"I Don't Believe You Want To Get Up And Dance": Success breeds imitation. The recent dance-protest at the Jefferson Memorial was such a hit—mostly because no one was arrested—that Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton wants to sponsor her very own dance-off. Norton has a permit for a dance on the Mall on July 30 as part of "National Dance Day." The idea is to promote more "people-centered activities" on the Mall (which sounds like a George W. Bush line gone wrong). No word on whether all the dancing will interfere with another Norton goal: keeping the grass on the Mall alive. +2

"She Went to Find a Jolley Hour on the Trolley": Building streetcar tracks on H Street NE was controversial enough—and the streetcar's actually going to run there. A new project in Georgetown is getting underway to replace old tracks that no trolleys have run on since 1960. The tracks from the old D.C. Transit 20 line will be rehabbed and replaced on O and P streets between Wisconsin Avenue NW and 35th Street NW. Older tracks that were asphalted over years ago will be pulled out and not replaced. Preserving District history is admirable; we just hope the Republicans in Congress don't find out about the plan, which ain't exactly government austerity in action. +1

"Sometimes I Wish I Was Tiger Woods": No matter how many times he cheated on his wife, Tiger Woods is still the biggest name in golf—the one duffer just about everyone knows about, even if they've never so much as napped through a single afternoon of CBS coverage. But Woods won't be joining the festivities in Bethesda this month when the U.S. Open comes to town; he announced today he's pulling out of the tournament due to a lingering leg injury. It's the first U.S. Open he'll miss since 1994. Gossip columnists around town may be more dejected than sports columnists. -1

"I'd Love to be an Oscar-Meyer Weiner": Bad enough for New York Rep. Anthony Weiner that the world has now seen his absurd Twitter penis shots and shaved pecs; now comes word he's been driving around D.C. with expired car registration. (Like most members of Congress, he kept his home-state registration, so the District's DMV doesn't have to worry about it.) A horde of media was staking out Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin's home near U Street NW on Monday, but Weiner's car troubles date to before his sexting: Roll Call had reported months ago that he owed $2,000 in unpaid parking tickets. -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 54 Today's score: +1 Today's Needle rating: 55

Good talk-radio hosts let listeners know how they really feel, even when they shouldn't. LaVar Arrington is a good talk-radio host.

And on yesterday's show on WJFK, when the topic of Tiger Woods' alleged $750 million divorce settlement came up, Arrington went off.

After saying the legal system is "sexist" in divorce settlements, Arrington blurted: "That's why you have people like Rae Carruth behind bars!."*

Rae Carruth was the Carolina Panthers receiver who arranged and participated in the slaying of his eight-months-pregnant girlfriend, Cherica Adams,on a North Carolina highway in 1999.

Arrington's remark had an "Ewwwwwww!" factor through the roof. It stopped the show cold for a few seconds. Others in the studio tried to get Arrington to not use the Woods' settlment to justify the savage murder of a woman with child, but the ex-Skins linebacker kept going.

"You don't think that's going through Tiger Woods' mind?" he said. "That's a gang of money! That's a gang of money!"**

Everybody but LaVar knew he shouldn't have said it. Good talk radio.

*Apologies to The Great Dan Steinberg™ for poaching his Steinographic™ methods

**ibid

Hef and friends

Good morning, everyone. It's Friday!

First things first: Let's all wish a happy birthday to Hugh Hefner, who is turning 84!

Puritan patriarch Winthrop

From his bio on the Playboy Enterprises Web site: "Hefner was born in Chicago on April 9, 1926, the elder son of conservative Protestant parents, Glenn and Grace Hefner, and a direct descendant of distinguished Massachusetts Puritan patriarchs William Bradford and John Winthrop."

A direct descendant of distinguished Massachusetts Puritan patriarchs? Who knew? Also: What the hell kind of gift do you buy for Hef?

Moving on: People are animals. People are animals. And, apparently, people are animals.

Other things: Punishment has been meted out in the case of two James Madison University students who threw snowballs at a plow and an unmarked police car during one of the big February snowstorms. The Post reports they will spend 12 months on probation and pick up litter for eight hours. Ryan William Knight and Charles Joseph Gill will also have to write letters of apology to the officers involved.

Det. Baylor not overreacting

Isn't that all what Detective Mike Baylor had to do? No?

More other things: If you're not embarrassed to buy (or wear) jewelry from QVC, click here. If you're wondering what Tiger Woods is up to, click here (or here). If you want to read another story about the Salahis in the Post, click here. If you were planning to see the cherry blossoms this weekend, click wherever you want, but stay home—they're, like, over, and having so many people around is really annoying.

Did you pick up a copy of this week's cover story in the print edition—about rape kits and massive policy fails? If not, read it over the weekend. It's almost the weekend!

Photo of Hef by playboybunnybabes; photo of the Winthrop by cliff1066™, Creative Commons Attribution License

Today, there is no other place to start but here: the weather (the roads are just wet for now, but there is still a chance you need to panic). Also, road closures and the March for Life. You going?

Next: Howard Kurtz's story in the Washington Post this morning about how the National Enquirer plans to submit its reporting on the John Edwards fathering-a-baby-by-a-staffer-no-really-he-did-even-though-he-denies-it-see-I-told-you-so scandal for journalism's highest prize, the Pulitzer.

Writes Kurtz in his second paragraph:

Don't laugh.

"It's clear we should be a contender for this," Barry Levine said by phone Thursday, hours after the former presidential candidate admitted what the paper had been reporting all along: that he is the father of Rielle Hunter's baby. "The National Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid, was able to publish this reporting."

From The Enquirer's Web site: "NATIONAL ENQUIRER investigation vindicated as former Senator John Edwards FINALLY admits to the world what The ENQUIRER has been telling you all along that John Edwards IS the father of his mistress Rielle Hunter's love child, Frances Quinn." All that punctuation and bolding: theirs. I've never seen an "IS" that big!

You can also read in the Enquirer about Tiger Woods undergoing sex rehab at an "out-of-the-way Mississippi facility." (Pictures here). Like Kurtz said—and he seemed really sincere—don't laugh. They got it right about Edwards.

