Will you, dear reader, beg to pay us for our online journalism?

*photo courtesy of mediabistro.

"The accompanying story by June Kronholz is, as the picture suggests, almost uniformly admiring. Although it doesn't address what happened to the real Braveheart, Scottish rebel William Wallace, who was hanged, disemboweled, beheaded and quartered in 1305 for rising up against the British crown."

One commenter brings the discussion back into the current millennium: "I don't want Rhee to be beheaded, I just want her to resign."

Since Rhee took office in 2007, it's become quite trendy to follow the fiery Chancellor around for awhile and then write a breathless profile about her crusade to fix D.C.'s schools. C'mon, Education Next, all the cool kids are doing it. For interested readers, here's a sampling:

September 2007: "Can Michelle Rhee Save DC Schools?" Washingtonian.com.

October 2007: "A hard road to hoe: teaching poor children." The Economist.

August 2008: "An Unlikely Gambler." Newsweek.

November 2008: "Rhee Tackles Classroom Challenge." TIME.

November 2008: "The Lightning Rod." The Atlantic.

January 2009: "Is Michelle Rhee the new face of education reform?" Christian Science Monitor.

March 2009: "Education's Ground Zero." Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times.

(Note: Most of them are "almost uniformly admiring.")

Above is an ad e-mailed out by the Redskins ticket office this week. As you read this, remember, for chuckles, that just a couple months ago Redskins executive Mitch Gershman was claiming in press releases that the team had a waiting list of "over 200,000."

Sure, the Skins waiting list has long been bogus. But this year it's also become apparent that the NFL's blackout rule is enforced as stringently as its steroids policy.

(AFTER THE BREAK: Where's Chris Cooley in that photo? Clinton Tortoise? Lord Farquaad? Lindsay Czarniak cheers on teams that don't pay her? Is the NY Times reporter on Dan Snyder's payroll, too? Another Have-Nots bowl this week?)

FedExField this Sunday would be a good place and time to test my theory that Dan Snyder has mucked up the Redskins every bit as much as he mucked up Six Flags.

Tickets to Skins games have been overpriced, based on demand, since FedExField opened. I've never been to a game there when tickets couldn't be had for far less than face value. I used to half-joke, based on experience, that if you simply held a $20 bill in the air in the stadium parking lot on game day you'd get mauled by folks trying to unload spare tickets.

But, the bottom is about to fall out of the Skins ticket market, and that could happen this weekend with KC in town: Craigslist had 908 separate ads hawking Skins/Chiefs tickets posted when I checked late last night.

So: Six Flags stock, which sold for $11.92 shortly after Snyder took over the theme park chain in 2005, now goes for 17.2 cents.

I wonder if Skins tickets will be worth any more than that this weekend.

Anybody willing to sell Redskins tickets for 17.2 cents, please e-mail cheapseats@washcp.com.

***

Interesting thing about that photo the Redskins marketing department is using to move excess tickets this week: Two tight ends are up front, Todd Yoder and Fred Davis. But no Chris Cooley. Sort of like the box score to last weekend's game in Carolina.

Seriously, after spending the summer yelling "Look at me! Look at me!" and hoping to become the face of the franchise through any number of off-field stunts, Cooley's disappeared. Cooley had no catches on Sunday, and only showed up in the highlights because he had mimicked Santana Moss's silly first-down routine after a play.

Cooley's used up most of his attention-getting tricks by now, too. The guy's going to have to burn two cows or show two penises to get noticed.

Or, you know, catch some passes.

***

The Skins' lousy season has produced some giggle-friendly new nicknames. Among them:

"Clinton Tortoise," attributed to WTEM hosts Andy Pollin and Steve Czaban; "Albert Buttersworth," all over sports radio; and, the clubhouse leader by several strokes, "Lord Farquaad," for Dan Snyder, which I first saw two weeks ago on Snyder's own message board, ExtremeSkins.com, and has since caught fire.

Damn, that's funny.

***

The New York Times has been writing a lot about the Redskins these days. The Times' coverage of the Dan Snyder administration is very different from the Washington Post coverage.

While the Post and Snyder go at it behind the scenes and in print, the Times' Skins stories, all from reporter Judy Battista, have sometimes been fawning.

Sometimes, they're just plain fictional. (Double-dare you to match the headline with anything in the story!) Battista referenced that latter story, which insinuated for no apparent reason and with no evidence to support the insinuation that ex-Skins GM Charley Casserly was impressed by Dan Snyder's coolness this season, in one of her pieces this week, saying "Snyder was still feeling patient" a little more than two weeks ago."

