At Washington City Paper, we agree—and it’s not just freedom that comes with some kind of price tag. After all, there’s no such thing as a free brunch.

Illustrations by Brooke Hatfield

The Examiner reported this morning that Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier and her inner circle will be sweating at a private gym built next to her office. The news would seem to come at a bad time—as in budget-crunch time.

But Lanier e-mailed City Desk today to issue a full-throated denial. The gym, she claims, is for everyone who works at MPD headquarters, not just the top brass.

"I would like to once again correct misstatements in an Examiner article," Lanier writes. "The article alleges that MPD is building a private workout space, in a secure location, to be used by top staff. This story could not be further from the truth."

Lanier says the department is using an existing space that could be used as a "break room, or other purposes" for a communal workout space, and that it wasn't her idea. "This is being done at the request of our MPD members," she says.

She claims having a gym at HQ is nothing new. As a matter of fact, there was one in the exact same space once before: "Many people wanted to bring this back; but, due to tight times we chose not to spend money on this route."  Lanier says the room being used was set up as gym back when Fred Thomas was chief. "All we are doing is putting it back to what it used to be—a place to work out. Minus buying any equipment. "

The chief doesn't say why they've chosen to do all this now. She did say this: "Virtually all police facilities have exercise rooms to allow members the opportunity to stay physically fit. This is a beneficial way to handle the stress that comes with being a police officer." Lanier goes on to suggest the gym will contribute to the "wellness initiative" the department has been working on, which has spawned efforts like the "MPD Biggest Loser" campaign, which she says helped the department collectively shed 1500 pounds.

(City agencies didn't immediately have an answer to the big question about all this: How much did it cost?)

Police union head Kris Baumann says he isn't buying the MPD line. He says there's no way everyone who works at HQ will have access to the gym. "It's in an area where only her and her staff are allowed," Baumann says.

Lanier insists that's not true: "It is secure from the General Public—not persons who work for the PD."

Update:An internal document that appears to show security protocols for the fifth floor of MPD's headquarters refers to there being an area on that floor with a glass door. To get past the door, and the guard posted there, employees must have an ID card. If an MPD officer or employee doesn't have the proper ID, they have to sign in and wait for the office they plan to visit to be contacted, so they can get approved. If the gym MPD is building is behind the glass, that would seem to restrict access to it.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

At the southwest corner of 18th and Columbia, our home turf! Way to stay classy, Washington Examiner.

The Washington Post, deploying just about everyone on staff to the story, including a feature on how families are coping, stuff on how funeral directors are coping, a piece on who won the local TV ratings (WRC-TV), and so much more.

The Washington City Paper, nailing coverage of snow-removal efforts, debates over the privatization of snow removal, in-depth reporting on disparities among streets, the whole Maria Lewis/"Louis" thing, and so much more.

The Examiner, on frustrations piling up around the region, not to mention Harry Jaffe scolding Chris Matthews for his Buffalo-Miami spiel.

Jaffe nails the classic commuter-tax angle to slam Matthews for his dig at the District for failing to clear the snow fast enough, or at all:

Most of the [complaints] came from District residents. They are valid criticisms of city agencies and workers who had to try to clear perhaps the most snow ever dropped on the District, since George Washington made it the seat of the federal government around 1800. Chalk it up to the push and shove between the government and the governed.

But when I hear talking face Chris Matthews gripe about the city's snow clearing capabilities, I'd like to shove a sock in his big mouth. Filling his MSNBC show with more nonsense than usual Wednesday night, Matthews called D.C. "a city that can't plow its streets."

Jaffe then says that if Matthews, when driving in from his "Montgomery County manse," just paid a toll at the border, perhaps Mayor Adrian M. Fenty could buy some more "rigs" and get the job done to Matthews' specs.

City dwellers are always a provincial lot. They live in tight quarters and feel entitled to lash out at people who live in plusher areas. Add to that the historic and exclusive injustices of serving as a resident of the District of Columbia: You have no meaningful representation in Congress; everyone in the region essentially pisses on you; and you have high taxes and bad schools. So when an outsider assails you and your people, the outsider is going to hear it. Expect the Matthews slams to continue into the weekend, along with temperatures in the 30s.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—Famous Channel 4 sportscaster George Michael dies at 70. Also, more on the snowball fight, as City Desk reports on an effort by D.C. police to make "conversation" on this troubling incident melt away like the snow that made it possible in the first place.