Speaking of checkbook journalism, check out City Paper's photos from the George Michael funeral at the National Cathedral yesterday

How much money does it take a guy to shut up about how much he hates his bosses? (Yes, this is about Conan.) We'll see if $45 million does it. "We wanted to give him a graceful exit. Hopefully he will be graceful," Jeff Gaspin, chairman of NBC Universal Television Entertainment, told the Wall Street Journal. Graceful is definitely not a word I'd use to describe Conan, but if anything can buy grace, $45 million can.

Conan's final show airs tonight. Maybe now we can all move on with our lives.

Aldridge sat across the table from Wise, but spent the half-hour staring at another panelist, Doc Walker, so as to avoid eye contact with Wise, who on his own WJFK show all but said he wanted to whup Aldridge's ass after the Kornheiser flap. If I were concocting an Uncoziest TV Shows of the Decade list, this'd make it.

But then things got really got wacky for Wise. For Saturday's Post he wrote a column that was sorta about philandering. You gotta read it to believe it, but, in short, Wise kept repeating "I am Tiger Woods!" while insinuating again and again that he gets more tail than a toilet seat. But Wise mucked it all up by continually advising readers that it's just not right to bang bang bang bang bang, as he does. Note to kids: Don't grow up to be like me, pounding everything with a pulse!

The whole story's a feast, but my fave Wise sentence: "I am Tiger Woods, and I understand why the scent of a woman is unbeaten in 2009 and beyond."

I mean, as long as he's got that 2009 qualifier in there, me and Wise are on the same page. But, while we're all confessing stupid shit, there have been years — 2004-2006 come to mind — when the scent of a Cinnabon totally made a run for the top spot. Maybe that's just me.

Wise also gets silly when he talks about Tiger's enablers in his being complicit in the golfer's becoming a public embarrassment. From Wise's version of "Five Easy Pieces":

I am Tiger Woods, and just as Charles Barkley stood up for him during his weakest moments, I had friends lend support, telling others not to judge.

And while their efforts were appreciated, most of these people turned out to be enablers from the fraternity of arrested development, where boys must be boys because authentic men aren't allowed to join. I knew I couldn't change until my circle of "friends" changed.

Well, I don't know if Wise's enablers helped him get more tail than a toilet seat. But, I am worried more for Wise about the enablers at his workplace who ok'd that boast/confessional/piece of crap. It takes a village for something that bizarre to make it to print.

Were I concocting a Most Misguided Stories of the Decade list, Wise's story wouldn't be on it. Like they used to say about fill-in-the-blank-party-school whenever Playboy's Best Party Schools poll would come out, it wouldn't be fair to include professionals with amateurs.

That's a pair of slippery plastic pieces you strap to the bottom of your shoes like skates and slide around the house in. The spots for these carpet skates run every few minutes on the over-the-air Channel 66.2, a QUBO network affiliate out of Manassas (but get-able to cable-free households in downtown DC with mere rabbit ears).

The tag line: "More fun than socks on a polished wood floor!"

I mean, childhood obesity has to be dealt with, but this is ridiculous. How Fun Slides haven't been parented or lawyered out of existence amazes me.

You can get little Johnny a pair of Fun Slides for just $19.95 plus shipping. But wait! With each purchase you'll get a second order free, plus an instructional DVD with "bonus footage of pro and semi-pro fun sliders getting extreme!"

According to the ad copy, unsafe as they surely are, Fun Slides won the "National Parenting Center's seal of approval" and were named to Dr. Toy's 10 Best Active Products list. (I'm guessing this Dr. Toy would give his blessing to a box of rusty nails so long as the check clears, and that Dr Toy's malpractice insurance premiums are through the roof. And before you let your offspring strap on some Fun Sliders, you might want to inquire where Dr. Toy went to med school.)

I'm not saying I've seen these commercials too many times. But for weeks now I've had this incredible urge to get extreme with a semi-pro Fun Slider. But not a pro.

(AFTER THE JUMP: No Army, but the EagleBank Bowl can still get Bill Cosby? And there's a party? But is it a Gary Clark party? DC RollerGirls lose their voice? DC Divas will sell you a season ticket for $40? Are you listening, Santa? Tiger Woods finally gets caught up in steroids scandal, and brings in that overage, overbuilt swimmer lady with him? Open Letter Tracker™ turns its sights on City Desk?)

***

So the EagleBank Bowl didn't get their men. Army, the squad organizers were hoping to land, lost again to Navy over the weekend to finish 5-7, or one win fewer than the six required for bowl eligibility. So in steps UCLA (6-6) to face Temple (9-3). Temple should be a big draw, having not made a bowl appearance in 30 years.

Call me Nostradoofus: I predict that the day before the bowl, Bill Cosby will be in town doing interviews about the game from Ben's Chili Bowl while wearing a maroon Temple sweatshirt.

On Dec. 29, the day of the game, there'll be a big tailgate party on the RFK Stadium/DC Armory grounds, with buffets and beer and video game contests. So, now that I think about it, things are playing out exactly like Gary Clark said they would. Sort of.

Maybe he's Nostradoofus.

***

Skaters, Cont.: The DC Rollergirls have announced that Derby Diamond Dave, the only P.A. announcer the squad has ever had, will call it quits after this Saturday's Roller Derby Doubleheader at the D.C. Armory.

I've got emails into the team to find out why DDD or anybody would let go of that gig. (Reminds me of the circus joke with the "What? And give up show biz?" punchline.)

The Rollergirls don't get the media coverage of, say, the Redskins, but they have had an influence around town: The other day I saw a gang of kids skating down the street in Petworth wearing old-school side-by-side wheels instead of in-line skates. I hadn't seen that in decades. "Gotta be roller derby!" I said. I believe that!

***

Sticking with girls who don't get enough attention: The DC Divas have announced their 2010 schedule and put tickets on sale just in time for Santa.

The season opens at home April 10 vs. Baltimore. For folks looking for ways to spend the money they will no longer be spending on Redskins season tickets (and who didn't find all the answers in my first charticle), a general admission season pass to all Divas home games will cost you $40, or about as much as you'd pay to park once at Dan Snyder's adjacent stadium on a fall Sunday.

***

The Redskins want Charley Weis?

Well, an unsourced Tweet's good enough to get the ball rolling on a story these days. We've already been through the Skins Want Jon Gruden! chapter, which sounded like hokum from the start but probably helped Gruden get his ESPN extension and more money. And Mike Shanahan's name keeps coming up.

But here at Cheap Seats Daily, we still say Marty Schottenheimers' the only guy who can save Dan Snyder this time around.

