That’s not to say readers will have to wait until the impending ebook release to get their Sherwood and Jaffe on. Plenty of copies are available online—for a price. If Dream City’s fate was the same as that of other tomes about race, power, and hometown D.C., its price on the secondary market underscores its lingering influence. A tale of the tape, via Amazon.com:

Book: The Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation’s Capital

Author: Constance McLaughlin Green

Published: 1967

Current Price: $26.50 (used). New copies unavailable.

Book: Alley Life in Washington: Family, Community, Religion and Folklife in the City, 1850-1970

Author: James Borchert

Published: 1980

Current Price: $18.95 (new); $2.44 (used)

Book: Marion Barry: The Politics of Race

Author: Jonathan I.Z. Agronsky

Published: 1991

Current Price: $42.14 (new); $0.01 (used)

Book: Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington D.C.

Authors: Tom Sherwood and Harry S. Jaffe

Published: 1994

Current Price: $80 (new); $39.68 (used)

Book: The Last of the Black Emperors: The Hollow Comeback of Marion Barry in a New Age of Black Leaders

Author: Jonetta Rose Barras

Published: 1998

Current Price: $21.81 (new); $0.01 (used)

The latest carnage at the progressive jazz-and-politics station: Station Manager Grigsby Hubbard and Program Director Bob Daughtry were both given the axe yesterday during the D.C. visit of Pacifica Foundation Executive Director Arlene Engelhardt.

"We needed a slightly different direction," Engelhardt said. She declined to elaborate, calling the management changes because an HR matter.

But in classic lefty-radio form, the firings have inspired the station's volunteer-dominated and famously independent-minded corps of programmers to organize meetings, examine by-laws, and otherwise protest the national network's meddling in the affairs of the local station, which is located one story down from Washington City Paper in Adams Morgan.

"A station like WPFW is always struggling to survive," said Steve Hoffman, a volunteer blues programmer. "Its like we're in a lifeboat and they've just kicked the captain of the lifeboat off. I think a lot of the crew now feels like mutinying."

Some of the would-be mutineers are planning to gather tomorrow to discuss their concerns.

One who has already jumped ship: Tom Porter, host of the station's "Jazz and Justice" program. Porter announced last week, before the staff changes, that he was taking a leave of absence, due in significant part to the turmoil he perceived at Pacifica.

"[Pacifica] is facing severe financial difficulties," said Porter.  "In the communications climate of today, they’ve been marginalized and neutralized because for the most part they haven’t kept up."

Porter said the network's answer to the tough times has been to order WPFW to start "dumbing down" its content. "They’ve driven away their core audience," he said. "They’re fooling themselves if they think they’re going to bring in their core audience with smooth jazz and politics lite."

According to Porter, Hubbard was fired by Engelhardt, who replaced him with Robert West as the new interim station manager. But, Porter said, Pacifica's by-laws prohibit the executive director from firing a program director, meaning it was the newly hired West who removed Daughtry. West could not be reached for comment.

“They’re very crazy circumstances, unfortunately," said Daughtry of the events surrounding his termination. "It seems to be a pattern in the national offices and each time it makes the station weaker.”

This is not the first time Daughtry has been a casualty of Pacifica's fiesty internal politics. In 2002, while serving as acting general manager at WBAI in New York, he was terminated during a Pacifica board meeting that was broadcast live on all five of the network's stations.

Though West, Daughtry, and Hubbard are all African American, Porter sees the firings as a racial issue. "Whether they're on the right or left, executives tend to hire the minorities that are the least qualified, so that those projects can never can get off the ground," he said. "It takes a strong white person to accept leadership from a minority."

"I think [present programming] is a disservice to the Washington community," Porter added. "WPFW is very important to the D.C. community because it’s the only station that’s had a large black presence. The majority of the population here is black or brown, and the programming doesn’t reflect that."

Engelhardt, meanwhile, emphasized Pacifica's devotion to the station and the city. “We are very committed to the future of WPFW," she said. "We not only think it’s a very important voice in the D.C. area, but we also think it’s important that Pacifica have a voice in this community.” She said expects to name a new program director early next week.

Another high profile loss for the station this week: Examiner columnist and City Paper contributor Jonetta Rose Barras announced this week that she would step down from her D.C. politics show next month. Barras, who announced her departure before the staff shake-up, said it had nothing to do with any turmoil in the station's corner office. Co-host Eugene Dewitt Kinlow will host the show solo following as of September 30.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—Famous Channel 4 sportscaster George Michael dies at 70. Also, more on the snowball fight, as City Desk reports on an effort by D.C. police to make "conversation" on this troubling incident melt away like the snow that made it possible in the first place.