Morning all. Hope all you LLDers had a good holiday weekend. And if you're not checking out this week, have faith: LLD is on the case, though under a different by-line (see above).

LLD, even under a guest columnist, can never resist the opportunity to self-indulge, and this time it has plenty of pretext. In the Dec. 27 edition of themail, Dorothy Brizill and Gary Imhoff do a lot of grousing about local news coverage, with an emphasis on the alleged downgrading of the Washington Post's coverage of all things D.C. And in Imhoff's little riff on the matter, he tips his hat a bit to the toils of LLD:

Online news coverage has taken some halting steps. For the past several months The Washington City Paper’s Loose Lips, Mike DeBonis, has written an opinionated news aggregation column every weekday: Loose Lips Daily, at http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk. It’s useful — and could use competition.

So, Mr. Imhoff, with that whole "could use competition" thing, just what are you getting at? That LLD could possibly be any better than it now is? That you have enough time to read yet another 4,000-word news roundup each and every weekday?

After the jump: More Imhoff-Brizill; Barras on the end of the year; Mathews slams Gray and Cheh; more!

Well, we at LLD love competition. And that's where you come in, Mr. Imhoff. How 'bout providing that competition yourself!

As for superactivist Brizill, here's what she has to say about local news:

There was a time when the Washington Post hit the floor of our front porch early in the morning and I would arouse myself, stumble downstairs, and read the newspaper cover to cover before Gary even woke up. Now, there are many times when the paper stays around the house for days, unopened and unread, and finally opened only to retrieve the grocery ads. Too often, worthy news is edged out by fluff. For three successive days, beginning December 21, the front page of the Style section was dominated by long stories and large photographs of Michaele and Tariq Saladi, the White House gate crashers. On December 11, the front page of the first section had a long story and big photo about a vice president of the Washington Nationals, Gregory McCarthy, who was training to run the Antarctic Marathon to complete his quest to run a marathon on each continent, worth being a human interest story inside the Sports section.

A reply to Brizill on behalf of LLD:

1) It's Michaele and Tareq Salahi, not whatever butchered spelling you offered. If you want to criticize media outlets, best to get your facts straight first.

2) The Salahi story wasn't fluff; it was a huge news scoop, as evidenced by the thousands of outlets that picked it up.

3) The McCarthy story was a fine feature. If you don't think that good features are worth paying for, then move just about anywhere else in the country, save L.A., New York, and Chicago. Pick up the paper that's sold in your new hometown. All of a sudden, you'll appreciate that McCarthy feature.

4) Brizill asks this question in her rant against the Post: “What has happened to the high quality of investigative reporting the newspaper had been known for?”

Hmmm, did she miss this series on the fate of D.C. AIDS programs east of the river? Perhaps those stories ran when the paper sat around Brizill's house "unopened and unread."

Tis the season for roundups, and LLD today will feature that of Examiner columnist Jonetta Rose Barras. In this particular iteration, Barras takes the stream-of-consciousness approach to wrapping up the year. She just goes off, like so:

Sarah Palin may have gone rogue. District elected officials went insane. Their madness consumed the government and vexed residents, causing many to fret about the city's future.

Huh? Let's try some more:

Ward 3 D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh accused Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's administration of being lawless. The legislature wasn't exactly law-abiding. It's surprising no one called back former Metropolitan Police Department Chief Charles Ramsey to throw a dragnet around the John A. Wilson Building and hogtie its occupants. No one was innocent.

Officials violated the intent and spirit of local laws. The mayor circumvented procurement and privatization regulations. Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry abused loopholes in contracting rules; Chairman Vincent C. Gray claimed ignorance of campaign finance laws.

When the two branches weren't trashing rules, they were savaging each other. On multiple occasions the council accused Fenty of lying, contract steering, mismanagement, ageism and racism. In a take-one-to-know-one move, the executive asserted that the council's rejection of Department of Parks and Recreation nominee Ximena Hartsock was sexist and racist.

