Mornin', City Desk readers! Welcome to the second edition of what used to be but is no longer Freedom Friday. Remember: Freedom is dead. Don't worry, you'll get used to it.

One word: Oprah! The "queen of daytime television" will announce today she's ending her show in 2011. This is huge! Now, in case you're a little slow, let me connect the dots and tell you what's really going on here. Just this week, Sarah Palin goes on Oprah to plug her book Going Rogue even while insisting that 2012 is "not on my radar screen right now," which is what all candidates for president have to say in 2009. Oprah is all charming, as usual, and gets her biggest audience in two years! Then, just a few days later, Oprah announces that she will be leaving her show after 25 years to "start her own cable channel." Coincidence? This could really only mean one thing: Palin-Winfrey 2012! You heard it here first.

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: The “Palin-Winfrey 2012″ Edition" »

Greater Greater Washington, in an interesting blog post the other day, delved into the use of the word "ghetto" in part in response to the heated online discussion that ensued over a mural that went up in Bloomingdale earlier this year.

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.

Read More "“Ghetto”: Just What Do You Mean by That?" »

As he was heading off the air, I'm pretty sure I heard Dave Feldman at Fox-5 report last night that the Wizards are going to work out Stephon Marbury today.

Did anybody tell Abe Pollin?

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Lebron's come and gone. But we only have to wait a week for the next celeb sports doc extravaganza: Luis Tiant will be at the E Street Cinema downtown on June 22 for red-carpet screening of "The Lost Son of Havana," a film about the ex-Indian- Twin-Red Sock-Yankee-Pirate-Angel's trip back to the Cuban capital, which is his Akron.

After the screening the movie's producers will throw a bash across the street from the theater at the ESPN Zone. But don't expect much. In the invitation the party's organizers just sent out, they're promising that: "Light refreshments will be served in accordance with House Ethics rules."

House ethics used to lead to the wildest parties in town. Jack Abramoff mussed up everything.

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Sign of the times or the Times? Despite a big write-up in Sunday's Washington Times, the Hoop Dreams Scholarship fund had to cancel its next big fundraising event for lack of interest.

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Marbury a Wizard? Can You Party AND Maintain House Ethics? Wake Up Call for Hoop Dreams? Letterman Loses Pride, Battle With Palinites?" »

Washington Post stylist DeNeen Brown has always been one of this weekly's great obsessions. We've written about her overwriting; we've written about her bad reporting; and we've given her a handclap or two when one of her daring literary devices works as planned.

Read More "DeNeen Brown in the News!" »

DeNeen L. Brown: RAW! Fans of Brown's idiosyncratic style can head to the Post's "44" blog to read the Style writer's description of Michelle Obama serving food to the homeless. This time, though, there's apparently no copy editors throwing their wet blankets on her experimental prose. And it's just like reading a typical Brown column, you're like, Wow, some good reporting here, and then some epic weirdness makes your mental brakes screech like Ian Svenonius stubbing his toe. But this one's better because...

• Here's Brown writing her own Brown parody sentence (all italics mine):

And Obama dished risotto, one by one. Offering steamed, fresh broccoli.

• There is apropos-of-nothing color:

Man in green sweater: "You really are tall."

"I am tall," Obama said.

• And, finally, complete kerblooey:

And the guests stood behind in the hope that she left behind.

There he goes again.

For all intents, former City Paper editor Howard Witt put Ty'sheoma Bethea in the presidential box next to Michelle Obama for last night's unauthorized State of the Union address.

Witt met Bethea while reporting on the schools in Dillon, S.C. His discussions with the youngster, who attends a rundown middle school that Barack Obama had visited twice before taking over as president, resulted in the kid writing a letter to federal lawmakers.

Read More "Former City Paper Editor Howard Witt Still Casting an Idolmaking Spell" »

*U Street Girl comments on the fight at Cardozo High, in which 16 students were arrested, 15 injured, and 5 hospitalized after a cafeteria fight between several girls.

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: Food Fights & Snapdragons" »

At Georgia Brown's. So says Reliable Source.

Seriously, Georgia Brown's?

Dunno if that was your idea, Mr. Mayor, or yours, Mrs. First Lady, but you both need some better culinary counsel. I mean, how much more Clintonian can you get?

LL thought this was a new day for America!

UPDATE, 4:45 P.M.: Apparently GB's was the Fentys' idea. Jill Biden---ahem, Dr. Jill Biden---was there, too.

Clifford Pugh, a colleague from my old Houston days, writes in his Cliff Notes blog today that Michelle Obama's glittery, eye-catching gold dress was designed by Isabel Toledo, a Cuban-born American designer who once tried to inject a more modern style at Anne Klein, where the designer used to work.

"Her choice continues a penchant for the First Lady-to-be for designers of Cuban heritage," Pugh writes prior to Barack Obama's swearing in. "Michelle Obama wore two outfits by Narciso Rodriguez to the pre-inaugural events on Sunday."

Shall we go ahead and read too much into these design choices? Why the hell not? I see warmer relations with Cuba in the immediate future.

Image by Flickr user davitydave

Whoa. Michelle Obama, on 60 Minutes tonight, went out of her way to mention that she and her husband plan on getting involved in local D.C. issues (and, in one of those minuscule, easily overanalyzed signifiers, she did say "D.C.", not "Washington").

The mention came in response to a question directed at Michelle Obama by Steve Kroft about how she would conduct herself as first lady. He followed up with a question about whether the Obamas were "seriously" considering a public school for their girls Sasha and Malia. Michelle Obama punted on that one.

Here's what she had to say:

The primary focus for the first year will be making sure the kids make it through the transition. But there are many issues that I care deeply about. I care about military families and the work-family balance issue. I care about education. Both Barack and I believe that we can have an impact in the D.C. area...you know, in terms of making sure we're contributing to the community that we immediately live in. That's always been something that we try to do, whether its in our own neighborhoods, or in the schools that we've attended. So there's plenty to do.

Read More "Michelle Obama on 60 Minutes: “We Can Have an Impact in the D.C. Area”" »

* It's not just for Republicans anymore! Michelle Obama wears fabulous, egregiously expensive jewelry, too. [via Wonkette].

* DCist Sommer Mathis cries foul on $9.95 plus shipping for a newspaper (don't even get her started on the special election issue sweatshirt). Commemorative hand towels of DCist's official declaration of election newsprint hype blog post coming soon.

* Prince of Petworth is two years old. Join him and other crown princes of the local blogosphere tonight at Wonderland to celebrate the milestone---and toast to 730 more doors of the day.

* New Columbia Heights deems the new neighborhood Panda Express . . . decent!

* Catch up with the Good Guys strip club arson case as it happens with trial updates over at the Sexist.

* And in this newspaper: The Education Issue!

- Marina Koestler Ruben on D.C.'s English-Chinese bilingual charter.

- Dave McKenna on the end of a local football dynasty.

- Mike DeBonis on Michelle Rhee's rising star.

- Ruth Samuelson schools Obama hangers-on on where to reside in the District.

Photo by Army.mil