Unless Jim Zorn wins out. Boy, would that make things interesting.

***

He who wins last ranks highest. Good Counsel and DeMatha had the same records overall (13-1) and against each other (1-1) this season. DeMatha won the regular season matchup. But GC won the game that counted most, the WCAC Championship, and so takes the top ranking in the Washington Post's final Top 20 football poll.

Interesting tidbit in the story: Good Counsel has lost only three of its last 32 games, all to DeMatha.

Sad tidbit: Another year goes by and not a single D.C. school finishes in the Top 20.

***

It was only a matter of time before the Tiger Woods tale brought out the steroid rumors. From the New York Times:

A Canadian doctor who has treated many N.F.L. players as well as Olympic medalists like Donovan Bailey and the world’s top golfer, Tiger Woods, is under criminal investigation in the United States. He is suspected of providing athletes with performance-enhancing drugs, according to several people who have been briefed on the investigation.

The F.B.I. investigation of Dr. Anthony Galea, a sports medicine specialist who has treated hundreds of professional athletes across many sports, follows his arrest on Oct. 15 in Toronto by the Canadian police. Human growth hormone and Actovegin, a drug extracted from calf’s blood, were found in his medical bag at the United States-Canada border in late September. Using, selling or importing Actovegin is illegal in the United States...

Dr. Galea said Mr. Woods was referred to him by the golfer’s agents at Cleveland-based International Management Group, who were alarmed at the slow pace of Mr. Woods’s rehabilitation after knee surgery in June 2008. The doctor said he flew to Orlando, Fla., at least four times to give Mr. Woods the platelet therapy at his home in Windemere, Fla., in February and March of this year.

When asked for comment about Mr. Woods’s involvement with Dr. Galea, Mark Steinberg, of I.M.G., responded in an e-mail message: “I would really ask that you guys don’t write this? If Tiger is NOT implicated, and won’t be, let’s please give the kid a break.”

Guess the kid's not getting any breaks. I can't believe it took so long for that geezer swimmer lady built like Madonis to be outted.

***

More fallout from Tiger's saga: The outbreak of open letters, a scourge followed obsessively by Cheap Seats Daily since the Woods saga broke, has officially gotten outta control.

Why is it now official? Well, unless I'm mistaken, an "Open Letter to Joe Lieberman" appeared in this very forum earlier this morning.

(BTW: According to Cheap Seats Daily's newfangled and highest-tech feature, Open Letter Tracker™, "Open Letter to Joe Lieberman" gets 88,100 Google hits. That's about 81,000 more hits than "Open Letter to Jesus.")

***

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But he's still a winner with me! I wonder if that makes him feel better.

***

The Watkins Hornets took a Pop Warner Pee Wee national title over the weekend with a 22-8 win over a Miami Club, the Florida City Razorbacks, in Orlando. Watkins becomes the first DC team to win a championship since the Department of Parks and Recreation melded its youth football operation with the Boys and Girls Clubs leagues.

In a press release, Mayor Fenty called Watkins' win "an inspiration to youth around the nation." He continued, "This win is truly a testament to the fact that discipline in athletics and education leads to victory."

Hear hear, Mr. Mayor! Imagine the setbacks America's youth would have suffered had those uninspiring, undisciplined truant Pee Wees from Florida City taken the crown!

(AFTER THE JUMP: Redskins beat another horrendous QB? The NFL should go to yellow card system? Another Open Letter to Tiger Woods update? Even Joe Theismann's a better punt returner slams Randle El? The Redskins confess there is no waiting list? Dan Snyder speaks the truth?)

***

The big kids came home winners, too. Now three of the Redskins four wins have come against teams quarterbacked by Josh Johnson, Chris Simms and JaMarcus Russell, possibly the worst trio of QBs in the NFL in this decade. (Marc Bulger of the Rams is the only real starter to lose to the Skins this year.)

***

The absurdity of the NFL's personal foul rule was made plain in the first half of yesterday's game. When Fred Davis got a 15-yard penalty for waving a hand in front of his face after a touchdown, the Skins had to kick off from their own 15, and the Raiders took the kickoff to near midfield and scored a TD a few plays later. No way did Davis' crime earn that punishment. The refs were at it again at the end of the first half, flagging the Raiders bench for yelling about a horrible interference call, and the refs made everything worse by giving the Skins another 15 yards, and placing the ball near midfield. So instead of taking a knee and running out the clock, Jason Campbell led a quick TD drive, and Washington never looked back.

This has probably been proposed a billion times before, but: If getting rid of shenanigans was really the goal, why wouldn't the NFL go to the yellow card system used in soccer, especially for offenses that have nothing to do with the action? After a player gets one mulligan, he has no excuse if he gets another one that game, or accumulates enough to get a suspension. The shenanigans would disappear, and the outcomes of games wouldn't be so affected. But, as ex-NBA ref Tim Donaghy would point out, that's the whole point of sticking with the status quo.

***

There is no Waiting List (Cont.): The Redskins are offering fans a chance to buy Cowboys tickets for christmas gifts .

But but but but but! What happened to, "The games have been sold out since 1966!?" Didn't Dan Snyder tell me there's a waiting list of "over 200,000!?"

And now the Redskins are selling pairs of tickets, and not even bothering with that "These were returned from the opposing team" drivel? Dang! Next we're gonna find out there is no Santa! Or that there really is no NFL blackout rule, anyway.

***

Open Letter to Tiger Woods Update! Today's entry comes courtesy of the Sri Lanka Guardian, from a member of the Sri Lankan military:

Sadly a lot of men fail to understand that most of women lose their beauty, shape and curves or supermodel like figures after child births. We men need to accept equal responsibility for our women’s losing shape, figure and attractiveness. It is for the most part for our needing to have children, or else for failure to wear a condom! It seems most want children rather than need children.

If a realistic man observes the daily work or chores of his loving wife he would realize and appreciate that though they say, which I doubt, that men think about sex every seven seconds. But I think a woman with kids to care and provide for does not think on the average at least once a day! Because our wives are preoccupied with cooking, home work, extracurricular activities of the children etc. Our wives get sexual urges from time to time because they are human beings too. Sometimes unfortunately not when are in the mood! As men we need to be in good communication with her and seize the moment when it presented itself.

