at the turnstiles. By the end of next season, Loverro says, Nats management will look back wistfully at the 2009 debacle.

This organization is not on the brink of turning around the Jim Bowden culture that buried D.C. baseball in a deep, dark hole that will take years to dig out of. Let's say the Nationals wind up with 57 wins to show for 2009. A 10-win improvement would be a dramatic jump. That means about 67 wins next season. Think that will cause a spike in attention and attendance?

Sometime before the start of the season, Kasten has traditionally shared the season-ticket sales for the season. This year he did not, but we got a pretty good idea from some of the sparse crowds at Nationals Park that it is somewhere around 12,000 – down from the high of 22,000 during the inaugural 2005 season at RFK Stadium. There's no reason not to believe that next year it could fall below 10,000.

Loverro's always right. I just wish he'd've waited a day or two before killing my post-Justin Maxwell buzz with reality.

***

As the Washington Capitals open their regular season tonight, the Washington Times previews the season with a story headlined "Leonsis: Capitals set for dynasty."

Considering how smart and humble Ted Leonsis had been with the media in recent years, and with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, the superstar leaders of the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins, both being younger than Alex Ovechkin, I found that headline startling.

Ted would call his team a dynasty?

Well, I've read the story once and scanned it a bunch of times, but I can't find any quote where the Caps owner uses the word "dynasty" or claims that the team is "set for dynasty." I see him sorta bragging that he likes the way his organization is set up, but no "dynasty" claims. Maybe I'm just missing something. The Times' Web site does godawful things to my browser, no foolin'.

But if I'm not missing anything: It's like those "John Lennon: Beatles More Popular Than Jesus" headlines that helped take the Fabs off the road in 1966.

Only, Lennon actually said that.

***

Tonight's the goodbye party for the Hoop Dreams Scholarship Fund at the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

The charity was founded more than a decade ago by then-H.D. Woodson teacher Susie Kay.

Kay decided to dissolve the fund earlier this year because of dwindling charity dollars going to group's like hers. From the start, she worked the schedule of a dairy farmer. In the end, Hoop Dreams subsidized the college educations of more than 1,000 kids from D.C. public high schools.

She made the city a better place.

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

Good Friday, 1996

Bus, 2000

I wasn't familiar with the phrase, but ran to Google to confirm that "G Moment" is a trademark of a sponsor.

Turns out it's from Gatorade.

Kenseth's plug was seamlessly delivered with the rest of his victory speech. He wiped away the tears and took a pull from a bottle of orange Gatorade.

It was brilliant and douchebaggy, all at once.

And, besides, Kenseth's pitch wasn't nearly the hardest to watch speech of the day. That award goes to the pre-race prayer delivered by some clown named Dr. David Uth, a preacher from Orlando.

Anybody who wants to work up some anti-Christian fervor should check out Uth's work, while remembering this is a sporting event that calls itself "The Great American Race."

Talk about a pulpit bully.

Uth was only brought in because longtime race chaplain Rev. Hal Marchman, 90, was too ill to deliver the invocation. Marchman used to end his prayer with "shalom and amen."

The heavens must not have liked Uth's drivel too much.

In one of the few non-offensive portions of his speech, Uth thanked God for the sunshine.

And then the clouds opened up.

"You can call me Ted. I sell life insurance, if you need some." That's Ted Haggard, the former evangelical preacher who was fired and/or resigned from his posts after having an affair with a male prostitute and buying meth, talking to TV critics Friday here in Los Angeles.

Haggard and his family were promoting Alexandra Pelosi's 45-minute HBO documentary "The Trials of Ted Haggard," which debuts Jan. 29. "Now that we've got the freedom to answer questions, we want to answer questions," he said. Pelosi, daughter of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, revealed that "Ted had an agreement with the church that he would not tell his story, and he was recently released from that."

As to his "trials," the life insurance salesman and former National Association of Evangelicals president said, "I now know more about hatred than I've ever dreamed. And I know it doesn't help. And I know about judgment, and I know it doesn't help."

Haggard said "I made the wrong decision" and that "my hope was always that I could deal with my issue on my own," he's "grateful now for [gay escort] Mike [Jones]'s decision to expose that, and I'm grateful for my family's decision to be faithful to me when I wasn't faithful to them." His wife, Gayle, told critics that "our marriage was strong and is stronger now because of the honesty and the transparency and our ability to communicate about these things."

As to the drugs, Haggard said, "I'm not sure what I bought. And it conflicted me. It was, I love it; I hate it. I don't really know what to do with this." But he said he's convinced that "without this scandal, I had the potential of becoming dependent and increasingly compulsive, and probably really ruining my life. I certainly lost my career and my reputation."

While Ted called his behavior "hypocrisy," he sidestepped repeated questions about sexual orientation, including his own. "I think sexuality is confusing and complex," he said, vaguely referencing the "very positive, constructive process" he's going through, adding later, "I am thoroughly and completely satisfied with my relationship with my wife." He also insisted that "all people are in equally desperate need of redemption, love, inspiration, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, those things. We are in a world that's short on love and high on hatred and judgment, and I've gotten it from every side. I get it from the religious side as well as the unreligious side, and I just think we can all improve."

Haggard's daughter Christy — who appeared in front of critics along with her brother, Marcus –was more direct. While she said "there was a lot of misrepresentation which resulted in a lot of confusion, a lot of unnecessary hatred towards our family," she said later, "We were more judgmental than we are now, and people were hurt by us. And I know that a lot of people deserve a very sincere apology from our family because we are all the way we are for a reason."

To paraphrase President-elect Obama: "When people get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward candidates who actually have a hope in hell."

But to assume these two were the only major write-in players would be to underestimate the imagination and pluck of the American people. As Matt Dunn of the New Jersey Star-Ledger sagely observes:

Voters in Cumberland County unsatisfied with the choices given to them on Election Day chose to vote on their own terms in this year's election. The write-in candidates stood little chance of defeating those candidates whose names were listed on the ballot, but that didn't stop voters from exercising their right to vote for whomever they saw fit.

Below the jump, some of my favorite write-ins from Ohio, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Florida, and D.C.

Stark County, OH: Hello Kitty; Captain Morgan; Alfred E. Neuman; Ted Nugent; Jesus Christ the Lord; Jesus of Nazareth; Bengals wide receiver Chad Ocho-Cinco (1 vote apiece).

Cumberland County, NJ: Mitt Romney (3); Paris Hilton (1); Newt Gingrich (?)

New Hampshire: Bill Clinton (13); Chuck Baldwin (226); Sarah Palin (18).

Duval County, FL (via Ben Smith): Chuck Norris (2); Mickey Mouse (3); Rudy Giulliani [sic] (4); God (6); Weird Al Yancovic [sic] (1); "They Both Suck '08" (1); "none of the above" (23)*.

Washington, D.C.: Ted Scheinman (at least 1).

If you require further proof that hope springs eternal, I can't really help you out.

*Tied with Jesus.