OK, now it's all starting to make sense. But then, Barras goes back to her roots. Remember, she formerly worked as a staffer at the Washington Times. And back in those days, the times used things called "scare quotes" and other copy-editing oddities to show their feelings on certain issues of the day. One of their tics was refusing to use the word "gay," opting instead for "homosexual." Now here's Barras in her roundup: "homosexuals were given the opportunity to marry each other."

Washington Post educolumnist Jay Mathews starts his latest bit of opinionmongering with a marvelous slam on a couple of D.C. councilmembers. Here goes: "Sometimes it is the smartest, most concerned policymakers who do the most harm to schools. My favorite recent example is the Healthy Schools Act, a bill introduced two weeks ago by D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh and Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray."

So just what is Mathews' gripe with the councilmembers? Well, they're mandating a huge boost in the number of hours that children spend each week in phys-ed classes. Though that may sound fine on the surface, says Mathews, there's only so much time in a day, and D.C. schools need all the time they can get to make their students competent in reading and writing and math.

WaPo's Paul Schwartzman profiles the declining fortunes of D.C. developers, complete with a lede about a high-flying developer hit hard by the housing and credit crises and who's soon off to Buenos Aires for some reflection. Maverick developer Jim Abdo sums up the status quo:

"Where we might have gone out to the Capital Grille to eat steaks, we now meet in a conference room and drink ice water. The mood is a mood of humility and contriteness and self-reflection. There were a lot of people who were intoxicated by the times and the easy access to capital. A lot of them are gone."

PASSED AWAY— Percy Sutton, prominent civil rights lawyer and media entrepreneur.

MIGHT AS WELL INCLUDE A NOTE ON THE WEATHER SINCE THERE'S NOTHING ELSE GOING ON—We're looking at a wet end of the year, with snow or rain or ice likely sometime from Wednesday through New Year's Day.

WaPo edit board issues a plea to lawyers around the region to offer services to parts of the District hardest-hit by unemployment. "Washington has long been known as the pro bono capital of the country, a place where lawyers generously volunteer to help all manner of clients who cannot afford counsel. Area lawyers and law firms are hurting, too, but D.C. area firms and lawyers — among the wealthiest in the country — need to dig deeper to fulfill their professional obligation to provide legal help to those who cannot afford it."

ABSOLUTELY—nothing going at at D.C. Wire.

AP, via Examiner, reports on D.C. effort to crack down on buyer of tax liens. Also AP via Examiner, D.C. Councilmember Phil Mendelson is pushing a bill to change PCP possession from a misdemeanor to a felony.

AP, via WTOP, reports that free health clinic may hit D.C. in 2010. Story first appeared in WaPo.

WAMU's Rebecca Blatt reports on the beginning of an overhaul of Pennsylvania Avenue under the aegis of the Great Streets Project. Here's the money graphs:

The project is supposed to make Pennsylvania Avenue more accessible to pedestrians. One of the lanes will become a landscaped median.

Drivers should expect some temporary lane closures between 9:30 am and 3:00 pm in the first five months of construction. The second phase of the project will include some more long-term lane closures. That is expected to begin in May.

NC8 reports that a pedestrian was killed near 16th Street and Park Road NW early today. "Few details were immediately available." WUSA.

NBC4 reports on an incident in which D.C. police shot and killed a knife-wielding suspect. WUSA.

Since it's been established here, here, and here that terminology matters, it seems worth pointing out the screaming language on the front page of the Washington Examiner yesterday: "Suburban dreams turn into ghettoes." The headline inside the paper said: "Foreclosure crisis creating suburban slums."

The story by Bill Myers and David Sherfinski began:

Two years of economic collapse have pockmarked the D.C. region's affluent suburbs with blight, and experts are worried that the foundering cul-de-sacs and towns are on the verge of becoming the region's next ghettoes.

Here's another term – "ghetto" – that gets thrown around far too much, and too casually, in talking about urban (and, in this case, suburban) problems.

Greater Greater Washington looked at the use of the word and its social and racial implications a few months ago; City Desk followed up.

The Examiner story (the main online headline is "Bedroom community blues" instead) referenced dropping home values, falling tax revenues, the high foreclosure rate in some local jurisdictions, and the fact that some – many? it's unclear – former single-family homes are now being (gasp) rented out. It quoted the president of the Kettering Community Association in Upper Marlboro, Linda Crudup, describing the vandalism of some of those foreclosed properties, in the form of broken windows and doors kicked in. It vaguely spoke of "neighbors who just a few years ago worried about curb height or speed bumps" now finding themselves "fighting to keep drug dealers from setting up shop in boarded-up homes." The story also cited an increase in homelessness in Prince William and Loudon and noted one Fairfax County district is "littered with hundreds of boarded-up McMansions."