We should have ‘experimented’ all we want before marriage, and after marriage it is sacrifice, give and take when it is possible!

I think Tiger Woods is adapt his lifestyle to your writings, Mr. Sri Lankan Military Man!

***

Say it's so,  Joe!

Joe Theismann spoke the truth on his radio show this morning. Talking about Antwaan Randle El's punt return ability, the Redskins former QB and (briefly) punt returner, announced: I would never say that I can do something better than someone. But I can."

While on the subject of truth speaking: I slam Dan Snyder whenever I come across something he says that simply isn't true — like when he says the Redskins waiting list for season tickets is 200,000, for example.

So when he says something that rings true, I should also point that out. Well, over the weekend I found a 2005 article from the Washington Post that has Snyder saying something as true as true gets. The piece, about Snyder's non-football business dealings, says that Snyder and co-hort Mark Shapiro both "say they will do for Six Flags what they did for... the Redskins."

I take Snyder et al at their word.

***

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Did you go to Washington City Paper's first-ever Tweetup last night? I didn't. But I hear it was the #besttweetupever. It had to be because @MikeRiggs, formerly of "Freedom Friday" roundup fame, was there, and he was giving out hugs. Did you get one?

A couple of newsworthy things going on: Barack Obama has accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for waging a good war, Harry Reid has likened opponents of the Democrats' health care reform bill to supporters of slavery, and—now for the big one— GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS HAS BECOME THE NEW DIANE SAWYER! He's going to be whipping up souffles as the new co-anchor of Good Morning America! Good morning, America, indeed!

Now, I'm really excited about this (not true), even though I don't watch Good Morning America (true) or the show he's leaving, This Week (also true). But frankly, I'm a little concerned for George (very, very true). Yes, he's served as top political strategist to a president of the United States and, yes, he's interviewed secretaries of state and foreign dignitaries. But can he handle sitting on the couch with a mystery man who donated sperm three times while he was dating the future mother of octuplets who might secretly be those octuplets' father?

Good Morning America viewers seem to think not. The story on GMA's Web site about Stephanopoulos' appointment prompted some 477 comments as of this morning, 476 of which said some version of the following:

-Has the management of ABC lost their minds. G.S. is a liberal prick moron and brings nothing to the show. What a termible mix and burden to place on Robin Roberts. Anyone looking for a reason to change channels just got it

-BIG MISTAKE TO NAME STEPHANO to this position. He snitched on Clinton and he just doesn't cut it. If they wanted more toughness, they should have named anyone other than him.

-George- really???? You're just kidding right????!!!! Ugghhhhhh......

-I have watched GMA since the days of Charlie Gibson, there have been alot of ups and downs with the anchors over the past 20 + years........now I will stop watching because of GS.......didn't like him in the White House and I certainly don't want him in my home every morning.

-Any way to get Joan Lunden back?

-Hey, they should have had Tiger with kate and 8....!!!!

-Please Please leave George in DC.

My prediction: Once he puts on that apron, everyone's gonna love him!

A final note on this chilly morning: Did you know the average American consumes 34 GB of data, via some 100,000 words, a day (only slightly less than the number of calories the average American consumes a day)? This roundup counts toward that total, even if you didn't read all the way to the end.

Follow me on Twitter.

The best parts of the talk with the former Redskins and current New Orleans defensive coordinator ain't the ones where Williams says over and over that he's great pals with Dan Snyder, the guy who made him stay at the poolhouse for three days of interviews then slandered him behind his back to local media hoping to sway fans into believing that not hiring Williams as Joe Gibbs' replacement was the way to go.

No, the best parts are where Greggg (the third G's for "Gained a Lotta Weight!") discusses his son, Chase Williams, a star linebacker at Loudoun County High and imminent 2009 Washington Post All-Met selection:

Q: Can you talk about your son Chase?

A: He’s a real smart kid like his mommy, real smart. He’s graduating here the day before the Dallas Cowboy game. He’ll be down here from the Dallas Cowboys game until as long as we continue to play. He enrolls at Virginia Tech. He is early committed. Frank Beamer and Bud Foster did a great job of recruiting him. He had places all over the country he could have gone to. He’s going to go to Virginia Tech and I think his first day of school’s January 16.

Q: Will your family transition at all down here if your team makes the playoffs?

A: Yes, we’ll probably transition. We haven’t gotten that far. The home that I have up there is no tiny one. I live in the ghetto of my neighborhood, but it’s still a pretty substantial home. It will take a while to do those kinds of things. I kind of like that it’s a good central base of operations. It’s going to take a while. It’s very pricey and it’s still three and a half hours from Virginia Tech, keeping that close. My daughter loves that area too. She had a great class of kids that she was involved with. I turned down all those head coaching jobs after my second year there. I had behind the scenes four jobs, I won’t mention which four that were offered behind the scenes and I said no to those jobs because I wanted her to graduate from high school. She was in a great situation there. She did. We also wanted Chase to graduate from high school there. We looked into some situations down here and the reason that he didn’t come down here was that he was going to lose a credit from Virginia to Louisiana, somehow, someway and he couldn’t graduate early and he wanted to graduate early, so he stayed up there and he graduated early and he’s going to college in January.

So, in a few paragraphs, he blames his kids for his not being a head coach in the NFL, and, even more fascinating, describes in pretty mundane terms that Chase will be enrolled in college during what would have been the second semester of his senior year of high school.

Chase's situation reflects a trend that's taken hold in high school recruiting in recent years: Kids get out early so they can attend spring practice of their college football teams. That makes them more attractive to college recruiters.

Graduating early is the new redshirting.

The greatest part: A lot of football players around here do both. First, their parents hold them back in junior high, giving them a redshirt year so they're older than the kids they play against, and that advantage gives them a competitive edge, the better to get noticed by recruiters; then the kids get enough credits to skip their senior spring semester, giving them another advantage with recruiters.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Sonny Jurgensen can identify with the late-model Redskins? Somebody wrote a nice story about Dan Snyder? Does it hold up? No? People are still writing "Open Letters" to Tiger Woods? Cheap Seats Daily brings the Guaranteed Win Night!™ magic to Tiger's crisis media strategy?)

What a country!

'Course, I don't think Chase was ever red-shirted. I'm pretty sure he had a sibling who went to Princeton. Being held back probably wouldn't play well in that family.

More on this to come...