Says who?

What is it with Times reporters named Judy getting snowed when they cover D.C. matters?

***

Lindsay Czarniak led off her sports report on WRC-TV's 11 o'clock newscast last night with an incredibly enthusiastic segment on the Wizards three-point win over Detroit, pumping up Gilbert Arenas' stats and Flip Saunders revenge. I'd never seen such fervor for a preseason NBA game.

The excitement was catchy, and seemed totally genuine: Czarniak works for Dan Snyder, but not Abe Pollin, and so she wasn't wearing any Wizards' gear as she gushed.

If you follow sports in Washington, I guess preseason is the best time to get excited, before hopes and dreams get crushed.

***

Update on the Road to 11 Losses: We now know there will be no 0-11 season in local high school football.

Anacostia's chance at having the losingest year in D.C. high school football history got waylaid last Friday, as the Indians beat Eastern 36-0 in a matchup of really down programs.

Anacostia, which went into the game 0-6, has scheduled 11 games this year, one more than the standard 10-game season, and far as I can tell, no D.C. school has ever had an 0-11 record. But Anacostia just couldn't find a way to lose to Eastern, which didn't have a football team at all last year because of a lack of players, and so far is 0-4 in the 2009 season.

Eastern, which only has 8 games listed on its schedule, now has its biggest game of the year this Friday when it hosts Spingarn in the latest Have-Nots Bowl: Together, Eastern and Spingarn have been outscored 397-19 and have an 0-9 record.

Somebody's gotta win!

***

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

Author's note: The Redskins lost. The rest of today's Cheap Seats Daily will be devoted to what is at once the bizarrest and the most pathetic episode to come out of this sorry season.

Be scared,  people: A fake Hogette is on the loose.

As if things weren't bad enough in Redskins Land, a dire APB went out to hardcore fans over the weekend: The man calling himself "Stephette Hogette" is not a real Hogette.

Sure, the guy's rubber snout and his ladies garb, to the untrained eye, make Stephette Hogette look exactly like the authentic Hogettes, who've been dressing in drag since 1983 but won't give up their gimmick all these years after it outlived its cuteness. But don't be fooled: Not just anybody can align themselves with these douchebags.

(AFTER THE JUMP: The bogus Hogette is "dangerous to women and possibly children"? Cheap Seats Daily tracks down the fugitive Hogette? The fugitive Hogette says "This means war!"? The fugitive Hogette also raps? We need Hogettes, bogus or not, now more than ever?)

"It has come to our attention that an individual is representing himself to be a Hogette," read the warning, which was posted late last week on Skins message boards and fan sites, including Dan Snyder's ExtremeSkins.com. "Please be aware that 'HOGETTES' is a Registered Trademark and the Hogette likeness is COPYWRITED. He is currently in violation of both federal and state statutes.

"We have a very stringent set of rules and guidelines on who can become a Hogette and we monitor all of our members to insure that inappropriate action does not occur. We are very disturbed that someone would portray us in a negative manner and try to insure that this does not happen. However, from time to time we find it necessary to protect our Trademark and Copyright. If you feel that you have been approached by an impostor or become aware of a potential impostor, please contact us immediately at:hogettes.org or hogettes.net."

Fans can spot the fake Hogette because Stephette Hogette usually travels alone, said the warnings. Real Hogettes only roam in packs.

As if being called a bogus Hogette isn't a scary enough charge, the Hogette police also claimed Stephette Hogette is a menace to society.

Redskins blogger Rich Tandler posted on his own blog that "a friend" had spotted the imposter Hogette at a FedEx tailgate before the Rams game and that he had "obviously had been drinking and he made inappropriate comments to some of the ladies."

When some folks on Snyder's board questioned why there's so much interest in taking down a guy for wearing a hog nose, the poster known as Huly, a superfan who organizes welcome home gatherings for the team at Redskins Park, upped the ante: "It is not that he is just dressing like them, claiming to be one of them etc," Huly wrote, "but that he is harming fans under their name. He is dangerous to women and possibly children."

Stephette Hogette, Huly said, "tries to give young women tickets to attend a game with him and [what] I have heard from other fans is he tries to inappropriately touch women and makes sexual advances and inappropriate comments."

Dan Hines, calling himself a real Hogette, came on ExtremeSkins.com to plead for fans' help in un-snouting the bogus Hogette. Stephette's reign of terror, Hines said, jeopardizes the authentic Hogettes' "charity work with children's charities."

