Divorce Equality: When the District passed a law allowing same-sex marriages a few years ago, it was cause for great rejoicing. Some of the marriages, though, don't appear to have kept the joy going. So now the D.C. Council is looking into easing divorces for same-sex marriages where neither partner lives in a jurisdiction where same-sex marriage is legal; the idea, apparently, would be to keep things relatively uncomplicated for any couples who only came to D.C. because it's one of the few places in the country that treats gays and lesbians fairly. The legislation ought to confuse the culture warriors, though; right-wing types who are opposed to marriage equality should favor gay divorces, but then they'll be on record backing special treatment for same-sex couples! Which, as anyone who tunes in to The 700 Club knows, is the centerpiece of The Homosexual Agenda. +2

Gay Enough For You?: Speaking of gay and lesbian Washingtonians, it's time for another installment of arbitrary rankings by national magazines. Today's edition: Gayest city. The Advocate rated D.C. only the 16th-gayest city in the country, behind some places you might not expect (Orlando and Salt Lake City finished in the top two). Some of the criteria involved in making the list: Number of WNBA teams and nude yoga classes. Should the Mystics sponsor naked yoga this year, we expect our ranking to go up. +2

Fares R Us: The latest financial scheme is out from the Metro board, and it calls for raising prices, especially focusing on paper farecards, which would cost up to $6 for a trip. Then again, train service has improved significantly in recent years, so it's only natural that Metro would want to raise subway fares 5 percent to pay for all the upgrades. Wait, what? Oh. Never mind. -2

Basketball On The Cheap: The Washington Wizards haven't won a regular season NBA game since April 11, which was 274 days ago. Sure, there was the offseason and the lockout in between, but the team's gone 0-8 to start the year, and owner Ted Leonsis says it's all going according to plan. Which may be why tickets to tonight's game against the Toronto Raptors were going for 90 cents on StubHub a few hours before tipoff. For any visiting Toronto fans: That's 91 cents Canadian! The good news: That's pretty cheap. The bad news: Once you buy a ticket, you're then doomed to watching the Wizards play. -2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 36 Today's score: 0 Today's Needle rating: 36

No, those train brake fumes aren’t making you hallucinate: Metro really did win a gold medal for its trophy case.

On Friday, Metro’s five-person train crew took home the American Public Transit Association’s Rail Transit Team Achievement Award at APTA’s International Rail Rodeo competition. Twelve teams—including transit employees from Denver, San Francisco, and Boston—competed for top honors in operations and maintenance. WMATA’s team roped the highest combined score.

The operations event tested the entrants’ train operation skills, knowledge of safety regulations, train equipment, and track right-of-way procedures. WMATA’s Charlie Richardson and Danielle Glass placed second. In the maintenance event, which judged competitors’ ability to troubleshoot equipment issues, WMATA’s Adrian Tase, Roland Lamar, and Jacob Stout took the bronze.

APTA President William Millar called the winning team members “models of excellence.”

Metro riders can only pray that this excellence disease is contagious, since the rest of the system continues to be a model of something other than excellence week in and week out.

Photo by cuttlefish via Flickr/CC BY 2.0

Metro subway

"My position would be, if we need to pay a little more, that's fine, but is this really paying for Metro to be upgraded? The cars are a sweatbox. They're crowded, especially when crowds come back from a game on weekend nights. Are higher fares going to improve anything? I don't see it."

Wasson may have to wait up to six years to see much improvement sweatbox-wise.

Metro's board also approved an $886 million contract to buy 428 new rail cars, including 300 replacements for the subway system's oldest models, which federal investigators have long described as "uncrashworthy," the Examiner reports:

Metro staffers in the board room clapped when it was approved, in an unusual step from the usually staid crowd.

The new cars won't arrive until 2013, however, and won't be in service until 2016.

Video courtesy of WJLA-TV

Good morning, City Desk readers, and welcome to another Freedom Friday! How about this "heat wave," enh? ENH?

Michael Phelps, Olympiad and hero to long-necked people everywhere, crashed his Escalade in Baltimore last night. To give you an impression of how bad the accident was, here's WaPo's headline: "Phelps Uninjured in Two-Vehicle Crash." There wasn't enough room in the headline to mention that the person in the other car was left uninjured as well–only "shaken up."

It's an important story because Michael Phelps is A FAMOUS SWIMMER AND IMPORTANT YOUNG MAN, and when he was fresh out of high school, he was arrested for driving under the influence. Five years is nothing in journalism years–so maybe the the solid graf that addresses Phelp's sobriety was worth including. Then again, there's this [emphasis mine]:

Police found no reason to perform any tests on him, [Officer] Guglielmi said. Officers also examined both vehicles and found no evidence of drugs or alcohol, he said.

Throwing in that bit about the drugs–something WaPo didn't bother to do in a single one of these traffic accident stories from Tuesday–now that was pure genius! After all, there was that DUI, and the picture of Phelps taking a monster hit with those Aquaman lungs.

