Clean Me a River: Long-time Washingtonians may sometimes wonder what's going through the heads (or digestive tracts) of people fishing on the banks of the Potomac River. For decades, the river's been considered so polluted as to be a national disgrace. Turns out those people fishing were just ahead of the curve, though; a new study finds the Potomac is in better health now than it was in the 1950s. Evidently, all it took was putting an end to the practice of dumping sewage into the water. Scientists needed 60 years to think of that? +5

Ride a Bike: With schools back in session everywhere in the region and drivers returning to the roads after August beach vacations and last-gasp Labor Day trips away from home, today was officially declared "Terrible Traffic Tuesday," which, as arbitrary names go, is far catchier than "Cyber Monday," but still kind of... silly. So far as we could tell, traffic wasn't actually any worse than usual. That's because we rode our bike to work today, just like we do most days. Sure, it was hot, and there's always the risk of getting run over by a frustrated driver, but isn't that more fun than being the frustrated driver? -2

No, Really—Ride a Bike: A DDOT study shows drivers on 15th Street NW have been speeding less since a "contraflow" bike lane was installed running south on the one-way northbound street, and more cyclists are using the street to get around, with a 40 percent increase in bikes spotted at 15th and T. The lane will soon be extended so it runs from E Street NW to W Street NW; now, it only goes between U Street NW and Massachusetts Avenue NW. Best news? D.C.'s bike lanes cost only $100,000 a mile, as opposed to New York City's tab: $1.5 million per mile. (On the other hand, New York's bikes probably cost more, on average, too, thanks to the prevalence of hipsters riding expensive track bikes from dive bar to dive bar—here, we just don't have as many dive bars to commute between on carbon fiber frames.) +3

Marty Peretz Weighs In: Any voters still undecided between Vincent Gray and Adrian Fenty now, officially, no longer have an excuse not to make up their minds—The New Republic's D.C. mayoral endorsement is finally out! Counter-intuitively, TNR decided not to go the counter-intuitive route, and endorsed exactly the candidate you'd expect for a neo-liberal opinion journal mostly written and read by over-educated white people: Fenty. (Of course, that's a whole different demographic than, say, an alt-weekly mostly written and read by over-educated white people.) Admittedly, TNR's editorial wisdom has not always persuaded the masses; otherwise, we might be living through President Joe Lieberman's second term. If Fenty wins, we at Washington City Paper look forward to the inevitable "Were We Wrong?" follow-up sometime in 2013. 0

Friday's Needle rating: 37 Today's score: +6 Today's Needle rating: 43

Today in The New Republic, Gabriel Sherman takes a long look at what the subhead calls the "messy collapse of a great newspaper," the Washington Post. There are some great moments in there, like when Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli kills a spider in the car of Katharine Weymouth, the Post's publisher.

Strangely, though, Sherman's Twitter feed has a lot of things that didn't make it into the story, some of which are much, much better than what actually landed. Don't worry if you told him that you call Brauchli "Count Brauchula," though—that's in there. What's not? Some of Sherman's more intriguing Tweets after the jump.

Before WP, Brauchli almost didnt get WSJ gig. Press release drafted to announce Paul Ingrassia, but Steiger protested. Brauchli won bake-off

WaPo-60 Minutes divorce: in '08, Brauchli asked Jeff Fager to pay WaPo for collaborations. 60 Mins said no. Investigative partnership over

Brauchli on bureaus: "If Hurricane Katrina hits, we'll be there. But we don't need a staff on the ground covering snow storms in Chicago."

Brauchli on WaPo's great multipart A.I.G series beating Michael Lewis in VF to the story: "He didn't come close but I bet he got paid more."

Walter Pincus proposed merging WaPo website with NYT website. But WaPo execs nixed idea. "Never been able to get it through our own people."

Walter Pincus on Politico: “It wouldn’t work at the Post. Politics is a much narrower audience...Most people don’t give a shit."

But Jim VandeHei at Politico doesn't mind. A senior DC journalist said VandeHei claims "he no longer reads the Post in any detailed fashion"

In addition to salons, WaPo wanted to plan a half dozen medium size conferences during the year and one epic conference like Davos

Downie says WP considering putting ads on A1: "There may be advertising on Page 1 as soon as this year." Weymouth wouldn't confirm or deny

Weymouth on spiders: ""I think I'm a normal person and I don't want to sleep in a bed or be in a car with a bug. But I don't have a phobia."

In 2008, WaPo execs discussed a tiered-pricing scheme, where consumers could buy a cheaper, scaled-down version of the paper. Idea didnt fly

Morning salongate broke, Brauchli went to WaPo national desk. “I didn’t know about it!” he told group of editors. “I didn’t approve flier”

1.) In a column titled, "Medical marijuana is an insult to our intelligence," Lane mocked a woman named Angel Raich, a U.S. Supreme Court plaintiff who said she needed marijuana for a litany of illnesses. Though someone at WaPo has since scrubbed Lane's remarks from the post, this is what he had to say about Raich: that she "might consider a consultation for hypochondria, or perhaps marijuana dependency.”

If I were Lane, I would've had this removed too. Why? Because it looks terrible to first say that, and then have to include a correction wherein you admit that the person you just made fun of "is about to undergo an operation to reduce her Schwannoma, which is a benign brain tumor."

Raich also got in contact with the Marijuana Policy Project. That "benign" brain tumor? Here's how the MPP reported it: "Raich is having highly risky surgery October 28 – surgery that her doctors had originally ruled out because it is too dangerous — because her brain tumor has now become life-threatening."