Redskins fans are angry these days. So even though the charges against poor Stephette were as vague as they were actionable, some folks were ready to form a posse and go the vigilante route to get him. Fans posted photos of the wanted man (Stephette's the one wearing the snout in the photo up top) to help with the search.

On ExtremeSkins, Capt Kaos promised "to keep an eye out for the scumbag." Sideshow24 said he'd "drop this fat clown" if Stephette brings his fake Hogette routine to a tailgate.

(Huly announced later in the ExtremeSkins thread that a store to sell licensed Hogettes merchandise is currently being set up. Guess somebody doesn't want to cut Stephette Hogette in.)

Nowhere in these warnings or postings do they give any information about the real man charged with being a fake Hogette. Cheap Seats Daily has discovered that the fugitive in the dress and hog nose is actually a guy from Brooklyn named Steve Rasnikov.

Rasnikov, contacted last night in New York---he answers his phone "Hail," as in "Hail to the Redskins!"---says he's aware of the hub-bub about him, but vows to keep wearing his snout.

"This is war now," Rasnikov says. "I used to respect those guys. I sat with them in the Pigpen at games. They accepted me. But then they started hanging out with Bird Man [an Eagles mascot]. This shows how corporate those guys have gotten. They don't like that Stephette Hogette is getting attention. I'm going to tailgates, they're nowhere to be found. Stephette is a Hogette for the people, like Jesus. I've been dressing up for about 20 years. I'm not going to let these guys scare me off."

Though some might quibble with the Stephette Hogette/Jesus comparisons, Rasnikov's length-of-service claim rings true: The New York Times archives has a story from the 1992 NFL draft, held in NYC, featuring a trio of crazy Redskins fans in silly clothing, including "Steve Rasnikov." The Times story has him in the role of "Stephanie Hogette," and he's described as "wearing a cowboy hat, blazer, skirt and pumps." The story indicates that the Skins backers, including Stephanie Hogette/Steve Rasnikov, were taking heat from the fans of the NY teams for showing such loyalty to the then-defending Super Bowl champs from D.C.

From the Times story:

"We take necessary precautions," [Stephanie Hogette] said when asked about dealing with Giant and Jet fans. "They know we are secure in our beliefs. They know we are people not to be trifled."

Asked about all the accusations of bad behavior that the Hogette police are now leveling, Rasnikov, who would not give his age, allows that he does "have fun" at Redskins tailgates, including the Dead Tree Crew's regular debaucherrific get-togethers at FedExField. Rasnikov says Stephette Hogette always "brings a bottle" along on the drive to Raljon from Brooklyn. He's no threat to women and children, Rasnikov says. But he concedes that his standard pickup line, delivered at the tailgates by another of his alter egos, the rapper Snow Rap G, might put off some targeted females.

I ask him to let me hear his line. Rasnikov, with too much gusto and no irony, raps it for me.

Yo yo yo
My tag is Snow Rap G
I'm an OG
That be Lewis and Clarkin' for the right shorty
You can ride for free
I don't charge a fee
All you got to do is rsvp

"They say that's inappropriate?" Rasnikov/Stephette Hogette/Snow Rap G huffs when he's/they're done. "Come on!"

But, again, Rasnikov says, he's not giving up any part of his gameday routine. Anybody who wants his snout will have to take it from his cold dead nose. Rasnikov swears he'll be in full drag as he walks from tailgate to tailgate before the upcoming Kansas City game.

And, bogus or not, perhaps he'll be OK. By the end of the weekend, the campaign to apprehend the fugitive Hogette had lost most of its steam. After the Carolina debacle, Fuse, a poster on ExtremeSkins.com, explained why Stephette Hogette is both anachronistic and viable: "Cross dressing pigs are kind of embarassing now," he wrote on Dan Snyder's message board. "But then again, so is the entire organization."

The thread was then closed by moderators.

"It's going to be a mess," he says. "By 6 p.m. they'll start turning people away from the parking lots. It's going to be another Radiohead."

In concert go-er parlance, "another Radiohead" means "way @#$%^&*'d up!" A lack of usable parking spaces for the precious British band's performance at the Bristow, Va., hellhole caused thousands of ticketholders to miss the entire show.

Szymkowicz personally witnessed that Nissan Pavilion debacle. But that's not the only reason to have faith in his prediction of another Radiohead tonight. Nobody outside Redskins Park knows more about Dan Snyder's parking set up than Szymkowicz. He's the guy who spearheaded the lawsuit against the Redskins for the game-day ban on pedestrian traffic around FedExField.