***

Sonny, Sam, and Larry had their best game ever yesterday, even with the Skins OT loss. Every few minutes Sam was screaming that somebody in burgundy and gold was having their best game ever...And he was right every time!

Sonny was engaged and excited all game long, probably because in the last few weeks, this Redskins team has become a whole lot like Sonny's Redskins in the 1960s: Wild games, lot of scoring, and a whole lot of losses.

Courtesy of CBSSports.com, ere's the record the previous six seasons with Jurgensen as a starter:

Awesome trivia: For all his local belovedness, Jurgensen was the starting QB on only one winning team in Washington, the 1969 squad that went 7-5-2 under Vince Lombardi. Every other season, was a loser.

But fans loved those teams and, particularly, him. And still do. Jason Campbell's getting a bounce, too.

***

Everybody Hates Danny. But for those who don't, Robert McCartney writes all puffy-like about a never told side of Redskins owner: the good side. Pretty much all he does is quote the heads of a couple charities saying Snyder gives really kind money to them.

If McCartney's piece is the whole argument for Good Danny, well, let's just say the prevailing opinion didn't take too big a hit. McCartney, alas, takes a lot of huge hits in the comments section, where readers high-five each other in agreement that Snyder and McCartney are the biggest losers in town.

***

Open Letter to Open Letter Writers:

Please stop writing Open Letters!

Sincerely, Cheap Seats Daily

I mentioned the other day that a lot of "open letters" were being written to Tiger Woods, and quote a few of the more heinous offerings.

Sadly, despite Cheap Seats Daily's best efforts, this sort of douchebaggery has gone epidemic.  Some of the open letters are funny. Most are not really funny. Some cryptic. None of them should have been written.

Seriously, what's with this "Open Letter" scourge? It's not just Tiger Woods. Google "Open Letter to Dan Snyder" and you get 8,400 hits. It's not just silly bloggers, either! Even the Redskins Insider wrote an Open Letter to Dan Snyder!

Stop, people!

***

Back to Tiger for a second: The Daily Beast blames all the golfer's problems, from infidelity to bad driving, on prescription drugs. Ambien and painkillers take the blame.

I saw the future reading this story: Tiger's going to come out real soon and confess not to being a cad, but to being an addict!

He's going to take some time off. He's even going to miss the Masters, because he's going to be treating himself, and, as much as that institution means to him, his health is more important!

This is Tiger's one way out. And, it won't affect us here in D.C., because The AT&T National was going to be on hiatus from Congressional in 2010 anyway! He'll be all rehabbed, image-wise, by the time the tournament comes back to town.

If Vegas opens a betting line on whether Tiger adopts this strategy, bet the mortgage and then some on Tiger adopting it*. Seriously, this is a lock, courtesy of Cheap Seats Daily: Tiger Woods is going to sit out the Masters to deal with his addictions.

If he doesn't, the rest of the season's free.

***

*Don't really bet the mortgage and then some, dumbass....UNLESS YOU WANNA WALK AROUND THE MALLS DURING CHRISTMAS SEASON WITH YOUR POCKETS STUFFED WITH CASH!

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But did you know that Tiger Woods is insecure about his calves? Honestly, that's the least of his problems right now, but let's consider the matter for a moment anyway. Jaimee Grubbs, a cocktail waitress who claims to have had 20 sexual encounters with Woods over 31 months, said she once ribbed the world's best golfer about his lower legs' less than manly size. "I remember him giving me the biggest death look," she said. "He told me he was very insecure about the size of his calves. He said, 'I can't grow calves.' And I was like, 'Okay, sorry!'"

In the interest of trying to help out a guy when he's down, I have compiled a few quick tips on growing calves.

Writing on the message board at BodyBuilding.com, Antihero suggests a disciplined plan of donkey calf raises, standing calf raises, and seated calf raises: "I have been using Arnold Schwarzenegger's calve routine for the past few months, and it's been quite good. I have been gaining about .25 inches on each of my calves every month. So I have been very satisfied with the results."

Tim Henriques over at Testosterone Muscle likes the "Turn Those Calves Into Cows" routine from the book The Poliquin Principles by Charles Poliquin: "My calves got much stronger and noticeably bigger from that routine, which I followed for about 18 months." (Disclosure: Poliquin's Canadian. But maybe Tiger won't mind, since he's Cablinasian himself.)

I don't know what kind of calf-building regimen Adrian Fenty does, but Tiger might also want to consult him. The only caveat there is that all the exercise may be making the mayor crazy.

One last piece of  bad news for Tiger: The First Church of Tiger Woods has disbanded over his "sins." A positive spin: More time for calf training!

Photo of donkey calf raise from BodyBuilding.com

Michael Wilbon says Tiger's a better sportsman for getting caught with his pants down.

But that ain't the brainlessest thing written about Tiger lately. No, Wilbon's thesis reads like Malcolm Gladwell next to the efforts of CNBC's Larry Kudlow and FoxSports' Robert Lusetich. And the Denver Examiner's Rose Conley. And Rev. Ziegler over at TigerWoodsIsGod.com.

All have penned "open letters" to Tiger Woods.

They're all dumb as hell. Kudkow's and Lusetich's take the booby prizes, though. In his memo, Kudlow really just wants to confess to being an alcoholic; Lusetich, who is ID'd as having an "insider's look" book about the gofler ready for an April release, really just wants to confess to having a dad who's a better man than Tiger. Kudlow's is just sad and stupid. Lusetich is just mean, sad and stupid. Sounds to me like the Tiger revelations showed what a sham Lusetich's "insider's look" book pitch really was.

A representative passage from Lusetich's, um, open letter:

I've never looked at you as a role model.

You're a good guy — most people if they got to know you I feel sure would like you — and without question you're the greatest golfer I've ever seen and maybe even the greatest athlete, but I'm mature enough to set my own moral compass.

If I'm going to look to anyone, I'll choose my father, who was a good man, worked hard to provide for his family and, not to rub it in but here's the kicker, loved my mother dearly and would never have done a thing to hurt her.

Good god. How silly in the head do you have to be to write an unironic "open letter" to Tiger this week? Or ever?

I can't wait to see how righteous Lusetich feels when he finds out about that crazy lost weekend in Vegas back in '69 that his dad — a guy still remembered on The Strip as "Three-Legs Lusetich" — spent with...well, I'll leave the rest of the details for my open letter to Lusetich.