Morning all. Hope all you LLDers had a good holiday weekend. And if you're not checking out this week, have faith: LLD is on the case, though under a different by-line (see above).

LLD, even under a guest columnist, can never resist the opportunity to self-indulge, and this time it has plenty of pretext. In the Dec. 27 edition of themail, Dorothy Brizill and Gary Imhoff do a lot of grousing about local news coverage, with an emphasis on the alleged downgrading of the Washington Post's coverage of all things D.C. And in Imhoff's little riff on the matter, he tips his hat a bit to the toils of LLD:

Online news coverage has taken some halting steps. For the past several months The Washington City Paper’s Loose Lips, Mike DeBonis, has written an opinionated news aggregation column every weekday: Loose Lips Daily, at http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk. It’s useful — and could use competition.

So, Mr. Imhoff, with that whole "could use competition" thing, just what are you getting at? That LLD could possibly be any better than it now is? That you have enough time to read yet another 4,000-word news roundup each and every weekday?

After the jump: More Imhoff-Brizill; Barras on the end of the year; Mathews slams Gray and Cheh; more!

Well, we at LLD love competition. And that's where you come in, Mr. Imhoff. How 'bout providing that competition yourself!

As for superactivist Brizill, here's what she has to say about local news:

There was a time when the Washington Post hit the floor of our front porch early in the morning and I would arouse myself, stumble downstairs, and read the newspaper cover to cover before Gary even woke up. Now, there are many times when the paper stays around the house for days, unopened and unread, and finally opened only to retrieve the grocery ads. Too often, worthy news is edged out by fluff. For three successive days, beginning December 21, the front page of the Style section was dominated by long stories and large photographs of Michaele and Tariq Saladi, the White House gate crashers. On December 11, the front page of the first section had a long story and big photo about a vice president of the Washington Nationals, Gregory McCarthy, who was training to run the Antarctic Marathon to complete his quest to run a marathon on each continent, worth being a human interest story inside the Sports section.

A reply to Brizill on behalf of LLD:

1) It's Michaele and Tareq Salahi, not whatever butchered spelling you offered. If you want to criticize media outlets, best to get your facts straight first.

2) The Salahi story wasn't fluff; it was a huge news scoop, as evidenced by the thousands of outlets that picked it up.

3) The McCarthy story was a fine feature. If you don't think that good features are worth paying for, then move just about anywhere else in the country, save L.A., New York, and Chicago. Pick up the paper that's sold in your new hometown. All of a sudden, you'll appreciate that McCarthy feature.

4) Brizill asks this question in her rant against the Post: “What has happened to the high quality of investigative reporting the newspaper had been known for?”

Hmmm, did she miss this series on the fate of D.C. AIDS programs east of the river? Perhaps those stories ran when the paper sat around Brizill's house "unopened and unread."

Tis the season for roundups, and LLD today will feature that of Examiner columnist Jonetta Rose Barras. In this particular iteration, Barras takes the stream-of-consciousness approach to wrapping up the year. She just goes off, like so:

Sarah Palin may have gone rogue. District elected officials went insane. Their madness consumed the government and vexed residents, causing many to fret about the city's future.

Huh? Let's try some more:

Ward 3 D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh accused Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's administration of being lawless. The legislature wasn't exactly law-abiding. It's surprising no one called back former Metropolitan Police Department Chief Charles Ramsey to throw a dragnet around the John A. Wilson Building and hogtie its occupants. No one was innocent.

Officials violated the intent and spirit of local laws. The mayor circumvented procurement and privatization regulations. Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry abused loopholes in contracting rules; Chairman Vincent C. Gray claimed ignorance of campaign finance laws.

When the two branches weren't trashing rules, they were savaging each other. On multiple occasions the council accused Fenty of lying, contract steering, mismanagement, ageism and racism. In a take-one-to-know-one move, the executive asserted that the council's rejection of Department of Parks and Recreation nominee Ximena Hartsock was sexist and racist.

OK, now it's all starting to make sense. But then, Barras goes back to her roots. Remember, she formerly worked as a staffer at the Washington Times. And back in those days, the times used things called "scare quotes" and other copy-editing oddities to show their feelings on certain issues of the day. One of their tics was refusing to use the word "gay," opting instead for "homosexual." Now here's Barras in her roundup: "homosexuals were given the opportunity to marry each other."

Washington Post educolumnist Jay Mathews starts his latest bit of opinionmongering with a marvelous slam on a couple of D.C. councilmembers. Here goes: "Sometimes it is the smartest, most concerned policymakers who do the most harm to schools. My favorite recent example is the Healthy Schools Act, a bill introduced two weeks ago by D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh and Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray."