Because of his litigation, in 2004 the team had to reverse its policy and allow folks who found ways around Snyder's outrageous parking charges to walk into Skins games.

(AFTER THE JUMP: FedExField has HOW many parking spaces? Capitol Hill interns are going to be to blame for the U2 mess? Some buffoon's looking for a parking pass to tonight's show? The New York Times and Dan Snyder are in bed together? Audi is Dan Snyder's new mattress?)

That case against the Redskins required him to do a lot of research into such things as how many cars can fit into Snyder's lots. And the resulting intelligence informed his forecast for mass confusion and big problems at the U2 show.

"I think they had 19,000 to 21,000 spaces back then," he says. "The lots have changed, but I think it's about the same amount now. But you've got between 78,000 to 83,000 people there tonight. The clusterfuck that's going to happen tonight is based on the fact that they don't have enough parking spaces. It's going to be worse because this U2 crowd won't know what to do. A Redskins parking lot is pretty organized, because [the same people go] there every week and have since the stadium opened 10 years ago. People know where to go. Tonight, you'll have all these young Capitol Hill people who moved to DC from Kansas and Ohio and all over. These new people will have no idea where they're going."

But, the beauty of Dan Snyder's operation: Even folks who get turned away from the parking lots will have already paid the Redskins owner a parking fee for the show: Snyder sneakily tacked on an $8 per ticket parking surcharge to every U2 ticket sold.

Assuming 80,000 folks bought tickets, that's $640,000 extra dollars that go straight into Snyder's pockets, no matter how many of those ticketholders take Metro or walk or just plain get shut out of the show.

As they used to say about Lex Luthor: The guy's a genius!

Stay tuned to Cheap Seats Daily for updates on Radiohead 2K9.

***

The guy who placed this Craigslist ad is among the demographic J.P. Szymkowicz refers to: Folks with U2 tickets who have no idea what they're about to get into:

U2 PARKING NEEDED

• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Sorry to break it to you, Steve: There are no parking passes for the U2 show.

***

Dan Snyder isn't getting along with the Washington Post. Nothing new there.

But the New York Times all of a sudden has really gotten into public displays of affection for the Redskins owner. I mean, if this keeps up, pretty soon they're going to have to get a room.

Today's Times has a story headlined "Former Redskins Executive Likes Snyder's Newfound Patience." The piece includes Charley Casserley's views on what's going on with the Redskins these days.

But in the story, by Times' writer Judy Battista, Casserley, who was fired by Snyder after the 1999 season to give Vinny Cerrato a better office, merely says he's not in favor of in-season firings. Bottom line: Casserley's quotes don't merit the headline.

The Times' overglowing headline seemed even stranger after hearing an interview with the former Redskins general manager on this morning's "Sports Junkies" show on WJFK, where Casserley didn't in any way endorse the Redskins owner.

The Times' pro-Snyder headline comes just days after the same paper ran a sweet and bulletproof story about Snyder and wife Tanya's bouts with cancer.

Dan Snyder talked to the New York Times for that piece. The Snyders look fabulous in the two photos that run with it.

Why the hell doesn't he do more of that?

***

While fans are abandoning Snyder's Good Ship Titanic, the automaker Audi has seen fit to sign a long-term deal to strengthen its relationship with the Redskins.

From a press release announcing the alliance:

The partnership offers Audi and Washington-area Audi dealers extensive opportunities to interact with some of professional football’s most dedicated fans. The Audi brand and Audi performance vehicles will enjoy prominence at FedExField, in television advertising and Redskins social media applications.

Notably, the Redskins and Audi are completely remodeling the east end of FedExField to Audi design standards. The result will be a new 13,000-square-foot Audi Club for all premium seating-level fans to enjoy during games and special events.

Audi of America moved its headquarters to Herndon, Va., during the summer of 2008 and this agreement establishes Audi as the hometown team in the Washington, D.C. market.“

Audi is making it a top high priority to be a vital presence in our new home,” said Johan de Nysschen, President, Audi of America. “Joining up with the Washington Redskins and the team’s passionate fans sends a clear signal that Audi will play an active role for years to come in one of the world’s most dynamic cities. I look forward to expanding this relationship and expanding our role in the region’s communities alongside an organization with deep local roots.”

Good for Snyder, landing another sponsor in this economic climate.

But it's still not as exciting as Snyder's official mattress.