***

(AFTER THE JUMP: More about that 1954 All-Star game? You tell readers again that it's the first integrated sporting event in DC Schoolboy history? You tell readers again that it deserves more attention? Dan Snyder, still near the top of the charts of NFL owners? The 2009 Redskins, playoff contenders? Too early to say next year's Skins will be loaded with talent?)

This Sunday, a party to bring together the public school stars of the 1954 City Championship football game will be held in District Heights, Md.

That was the first integrated schoolboy sporting event ever held in D.C., coming just months after the Supreme Court's Brown vs. the Board of Education ruling outlawed segregation. For all its groundbreaking attributes, that game has gotten almost no recognition until recently.

Called "Salute to the Trail Blazers," the District Heights gathering will feature Dan Droze and Dave Harris, the white passer and black receiver, respectively, of the first integrated touchdown pass ever thrown in DC schoolboy history. That fourth-quarter score won the game for the D.C. Public School all-stars, over undefeated and mighty and all-white St. John's at Griffith Stadium.

While in high school, Droze, who attended Anacostia, and Cardozo's Harris, were superstars in either the white or black community, but not both. Neither even knew of the other until the public schools' all-star team started practicing. But they have only recently become friends, and will also appear together on WPFW Saturday night at 8:30 p.m. to talk about the game, and about their reunion after 55 years.

If there's a better sports story out there right now, I haven't heard it.

The party and radio spots were put together by Harold Bell, longtime WOL sports-radio host and a man who knows more about vintage DC high school sports than anybody alive.

Dave Kane, the guy who brought Droze and Harris together last month as part of an ongoing effort to get people to pay attention to the 1954 game, will not be able to attend. Kane, a fine high school athlete on his own at DeMatha (Class of '60), was at Griffith Stadium all those years ago to cheer on his brother, St. John's star Jim Kane, now deceased. Dave Kane currently lives in Arizona, and tells me his many recent D.C. trips to get momentum going for some sort of documentary or memorial for that game have taken a physical and financial toll. He pledges to keep working on getting the game its due from out West.

"I'll get back there as soon as I can," Kane says.

Sunday's party in District Heights will also be used to raise money for Bell's youth charity. For more information, call 301-817-3180.

***

The 2009 All City Bowl, with public school all-stars matched up against a select team made up of private and charter school players, will be held Saturday at Eastern Senior High School. This is the second year of the showcase, which was set up as a building block toward resurrecting the City Title game that was once the biggest event on DC's annual sporting calendar. (Yup, high school football used to be bigger than the Redskins around here. You can look it up.)

The City Title games were canceled after a race-riot broke out during a 1962 Eastern/St. John's matchup at D.C. Stadium.

***

In today's Washington Post, Paul Farhi, still glowing from his first-ever profile of Dan Snyder's "henchman" Karl Swanson, stays on the Skins and hits more paydirt. Farhi talks to real ex-Redskins cheerleaders about Michaele (or is it "Michelle Ann") Salahi's stint as a fake ex-Redskins cheerleader.

This "Real Wives of DC" is quickly turning into "Borat."

I don't know if she should be able to dance or not, but if Michaele really had Redskins cheerleading experience, wouldn't she be real good at washing cars?

***

Yesterday I came across and oldie but a goodie: Michael Silver at Yahoo Sports ranked Dan Snyder as the 3rd Best owner in the NFL.

Let's revisit Silver's, um, observations.

3. Washington Redskins – Daniel Snyder: When most fans hear Snyder’s name, they blurt out words to describe him that might not be suitable for network television. Here’s the first one that comes to my mind: Awesome. Snyder generates revenue like a money-printing machine (his team ranks first in the NFL, at a reported $312 million, and is also atop the league in sponsorship dollars), happily spends it to improve his franchise and makes his players – you know, the ones who destroy their bodies on Sundays for the pleasure of the masses – feel pampered and appreciated. He is the closest thing to former 49ers boss Eddie DeBartolo, and eventually he’ll get the rings to prove it.

What went down Sunday at Redskins Park tells you all you need to know about Snyder’s ownership style. While attending the Skins’ first practice of training camp, Snyder and executive vice president Vinny Cerrato winced as veteran defensive Phillip Daniels went down with a knee injury. On their way to lunch in the cafeteria, they learned that Daniels had suffered a season-ending torn ACL. After sitting down with coach Jim Zorn and defensive coordinator Greg Blache, they began discussing their options. “I want to win,” Snyder told the group. “Let’s do what we have to do to win.” Concluding that disgruntled Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor was by far the best player they’d have a chance to acquire, Snyder gave the go-ahead to make a trade. Before finishing his meal Cerrato was on the phone with Parcells, Miami’s executive vice president of football operations, discussing a trade for the 2006 NFL defensive player of the year. By that evening the deal was done, with Washington giving up second- and sixth-round draft picks, and Snyder agreeing to shell out $16 million over two years, the remaining money on Taylor’s contract. Because of Snyder’s aggressive approach, the ‘Skins were able to acquire Taylor before their NFC East rivals, the Giants, could work out a three-way trade with the Dolphins and Saints that would have sent Taylor to New Orleans for second- and fifth-round picks, followed by a swap of Taylor for tight end Jeremy Shockey...When Snyder finally hoists the Lombardi Trophy one of these years, it might be worth biting your tongue – at least in front of the kids.

This summer, Silver was still full of silver linings when he looked to Redskins Park. Here's what Silver forecast for the 2009 Skins:

These guys have a postseason push in them, and with Jason Campbell giving off that you-shouldn’t-have-underestimated-me vibe, I’m sensing another fast start and a second-place finish behind the 'Boys.

In his latest column, after saying that Jim Zorn's a goner, Silver observes "there’s still a lot of talent here for the next regime to build around."

I smell another wayward prediction in Silver's future for 2010! I mean, it's brave for any writer to take Nostrodamusesque shots — other than dropping the occasional Guaranteed Win Night™, I'm afraid to predict the sun will come up in print. But Dick Cheney's got better aim than Silver. Though maybe Silver's angling for Larry Weisman's job...

***

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The front page of the Examiner rarely breaks form. There's usually a string of anti-Obama blather, a Redskins-in-turmoil blurb, and a big oversight story on WMATA.

Except today.

Today, the Examiner went all TMZ!

*follow me on Twitter.