But as good as WaPo is about keeping us abreast (swimming joke!) of Phelp's fuck-ups, the paper was strangely silent about Subway, which dropped the heavily wreathed Phelps like an ugly newborn seven months ago in the wake of the bong pictures, only to bring him back on board in recent weeks for a series of print and TV commercials, in which Phelps gushes about his love for jalapenos and banana peppers alongside a nervous and sad-looking Jared.

C'mon, Phelps gettin' his endorsement back wasn't worth even a blog post?

Do you cry easily, sweet reader? The September issue of Esquire features a heart-breaking story by John H. Richardson about Warren Hern, the only remaining late-term abortion provider in the country. For the last several decades, Hern has been the target of brick-throwing, gun-firing, vitriol-spewing, COLLEAGUE-MURDERING "Pro-lifers." Told with an elegant yet enthralling second-person voice, Richardson's story is almost enough to make a non-believer embrace Original Sin, if only as an explanation to what tempted Bill O'Reilly's mother to raise the spawn of Satan as her own. In fact, it's almost enough to inspire a guy–who, as Dogbert once said, doesn't like to get "gooky stuff" on his "paws"–to put his money where his mouth is. Too bad  I'm too damn dumb for abortion school!

Obesity is apparently off limits, but I'm pretty sure it's still OK to call smokers "addicts." Thankfully, there's a less unhealthy alternative on shelves as we sprechen! From Jacob Sullum at Reason:

A new review of 89 studies confirms that the cancer risk associated with smokeless tobacco is tiny when compared to the cancer risk associated with cigarettes....

[The authors] estimate that if all male cigarette smokers in the U.S. had used smokeless tobacco instead, the number of tobacco-related cancer deaths among them would have been 1 percent what it actually was in 2005 (about 1,100 vs. 105,000).

Holy metastasizing lung tumors, Batman, why hasn't some do-gooding (good-doing?) public health advocate endorsed Snus? Sullum can tell you:

This comparison highlights the absurdity of the main "public health" objection to promoting smokeless tobacco as a harm-reducing alternative to cigarettes. Opponents of this strategy claim to be worried that it could lead to more tobacco-related mortality in the long run if it attracts nonsmokers to smokeless tobacco. But Lee and Hamling's numbers indicate that if a significant percentage of smokers switched to oral snuff, the tobacco-related death toll would be smaller than it is now even if every nonsmoker in America started using oral snuff too. By the professed standards of public health, which seeks to minimize morbidity and mortality, this is a no-brainer. As with the opposition to electronic cigarettes, something else is going on here: a moralistic crusade to conquer sin disguised as a scientific quest to conquer disease.

If you've never read Jacob Sullum on cigarettes (and weed), you should. Especially if you're the kind of person who knows what's best for everybody but your coke-snorting daughter. (Catch that? I just said "F you!" to Vice President Joe Biden, Destroyer of Families!)

Happy Friday, y'all. Don't get scammed!

• Jeanice McMillan, 42, of Springfield (train operator)

• Major General David F. Wherley, Jr., former commanding general, Joint Force Headquarters, District of Columbia National Guard, and his wife Ann, both 62
• Lavonda King, 23
• Dennis Hawkins, 64
• Mary Doolittle, 59
• Anna Fernandez, 40

Per Cherkis, per WTOP, as well, with more on where they lived and one alternate spelling (Lavanda King).

Councilmember Phil Mendelson put out a statement about the Wherleys:

"It is with great sadness that it appears that Retired Commanding General David F. Wherley and his wife, Ann, were two of the casualties in yesterday’s Metrorail accident.  My condolences go out to all the families affected by yesterday’s accident.  But over the years, I was fortunate to work with Major General Wherley, and saw his energy and commitment to the residents of the District of Columbia as well as his country.  A District resident, Major General Wherley will be remembered by the countless lives he has touched, from the District youth he mentored to the soldiers and airmen under his command.  I offer my most sincere condolences to the Major General’s family as well as the men and women of the DC National Guard."

WaPo also interviewed Ann Wherley, a mortgage banker, about living in a Cap Hill loft space in April 2005.

* For those interested in competing in one of those high-stakes, emotionally wrenching reality television programs—and for those whose place of employment merely imitate them—Slate's Joanna Weiss has your guide to how not to be the first contestant kicked off a reality show.

* New Columbia Heights has updates on the proposed neighborhood farmer's market: At a recent ANC meeting, William Jordan proposed that the market be run by EMG Marketing Group and Change Inc. and be held three (!) times a week.

* Mr. T in D.C. bows respectfully to the employees of the Columbia Heights Subway sandwich shop:

I just wanted to thank them here today. By now, all the employees there recognize me, and know what kind of sandwich I usually get. . . . The two women who work there on weekday evenings are particularly helpful and pleasant. They recently told me they were from Eritrea; I wonder what their lives were like there? It's not very far from lawless, violent places like Darfur and Somalia.

And in this newspaper:

* Arthur Delaney on D.C. Jail disaster readiness, terrorist threats, and the power of Google.

* Tim Carman tries to make a bagel, lies to City Paper staff.

* Mike DeBonis on the Nat's stadium slush fund.

* ... and the debut of Orr Shtuhl's Beerspotter!

Image courtesy pingnews.