***

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

Shadid's prize-winning work focused on the tumult in Iraq at the time of the March 2003 U.S. invasion and its aftermath. It was amazing stuff, and a great point of pride within the Post.

His official explanation to Strupp, as is usual in such cases, yields absolutely no insight into why he went from one huge sinking ship to another: "It was a difficult decision to move. I still have deep affection and admiration for the Post. My time there represents my favorite years in journalism, and Don Graham remains an inspiration to me. Nada [Shadid's wife] and I just thought it was time to seek new challenges."

Background: A week back from Sunday, Wilbon had written an apologia for Michael Jordan on the occasion of Jordan's acceptance speech for his Basketball Hall of Fame induction. By many accounts, Jordan's remarks on that occasion were childish and small: He used the podium to belittle everyone who'd ever doubted him. He never came close to the high road. He invited to the speech an old schoolmate who was chosen over him for the varsity squad. He took to task people who'd slighted him over his career.

In comes Wilbon to---surprise!---defend Jordan. "Jordan said himself toward the end of his speech that he took all these perceived slights as challenges and turned them into wood that made the fire rage. Michael Jordan has always known who he is and what he needed to be Michael Jordan. It's just that few people knew this particular side until Friday night and almost nobody knew he was going to let the wall down when he did."

Anthony on this matter: "As someone who has had his own sports idols throughout his life, I understand how Wilbon continues to breathe the rarefied air of Jordan's greatness, but only a small measure of objectivity is required to see that what Jordan revealed with his self-absorbed, unkind comments during his Hall of Fame induction ceremony was the nasty, selfish side that accompanies many elite athletes' competitiveness."

The retirement of Jordan has saved the world from the frequent Wilbon paeans to the greatest basketball player ever. This is a columnist who'll excuse just about anything from the 6-foot-6 swingman. And in this column, Wilbon suggested why: "It wasn't a speech so much as it was an entertaining rant, something you saw pretty often if you were one of Jordan's golf partners or card-playing friends or, to be honest, a sportswriter with an off-the-record relationship with him." Gotta protect your sources.

Elsewhere, Post columnist Colbert I. King goes up strong against Peacoholics and Michelle Rhee over the Barry Harrison conviction. King sounds outraged that a ex-con should be bale to get access to a D.C. school, where he could prey on schoolgirls.

Must-read of the weekend, which comes via the New York Times. Here's an abstract:

*Egypt hears about swine flu, freaks out;

*Egypt decides it must take action;

*Egypt decides swine are responsible for spreading swine flu;

*Egypt's decision that swine are spreading swine flu is not endorsed by professionals;

*Egypt, freaked out about swine flu and convinced that swine are spreading it, kills all---or a least a great deal of---swine in Cairo;

*Egypt thinks it has done something positive;

*Egypt hasn't, in fact, done something positive;

*Egypt has done something dumb;

*Egypt watches helplessly as ancient system for handling trash crumbles, as a direct result of its swine slaughter. The entrepreneurs who handle a great deal of trash collection in Cairo, you see, had fed much of their organic rubbish to pigs, whom they later slaughtered for food; now that there are no pigs to eat that rubbish, it's all piling up in the streets;

*Egypt wishes that the goats would eat more of the quickly accumulating garbage, but that's not happening.

In other other interesting news, the New York Times fired its second token conservative yesterday. Ben Stein, of the late John Hughes' Ferris Bueller's Day Off, was relieved of his financial column for acting as "a commercial spokesman for FreeScore, a financial services company," according to Felix Salmon. Not too long ago the Times declined to renew William Kristol's contract because of the error-riddled dreck he scribbled in crayon on ripped paper bags and then forced into the NYT courier's chubby cheeks for transport. I completely agree with both decisions but find it sickening that the Times can't seem to part with Maureen Dowd,  a plagiarist, total luddite, and liberal sycophant; or Alessandra Stanley, who writes her column using a quill filled with unhappiness and checks her reporting against the ingredients list on a box of crack-cocaine. Simply put:  The Times needs to hold its writers to a higher standard.

Birthers after the jump.
Some really smart people, like the Examiner's Tim Carney and David Freddoso, are calling the heavy birther coverage the product of media bias. Here's their argument:

Twenty-eight percent of Republicans believe President Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States, and 30 percent are "not sure," according to this poll.

But before liberals begin to smirk, here's a poll from 2007, in which 35 percent of Democrats said that President Bush knew in advance about the 9/11 attacks, and 26 percent were not sure.