Those are real problems, to be sure. But they have nothing to do with the term "ghetto," or the actual thing.

Ideas? Comments? I’m at eniedowski@washingtoncitypaper.com, and on Twitter.

Lalich transferred to Oregon as soon as his run in Charlottesville went to hell, and, because of some weird quirk having something to do with his new school being on a quarter system and not semesters, he'll be eligible to play this season.

If the punishment schedule announced last year still holds, Lalich should get his drivers license back this week from Virginia authorities. It makes sense that Lalich would be on a practice field this time of year, but... Why isn't he in Oregon?

***

Another formerly local athlete in some legal heat, and not dealing real well with it: Antonio Pierce, the ex-Redskins linebacker turned Giant person of interest in the Plaxico Burress thigh blast case, is making enemies with his tweets.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Examiner column calls out Duds? Godly folks are coming after the racist Redskins? Who says Cal Ripken and/or Eddie Murray were juiced? FedExField also sucks for things other than football games? Jeremy Mayfield called his stepmomma THAT? Van Pelt goes for big bucks, but Czarniak goes bid-less?)

After testifying before a grand jury, Pierce, who could face weapons charges of his own, twatted: "sometimes u have to Draw a line in the Stand and see what side PEOPLE are on.. Well damn heres the Line!!...A coward dies many deaths but a soldier only dies ONCE!!"

Let others say Pierce's behavior here is off — The New York Post called him "Tweet-le Dum Dum" — but he had me at "line in the Stand"...

***

John Keim at the Examiner has a nice addition to his paper's Skins coverage: the "Studs and Duds" column. At the end of each day of practice, Keim calls out folks who make plays, and those who mistakes. Sure, it's impossible to watch everything that goes on during workouts, so Keim misses at least half the big plays and half the, well, duds. But call-out columns make things interesting. If a guy screws up in practice, why not write about it? Don't say he's mean to his mother or he's a dog killer (unless it's, well, you know) ! Just say he blew this or that. I read every day.

***

The roots don't get any grassier: A religious group in Delaware has made changing the name of the Redskins a top priority. The Peninsula-Delaware Conference of the United Methodist Church, which represents 464 churches and claims about 100,000 congregants, has stopped using FedEx's package delivery services becuase that company is a major sponsor of the Washington Redskins. There are tentative plans to hold rallies at Redskins games this season, also. The team's name is "racially demeaning," church leaders explained in announcing the FedEx boycott. I always love to hear folks argue the other side of this issue, since, well, there isn't another side.

***

'Course, the racist team name isn't the only reason some folks stay away from FedExField. In fact, FedExField all by itself gives more fans the motivation to stay home. Venue-related problems during Paul McCartney's appearance on Saturday added to the stadium's shitty legend.

Real Madrid shows up this weekend!

***

Road to Ripken™ Update: ESPN quoted Jose Canseco, the Deep Throat of the Dead Balls Era, as saying that the Hall of Fame has at least one P.E.D.-ophile.

Canseco didn't drop the name, however.

We know by now that everything Canseco says is proven true after a brief delay. So who slipped through the cracks at Cooperstown? A blog post about Canseco's statements at USA Today's website generated more guesses about famous former Orioles — Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken, specifically — than those from any other team.

So, come on, Cal. Confess. Say you used 'roids. Even if you didn't. Then we can all move on. The game needs you!

***

Feeling sorry for yourself? Yeah, me too!

So, together let's mull the State of Jeremy Mayfield. First NASCAR kicked him off the track for allegedly testing positive for methamphetamine after a race in Richmond. Then he went public saying he'd ever used the drug. Must be cold medicine, he said. Then NASCAR said "Oh Really?" and released the results of ANOTHER recent test where Mayfield's pee pee was allegedly tainted. He's still claiming a frame job, but he's done on the track. And now his stepmother has sued him for saying, "She's basically a whore. She shot and killed my dad."

I'm no F. Lee Bailey, but I think his "basically"'s like my"allegedly" here.