So just what is Mathews' gripe with the councilmembers? Well, they're mandating a huge boost in the number of hours that children spend each week in phys-ed classes. Though that may sound fine on the surface, says Mathews, there's only so much time in a day, and D.C. schools need all the time they can get to make their students competent in reading and writing and math.

WaPo's Paul Schwartzman profiles the declining fortunes of D.C. developers, complete with a lede about a high-flying developer hit hard by the housing and credit crises and who's soon off to Buenos Aires for some reflection. Maverick developer Jim Abdo sums up the status quo:

"Where we might have gone out to the Capital Grille to eat steaks, we now meet in a conference room and drink ice water. The mood is a mood of humility and contriteness and self-reflection. There were a lot of people who were intoxicated by the times and the easy access to capital. A lot of them are gone."

PASSED AWAY— Percy Sutton, prominent civil rights lawyer and media entrepreneur.

MIGHT AS WELL INCLUDE A NOTE ON THE WEATHER SINCE THERE'S NOTHING ELSE GOING ON—We're looking at a wet end of the year, with snow or rain or ice likely sometime from Wednesday through New Year's Day.

WaPo edit board issues a plea to lawyers around the region to offer services to parts of the District hardest-hit by unemployment. "Washington has long been known as the pro bono capital of the country, a place where lawyers generously volunteer to help all manner of clients who cannot afford counsel. Area lawyers and law firms are hurting, too, but D.C. area firms and lawyers — among the wealthiest in the country — need to dig deeper to fulfill their professional obligation to provide legal help to those who cannot afford it."

ABSOLUTELY—nothing going at at D.C. Wire.

AP, via Examiner, reports on D.C. effort to crack down on buyer of tax liens. Also AP via Examiner, D.C. Councilmember Phil Mendelson is pushing a bill to change PCP possession from a misdemeanor to a felony.

AP, via WTOP, reports that free health clinic may hit D.C. in 2010. Story first appeared in WaPo.

WAMU's Rebecca Blatt reports on the beginning of an overhaul of Pennsylvania Avenue under the aegis of the Great Streets Project. Here's the money graphs:

The project is supposed to make Pennsylvania Avenue more accessible to pedestrians. One of the lanes will become a landscaped median.

Drivers should expect some temporary lane closures between 9:30 am and 3:00 pm in the first five months of construction. The second phase of the project will include some more long-term lane closures. That is expected to begin in May.

NC8 reports that a pedestrian was killed near 16th Street and Park Road NW early today. "Few details were immediately available." WUSA.

NBC4 reports on an incident in which D.C. police shot and killed a knife-wielding suspect. WUSA.

Your days of local-politics hegemony on the radio airwaves is over: Jonetta Rose Barras is returning next week with a new hourlong politics show. "D.C. Politics With Jonetta" will air Tuesdays at noon 11 a.m. on WPFW-FM, 89.3 on your radio dial.

The new show comes almost a year after WAMU-FM fired Barras from its popular "Politics Hour" program over a pay dispute. Since then, Barras says, her fans demanded her return. "It was just that I got so many people constantly asking me when I was going to get back on the air," she says.

The show, Barras says, will focus on "hot, spicy, and raw politics." And, unlike those other local politics radio shows, this one will be D.C. only. "The whole intent is to look at the news and also look behind the news," she says.

The format will include weekly guests from the government and community, as well as guest analysts. Barras says she's already set her first lineup: She'll have Attorney General Peter Nickles and community activist Phil Pannell in studio on Tuesday.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Since Jonetta Rose Barras left the Friday noon talk show on WAMU-FM last May over a pay dispute, the show has been rotating in guest analysts (including, now and again, yours truly). But in recent months, Sherwood, best known as a reporter for WRC-TV, has pretty much become a fixture. Nnamdi, indeed, has been referring to him as "permanent guest analyst" on recent shows.

Says Sherwood, "I've been a guest on Kojo's show occasionally over the years. I've got the highest respect for him." Late last year, he says, he was approached about doing something more permanent, and "my TV station decided to give me the time on Friday afternoons. I appreciate that they asked me."

When Barras was on the show, it was billed at the "Politics Hour With Kojo and Jonetta"; with Sherwood on board, however, the name will remain as plain-ol' "Politics Hour," says producer Diane Vogel.

Tune in to Sherwood's "resident" debut tomorrow noon at 88.5 FM—LL will be guest analysting!

Meanwhile, we're really digging the food fight over at New York Times Magazine.

Trouble viewing? Try the YouTube version.