A couple weeks old, but new to LL: Men's Fitness, noted authority on men's fitness, has included Mayor Adrian M. Fenty in its yearly tally of high-profile specimens of masculinity.

Here's what the mag has to say about Hizzoner, he of the early-morning interval runs and mid-day bike rides around Hains Point:

"I'm training as much as humanly possible," says the leader of the nation's capital. Fenty exercises like a pro athlete—rigorously and regimented—despite having a crazy schedule. "The chance of getting a workout once a day has gone down dramatically," he says. Three times every week, he gets in a long early-morning run and also swims and cycles when he can. Fenty has prioritized public health as well, renovating several city playing fields and starting a youth triathlon camp. He's built it, now he's hoping citizens will come. "I think people have been really responsive," he says.

On the list, Fenty (aka "The Mayor") joins the likes of Hugh Jackman (aka "The Blockbuster"), Clive Owen ("The Leading Man"), Larry Fitzgerald ("The Freak"), Usain Bolt ("The Lightning"), Tim Tebow ("The Champion"), LeBron James ("The One"), and...uh, Richard Branson ("The Fly Guy").

But beware, Mr. Mayor---there may be a Men's Fitness curse at play here: Named fittest of them all was none other than top-ranked tennis Rafael Nadal, who hasn't done so well of late.

Tune in!

LL will be talking with host Bruce DePuyt about Mayor Adrian Fenty's recent mea culpa streak, the move to have a gay marriage referendum, and more.

And now to get to Rosslyn without getting soaked....

Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. has been walking a mighty fine line the past couple of weeks.

When you're representing a ward that contains both quickly gentrifying (and gayifying) areas like Bloomingdale, Eckington, and Brookland, in addition to the generally conservative Bungalow Belt and many of the city's most politically active churches, same-sex marriage would be one of those issues you might wish would go away.

Thomas veered heavily to one side of that line when he voted this month to recognize other states' same-sex marriages here in D.C. He leaned even further when the Washington Blade reported last Friday that Thomas was on the record in support of a full gay marriage bill—-a story LL had highlighted in his Friday news roundup.

Leaned too far, perhaps: That afternoon, Thomas spokesperson Victoria Leonard called LL to say the Blade story, by Lou Chibarro Jr., wasn't true. Her boss, she said, wasn't committed either way.

Read More "Behold Harry Thomas Jr.’s Nuanced Position on Same-Sex Marriage Legislation" »

LL just got off the phone with a nearly manic Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham. Manic, because he says that he's being unfairly deemed a pizza-banning legislator by a local TV station.

"I have been in media for 30 years, and there's never been a more preposterous story than this one," he says.

When WJLA-TV trained his cameras on him last week outside the John A. Wilson Building, he says, he mentioned nothing of legislation---only that jumbo slice pizzerias happen to be associated with certain problems, he says. "When they turn their speakers to the sidewalk, ramp up the volume, and have terrible fights occur not only outside the place but inside the place, when they provide kind of an unruly boardwalk atmosphere, they become a nuisance." But that doesn't mean legislation! He has no such bill in the works, Graham says.

"It's wrong, it's inaccurate, and it's unfair," he says. "To suggest that this is my point of view is absurd."

LL is currently seeking a response from Channel 7.

UPDATE, 6:10 P.M.: WJLA-TV reporter John Gonzalez says Graham indeed told him, in response to a question, that he was considering legislation. “He said, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve already talked to the mayor.’ And I asked, ‘You mean to revoke licenses?’ He said, ‘I mean, yeah.’”

“I have it on camera,” Gonzalez adds. “I have the raw video!”

If Graham has a quarrel, he says, it might be with the lede-in read Friday night by anchor Leon Harris, which said that Graham “wants to ban the sales of single-slice pizza.”

Says Gonzalez, “I can understand why that made him a little upset…it’s sexy to say that the councilmember wants to get rid of pizza, but that’s not really true.”

Gonzalez adds that many of Graham’s anti-pizzeria comments were left on the cutting-room floor. “I don’t think he realized the kind of reaction he was going to get,” he says. “Apparently people take those jumbo slices very seriously.”