The next thing they say is that the media ignored the 9/11 conspiracy theories because they were covering for liberals but have latched on to the birther movement because it's led by conservatives. The only problem with this assessment is that in the wake of 9/11 NO ELECTED DEMOCRATS SPONSORED LEGISLATION ACCUSING PRESIDENT BUSH OF ALLOWING 9/11 TO HAPPEN. There were no U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauers out there. No former Clinton Administration officials making birth certificate jokes while campaigning for executive office in their home states. In short, the poll results reveal what citizens feel. But as we've seen with the birther movement, even elected officials are hoping/praying/wishing that this is true. And that, folks, is scary.

Perhaps of equal significance, TV wasn't taking its cues from the Internet in 2001. But it's sure as hell doing it now. Goddamn dinosaurs.

After the jump: more things that happened yesterday, but with bullet points!

• Like the swallows to Capistrano, so return corrections to the New York Times' Cronkite obit.
• Kappa Alpha sigh. Next year: Vegas!
• It would be funnier if this said "GREGRY"
• Bad teams...win close games?
• Also: It's raining!

Prettying up the writing of other journalists, much like answering their phone calls, is a job that isn't making it through the recession at many publications. Here at City Paper, we used to have a receptionist. We also used to have two copy editors. You will no longer find those job titles on our masthead.

At big papers, many copy editors are older and wear cardigans and go home to their cats, so they are perfect candidates for buyouts. This has been bad for accuracy. Example: this recent utter fiasco at the New York Times, where the error-prone critic in question used to have a single copy editor assigned to her, an arrangement that was not renewed when the copy editor got promoted.

Or this bit of weirdness in today's Post: The lede of this story describes contestants in a beauty pageant who are waiting to hear who has won. The time is "[l]ate into Monday night, or shall we say in the wee hours of Tuesday morning." At the end of the piece, the author sets another scene. "It's 11:43. We have sat through three hours of smiles and glitter and acts." It is time to find out who won. But 11:43 p.m. on Monday is not the wee hours of Tuesday morning! There's probably a reasonable explanation for this---I'm guessing that the announcement didn't happen in the following 16 minutes. A fresh-eyed person might have asked about this dissonance between the piece's top and bottom.

But the job of being a fresh-eyed person is increasingly not being filled, and those who are left are often overwhelmed.

Yes, money is a factor here, but those of us who are copy editors must own up to some of the responsibility for this situation. I can't tell you how many meaningless arguments I've had over copy changes, minor things that I should have backed off from but couldn't let myself. Example: "the fact that," a phrase I hated more than the tortuous fixes I devised for it. Copy editors can get way too hung up on this sort of thing and alienate the very people who have to figure out how to staff their publications with a lot less money. Suddenly, copy-editing begins to look like a relic, like when businesses hired people to do nothing but type.

That responsibility, of course, eventually became diffused across offices. Likewise, journalists will have to take ownership of their own spelling, grammar, and factual integrity. They'll also have to figure out how to dodge people following up on a press release.

The company issued a thorough breakdown of all its money successes and failures, all of which gets bookended by the following passage, which says it all in this media environment:

Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include national and local conditions, as well as competition, that could influence the levels (rate and volume) of retail, national and classified advertising and circulation generated by our various markets and material increases in newsprint prices. They also include other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's publicly filed documents, including the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 28, 2008. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Not sure if there ever was any grounds for supposing that you'd be safe pulling over along a highway and getting out of your car to watch cars race at blistering speeds. But now that these accidents-waiting-to-happen have happened, there are no grounds whatsoever.

I'll be surprised if the New York Times hasn't shut up the American Medical Association, tort-reformers, and all the others out there who squawk about the problem that lawsuits pose for healt-care costs. The front-pager in today's edition is just a game-changing article, about a long series of medical mistakes in a Philadelphia hospital. The findings are that one unit in this VA hospital bungled 92 of 116 cancer treatments over six years. And that's not even the news. The news is that neither the hospital nor regulators nor other doctors did squat to stop the reign of error. Here's a snippet of about the fallout:

One patient was the Rev. Ricardo Flippin, a 21-year veteran of the Air Force. “I couldn’t walk and I couldn’t stand,” he said, citing rectal pain so severe that he had to remain in bed for six months, losing his church job and his income.

Pastor Flippin first learned of what his doctors called a radiation injury not from the V.A., but from an Ohio hospital where he underwent rectal surgery in 2006 to treat the damage. “There are times when I don’t have control over my bowels,” he said one recent Sunday, after excusing himself during a service at a church in West Virginia where he now preaches.