So over that on WRC, Lindsay Czarniak did her sports report Sunday night without ANY visible Skins logos on her person. (Fact.)

So over that Sonny Jurgensen didn't tussle with Jim Zorn in his postgame interview. (Fact.)

So over that starting this week, the Virginia Lottery has changed first prize for its $20 Redskins scratch tickets to two (2) Redskins season tickets, and second prize to four (4) Redskins season tickets. (Fiction!)

Butt seriously:  What kind of buffoon is going to pay $20, the most heinous sum in the history of lotteries, for a chance to win Skins season tickets that pretty soon won't be worth $20? Commercials for the scratch tickets ran throughout the Redskins radio broadcast yesterday, and the uglier the game got, the more absurd the prizes  seemed. Who wants ANYTHING associated with the Redskins right now?

Coming soon to a courthouse near you: Dan Snyder sues lottery winners who turn down their Skins season tickets. (Fiction.)

But, good god, are the 2009 Skins over. (Fact.)

(AFTER THE JUMP: Skins' suckage is the lead local story? The national newspeople take break into Tiger Woods coverage to dump on the Skins? Jurgensen takes it easy on Zorn? Sam Huff can't stomach Albert Haynesworth? Will Haynesworth make everybody forget Dana Stubblefield? Bad news is good news for extremeskins.com? Who is this "Synder" fella? Nats get swept again? The Nats Tragic Number is down to what? It's hockey season?)

"There's no way to overstate just how bad this is," said anchorman Craig Melvin to open the evening news broadcast at WRC, a place where news employees actually work for Dan Snyder and are known to wear their fealty to the Skins owner on their shirtsleeves. (Czarniak told the Tony Kornheiser Show last week that somebody above her, either station management or Dan Snyder, forced her to wear Redskins clothing on the air.) Several minutes of doom and doomer about the loss in Detroit followed on WRC.

Fox 5 also led off its 10 o clock news with the Skins: "Disappointment, anger frustation..." said anchor Will Thomas. "Keep going!" co-anchor Maureen Umeh chimed in.

Earlier in the day, Jurgensen also seemed at a loss for words during his post-game locker-room interview with Zorn. The Hall of Fame QB dropped the attack-dog style he'd used on the Redskins coach in recent weeks. There was no fight left in Zorn.

"We must change," Zorn told Jurgy.

At the exact moment that Zorn and Sonny were moping it up on Dan Snyder's radio station, WTEM, the Detroit Lions players were being shown on national TV walking around the perimeter of Ford Field accepting fans' congratulations like they'd all just broken Cal Ripken's streak.

***

The Redskins are a national cause for concern, too: NBC interrupted its FedEx Cup golf tournament broadcast to alert viewers that the Lions had won for the first time since 2007.

"It'll be a long week for the Redskins," said the NBC anchorwoman.

***

There were some fantastic radio moments between Skins play-by-play man Larry Michael and color commentator Sam Huff during yesterday's WTEM game broadcast when the neo-Stubblefield, Albert Haynesworth, made his first sack of the season and stayed on the Detroit turf. Huff is tired of the $100 million man's slothful demeanor on gamedays.

Michael: Haynesworth is down!

Huff: He's tired...

Michael: And he has not moved!

Huff: Tired

Haynesworth was eventually taken off the field by medical personnel on a cart.

***

Drama can be good for business: Dan Snyder's message board, extremeskins.com, is claiming its all time record for traffic was broken after the game by a factor of 1 and a half.

As soon as a thread expressing all the bad feelings was closed, another one was started. Typical was one titled: If You Shared an Elevator With Dan Snyder Tomorrow...........What would you say to him?

"I'd fart," said the poster Arkawi, the only guy to get in before moderators shut down the thread.

The traffic flow at Snyder's web site was no doubt helped by the traffic tie-up at Snyder's sports talker, WTEM-AM. For whatever reason, host Al Galdi took a paltry amount of callers in his two-hour or so post-game show, despite running out of ways to say that the Redskins had lost early into the program. One of the few listeners who managed to override WTEM's filibuster and get on the air railed against the owner and tagged Vinny Cerrato as Snyder's "personal sock puppet."

WJFK, meanwhile, didn't even have a postgame show to let fans decompress. Instead, the area's newest sportstalker aired a live broadcast of the Pittsburgh Steelers/Cincinnati Bengals game.

Via email, WJFK boss Chris Kinard explained his station's programming choice: "By contract with Westwood [One, an NFL syndicator], we have to carry their late afternoon game. It's part of the deal to carry Sunday and Monday Night Football. We had a postgame last week when the Ravens game was blacked out locally, and will do expanded pre and post coverage whenever possible."

Kinard, who says he also noticed how few callers were allowed on WTEM after the game, promises to let fans vent to their heart's content today.

"We're going to open the phone lines all day," he says. "Should be interesting."

***

The Washington Post dealt the Redskins owner the lowest of blows yesterday. From an introduction to Michael Wilbon's Sunday column in support of not firing the coach: "Jim Zorn is Daniel M. Synder's sixth coach."

"Synder!"

Somewhere along the way, for reasons I'm not sure of, "Synder" became the go-to nickname for hardcore Redskins fans when mocking the team's owner.

"Schottenheimer" was spelled correctly in Wilbon's piece.

***

Nats lose! Nats lose!

Swept away...again. This time by the Atlanta Braves. At 52-103, the Road to 100 Losses is but a memory.  If I'm carrying the one correctly, the Nats' Tragic Number, guaranteeing the team the worst record in the Majors, is down to two — any combination of Washington losses or Pittsburgh Pirates wins, and our team's got the top draft pick all over again.

Good thing it's hockey season!

***

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Not only is this argument a silly one — the overtime exemption covers folks like lifeguards and greenskeepers — but, it's guaranteed to be a loser, too: As Steinberg reports, it's already been litigated at the federal level in a case involving employees of an NBA team.

So Snyder's going to lose here, surely as he lost a wage/hour dispute with his nanny. In that case, Snyder's legal case seemed to be no more complex than that she wasn't paid because he didn't want to.

But even if he weren't gonna get poleaxed legally in the sales staff case, the question remains: If Snyder's really got a waiting list of 200,000 people desperate to buy tickets for his football team, which he says often, why would he have  even one ticket seller, let alone an entire staff of ticket sellers, working overtime?