2.) So, not only did Chuck Lane mock someone with a brain tumor, but then he turned around and painted medical marijuana activists as thugs. The opening line of his follow-up post (the one I blogged about last week) reads like this: "My post about 'medical marijuana' stirred a lot of comments, some of them approving, the vast majority hostile and vituperative — and one or two actually threatening."

His email to me read: "I thought marijuana was a peaceful drug, but for some reason a lot of its adherents got really verbally violent over my writings."

Look, Chuck. They made a movie about you, so you must realize by now that you're not spouting off in a vacuum, and that regardless of how few of your usual readers are marijuana users, lying* about the effects and support of medical marijuana in the web pages of a nationally respected newspaper is probably going to draw out the whole gang. That's how the Web works, and I think you'd agree–if you weren't on the business end of the pitchfork—that it's a very democratic way to do journalism.

But what's most offensive is your implication that the reaction to your columns (95% of the comments were pro-medical marijuana and anti-Chuck Lane), were somehow out of character; that stoners and potheads are supposed to be peaceful and politically unengaged and quiet and dumb. (Or something.) But you couldn't put us in the category of passionate, politically engaged citizens–we had to be "violent" instead, which plays to an entirely different stereotype, one that casts weed users and advocates as violent criminals.

If you expected that you could write a nasty hit piece with bad facts and escape unnoticed, well...surprise. You can't, because we're watching you, and we'll continue to respond in intelligible, stereotype-defying ways for the foreseeable future/ fo' evah evah.

[*Ed. note: Yes, Chuck, you lied to your readers. If you navigate your way to the MPP's response to your first column, you'll see a bevy of statistics that contradict the few you googled. Among them, this one: "And last year, the American College of Physicians – 124,000 doctors of internal medicine – stated, 'Evidence not only supports the use of medical marijuana in certain conditions but also suggests numerous indications for cannabinoids,' marijuana’s unique, active components."]

• Dave McKenna incited a quiet riot on Monday by asking, "Did Anybody Go to the Phish Reunion?" Phish fans, many endowed with a LSD-inspired sixth sense, flocked to the comments board. The exchange was nowhere near as trippy as the culture war going on over at the Sexist, or as revolting as the average Twilight attack, still, I was mucho impressed to see the school of stone-washed stoners band together in defense of Trey "Is this thing on?" Anastasio.
• Speaking of getting stoned: "Police said Monday they confiscated about $1.2 million in illegal drugs and more than $68,000 in cash...Authorities also arrested 194 Phish fans during the three-night celebration of the band's return to the stage after a nearly five-year absence." That's the gut of an AP article about the Phish reunion concert. Let me sum it up in a different way: Laid back folk got together to listen to some laid back tunes, and the cops ROBBED THE SHIT OUT OF THEM. For those of you who are thinking (or typing) "serves those scofflaws right," I want you to look around your home or office for a consumable that some other person might perceive as unhealthy–a bottle of Jager, maybe, or the April 2004 issue of Genesis magazine, or a package of Ramen noodles. Now, I want you to imagine some sweaty prick with a Taser taking that thing away from you, bending your arms behind your back, snapping a picture of you after you've been crying (this picture will end up online), demanding thousands of dollars in exchange for your freedom, and then releasing you in your dirty laundry with that taboo attached to your personal record. Ugh.
• The National Review Online's Media Blog tips its hat to the Washington Times for totally nailing the Chas Freeman story. Kevin D. Williamson writes: "The other Times — the Washington Times — was very much on the case, with Eli Lake providing the most substantive reporting on Freeman, his history, and his connections to the Chinese and Saudi regimes. National Review, The New Republic, and other opinion journals covered the story, but the newspapers were largely absent. The Washington Post covered the story sparingly, and the Wall Street Journal touched on it, too, but considering the issues at play, it was remarkable that so much of the daily press took a back seat." It would seem that this is one of those stories only Washington folk give a shit about: Jamie "Am I bigger than Jesus, yet?" Kirchick dug his heels into the Freeman story over at The New Republic and the Washington Independent's Dave Weigel suggested that the now office-less Freeman will one day form an unholy alliance with Michael Steele.
• Michael Perkins did some WMATA math and found "Metrorail fares have stayed flat relative to inflation for trips of equal length." He goes on to suggest that WMATA could stand to raise them: "Would it be better if fares kept up with inflation, and there was less pressure for service cuts?  Maybe with fare increases, there would be money for increased service after the recession is over." Perkins' post is deep, folks. I suggest those of you who can handle more than a graf or two of uninterrupted transportation talk dive the hell in. Though for my money, I think WMATA would invest in a chain of children's haircutteries before it raised fares as much as they need raising–an amount that would further marginalize the people who need WMATA the most. (Also a good transportation read: "Nobody Rides for Free," by Sarah Godfrey.)
• Last but not least, there's a party: My some-time bosses at Reason magazine and reason.com are hosting a Reason.tv (so many domains!) viewing party this Friday in celebration of John Stossel's 20/20 special, "Bailouts, Big Spending, and Bull." I have reason to believe that "[s]oft and hard drinks and light fare will be served," and I'm certain that admission is free, and that most of the attendees will be the sweetest, most disarmingly-sincere capitalist pigz most of you have never met. Just make sure and RSVP. (Ruth Samuelson wrote a great piece about think tank food awhile back, now's as good a time as any to read it.)

OK, folks, let's seize this thing.

Flickr photo courtesy of David Drexler. Thanks David!