Post Ombudsman rehashes the story of Bill Turque and Michelle Rhee. Rehashes, you say? Yes, because it's been told before. The D.C. schools chancellor's policy of not speaking to the Post's education beat reporter tells you a lot about this woman---how she's petty, resistant to accountability, stubborn even when she's dead wrong, and needy for attention. Turque is a fine reporter who's never done a damn thing to deserve this treatment. The Post is right to keep him on the beat, and Rhee, in the end, will suffer for this, as she should.

Much has been made of the District's plan to step up enforcement of parking restrictions all around town. The push will affect nightclubbers who try to press their luck in all of those spaces just shy of intersections, not to mention street-sweeping violators: The machines that roar down the alternating sides of certain D.C. streets will be equipped with cameras to nail all scofflaw automobiles in their way.

On Saturday, I observed the new municipal attitude in force. I spied a late-model Infiniti parked pretty unobtrusively on 15th Street NW, just shy of O Street. The car was squarely out of the residential parking perimeter but was well short of the intersection and posed a limited hazard---it was a car, and not an SUV, so there weren't any issues with blocked visibility. But there was the purple rectangle of dread on the windshield. It had been issued at 11:30 pm on Friday, evidence that the no-tolerance policies of a decade ago making a comeback.

OK, so what's news? Well, the WaPo ombo, Andy Alexander, declared himself in favor of the Post's having gone with a Web-only treatment for Paul Duggan's two-part narrative on the killing of 32-year-old Robert Wone, the most fascinating murder the city has perhaps ever seen. Alexander thought that the paper's editors made a good choice here, which puts him at odds with me!

Federer!

Those of us who've been following the news at least cursorily over the past year know that off all the U.S. automakers, Ford has been dealing with the downturn best. But that doesn't mean that if you're writing an article about the company's performance, you have to borrow from their own advertising copy. Here's Katherine Timpf of the Washington Times:

Amid bankruptcies and forecasts of Detroit doom, one of the Big Three is hanging tough. Ford tough.

The New York Times Magazine asks: Can Shakira make early childhood education the No. 1 priority in Latin America? And I state: I would have to be unemployed, stranded somewhere, with no cell phone, no Internet, no one to talk to, no billboards or nature to observe, to even consider reading such a story.

Oh, the drama! Read on to see whether the writer of the Post's story on regional cabin accommodations manages to strike up a fire on her very last match!

Don't Ask, Don't Tell and a teensy bit more about Maureen Dowd, after the jump.

• The MSM would rather praise Barack Obama for what he says than hold him accountable for what he doesn't do, hence the flowery recaps of yesterday's speech with little mention of the broken promises. Great example: On Wednesday, Rachel Maddow reported that Robert Gibbs, in response to a question about what Barack Obama was doing to overturn/abolish Don't Ask Don't Tell, said that the president "is working with the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs on making that happen." Yet according to Maddow, "a Pentagon spokesman said just yesterday that that‘s not actually happening, that there is no planning underway. There‘s no work underway inside the Pentagon toward changing the policy, despite the fact that the White House keeps saying that there is." As Greg Pollowitz at the NRO's Media blog points out, Maddow failed to mention that Gibbs lied. (Lefties, like righties, need that kind of shit spelled out for them.) In summary, the Obama Administration said its working to change Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and yet it's not actually doing that. At least his speeches are uplifting! My thoughts on DADT.

• In case you missed it, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd plagiarized. The NYT didn't care, Josh Marshall (the victim) didn't care, and Maureen Dowd didn't care enough to formally punctuate her apology letter to HuffPo or address the fuck-up in her most recent column. Then one of my heroes, Jack Shafer, went and threw her a fucking bone, NSA. Every time I see that woman's wizened yet beautiful visage, my blood boils. How the fuck does she get away with it? Would William Kristol have gotten away with plagiarism? Newser's Michael Wolff thinks we should all just let it go: "Dowd is like some much-vaunted high school type whose success and popularity drive everybody else mad with either envy and spite or inspire a perverse (evidence of great-self-loathing) desire to be her way-too-loyal friend and supporter....Indeed, she is famously surrounded by an inside circle of friends and supporters—other famous-type columnists and New York Times reporters—who famously help her write her column. She regularly lifts their thoughts and sentences, which, since they are unpublished (supposedly), is not plagiarism—though it certainly is insiderism....Such insiderism is why so many people, especially the outsider-type bloggers, despise her. Her evident self-satisfaction and the obvious echo chamber in which she resides, not to mention her apparent ability to get by without doing too much work, rankles." I am TOTALLY BLUSHING RIGHT NOW!

