Certificate of Occupation: The big worry for the people occupying McPherson Square has been that a sudden police raid–like the ones in New York, Oakland, UC-Davis, and, oh, just about every other Occupy encampment—would clear them out. This weekend's demolition notwithstanding, they shouldn't have to worry about that: A judge has ruled that authorities need to give 24 hours notice before evicting the protest. Good news for anyone who doesn't like the smell of tear gas or pepper spray. +2

Ethics R Us: Every member of the D.C. Council voted today to approve new ethics legislation–even the ones who have caught the FBI's fancy recently (like Harry Thomas Jr.). The bill would dial back, but not eliminate, the slushy constituent service funds councilmembers enjoy now; it would also set up a new body to enforce ethics complaints, apparently because the council thinks the current Board of Elections and Ethics isn't up to par. Anyone expecting the bill to immediately improve the conduct of the D.C. government, however, should probably take a look at a nice bridge we have for sale a bit to the north. -1

Turning Japanese: Tomorrow is a date that will live in infamy—especially if you attend Sidwell Friends and don't like edamame. The private school's lunch selection for Dec. 7 features the soy bean snacks, chicken teriyaki, something called "Oriental noodle salad," and other Asian-inspired dishes; its menu notes prominently that Dec. 7 is Pearl Harbor Day. School officials say it's coincidental; the food contractor chose the menu items, and the printing contractor automatically noted the date. With that mystery solved, now maybe someone can figure out why they still think it's okay to refer to anything as "Oriental." -1

Fail To The Drug Tests: Life as a professional football player isn't that easy. Sure, you get paid a lot of money to play sports, but you have a high risk of concussions and other cataclysmic injuries—and you can't just smoke weed whenever you want to. That's the lesson from the suspension the NFL handed out today to Trent Williams and Fred Davis of the Washington Redskins for failing three drug tests; they'll miss four games, starting Sunday, ending their seasons. Which is to say, don't bet on the team winning out. -2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 59 Today's score: -2 Today's Needle rating: 57

Sidwell Friends football got some attention after Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton showed up for the season-ending game with rival Maret last weekend.

Things didn't go so well for the Fighting Quakers under the spotlight, with Maret doling out a 42-0 beating.

That meant Sidwell finished up 4-5. While that mark shows the squad's not yet ready to take on the Green Bay Packers, it seems positively Super Bowlesque to anybody that followed how things went for Sidwell in 2010.

Last year's squad was winless and in all but one game was "slaughtered"—meaning a loss of 35 points or more, in which cases referees invoke the "slaughter rule" and instruct the timekeeper to keep the clock running in hopes of mitigating massacres.

Unlike the Redskins management, everybody involved in Sidwell football admitted that last year was a rebuilding year, with nearly half the varsity made up of freshmen and having only one senior suit up some weeks.

Sidwell Friends, now loaded with sophomores and juniors, was outscored only 241-176 this year. The success of the rebuild showed in Sidwell's 32-7 win over St. James; last year, St. James doled out a 52-7 beating that was worse than the scoreboard indicated. And before three slaughters in the last four weeks of this season—56-7 to Potomac School, 46-0 to Flint Hill, and 42-0 to Maret—the underclass-heavy lineup was actually posting a winning record and outscoring its opposition by a wide margin.

Some folks didn't like me pointing out Sidwell's football debacles last year, resulting in one of the bitterest/funniest comment loads you'll find on this site.

The football gods were apparently upset by my story, too. Proof: This year, my beloved Falls Church Jaguars went 0-10 with four slaughters, and were outscored 385-85 on the season.

And they're getting a Falls Church High education.

Last One in the Pool is the D.C. Mayor: If you're reading this blog post, chances are you're not splashing around in one of the District's public pools right now. But you could be! Mayor Vince Gray officially opened the swimming season this afternoon with a ribbon-cutting and proclamation—but no cannonball—at Barry Farm Rec Center. Until the school year ends, most pools aren't open until after the final bell of the day. Which is probably good for preventing truancy, but not so good for any adults who want to skip work and take a dip. +4

Blue Line to Nowhere: Staying in town this weekend? Plan to get around by foot, by bike, by car, by Segway, or by bus—almost any way except by Metrorail. Four stations will be closed for maintenance, including tourist-heavy Capitol South and the closest stop to a large motorcycle rally, Stadium-Armory. The good news? The work that's being done will improve safety. The bad news? There's always the chance that more problems get discovered during the weekend. -1

Who Wants to be a Judge?: Sure, everyone knows President Barack Obama's kids go to Sidwell Friends. But the true test of how deep the school's clout goes may be underway now in D.C. Superior Court—where three judges, so far, have had to recuse themselves from a nasty lawsuit involving an affair and one of the school's shrinks, because they've got ties to Sidwell. Somehow it seems unlikely they'll be noting the deep connections to the city's legal community in the next admissions brochure, though. -1

Have an Onion, Kid: Getting children to eat more healthy meals and snacks has become a priority in federal and local government, and rightly so; childhood obesity rates virtually guarantee the U.S. will be spending gazillions of dollars on health care in the future (not to mention bode badly for future Olympic medals). But Turner Elementary School may have gone too far this week, when officials served raw scallions to first-graders. Who, predictably, didn't like them much. Maybe try deep-frying them next time? -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 57 Today's score: +1 Friday bonus: +2 Memorial Day bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 62

The Fighting Quakers didn't repeat last week's performance in which the squad racked up a never-seen-before negative-38 yards of total offense in the first half against Saint James, came within two touchdowns of beating Maret.