In any case, good to see that the move from urbane, aware Petworth to rural, la-dee-dah Silver Spring hasn't sapped Steinberg of his special powers.

Yet...

***

The Washington Post's Jason Reid blogs that the Redskins will no longer let anybody but their own employees Twitter from practice anymore.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Will the Twitter ban on non-Redskins employees affect WRC sports staff? How come football Hoyas stink? Lou Dobbs fiddles as the Asian Bias™ in golf comes home to roost? Stephen Strasburg should hold out til tomorrow? The Tom Boswell Curse wasn't real?)

Reid's readers aren't all upset by Snyder's latest control-the-flow move.

In reaction to the Twitter story, the commenter going by "talent_evaluator" posted: "My own take is that the tweets that have been up here have been pitiful. Chris Larry's brother was better at it than WaPo. No information at all, and you're better off watching practice than trying to frame your cutesy tweets. The Redskins are saving you from yourselves."

While the new rule will take Reid's thumbs out of action, since those on Snyder's payroll can still Twitter, the WRC news staff should still get the green light.

***

Alex Buzbee, the guy who was going to end Georgetown's decades-long streak of not putting any players into the NFL, might not be the streak breaker. Buzbee, a defensive tackle, likely would have made the Redskins last year were it not for a knee injury during training camp.

This year, Buzbee's chances of sticking aren't so swell. As of the Ravens' exhibition, Buzbee was listed on the Redskins' official depth chart as the fourth-team defensive tackle. And among those he's behind is Jeremy Jarmon, a rookie who is guaranteed to make the team so as not to make Vinny Cerrato look bad for using next year's third-round pick to grab him in the NFL's odd supplemental draft.

As of now, the last Hoya to play in the big leagues was Jim Ricca, a lineman who signed with the Redskins in 1951.

***

Cheap Seats Daily hyped the crap out of the Asian Bias™ in golf, even during that long lunch while everybody else was celebrating Post-Racial America™.

But for all our hate-mongering, nobody got incited. Even Lou Dobbs sat on his hands.

And so it's come to this: Two Asians, Woods and Yang, leave the rest of the world behind in the PGA Championship.

I hope you're happy, America!

***

Pay-up-or-shut-up day in the Stephen Strasburg soap opera. I can't help but side with labor in these squabbles, despite the silly sums involved. The way I see it, the rationale for why the team should play hardball with draft picks — because chances are they won't make it — is the exact same reason why the draftees should hold out for the last dollar. If history holds, Strasburg will never have this sorta bargaining clout again. So why not milk it til it bleeds?

'Course, if he doesn't end up taking the Nats final offer, he's a dumbass. Everybody knows that.

***

Update on the The Tom Boswell Curse: It's considerably weakened, at best.

Nats’ record with Boswell on vacation: 14-6. Nats’ record since Boswell returned from vacation: 3-3.

The "What?" we know: The Nats win three of four in Cincinnati, so the Boswell Curse that looked so sturdy last week while the Nationals went into a losing skein the day the Post columnist came back from vacation is on life support.

The "Why?" will require further study.

Good thing it's football season, to give us time to look into the matter!

***

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Let's get right to the issue of the day. The winners of the first three AT&T National events at Congressional:

2007 — KJ Choi

2008 — Anthony Kim

2009 — Tiger Woods

The liberal media doesn't want you to know: There's an Asian bias to Tiger's tournament!

***

Woods exploited this bias to beat a field that included upstart white guys Hunter Mahan and Bruce Boudreau. (What? The Capitals coach wasn't in the AT&T National? I coulda sworn I read 10 stories about him playing Congressional, saw some video even. My bad.)

AFTER THE JUMP: Another Nats fireworks snafu? Why do tennis players carry their own sweaty shit? Is Manny Acta the new Norv Turner?

***

To assist in filling digital inches, let's continue pretending it's not Post-Racial America! I spent much of my Fourth of July weekend watching two Asian Americans in the final pairing of a golf tournament in DC and two grown up black kids from Compton win another Wimbledon doubles crown, after battling each other for another singles crown.

These ain't your father's country club sports!

One of many things I love love about tennis over golf. Will MacKenzie, the dude who finished last in the AT&T National and missed the cut by 14 strokes, had somebody carrying his bags all day on the golf course. But yesterday I saw Roger Federer, just crowned the Best Player of All Time with his 15th Grand Slam win, stuffing his own sweaty shit into a bag. And Andy Roddick, seeming tragic even though he just played a match for the ages, not having time to mope or rest his bones, because he had to stuff his own sweaty shit into a bag. The Williams sisters? Yup, a day earlier they stuffed their own sweaty shit into bags and carried 'em.

In tennis, no matter who you are, or what you've been through, you stuff your own sweaty shit into a bag and carry it!

***

How good was Wimbledon to DC tennis? Let's look: Serena Williams won the women's final. She's the assigned star player of the Washington Kastles, the World Team Tennis squad that starts its 2009 season this week. Serena beat sister Venus Williams in the final. Venus is the assigned visiting female star for the Philadelphia Freedoms, and is (as of NOW, anyway) supposed to face the Kastles here tomorrow night. John McEnroe announced all the Wimbledon matches and got scads of face time. He's the featured male visiting player for the Kastles this season, and will be in the lineup when the New York Sportimes come here on July 16. Andy Roddick is the one big name that always comes to the Legg Mason, with this year's tourney beginning August 1 at Carter Barron. Hope his hip flexor, which he might have hurt while stuffing his own sweaty shit into a bag and carrying it, is better by then.

***

With two outs and the Braves having the tying run at the plate, batter  Chipper Jones took a low outside pitch. But the Nationals Park fireworks operator, probably a new guy — pushed the hot button on what he thought would be a game-ending called third strike. It was a ball. The game wasn't over. Jones stepped out of the batters box and laughed as the smoke cleared.

Then Jones walked. A hard grounder to first base later, and the game, and the button-pusher's job, was saved.

Enough with the fireworks, Nationals. They don't add a damn thing to a day at the stadium. But let Charlie Slowes keep his home run and victory call: "Bang Zoom go the fireworks!" I love that.

***

Speaking of saving jobs: A guy on Nats postgame show on WFED 1500-AM after Friday's 9-8 loss to Atlanta nailed the team's coaching situation pretty good: "Manny Acta is the new Norv Turner."

***

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