OK, I'm going to watch this video of Maureen Dowd laughing at her own jokes! See y'all later!

A little after 7:30 p.m., a shot from Pittsburgh's Sergei Gonchar goes off bodies in front of the net and Sidney Crosby pushes the loose puck in. Eight seconds of playing time later, Penguin Craig Adams scores his first career playoff goal. It's 2-0, but the game, series and season feel over.

In one rotten hour, what had been a fab month in local sports was over.

When's Redskins camp open?

***

Ted Leonsis always talks about the "10-step plan" that the Caps have been following. He means the rebuilding scheme that got them to verge of a conference final for the first time in 11 years.

But last night, an early victim of his plan came back to bite him.

In 2004, with his team losing most games and eight-figures a year, Leonsis got GM George McPhee to trade or release every name player but Olaf Kolzig. One of the dumpees was Sergei Gonchar, a former first-round Caps pick, who was sent to the Boston Bruins for Shaone Morrisonn.

Morrisonn is the guy who took a dumb penalty midway through the first period, and midway through the power play Gonchar set up Crosby for the game's first goal. Pittsburgh never looked back.

Amazingly, the main topic on WJFK's postgame show was on how quickly McPhee should be fired.

***

The Washington Post reports the Washington Wizards held a pre-draft workout for Marquette guard Wes Matthews. His dad, also Wes Matthews, was a first-round pick for the old Bullets in 1980, ending a three-year run of busts in which the team used their top pick on, in order, Roger Phegley, Joe DeSantis and Matthews.

Abe Pollin's loyalty was such that he let General Manager Bob Ferry keep his job for another 10 years.

***

Girl vs. Boys: The filly Rachel Alexandra will not only compete against the world's best three-year-old colts in Saturday's Preakness, she'll be expected to beat them.

The track released its opening betting line yesterday, and Rachel Alexandra, who didn't run in the Kentucky Derby, was atop it at 8-5.

Derby winner Mine That Bird is the second choice in the 13-horse field at 6-1.

***

Speaking of the Freakness: The New York Times ran a story about the end of BYOB at the Preakness. Both Cheap Seats readers will find nothing new in the article, but the accompanying photo is Pulitzer worthy.

And if that shot doesn't make you nostalgic for the Running of the Urinals, there's no hope for you.

***

Don't Speak Ill of the Deadskins. In a fine thread called "Least Favorite Redskin of All Time" on the team-owned message board, posters recalled the players they most wished had never worn burgundy and gold.

Among the usual suspects -- Deion Sanders, Michael Westbrook, Heath Shuler -- a poster going by Leopard11 chimed in with "Dan Turk."

The poster was still mad that Turk, a mostly dependable former long snapper from 1997-1999, made a bad snap in the last minute of a 1999 playoff game against Tampa Bay.

Somebody must have informed Leopard11 that Turk died of testicular cancer less than a year after the miscue, prompting this retraction:

i take that back Dan Turk was not a bad player just made one bad snap not a biggie but was a playoff game. I totally take that back he was a good Redskin.

***

Davids don't always whup Goliaths: Last night Bishop Ireton lost its lead to Paul VI and a chance at a rare athletic championship in the conclusion of a game suspended on Monday because of weather.

Playing in the WCAC, the powerful DC-area Catholic schools league, Ireton over the last 40 years has won just four titles in all boys sports -- three in soccer and one in lacrosse. Yet Ireton was leading Paul VI 3-2 in the top of the sixth inning of the WCAC baseball championship, played in Bowie on Monday, when the skies opened up and umps called off play.

Standard rules call for a game to be declared official after five innings, so Ireton normally would have been granted the biggest win in the school's history and its first baseball crown. But before the title game, coaches agreed that because of the stakes they'd play a full seven innings no matter what.

And when the teams gathered again last night in Annandale to take it from the top of the sixth, or top of the VIth, Ireton quickly lost its lead and the game, 4-3.

Again, this being the Catholic schools league, you'd think the Man Upstairs wouldn't play favorites. But Paul VI coach Billy Emerson apparently takes Monday's timely rainshowers as a hint that God was on his side's side.

"We kind of thought the Lord was looking out for us because he stopped momentum right there,” Emerson told dcsportsfan.com.

Clearly.

***

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