***

Bobblehead Update: The Scott Van Pelt bobblehead twins, from a Bowie Baysox giveaway, just sold for $88 plus postage on eBay. The auction of Lindsay Czarniak's 'head, a 2008 Baysox freebie, ends today at around 11:30 a.m. The creepy vendor is asking about $70. So far, alas, Czarniak has gotten no bids.

***

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

PLUS: A stirring bonus segment in which Erik lobs a BIG ONE at CP's own glass house. No way are you touching that remote!

William Saletan vs. John McWhorter and Stephen Colbert vs. Byron York, after the jump.

• At his New Republic blog, John McWhorter lights into Slate's William Saletan (Amanda Hess' favorite pro-lifer). A few years ago, McWhorter writes, Saletan "was shot at like a varmint...after writing some columns on evidence that black people are genetically less gifted mentally than whites," and now he's being too timid in response to findings that No Child Left Behind has failed to close the achievement gap between white and black students. Specifically, McWhorter thinks Saletan made a  mistake by asking "Why categorize and measure students by race?" McWhorter, who is both black and conservative–two decades after Armstrong Williams rose to prominence, this still qualifies as a novelty–backed off a little when he read the mea culpa that Saletan, who's white and conservative, published. The novella-length exchange is worth your time. In short, McWhorter maintains that education critics shouldn't shy away from the topic, even if the new study suggests that disparities in academic performance transcend environmental factors, but Saletan just isn't ready to go there. My two cents: The best public schools in the country are light-years behind mediocre private institutions. Why, then, are we surprised that a federally mandated public education program put together by Republicans failed to do what university-level education departments haven't been able to accomplish in decades of classroom experiments? Now would be a great time to stick it to Congress–most of which members' children attend private schools–for killing D.C.'s voucher program.
  
• Also on the race front: FishbowlDC (yeah, that Fishbowl) did a nice job capturing (and by "capturing," I mean, "imbedding a video of") Stephen Colbert lambasting Washington Examiner columnist Byron York. The sentence that got Colbert's team of writers–as well as Matt Yglesias (or, at least we think it was Yglesias who wrote about it)–so upset? "But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are." The rest of the column is simply a recitation of approval ratings broken down by race (York discovered that Obama has a significantly higher approval rating–we're talking 20-30 percentage points–among black voters). The fallout from his column was hot enough to inspire York to write a follow-up. IMHO, this kind of analysis is innocuous compared to the racial finger-pointing that Andrew Sullivan, Dan Savage, and, yes, even I committed when exit poll data suggested that blacks and Latinos bore a disproportionate responsibility for the passage of Proposition 8 in California. (Nate Silver, god love'm, proved us all wrong.)

That's it for me, good readers. Keep your eyes peeled for next week's Summer Music Guide.

Dear everyone preparing "First 100 Days" packages for tomorrow: HAPPY TUESDAY, SUCKERS!

Love, the Examiner

This metaphor takes five paragraphs to unspool.

Suppose you called the plumber to unstop your toilet, and he ignored the toilet, and spent his time and your money building a deck in your yard.

Suppose you told him you didn’t need a deck, or didn’t need a deck now, or would think about the deck later, after he unstopped the toilet. And suppose he ignored you and went on building the deck while the toilet began to back up and spill over.

And when you complained, he told you the toilet was just a distraction—like a tracking poll, or whatever—and that the deck he was building was just what you needed to make property values go up.

You replied that even if the back yard had a gazebo and fountain, no one would purchase a house with unusable plumbing. He said you were letting details obscure your view of the big picture, and that he was following the lead of the firm’s esteemed founder, Franklin D. Roosevelt, a local legend in the home contracting universe, who, when called in to unplug the toilets back in the old days, installed a patio, and put in a swing for the children.

You said that as you remembered, he put in the patio after he saw to the toilet, whereas while he was busy with planning the sundeck, the toilet’s condition had gotten much worse.

Whew! Long way to go to read that:

The plumber of course is not Joe, but President Barack Obama, the toilet is the national and global economy, and the sundeck is the health care and other offensives on which he is wasting your money, and most of his time.

Problem is, Emery's editor has a job much like a plumber's–you're paid to remember to turn off the mains before you unscrew the supply lines, so you don't get a jet of water in the face.

Burned!

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