Watch out, Plotkin. Watch out, Kojo.

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

Tune in to NewsChannel 8 at 4 p.m. today to watch LL run down the happenings at Marion Barry's court appearance today and help NewsTalk host Bruce DePuyt understand why Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's being such a jerk about baseball tickets.

Bruce shouldn't expect a lot of help with that one---LL hasn't the foggiest!

LL knew something was up.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Media companies are in really, really serious trouble. Solutions currently in vogue: charging for content, reorganizing news organizations as nonprofits. And, of course, "link journalism."

"Link journalism" gets to call itself journalism because it's linking done by journalists. Here's how the theory works: The journalist scours the Web for stories and blog posts, links to them, and provides some analysis or snark on why the item in question is worth a click. By putting all the links and comments in one place, the thinking goes, the journalist/aggregator (choose whichever term fits your self-identity, whether that be journalist or new-media avatar) provides a valuable service to readers, drives traffic, and boosts revenues (though not necessarily of the site the link journalist is working for).

Read More "Why “Link Journalism” Won’t Save Your Ass" »

This afternoon I called Mindy Good. She is the Child and Family Services Agency's press person. I had put in a request to interview the director of the troubled agency. When I hadn't heard back, I thought this merited a phone call to Good's cellphone.

I asked her about my request.

Good replied that all calls must go through the mayor's press office. I asked why.

Good replied: "Mafara Hobson." Like a robot, she repeated the words "Mafara Hobson" a few more times.

"They do the speaking for this agency," she said of the mayor's office.

I replied: But aren't you the agency's press person. Good is listed as the agency's Public Information Officer. Then again the agency doesn't have much in the way of press releases.

"I am the director of communications," Good said.

"Why don't you get to do that?" I asked. You know communicate for the agency.

Good then hung up. Great press strategy CFSA!

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" »

WaPo's Darryl Fears covers an AIDS protest held this afternoon outside the John A. Wilson Building:

One protestor dragged a replica of a big gray coffin into the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue outside City Hall. Another carried a smaller "baby" coffin. And yet another prostated himself in the middle of the street.

Hope he had some rubber gloves.

As I selected my senior yearbook photo via the world wide interwebs this week, I took a minute to think about the difference between the presentation of those images today versus previous generations.

Today, photography companies are offering many ways to make yourself look better. There are options for retouching and removing scars, tan lines, moles, tattoos, piercings, and stray hairs (just $40 a pose!). Being a poor college student, I'll take my photo with the flaws, thank you very much.

But it got me thinking about the generations of students before me who probably would have paid that money because those yearbook photos were the defining photo of their collegiate career. The artificially posed snapshot in time was the photo that their college friends would remember them by for all eternity.

Those photos sometimes gave us a peek into what a person was actually like at the time the photo was taken.

Take John Slattery. Sure, now he's the silver-haired, womanizing, suave Roger Sterling of the Sterling Cooper advertising agency.

But before he was a Mad Man, Slattery was a young adult.

Read More "The Evolution of the Yearbook Photo: From Ed Liddy to John Slattery to Now" »

From NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof's Twitter feed:

Just interviewed Michelle Rhee, head of schools in D.C. She's ground zero for school reform nationwide. I'll write for Sunday.

So much for that supposed national media blackout.

Changes are coming to the Washington Post's all-important city hall beats.

In mid-May, David Nakamura, who has covered Mayor Adrian M. Fenty since his 2007 inauguration, will leave town for a yearlong fellowship sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations. Replacing him on full-time executive branch coverage around May 1 will be Nikita Stewart, who has covered the D.C. Council since May 2006.

Filling the Wilson Building void left by the shuffle will be Tim Craig, who currently covers the Virginia state house for the Post, and covered the Maryland state politics before that. Undoubtedly, the most exciting aspect of Craig's appointment is the fact that he looks a lot like Fenty:

Read More "Nakamura Out in WaPo City Hall Shuffle" »

For the past 10 minutes, I have been trying to move Jacob Weisberg's name from one sentence of a story to another. And every time I ctrl-X it, my inCopy quits. What sort of dark magic is this, Weisberg?