I better not type anything else, or I'll hear more about the un-O'Donnell-approved things I do to myself in my parents basement while being a misogynistically denigrating cyber-bully. OK, they ain't that great at football right now, but Sidwell mofos sure know how to Play the Feud!

Judging from the online commenters, both on this site at and at a Sidwell football thread that's been thriving over at DCUrbanMom.com all season, some folks don't think anybody should mention just how badly things are going on the gridiron over there. Nothing I could write is as funny as the flame wars taking place around the football team. These people don't find any humor in watching the most prestigious school in the most powerful city in the world field a team so lame that some squad named  John Paul the Great poleaxed the crap outta 'em, 61-6, and left half the Sidwell roster gimpy. A team so overmatched that the slaughter rule, which kicks in once a team is down 35 points, has been invoked in EVERY Sidwell game this season. Has that ever happened before?

It ain't the kids' fault things are so awful. More than half the Sidwell squad is freshmen and sophomores. They'd be playing JV football, if the school hadn't done away with it this year because of a lack of bodies. They'll be better players for the pounding they're taking this season.

But, still. Losing 61-6 to a dead pope's boys? Damn if that ain't funny.

And, besides, Sidwell's imperfections just don't get enough play. Just a couple weeks ago, the school made international news when President Obama was on the "Today" show and was asked whether his daughters "would get the same kind of education at a D.C. public school" that they get at Sidwell.

"I'll be blunt with you," the president said. "The answer is no."

That musta hurt the feelings of some parents and kids around town. Reality bites, as they say.

Well, if anybody would ask me if the president could have sent his kids to a school with a worse football team than Sidwell's, I'd have to be blunt with them, too. The answer is no.

***

After Sidwell Friends canceled school yesterday, President Barack Obama had some harsh words for D.C.

"Can I make a comment that is unrelated to the economy very quickly?" Obama asked at a morning economic briefing. "It has to do with Washington. My children's school was canceled today. Because of what—some ice? As my children pointed out, in Chicago, school is never canceled."

Obama went on to suggest that D.C. would do well to emulate "flinty Chicago toughness."

"I'm saying when it comes to the weather, folks in Washington don't seem to be able to handle things," he concluded.

That's right: Our new president considers capital-dwellers a bunch of pansy-asses who can't deal with a little dusting of snow.

Sad part is, he's probably right.

Video after the jump, courtesy of NBC Washington.

It will be Maret's first visit since the rivalry between the two schools really got funny, or ugly, depending on how seriously you take sophomoric taunts.

Maret was leading during a game at Sidwell last month when the home team's fans nailed the visitors with a group chant of "O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!"

Both schools had been finalists in the effort to land tuition fees for First Daughters Elect Malia and Sasha. In case anybody from Maret had forgotten, the chant reminded 'em that Sidwell won the competition for the Obama girls.

And, compounding the hurt, the home crowd's participation inspired the Sidwell boys to come back and beat Maret — whose fans had retorted with a cheer of "Oatmeal Sucks!" to play on Sidwell's Quaker roots — by a point.

City Desk's write-up of the cheer-war went viral, and students from both schools used our comments section to call each other some variant of "doo-doo head."

Soon after the digital brouhaha, a Sidwell student contacted me to say that his school's headmaster went on the PA system during classes earlier that day and warned students that City Paper's website was now being monitored.

Anybody from Sidwell who posted objectionable material here could be subject to punishments, including suspensions, for honor code violations.

Bottom line: Don't expect a repeat of the revelry at tomorrow night's rematch.

"Everybody here's looking around to see who's going to rat on who,"  the Sidwell student told me. "Nobody would have been cursing or calling Maret gay or anything if they knew our dean was reading this. We thought nobody would read this. We thought it was all funny. But, the 'O-ba-ma' chants are done. We can't do them again."

Apparently no such edicts were handed down at Maret: A student there told me that she thought her school's administrators were "secretly proud" of the "Oatmeal Sucks!" comeback.

You gonna let 'em do you like that, Sidwell?

On Saturday, Maret's basketball boys were leading Sidwell Friends on the road when the home crowd taunted the visitors with a chant ripped from the headlines:

"The Sidwell kids started yelling 'O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!' at us," a Maret parent who attended the game tells me.

The First Family Elect's first major post-election decision, of course, dealt with where to send daughters Malia and Sasha to school. Most reports had Maret and Sidwell as the finalists in the Obama sweepstakes.

After tours of both, Sidwell landed the kids for next year. So while Malia and Sasha aren't even enrolled there yet, they're already cheerleaders. And what the Sidwell fans were telling Maret with their "O-ba-ma!" chant was: "Even if you whup us at hoops, we still beat you in a bigger game!"

The Maret parent says Maret's administrators looked confused, and Sidwell's bemused, as "O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!" rained down from the grandstand.

Just words? Hardly.

"On the Maret side, that was insulting and incendiary," says the Maret parent, who requested anonymity. "How crass!"

Maret's side eventually responded by yelling "Oatmeal sucks!" — a play on Sidwell's nickname, the Quakers.

To add insult to insult: Perhaps inspired by the clever nastiness of the home fans, Sidwell came back and beat Maret by a point, 47-46.

A call to Sidwell's athletic director to get a comment on the fans' alleged un-Friendly chant hasn't yet been returned. But we'll follow this story and do everything journalistically possible to build the Sidwell/Maret rivalry into something that can last two terms.

The big news for now: There's a Sidwell/Maret rematch tomorrow night at Maret.

Come game time, the Maret kids will have had almost a week to come up with something better, or at least something bitterer, than "Oatmeal Sucks!"

The whole world is watching!